From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Jun 1 01:53:15 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 23:53:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: plain perfboard Message-ID: It seemed to me that Radio Shack stopped selling plain perfboard a year or two ago. Yet a couple days ago, I found lots of it at the one a few blocks from my house. Anyone else know anything about this? Solder-ringed perfboard is good for stuff, but I find plain perfboard nice for building up stuff that's not necessarily a circuit. -- 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? From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Mon Jun 1 02:50:02 2009 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 09:50:02 +0200 Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: <4A234D6E.1060903@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A234D6E.1060903@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: > Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 20:39:26 -0700 > From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu > To: > Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... > > Hi all -- > > Still having trouble with my 11/40, though it's getting closer. > > Currently the issue is: > > Without a unibus terminator installed, the machine seems to function in > that I can use the front panel, toggle in and run short programs, etc. > > With a unibus terminator installed, the front panel is _almost_ > unresponsive -- I cannot examine or deposit memory or load addresses. > Toggling "Run" causes a brief flicker of activity (the "Run," "Proc," > and "Bus" lights come on, the data lights flicker, and then they turn > off, and the "Console" light comes back on.). > > Ian lent me his M9300 terminator, which caused no changes in behavior. > So at least I can (probably) rule out a faulty terminator. > > I've verified that grant continuity cards (the tiny annoying ones) are > installed in slot D of all empty Unibus slots, and that the NPG jumper > is installed in all slots (since I currently have no DMA devices installed). > > Question: Should the NPG jumper _also_ be installed in the one SPC > Unibus slot on the processor backplane? (I have a console SLU installed > there currently.) This does not currently appear to be present. > > Before I break out the logic analyzer this evening and start debugging > Unibus termination signals, I just wanted to make sure my current > configuration seems sane. > > The boards are installed as follows: > > Rear: > > Slot 4 : Empty M9300 > Slot 3 : Empty > Slot 2 : M7891 > Slot 1 : Empty | M981 > --- > Slot 9 : M7856 | M981 > Slots 1-8: > > Front: > > (As mentioned before, all "empty" unibus slots have a unibus grant card > + NPG jumper installed, Slot 3 has the NPG jumper installed.) > > Thanks once again, > Josh The machine seems to do something (for a short while that is). The only thing I can say is what I have encountered. I was triggered when you wrote that you have the M7856 in slot 9 ... make sure that the CA1-CB1 (NPG) pins are wired together on the backplane! The M7856 is one of the modules that does not use NPG, but also does NOT connect the two pins on the module! I have that written on my webpage www.pdp-11.nl (peripheral - comm - interface modules - DL11-W). I remember that I soldered a wire on the module to connect those two pins, as I did not want to mess with the backplane ... If you do so, make sure that no flux and tin gets on the contact fingers! - Henk. From hoelscher-kirchbrak at freenet.de Mon Jun 1 03:09:52 2009 From: hoelscher-kirchbrak at freenet.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?H=F6lscher?=) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 10:09:52 +0200 Subject: HSC / SCA / SCS DEC Manuals References: Message-ID: <665OLABMW1UYKerxkZuLQWwqwm4SYI5QebQiBN1p1DX@akmail> DEC Manuals wanted: EK-HS572-TM HSC50/70 Software Technical Manual (or newer issues) and any System Communications Architecture (SCA) / System Communications Services (SCS) Specifications Who can help? Regards, Ulli From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Mon Jun 1 03:23:27 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:23:27 -0700 Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: References: <4A234D6E.1060903@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A238FFF.8040000@mail.msu.edu> Henk Gooijen wrote: >> Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 20:39:26 -0700 >> From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu >> To: >> Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... >> >> Hi all -- >> >> Still having trouble with my 11/40, though it's getting closer. >> >> Currently the issue is: >> >> Without a unibus terminator installed, the machine seems to function in >> that I can use the front panel, toggle in and run short programs, etc. >> >> With a unibus terminator installed, the front panel is _almost_ >> unresponsive -- I cannot examine or deposit memory or load addresses. >> Toggling "Run" causes a brief flicker of activity (the "Run," "Proc," >> and "Bus" lights come on, the data lights flicker, and then they turn >> off, and the "Console" light comes back on.). >> >> Ian lent me his M9300 terminator, which caused no changes in behavior. >> So at least I can (probably) rule out a faulty terminator. >> >> I've verified that grant continuity cards (the tiny annoying ones) are >> installed in slot D of all empty Unibus slots, and that the NPG jumper >> is installed in all slots (since I currently have no DMA devices installed). >> >> Question: Should the NPG jumper _also_ be installed in the one SPC >> Unibus slot on the processor backplane? (I have a console SLU installed >> there currently.) This does not currently appear to be present. >> >> Before I break out the logic analyzer this evening and start debugging >> Unibus termination signals, I just wanted to make sure my current >> configuration seems sane. >> >> The boards are installed as follows: >> >> Rear: >> >> Slot 4 : Empty M9300 >> Slot 3 : Empty >> Slot 2 : M7891 >> Slot 1 : Empty | M981 >> --- >> Slot 9 : M7856 | M981 >> Slots 1-8: >> >> Front: >> >> (As mentioned before, all "empty" unibus slots have a unibus grant card >> + NPG jumper installed, Slot 3 has the NPG jumper installed.) >> >> Thanks once again, >> Josh >> > > The machine seems to do something (for a short while that is). > The only thing I can say is what I have encountered. I was triggered > when you wrote that you have the M7856 in slot 9 ... make sure that the > CA1-CB1 (NPG) pins are wired together on the backplane! The M7856 is > one of the modules that does not use NPG, but also does NOT connect the > two pins on the module! I have that written on my webpage www.pdp-11.nl > (peripheral - comm - interface modules - DL11-W). > > I remember that I soldered a wire on the module to connect those two pins, > as I did not want to mess with the backplane ... If you do so, make sure > that no flux and tin gets on the contact fingers! > > - Henk. > > > Thanks -- installed the NPG jumper for slot 9, no change. Here's a question: The M9300 Ian lent me has three jumpers, labeled as follows: W1 : "Remove jumper for beginning of non processor bus termination" W2 : "Remove jumper for end of bus termination" W3 : "Remove jumper for end of processor bus termination" Currently, W1 is installed, W2 and W3 are removed. Is this correct? I'm curious what is meant by "processor bus" vs. just "bus" in this context -- can someone fill me in? Thanks, Josh From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jun 1 06:16:43 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:16:43 -0700 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: <1243676231.1093.23.camel@elric> References: <4A1F1852.355206C9@cs.ubc.ca> <20090529123435.GJ31310@n0jcf.net> <1243676231.1093.23.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A23B89B.2040808@brouhaha.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > So, you can't see a possible set of circumstances where having the wrong > voltage coming in the serial port could cause the frequency shift to be > wrong? > If you put enough voltage through a serial port signal, you'll break the modem. Then you'll probably get a fixed frequency regardless of the input, or no frequency at all. Other than that, no, having the wrong voltage won't cause the frequency shift to be wrong. > How clever do you think the tone generator side is? > Clever enough that its frequency isn't a linear function of the serial port signal voltages. Modems with EIA-232 (formerly RS-232) interfaces detect whether the transmit data signal has a voltage above or below a threshold, and generate one of two tones based on that. They don't feed the transmit data signal directly into a VCO, if that's what you were thinking. Doing it that way wouldn't result in a reliable modem, since an EIA-232 mark signal can be anywhere from -3V to -25V, and a space from +3V to +25V. For current loop, it senses current rather than voltage, but the principle is the same. It doesn't base the tone on the precise amount of current flowing, because even in a loop that has a nominal current (i.e., 20mA), the actually current may be significantly different. From ragooman at comcast.net Mon Jun 1 06:36:50 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:36:50 -0400 Subject: Fuse & holder for a NorthStar Horizon In-Reply-To: <110019.36311.qm@web112221.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <110019.36311.qm@web112221.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A23BD52.8060305@comcast.net> From the looks of this, it's a rather common fuse holder http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/s100/h/hzback.jpg You should be able to find this at Mouser.com They have hundreds of types of fuse holders to choose from Nice catch, I wish I had one =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] Christian Liendo wrote: > I got my hands on a very nice Horizon but it lacks the fuse and fuse holder. > Anyone know where I may be able to find the pieces I need? > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 8.5.339 / Virus Database: 270.12.48/2148 - Release Date: 06/01/09 06:09:00 > > From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Jun 1 07:23:57 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:23:57 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... Message-ID: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> We've got a chap looking for an ID on the following - anyone got any ideas? http://www.classiccmp.org/acornia/tmp/mystery.jpg Photo dated May 27th 1947, apparently (so speculation so far is some form of relay-based controller rather than a computer, but that's merely a guess) cheers Jules From leolists at seidkr.com Mon Jun 1 07:54:51 2009 From: leolists at seidkr.com (=?windows-1252?Q?Philip_Leonard_WV=D8T?=) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:54:51 -0500 Subject: Some blinkenlights for entertainment... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A23CF9B.5040205@seidkr.com> My first programming job was on a System/3 Model 10 system. Ah those were the days. Philip Mike Ross wrote: > Here you go: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBtXLZcY_bM > > Makes a change from pdp... :-) > > William Donzelli: ping! Please email me at mike at corestore dot org - I may just have something for you... > > Mike > http://www.corestore.org From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Jun 1 08:50:55 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 06:50:55 -0700 Subject: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM In-Reply-To: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi Does anyone have a nice pointer to a diagram of how the 68K bus is to be connected to RAM? I not that familiar with all the various signals. I've spent some time searching but maybe don't have the right search string. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail? has a new way to see what's up with your friends. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/WhatsNew?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_WhatsNew1_052009 From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jun 1 08:59:19 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 06:59:19 -0700 Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> Message-ID: At 7:23 AM -0500 6/1/09, Jules Richardson wrote: >We've got a chap looking for an ID on the following - anyone got any ideas? > >http://www.classiccmp.org/acornia/tmp/mystery.jpg > >Photo dated May 27th 1947, apparently (so speculation so far is some >form of relay-based controller rather than a computer, but that's >merely a guess) My guess is something to do with trains, as that appears to be a passenger car in the background. Is this a UK photo? Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From rodsmallwood at btconnect.com Mon Jun 1 09:23:11 2009 From: rodsmallwood at btconnect.com (Rod Smallwood) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 15:23:11 +0100 Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> Message-ID: It looks like a 1940's tele-printer or fax station. Could what appears to be a train actually be a DC3 of Northwest Airlines? If it's a train then it's not a UK one. Wrong sort of windows and no signs that big on any UK train. The oblong console windows seem to have some sort of printer behind them. The square windows have what looks like paper tape punches or high speed tape readers behind them. Regards Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy Sent: 01 June 2009 14:59 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Fwd: Mystery object... At 7:23 AM -0500 6/1/09, Jules Richardson wrote: >We've got a chap looking for an ID on the following - anyone got any ideas? > >http://www.classiccmp.org/acornia/tmp/mystery.jpg > >Photo dated May 27th 1947, apparently (so speculation so far is some >form of relay-based controller rather than a computer, but that's >merely a guess) My guess is something to do with trains, as that appears to be a passenger car in the background. Is this a UK photo? Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Mon Jun 1 09:42:45 2009 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 15:42:45 +0100 Subject: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> Message-ID: can we see a higher resolution scan Dave Caroline From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Mon Jun 1 09:45:47 2009 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 10:45:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: VCW Central PA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Saturday and Sunday, June 13th and 14th, I will be hosting a Vintage Computer Workshop in State College, PA. A couple of people from the Mid Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists (MARCH) will be working on various vintage computing projects, anything from S-100 systems to terminals to keypunches. Test equipment and parts will be on hand. Sorry, no 3-phase power. :-) State College is right in the middle of Pennsylvania, equally inconvenient from everywhere else in the state. If you'd like to attend, send me a note and I'll pass along the directions. If you're willing to drive, you're welcome to attend! Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From rodsmallwood at btconnect.com Mon Jun 1 09:46:10 2009 From: rodsmallwood at btconnect.com (Rod Smallwood) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 15:46:10 +0100 Subject: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <40DF43647F274C0E99E8588631CB7545@EDIConsultingLtd.local> More data The two free standing units on the left are almost certainly Teletype Model15-RO's (Manuf. 1930 - 1954) Regards Rod Smallwood I collect and restore old computer equipment with this logo. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson Sent: 01 June 2009 13:24 To: xx Classiccmp mailing list Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... We've got a chap looking for an ID on the following - anyone got any ideas? http://www.classiccmp.org/acornia/tmp/mystery.jpg Photo dated May 27th 1947, apparently (so speculation so far is some form of relay-based controller rather than a computer, but that's merely a guess) cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Jun 1 09:50:06 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:50:06 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A23EA9E.4070500@gmail.com> Rod Smallwood wrote: > It looks like a 1940's tele-printer or fax station. Could what appears to be > a train actually be a DC3 of Northwest Airlines? If it's a train then it's > not a UK one. Wrong sort of windows and no signs that big on any UK train. You might be on to something about the Northwest Airlines; I thought it looked more like a train carriage (sides too straight for most plane fuselages) - but then someone over on TNMoC found a photo of a Boing 377 which is remarkably slab-sided (and would fit date-wise). There almost looks to be some sort of line/join across the top, just above the 'T' (which in itself is rather obscured by the foreground window) - seems a little out of place on a streamlined plane fuselage (and therefore more in keeping with a railway carriage), but maybe it's just paintwork. Afraid it's unknown as to which country the photo was taken in :-( > The oblong console windows seem to have some sort of printer behind them. > The square windows have what looks like paper tape punches or high speed > tape readers behind them. Yes, I'm not sure if they're control logic or just some sort of I/O device with acoustic shrouds fitted. cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Jun 1 09:51:00 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:51:00 -0500 Subject: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A23EAD4.7000803@gmail.com> Dave Caroline wrote: > can we see a higher resolution scan I can ask, but I suspect that's all there is, I'm afraid :( From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 1 11:19:27 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:19:27 -0700 Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: <4A23EA9E.4070500@gmail.com> References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com>, , <4A23EA9E.4070500@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A239D1F.19208.14BBAD@cclist.sydex.com> Others are correct--it's a Northwest Airlines Stratocruiser. See: http://www.ovi.ch/b377/pcs/nwa.html This was just before they became "Northwest Orient Airlines" ("The Proud Bird with the Golden Tail". My guess is that since Northwest was based at Sea-Tac, that some photos of operations from then might show similar equipment. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jun 1 11:23:38 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 12:23:38 -0400 Subject: plain perfboard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <770F762E-A434-4D13-A23D-8BE1761E6B24@neurotica.com> On Jun 1, 2009, at 2:53 AM, David Griffith wrote: > It seemed to me that Radio Shack stopped selling plain perfboard a > year or two ago. Yet a couple days ago, I found lots of it at the > one a few blocks from my house. Anyone else know anything about > this? Solder-ringed perfboard is good for stuff, but I find plain > perfboard nice for building up stuff that's not necessarily a circuit. I wasn't aware that they had stopped selling it. I think I last bought some about a year ago. I'm going to make the rounds of the local Radio Shack stores and buy up all I can. I use those large pieces for projects, usually wire-wrapping. I'm curious, though...what do you build up on perfboard that's not a circuit? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Mon Jun 1 11:44:27 2009 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 17:44:27 +0100 Subject: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <84385B42-AE3A-4EA6-8A1F-9B24CD24AF20@microspot.co.uk> > > > From: "Rod Smallwood" > > > It looks like a 1940's tele-printer or fax station. Could what > appears to be > a train actually be a DC3 of Northwest Airlines? If it's a train > then it's > not a UK one. Wrong sort of windows and no signs that big on any UK > train. Yes, and the bulging thing behind it, which looks a bit like a car, is the tip of the right wing. The left wing appears to be either under this room or has not been fitted, assuming the picture was taken at an aircraft factory. Or a NOR gate :-) Roger Holmes. From james at jdfogg.com Mon Jun 1 12:10:09 2009 From: james at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 13:10:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4461.192.168.99.119.1243876209.squirrel@webmail.jdfogg.com> > We've got a chap looking for an ID on the following - anyone got any > ideas? > > http://www.classiccmp.org/acornia/tmp/mystery.jpg > > Photo dated May 27th 1947, apparently (so speculation so far is some form > of > relay-based controller rather than a computer, but that's merely a guess) My guess would be it's something for handling/sorting airline tickets. Until recently tickets were printed on card stock with various data fields like mag stripes, barcodes and other things. I never flew until 1988 so I don't know what they used prior, but it was probably similar, perhaps even regular punched cards. -- James - From tshoppa at wmata.com Mon Jun 1 12:11:03 2009 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 13:11:03 -0400 Subject: plain perfboard Message-ID: On Jun 1, 2009, at 2:53 AM, David Griffith wrote: > It seemed to me that Radio Shack stopped selling plain perfboard a > year or two ago. Yet a couple days ago, I found lots of it at the one > a few blocks from my house. Anyone else know anything about this? > Solder-ringed perfboard is good for stuff, but I find plain perfboard > nice for building up stuff that's not necessarily a circuit. A couple years ago I gave up on perfboard for prototyping and now largely do prototyping "dead bug" on unetched printed circuit board. Or, sometimes courtesy of a big knife, unetched PCB with busses cut into it. Google "dead bug" prototyping for some good examples. It is in every way superior to using perfboard. Even what I once thought were problem cases are not actually problems: dual-row headers work great with dead bug, as long as most or all the pins on one side are at ground (long the convention among any rational uses.) Tim. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 1 12:29:45 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:29:45 -0700 Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: <4461.192.168.99.119.1243876209.squirrel@webmail.jdfogg.com> References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com>, <4461.192.168.99.119.1243876209.squirrel@webmail.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: <4A23AD99.24632.55189B@cclist.sydex.com> On 1 Jun 2009 at 13:10, James Fogg wrote: > My guess would be it's something for handling/sorting airline tickets. > Until recently tickets were printed on card stock with various data > fields like mag stripes, barcodes and other things. I never flew until > 1988 so I don't know what they used prior, but it was probably > similar, perhaps even regular punched cards. I think it's airport control. Teletype and facsimile were an essential part of operations back then (Fax was used to print weather maps). My first airplane flight was on Pan Am, with meals served from a menu on china and silverware. Flying, at one time, was something to be looked forward to--it was almost like going on a cruise. You were pampered. Now, you feel fortunate to be crammed into a sardine can on a late flight and not handcuffed and strip-searched at the terminal. How times have changed. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 1 12:34:11 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:34:11 -0700 Subject: plain perfboard In-Reply-To: <770F762E-A434-4D13-A23D-8BE1761E6B24@neurotica.com> References: , <770F762E-A434-4D13-A23D-8BE1761E6B24@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A23AEA3.2868.59277C@cclist.sydex.com> On 1 Jun 2009 at 12:23, Dave McGuire wrote: > I wasn't aware that they had stopped selling it. I think I last > bought some about a year ago. I'm going to make the rounds of the > local Radio Shack stores and buy up all I can. I use those large > pieces for projects, usually wire-wrapping. The last time I looked (about a month ago), the local Radio Shack still had it on the pegs. Good naked FR4 perfboard in sizes bigger than 4x5 inches seems to be getting scarcer, however. The last time I ordered some from Web-tronics, it was on backorder for a couple of months. I don't care for the phenolic stuff in larger sizes--it seems to develop cracks too easily. --Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jun 1 12:45:44 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 13:45:44 -0400 Subject: plain perfboard In-Reply-To: <770F762E-A434-4D13-A23D-8BE1761E6B24@neurotica.com> References: <770F762E-A434-4D13-A23D-8BE1761E6B24@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <200906011345.44722.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 01 June 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 1, 2009, at 2:53 AM, David Griffith wrote: > > It seemed to me that Radio Shack stopped selling plain perfboard a > > year or two ago. Yet a couple days ago, I found lots of it at the > > one a few blocks from my house. Anyone else know anything about > > this? Solder-ringed perfboard is good for stuff, but I find plain > > perfboard nice for building up stuff that's not necessarily a > > circuit. > > I wasn't aware that they had stopped selling it. I think I last > bought some about a year ago. I'm going to make the rounds of the > local Radio Shack stores and buy up all I can. I use those large > pieces for projects, usually wire-wrapping. They didn't really stop selling it, most stores just stopped re-stocking electronic components. That seems to have changed recently (within the past year), however. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From trag at io.com Mon Jun 1 12:50:56 2009 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 12:50:56 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <869caa13a467fa97b87c6b8ae9568bf3.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> > > Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 06:50:55 -0700 > From: dwight elvey > Does anyone have a nice pointer to a diagram > of how the 68K bus is to be connected to RAM? > I not that familiar with all the various signals. > I've spent some time searching but maybe don't > have the right search string. > Dwight Do you want to interface with SRAM or DRAM? DRAM typically has multiplexed addresses (address sent in two sequential chunks on same wires) and so you're going to need some kind of memory controller to handle that plus refresh for the DRAM. If you're trying to interface with SRAM that typically just takes a straight address and does not require refresh, so it's much easier. I've only done it on the 68HC11 so your app may be different, but it is usually discussed in the part's User's Guide, so you should download that from Motorola if you have not already. Oh, and check for any relevant white papers on the topic as well (AKA Application Notes). Jeff Walther From IanK at vulcan.com Mon Jun 1 12:55:22 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 10:55:22 -0700 Subject: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM In-Reply-To: References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> Message-ID: I think I have the design manual for that processor, but I'm reorganizing my shop so it's behind this and that.... I'll try to get to it later and if there's anything in particular that's helpful I'll scan it for you. -- Ian > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of dwight elvey > Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 6:51 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM > > > Hi > Does anyone have a nice pointer to a diagram > of how the 68K bus is to be connected to RAM? > I not that familiar with all the various signals. > I've spent some time searching but maybe don't > have the right search string. > Dwight > > _________________________________________________________________ > Hotmail(r) has a new way to see what's up with your friends. > http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/WhatsNew?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_T > utorial_WhatsNew1_052009 From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 1 13:11:19 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:11:19 -0700 Subject: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM In-Reply-To: References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com>, Message-ID: <4A23B757.23952.7B2813@cclist.sydex.com> On 1 Jun 2009 at 6:50, dwight elvey wrote: > Does anyone have a nice pointer to a diagram > of how the 68K bus is to be connected to RAM? > I not that familiar with all the various signals. > I've spent some time searching but maybe don't > have the right search string. Download the 68K User's Manual from Freescale: http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/ref_manual/MC68000UM.pdf And check out Chapter 4. (It's actually very well-written) --Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jun 1 13:38:08 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 14:38:08 -0400 Subject: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM In-Reply-To: <869caa13a467fa97b87c6b8ae9568bf3.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> References: <869caa13a467fa97b87c6b8ae9568bf3.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Jeff Walther wrote: > If you're trying to interface with SRAM that typically just takes a > straight address and does not require refresh, so it's much easier. It's especially easy if all of your memory and peripheral I/O chips are fast enough that you don't have to use DTACK to generate wait states... google for "DTACK Grounded" to find a stack of hardware design newsletters that advocate that simple technique. The 68000 design for the COMBOARD is not so simple, so we had a PAL to generate DTACK based on what subsystem was being accessed (1/4th of the 68000 memory map was a DMA interface to the Unibus/Qbus host backplane, so we had to wait for a host DMA cycle before we could assert DTACK for those addresses). A self-contained 68000 design should never have anything that complex to worry about, and now, peripheral chips and SRAMs are plenty speedy, even on a 68000 clocked 8MHz or faster. -ethan From emu at e-bbes.com Mon Jun 1 13:59:30 2009 From: emu at e-bbes.com (e.stiebler) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:59:30 -0600 Subject: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM In-Reply-To: References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A242512.3060408@e-bbes.com> dwight elvey wrote: > Hi > Does anyone have a nice pointer to a diagram > of how the 68K bus is to be connected to RAM? > I not that familiar with all the various signals. > I've spent some time searching but maybe don't > have the right search string. Try something like "minimal 68000 system". I remember having an motorola application note with this (or similar) name. Are you trying to interface a real mc68000 or his later brothers ? Cheers From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 1 14:02:35 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 20:02:35 +0100 (BST) Subject: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM In-Reply-To: <4A23B757.23952.7B2813@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 1, 9 11:11:19 am Message-ID: > > On 1 Jun 2009 at 6:50, dwight elvey wrote: > > > Does anyone have a nice pointer to a diagram > > of how the 68K bus is to be connected to RAM? > > I not that familiar with all the various signals. > > I've spent some time searching but maybe don't > > have the right search string. > > Download the 68K User's Manual from Freescale: > > http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/ref_manual/MC68000UM.pdf > > And check out Chapter 4. (It's actually very well-written) You might also look at the _second edition_ of the 'Student Manual for the Art of Electronics' (or some similar title, I can get the exact title if you can't find it). That has a design for a 68008-based computer (processor + SRAM + hex keypd 'front panel') which can even be built on plugblock-type 'breadboards'. The 68000 is a very similar bus, so this should be applicable. IMHO this book explains things well. You don't just follow the schematic, you understnad why you're connecting various pins to each other. -tony From Mark at Misty.com Mon Jun 1 14:32:31 2009 From: Mark at Misty.com (Mark G. Thomas) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 15:32:31 -0400 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: <2B524E4E-1782-40D6-AAD2-3E10449A028A@neurotica.com> References: <4A1F1852.355206C9@cs.ubc.ca> <20090529123435.GJ31310@n0jcf.net> <1243676231.1093.23.camel@elric> <20090530224619.GO31310@n0jcf.net> <2B524E4E-1782-40D6-AAD2-3E10449A028A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20090601193231.GA26422@lucky.misty.com> On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 01:08:49PM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: > On May 30, 2009, at 6:46 PM, Chris Elmquist wrote: > >>So, you can't see a possible set of circumstances where having the > >>wrong > >>voltage coming in the serial port could cause the frequency shift > >>to be > >>wrong? His references to the modulating "interrupting" the tones was a horrible inaccuracy, especially considering the trouble he want to to make such an otherwise nice video. At first I thought he was just oversimplifying, but then it became clear he didn't understand it, when he started talking about wrong frequencies, and didn't get that the tone change when he connected the laptop was just the change from space to mark (or vice-versa?). > >>How clever do you think the tone generator side is? > > > >Well, as Tony replied-- I think that the RS232 input is a logic level. > >It's not an analog level. So, you are going to get either the mark > >tone > >or the space tone and not something in between. > > > >I think this situation was just a poor explaination of what went > >wrong. > >Whatever miscable situation he had caused him to generate the opposite > >tone of what he was expecting but not a tone that was off frequency > >from > >one of the two possibilities. Or, maybe the adapter was wired as a null modem or didn't have a DTR or some other line wired, so the tones weren't flipping at all, and he was just confused. > Was it in fact the opposite tones (i.e., mark/space reversed) or > could it have been an originate mode vs. answer mode issue? Many > (most?) modems could be switched between the two sets of tones. > > -Dave I used to have a number of wooden Anderson-Jacobson modems, and remember that they required the full +/-15V swing on those RS232 data lines. At some point I threw them out, since the terminal I was using only generated around +/-12V on the data lines -- not quite enough to make those modems change tones. I had other newer modems that were fine with the lower voltage. Clearly the modem in the video wasn't as picky as the old wooden AJ units I am familiar with or it wouldn't have worked for him at all. Mark -- Mark G. Thomas (Mark at Misty.com) voice: 215-591-3695 http://mail-cleaner.com/ From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Mon Jun 1 15:24:20 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:24:20 +0100 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: <20090601193231.GA26422@lucky.misty.com> References: <4A1F1852.355206C9@cs.ubc.ca> <20090529123435.GJ31310@n0jcf.net> <1243676231.1093.23.camel@elric> <20090530224619.GO31310@n0jcf.net> <2B524E4E-1782-40D6-AAD2-3E10449A028A@neurotica.com> <20090601193231.GA26422@lucky.misty.com> Message-ID: <1243887860.1093.45.camel@elric> On Mon, 2009-06-01 at 15:32 -0400, Mark G. Thomas wrote: > > At first I thought he was just oversimplifying, but then it became > clear he didn't understand it, when he started talking about wrong > frequencies, and didn't get that the tone change when he connected > the laptop was just the change from space to mark (or vice-versa?). > Okay, let's try again. I have a circa-70s 300-baud modem, that will generate incorrect tones when it's plugged into a USB-to-serial converter, but not when it's plugged into a real serial port. Why might this happen? Gordon From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de Mon Jun 1 10:52:46 2009 From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:52:46 +0200 Subject: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM In-Reply-To: References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A23F94E.7080807@iais.fraunhofer.de> dwight elvey schrieb: > Hi > Does anyone have a nice pointer to a diagram > of how the 68K bus is to be connected to RAM? > I not that familiar with all the various signals. > I've spent some time searching but maybe don't > have the right search string. > Dwight Google search string may be "68000 schematics", and it will point to the first link of "68k Single Board Comupter" from "....ac.th" which hides the interesting part in a CPLD, but the second link will lead to a detailed PDF http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~theom/electronics/has/ha68ksys.pdf which describes the stuff. Basically, you can derive the relation of UDS, LDS, R/W, AS and DTACK from the data sheet, for interfacing RAM the trick part is just the generation of DTACK; as long as CPU clock and RAM access time is known, it is a straight forward wait state circuit. -- Holger From aceevans_95 at hotmail.com Mon Jun 1 14:49:07 2009 From: aceevans_95 at hotmail.com (Arthur Evans) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 19:49:07 +0000 Subject: Compaq SLT/286 Message-ID: DearSir Please can you tell me where the bios battery is situated as I cannot find it, also its voltage. Thankyou for any help. Yours faithfully. Arthur Evans. _________________________________________________________________ Share your photos with Windows Live Photos ? Free. http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/134665338/direct/01/ From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 1 15:15:14 2009 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 13:15:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: How big of Sin? - Hacking up a IBM PC Jr. Message-ID: <656541.2095.qm@web65509.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> OI why does hacking on a peanut deserve a one way ticket to Hell, and not rather just purgatory??? I'm not Catholic and don't believe that, but that's besides the point. Answer me this, just how much damage will you do to the unit? If you're just going to relocate the stantions to screw the new mobo into, that hardly amounts to an egregious offense IMHO, There's only one drive bay, and lt hard drives are so cheap, so the actual destruction should be minimal I guess. Just as long as you're not looking to run a server from it... You're not going to Hell. I'm just not allowing you to spend any quality time w/any of my JR's... From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Mon Jun 1 15:56:22 2009 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 21:56:22 +0100 Subject: Compaq SLT/286 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: back in those days some PC's had a Dallas chip the battery was potted inside so look for taller IC with Dallas printed on it Dave Caroline From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jun 1 15:56:39 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 17:56:39 -0300 Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com>, <4461.192.168.99.119.1243876209.squirrel@webmail.jdfogg.com> <4A23AD99.24632.55189B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <068201c9e2fb$9b8e9050$0dce19bb@desktaba> > Now, you feel fortunate to be crammed into a sardine can on a late > flight and not handcuffed and strip-searched at the terminal. And pray not to die...Did you know about the air france plane who got lost in Brazil today? :o( From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jun 1 16:00:04 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 17:00:04 -0400 Subject: Compaq SLT/286 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Arthur Evans wrote: > Please can you tell me where the bios battery is situated as I cannot find it, also its voltage. The BIOS battery in a Compaq SLT/286 is embedded inside the Dallas DS1287 clock module. The battery itself is +3V, but you replace the entire module, chip _and_ battery in one go. This is entirely unlike "modern" PCs where you have a Lithium coin cell (CR2032, typically) accessible and easy to replace. It's easy to find discussions of this particular machine. Here's one... Physically, the DS1287 is located in the middle of the board, under the battery tray, but you have to dismantle the entire machine to get to it. Also, it's soldered in place. To make it harder, there's not enough vertical clearance to install a socket. I installed a low-profile socket in mine, but had to nibble a hole in the battery tray to make room for the replacement Dallas clock. It is not a trivial procedure to replace the DS1287 in a Compaq SLT/286, certainly not compared to popping a coin cell out and in. -ethan From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Jun 1 16:28:41 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 14:28:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: How big of Sin? - Hacking up a IBM PC Jr. In-Reply-To: <656541.2095.qm@web65509.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <656541.2095.qm@web65509.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 1 Jun 2009, Chris M wrote: > OI why does hacking on a peanut deserve a one way ticket to Hell, and > not rather just purgatory??? I'm not Catholic and don't believe that, > but that's besides the point. Answer me this, just how much damage will > you do to the unit? If you're just going to relocate the stantions to > screw the new mobo into, that hardly amounts to an egregious offense > IMHO, There's only one drive bay, and lt hard drives are so cheap, so > the actual destruction should be minimal I guess. Just as long as you're > not looking to run a server from it... You're not going to Hell. I'm > just not allowing you to spend any quality time w/any of my JR's... FWIW, I have a couple Jrs that I've been unable to sell. -- 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? From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Jun 1 20:16:20 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:16:20 -0500 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: <1243887860.1093.45.camel@elric> References: <4A1F1852.355206C9@cs.ubc.ca> <20090529123435.GJ31310@n0jcf.net> <1243676231.1093.23.camel@elric> <20090530224619.GO31310@n0jcf.net> <2B524E4E-1782-40D6-AAD2-3E10449A028A@neurotica.com> <20090601193231.GA26422@lucky.misty.com> <1243887860.1093.45.camel@elric> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090601201242.03e96008@mail.threedee.com> At 03:24 PM 6/1/2009, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >Okay, let's try again. I have a circa-70s 300-baud modem, that will >generate incorrect tones when it's plugged into a USB-to-serial >converter, but not when it's plugged into a real serial port. >Why might this happen? USB only guarantees to supply 100 milliamps. Up to 500 mA can be negotiated with the controller, depending. Might your older device depend on more amps than the USB adapter can supply? - John From useddec at gmail.com Mon Jun 1 21:56:05 2009 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 21:56:05 -0500 Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: <4A238FFF.8040000@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A234D6E.1060903@mail.msu.edu> <4A238FFF.8040000@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <624966d60906011956m1a18c4a6w2ab49d1e632d9304@mail.gmail.com> I always used a M930 in the 11/40 and older machines, and the M9300 in the 11/34 and newer machines. I have no way to check on the differences now. now. Also, there may be a trick using MOS in an 11/40. Paul On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Josh Dersch wrote: > > > Henk Gooijen wrote: > >> Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 20:39:26 -0700 >>> From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu >>> To: >>> Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... >>> >>> Hi all -- >>> >>> Still having trouble with my 11/40, though it's getting closer. >>> >>> Currently the issue is: >>> >>> Without a unibus terminator installed, the machine seems to function in >>> that I can use the front panel, toggle in and run short programs, etc. >>> >>> With a unibus terminator installed, the front panel is _almost_ >>> unresponsive -- I cannot examine or deposit memory or load addresses. >>> Toggling "Run" causes a brief flicker of activity (the "Run," "Proc," >>> and "Bus" lights come on, the data lights flicker, and then they turn >>> off, and the "Console" light comes back on.). >>> >>> Ian lent me his M9300 terminator, which caused no changes in behavior. >>> So at least I can (probably) rule out a faulty terminator. >>> >>> I've verified that grant continuity cards (the tiny annoying ones) are >>> installed in slot D of all empty Unibus slots, and that the NPG jumper >>> is installed in all slots (since I currently have no DMA devices >>> installed). >>> >>> Question: Should the NPG jumper _also_ be installed in the one SPC >>> Unibus slot on the processor backplane? (I have a console SLU installed >>> there currently.) This does not currently appear to be present. >>> >>> Before I break out the logic analyzer this evening and start debugging >>> Unibus termination signals, I just wanted to make sure my current >>> configuration seems sane. >>> >>> The boards are installed as follows: >>> >>> Rear: >>> >>> Slot 4 : Empty M9300 >>> Slot 3 : Empty >>> Slot 2 : M7891 >>> Slot 1 : Empty | M981 >>> --- >>> Slot 9 : M7856 | M981 >>> Slots 1-8: >>> Front: >>> >>> (As mentioned before, all "empty" unibus slots have a unibus grant card >>> + NPG jumper installed, Slot 3 has the NPG jumper installed.) >>> >>> Thanks once again, >>> Josh >>> >>> >> >> The machine seems to do something (for a short while that is). >> The only thing I can say is what I have encountered. I was triggered >> when you wrote that you have the M7856 in slot 9 ... make sure that the >> CA1-CB1 (NPG) pins are wired together on the backplane! The M7856 is >> one of the modules that does not use NPG, but also does NOT connect the >> two pins on the module! I have that written on my webpage www.pdp-11.nl >> (peripheral - comm - interface modules - DL11-W). >> I remember that I soldered a wire on the module to connect those two >> pins, >> as I did not want to mess with the backplane ... If you do so, make sure >> that no flux and tin gets on the contact fingers! >> >> - Henk. >> >> >> > Thanks -- installed the NPG jumper for slot 9, no change. > > Here's a question: The M9300 Ian lent me has three jumpers, labeled as > follows: > > W1 : "Remove jumper for beginning of non processor bus termination" > W2 : "Remove jumper for end of bus termination" > W3 : "Remove jumper for end of processor bus termination" > > Currently, W1 is installed, W2 and W3 are removed. Is this correct? > > I'm curious what is meant by "processor bus" vs. just "bus" in this context > -- can someone fill me in? > > Thanks, > Josh > > From useddec at gmail.com Mon Jun 1 21:59:31 2009 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 21:59:31 -0500 Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: <624966d60906011956m1a18c4a6w2ab49d1e632d9304@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A234D6E.1060903@mail.msu.edu> <4A238FFF.8040000@mail.msu.edu> <624966d60906011956m1a18c4a6w2ab49d1e632d9304@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <624966d60906011959j46c6d499h8090ac281b45bd1f@mail.gmail.com> IS the 4 slot backplane a DD11-BF or a DD11-CF? I don't think the M7891 will work in the -BF. On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 9:56 PM, Paul Anderson wrote: > I always used a M930 in the 11/40 and older machines, and the M9300 in the > 11/34 and newer machines. I have no way to check on the differences > now. now. Also, there may be a trick using MOS in an 11/40. > > Paul > > On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Josh Dersch wrote: > >> >> >> Henk Gooijen wrote: >> >>> Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 20:39:26 -0700 >>>> From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu >>>> To: >>>> Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... >>>> >>>> Hi all -- >>>> >>>> Still having trouble with my 11/40, though it's getting closer. >>>> >>>> Currently the issue is: >>>> >>>> Without a unibus terminator installed, the machine seems to function in >>>> that I can use the front panel, toggle in and run short programs, etc. >>>> >>>> With a unibus terminator installed, the front panel is _almost_ >>>> unresponsive -- I cannot examine or deposit memory or load addresses. >>>> Toggling "Run" causes a brief flicker of activity (the "Run," "Proc," >>>> and "Bus" lights come on, the data lights flicker, and then they turn >>>> off, and the "Console" light comes back on.). >>>> >>>> Ian lent me his M9300 terminator, which caused no changes in behavior. >>>> So at least I can (probably) rule out a faulty terminator. >>>> >>>> I've verified that grant continuity cards (the tiny annoying ones) are >>>> installed in slot D of all empty Unibus slots, and that the NPG jumper >>>> is installed in all slots (since I currently have no DMA devices >>>> installed). >>>> >>>> Question: Should the NPG jumper _also_ be installed in the one SPC >>>> Unibus slot on the processor backplane? (I have a console SLU installed >>>> there currently.) This does not currently appear to be present. >>>> >>>> Before I break out the logic analyzer this evening and start debugging >>>> Unibus termination signals, I just wanted to make sure my current >>>> configuration seems sane. >>>> >>>> The boards are installed as follows: >>>> >>>> Rear: >>>> >>>> Slot 4 : Empty M9300 >>>> Slot 3 : Empty >>>> Slot 2 : M7891 >>>> Slot 1 : Empty | M981 >>>> --- >>>> Slot 9 : M7856 | M981 >>>> Slots 1-8: >>>> Front: >>>> >>>> (As mentioned before, all "empty" unibus slots have a unibus grant card >>>> + NPG jumper installed, Slot 3 has the NPG jumper installed.) >>>> >>>> Thanks once again, >>>> Josh >>>> >>>> >>> >>> The machine seems to do something (for a short while that is). >>> The only thing I can say is what I have encountered. I was triggered >>> when you wrote that you have the M7856 in slot 9 ... make sure that the >>> CA1-CB1 (NPG) pins are wired together on the backplane! The M7856 is >>> one of the modules that does not use NPG, but also does NOT connect the >>> two pins on the module! I have that written on my webpage www.pdp-11.nl >>> (peripheral - comm - interface modules - DL11-W). >>> I remember that I soldered a wire on the module to connect those two >>> pins, >>> as I did not want to mess with the backplane ... If you do so, make sure >>> that no flux and tin gets on the contact fingers! >>> >>> - Henk. >>> >>> >>> >> Thanks -- installed the NPG jumper for slot 9, no change. >> >> Here's a question: The M9300 Ian lent me has three jumpers, labeled as >> follows: >> >> W1 : "Remove jumper for beginning of non processor bus termination" >> W2 : "Remove jumper for end of bus termination" >> W3 : "Remove jumper for end of processor bus termination" >> >> Currently, W1 is installed, W2 and W3 are removed. Is this correct? >> >> I'm curious what is meant by "processor bus" vs. just "bus" in this >> context -- can someone fill me in? >> >> Thanks, >> Josh >> >> > From lynchaj at yahoo.com Mon Jun 1 22:09:10 2009 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 23:09:10 -0400 Subject: wire wrap machine pins Message-ID: Hi! Does anyone know where to get those rows of individual machine pins for wire wrapping? I have searched for them but no luck so far. I know they come in bags of rows of 50 pins or so as I've seen them but can't find who sells them. Alternatively, break away wire wrap machine pin SIP sockets would also work. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch From rodsmallwood at btconnect.com Mon Jun 1 22:49:42 2009 From: rodsmallwood at btconnect.com (Rod Smallwood) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 04:49:42 +0100 Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: <4461.192.168.99.119.1243876209.squirrel@webmail.jdfogg.com> References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> <4461.192.168.99.119.1243876209.squirrel@webmail.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: I don't know about tickets. I would have thought passenger lists, weather data, cargo manifests, or dispatch documents more likely. Regards Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of James Fogg Sent: 01 June 2009 18:10 To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: Re: Fwd: Mystery object... > We've got a chap looking for an ID on the following - anyone got any > ideas? > > http://www.classiccmp.org/acornia/tmp/mystery.jpg > > Photo dated May 27th 1947, apparently (so speculation so far is some form > of > relay-based controller rather than a computer, but that's merely a guess) My guess would be it's something for handling/sorting airline tickets. Until recently tickets were printed on card stock with various data fields like mag stripes, barcodes and other things. I never flew until 1988 so I don't know what they used prior, but it was probably similar, perhaps even regular punched cards. -- James - From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 1 23:26:12 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:26:12 -0700 Subject: wire wrap machine pins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A244774.28323.2AE21D7@cclist.sydex.com> On 1 Jun 2009 at 23:09, Andrew Lynch wrote: > Hi! Does anyone know where to get those rows of individual machine > pins for wire wrapping? Well, check out DigiKey part nos. V1058-ND, V1059-ND, V1060-ND for individual pins. Or are you looking for SIP wire-wrap sockets? Cheers, Chuck From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jun 2 00:15:49 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:15:49 -0700 Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: <624966d60906011959j46c6d499h8090ac281b45bd1f@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A234D6E.1060903@mail.msu.edu> <4A238FFF.8040000@mail.msu.edu> <624966d60906011956m1a18c4a6w2ab49d1e632d9304@mail.gmail.com> <624966d60906011959j46c6d499h8090ac281b45bd1f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A24B585.2090106@mail.msu.edu> Paul Anderson wrote: > IS the 4 slot backplane a DD11-BF or a DD11-CF? I don't think the M7891 > will work in the -BF. > It's a DD11-C backplane. The memory appears to work fine (I did some basic testing of it from the front panel w/out the terminator installed.) Thanks, Josh > On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 9:56 PM, Paul Anderson wrote: > > >> I always used a M930 in the 11/40 and older machines, and the M9300 in the >> 11/34 and newer machines. I have no way to check on the differences >> now. now. Also, there may be a trick using MOS in an 11/40. >> >> Paul >> >> On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Josh Dersch wrote: >> >> >> >>>> The machine seems to do something (for a short while that is). >>>> The only thing I can say is what I have encountered. I was triggered >>>> when you wrote that you have the M7856 in slot 9 ... make sure that the >>>> CA1-CB1 (NPG) pins are wired together on the backplane! The M7856 is >>>> one of the modules that does not use NPG, but also does NOT connect the >>>> two pins on the module! I have that written on my webpage www.pdp-11.nl >>>> (peripheral - comm - interface modules - DL11-W). >>>> I remember that I soldered a wire on the module to connect those two >>>> pins, >>>> as I did not want to mess with the backplane ... If you do so, make sure >>>> that no flux and tin gets on the contact fingers! >>>> >>>> - Henk. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> Thanks -- installed the NPG jumper for slot 9, no change. >>> >>> Here's a question: The M9300 Ian lent me has three jumpers, labeled as >>> follows: >>> >>> W1 : "Remove jumper for beginning of non processor bus termination" >>> W2 : "Remove jumper for end of bus termination" >>> W3 : "Remove jumper for end of processor bus termination" >>> >>> Currently, W1 is installed, W2 and W3 are removed. Is this correct? >>> >>> I'm curious what is meant by "processor bus" vs. just "bus" in this >>> context -- can someone fill me in? >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Josh >>> >>> >>> > > > From gene at ehrich.com Mon Jun 1 22:33:11 2009 From: gene at ehrich.com (Gene Ehrich) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:33:11 -0400 Subject: Vintage-Computer Message-ID: <20090602033338714.IUMU11757@hrndva-omta02.mail.rr.com> Has anyone here used this web site for buying and selling computer items? http://www.vintage-computer.com From pontus at Update.UU.SE Tue Jun 2 02:02:25 2009 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 09:02:25 +0200 Subject: Vintage-Computer In-Reply-To: <20090602033338714.IUMU11757@hrndva-omta02.mail.rr.com> References: <20090602033338714.IUMU11757@hrndva-omta02.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: <20090602070225.GA20054@Update.UU.SE> On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 11:33:11PM -0400, Gene Ehrich wrote: > Has anyone here used this web site for buying and selling computer items? > > http://www.vintage-computer.com > > Not personaly, but I'm active on its forums and bought things from other members of the forums without problems. Cheers, Pontus. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Jun 2 02:06:06 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 00:06:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Vintage-Computer In-Reply-To: <20090602033338714.IUMU11757@hrndva-omta02.mail.rr.com> References: <20090602033338714.IUMU11757@hrndva-omta02.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 1 Jun 2009, Gene Ehrich wrote: > Has anyone here used this web site for buying and selling computer items? > > http://www.vintage-computer.com $185 for a newer Model M??? http://marketplace.vintage-computer.com/New-white-IBM-Model-M13-clicky-TrackPoint-keyboard-manufactured-February-12-1997,name,103121,auction_id,auction_details -- 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? From bqt at softjar.se Tue Jun 2 03:45:08 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:45:08 +0200 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A24E694.8010800@softjar.se> cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Message: 21 Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:16:20 -0500 From: John Foust Subject: Re: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo To: Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090601201242.03e96008 at mail.threedee.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 03:24 PM 6/1/2009, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> >Okay, let's try again. I have a circa-70s 300-baud modem, that will >> >generate incorrect tones when it's plugged into a USB-to-serial >> >converter, but not when it's plugged into a real serial port. >> >Why might this happen? > > USB only guarantees to supply 100 milliamps. Up to 500 mA can be > negotiated with the controller, depending. Might your older device > depend on more amps than the USB adapter can supply? Huh? The RS-232-port isn't supposed to deliver any power at all. Some devices admittedly abused the RS-232 by using something like DTR to actually supply the power needed to drive the thing, but that is abuse. But I'd be surprised if a circa-70s modem was ever designed to use the power from the RS-232 port to drive the modem itself. I'd expect it to have an external power supply. The problem description is a bit vague. How do you know it is generating incorrect tones? Have you used a frequency analyser to check the tone frequencies? Or might it just be that what has been observed is that the modem don't work when used with the USB-to-serial? If so, then we have a number of possible problems, none of which neccesarily is a problem with the modem. Or is it just a case of listening to the modem while plugging in the cable, and not the same thing happening on the different serial ports. Might the USB-to-serial not start driving signals until something talks to it on the software side? I'd start by checking that the USB-to-serial really delivers correct voltages. Break out the oscilloscope. Next, I'd check if the USB-to-serial is happy without all kind of signal "right", and if the modem supplies all the "right" signals. Also check cables. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From bqt at softjar.se Tue Jun 2 03:52:25 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:52:25 +0200 Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A24E849.4050203@softjar.se> Paul Anderson wrote: > I always used a M930 in the 11/40 and older machines, and the M9300 in the > 11/34 and newer machines. I have no way to check on the differences > now. now. Also, there may be a trick using MOS in an 11/40. I can't remember that there should be any functional difference between a M930 and a M9300. The later is just an improved design. As for the original posters problems. When you get a stuck machine when the terminator is in, but a somewhat more functional machine when the bus terminator is out, you have a problem on the bus. Most likely a bus grant or NPR grant. A third possibility is a problem in the CPU with the logic related to these signals. I'd go over the bus grants once more. Check that they *really* are the right way, since it's so easy to put them in the wrong way, and there is basically no visible clue to which way they should go. Look at some other card to get help. They will also have connections on the same places the BG cards have, except they will likely run them up to the priority plug. If you have some Unibus memory, they are nice, since they have the BG lines wired straight through, just like the BG cards. I would have started by removing *all* cards from the Unibus (with the exception of some memory), and make sure all bus grants and NPRs were in, the terminator was in place and that all power supplies were delivering the right voltage. Also check that all cards in the CPU box are in place, and are firmly seated. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From bqt at softjar.se Tue Jun 2 03:55:28 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:55:28 +0200 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A24E900.8060009@softjar.se> On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Josh Dersch wrote: > Here's a question: The M9300 Ian lent me has three jumpers, labeled as > follows: > > W1 : "Remove jumper for beginning of non processor bus termination" > W2 : "Remove jumper for end of bus termination" > W3 : "Remove jumper for end of processor bus termination" > > Currently, W1 is installed, W2 and W3 are removed. Is this correct? Don't know for sure. Look in a manual? :-) > I'm curious what is meant by "processor bus" vs. just "bus" in this context > -- can someone fill me in? Some CPUs (can't remember about the 11/40 anymore) use an M930 (or M9300) at the beginning of the CPU as well as at the end of the Unibus. The 11/70 for example. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From classiccmp at vintage-computer.com Tue Jun 2 08:20:35 2009 From: classiccmp at vintage-computer.com (Erik Klein) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 06:20:35 -0700 Subject: Vintage-Computer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <113A8143B1B04C1FA6DAA4E1513C9921@NFORCE4> >> http://www.vintage-computer.com > $185 for a newer Model M??? > http://marketplace.vintage-computer.com/New-white-IBM-Model-M13-clicky-Track Point-keyboard-manufactured-February-12-1997,name,103121,auction_id,auction_ details The Vintage Computer and Gaming Marketplace is an auction site (free) which means that, like eBay, it's up to the seller to set their price. Some folks can be, uh, optimistic. . . :) The nice thing is that since the site is dedicated to our hobby the folks using it are usually amenable to constructive criticism. . . ----- Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum - The Vintage Computer Forums marketplace.vintage-computer.com - The Vintage Computer and Gaming Marketplace From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Tue Jun 2 08:27:45 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 06:27:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Apple Preliminary Macintosh Business Plan and IPO Memorandum Now Accessible on CHM Website Message-ID: <760402.86042.qm@web112212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Computer-History-Museum-998047.html From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jun 2 08:53:13 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 06:53:13 -0700 Subject: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM In-Reply-To: <4A23F94E.7080807@iais.fraunhofer.de> References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> <4A23F94E.7080807@iais.fraunhofer.de> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 17:52:46 +0200 > From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de > To: > Subject: Re: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM > > dwight elvey schrieb: >> Hi >> Does anyone have a nice pointer to a diagram >> of how the 68K bus is to be connected to RAM? >> I not that familiar with all the various signals. >> I've spent some time searching but maybe don't >> have the right search string. >> Dwight > > Google search string may be "68000 schematics", and it will point to the > first link > of "68k Single Board Comupter" from "....ac.th" which hides the > interesting part > in a CPLD, but the second link will lead to a detailed PDF > http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~theom/electronics/has/ha68ksys.pdf > which describes the stuff. > > Basically, you can derive the relation of UDS, LDS, R/W, AS and DTACK > from the > data sheet, for interfacing RAM the trick part is just the generation of > DTACK; > as long as CPU clock and RAM access time is known, it is a straight forward > wait state circuit. > > -- > Holger > Hi Thanks for the pointers guys. I should have given more information. It is SRAM and it is fast SRAM 55ns. It is a real 68000 8MHz. It seens that most seem to prefer the DTACK method over the synchronous one. Is faster or just more versitle? What I'm doing is to try to find the best way to connect to my Canon Cat. At the Information Apliances Inc they had a daughter board that they had 128k words of RAM on (256kb). It was used to recompile the ROM code for the Cat. My understand is that it had a read/write address of A00000H while there was a switch to allow it to shadow the ROM at 00H. I don't think I need the shadow capability since I'd be happy to just create ROM images. I'm of course looking for a way to do this with a minimum of cuts and hacks. I'd prefer to do this with just added sockets and wires. There are 2 empty 28pin locations that were intended for ROMs that I can get most of the address and data lines from but the parts I have are 32pin. I'll be stacking machine pin sockets and removing the pins from the lower one where I'll need to change or jumper to something else. There is one CE* strobe from the ASCIs inside that I might be able to use, so long as they didn't include the LDS signal in its decoding. For these ROMs, they treated them as byte sources. This ROM enable was for extended spell checking dictionary. Doing this has the advantage that the handshake to the CPU is already done and doesn't require added circuit. The disadvantage is that it is at 240000H instead of A00000H, requiring some code change. If this doesn't work, I'll need to hijack the address and controls earlier. I'll need to at least cut into either the DTACK or the VPA line to add my own signal. I've been ohming these lines in a powered down circuit and it looks like they have about a 1K pulup on them but there is no pulup resistor seen on the board, by tracing the lines. I can only figure it must be inside the ASIC. If it is a O.C. line, I can just force it low without having to cut. If it is a full pushpull, I'll need to cut the wire. I do have a plan for how I might also do the shadowing. I can mount the system ROMs on machine sockets and devert the CE* signals. It is in the same area as the location I expect to mount the additional RAMs. The data lines are unbuffered to the 68000 so it should work. First things first, get it to see the added RAM. I should mention that we have source code for the latest ROM version. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live?: Keep your life in sync. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jun 2 09:02:33 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 07:02:33 -0700 Subject: plain perfboard In-Reply-To: <200906011345.44722.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <770F762E-A434-4D13-A23D-8BE1761E6B24@neurotica.com> <200906011345.44722.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > From: pat at computer-refuge.org > On Monday 01 June 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: >> On Jun 1, 2009, at 2:53 AM, David Griffith wrote: >>> It seemed to me that Radio Shack stopped selling plain perfboard a >>> year or two ago. Yet a couple days ago, I found lots of it at the >>> one a few blocks from my house. Anyone else know anything about >>> this? Solder-ringed perfboard is good for stuff, but I find plain >>> perfboard nice for building up stuff that's not necessarily a >>> circuit. >> >> I wasn't aware that they had stopped selling it. I think I last >> bought some about a year ago. I'm going to make the rounds of the >> local Radio Shack stores and buy up all I can. I use those large >> pieces for projects, usually wire-wrapping. > > They didn't really stop selling it, most stores just stopped re-stocking > electronic components. That seems to have changed recently (within the > past year), however. > > Pat > Hi Jameco had a good selection of different perf board shapes, sizes and materials. Not cheap but a good selection. They ship really fast. I live in the bay area and usually get my order the next day if ordered before noon the day before. If you need specialty board, such as for a older PC or S-100 try Anchor Electronics. They have these things as well. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live?: Keep your life in sync. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jun 2 09:04:33 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 07:04:33 -0700 Subject: wire wrap machine pins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > From: lynchaj at yahoo.com > > Hi! Does anyone know where to get those rows of individual machine pins for > wire wrapping? > > > > I have searched for them but no luck so far. I know they come in bags of > rows of 50 pins or so as I've seen them but can't find who sells them. > > > > Alternatively, break away wire wrap machine pin SIP sockets would also work. > > > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Andrew Lynch > Hi It seems I just saw those in the Jameco catalog. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Storage_062009 From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jun 2 09:18:33 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 10:18:33 -0400 Subject: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM In-Reply-To: References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> <4A23F94E.7080807@iais.fraunhofer.de> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 9:53 AM, dwight elvey wrote: > Hi > ?Thanks for the pointers guys. I should have given more information. > It is SRAM and it is fast SRAM 55ns. It is a real 68000 8MHz. OK... that RAM is plenty fast enough, but you also need to ensure any memory-mapped peripheral I/O chips are also fast enough if you want to ground DTACK. We had 4MHz 8530 UARTs, so we _had_ to use DTACK in the "expected" way. > ?It seens that most seem to prefer the DTACK method over the synchronous one. Is faster or just more versitle? Simple designs can ground DTACK, more complex designs tend to use DTACK normally, especially to be able to use less expensive memory. These days, if I were building a 68000 design, I'd look at fast memory and fast I/O chips and just do it in the simplest way possible - when you ground DTACK, what you are doing is telling the CPU that at the time in the cycle that it would check (and wait on) DTACK, the transfer has already happened (Data Transfer ACKnowledge) - the CPU doesn't have to wait _ever_. In a mixed-speed design, if some component is fast enough, DTACK will be grounded at that point in time anyway, but through handshaking, not because it was permanently tied to ground. > ?What I'm doing is to try to find the best way to connect > to my Canon Cat.... > ?There are 2 empty 28pin locations that were intended for ROMs Are you trying to do ROM development? Why not use a plug-in ROM emulator? (I like the PromICE, but it's made by someone that I've known and worked with, starting 25 years ago, so if you have a favorite or get one for free, by all means, use it). You don't have to do any target-machine hacking - you get a rig that matches your target (28-pin cables, 24-pin cables, 32-pin cables, 256Kx8, 128Kx16, whatever) - and the PromICE is somewhat configurable in that respect - then compile the code and download it. It could be tricky if you need the target machine to compile your code because of the tools needed, but you could have the Cat make the code, transfer it to another machine via serial port or network, then keep ROM images on the other machine so you can try new code and revert back to working code if you compile up a dud. I would hesitate to make recommendations on how to hack into an existing design without schematics in front of me, but if all you are trying to do is get writable ROMs, I'd seriously recommend a ROM emulator that's externally loadable (built or bought, makes no difference there). -ethan From steve at cosam.org Tue Jun 2 10:19:53 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 17:19:53 +0200 Subject: TK50 tribulations Message-ID: <95838e090906020819v36d45508j4fa8f0a746c73c61@mail.gmail.com> Hi all, I recently dug out a TK50 I was tinkering with before and am having some trouble diagnosing what's up with it. It arrived with a tape stuck in it, but I've since managed to persuade that out and a good clean up had it loading and ejecting properly. Now any read or write just results in a bit of shoeshining, whereafter it goes into its light-show routine. Yes, I should probably just admit defeat and keep it for parts, but it seems so close to working I thought I'd take another stab. The technical manual lists all manner of error codes which should narrow things down. I'm however at a loss as to how one should extract them from the drive/controller. I've had it hooked up to a PDP-11 and XXDP said nothing more than that the drive was faulty. I also have a MicroVAX II (where it actually came from) but I've not been able to run diagnostics on there due to lack of a floppy drive. I did experiment with an RX33, some RX50 images and a PC to write them, but the MicroVAX doesn't want to boot them. Any ideas? Cheers, -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ From dgahling at hotmail.com Tue Jun 2 10:29:34 2009 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 11:29:34 -0400 Subject: Vintage-Computer In-Reply-To: <113A8143B1B04C1FA6DAA4E1513C9921@NFORCE4> References: <113A8143B1B04C1FA6DAA4E1513C9921@NFORCE4> Message-ID: Wow, Erik replied to someone ;) I bought something off there a while back, after the purchase was shipped, didn't get my feedback, and no response to emails. however, the purchase, transaction and shipping was excellent and lots of communication during the transaction, so... Dan. > From: classiccmp at vintage-computer.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: RE: Vintage-Computer > Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 06:20:35 -0700 > > >> http://www.vintage-computer.com > > > $185 for a newer Model M??? > > > > http://marketplace.vintage-computer.com/New-white-IBM-Model-M13-clicky-Track > Point-keyboard-manufactured-February-12-1997,name,103121,auction_id,auction_ > details > > The Vintage Computer and Gaming Marketplace is an auction site (free) which > means that, like eBay, it's up to the seller to set their price. > > Some folks can be, uh, optimistic. . . :) > > The nice thing is that since the site is dedicated to our hobby the folks > using it are usually amenable to constructive criticism. . . > > ----- > Erik Klein > www.vintage-computer.com > www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum - The Vintage Computer Forums > marketplace.vintage-computer.com - The Vintage Computer and Gaming > Marketplace > > _________________________________________________________________ Internet explorer 8 lets you browse the web faster. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9655582 From ian_primus at yahoo.com Tue Jun 2 10:31:06 2009 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 08:31:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: TK50 tribulations Message-ID: <965232.16843.qm@web52709.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 6/2/09, Steve Maddison wrote: > I recently dug out a TK50 I was tinkering with before and > am having > some trouble diagnosing what's up with it. It arrived with > a tape > stuck in it, but I've since managed to persuade that out > and a good > clean up had it loading and ejecting properly. Now any read > or write > just results in a bit of shoeshining, whereafter it goes > into its > light-show routine. Yes, I should probably just admit > defeat and keep > it for parts, but it seems so close to working I thought > I'd take > another stab. Did you clean the heads AND the leader strip? I had one with so much fuzz on it that it would have surely gunked up the heads straight away. You can clean the leader with alcohol, just like the heads. Sometimes these things need multiple cleanings... I assume you've got this connected to a PDP-11 or Vax that you're using to write to it, and that this isn't the SCSI flavored TK50Z. I ran into a similar problem with a TK50Z on a linux box - constant shoeshining. Turns out that I had to set the buffer in mt. After that, it worked just fine. -Ian From emu at e-bbes.com Tue Jun 2 10:33:41 2009 From: emu at e-bbes.com (e.stiebler) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:33:41 -0600 Subject: TK50 tribulations In-Reply-To: <95838e090906020819v36d45508j4fa8f0a746c73c61@mail.gmail.com> References: <95838e090906020819v36d45508j4fa8f0a746c73c61@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A254655.5060909@e-bbes.com> Steve Maddison wrote: > Hi all, > > I recently dug out a TK50 I was tinkering with before and am having > some trouble diagnosing what's up with it. It arrived with a tape > stuck in it, but I've since managed to persuade that out and a good > clean up had it loading and ejecting properly. Now any read or write > just results in a bit of shoeshining, whereafter it goes into its > light-show routine. Yes, I should probably just admit defeat and keep > it for parts, but it seems so close to working I thought I'd take > another stab. Did you also clean the LEDs ? The tach ? Cheers From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 2 10:39:26 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 11:39:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 Message-ID: <63620.76.2.120.32.1243957166.squirrel@mail.neurotica.com> On Tue, June 2, 2009 4:45 am, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> USB only guarantees to supply 100 milliamps. Up to 500 mA can be >> negotiated with the controller, depending. Might your older device >> depend on more amps than the USB adapter can supply? > > Huh? The RS-232-port isn't supposed to deliver any power at all. Some > devices admittedly abused the RS-232 by using something like DTR to > actually supply the power needed to drive the thing, but that is abuse. > > But I'd be surprised if a circa-70s modem was ever designed to use the > power from the RS-232 port to drive the modem itself. I'd expect it to > have an external power supply. He's not talking about powering the device, he's talking about driving the signal lines. Their input impedance isn't infinite, you know! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jun 2 10:46:14 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 08:46:14 -0700 Subject: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM In-Reply-To: References: <4A23C85D.7000608@gmail.com> <4A23F94E.7080807@iais.fraunhofer.de> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 10:18:33 -0400 > Subject: Re: Interfacing a 68000 to RAM > From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 9:53 AM, dwight elvey wrote: >> Hi >> Thanks for the pointers guys. I should have given more information. >> It is SRAM and it is fast SRAM 55ns. It is a real 68000 8MHz. > > OK... that RAM is plenty fast enough, but you also need to ensure any > memory-mapped peripheral I/O chips are also fast enough if you want to > ground DTACK. We had 4MHz 8530 UARTs, so we _had_ to use DTACK in the > "expected" way. > >> It seens that most seem to prefer the DTACK method over the synchronous one. Is faster or just more versitle? > > Simple designs can ground DTACK, more complex designs tend to use > DTACK normally, especially to be able to use less expensive memory. > These days, if I were building a 68000 design, I'd look at fast memory > and fast I/O chips and just do it in the simplest way possible - when > you ground DTACK, what you are doing is telling the CPU that at the > time in the cycle that it would check (and wait on) DTACK, the > transfer has already happened (Data Transfer ACKnowledge) - the CPU > doesn't have to wait _ever_. In a mixed-speed design, if some > component is fast enough, DTACK will be grounded at that point in time > anyway, but through handshaking, not because it was permanently tied > to ground. > >> What I'm doing is to try to find the best way to connect >> to my Canon Cat.... >> There are 2 empty 28pin locations that were intended for ROMs > > Are you trying to do ROM development? Why not use a plug-in ROM > emulator? (I like the PromICE, but it's made by someone that I've > known and worked with, starting 25 years ago, so if you have a > favorite or get one for free, by all means, use it). You don't have > to do any target-machine hacking - you get a rig that matches your > target (28-pin cables, 24-pin cables, 32-pin cables, 256Kx8, 128Kx16, > whatever) - and the PromICE is somewhat configurable in that respect - > then compile the code and download it. It could be tricky if you need > the target machine to compile your code because of the tools needed, > but you could have the Cat make the code, transfer it to another > machine via serial port or network, then keep ROM images on the other > machine so you can try new code and revert back to working code if you > compile up a dud. > > I would hesitate to make recommendations on how to hack into an > existing design without schematics in front of me, but if all you are > trying to do is get writable ROMs, I'd seriously recommend a ROM > emulator that's externally loadable (built or bought, makes no > difference there). > > -ethan Hi Ethan I still need to figure how to get the 256kb of RAM into the Cat memory. I wasn't thinking of tying the DTACK low, just adding another O.C. drive on the wire when decoding my new address space. Most all of the circuits are inside of ASICs so there isn't much other than wires to and from the CPU. Just think of CPU, Black-Box then everything else. The Cat does use both the DTACK and the VPA lines. I think the VPA is used for the serial chip. The CPU doesn't hang when accessing invalid memory so maybe the ASIC is generating DTACKs, even for invalid memory. In that case, all I need is address decoders. I was thinking that the extra ROM decode might work but thinking about proper design, they'd have put R/W in the CE* signal. If so, I can't use it. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live?: Keep your life in sync. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009 From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Jun 2 11:37:25 2009 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 12:37:25 -0400 Subject: Compaq SLT/286 Message-ID: <01C9E37E.E75101C0@MSE_D03> There are several articles on the 'Web describing how to replace the battery in a DS1287 and similar Dallas/Maxim chips; it's really not very difficult (even I have done a few), doesn't require getting a (possibly also about to die) replacement, and makes future replacement of the battery a snap. Also avoids problems with added height due to a socket. See: http://www.mcamafia.de/mcapage0/dsrework.htm for an example. It won't fix Y2K though ;-) See: http://www.maxim-ic.com/appnotes.cfm/an_pk/503 Worst case, if you do destroy it you can still do the socketed replacement thing. m ********************************************************************************* Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 17:00:04 -0400 From: Ethan Dicks Subject: Re: Compaq SLT/286 On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Arthur Evans wrote: > Please can you tell me where the bios battery is situated as I cannot find it, also its voltage. The BIOS battery in a Compaq SLT/286 is embedded inside the Dallas DS1287 clock module. The battery itself is +3V, but you replace the entire module, chip _and_ battery in one go. This is entirely unlike "modern" PCs where you have a Lithium coin cell (CR2032, typically) accessible and easy to replace. It's easy to find discussions of this particular machine. Here's one... Physically, the DS1287 is located in the middle of the board, under the battery tray, but you have to dismantle the entire machine to get to it. Also, it's soldered in place. To make it harder, there's not enough vertical clearance to install a socket. I installed a low-profile socket in mine, but had to nibble a hole in the battery tray to make room for the replacement Dallas clock. It is not a trivial procedure to replace the DS1287 in a Compaq SLT/286, certainly not compared to popping a coin cell out and in. -ethan From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Tue Jun 2 12:15:32 2009 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:15:32 -0400 Subject: Hubbell (was Re: IBM 029 Keypunch has arrived) In-Reply-To: <4A1BB4D8.23401.295144C3@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4A1BB4D8.23401.295144C3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A255E34.3030609@sbcglobal.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 26 May 2009 at 8:31, Dave McGuire wrote: > >> That would be Hubbell, and I doubt they make "regular" 110V wall >> outlets. They make very large, very expensive power connectors that >> are used on industrial equipment and big computers. > > Hubbell is a conglomerate and Hubbell-Bryant handles the more mundane > fixtures (yes, ordinary duplex receptacles). But the connectors on > all of my twist-lock tools is indeed labeled "Hubbell", although I > gather that the twist-lock stuff is now Hubbell-Kellems. > > "Leviton" is another brand to search for. > > It pays to buy quality in receptacles if they're going to see heavy > use--much of the residential stuff is made of very brittle plastic > and breaking out the area near the grounding prong is quite common on > the cheap stuff. > > --Chuck Quality? Yep. All my recepacles, switches and such are all Hubbell Wiring Devices. I've got a _very_ reliable contact in Hubbell Wiring Customer Service. I can get answers if anyone needs it. Shoot me a message directly. Like where to get certain devices, specs, etc... -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Tue Jun 2 12:19:01 2009 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:19:01 -0400 Subject: receptacles (was IBM 029 Keypunch has arrived) In-Reply-To: <20090526115629.Y18924@shell.lmi.net> References: <775C9D48-B44C-4704-81AC-B180B1C9E5FA@microspot.co.uk> <20090526115629.Y18924@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A255F05.6050709@sbcglobal.net> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 26 May 2009, Roger Holmes wrote: >> Thanks for the info, "receptacles" got hundred of items, though few >> seem to be on plates UK style and none in boxes like a UK 'metal clad' >> socket, but I can cut suitable holes in a few project boxes so not >> really a problem. There was a splash proof socket in a box but I don't >> really want a flip up cover on a permanent installation. > > If you are cutting your own faceplate(s), then the "new" style "Decora" > receptacles will be easier to mount - they have a single rectangular hole, > instead of two "double-D" holes. > Yeah, I'm replying late to this, oh well... The Decora faceplates are nice. The rectangle is a standard GFCI size, so the same plate can be used for switches or recpeticles. Just don't tighten the mounting screws too much. Easy to snap the thin plastic. Been there, done that. Twice. But they still stay okay. -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 2 12:36:24 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:36:24 -0700 Subject: receptacles (was IBM 029 Keypunch has arrived) In-Reply-To: <4A255F05.6050709@sbcglobal.net> References: , <20090526115629.Y18924@shell.lmi.net>, <4A255F05.6050709@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <4A2500A8.24129.5819CB7@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Jun 2009 at 13:19, Dave Woyciesjes wrote: > Yeah, I'm replying late to this, oh well... > The Decora faceplates are nice. The rectangle is a standard GFCI size, > so the same plate can be used for switches or recpeticles. Just don't > tighten the mounting screws too much. Easy to snap the thin plastic. > Been there, done that. Twice. But they still stay okay. If it was just a bunch of outlets that I needed, I'd be tempted to use one of the "four in one" style outlets. No plate to worry about-- just provide a box. --Chuck From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 2 12:38:53 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 17:38:53 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... Message-ID: <166556.46330.qm@web23405.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Technically it was lost over the Atlantic Ocean and reports of some sort of computer failure 30 minutes before they vanished. It's a shame they were using Amiga's, they'd have made it to France 1 hour earlier than expected! Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Mon, 1/6/09, Alexandre Souza wrote: From: Alexandre Souza Subject: Re: Fwd: Mystery object... To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" Date: Monday, 1 June, 2009, 9:56 PM > Now, you feel fortunate to be crammed into a sardine can on a late > flight and not handcuffed and strip-searched at the terminal. ???And pray not to die...Did you know about the air france plane who got lost in Brazil today? :o( From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 2 12:49:13 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 17:49:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... Message-ID: <782658.92388.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Sorry, that was supposed to say "It's a shame they *weren't* using Amiga's", lol. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Tue, 2/6/09, Andrew Burton wrote: From: Andrew Burton Subject: Re: Fwd: Mystery object... To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Date: Tuesday, 2 June, 2009, 6:38 PM Technically it was lost over the Atlantic Ocean and reports of some sort of computer failure 30 minutes before they vanished. It's a shame they were using Amiga's, they'd have made it to France 1 hour earlier than expected! Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Mon, 1/6/09, Alexandre Souza wrote: From: Alexandre Souza Subject: Re: Fwd: Mystery object... To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" Date: Monday, 1 June, 2009, 9:56 PM > Now, you feel fortunate to be crammed into a sardine can on a late > flight and not handcuffed and strip-searched at the terminal. And pray not to die...Did you know about the air france plane who got lost in Brazil today? :o( From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 2 12:54:21 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 18:54:21 +0100 (BST) Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: <1243887860.1093.45.camel@elric> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Jun 1, 9 09:24:20 pm Message-ID: > Okay, let's try again. I have a circa-70s 300-baud modem, that will > generate incorrect tones when it's plugged into a USB-to-serial Waht's the make and model of the modem? > converter, but not when it's plugged into a real serial port. Have you measured the voltage on the RS232 TxD pin in both cases? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 2 13:06:07 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 19:06:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: <4A24E849.4050203@softjar.se> from "Johnny Billquist" at Jun 2, 9 10:52:25 am Message-ID: > > Paul Anderson wrote: > > > I always used a M930 in the 11/40 and older machines, and the M9300 in the > > 11/34 and newer machines. I have no way to check on the differences > > now. now. Also, there may be a trick using MOS in an 11/40. > > I can't remember that there should be any functional difference between > a M930 and a M9300. The later is just an improved design. > > As for the original posters problems. When you get a stuck machine when > the terminator is in, but a somewhat more functional machine when the > bus terminator is out, you have a problem on the bus. Most likely a bus I thought that was only true if you were using an M9302 termintor. That board will assert SACK if it gets a grant (that is, if a grant goes all the way along the Unibus and isn't 'taken' by some device). The older terminators (M930, and I think M9300, don't. THey're just resistors to terminate the bus. > grant or NPR grant. A third possibility is a problem in the CPU with the > logic related to these signals. I think it's time to stop guessing -- I think we've tried all the obvious things -- and start logical faultfinding. What test gear does the OP have? What _I_ would do is first check all the power voltages, with the boards in (it's too late to care about a rogue PSU damaging boards :-)). A low +5V line, or a missing supply to the terminator, will casue all sorts of problems. Then I'd look at all the Unibus signals both with the terminator out (they will still be terminated by the resistors at at the CPU end -- IIRC on an 11/40 these are on the Unibus jumper between the CPU and first expansion backplane) and with it fitted. I would guess something is changing state, let's find out what. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 2 14:16:55 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 20:16:55 +0100 (BST) Subject: HP 700/32 keyboard signals In-Reply-To: <4A256B27.8347.2428D813@sieler.allegro.com> from "Stan Sieler" at Jun 2, 9 11:10:47 am Message-ID: > > Hi, > > An acquaintance in (maybe) India, has dozens of HP 700/32 > keyboards he'd like to continue using ... but by attaching them to This is not a machine I have ever worked on, but I noticed to CCed the message to me personally, so I guess you think I might have some clues... > modern equipment. He's done some initial work trying to figure > out the signals/protocol, but hasn't solved it yet. > > I pointed him to CC here, but he seems reluctant to join. > > He writes: > > We have about 75 HP 700/32 terminal keyboards which we want use as input > > devices for our quality control points. I have already constructed a PIC > > board to do the job but I just can not read the keyboard. What I see from > > the osciloscope is, the keyboard requires 5V power, a 77 kHz 1:3 duty rate > > clock, and outputs two pulses on two different lines, time between which is > > dependent on the key pressed. For example, for the left-shift key, there is > > always 22 clock cycles between these two pulses. A few obvious questions : Has he opnened up the keyboard, if so, what's inside (microcontroller, HP custom chip, SSI/MSI chips)? 2) How did he make that above measurents ? If it was by connecting a 'scope or logic analyser onto the cable between the terminal and the keyboard, how does he know which direction the signals are in. The point being there is a fairly well-known HP keyboard interface, used with modifications on several machines, which has the following 5 signals : Power (may be +5V or +12V) Ground Clock (but a lot slower than 77kHz normally) (from host to keyboard) Reset (from host to keyboard) Data (from keyboard to host). The basic protocol is that pulsing 'reset' clears an internal counter in the keyboard and selects the zeroth 'key'. Each pulse on 'clock' moves on to the next key in the sequest. And the data line indicates whether the currently-selected key is pressed or not. THis sounds remarkably like the signals he's observing (hence the delay between the 2 pulses being depecndant on which key is pressed). But normally only one signal is 'from' the keyboard. I do know that HP used a similar interface for the touchscreen unit in the HP150 (original version), but in that case the 'reset' (or 'sync') signal was output from the peripheral (touchscreen logic) and an input to the host. I have never come across this being used for a keyboard, but it's clearly possible. Other things. What happens if you hold down several keys at the same time (multiple pulses on the 'data' line)? Is the 'reset' / 'sync' pulse always present, even if no keys are pressed? What lines have signals on them if the terminal is powered up with no keyboard connected ? (this _might_ indicate the direction of the signals). > If anyone is interested in corresponding with him, please email me offline > and I'll try to put you in contact with him. Feel free to forward the above, but I am not sure I have anything else I could say. -tony From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jun 2 14:27:08 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:27:08 -0700 Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A257D0C.7010901@mail.msu.edu> Tony Duell wrote: >> Paul Anderson wrote: >> >> >>> I always used a M930 in the 11/40 and older machines, and the M9300 in the >>> 11/34 and newer machines. I have no way to check on the differences >>> now. now. Also, there may be a trick using MOS in an 11/40. >>> >> I can't remember that there should be any functional difference between >> a M930 and a M9300. The later is just an improved design. >> >> As for the original posters problems. When you get a stuck machine when >> the terminator is in, but a somewhat more functional machine when the >> bus terminator is out, you have a problem on the bus. Most likely a bus >> > > I thought that was only true if you were using an M9302 termintor. That > board will assert SACK if it gets a grant (that is, if a grant goes all > the way along the Unibus and isn't 'taken' by some device). The older > terminators (M930, and I think M9300, don't. THey're just resistors to > terminate the bus. > > >> grant or NPR grant. A third possibility is a problem in the CPU with the >> logic related to these signals. >> > > I think it's time to stop guessing -- I think we've tried all the obvious > things -- and start logical faultfinding. What test gear does the OP > have? > I have a nice Tektronix 1241 logic analyzer and a DMM (and a really flaky old Tek O-scope). I said in my original mail on this thread that I just wanted to be sure my Unibus config _looked_ sane before I started digging. (No sense spending hours debugging if all it is is a misplaced board...) > What _I_ would do is first check all the power voltages, with the boards > in (it's too late to care about a rogue PSU damaging boards :-)). A low > +5V line, or a missing supply to the terminator, will casue all sorts of > problems. > The voltages seem to be fine with the boards installed (5.2V for the +5, -5.3V for -5). I fixed the ACLO/DCLO problems I was having awhile back (turned out to be a bad contact on one of the many molex connectors. That was nice, since I didn't want to pull the supply out again :)). > Then I'd look at all the Unibus signals both with the terminator out > (they will still be terminated by the resistors at at the CPU end -- IIRC > on an 11/40 these are on the Unibus jumper between the CPU and first > expansion backplane) and with it fitted. I would guess something is > changing state, let's find out what. > I will start looking at this tonight (assuming I have the time tonight :)). Thanks. Josh > -tony > > > > From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 2 14:48:15 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 12:48:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: <166556.46330.qm@web23405.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <166556.46330.qm@web23405.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20090602124712.U68389@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, Andrew Burton wrote: > Technically it was lost over the Atlantic Ocean and reports of some sort > of computer failure 30 minutes before they vanished. Windows BSOD?? > It's a shame they were using Amiga's, they'd have made it to France 1 > hour earlier than expected! "Guru meditation number"? From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jun 2 14:59:43 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:59:43 -0600 Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: <20090602124712.U68389@shell.lmi.net> References: <166556.46330.qm@web23405.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <20090602124712.U68389@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A2584AF.7010702@jetnet.ab.ca> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, Andrew Burton wrote: >> Technically it was lost over the Atlantic Ocean and reports of some sort >> of computer failure 30 minutes before they vanished. > > Windows BSOD?? > >> It's a shame they were using Amiga's, they'd have made it to France 1 >> hour earlier than expected! > > "Guru meditation number"? Did the planes lost in the Bermuda triangle have computers at all... From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Tue Jun 2 15:39:00 2009 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:39:00 -0400 Subject: receptacles (was IBM 029 Keypunch has arrived) In-Reply-To: <4A2500A8.24129.5819CB7@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <20090526115629.Y18924@shell.lmi.net>, <4A255F05.6050709@sbcglobal.net> <4A2500A8.24129.5819CB7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A258DE4.9090607@sbcglobal.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 2 Jun 2009 at 13:19, Dave Woyciesjes wrote: > >> Yeah, I'm replying late to this, oh well... >> The Decora faceplates are nice. The rectangle is a standard GFCI size, >> so the same plate can be used for switches or recpeticles. Just don't >> tighten the mounting screws too much. Easy to snap the thin plastic. >> Been there, done that. Twice. But they still stay okay. > > If it was just a bunch of outlets that I needed, I'd be tempted to > use one of the "four in one" style outlets. No plate to worry about-- > just provide a box. > Hrm? Picture anywhere? -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 2 16:19:00 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:19:00 -0700 Subject: receptacles (was IBM 029 Keypunch has arrived) In-Reply-To: <4A258DE4.9090607@sbcglobal.net> References: , <4A2500A8.24129.5819CB7@cclist.sydex.com>, <4A258DE4.9090607@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <4A2534D4.27037.64D5D1E@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Jun 2009 at 16:39, Dave Woyciesjes wrote: > Hrm? Picture anywhere? How about a product spec sheet? http://assets.twacomm.com/assets/pdf/18756.pdf --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 2 17:35:29 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 15:35:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Fwd: Mystery object... In-Reply-To: <4A2584AF.7010702@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <166556.46330.qm@web23405.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <20090602124712.U68389@shell.lmi.net> <4A2584AF.7010702@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <20090602153428.N80929@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > Did the planes lost in the Bermuda triangle have computers at all... I don't think that the Air France missing plane was scheduled to fly over the Bermuda Triangle. Maybe THAT's the problem. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Jun 2 17:32:16 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 19:32:16 -0300 Subject: plain perfboard References: <770F762E-A434-4D13-A23D-8BE1761E6B24@neurotica.com> <200906011345.44722.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <147801c9e3d3$86107580$0dce19bb@desktaba> > Jameco had a good selection of different perf board shapes, >sizes and materials. Not cheap but a good selection. They >ship really fast. I live in the bay area and usually get my >order the next day if ordered before noon the day before. >If you need specialty board, such as for a older PC or >S-100 try Anchor Electronics. They have these things >as well. These boards are cheap enough in Brazil, but I'm planning to do some "speciality types" when I put my cnc machine working... From classiccmp at vintage-computer.com Tue Jun 2 19:04:33 2009 From: classiccmp at vintage-computer.com (Erik Klein) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 17:04:33 -0700 Subject: Vintage-Computer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <19AAF60497E041FD992C1016B04C4369@NFORCE4> Dan Gahlinger Wrote: > Wow, Erik replied to someone ;) > I bought something off there a while back, > after the purchase was shipped, didn't get my feedback, > and no response to emails. > however, the purchase, transaction and shipping was excellent and lots of > communication during the transaction, so... Hey now! I'm not _that_ bad with emails! I didn't see any I didn't reply to. . . I hope. Feedback, well, that's a whole 'nother ball o yarn. . . I admit that I'm WAY behind on feedback. :( I did just give you yours, though (squeaky wheel and such) and I'll get to the rest as other projects get done. . . Sorry. ----- Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum - The Vintage Computer Forums marketplace.vintage-computer.com - The Vintage Computer and Gaming Marketplace From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jun 2 20:52:19 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:52:19 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: <63620.76.2.120.32.1243957166.squirrel@mail.neurotica.com> References: <63620.76.2.120.32.1243957166.squirrel@mail.neurotica.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090602204549.03f8b810@mail.threedee.com> At 10:39 AM 6/2/2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > He's not talking about powering the device, he's talking about driving >the signal lines. Their input impedance isn't infinite, you know! I think there has been other threads here regardng the hit-or-miss nature of these USB-to-serial adapters. I know when I needed one to sync a Palm, I couldn't find one that did it right. I think I hit my head against three $30 adapters to no avail, but this was four-five years ago. I'm not smart enough to talk about reactance, but I can tell you they're not quite the same. It would stand to reason that a 30-year-old modem might've been developed to talk to its contemporaries. - John From lynchaj at yahoo.com Tue Jun 2 21:09:38 2009 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 22:09:38 -0400 Subject: wire wrap machine pins Message-ID: <645CE5E3D8F14DB08EBB7BAD70B87E7E@andrewdesktop> ---------------------------------------- > From: lynchaj at yahoo.com > > Hi! Does anyone know where to get those rows of individual machine pins for > wire wrapping? [snip] > > Andrew Lynch > Hi It seems I just saw those in the Jameco catalog. Dwight -----REPLY----- Thanks Dwight and Chuck! I found what I was looking for (wire wrap SIP sockets) in the Jameco catalog for a fairly reasonable price. They also have terminal pins but not the machine pin variety. Digikey has those, as Chuck pointed out, but the price seems unreasonable. $35 for a small bag of socket pin terminals? Wow! Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch From josefcub at gmail.com Tue Jun 2 21:29:48 2009 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 21:29:48 -0500 Subject: wire wrap machine pins In-Reply-To: <645CE5E3D8F14DB08EBB7BAD70B87E7E@andrewdesktop> References: <645CE5E3D8F14DB08EBB7BAD70B87E7E@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: <9e2403920906021929s6cca6e28o9fdae40acb044f9e@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 9:09 PM, Andrew Lynch wrote: >> Hi! Does anyone know where to get those rows of individual machine pins > for >> wire wrapping? I lucked out and found a box of 100 at MC Howard in Austin. I'm still of the impression that, if I really need something (as I did those pins and a few other bits), it'll magically appear at MC Howard when I visit. Josef -- "I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke." -- Hilda "Sharpie" Burroughs, "The Number of the Beast" by Robert A. Heinlein From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Tue Jun 2 21:49:55 2009 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:49:55 -0400 Subject: Archiving RX50s with PUTR In-Reply-To: <1242551102.7676.103.camel@spasmo> References: <1242500188.7676.96.camel@spasmo> <200905161738.11839.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <1242551102.7676.103.camel@spasmo> Message-ID: <4A25E4D3.4060706@compsys.to> I rarely top post, but this seems like a reasonable situation. I finally had a few minutes to look at a few of the 40 * RX50 disk images under RT-11. Most of the time was to look at the CACHE.DSK image which holds a set of files that I have never seen before. Based on the contents, it may take some time to sort out exactly what is needed, but this set certainly looks extremely promising. It is highly probable that at least a few of the other RX50 images hold other gems as well. If you have any other RX50 floppy media which you are going to make available, please let us know. I have sort of placed RT-11 into a lower priority than a few years ago, but something like this may rekindle my interest. Thank you very much and keep up the great effort. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine >Tobias Russell wrote: >Thanks for the advice. I had already started by the time I ready your >reply so I have images for now, although it would be easy to go the >extra step by mounting my images and extracting the individual files. I >might have a hunt to see if there are any linux/unix utilities out there >so I can automate exracting the individual files from RT-11 images. > >If anyone is interested, the fruits of my labours can be seen here: > >http://www.pdp11.co.uk/2009/05/17/rt-11-rx50-disk-images/ > >Quite a few of the files probably already exist in other archives but >some of the stuff is probably new. I've not had a chance yet to look >through the disks in detail but will annotate up the contents when I get >a chance. > >I've just been given a set of microRSX 1.0 distribution RX50s so I will >put those up next. > >Thanks, >Toby > > > >On Sat, 2009-05-16 at 17:38 -0700, Lyle Bickley wrote: > > >>Toby, >> >>On Saturday 16 May 2009, Tobias Russell wrote: >> >> >>>I have a large box of RX50 disks that I would like to archive onto >>>modern media to ensure they are preserved. I've built up a machine with >>>a 5.25" floppy drive and install DOS and PUTR. >>> >>>Is the best method to archive them to: >>> >>>MOUNT B: /FOREIGN /RX50 >>> >>>followed by: >>> >>>COPY/DEV/FILE B: [filename] >>> >>>for each of the disks I insert? >>> >>>I was pondering whether I should use the /BINARY flag on the copy, but >>>I've not seen this mentioned on other webpages I have read. >>> >>> >>Since PUTR "understands" multiple filetypes, I have found it is much better to >>save the contents of each floppy (RX50) to a separate directory - but NOT as an >>image file, but rather as individual files. That way you can later use PUTR to >>create logical media of any form - say RL02, RX01, etc. from the captured >>files. >> >>Assuming drive "B:" is your 5.25" drive, and the OS is RT11 you would do the >>following: >> >>MOUNT B: /RT11 /RX50 >>then >>COPY B:*.* . >>and you will have captured the individual files that were on the RX50. >> >>When you reverse the process to recreate a diskette (RX50, RX23, RX01, etc.) be >>sure to use a SET B: type; i.e., SET B: RX23 >>then >>FORMAT B: /RT11 /RX23 (or whatever) >>then >>COPY *.* B: >> >>NOTE: Be absolutely sure to SET COPY BINARY before you do anything. For some >>unknown reason, the PUTR default is ASCII. (I have a SET COPY BINARY in PUTR's >>initialization file - to be sure I never forget to do it ;-) >> From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 2 21:53:27 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:53:27 -0600 Subject: USB/serial adapters (was: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3) In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:52:19 -0500. <6.2.3.4.2.20090602204549.03f8b810@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: In article <6.2.3.4.2.20090602204549.03f8b810 at mail.threedee.com>, John Foust writes: > I think there has been other threads here regardng the hit-or-miss > nature of these USB-to-serial adapters. I know when I needed one > to sync a Palm, I couldn't find one that did it right. I think > I hit my head against three $30 adapters to no avail, but this > was four-five years ago. I've used them to talk to terminals and had no problems. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jun 2 21:58:53 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 22:58:53 -0400 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 Message-ID: <200906022258.53816.pat@computer-refuge.org> I've got a VAX-11/750 and DEC RK07 that I picked up from a friend a few months ago, which I need to divest myself of. Both have some issues; I'm not sure what the issue is with the RK07 (though I do have the service manual for the drive), and the 11/750 has some sort of issue with its console. I haven't touched either one, this is what the previous owner has told me. They're available free for pickup, or I can deliver them within about an hour's drive of here for some gas money. The machines are in West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA. If they aren't gone by Sunday, June 14th, they'll go on ebay. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jun 2 22:16:53 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 23:16:53 -0400 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: <200906022258.53816.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200906022258.53816.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200906022316.53813.pat@computer-refuge.org> And, they've been claimed. That was fast. Pat On Tuesday 02 June 2009, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > I've got a VAX-11/750 and DEC RK07 that I picked up from a friend a > few months ago, which I need to divest myself of. > > Both have some issues; I'm not sure what the issue is with the RK07 > (though I do have the service manual for the drive), and the 11/750 > has some sort of issue with its console. I haven't touched either > one, this is what the previous owner has told me. > > They're available free for pickup, or I can deliver them within about > an hour's drive of here for some gas money. > > The machines are in West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA. > > If they aren't gone by Sunday, June 14th, they'll go on ebay. > > Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ragooman at comcast.net Tue Jun 2 22:32:12 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:32:12 -0400 Subject: vintage hardware still alive and kickin' -- another successful launch from vandenberg afb Message-ID: <4A25EEBC.4060200@comcast.net> Another successful launch from Vandenberg AFB. Vintage hardware is still alive and kickin' ! My buddy there tells me the contract for the TIPS facility has been renewed at USAF Western Missile & Space center With many more launches to come. http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/105054/delta-ii-launches-missile-defense-satellite.html "TIPS consists of two systems of the CDC Cyber 840 computers, 21 systems of the SEL 32/55 and 32/75A computers, and various peripheral and supporting equipment on 2 acres of floor space." http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/computers_mini_gallery_tips.html I wonder what other vintage hardware is still in operation -- museum collections don't count :) =Dan -- [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 2 22:53:50 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 23:53:50 -0400 Subject: vintage hardware still alive and kickin' -- another successful launch from vandenberg afb In-Reply-To: <4A25EEBC.4060200@comcast.net> References: <4A25EEBC.4060200@comcast.net> Message-ID: > "TIPS consists of two systems of the CDC Cyber 840 computers, 21 systems of > the SEL 32/55 and 32/75A computers, ?and ?various peripheral and supporting > equipment on 2 acres of floor space." > http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/computers_mini_gallery_tips.html > > I wonder what other vintage hardware is still in operation -- museum > collections don't count :) The missile tracking ship OBSERVATION ISLAND also probably still has a similar Cyber running, or perhaps one slightly older. That ship is still in service, but is slated to be stricken next year (we shall see...). It would be nice to get these old systems pulled out of their current homes safely, but the government has a habit of junking the stuff. The last missile trackers I was on (VANGUARD and RANGE SENTINEL) both had their computer rooms completely stripped of everything above the raised floor, with the exception of a lonely Printronics printer. Interestingly, VANGUARD still had the original Univac shipping crates in one of the lower compartments. -- Will From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jun 2 23:06:20 2009 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 23:06:20 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 References: <4A24E694.8010800@softjar.se> Message-ID: <00b801c9e400$a6ea5dc0$c600a8c0@JWEST> It was written... > Huh? The RS-232-port isn't supposed to deliver any power at all. Not quite true, but a case can be made.... As per the spec, pins 9 and 10 are reserved specifically to provide test voltages. The current available is minimal and designed mainly for testing purposes with breakout boxes, etc. But it is there (from those that chose to implement it - which back in the day was most folks). Not only that, but it was not uncommon - in fact very common - to find lots of devices that got their power from DTR, etc. These devices had a lot of trouble with RS423, where the voltage was much less than RS232. I don't recall the exact numbers but RS232 was something about 12V swings and RS423 was about 3.5V swings. Other than that, the two were pretty much identical. People often connected RS423 to 232 devices with no problem at all. But those devices that expected power from DTR or pins 9 or 10 (on a DB25) had a bit of difficulty when plugged into a rs423 port. > But I'd be surprised if a circa-70s modem was ever designed to use the > power from the RS-232 port to drive the modem itself. I'd expect it to > have an external power supply. I can't imagine a 70's era modem getting power from the interface. Well, not a modem designed to interface to analog POTS lines. A line driver or short haul modem? Heck yeah, I've seen scads of them that got their power from the RS232 interface. Jay West From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 2 23:37:01 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:37:01 -0700 Subject: wire wrap machine pins In-Reply-To: <645CE5E3D8F14DB08EBB7BAD70B87E7E@andrewdesktop> References: <645CE5E3D8F14DB08EBB7BAD70B87E7E@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: <4A259B7D.7280.7DE72DA@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Jun 2009 at 22:09, Andrew Lynch wrote: > Thanks Dwight and Chuck! I found what I was looking for (wire wrap > SIP sockets) in the Jameco catalog for a fairly reasonable price. > They also have terminal pins but not the machine pin variety. Digikey > has those, as Chuck pointed out, but the price seems unreasonable. > $35 for a small bag of socket pin terminals? Wow! Sometimes, it's very cost effective to pick up a used wire-wrap prototyping board and simply punch the unused pins out. Also, be on the lookout for surplus wire-wrap DIP sockets. It's easy enough to cut the row of pins off to make your own SIP socket. --Chuck From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jun 3 00:02:39 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:02:39 -0700 Subject: wire wrap machine pins In-Reply-To: <645CE5E3D8F14DB08EBB7BAD70B87E7E@andrewdesktop> References: <645CE5E3D8F14DB08EBB7BAD70B87E7E@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: <4A2603EF.1040309@brouhaha.com> Andrew Lynch wrote: > They also > have terminal pins but not the machine pin variety. Digikey has those, as > Chuck pointed out, but the price seems unreasonable. $35 for a small bag of > socket pin terminals? Wow! When I've needed bunches of those to make a custom PGA socket, I've just extracted them from machine pin DIP sockets. A short piece of copper tubing and a hammer work wonders. From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jun 3 00:23:38 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:23:38 -0600 Subject: vintage hardware still alive and kickin' -- another successful launch from vandenberg afb In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:32:12 -0400. <4A25EEBC.4060200@comcast.net> Message-ID: In article <4A25EEBC.4060200 at comcast.net>, Dan Roganti writes: > "TIPS consists of two systems of the CDC Cyber 840 computers, 21 systems > of the SEL 32/55 and 32/75A computers, and various peripheral and > supporting equipment on 2 acres of floor space." > http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/computers_mini_gallery_tips.html The terminals in this photo look like yummy CDC/PLATO terminals. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jun 3 00:27:41 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 22:27:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: vintage hardware still alive and kickin' -- another successful launch from vandenberg afb In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, Richard wrote: > In article <4A25EEBC.4060200 at comcast.net>, > Dan Roganti writes: > >> "TIPS consists of two systems of the CDC Cyber 840 computers, 21 systems >> of the SEL 32/55 and 32/75A computers, and various peripheral and >> supporting equipment on 2 acres of floor space." >> http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/computers_mini_gallery_tips.html > > The terminals in this photo look like yummy CDC/PLATO terminals. > What are those things that look like photocopiers at middle-right-bottom? -- 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? From bqt at softjar.se Tue Jun 2 12:29:22 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:29:22 +0200 Subject: RS-232 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A256172.9080906@softjar.se> "Dave McGuire" wrote: > On Tue, June 2, 2009 4:45 am, Johnny Billquist wrote: >>> >> USB only guarantees to supply 100 milliamps. Up to 500 mA can be >>> >> negotiated with the controller, depending. Might your older device >>> >> depend on more amps than the USB adapter can supply? >> > >> > Huh? The RS-232-port isn't supposed to deliver any power at all. Some >> > devices admittedly abused the RS-232 by using something like DTR to >> > actually supply the power needed to drive the thing, but that is abuse. >> > >> > But I'd be surprised if a circa-70s modem was ever designed to use the >> > power from the RS-232 port to drive the modem itself. I'd expect it to >> > have an external power supply. > > He's not talking about powering the device, he's talking about driving > the signal lines. Their input impedance isn't infinite, you know! No, but close enough to not make much difference. If the modem would draw anywhere near 100mA over RS-232 just to get the levels, something is seriously wrong. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From sieler at allegro.com Tue Jun 2 13:10:47 2009 From: sieler at allegro.com (Stan Sieler) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:10:47 -0700 Subject: HP 700/32 keyboard signals Message-ID: <4A256B27.8347.2428D813@sieler.allegro.com> Hi, An acquaintance in (maybe) India, has dozens of HP 700/32 keyboards he'd like to continue using ... but by attaching them to modern equipment. He's done some initial work trying to figure out the signals/protocol, but hasn't solved it yet. I pointed him to CC here, but he seems reluctant to join. He writes: > We have about 75 HP 700/32 terminal keyboards which we want use as input > devices for our quality control points. I have already constructed a PIC > board to do the job but I just can not read the keyboard. What I see from > the osciloscope is, the keyboard requires 5V power, a 77 kHz 1:3 duty rate > clock, and outputs two pulses on two different lines, time between which is > dependent on the key pressed. For example, for the left-shift key, there is > always 22 clock cycles between these two pulses. If anyone is interested in corresponding with him, please email me offline and I'll try to put you in contact with him. thanks, Stan -- Stan Sieler sieler at allegro.com www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html From sieler at allegro.com Tue Jun 2 13:28:16 2009 From: sieler at allegro.com (Stan Sieler) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:28:16 -0700 Subject: HP 3000 micro gx booting MPE/V, Help >>>> In-Reply-To: <040220090516.644.49D44A41000AABD00000028422230703729B0A02D29B9B0@MHS> References: <040220090516.644.49D44A41000AABD00000028422230703729B0A02D29B9B0@MHS> Message-ID: <4A256F40.7175.2438DA47@sieler.allegro.com> Re: > I have non working 3000/37s with possibly good drives and a 3000 micro GX > that works but has a bad drive. I have tried to boot the micro GX from the > 3000-37 drives and get this far. ... > Following Volumes not found > MH7957U1 ... > Seems to freeze after that. It does this on 2 different drives. > Is this even possible to do ??? I don't recall successfully booting off a different model's boot drive on a Classic 3000, but I'm not sure. > Does anyone have a OS tape for one of these ??? and which manuals > cover the boot menu and/or startup. ... > Stan Sieler, are you still around. Seems like every search I do comes up with > your name and advice. Here sporadically :) I'm emailing you offline. Stan -- Stan Sieler sieler at allegro.com www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html From julianskidmore at yahoo.com Tue Jun 2 16:15:57 2009 From: julianskidmore at yahoo.com (Julian Skidmore) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 14:15:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) Message-ID: <427125.14223.qm@web37101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Dear Cctech Members, > On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, Andrew Burton wrote: > > Technically it was lost over the Atlantic Ocean and reports > > of some sort > > of computer failure 30 minutes before they vanished. > Windows BSOD?? > > It's a shame they were using Amiga's, they'd have made it to France 1 > > hour earlier than expected! > "Guru meditation number"? These posts are the most insensitive & complete off-topic remarks I have ever seen on CCTech. The authors should be ashamed of themselves. For all you or I know, CCTech members could have had friends or loved ones on the aircraft, but in any case the passengers and staff who (as is almost certain) lost their lives in such a tragic and terrifying manner should be treated with far more respect than has been shown here. From snhirsch at gmail.com Tue Jun 2 18:44:55 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 19:44:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Question re: 8" drive form-factor Message-ID: Here's a strange one: I recently acquired two Shugart 851 drives from another cctech-er. They were in nice shape and operate fine. The weird part is their form-factor. I have 8 or 10 other 8" drives in my collection, both half-height and full-height, including two other 851 Shugarts. All of these are 8.5" wide, with faceplate and frame being exactly the same size. These two "new" Shugart units are _9.5"_ wide at the faceplate and require a clearance of about 9-1/8" for the frame. Can anyone explain this odd sizing? Were they perhaps manufactured against an earlier standard? Color me puzzled... Steve -- From starbase89 at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 01:05:50 2009 From: starbase89 at gmail.com (Joe Giliberti) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 02:05:50 -0400 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) In-Reply-To: <427125.14223.qm@web37101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <427125.14223.qm@web37101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2b1f1f550906022305x2107b969hc0652df4dfa94b47@mail.gmail.com> If you know someone who was lost, thats understandable, but the remarks weren't really that bad. If someone on CC lost someone to it, let them complain if they wish. There's no reason for you to be offended if you didn't loose someone. 220 people out of the 7 billion on the planet is a raindrop in the ocean. On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 5:15 PM, Julian Skidmore wrote: > > Dear Cctech Members, > > > On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, Andrew Burton wrote: > > > Technically it was lost over the Atlantic Ocean and reports > > > of some sort > > > of computer failure 30 minutes before they vanished. > > Windows BSOD?? > > > It's a shame they were using Amiga's, they'd have made it to France 1 > > > hour earlier than expected! > > > "Guru meditation number"? > > These posts are the most insensitive & complete off-topic remarks I have > ever seen on CCTech. The authors should be ashamed of themselves. > > For all you or I know, CCTech members could have had friends or loved > ones on the aircraft, but in any case the passengers and staff who > (as is almost certain) lost their lives in such a tragic and terrifying > manner should be treated with far more respect than has been shown here. > > > > > > From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 01:31:58 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 02:31:58 -0400 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) In-Reply-To: <427125.14223.qm@web37101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <427125.14223.qm@web37101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > These posts are the most insensitive & complete off-topic remarks I have > ever seen on CCTech. The authors should be ashamed of themselves. I concur. Remember that these "jokes" are being archived and are public. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 01:38:52 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 02:38:52 -0400 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) In-Reply-To: <2b1f1f550906022305x2107b969hc0652df4dfa94b47@mail.gmail.com> References: <427125.14223.qm@web37101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <2b1f1f550906022305x2107b969hc0652df4dfa94b47@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > If you know someone who was lost, thats understandable, but the remarks > weren't really that bad. If someone on CC lost someone to it, let them > complain if they wish. There's no reason for you to be offended if you > didn't loose someone. 220 people out of the 7 billion on the planet is a > raindrop in the ocean. I think you just lowered the bar. I would have hoped you had more sense. What if the person is in grief, stricken by a loss? Do you think they are going to be reading this list? What will it be like when they catch up reading their messages? Will it comfort them when they find their loss is called insignificant? Folks, lets kill this right now. -- Will From starbase89 at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 02:24:44 2009 From: starbase89 at gmail.com (Joe Giliberti) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 03:24:44 -0400 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) In-Reply-To: References: <427125.14223.qm@web37101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <2b1f1f550906022305x2107b969hc0652df4dfa94b47@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2b1f1f550906030024p68e7dc54t19afb6836d9ab7d5@mail.gmail.com> I hate when people cater to the minority, in this case, the families of 220 people, out of the 6.8 billion on the planet. Just for the sake of argument, lets say that each of those people had 20 people they were associated with that could possibly be on this list. That comes out to 4400 people who "might" be both on this list, and knew someone on the plane, out of a grand total of 6.8 billion people on the planet. When the twin towers fell, the tsunami hit, and Katrina pummeled LA, there is then cause for dignity and tact. Many thousands of people were affected by those events. On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 2:38 AM, William Donzelli wrote: > I think you just lowered the bar. I would have hoped you had more > sense. What if the person is in grief, stricken by a loss? Do you > think they are going to be reading this list? What will it be like > when they catch up reading their messages? Will it comfort them when > they find their loss is called insignificant? > > Folks, lets kill this right now. > > -- > Will > From mike at brickfieldspark.org Wed Jun 3 02:43:37 2009 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 08:43:37 +0100 Subject: [personal] Re: vintage hardware still alive and kickin' -- another successfullaunch from vandenberg afb References: Message-ID: <003a01c9e41f$01ece030$961ca8c0@mss.local> They look like chart recorders ? Mike Web - www.soemtron.org PDP-7 - www.soemtron.org/pdp7.html Email - mike at soemtron.org Looking for a PDP-7 (some hope!) and an ASR33 ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Griffith" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 6:27 AM Subject: [personal] Re: vintage hardware still alive and kickin' -- another successfullaunch from vandenberg afb > On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, Richard wrote: > >> In article <4A25EEBC.4060200 at comcast.net>, >> Dan Roganti writes: >> >>> "TIPS consists of two systems of the CDC Cyber 840 computers, 21 systems >>> of the SEL 32/55 and 32/75A computers, and various peripheral and >>> supporting equipment on 2 acres of floor space." >>> http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/computers_mini_gallery_tips.html >> >> The terminals in this photo look like yummy CDC/PLATO terminals. >> > > What are those things that look like photocopiers at middle-right-bottom? > > -- > 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? > > > From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Wed Jun 3 03:17:45 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:17:45 -0700 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) In-Reply-To: <2b1f1f550906030024p68e7dc54t19afb6836d9ab7d5@mail.gmail.com> References: <427125.14223.qm@web37101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <2b1f1f550906022305x2107b969hc0652df4dfa94b47@mail.gmail.com> <2b1f1f550906030024p68e7dc54t19afb6836d9ab7d5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2631A9.4000207@mail.msu.edu> Yes, please, let's not cater to minorities in our posts to this list. In fact, in the spirit of not catering to minorities, I will offer instead a "fuck you" to a very small minority in this case: Joe Giliberti. Josh Joe Giliberti wrote: > I hate when people cater to the minority, in this case, the families of 220 > people, out of the 6.8 billion on the planet. Just for the sake of argument, > lets say that each of those people had 20 people they were associated with > that could possibly be on this list. That comes out to 4400 people who > "might" be both on this list, and knew someone on the plane, out of a grand > total of 6.8 billion people on the planet. > > When the twin towers fell, the tsunami hit, and Katrina pummeled LA, there > is then cause for dignity and tact. Many thousands of people were affected > by those events. > > > > On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 2:38 AM, William Donzelli wrote: > > >> I think you just lowered the bar. I would have hoped you had more >> sense. What if the person is in grief, stricken by a loss? Do you >> think they are going to be reading this list? What will it be like >> when they catch up reading their messages? Will it comfort them when >> they find their loss is called insignificant? >> >> Folks, lets kill this right now. >> >> -- >> Will >> >> > > > From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Wed Jun 3 03:28:53 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:28:53 +0100 Subject: vintage hardware still alive and kickin' -- another successful launch from vandenberg afb In-Reply-To: References: <4A25EEBC.4060200@comcast.net> Message-ID: <1244017734.1093.50.camel@elric> On Tue, 2009-06-02 at 23:53 -0400, William Donzelli wrote: > Printronics printer. Interestingly, VANGUARD still had the original > Univac shipping crates in one of the lower compartments. I can see the eBay auction now - "L@@K RARE! CDC CYBER BOXED AS NEW!" Gordon From alec at sensi.org Wed Jun 3 03:31:24 2009 From: alec at sensi.org (Alexander Voropay) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 12:31:24 +0400 Subject: Fw: Still Falling for Tetris, 25 Years After Its Birth Message-ID: <347d9b1b0906030131o2c2460d6qef0369629e5b40ef@mail.gmail.com> http://thejakartaglobe.com/lifeandtimes/still-falling-for-tetris-25-years-after-its-birth/278774 http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=tetris P.S. I have the original TETRIS.SAV binary for the Elektronika-60 (a Soviet LSI-11 clone) for the RT-11. It works under SIMH. Unfortunately, I have NO good opensource VT-52 emulator to play. Original Tetris requires 0177 character to be BLOCK to draw. -- -=AV=- From steve at cosam.org Wed Jun 3 02:38:28 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 09:38:28 +0200 Subject: vintage hardware still alive and kickin' -- another successful launch from vandenberg afb In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <95838e090906030038v72793a7n93c8833794d06fe8@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/3 David Griffith : > What are those things that look like photocopiers at middle-right-bottom? Not sure, but there are a couple in the middle and one in the bottom-left with paper wrapped around them. I'm guessing they're the "High Speed Plotters" referred to in the text. Cheers, -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jun 3 04:18:22 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:18:22 -0600 Subject: VT52 emulator (was: Fw: Still Falling for Tetris, 25 Years After Its Birth ) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:31:24 +0400. <347d9b1b0906030131o2c2460d6qef0369629e5b40ef@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <347d9b1b0906030131o2c2460d6qef0369629e5b40ef at mail.gmail.com>, Alexander Voropay writes: > P.S. I have the original TETRIS.SAV binary for the Elektronika-60 (a > Soviet LSI-11 clone) > for the RT-11. It works under SIMH. Unfortunately, I have NO good > opensource VT-52 emulator > to play. Original Tetris requires 0177 character to be BLOCK to draw. Interesting! Most stuff is OK with VT100 instead of VT52. Is it because the VT100 emulation is lacking in its VT52 support, or is it because the real VT100 is lacking in its VT52 compatability? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From paul at frixxon.co.uk Wed Jun 3 07:25:33 2009 From: paul at frixxon.co.uk (paul at frixxon.co.uk) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 13:25:33 +0100 (BST) Subject: VT52 emulator (was: Fw: Still Falling for Tetris, 25 Years After Its Birth ) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <242dce694f9ce6f843f55b095f049845.squirrel@frixxon.co.uk.mail.aaisp.net.uk> Richard wrote: > > Alexander Voropay writes: >> >> Unfortunately, I have NO good opensource VT-52 emulator >> to play. Original Tetris requires 0177 character to be BLOCK to draw. > > Interesting! Most stuff is OK with VT100 instead of VT52. Is it > because the VT100 emulation is lacking in its VT52 support, or is it > because the real VT100 is lacking in its VT52 compatability? I would've thought that Tetris would switch to the VT52 graphics set, which wasn't emulated by any subsequent DEC VT. However, a full block in that case would be 141 ("a"), not 177, which is DEL, so I assume Alexander is saying that the VT52 displays a block when receiving DEL. Other DEC VTs ignored DEL on receipt, even (I believe) in VT52 mode. Paul From frustum at pacbell.net Wed Jun 3 08:17:34 2009 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:17:34 -0500 Subject: HP Virtual Tech Museum Message-ID: <4A2677EE.9080105@pacbell.net> This morning I received an email from someone apparently associated with HP Asia. At first I thought it was spam, but it seems to be legitimate. Here is the full text of the message. Perhaps others on this list have received the email too. Anyway, the link seems to check out as real. Su Yuen Chin wrote: Hi Jim Battle! This is Su Yuen from Waggener Edstrom and we represent HP. We were browsing the Internet for communities of old gadget collectors and came across a website with your details listed. We can see from the site that you are an avid collector of old gadgets, which we share a passion for as well. HP is currently working to build a ?Virtual Tech Museum? filled with pictures and stories of old technological gadgets from people around the world to marvel and share. To encourage more contributions, HP is currently hosting a regional competition to give away some of its latest tech offerings. The museum has just been launched and there are already a few submissions from the community. Being a collector yourself, it would be great if you could share some of your prized collections with the community and maybe the story of why you collect them. Oh, even though HP is funding the contest, the contributions do not have to be HP gadgets ? they can be from any company. Do visit the museum at http://www.hp.com/apac/virtualtechmuseum and let us know what you think. It would also be great if you could rope in like-minded friends and interest groups to let them know of this! Who knows, you might even find old gadgets you?ve been looking for to trade and add to your collection! Warmest regards, Su Yuen From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jun 3 08:27:01 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 06:27:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HP Virtual Tech Museum In-Reply-To: <4A2677EE.9080105@pacbell.net> from Jim Battle at "Jun 3, 9 08:17:34 am" Message-ID: <200906031327.n53DR1Ps011358@floodgap.com> > This morning I received an email from someone apparently associated with > HP Asia. At first I thought it was spam, but it seems to be legitimate. > Here is the full text of the message. Perhaps others on this list > have received the email too. Anyway, the link seems to check out as real. I got this one also. The contest is only open to Asia-Pacific countries, so I discarded it. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- She loves ya! ... now what? -- "True Lies" --------------------------------- From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Wed Jun 3 08:49:11 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 06:49:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: NY Times article about the Moniac Message-ID: <871977.78823.qm@web112218.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> >From Wikipedia The MONIAC (Monetary National Income Analogue Computer) also known as the Phillips Hydraulic Computer and the Financephalograph, was created in 1949 by the New Zealand economist Bill Phillips to model the national economic processes of the United Kingdom, while Phillips was a student at the London School of Economics (LSE), The MONIAC was an analogue computer which used fluidic logic to model the workings of an economy. The MONIAC name may have been suggested by an association of money and ENIAC, an early electronic digital computer. Here is the NYTimes article http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/guest-column-like-water-for-money/ Here is the Wiki entry for the Moniac http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC_Computer From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 08:47:41 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 09:47:41 -0400 Subject: HP Virtual Tech Museum In-Reply-To: <4A2677EE.9080105@pacbell.net> References: <4A2677EE.9080105@pacbell.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 9:17 AM, Jim Battle wrote: > This morning I received an email from someone apparently associated with HP > Asia. ?At first I thought it was spam, but it seems to be legitimate. ?Here > is the full text of the message. ?Perhaps others on this list have received > the email too. ?Anyway, the link seems to check out as real. > > >> This is Su Yuen from Waggener Edstrom and we represent HP... I also received this message, but haven't followed up on the link yet. -ethan From spedraja at ono.com Wed Jun 3 09:40:40 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 16:40:40 +0200 Subject: SLU's backpanel for one BA11-SB box (PDP-11/23 PLUS) Message-ID: I want to purchase in a few days from now one BA11-SB enclosure (tabletop type) to swap all the boards of my PDP-11/23 PLUS (my actual enclosure don't have a box cover). But there is a problem: The box is prepared to put a couple of mini back-panels, I suppose with the intention of put a couple of rs-232 ports, or another kind of connectors (network, etc)... but there are no panels. I believe that I saw something similar for one PDP-11 24 some months ago but I'm not sure. Trying to avoid homebrew solutions... someone knows about a product from Digital or 3rd party for this purpose ? Kind Regards Sergio From steve at cosam.org Wed Jun 3 10:09:20 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 17:09:20 +0200 Subject: SLU's backpanel for one BA11-SB box (PDP-11/23 PLUS) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <95838e090906030809j5c953d2au42565de6e8cd7ed1@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/3 SPC : > But there is a problem: The box is prepared to put a > couple of mini back-panels, I suppose with the intention of put a couple of > rs-232 ports, or another kind of connectors (network, etc)... but there are > no panels. ... > Trying to avoid homebrew solutions... someone knows about a product from > Digital or 3rd party for this purpose ? Do you mean the cigarette box-sized panels that screw into the distribution panel? Blank panels, or with ports mounted (and if so, which ports)? Cheers, -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Wed Jun 3 10:25:12 2009 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:25:12 -0400 Subject: receptacles (was IBM 029 Keypunch has arrived) In-Reply-To: <4A2534D4.27037.64D5D1E@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4A2500A8.24129.5819CB7@cclist.sydex.com>, <4A258DE4.9090607@sbcglobal.net> <4A2534D4.27037.64D5D1E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A2695D8.2040701@sbcglobal.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 2 Jun 2009 at 16:39, Dave Woyciesjes wrote: > >> Hrm? Picture anywhere? > > How about a product spec sheet? > > http://assets.twacomm.com/assets/pdf/18756.pdf > Thanks... I'll have to pass this to my person inside Hubbell to see if they have something like this. I like it. -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss From mtapley at swri.edu Wed Jun 3 10:09:10 2009 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 10:09:10 -0500 Subject: USB-serial adaptors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 0:02 -0500 6/3/09, John Foust wrote: >I think there has been other threads here regardng the hit-or-miss >nature of these USB-to-serial adapters. I know when I needed one >to sync a Palm, I couldn't find one that did it right. I think >I hit my head against three $30 adapters to no avail, but this >was four-five years ago. I have no experience with these, but have a strong recommendation from Tim Lindner, who helped develop a serial file-server for Tandy Color Computers: At 8:46 -0700 4/12/09, tim lindner wrote: >Be on the lookout for a device that contains an FTDI chipset. Boisy and >I agree they are the best USB <-> RS232 devices. For whatever it's worth. My question was how I could get my Mac Powerbook G4 to serve files to my Color Computer 3; I have not ordered Drivewire yet, but I probably should do that soon. -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward. From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 3 10:34:31 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 11:34:31 -0400 Subject: RS-232 In-Reply-To: <4A256172.9080906@softjar.se> References: <4A256172.9080906@softjar.se> Message-ID: <532DF90F-C48C-4855-AEE2-AD55BCA0DC87@neurotica.com> On Jun 2, 2009, at 1:29 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: >>>> >> USB only guarantees to supply 100 milliamps. Up to 500 mA >>>> can be >>>> >> negotiated with the controller, depending. Might your older >>>> device >>>> >> depend on more amps than the USB adapter can supply? >>> > >>> > Huh? The RS-232-port isn't supposed to deliver any power at >>> all. Some >>> > devices admittedly abused the RS-232 by using something like >>> DTR to >>> > actually supply the power needed to drive the thing, but that >>> is abuse. >>> > >>> > But I'd be surprised if a circa-70s modem was ever designed to >>> use the >>> > power from the RS-232 port to drive the modem itself. I'd >>> expect it to >>> > have an external power supply. >> He's not talking about powering the device, he's talking about >> driving >> the signal lines. Their input impedance isn't infinite, you know! > > No, but close enough to not make much difference. If the modem > would draw anywhere near 100mA over RS-232 just to get the levels, > something is seriously wrong. Well yes...100mA is excessive. I'm not sure it's reasonable, though, to assume that there'd be 100mA (or even 10% of that) of drive capability available on the TxD pin from a USB<->serial bridge. The suggestion was that the drive capability (whatever it may be) is insufficient, that everything will require a finite amount of current there, and perhaps the ancient modem just wants too much. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 3 10:35:18 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 11:35:18 -0400 Subject: USB-serial adaptors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jun 3, 2009, at 11:09 AM, Mark Tapley wrote: >> I think there has been other threads here regardng the hit-or-miss >> nature of these USB-to-serial adapters. I know when I needed one >> to sync a Palm, I couldn't find one that did it right. I think >> I hit my head against three $30 adapters to no avail, but this >> was four-five years ago. > > I have no experience with these, but have a strong recommendation > from Tim Lindner, who helped develop a serial file-server for Tandy > Color Computers: > > At 8:46 -0700 4/12/09, tim lindner wrote: >> Be on the lookout for a device that contains an FTDI chipset. >> Boisy and >> I agree they are the best USB <-> RS232 devices. I have designed with these chips, and I like them. They do have their problems, but I agree that they're pretty good. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 3 10:37:54 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 11:37:54 -0400 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: <00b801c9e400$a6ea5dc0$c600a8c0@JWEST> References: <4A24E694.8010800@softjar.se> <00b801c9e400$a6ea5dc0$c600a8c0@JWEST> Message-ID: <566894BB-83D8-4058-8B42-C2CE4207861B@neurotica.com> On Jun 3, 2009, at 12:06 AM, Jay West wrote: > These devices had a lot of trouble with RS423, where the voltage > was much less than RS232. I don't recall the exact numbers but > RS232 was something about 12V swings +/- 15V > and RS423 was about 3.5V swings. Other than that, the two were > pretty much identical. People often connected RS423 to 232 devices > with no problem at all. But those devices that expected power from > DTR or pins 9 or 10 (on a DB25) had a bit of difficulty when > plugged into a rs423 port. Some Sun systems have jumpers to switch their serial ports between RS232 and RS423 modes. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 3 10:38:14 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:38:14 -0700 Subject: receptacles (was IBM 029 Keypunch has arrived) In-Reply-To: <4A2695D8.2040701@sbcglobal.net> References: , <4A2534D4.27037.64D5D1E@cclist.sydex.com>, <4A2695D8.2040701@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <4A263676.17879.A3BCEF5@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jun 2009 at 11:25, Dave Woyciesjes wrote: > Thanks... I'll have to pass this to my person inside Hubbell to see > if > they have something like this. I like it. There's also a shallow box offered for it that makes for a very neat surface-mount or extension-cord type use. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 3 10:49:27 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 11:49:27 -0400 Subject: USB/serial adapters (was: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jun 2, 2009, at 10:53 PM, Richard wrote: >> I think there has been other threads here regardng the hit-or-miss >> nature of these USB-to-serial adapters. I know when I needed one >> to sync a Palm, I couldn't find one that did it right. I think >> I hit my head against three $30 adapters to no avail, but this >> was four-five years ago. > > I've used them to talk to terminals and had no problems. Yep. I use them all day, every day, and have never had the problems I've heard people complain about here. Right now on my main desktop machine, I have a USB<->serial adapter connected to an ARM9 development board, another connected to a homebrew Z80 SBC, another connected to a PDP-11/83, and yet another connected to a PDP-11/70. They all work wonderfully. I use Keyspan adapters. Admittedly, though, I've not tried my old A-J acoustic modem. Some people whine about they Keyspan adapters being too expensive...they may be having problems because they bought some cheap $5 adapters. The last Keyspan unit I purchased cost me (I think) about $30.00, and I bought it about six years ago. Complaining about $30.00 over six years is being too damn cheap, even for the cheapskates around here. On my Sun Ray thin clients, I use Edgeport quad-port adapters. They exhibit some latency (that may be due to the Sun Ray USB encapsulation though), but they work pretty well otherwise. The serial ports show up as devices on the Sun Ray host system. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mtapley at swri.edu Wed Jun 3 10:48:47 2009 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 10:48:47 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 6 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 10:33 -0500 6/3/09, Cameron wrote: > > This morning I received an email from someone apparently associated with >> HP Asia. At first I thought it was spam, but it seems to be legitimate. >> Here is the full text of the message. Perhaps others on this list >> have received the email too. Anyway, the link seems to check out as real. > >I got this one also. The contest is only open to Asia-Pacific countries, so >I discarded it. Cameron, thanks! I was undecided about whether to enter my Rainbow, knowing you guys would toast me totally anyhow. But, the geographical restriction decides me. -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 11:03:00 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 12:03:00 -0400 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: <566894BB-83D8-4058-8B42-C2CE4207861B@neurotica.com> References: <4A24E694.8010800@softjar.se> <00b801c9e400$a6ea5dc0$c600a8c0@JWEST> <566894BB-83D8-4058-8B42-C2CE4207861B@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 3, 2009, at 12:06 AM, Jay West wrote: >> >> These devices had a lot of trouble with RS423, where the voltage was much >> less than RS232. I don't recall the exact numbers but RS232 was something >> about 12V swings > > ?+/- 15V Formally, yes, that's the max signalling voltage, but in practice, there's a lot of 1488/1489 circuits powered by 7812s and 7912s out there. I am pretty sure that the MAX232 can't get things better than about +/-10V (but I could be mistaken about that). -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 3 11:10:36 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 12:10:36 -0400 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: References: <4A24E694.8010800@softjar.se> <00b801c9e400$a6ea5dc0$c600a8c0@JWEST> <566894BB-83D8-4058-8B42-C2CE4207861B@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <16C5FFAB-0EBF-4FD6-B995-DD008225AD8E@neurotica.com> On Jun 3, 2009, at 12:03 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >>> These devices had a lot of trouble with RS423, where the voltage >>> was much >>> less than RS232. I don't recall the exact numbers but RS232 was >>> something >>> about 12V swings >> >> +/- 15V > > Formally, yes, that's the max signalling voltage, but in practice, > there's a lot of 1488/1489 circuits powered by 7812s and 7912s out > there. Very true; I was talking about the formal spec. I *think* the spec actually says +3V to +15V and -3V to -15V, but I don't recall for sure and I don't have it in front of me. > I am pretty sure that the MAX232 can't get things better than > about +/-10V (but I could be mistaken about that). The MAX232, if memory serves, is specced at 10V but usually tops out at 8-9V in my experience. I sure do love those chips. :) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From spedraja at ono.com Wed Jun 3 11:11:30 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 18:11:30 +0200 Subject: SLU's backpanel for one BA11-SB box (PDP-11/23 PLUS) In-Reply-To: <95838e090906030809j5c953d2au42565de6e8cd7ed1@mail.gmail.com> References: <95838e090906030809j5c953d2au42565de6e8cd7ed1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >Do you mean the cigarette box-sized panels that screw into the >distribution panel? Blank panels, or with ports mounted (and if so, >which ports)? Exactly. With ports mounted. The BA11-SB box supports a couple of them. I need one with a couple of RS232 ports (because the KDF11-B comes with a couple of SLUs) Eventually, it would be great to get other panel with one Ethernet connector plus others. Regards Sergio From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 11:19:15 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 12:19:15 -0400 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: <16C5FFAB-0EBF-4FD6-B995-DD008225AD8E@neurotica.com> References: <4A24E694.8010800@softjar.se> <00b801c9e400$a6ea5dc0$c600a8c0@JWEST> <566894BB-83D8-4058-8B42-C2CE4207861B@neurotica.com> <16C5FFAB-0EBF-4FD6-B995-DD008225AD8E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 12:10 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > ?Very true; I was talking about the formal spec. ?I *think* the spec > actually says +3V to +15V and -3V to -15V, but I don't recall for sure and I > don't have it in front of me. That is my memory, too, but I don't have it in front of me either (but I used to make datacomm hardware, so I'm reasonably certain of it). >> ?I am pretty sure that the MAX232 can't get things better than >> about +/-10V (but I could be mistaken about that). > > ?The MAX232, if memory serves, is specced at 10V but usually tops out at > 8-9V in my experience. There you go... that makes sense. I've even been known to tap a few mA off of one of the negative charge pumps for LCD bias voltage for a serial-interfaced LCD panel (192x64 pixels). > ?I sure do love those chips. :) Yep. I love 'em too, especially when they can let me stick with a +5V-only design. Not as beefy as 1488s and 1489s, but a snap to use. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 3 11:31:45 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:31:45 -0700 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: <16C5FFAB-0EBF-4FD6-B995-DD008225AD8E@neurotica.com> References: , , <16C5FFAB-0EBF-4FD6-B995-DD008225AD8E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A264301.12767.A6CCB7C@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jun 2009 at 12:10, Dave McGuire wrote: > The MAX232, if memory serves, is specced at 10V but usually tops > out at 8-9V in my experience. I sure do love those chips. :) I get about +/-10 out of the MAX232Ns from TI, but I use 10 uF/25v caps instead of 1uF on them (just have more of them in my hellbox). There are also the cap-less models from Maxim (can't recall the part numbers) that are pretty tempting. Some modern equipment gives you +5/0 for "RS232" levels. My DTV set- top-box with a DE9 on the rear panel labeld "RS232" is such an example. Although, I suppose we're going to have to start calling it "TIA- 232". --Chuck From slawmaster at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 01:13:57 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 02:13:57 -0400 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) In-Reply-To: <2b1f1f550906022305x2107b969hc0652df4dfa94b47@mail.gmail.com> References: <427125.14223.qm@web37101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <2b1f1f550906022305x2107b969hc0652df4dfa94b47@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906022313i219be996u342148bbca0d0123@mail.gmail.com> Thank you. I'm more offended by the self-righteous response than by the original comments. "On a long enough time line, everyone's survival rate drops to zero." John On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 2:05 AM, Joe Giliberti wrote: > If you know someone who was lost, thats understandable, but the remarks > weren't really that bad. If someone on CC lost someone to it, let them > complain if they wish. There's no reason for you to be offended if you > didn't loose someone. 220 people out of the 7 billion on the planet is a > raindrop in the ocean. > > On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 5:15 PM, Julian Skidmore wrote: > >> >> Dear Cctech Members, >> >> > On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, Andrew Burton wrote: >> > > Technically it was lost over the Atlantic Ocean and reports >> > > of some sort >> > > of computer failure 30 minutes before they vanished. >> > Windows BSOD?? >> > > It's a shame they were using Amiga's, they'd have made it to France 1 >> > > hour earlier than expected! >> >> > "Guru meditation number"? >> >> These posts are the most insensitive & complete off-topic remarks I have >> ever seen on CCTech. The authors should be ashamed of themselves. >> >> For all you or I know, CCTech members could have had friends or loved >> ones on the aircraft, but in any case the passengers and staff who >> (as is almost certain) lost their lives in such a tragic and terrifying >> manner should be treated with far more respect than has been shown here. >> >> >> >> >> >> > -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jun 3 12:58:21 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 13:58:21 -0400 Subject: receptacles (was IBM 029 Keypunch has arrived) In-Reply-To: <4A2695D8.2040701@sbcglobal.net> References: <4A2534D4.27037.64D5D1E@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2695D8.2040701@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <200906031358.21599.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 03 June 2009, Dave Woyciesjes wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 2 Jun 2009 at 16:39, Dave Woyciesjes wrote: > >> Hrm? Picture anywhere? > > > > How about a product spec sheet? > > > > http://assets.twacomm.com/assets/pdf/18756.pdf > > Thanks... I'll have to pass this to my person inside Hubbell to see > if they have something like this. I like it. The Hubbell 4-plex stuff seems to be the closest thing (and was what I pictured originally when Chuck mentioned this). Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jun 3 13:11:51 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 14:11:51 -0400 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: <4A264301.12767.A6CCB7C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <16C5FFAB-0EBF-4FD6-B995-DD008225AD8E@neurotica.com> <4A264301.12767.A6CCB7C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200906031411.51096.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 03 June 2009, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3 Jun 2009 at 12:10, Dave McGuire wrote: > > The MAX232, if memory serves, is specced at 10V but usually tops > > out at 8-9V in my experience. I sure do love those chips. :) > > I get about +/-10 out of the MAX232Ns from TI, but I use 10 uF/25v > caps instead of 1uF on them (just have more of them in my hellbox). > There are also the cap-less models from Maxim (can't recall the part > numbers) that are pretty tempting. > > Some modern equipment gives you +5/0 for "RS232" levels. My DTV set- > top-box with a DE9 on the rear panel labeld "RS232" is such an > example. > > Although, I suppose we're going to have to start calling it "TIA- > 232". I've used the MAX 3233E recently, and it seemed to do what I wanted (allow me to hook a serial console up to a device with a 3.3V port), and I've used the 5V version (3235) before as well. It's nice having a 1-chip design for an RS-232 level converter. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From slawmaster at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 13:40:23 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 11:40:23 -0700 Subject: vintage hardware still alive and kickin' -- another successful launch from vandenberg afb In-Reply-To: <1244017734.1093.50.camel@elric> References: <4A25EEBC.4060200@comcast.net> <1244017734.1093.50.camel@elric> Message-ID: <7d3530220906031140p3fc9abfbt247ed310a94dc10@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 1:28 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > On Tue, 2009-06-02 at 23:53 -0400, William Donzelli wrote: > >> Printronics printer. Interestingly, VANGUARD still had the original >> Univac shipping crates in one of the lower compartments. > > I can see the eBay auction now - "L@@K RARE! CDC CYBER BOXED AS NEW!" > > Gordon > > More like L@@K RARE CDC CYBER IBM MAINFRAME SUPERCOMPUTER DEC UNIVAC PDP BURROUGHS HONEYWELL VAX CRAY NEW IN BOX given the way some sellers seem to like sticking every computer name under the sun in their descriptions. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 3 13:13:57 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 19:13:57 +0100 (BST) Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: <4A257D0C.7010901@mail.msu.edu> from "Josh Dersch" at Jun 2, 9 12:27:08 pm Message-ID: > > I think it's time to stop guessing -- I think we've tried all the obvious > > things -- and start logical faultfinding. What test gear does the OP > > have? > > > I have a nice Tektronix 1241 logic analyzer and a DMM (and a really > flaky old Tek O-scope). I said in my original mail on this thread that Excellent... > I just wanted to be sure my Unibus config _looked_ sane before I started > digging. (No sense spending hours debugging if all it is is a misplaced > board...) Sure. It is always best to look for the obvious things first (says the guy who once spent a long time fioguring out a low contrast fault on a VT100 video board, only to find the CRT screen needed cleaning...). But after a bit, it's best to attack the problem logically. > > > What _I_ would do is first check all the power voltages, with the boards > > in (it's too late to care about a rogue PSU damaging boards :-)). A low > > +5V line, or a missing supply to the terminator, will casue all sorts of > > problems. > > > The voltages seem to be fine with the boards installed (5.2V for the +5, > -5.3V for -5). I fixed the ACLO/DCLO problems I was having awhile back The other important power line is the -15V one, It's not just used for the RS232 drivers, it's used for the CPU clock on a lot of the older '11s > (turned out to be a bad contact on one of the many molex connectors. > That was nice, since I didn't want to pull the supply out again :)). How many +5V lines are there? Certainly in my 11/45 there are 4 or 5 +5V regulator bricks for the CPU, and you need to check the outputs of all of them. They are not parelleled, rather one feeds the CPU boards, another the first expansion backplane, and so on. > > > Then I'd look at all the Unibus signals both with the terminator out > > (they will still be terminated by the resistors at at the CPU end -- IIRC > > on an 11/40 these are on the Unibus jumper between the CPU and first > > expansion backplane) and with it fitted. I would guess something is > > changing state, let's find out what. > > > I will start looking at this tonight (assuming I have the time tonight > :)). Thanks. OK, let us know how you get on :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 3 13:30:44 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 19:30:44 +0100 (BST) Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: <00b801c9e400$a6ea5dc0$c600a8c0@JWEST> from "Jay West" at Jun 2, 9 11:06:20 pm Message-ID: > It was written... > > Huh? The RS-232-port isn't supposed to deliver any power at all. > Not quite true, but a case can be made.... As per the spec, pins 9 and 10 > are reserved specifically to provide test voltages. The current available is > minimal and designed mainly for testing purposes with breakout boxes, etc. > But it is there (from those that chose to implement it - which back in the > day was most folks). Not only that, but it was not uncommon - in fact very Was it? I can't think of many classic RS232 devices that have those pins wired. > > But I'd be surprised if a circa-70s modem was ever designed to use the > > power from the RS-232 port to drive the modem itself. I'd expect it to > > have an external power supply. > I can't imagine a 70's era modem getting power from the interface. Well, not > a modem designed to interface to analog POTS lines. A line driver or short > haul modem? Heck yeah, I've seen scads of them that got their power from the > RS232 interface. HP made one. Or more specifically HP made a 300 baud modem that plugged into their serial port and had no other power supply. Of course the HP serial port was a 50 pin microribbon connector with +5V, +12V and -12V power lines on it. Not test votlages, pins specifically designated as power outputs. IIRC, just about all 50 pins were used for something, the full interface has both RS422 and RS232 signals on it. Very few HP devices implemented everything (the 98628 serial card for HP9000/200 machines comes close). But the power pins were almost always wired. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 3 13:41:43 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 19:41:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 3, 9 12:03:00 pm Message-ID: > > On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Dave McGuire wrote= > : > > On Jun 3, 2009, at 12:06 AM, Jay West wrote: > >> > >> These devices had a lot of trouble with RS423, where the voltage was muc= > h > >> less than RS232. I don't recall the exact numbers but RS232 was somethin= > g > >> about 12V swings > > > > =A0+/- 15V > > Formally, yes, that's the max signalling voltage, but in practice, I thoght that one state was a positive voltage between +3V and +25V wrt signal ground and the other state was a negative voltage between -3V and -25V wrt signal ground. Anything between -3V and +3V is illegal. There's no requiremnt, AFAIK, for the 2 votlages to be of the same magnitude. A signal which swings between +12V and -5V is perfectly valid. This explains a little circuit that I've sene used in small RS232 peripherals that run off their own wall-wart. Namely to use a 7905 (-5V) regulator to power the logic. The common +ve raill (wall wart +ve, regulator common pin) is the +5V line, the regulator output is the logic ground (so there's the normal 5V supply, right way round, for the logic). The RS232 driver is a discrete transsitor circuit running between the +5V line and the (unregulated) input to the regulator -- the -ve side of the wall-wart. Provided the latter is large enough, this does meet the RS232 spec. -tony From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 14:25:29 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 15:25:29 -0400 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > I thoght that one state was a positive voltage between +3V and +25V wrt > signal ground and the other state was a negative voltage between -3V and > -25V wrt signal ground. You might be on to something there... I checked and the 1488/1489 pair is rated up to +/-30VDC. > Anything between -3V and +3V is illegal. Illegal, yes, but as others have pointed out, 0V might work with some modern equipment. > There's no requiremnt, AFAIK, for the 2 votlages to be of the same > magnitude. A signal which swings between +12V and -5V is perfectly valid. True, and I've seen +12V/-5V designs when the manufacturer didn't want to spring for -12V but had -5V lying around. I couldn't tell you where right now, but it was in something from the 1970s. -ethan From vp at drexel.edu Wed Jun 3 15:27:23 2009 From: vp at drexel.edu (vp) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 23:27:23 +0300 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo Message-ID: <5DCEDAB8-409B-4D36-A30D-41B2C33B2119@drexel.edu> Jim Battle wrote: > Golan Klinger wrote: > > Disclaimer: I wouldn't normally post this sort of thing but I'm > > confident it will be of interest to more than a few on this list. > > > > "1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo" > > > > Something weird there -- at 6:20 or so, he has a URL on the screen. It > looks to me like "http://ww.wikipedia.org". And it connects. But it is > "ww" not "www". There is no reason for him to go and fake it, but it > bugs me nevertheless. Maybe the missing "w" was mangled by line noise. In this session, echoing is done by the remote system (that is why we don't see the passwords), so it is possible that he typed the "w", but the echo had a parity error and was dropped by the terminal emulator. Remember these modems do not do any error correction, so any line noise results in mangled characters. Nevertheless, line noise usu results in strings of mangled characters, but 300 baud may be slow enough that only one was damaged. BTW 300 baud? Isn't 1964 a bit early for 300 baud? **vp From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 3 15:53:41 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:53:41 -0700 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: <5DCEDAB8-409B-4D36-A30D-41B2C33B2119@drexel.edu> References: <5DCEDAB8-409B-4D36-A30D-41B2C33B2119@drexel.edu> Message-ID: <4A268065.11756.B5CC6E9@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jun 2009 at 23:27, vp wrote: > BTW 300 baud? Isn't 1964 a bit early for 300 baud? Not at all--the Bell 103 modem was deployed in 1962. --Chuck From alec at sensi.org Wed Jun 3 16:50:40 2009 From: alec at sensi.org (Alexander Voropay) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 01:50:40 +0400 Subject: VT52 emulator (was: Fw: Still Falling for Tetris, 25 Years After Its Birth ) In-Reply-To: References: <347d9b1b0906030131o2c2460d6qef0369629e5b40ef@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <347d9b1b0906031450i6ae1d2dl97507cc911e59d24@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/3 Richard : >> Original Tetris requires 0177 character to be BLOCK to draw. > > Interesting! ?Most stuff is OK with VT100 instead of VT52. This TETRIS.SAV and many other soviet RT-11 games used hardcoded VT-52 sequences for cursor movement and positioning, i.e. "short" ESC "A" instead of ESC "[" "A" e.t.c. I've tried alot of VT-52/telnet emulators, it's awful. The one of the best is a M$ HyperTerm (sic!) in VT-52 mode. Electronica-60 was equipped with 15-IE-00-013 videoterminal (not sure about origins, maybe Tectronix clone ?). It had rather similar VT-52 sequences (K52.SAV worked w/o any problems). Also it had Cyrillic charset swithable via SI/SO ASCII control codes. The 0177 character was a 6x8 block. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektronika_60 and ru. interwiki Videoterminal: http://www.leningrad.su/museum/show_calc.php?n=283 I've put my collection of the soviet RT-11 games here: http://www.nwpi.ru/~alec/SIMH/ To run this games you need working SIMH and RT-11. ./pdp11 PDP-11 simulator V3.8-0 sim> attach rl0 rtv53_rl.dsk sim> attach rl1 games.dsk sim> set throttle 200k sim> set console pchar=37777777777 sim> set console telnet=23 sim> boot rl0 . RUN DL1:TETRIS.SAV -- -=AV=- -- -=AV=- From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jun 3 17:02:51 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:02:51 -0700 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 References: Message-ID: <4A26F30B.7192B636@cs.ubc.ca> Ethan Dicks wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > I thoght that one state was a positive voltage between +3V and +25V wrt > > signal ground and the other state was a negative voltage between -3V and > > -25V wrt signal ground. > > You might be on to something there... I checked and the 1488/1489 pair > is rated up to +/-30VDC. > > > Anything between -3V and +3V is illegal. > > Illegal, yes, but as others have pointed out, 0V might work with some > modern equipment. Well, just to wade in with another 'opinion', if I have it correct: the transmitter must drive the lines within the range +/-5V to +/-15V, the receiver must respond correctly to signals in the range +/-3V to +/-25V. The hysteresis provides some noise immunity; the wider receiver specs allows for some line drop, noise, and common-mode bumping. There is also something like a 1K to 7K impedance spec on a receiver. -- If there were one thing about RS232 and (smart) modems that I wish had been differently, it would be that the hayes modem standard had permitted some technique to switch between data mode and control mode without having those 2 second guard periods. That was (is) so annoying waiting for dial-up software to get the modem into control mode. I haven't thought it through completely in relation to the RS-232 protocol reqs., but perhaps using the control sigs in some manner, such as dropping DTR and then sending some special character sequence; or using some otherwise-unlikely combination of control sig states. From spedraja at ono.com Wed Jun 3 17:24:11 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 00:24:11 +0200 Subject: SLU's backpanel for one BA11-SB box (PDP-11/23 PLUS) In-Reply-To: <2D94DE2F-F39F-4329-B11A-42B67A734BEC@gmail.com> References: <95838e090906030809j5c953d2au42565de6e8cd7ed1@mail.gmail.com> <2D94DE2F-F39F-4329-B11A-42B67A734BEC@gmail.com> Message-ID: > > I need one with a couple of RS232 ports (because the KDF11-B comes with a >> couple of SLUs) >> > I'm guessing you need one fitted with those small (10-way?) AMP connectors. > I believe it's known as a D315 panel. > Thanks ! It appears as an element of the 11/84 in some sellers. Eventually, it would be great to get other panel with one Ethernet > connector > plus others. > I can fix you up with a DEQNA/DELQA cab kit if you need one. Thanks again. Let me receive the box and the back panel and I shall tell you something. By the way... I am using one old IBM XT to enclose one EDSI hard disk to use with the PDP. I have too a couple of RX33 diskette units (more or less standard, not RX50), but I don't know if I can use them with one PDP-11. Regards Sergio From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Jun 3 17:42:38 2009 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 18:42:38 -0400 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) Message-ID: <01C9E47B.2D3491A0@MSE_D03> -------------Original Message: Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 02:13:57 -0400 From: John Floren Subject: Re: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) Thank you. I'm more offended by the self-righteous response than by the original comments. "On a long enough time line, everyone's survival rate drops to zero." John On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 2:05 AM, Joe Giliberti wrote: > If you know someone who was lost, thats understandable, but the remarks > weren't really that bad. If someone on CC lost someone to it, let them > complain if they wish. There's no reason for you to be offended if you > didn't loose someone. 220 people out of the 7 billion on the planet is a > raindrop in the ocean. > -----------Reply: Boy, tough crowd! So, do you guys go around to funerals in your spare time wearing funny hats and telling the bereaved mother that her son's untimely death is insignificant compared to the starving kids in Africa, and besides, he would have died some day anyway? And when someone suggests that's a bit inappropriate you deck 'em? Inability to empathize is often the result of a brain injury; had any bad bumps on the head lately? m From ian_primus at yahoo.com Wed Jun 3 19:52:26 2009 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 17:52:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: QIC cartridge tape compatibility Message-ID: <944179.81494.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> I have an older UNIX system with an internal Archive Viper 150mb SCSI QIC tape drive. In the drive was a DC600A tape cartridge. What's the difference between DC600A cartridges and the DC6150 cartridges I remember seeing years ago? I've tried reading this tape, but it doesn't appear to contain readable data - but then again, it may not have ever been intended for this drive. -Ian From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 3 20:01:45 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:01:45 -0700 Subject: QIC cartridge tape compatibility In-Reply-To: <944179.81494.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <944179.81494.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A26BA89.1777.C3FD9B5@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jun 2009 at 17:52, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > I have an older UNIX system with an internal Archive Viper 150mb SCSI > QIC tape drive. In the drive was a DC600A tape cartridge. What's the > difference between DC600A cartridges and the DC6150 cartridges I > remember seeing years ago? I've tried reading this tape, but it > doesn't appear to contain readable data - but then again, it may not > have ever been intended for this drive. The old name for the DC6150 was DC600XL - XL for "Extended Length". I've used 600A, 6150/600XL and 6250 in my 150MB Tandberg and Caliper QIC-02 drives without any problem. --Chuck From rescue at hawkmountain.net Wed Jun 3 20:48:35 2009 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:48:35 -0400 Subject: QIC cartridge tape compatibility In-Reply-To: <944179.81494.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <944179.81494.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A2727F3.7020803@hawkmountain.net> Mr Ian Primus wrote: > I have an older UNIX system with an internal Archive Viper 150mb SCSI QIC tape drive. In the drive was a DC600A tape cartridge. What's the difference between DC600A cartridges and the DC6150 cartridges I remember seeing years ago? I've tried reading this tape, but it doesn't appear to contain readable data - but then again, it may not have ever been intended for this drive. > > -Ian > > DC600A = 9 tracks 60MB (600 ft tape), 550 Oersted DC6150 = 18 tracks, 150MB (600 ft tape), 550 Oersted I'd guess you can do 150MB on a DC600A as long as it is bulk erased first (I'd imagine the individual tracks are narrower on a QIC-150 formatted tape vis a QIC-24 format (60M) tape (much like 1.2M 5.25" floppy tracks are narrower than on the 360K drive (which led to all sorts of 'fun' writing 360K disks on a 1.2M drive!))) -- Curt From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 3 21:22:45 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:22:45 -0700 Subject: QIC cartridge tape compatibility In-Reply-To: <4A2727F3.7020803@hawkmountain.net> References: <944179.81494.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com>, <4A2727F3.7020803@hawkmountain.net> Message-ID: <4A26CD85.7591.C89D6EE@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jun 2009 at 21:48, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote: > DC600A = 9 tracks 60MB (600 ft tape), 550 Oersted > DC6150 = 18 tracks, 150MB (600 ft tape), 550 Oersted > > I'd guess you can do 150MB on a DC600A as long as it is bulk erased > first (I'd imagine the individual tracks are narrower on a QIC-150 > formatted tape vis a QIC-24 format (60M) tape (much like 1.2M 5.25" > floppy tracks are narrower than on the 360K drive (which led to all > sorts of 'fun' writing 360K disks on a 1.2M drive!))) That's odd--all of my 6150s are 620 ft. 6250s are 550 Oersted, but 1020 ft. What QIC-02 drives taking DC-600-sized carts require preformatted tape? I've got a Cipher 525 that takes DC600A carts, but it's a floppytape interface and probably requires preformatting. I've also got an Iomat requires a preformatted tape as the EOT and BOT markers are encoded (instead of holes in the tape). But all of my QIC02/QIC36/SCSI tape drives don't care what's on the tape beforehand. 9 tracks, 11 tracks, 18 tracks--it's all the same. On a related bit, I've gotten tapes in that were clearly written on the same system, but 310 Oe (DC300XL) tapes mixed with with 550 Oe (DC600A) tapes. Didn't seem to matter as far as readability 15 years down the road. --Chuck From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jun 3 21:37:30 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:37:30 -0700 Subject: Question re: 8" drive form-factor In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A27336A.7050605@brouhaha.com> Steven Hirsch wrote: > Here's a strange one: I recently acquired two Shugart 851 drives from > another cctech-er. They were in nice shape and operate fine. The > weird part is their form-factor. > > I have 8 or 10 other 8" drives in my collection, both half-height and > full-height, including two other 851 Shugarts. All of these are 8.5" > wide, with faceplate and frame being exactly the same size. > > These two "new" Shugart units are _9.5"_ wide at the faceplate and > require a clearance of about 9-1/8" for the frame. Can anyone explain > this odd sizing? Were they perhaps manufactured against an earlier > standard? IIRC, the "R" suffix drives are intended to be rack-mounted in pairs. I have no idea, though, how that could be better than using the standard-width drives since either way they're going to need some mounting hardware. Eric From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jun 3 21:40:44 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:40:44 -0600 Subject: VT52 emulator (was: Fw: Still Falling for Tetris, 25 Years After Its Birth ) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:50:40 +0400. <347d9b1b0906031450i6ae1d2dl97507cc911e59d24@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <347d9b1b0906031450i6ae1d2dl97507cc911e59d24 at mail.gmail.com>, Alexander Voropay writes: > This TETRIS.SAV and many other soviet RT-11 games used > hardcoded VT-52 sequences for cursor movement and positioning, > i.e. "short" ESC "A" instead of ESC "[" "A" e.t.c. VT100 supports these short escape sequences when in VT52 mode. Maybe the problem is that you didn't issue the escape sequence to put your VT100/emulator into VT52 mode first? > Electronica-60 was equipped with 15-IE-00-013 videoterminal > (not sure about origins, maybe Tectronix clone ?). It had rather > similar VT-52 sequences (K52.SAV worked w/o any problems). > Also it had Cyrillic charset swithable via SI/SO ASCII control > codes. The 0177 character was a 6x8 block. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektronika_60 > and ru. interwiki > > Videoterminal: > http://www.leningrad.su/museum/show_calc.php?n=3D283 That is one cool looking video terminal, for sure :-). Physically it doesn't look like any Tektronix terminal, nor does the on-screen font shown in those photos. Most terminals ultimately ended up emulating two models: VT100 and Tektronix 4010/4014. The former was for character based displays and the latter was for graphics. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Wed Jun 3 21:41:35 2009 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:41:35 -0400 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) In-Reply-To: <01C9E47B.2D3491A0@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20090603215436.03e904c8@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that M H Stein may have mentioned these words: >Boy, tough crowd! > >So, do you guys go around to funerals in your spare time wearing funny >hats and >telling the bereaved mother that her son's untimely death is insignificant >compared >to the starving kids in Africa, and besides, he would have died some day >anyway? >And when someone suggests that's a bit inappropriate you deck 'em? Not how I would have put it, but I do agree. (weird, eh?) That said, if I can interject my own offtopic drivel here (everyone else is doing it... ;-) it really is important to walk a mile in someone else's moccasins before hitting the send button. Me personally... (did you catch the "Me personally" part??? Just wanted to emphasize that before you read what's next...) my untimely demise was supposed to happen over 40 years ago. It should have happened a few times since as well. I do *not* expect anyone to shed a tear _for me_ when it finally does happen. Drink a beer, pity my kids, feel relief for my wife (;-) but don't cry for me, revel in the years I shouldn't have had and the lives I've at least tried to help during my (in the grand scheme of things) minuscule existence on this orb. That said, any non-expected (sudden) loss is the hardest to bear (again, speaking from experience) and my heart goes out to the families & friends of those who perished who are now shouldering that burden. >Inability to empathize is often the result of a brain injury; had any bad >bumps on the head lately? Ugh. I'd file the previous comments to a poor attempt at levity (to give [minimal] credit where credit is due, at least they were ontopic - Guru meditation, etc. and were centered on a malfunctioning mechanical device) I find that comment just as tasteless as the comments before... do two wrongs make a right? To further the "poor attempt at levity" does anyone else here know the true meaning of life? "It's a sexually transmitted disease that ultimately results in death." That pretty much sums up how I view my life... but I don't transmit that viewpoint to others', but someone else will prolly take that snippet out of context. Now I can be loved & hated at the same time; true balance has been restored. Personally, I'll save my /true/ disdain for the Michigan State University students that _got up and cheered_ when the twin towers went down. Just teetering on the (prolly electrified) fence... Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me zmerch at 30below.com. | SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jun 3 21:44:51 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:44:51 -0700 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: <1243887860.1093.45.camel@elric> References: <4A1F1852.355206C9@cs.ubc.ca> <20090529123435.GJ31310@n0jcf.net> <1243676231.1093.23.camel@elric> <20090530224619.GO31310@n0jcf.net> <2B524E4E-1782-40D6-AAD2-3E10449A028A@neurotica.com> <20090601193231.GA26422@lucky.misty.com> <1243887860.1093.45.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A273523.50603@brouhaha.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Okay, let's try again. I have a circa-70s 300-baud modem, that will > generate incorrect tones when it's plugged into a USB-to-serial > converter, but not when it's plugged into a real serial port. > > Why might this happen? > > The USB-serial adapter may be driving some of the other EIA-232 (formerly RS-232) signals differently than the "real serial port", and that might change the behavior of the modem, for instance by switching it from originate to answer mode, or switching it to V.21 frequencies for non-US operation, or putting it in analog loopback mode for testing, or... By the way, a 103 or V.21 modem doesn't actually have a fixed baud rate. They were officially specified for operation up to a maximum of 300 baud, but some people were able to get the 103 to work at 450 baud. Eric From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jun 3 21:47:13 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:47:13 -0600 Subject: vintage hardware still alive and kickin' -- another successful launch from vandenberg afb In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:40:23 -0700. <7d3530220906031140p3fc9abfbt247ed310a94dc10@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <7d3530220906031140p3fc9abfbt247ed310a94dc10 at mail.gmail.com>, John Floren writes: > given the way some sellers seem to like sticking every computer name > under the sun in their descriptions. Its called keyword spam and you can report a listing on ebay for doing that. I do that when I've got searches looking for specific things and items keep coming up that don't match their description because of the keyword spam. Its not in ebay's interest to have your searches return false positives. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ian_primus at yahoo.com Wed Jun 3 21:49:10 2009 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 19:49:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: QIC cartridge tape compatibility Message-ID: <728762.60532.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 6/3/09, Chuck Guzis wrote: > The old name for the DC6150 was DC600XL - XL for "Extended > Length".? > I've used 600A, 6150/600XL and 6250 in my 150MB Tandberg > and Caliper > QIC-02 drives without any problem. OK, that makes sense. So the media itself is compatible, that's good. Further examination of the tape I have reveals a possible explanation for my inability to read it - it appears that the tape itself is damaged very near the beginning, most likely from having been left loaded in a drive for the last ten years or so. Digging through things here, I did find one other tape. It works in the drive, so at least the drive is working properly. So, that brings me to my next question - anyone have some extra QIC 600/6150 tapes laying around? I need some to make boot media. -Ian From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Wed Jun 3 22:23:05 2009 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:23:05 -0700 Subject: TI Silent 700 model 733 manual In-Reply-To: <728762.60532.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <728762.60532.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A273E19.5060700@sbcglobal.net> If I remember correctly, someone was looking for a TI 733 manual. I found one today while sorting some boxes. If it's still needed I can get it to Al to be scanned. This is the large TI terminal, not the portable one. Bob From keithvz at verizon.net Wed Jun 3 23:20:51 2009 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith Monahan) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:20:51 -0400 Subject: when soldering irons go bad In-Reply-To: <200905281311.n4SDBa0K020674@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <200905281311.n4SDBa0K020674@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A274BA3.6030809@verizon.net> Dennis Boone wrote: > > One reason I never graduated to /real/ soldering stations is that I kept > > wondering "what do I do when it goes bad?". What do you guys recommend? I've been pretty happy with my Xytronic 137ESD although I'm not a heavy regular user. http://www.howardelectronics.com/xytronic/Images/137ESDLargeWeb.jpg I know several other people who have also purchased one and been happy. My first choice was Weller, but they were roughly 50-100% more expensive, and I couldn't justify the cost difference. HTH Keith From keithvz at verizon.net Wed Jun 3 23:23:10 2009 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith Monahan) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:23:10 -0400 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? Message-ID: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> Has anyone read Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age ? http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer/dp/0887309895 I swear the more and more I read about the history of computers, the more I keep coming back to Xerox PARC. The 70's must have been a pretty exciting time to be there. Anyone have any back stories or have read the book? I've got it on order, but I've read some scathing reviews about how the author got it wrong. I know some of the scathing reviews might be by people who weren't described in a favorable light in the book --- but I've seen plenty of technical stories get screwed up. Also any comments on Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System would be helpful. Thanks Keith From evan at snarc.net Wed Jun 3 23:31:14 2009 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:31:14 -0400 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4A274E12.8040907@snarc.net> > Has anyone read Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the > Computer Age ? Yes. I liked the book very much. Highly recommended. You'll also enjoy "The Dream Machine" by Mitchell Waldrop. Much of it overlaps with D.o.L. http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution-Computing/dp/014200135X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244089806&sr=8-1 From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Wed Jun 3 23:31:29 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:31:29 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet Message-ID: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Hey All -- So, instead of debugging my 11/40 last night I decided to get my 11/73 running again since all it needed was to be put back together :). Installed 2.11BSD on it from TK50 tape, and it was only slightly faster than the last time I installed it -- at 19.2kbps using vtserver :). At any rate, it's online, so to speak, so if you feel like playing around, just telnet to yahozna.dyndns.org. (login: guest, password Guest1!) Be kind, it's not the speediest thing out there. I figure it's rather unlikely it'll be hacked into, and if it is, worst case I can restore the drive from the image I made of it... Is there a repository of source/binaries for stuff people have (back) ported to 2.11BSD? I'm thinking of seeing if I can squeeze an older version of Apache on it if I ever find the time... - Josh (Specs, just in case anyone cares: 11/73 CPU, 2mb RAM, TK50 tape, DEQNA ethernet, TS11 -> M4 9 track (currently non functional) Emulex U07 SCSI -> SCSI->IDE bridge -> IBM Microdrive (4gb)) From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jun 3 23:42:40 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:42:40 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4A2750C0.4060704@bitsavers.org> Keith Monahan wrote: > Anyone have any back stories or have read the book? look for: Bob Taylor Butler Lampson Chuck Thacker Wayne Lichtenberger, Project Genie, Berkeley Computer Corporation William English Doug Englebart, SRI, Augment, Bootstrap Institute Bill Duvall Burt Sutherland Alan Kay Dan Ingalls Adele Goldberg ..and on and on and on They hired good people, and it was part of a continuum starting in the late fifties and many are active in the Valley decades after the events in the book. From doug at stillhq.com Wed Jun 3 23:56:45 2009 From: doug at stillhq.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:56:45 +1000 Subject: USB/serial adapters (was: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A27540D.10001@stillhq.com> >>> I think there has been other threads here regardng the hit-or-miss >>> nature of these USB-to-serial adapters. I know when I needed one >>> to sync a Palm, I couldn't find one that did it right. I think >>> I hit my head against three $30 adapters to no avail, but this >>> was four-five years ago. >> >> I've used them to talk to terminals and had no problems. > > Yep. I use them all day, every day, and have never had the problems > I've heard people complain about here. Right now on my main desktop > machine, I have a USB<->serial adapter connected to an ARM9 > development board, another connected to a homebrew Z80 SBC, another > connected to a PDP-11/83, and yet another connected to a PDP-11/70. > They all work wonderfully. I use Keyspan adapters. > Likewise, I have never had a problem - for me they Just Work (tm) - Now to admit my dirty little secret... Just use the TX/RX/GND Lines, and tie RTS-CTS, and DSR-DTS-CD (At each end of the cable) - Hardware handshaking never quite works the way you expect it to! Doug From evan at snarc.net Thu Jun 4 00:02:40 2009 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:02:40 -0400 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A2750C0.4060704@bitsavers.org> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A2750C0.4060704@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4A275570.9030102@snarc.net> > look for: > > Bob Taylor > Butler Lampson > Chuck Thacker > > Wayne Lichtenberger, Project Genie, Berkeley Computer Corporation > > William English > Doug Englebart, SRI, Augment, Bootstrap Institute > Bill Duvall > Burt Sutherland > > Alan Kay > Dan Ingalls > Adele Goldberg > > ..and on and on and on ... and Larry Tesler From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Jun 4 00:34:30 2009 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:34:30 -0400 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> I read it, it was a good read, it really visualizes to the reader the whole atmosphere of PARC from its beginnings, I thought it well detailed how corporate nearly lost its prized possession - the Xerox copier with its arrogance. The refrigerator sized video frame buffer system and other amazing products, its a lot more then just a discussion about the Alto and the GUI. Its a good book overall. If you enjoy reading it, also read Soul of a new Machine, its about the creation of Data General and I think that was an even better read. Curt Keith Monahan wrote: > Has anyone read Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the > Computer Age ? > > http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer/dp/0887309895 > > I swear the more and more I read about the history of computers, the > more I keep coming back to Xerox PARC. The 70's must have been a pretty > exciting time to be there. > > Anyone have any back stories or have read the book? I've got it on > order, but I've read some scathing reviews about how the author got it > wrong. I know some of the scathing reviews might be by people who > weren't described in a favorable light in the book --- but I've seen > plenty of technical stories get screwed up. > > Also any comments on Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System > would be helpful. > > Thanks > > Keith > > > From evan at snarc.net Thu Jun 4 00:48:29 2009 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:48:29 -0400 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> > If you enjoy reading it, also read Soul of a new Machine, its about > the creation of Data General and I think that was an even better read. I disagree. Nobody would have bought Soul if it was titled, "How Data General designed its latest computer." I found it very dull, whereas Dealers tells a story of a whole new era in computing. From mdavidson1963 at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 01:03:26 2009 From: mdavidson1963 at gmail.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 23:03:26 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 10:48 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: >> If you enjoy reading it, also read Soul of a new Machine, its about the >> creation of Data General and I think that was an even better read. > > I disagree. ?Nobody would have bought Soul if it was titled, "How Data > General designed its latest computer." ?I found it very dull, whereas > Dealers tells a story of a whole new era in computing. Oh no, I have to agree with Curt... Soul Of A New Machine is a great read, as was Dealers. Of course, I'm a huge DG fan so I'm probably biased a bit. ;) Mark From john_a_s2004 at hotmail.com Wed Jun 3 02:39:57 2009 From: john_a_s2004 at hotmail.com (John S) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 07:39:57 +0000 Subject: HP boards for sale in Sweden Message-ID: Hi, I saw a load of boards for sale here at 40 euro each: http://www.mjs-electronics.se/ then navigate to 'Test Instrument' on top menu, then 'Data & Telecom' on left menu. Some look like they belong in test equipment, but could some be for HP minis? I have no idea whether these are a good price for untested boards, but they certainly have a lot of different ones to browse. Regards, John _________________________________________________________________ Get the best of MSN on your mobile http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/147991039/direct/01/ From steve.cosam at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 11:39:50 2009 From: steve.cosam at gmail.com (Steve Maddison) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 18:39:50 +0200 Subject: SLU's backpanel for one BA11-SB box (PDP-11/23 PLUS) In-Reply-To: References: <95838e090906030809j5c953d2au42565de6e8cd7ed1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2D94DE2F-F39F-4329-B11A-42B67A734BEC@gmail.com> On 3 Jun 2009, at 18:11, SPC wrote: > Exactly. With ports mounted. The BA11-SB box supports a couple of > them. > > I need one with a couple of RS232 ports (because the KDF11-B comes > with a > couple of SLUs) I'm guessing you need one fitted with those small (10-way?) AMP connectors. I believe it's known as a D315 panel. > Eventually, it would be great to get other panel with one Ethernet > connector > plus others. I can fix you up with a DEQNA/DELQA cab kit if you need one. Cheers, Steve From blstuart at bellsouth.net Thu Jun 4 01:22:11 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 01:22:11 -0500 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <9d193b54d05f1670412dc9650ad2e0cf@bellsouth.net> > On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 10:48 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: >>> If you enjoy reading it, also read Soul of a new Machine, its about the >>> creation of Data General and I think that was an even better read. >> >> I disagree. ?Nobody would have bought Soul if it was titled, "How Data >> General designed its latest computer." ?I found it very dull, whereas >> Dealers tells a story of a whole new era in computing. > > Oh no, I have to agree with Curt... Soul Of A New Machine is a great > read, as was Dealers. Of course, I'm a huge DG fan so I'm probably > biased a bit. ;) Actually my interest in DG is largely a result of Soul. It's one of the few books I've read more than once, and one of even fewer that I've read in one sitting. One of the things that makes it stand out is that it comes at the story more from the engineer's perspective and less of the business perspective than many of the others. And for me the engineering is far, far more interesting than the business. BLS From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 4 01:25:15 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:25:15 -0700 Subject: Elgar 1100 UPS Schematic? Message-ID: <4A27065B.28227.D681046@cclist.sydex.com> We had the rare thunderstorm here and my Elgar 1100 UPS turned into a large brick. I've got the schematics for the 1600, but not the 1100-- and I'd like to have it in hand before I go digging into the rat's nest of heavy wire. I've only had to work on it once before to replace a 50W zener, but this looks a little more involved. Can anyone help? If not, I think I can use the 1600 material to guess what's going on. it's close but not quite a match. Thanks, Chuck From evan at snarc.net Thu Jun 4 01:42:23 2009 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:42:23 -0400 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <9d193b54d05f1670412dc9650ad2e0cf@bellsouth.net> References: <9d193b54d05f1670412dc9650ad2e0cf@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <4A276CCF.8050100@snarc.net> > > Actually my interest in DG is largely a result of Soul. It's one of the few books I've read more than once, and one of even fewer that I've read in one sitting. One of the things that makes it stand out is that it comes at the story more from the engineer's perspective and less of the business perspective than many of the others. And for me the engineering is far, far more interesting than the business. > > BLS Fair enough. I'm more interested in the "story" behind the companies and products. For my own book, I'm concentrating on writing about who the people were, what they were thinking about, what decisions they had to make, etc., when designing products in a certain genre of computer history. From paul at frixxon.co.uk Thu Jun 4 01:54:09 2009 From: paul at frixxon.co.uk (paul at frixxon.co.uk) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 07:54:09 +0100 (BST) Subject: VT52 emulator (was: Fw: Still Falling for Tetris, 25 Years After Its Birth ) In-Reply-To: <347d9b1b0906031450i6ae1d2dl97507cc911e59d24@mail.gmail.com> References: <347d9b1b0906030131o2c2460d6qef0369629e5b40ef@mail.gmail.com> <347d9b1b0906031450i6ae1d2dl97507cc911e59d24@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Alexander wrote: > > This TETRIS.SAV and many other soviet RT-11 games used > hardcoded VT-52 sequences for cursor movement and positioning, > i.e. "short" ESC "A" instead of ESC "[" "A" e.t.c. > > I've tried alot of VT-52/telnet emulators, it's awful. [...] > > Electronica-60 was equipped with 15-IE-00-013 videoterminal. > It had rather similar VT-52 sequences [...] > The 0177 character was a 6x8 block. The VT52 ignored 0177 on receipt, so this game won't work on any decent VT52 emulator. You'd have to guess where the pieces were. :-) Paul From tiggerlasv at aim.com Thu Jun 4 02:11:16 2009 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:11:16 -0400 Subject: SLU's backpanel for one BA11-SB box (PDP-11/23 PLUS) Message-ID: <8CBB2FAC99914D2-B50-209A@WEBMAIL-MC20.sysops.aol.com> I believe what you're looking for (at least for the KDF11-B serial connectors) is this module: http://scandocs.trailing-edge.com/micropdp11/volume1_system_cpus/EK-245AA-MG-001/out017.html While there are probably 3rd-party modules out there, it is easier to find the real DEC bulkheads. Most of the DEC modules come with their own style of bulkheads. The DZV11 has it's own bulkhead, as does the DLV11-J The DHV11 bulkhead will also work on the DHQ11 You *could* build a custom ribbon cable to interface the DZV11 / DHV11 / DHQ11 bulkheads to work with the DEC standard 10-pin connectors, but it's easier just to find the proper bulkheads. Alternately, you could use just the mounting plate from the various bulkheads, and install your own DB25 connectors, and 10-pin cables. T From hamren at sdu.se Thu Jun 4 03:20:49 2009 From: hamren at sdu.se (Lars Hamren) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:20:49 +0200 Subject: TI Silent 700 model 733 manual In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> > If I remember correctly, someone was looking for a TI 733 manual. That was me, a few weeks ago. > I found one today while sorting some boxes. Which manual did you find? I am looking for a service/repair manual. I already have "Model 733 ASR/KSR Operating Instructions, 959227-9701, Rev C" revised October 1974. > This is the large TI terminal, not the portable one. Mine is the large one with casette drives, pictured here: http://www.sdu.se/computer-automation-museum/pub/gallery/ti--silent-733-asr-with-casette-drives.jpg Thanks in advance /Lars Hamr?n From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Thu Jun 4 03:51:43 2009 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 10:51:43 +0200 Subject: HP boards for sale in Sweden In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48B826919BA940BAAE557ABFC539631E@xp1800> I know the firm it is possible to bargain with them, but prices are exclusive VAT (25% for Sweden). And shipping from Sweden isn't cheap, and it takes them most times one or two weeks before they ship. I bought a lot of drives and computers from them a few month ago, it took me some time to negotiate the right price ;-) After that everything wend smoothly and my stuff arrived After a few weeks in good order. The boards are for the HP 64000 Developement System and for the HP 6942A Multi-Programmer. -Rik > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens John S > Verzonden: woensdag 3 juni 2009 9:40 > Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Onderwerp: HP boards for sale in Sweden > > > Hi, > > I saw a load of boards for sale here at 40 euro each: > > http://www.mjs-electronics.se/ > > then navigate to 'Test Instrument' on top menu, then 'Data & > Telecom' on left menu. > > Some look like they belong in test equipment, but could some > be for HP minis? > > I have no idea whether these are a good price for untested > boards, but they certainly have a lot of different ones to browse. > > Regards, > John > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get the best of MSN on your mobile > http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/147991039/direct/01/ > > From spedraja at ono.com Thu Jun 4 04:01:34 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 11:01:34 +0200 Subject: SLU's backpanel for one BA11-SB box (PDP-11/23 PLUS) In-Reply-To: <8CBB2FAC99914D2-B50-209A@WEBMAIL-MC20.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CBB2FAC99914D2-B50-209A@WEBMAIL-MC20.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: I think is this, but the problem is how to install it in one ba11-sb Regards Sergio 2009/6/4 > > > I believe what you're looking for > (at least for the KDF11-B serial connectors) > is this module: > > > http://scandocs.trailing-edge.com/micropdp11/volume1_system_cpus/EK-245AA-MG-001/out017.html > > While there are probably 3rd-party modules out there, > it is easier to find the real DEC bulkheads. > > Most of the DEC modules come with their own style of bulkheads. > > The DZV11 has it's own bulkhead, as does the DLV11-J > > The DHV11 bulkhead will also work on the DHQ11 > > You *could* build a custom ribbon cable to interface > the DZV11 / DHV11 / DHQ11 bulkheads to work with > the DEC standard 10-pin connectors, but it's easier > just to find the proper bulkheads. > > Alternately, you could use just the mounting plate > from the various bulkheads, and install your own > DB25 connectors, and 10-pin cables. > > > > > T > > From james at machineroom.info Thu Jun 4 03:05:43 2009 From: james at machineroom.info (James Wilson) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:05:43 +0100 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A278057.30706@machineroom.info> Josh Dersch wrote: > Hey All -- > > So, instead of debugging my 11/40 last night I decided to get my 11/73 > running again since all it needed was to be put back together :). > Installed 2.11BSD on it from TK50 tape, and it was only slightly > faster than the last time I installed it -- at 19.2kbps using vtserver > :). > > At any rate, it's online, so to speak, so if you feel like playing > around, just telnet to yahozna.dyndns.org. (login: guest, password > Guest1!) Be kind, it's not the speediest thing out there. I figure > it's rather unlikely it'll be hacked into, and if it is, worst case I > can restore the drive from the image I made of it... > > Is there a repository of source/binaries for stuff people have (back) > ported to 2.11BSD? I'm thinking of seeing if I can squeeze an older > version of Apache on it if I ever find the time... > > - Josh > > (Specs, just in case anyone cares: > 11/73 CPU, > 2mb RAM, > TK50 tape, > DEQNA ethernet, > TS11 -> M4 9 track (currently non functional) > Emulex U07 SCSI -> SCSI->IDE bridge -> IBM Microdrive (4gb)) > > > > > Sweet! I've just popped my 11 cherry :) As one of the, I suspect, younger members of the list (37) I've always fancied a proper blinkenlights 11 but never been in the right place at the right time. Compiling "hello world" on real hardware is just about the next best thing! Regards, James http://www.machineroom.info From bqt at softjar.se Thu Jun 4 03:59:38 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:59:38 +0200 Subject: VT52 emulator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A278CFA.80809@softjar.se> Richard wrote: >In article <347d9b1b0906030131o2c2460d6qef0369629e5b40ef at mail.gmail.com>, Alexander Voropay writes: >> > P.S. I have the original TETRIS.SAV binary for the Elektronika-60 (a >> > Soviet LSI-11 clone) >> > for the RT-11. It works under SIMH. Unfortunately, I have NO good >> > opensource VT-52 emulator >> > to play. Original Tetris requires 0177 character to be BLOCK to draw. > > Interesting! Most stuff is OK with VT100 instead of VT52. Is it > because the VT100 emulation is lacking in its VT52 support, or is it > because the real VT100 is lacking in its VT52 compatability? That was a weird comment. I'd say no stuff is OK with a VT100 if they expect a VT52. As soon as we go outside the plain "output running text", they are different. That said, a real VT100 can be switched into VT52-emulation, which is pretty good, although not exactly identical. In this case, the poster even was nice enough to tell what the problem was. A VT52 will display a block character when you send a DEL to it. A VT100 will not, not even in VT52-mode. And I don't think any other VT52-emulation I've seen does it either. In fact, I don't even know if a real VT52 do that. It might be a "feature" of some russian VT52-clone for all I know. I haven't had a working VT52 near me in 15 years now, so I can't check. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From frustum at pacbell.net Thu Jun 4 06:25:58 2009 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:25:58 -0500 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> Message-ID: <4A27AF46.7040600@pacbell.net> Evan Koblentz wrote: >> If you enjoy reading it, also read Soul of a new Machine, its about >> the creation of Data General and I think that was an even better read. > I disagree. Nobody would have bought Soul if it was titled, "How Data > General designed its latest computer." I found it very dull, whereas > Dealers tells a story of a whole new era in computing. I read it shortly after it came out and I thought it was a great read. A few years later, in 1986, I was working for Calera Recognition Systems, which at the time was called Palentir. Two or three months after joining, someone told me that the guy in the office next to my cube, Carl Alsing, was one of the people in Soul of A New Machine (Carl was the leader of the microkids, who wrote the microcode). I read the book again. The thing that impressed me about Tracy Kidder's writing was that in the part where Carl was described, Kidder captured aspects of Carl's personality in a paragraph or two that I recognized as being spot on. It gave the rest of the book that much more credibility. As was mention, the book wasn't so much about the DG business, but I'd disagree and say it wasn't so much about the engineering either; very little actually. It was mostly about the dynamics of the to bring the machine to life, both the internal politics of this skunk-works project and the inherent dynamics of the teams of mostly inexperienced engineers trying to accomplish something way beyond what they should have been able to do. If it had been a book about the actual engineering, very few people would have read it. From ragooman at comcast.net Thu Jun 4 06:32:11 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:32:11 -0400 Subject: vintage hardware still alive and kickin' -- another successful launch from vandenberg afb In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A27B0BB.4070601@comcast.net> David Griffith wrote: > On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, Richard wrote: > >> In article <4A25EEBC.4060200 at comcast.net>, >> Dan Roganti writes: >> >>> "TIPS consists of two systems of the CDC Cyber 840 computers, 21 >>> systems >>> of the SEL 32/55 and 32/75A computers, and various peripheral and >>> supporting equipment on 2 acres of floor space." >>> http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/computers_mini_gallery_tips.html >> >> The terminals in this photo look like yummy CDC/PLATO terminals. >> > > What are those things that look like photocopiers at middle-right-bottom? > These happen to be the high speed plotters. The only info I have on them is they are made by Gould and were capable of speeds up to 10in/sec. Unfortunately, they were replaced about 15 yrs (photo is old) due to the fact that the liquid toner happened to be an environmental hazard. =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From pontus at Update.UU.SE Thu Jun 4 06:35:56 2009 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 13:35:56 +0200 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A278057.30706@machineroom.info> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A278057.30706@machineroom.info> Message-ID: <20090604113556.GA27464@Update.UU.SE> On Thu, Jun 04, 2009 at 09:05:43AM +0100, James Wilson wrote: > As one of the, I suspect, younger members of the list (37) I've always > fancied a proper blinkenlights 11 but never been in the right place at > the right time. Compiling "hello world" on real hardware is just about > the next best thing! Not to brag, but I'm 28 :) And I know of two more below 30, but I guess the average is a bit higher. Congrats on the cherrypopping (not something I thought I would say on this list) Cheers, Pontus From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Jun 4 06:46:08 2009 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:46:08 -0400 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A27AF46.7040600@pacbell.net> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> <4A27AF46.7040600@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <5102.1244115968@mini> Jim Battle wrote: > .. >Systems, which at the time was called Palentir. Two or three months >after joining, someone told me that the guy in the office next to my >cube, Carl Alsing, was one of the people in Soul of A New Machine (Carl >was the leader of the microkids, who wrote the microcode). That's funny. I worked with Josh Rosen for 6 months before someone pulled me aside and whispered, "he's *that* Josh Rosen" :-) It didn't change anything (he was still fun to work with and very good) but it gave us more to talk about :-) -brad From alec at sensi.org Thu Jun 4 07:24:38 2009 From: alec at sensi.org (Alexander Voropay) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 16:24:38 +0400 Subject: VT52 emulator (was: Fw: Still Falling for Tetris, 25 Years After Its Birth ) In-Reply-To: References: <347d9b1b0906030131o2c2460d6qef0369629e5b40ef@mail.gmail.com> <347d9b1b0906031450i6ae1d2dl97507cc911e59d24@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <347d9b1b0906040524n137e8778sf23b4d0c45b07e96@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/4 : >> The 0177 character was a 6x8 block. > > The VT52 ignored 0177 on receipt, so this game won't work on any decent > VT52 emulator. You'd have to guess where the pieces were. :-) I need opensource VT-52 emulator then. It should support Telnet to communicate with SIMH. PuTTY is good mature opensourse project but does not support VT-52 at all and very complicated (for me...). -- -=AV=- From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jun 4 08:11:35 2009 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 06:11:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <9d193b54d05f1670412dc9650ad2e0cf@bellsouth.net> References: <9d193b54d05f1670412dc9650ad2e0cf@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: > Actually my interest in DG is largely a result of Soul. It's > one of the few books I've read more than once, and one > of even fewer that I've read in one sitting. One of the things > that makes it stand out is that it comes at the story more > from the engineer's perspective and less of the business > perspective than many of the others. And for me the > engineering is far, far more interesting than the business. > I think my favorite quote from that book is (approximately), "I shall deal with no measurement of time shorter than a fortnight". :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 08:15:00 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:15:00 -0400 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) In-Reply-To: <427125.14223.qm@web37101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <427125.14223.qm@web37101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A27C8D4.3080402@gmail.com> Julian Skidmore wrote: >>> Technically it was lost over the Atlantic Ocean and reports >>> of some sort >>> of computer failure 30 minutes before they vanished. >> Windows BSOD?? >>> It's a shame they were using Amiga's, they'd have made it to France 1 >>> hour earlier than expected! > >> "Guru meditation number"? > > These posts are the most insensitive & complete off-topic remarks I have > ever seen on CCTech. The authors should be ashamed of themselves. > > For all you or I know, CCTech members could have had friends or loved > ones on the aircraft, but in any case the passengers and staff who > (as is almost certain) lost their lives in such a tragic and terrifying > manner should be treated with far more respect than has been shown here. Humor is one way of dealing with tragedy and it always has been. Peace... Sridhar From steve at cosam.org Thu Jun 4 07:11:47 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 14:11:47 +0200 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <95838e090906040511l380f022cn39fdd3e89ab84175@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/4 Josh Dersch : > So, instead of debugging my 11/40 last night I decided to get my 11/73 > running again since all it needed was to be put back together :). ?Installed > 2.11BSD on it from TK50 tape, and it was only slightly faster than the last > time I installed it -- at 19.2kbps using vtserver :). Nice - I remember putting 2.11 on my '73 with VTServer certainly took long enough, even at 34.4Kbps! At least with the TK50 you get to use the original installation programs on a proper terminal. > At any rate, it's online, so to speak, so if you feel like playing around, > just telnet to yahozna.dyndns.org. ?(login: guest, password Guest1!) Be > kind, it's not the speediest thing out there. Your disk is probably a bit quicker than the rickety RD53 I used ;-) Did you recompile for DEQNA support? That took my machine a good couple of hours, after working through the overlay size issues. >?I figure it's rather unlikely > it'll be hacked into, and if it is, worst case I can restore the drive from > the image I made of it... More likely to de DoS'ed by hoards of classic computer geeks ;-) > Is there a repository of source/binaries for stuff people have (back) ported > to 2.11BSD? ?I'm thinking of seeing if I can squeeze an older version of > Apache on it if I ever find the time... That I'd like to see, although I'm not sure how it'll run with 2MB of RAM. There are other HTTP servers out there though, of course... Cheers, -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ From dgahling at hotmail.com Thu Jun 4 08:52:59 2009 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 09:52:59 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: why would you ruin a perfectly good PDP with something as awful as BSD? what's the point? is there any advantage to ruining such wonderful hardware rather than running BSD say on an old 286 or something? it completely loses it's uniqueness, no special software, never seeing those wonderful command lines unique look and feel, everything that makes the machine special. might as well run a vanilla BSD box, no one would know the difference. except some of the commands that show what it's running on, but big whoop there. so is there something special you can do that shows it's uniqueness? Dan. > Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 21:31:29 -0700 > From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu > To: > Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet > > Hey All -- > > So, instead of debugging my 11/40 last night I decided to get my 11/73 > running again since all it needed was to be put back together :). > Installed 2.11BSD on it from TK50 tape, and it was only slightly faster > than the last time I installed it -- at 19.2kbps using vtserver :). > > At any rate, it's online, so to speak, so if you feel like playing > around, just telnet to yahozna.dyndns.org. (login: guest, password > Guest1!) Be kind, it's not the speediest thing out there. I figure it's > rather unlikely it'll be hacked into, and if it is, worst case I can > restore the drive from the image I made of it... > > Is there a repository of source/binaries for stuff people have (back) > ported to 2.11BSD? I'm thinking of seeing if I can squeeze an older > version of Apache on it if I ever find the time... > > - Josh > > (Specs, just in case anyone cares: > 11/73 CPU, > 2mb RAM, > TK50 tape, > DEQNA ethernet, > TS11 -> M4 9 track (currently non functional) > Emulex U07 SCSI -> SCSI->IDE bridge -> IBM Microdrive (4gb)) > > > > _________________________________________________________________ Internet explorer 8 lets you browse the web faster. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9655582 From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Thu Jun 4 09:14:03 2009 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:14:03 -0400 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200906041414.n54EDwIm020489@keith.ezwind.net> On Thu, 4 Jun 2009 06:11:35 -0700 (PDT), Gene Buckle wrote: >I think my favorite quote from that book is (approximately), "I shall deal >with no measurement of time shorter than a fortnight". :) About the time they added KPH to the spedo of american cars, a number of followers began looking at Furlongs Per Fortnight (FPF) as a more meaningfull distance over time unit of mesurement than Kph based on a therory of large numbers being better and faster .... We all know 60 mph = 96 kph which sounds faster. The same 60 mph = 161280 fpf which sounds real fast but is too big a number for most auto displays. It was not until fpf was converted to the biniary K that it made using a 4.5 digit display usefull for something other than a cheep digital scale. Introducing 1024, the galatic binary constant, into the conversion helped to modernize it a bit. 60 mph = 157.5 Kfpf, now that sounds real fast to a binary person. As a project planning person, plan for a week but ask for a fortnight, that way when they cut you project time/budget way back there was still a good chance of a timely completion. I like and use a Fortnight based billing and accounting system, that way I have 2 weeks to recover from the experiance of dealing with the book keeping chore. I have always questioned if the 28 day cycle that the credit card companys liked to use, was based on a bifortnight or was it more Menstrual in its origin? I am sure it was because they liked the idea of 13 periods a year, the cycle of lunacy based on a pagan lunar calander. Back under my rock The other Bob From tshoppa at wmata.com Thu Jun 4 09:14:59 2009 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 10:14:59 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet Message-ID: Josh writes: ? I'm thinking of seeing if I can squeeze an ? older version of Apache on it if I ever find the time... Pre-Apache, it was the "NCSA HTTPd", and I think a very stripped down version may fit. It may be vaguely possible to include the CGI stuff although I think that would be a lot of effort for very little reward. But... if you just want a web server, all you have to do is parse the HTTP request string and serve up the file. The DECUS C (K&R C, not ANSI C) web server at http://shop-pdp.kent.edu/ runs very nicely and would probably be way easier to port than starting with anything in ANSI C. But I think the simplest thing is just to start from scratch! Tim. From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 4 09:19:20 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 07:19:20 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: At 9:52 AM -0400 6/4/09, Dan Gahlinger wrote: >why would you ruin a perfectly good PDP with something as awful as BSD? >what's the point? > >is there any advantage to ruining such wonderful hardware rather than running >BSD say on an old 286 or something? > >it completely loses it's uniqueness, no special software, never >seeing those wonderful command lines >unique look and feel, everything that makes the machine special. > >might as well run a vanilla BSD box, no one would know the difference. >except some of the commands that show what it's running on, but big >whoop there. > >so is there something special you can do that shows it's uniqueness? I couldn't agree more, HOWEVER, there is the slight issue of TCP/IP support. That would pretty much limit him to RT-11. Of course if you put it on HECnet you can run pretty much anything except RT-11. Personally my preference would be for RSTS/E or RSX-11M/M+. My view is if you want to run UNIX on DEC hardware, either get a DEC PC, or a DECstation (MIPS). I've run UNIX on Alpha, but mainly because I had a spare, and was already running OpenVMS on several Alpha's and VAXen. Having said that, one of these years I'd like to get 2.11BSD installed on a Hard Drive for my /73 (I use removable SCSI HD's). Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Thu Jun 4 09:21:14 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 07:21:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) Message-ID: <334108.73252.qm@web112205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> This is not dealing with tragedy, this is just tasteless. I can understand humor (I am a big fan of lowbrow humor myself) to try and deal with a tragedy, but this is not the example. There is also a time and a place for everything, the time is to close and this is not the forum. What was said was tasteless and the only thing it did was reflect poorly on those who wrote it. --- On Thu, 6/4/09, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > Humor is one way of dealing with tragedy and it always has > been. > > Peace...? Sridhar > From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jun 4 09:30:45 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 07:30:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 4 Jun 2009, Shoppa, Tim wrote: > Josh writes: > > ? I'm thinking of seeing if I can squeeze an > > ? older version of Apache on it if I ever find the time... > > Pre-Apache, it was the "NCSA HTTPd", and I think a very stripped down > version may fit. It may be vaguely possible to include the CGI stuff although > I think that would be a lot of effort for very little reward. > > But... if you just want a web server, all you have to do is parse the HTTP > request string and serve up the file. > > The DECUS C (K&R C, not ANSI C) web server at http://shop-pdp.kent.edu/ > runs very nicely and would probably be way easier to port than starting > with anything in ANSI C. But I think the simplest thing is just to start > from scratch! How about porting thttpd? -- 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? From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 09:26:18 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 10:26:18 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 9:52 AM, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > why would you ruin a perfectly good PDP with something as awful as BSD? > what's the point? Because you can explore the roots of UNIX? > is there any advantage to ruining such wonderful hardware rather than running > BSD say on an old 286 or something? Only because UNIX sprung from the PDP-11 and didn't spring from an Intel box. If I wanted to use a 286 for something other than DOS, I'd probably run Minix. I don't know if there ever was a proper "BSD" ported or back-ported to the 286 (Venix, Xenix, etc., are evolutionary backwaters and therefore uninteresting to me). > it completely loses it's uniqueness, no special software, never seeing those wonderful command lines > unique look and feel, everything that makes the machine special. I love RT-11 (having made my living on it 20+ years ago) and a variety of proprietary DEC operating systems, so I understand the sentiment, but even back in the day, we ran 4BSD and SysV and Ultrix-32 on our 11/750 as well as VMS. More than a few universities ran 2BSD on their PDP-11/70s, not RSX-11M+ or RSTS/E. The history of DEC is intertwined with the history of UNIX, especially at academic sites. > might as well run a vanilla BSD box, no one would know the difference. > except some of the commands that show what it's running on, but big whoop there. > > so is there something special you can do that shows it's uniqueness? Living with the 16-bitness of the processor? 4BSD on a VAX was at one point, "the pinnacle" of the UNIX experience ("All the world's a VAX"). Massive address space, no need for overlays, etc. 2BSD is more representative of what people went through before 1978, with enough similarity to a modern environment that you can dabble without getting lost (older UNIX is missing lots of stuff that most of us take for granted anymore). I've also done some work exploring how the C compiler works by compiling programs on a PDP-11 platform, then disassembling them to see what C constructs map to what PDP-11 instructions (and I found the exercise quite enlightening). All of this can be easily done with a simulator like simh (and I've done it, more than 10 years ago), but it still doesn't compare to running on real hardware. So that's why _I_ would run BSD on a PDP-11. -ethan From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jun 4 09:36:59 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:36:59 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A275570.9030102@snarc.net> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A2750C0.4060704@bitsavers.org> <4A275570.9030102@snarc.net> Message-ID: <4A27DC0B.4090705@bitsavers.org> Evan Koblentz wrote: >> look for: >> >> Bob Taylor >> Butler Lampson >> Chuck Thacker >> >> Wayne Lichtenberger, Project Genie, Berkeley Computer Corporation >> >> William English >> Doug Englebart, SRI, Augment, Bootstrap Institute >> Bill Duvall >> Burt Sutherland >> >> Alan Kay >> Dan Ingalls >> Adele Goldberg >> >> ..and on and on and on > ... and Larry Tesler > After I wrote that, a dozen more people came to mind. As I said, PARC CSL and SSL were amazing labs at the time. By the early 80's they had built their large CISC machines, and the world (and many of the people) had moved on to DEC, Apple, Microsoft ... I worked under Larry when I was in the Advanced Technology Group at Apple. ATG did some good work too, and we had the same sorts of problems with technology transfer that they had at Xerox. The only way to get ideas accepted was to go into the product development group, which very few people wanted to do because ATG didn't have the pressure that Apple product development had. When Jobs came back, ATG was killed off. It was cheaper for him to just buy a startup if he wanted new technology than to have an in-house research group. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 09:00:34 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 10:00:34 -0400 Subject: VT52 emulator In-Reply-To: <4A278CFA.80809@softjar.se> References: <4A278CFA.80809@softjar.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 4:59 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > That said, a real VT100 can be switched into VT52-emulation, which is pretty > good, although not exactly identical. Agreed. > In this case, the poster even was nice enough to tell what the problem was. > A VT52 will display a block character when you send a DEL to it. A VT100 > will not, not even in VT52-mode. And I don't think any other VT52-emulation > I've seen does it either. > In fact, I don't even know if a real VT52 do that. It might be a "feature" > of some russian VT52-clone for all I know. It's worth investigating. > I haven't had a working VT52 near me in 15 years now, so I can't check. I have a VT52 close at hand, but it only recently arrived from a friend's house and I haven't had time yet to clean the dust off of it and fire it up. I can check in a week or so, but not anytime soon. -ethan From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jun 4 10:14:07 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:14:07 +0100 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A27E4BF.60404@dunnington.plus.com> On 04/06/2009 15:26, Ethan Dicks wrote: > Living with the 16-bitness of the processor? 4BSD on a VAX was at one > point, "the pinnacle" of the UNIX experience ("All the world's a > VAX"). Massive address space, no need for overlays, etc. 2BSD is > more representative of what people went through before 1978, with > enough similarity to a modern environment that you can dabble without > getting lost (older UNIX is missing lots of stuff that most of us take > for granted anymore). On a couple of occasions I've taken a PDP-11/23plus with dual RL02s into Computer Science for Open Days, to show it running 7th Edition. Always used to get a lot of interest, exactly because there's enough similarity that people can find their way around, but enough things missing that they notice (one of those things is speed, of course!). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 08:35:47 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 09:35:47 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 12:31 AM, Josh Dersch wrote: > Hey All -- > > So, instead of debugging my 11/40 last night I decided to get my 11/73 > running again since all it needed was to be put back together :). ?Installed > 2.11BSD on it... Nice. I have lots of experience with 2.9BSD, but I only have one or two machines that could run 2.11BSD (and thanks to a fellow listmember, my Pro380 has a new PSU, so is a likely target). > from TK50 tape, and it was only slightly faster than the last > time I installed it -- at 19.2kbps using vtserver :). Nobody ever pulled over a TK50 for speeding. > At any rate, it's online, so to speak, so if you feel like playing around, > just telnet to yahozna.dyndns.org... Neat. Thanks! > Is there a repository of source/binaries for stuff people have (back) ported > to 2.11BSD? ?I'm thinking of seeing if I can squeeze an older version of > Apache on it if I ever find the time... I don't know about anything as new as Apache (I can see the amount of process-space memory being an issue and having to write overlays), but for older BSD machines, I'd browse the old comp.sources.unix and comp.sources.games repositories. > (Specs, just in case anyone cares: > 11/73 CPU, > 2mb RAM, > TK50 tape, > DEQNA ethernet, > TS11 -> M4 9 track (currently non functional) > Emulex U07 SCSI -> SCSI->IDE bridge -> IBM Microdrive (4gb)) Nice. The microdrive is a nice touch. I should pick up a SCSI->IDE bridge or two for such occasions (though my largest Microdrive is 340MB). As a PDP-11 and BSD fan, let me say - nice job. -ethan From rodsmallwood at btconnect.com Thu Jun 4 10:30:35 2009 From: rodsmallwood at btconnect.com (Rod Smallwood) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 16:30:35 +0100 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <6BB8957D32E5470B8FF57B51026CD24B@EDIConsultingLtd.local> Firstly it's a free world and there are probably as many differing views on this one as there are collectors. FWIW I set out to be a collector of anything made, sold, supported or given away by Digital Equipment Corporation from 1957 to 1997. If you have the freedom to do what you wish then you also have a responsibility to make sure you do not try to impose your choice on others. Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: 04 June 2009 15:26 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 9:52 AM, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > why would you ruin a perfectly good PDP with something as awful as BSD? > what's the point? Because you can explore the roots of UNIX? > is there any advantage to ruining such wonderful hardware rather than running > BSD say on an old 286 or something? Only because UNIX sprung from the PDP-11 and didn't spring from an Intel box. If I wanted to use a 286 for something other than DOS, I'd probably run Minix. I don't know if there ever was a proper "BSD" ported or back-ported to the 286 (Venix, Xenix, etc., are evolutionary backwaters and therefore uninteresting to me). > it completely loses it's uniqueness, no special software, never seeing those wonderful command lines > unique look and feel, everything that makes the machine special. I love RT-11 (having made my living on it 20+ years ago) and a variety of proprietary DEC operating systems, so I understand the sentiment, but even back in the day, we ran 4BSD and SysV and Ultrix-32 on our 11/750 as well as VMS. More than a few universities ran 2BSD on their PDP-11/70s, not RSX-11M+ or RSTS/E. The history of DEC is intertwined with the history of UNIX, especially at academic sites. > might as well run a vanilla BSD box, no one would know the difference. > except some of the commands that show what it's running on, but big whoop there. > > so is there something special you can do that shows it's uniqueness? Living with the 16-bitness of the processor? 4BSD on a VAX was at one point, "the pinnacle" of the UNIX experience ("All the world's a VAX"). Massive address space, no need for overlays, etc. 2BSD is more representative of what people went through before 1978, with enough similarity to a modern environment that you can dabble without getting lost (older UNIX is missing lots of stuff that most of us take for granted anymore). I've also done some work exploring how the C compiler works by compiling programs on a PDP-11 platform, then disassembling them to see what C constructs map to what PDP-11 instructions (and I found the exercise quite enlightening). All of this can be easily done with a simulator like simh (and I've done it, more than 10 years ago), but it still doesn't compare to running on real hardware. So that's why _I_ would run BSD on a PDP-11. -ethan From austin at ozpass.co.uk Thu Jun 4 10:39:38 2009 From: austin at ozpass.co.uk (Austin Pass) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 16:39:38 +0100 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On 4 Jun 2009, at 14:52, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > why would you ruin a perfectly good PDP with something as awful as > BSD? > what's the point? > [SNIP] > > might as well run a vanilla BSD box, no one would know the difference. > except some of the commands that show what it's running on, but big > whoop there. > > so is there something special you can do that shows it's uniqueness? If only somebody had a copy of OS/2 for PDP-11, that would be both "unique" and a "big whoop". ;-) I for one applaud somebody willing to take the time to build something and "put it out there" for all and sundry to peruse - it's the most interesting thing the internet has sent my way today, that's for sure. -Austin. From steve at cosam.org Thu Jun 4 10:15:58 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 17:15:58 +0200 Subject: Emulex SCSI Controllers available... In-Reply-To: <200902261458.38651.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <200902261458.38651.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <95838e090906040815m598d5785me439f2e9c8fdee09@mail.gmail.com> Hi Lyle, Replying to a rather old message here. I expect I've somewhat missed the boat on the Qbus SCSI card offer. I don't suppose there happens to be one going spare, or if there's any chance of a second batch being ordered? Cheers, -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ 2009/2/26 Lyle Bickley : > I was chatting with a DEC broker recently regarding SCSI controllers for > DEC gear - when he mentioned that he had a quantity of Emulex UC07's > available. > > UC07's are QBUS cards which have a single SCSI port and support either MSCP > or TMSCP (in RT land, that would be either DU or MU devices). The manual > states that the UC07 is compatible with RT, RSX, RSTS/E and Ultrix > versions which support MSCP or TMSCP. > > The dealers initial price was high (as expected). However, he then > added - "I'd be willing to do better for hobbyists - as long as they > commit that the boards will only be used for hobby purposes - and not for > commercial use". > > So here's the "deal": $235 per UC07 plus shipping from Mountain View, CA > (FedEx Ground). > > I've paid MUCH more for SCSI interfaces for my DEC QBUS and UNIBUS > systems - so IMHO, this is a great deal. > > The broker said he did not want to deal "individually with a bunch of > hobbyists" - so he asked if I would be willing to consolodate a single > order of UC07's to him. I reluctantly said "yes", as this is not my > business and I'm not interested in making money on this deal - only > covering costs. > > To get a sense of interest, please reply to me privately if you'd like one > or more if these "critters". > > The manual for the UC07 is available on bitsavers. A link to a bitsavers > mirror is below: > > http://bitsavers.vt100.net/pdf/emulex/UC0751001-F_UC07_Feb90.pdf > > Regards, > Lyle > -- > Lyle Bickley > Bickley Consulting West Inc. > http://bickleywest.com > "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" > From mross666 at hotmail.com Thu Jun 4 10:41:45 2009 From: mross666 at hotmail.com (Mike Ross) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:41:45 +0000 Subject: More vintage hardware still alive and kickin' In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RCgIrZiC6c Mike http://www.corestore.org _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live?: Keep your life in sync. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009 From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Jun 4 10:42:52 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:42:52 +0100 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1244130173.3399.2.camel@elric> On Tue, 2009-06-02 at 18:54 +0100, Tony Duell wrote: > > Okay, let's try again. I have a circa-70s 300-baud modem, that will > > generate incorrect tones when it's plugged into a USB-to-serial > > Waht's the make and model of the modem? > > > converter, but not when it's plugged into a real serial port. > > Have you measured the voltage on the RS232 TxD pin in both cases? Tony is closest ;-) The USB serial adaptor only seems to put out a really tiny current. More than a few microamps (!) into a load makes it put out a train of spikes at about 20kHz more like a sawtooth wave, than nice neat pulses. The VCO in the modem just spacks out totally when you feed it this. Good for Aphex Twin-type noises, though. Gordon From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 10:42:46 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 08:42:46 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A27E4BF.60404@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A27E4BF.60404@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906040842w2e4d0479k65d116ddab774e56@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: > On 04/06/2009 15:26, Ethan Dicks wrote: > >> Living with the 16-bitness of the processor? ?4BSD on a VAX was at one >> point, "the pinnacle" of the UNIX experience ("All the world's a >> VAX"). ?Massive address space, no need for overlays, etc. ?2BSD is >> more representative of what people went through before 1978, with >> enough similarity to a modern environment that you can dabble without >> getting lost (older UNIX is missing lots of stuff that most of us take >> for granted anymore). > > On a couple of occasions I've taken a PDP-11/23plus with dual RL02s into > Computer Science for Open Days, to show it running 7th Edition. ?Always used > to get a lot of interest, exactly because there's enough similarity that > people can find their way around, but enough things missing that they notice > (one of those things is speed, of course!). > Interesting, I didn't know a /23 could run V7--all I know for sure is that it works on /45s and /70s. Do you know any other machines it runs on? I'd like to try installing on my 11/73 (KDJ11-A) if possible. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From blstuart at bellsouth.net Thu Jun 4 10:58:11 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 10:58:11 -0500 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A27AF46.7040600@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <82885c8ac6eb91723791ffbc64724fd7@bellsouth.net> > As was mention, the book wasn't so much about the DG business, but I'd > disagree and say it wasn't so much about the engineering either; very > little actually. It was mostly about the dynamics of the to bring the > machine to life, both the internal politics of this skunk-works project > and the inherent dynamics of the teams of mostly inexperienced engineers > trying to accomplish something way beyond what they should have been > able to do. If it had been a book about the actual engineering, very > few people would have read it. Good point. That's part of why I phrased it as being told from the point of view of the engineers, rather than being about the engineering. Still there were elements that rang very familiar. It's been a long time since I last read it, but the picture is still vivid of going into a machine room, pulling the boards from a VAX one at a time and just looking at the choice of chips and the layout getting a feel for the mind of the creators. And who could forget the perspective of comparing features to a paper bag taped to the side of the machine? Those aspects of the engineering do make for an insightful story. After all, it's all too easy to get lost in the details of clock skew and debates over VHDL and forget that engineering is fundamentally about creation of artifacts that never before existed. BLS From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 11:04:59 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 12:04:59 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A27E4BF.60404@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A27E4BF.60404@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 11:14 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: > On a couple of occasions I've taken a PDP-11/23plus with dual RL02s into > Computer Science for Open Days, to show it running 7th Edition. ?Always used > to get a lot of interest, exactly because there's enough similarity that > people can find their way around, but enough things missing that they notice > (one of those things is speed, of course!). That sounds like a cool demo. I've loaded 2.9BSD (from real magtape) on an 11/24 w/dual RL02s, but it just wasn't enough room to be able to rebuild the kernel and load man pages, IIRC. 7th Ed. should fit better in 20MB. One of the things that always held me back in the 1980s when I tried to get 2BSD up on (my own) real gear was that I personally didn't own disks big enough to hold it comfortably. I had a pile of RL01s and RL02s, but couldn't afford RK07s or anything larger. I bought a KT24 and some memory from Terry Kennedy specifically to run 2.9BSD on the aforementioned 11/24, but ran up against the disk issue during the install phase (I had to run kinda stripped down, with the generic install kernel). By the time I could afford a MicroPDP w/at least an RD52, I was already running UNIX on old Sun gear, so that took the pressure off trying to get it running on DEC gear. I got my first tastes for DEC machines at work, but in the same way that I suspect many of us on the list also feel/felt, wanted to run the same stuff at home, single-user. To me, one of the great things about the DEC line (and the Sun line too, for that matter) was that OSes ran across a broad spectrum of hardware, such that I could use VMS at my day job, but I was still able to afford an 11/725 for my own use at home; or run RT-11 on a customer's 11/73, but do software development on my own 11/23. -ethan From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 11:12:27 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 12:12:27 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: > So that's why _I_ would run BSD on a PDP-11. All I remember about Unix on a PDP-11 is that it was painfully slow. At school, we had a PDP-11/70 (DECsystem 570, I think) that was almost universally hated. It was replaced by a fairly small AT&T 3B machine, which was not as painfully slow. I am not sure why the machines were real turtles, as there were never more than perhaps 10 users on at a time. -- Will From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Jun 4 11:24:41 2009 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:24:41 -0400 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: <1244130173.3399.2.camel@elric> References: <1244130173.3399.2.camel@elric> Message-ID: <14726.1244132681@mini> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > >Tony is closest ;-) > >The USB serial adaptor only seems to put out a really tiny current. >More than a few microamps (!) into a load makes it put out a train of >spikes at about 20kHz more like a sawtooth wave, than nice neat pulses. I've had problems with USB serial devices feeding various things, but mostly things that draw too much current. Most USB devices seem to only have +/-5v swings and if you draw too much current the sag quickly. Older PC's seem to have much better +/-12v swings and can supply more current. I have some digital thermostats which draw from DTR and will only work with a pc - they won't work with the +/-5v of a USB device because the voltage sags too much. With these same "problem" devices I've also not had much luck with simple max232 style outputs; they give a nice +/-10v swing but also sag quickly. I think the drivers have wimpy NP caps (like .1uf). I could try beefing those up and seeing if that helps. -brad From steve at cosam.org Thu Jun 4 10:31:00 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 17:31:00 +0200 Subject: TK50 tribulations In-Reply-To: <965232.16843.qm@web52709.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <965232.16843.qm@web52709.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <95838e090906040831i323e00q19847a393ecb3898@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/2 Mr Ian Primus wrote: > Did you clean the heads AND the leader strip? I had one with so much fuzz > on it that it would have surely gunked up the heads straight away. You > can clean the leader with alcohol, just like the heads. Sometimes these > things need multiple cleanings... I cleaned pretty much everything /but/ the leader. It's worth a try, but it looks pretty spotless. > I assume you've got this connected to a PDP-11 or Vax that you're using > to write to it, and that this isn't the SCSI flavored TK50Z. Yep, it's the "regular" TK50 hooked up to a Qbus TQK50 controller. -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Thu Jun 4 11:27:48 2009 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:27:48 -0700 Subject: TI Silent 700 model 733 manual In-Reply-To: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> References: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> Message-ID: <4A27F604.7000305@sbcglobal.net> Lars Hamren wrote: >> If I remember correctly, someone was looking for a TI 733 manual. > > That was me, a few weeks ago. Hi Lars. Yes, it for the model you show in the photos. It's the full service manual with theory of operations, parts list, board drawings, and schematics. The only problem is the schematics look like they have been reduced from "D" size to letter size and are a little hard to read. Manual no. 960129-9701 Rev E revised November 1977 "Model 732/733 ASR/KSR Maintenance Manual I'll try and get it over to Al to be scanned if he has the time. If there's something specific you are looking for, I can scan a few pages and email them to you. I have three of these terminals myself, all in various states of disrepair, that came with my TI 990 systems. A project for another day. Bob > >> I found one today while sorting some boxes. > > Which manual did you find? > > I am looking for a service/repair manual. I already have > > "Model 733 ASR/KSR Operating Instructions, 959227-9701, Rev C" > > revised October 1974. > >> This is the large TI terminal, not the portable one. > > Mine is the large one with casette drives, pictured here: > > http://www.sdu.se/computer-automation-museum/pub/gallery/ti--silent-733-asr-with-casette-drives.jpg > > > Thanks in advance > /Lars Hamr?n > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 11:23:49 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 12:23:49 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 12:12 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> So that's why _I_ would run BSD on a PDP-11. > > All I remember about Unix on a PDP-11 is that it was painfully slow. I've only ever run Unix on a PDP-11 as a single-user, but I'm not surprised to hear it. > At school, we had a PDP-11/70 (DECsystem 570, I think) that was almost > universally hated. It was replaced by a fairly small AT&T 3B machine, > which was not as painfully slow. > > I am not sure why the machines were real turtles, as there were never > more than perhaps 10 users on at a time. I'd have to wonder if the machine was swapping, or if it was just CPU-bound. Depending on what those 10 users were doing, that could be quite a lot. 4MB should be plenty of memory for a number of users (since each process is essentially limited to 128K total I&D space), but if everyone was trying to compile something at the same time, I can easily see how individual response would be poor. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 11:40:01 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 12:40:01 -0400 Subject: TK50 tribulations In-Reply-To: <95838e090906040831i323e00q19847a393ecb3898@mail.gmail.com> References: <965232.16843.qm@web52709.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <95838e090906040831i323e00q19847a393ecb3898@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Steve Maddison wrote: > 2009/6/2 Mr Ian Primus wrote: >> I assume you've got this connected to a PDP-11 or Vax that you're using >> to write to it, and that this isn't the SCSI flavored TK50Z. > Yep, it's the "regular" TK50 hooked up to a Qbus TQK50 controller. Speaking of the SCSI-variant, I have a TK50Z-FA for my pile of MV2000s. I had been thinking of trying to upgrade it to a TK50Z-GA (new ROM and optionally a SCSI ID switch), but I'm curious if it'll still work with the MV2000. If it won't, it shouldn't be hard to rig up a double-sized ROM and a high-bit switch. Does anyone know if a TK50Z-GA works on a MV2000? -ethan From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Thu Jun 4 11:49:58 2009 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 18:49:58 +0200 Subject: USB/serial adapters (was: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090604184958.fbe156b7.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 11:49:27 -0400 Dave McGuire wrote: > Some people whine about they Keyspan adapters being too > expensive...they may be having problems because they bought some > cheap $5 adapters. I bought four different 5 EUR USB-RS232 adapters. They have all the same chip inside and just work on NetBSD: uplcom2: Prolific Technology Inc. USB-Serial Controller, rev 1.10/3.00, addr 2 Though I still have to connect them to my HP 54720D scope to chek if they provide proper voltage levels. > The last Keyspan unit I purchased cost me (I think) about $30.00 I spend 30 EUR in a cheap and generic PCI quad RS232 adapter card. Again: Just worked with NetBSD. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From rescue at hawkmountain.net Thu Jun 4 12:05:48 2009 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (rescue at hawkmountain.net) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 13:05:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: IBM AS400 inquiry Message-ID: <60584.67.93.24.222.1244135148.squirrel@www.hawkmountain.net> A friend of mine just obtained an AS400. It is a "9406-170 System S104V7NM Subsystem QCTL". I know nothing of AS400s. He did say it boots. So, what specs are this ? What does it run (OS ?, Apps ?), and what can be done with it (he was originally going to use it as an end table !!! until he found it actually booted). -- Curt From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jun 4 12:09:30 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:09:30 +0100 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906040842w2e4d0479k65d116ddab774e56@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A27E4BF.60404@dunnington.plus.com> <7d3530220906040842w2e4d0479k65d116ddab774e56@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A27FFCA.9010900@dunnington.plus.com> On 04/06/2009 16:42, John Floren wrote: > On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: >> On a couple of occasions I've taken a PDP-11/23plus with dual RL02s into >> Computer Science for Open Days, to show it running 7th Edition. Always used >> to get a lot of interest, exactly because there's enough similarity that >> people can find their way around, but enough things missing that they notice >> (one of those things is speed, of course!). > > Interesting, I didn't know a /23 could run V7--all I know for sure is > that it works on /45s and /70s. Do you know any other machines it runs > on? I'd like to try installing on my 11/73 (KDJ11-A) if possible. Unless it does something that doesn't work on a KDJ-11 but does on a KDF-11, it should be fine. I *think* I've actually done that. Or maybe i tried and it didn't boot -- the last time I would have tried would have been at least ten years ago. It can definitely run on an 11/34. If you look in the sources, you'll find some references to "small machine" -- ie an 11/34, 11/23, etc. Not everything is possible, though. For example FORTRAN isn't there, nor BASIC, nor vi (because curses isn't fully implemented) but ed is. ISTR there are a few other utilities that are linked (not symlinks, as V7 doesn't have them IIRC) to a proglet that simply prints "Not, as yet, available for a small machine". Or words to that effect. The machine I have came from the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and was one of their original development machines. They were one of the distribution centres for Seventh Edition, so I got a good system when it was passed on, and a lot of information from the staff there, along with an original distribution magtape and licenses. But of course no TCP/IP or anything like that. I had great fun getting a reasonably modern (for 1992) kermit to run on it, because of the overlays required. I remember one of the first shell scripts (if that's not too grand a word for a three liner) I wrote was a recursive ls (no "ls -R" in V7). The important things all work. Wumpus, for example, runs fine :-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 11:20:03 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 12:20:03 -0400 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 11:42 AM, John Floren wrote: > Interesting, I didn't know a /23 could run V7--all I know for sure is > that it works on /45s and /70s. Do you know any other machines it runs > on? I'd like to try installing on my 11/73 (KDJ11-A) if possible. I think it would come down to disk drivers. If the kernel will run on an 11/70, there's no difference I can think of off the top of my head why it wouldn't run on a KDJ-11, unless there's something about the 22-bit Unibus mapping on the 11/70 vs no mapping on the Qbus. Disks, though... a 11/73 is likely to have an MSCP disk controller, but the 11/70 has quite a number of supported disk controllers. I'd look at the 7th Ed. sources and the install process to see what 7th Ed. is expecting to load onto. It's all part of the joy of vintage gear - you used to have to know exactly what you had and exactly what the software was looking for to have a successful install experience. More than once, I had to install on machine A, then either move the disk or the data on the disk to machine B because I couldn't install directly on machine B (most often due to tape drive/boot ROM issues). You might be able to scope this out with simh prior to gathering genuine hardware, but if you have the hardware lying around, you might as well try it. -ethan From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jun 4 12:27:12 2009 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 10:27:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM AS400 inquiry Message-ID: <929676.73601.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 6/4/09, rescue at hawkmountain.net wrote: > So, what specs are this ? What does it run (OS > ?, Apps ?), > and what can be done with it (he was originally going to > use > it as an end table !!! until he found it actually booted). I had an IBM AS/400 9404 for a while. It did not boot - the hard drives were missing. The specs of mine were: heavy. beige. I used it as an end table. -Ian From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Thu Jun 4 12:28:43 2009 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 19:28:43 +0200 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A27E4BF.60404@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A27E4BF.60404@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <20090604192843.3f5fdbf1.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:14:07 +0100 Pete Turnbull wrote: > On a couple of occasions I've taken a PDP-11/23plus with dual RL02s into > Computer Science for Open Days, to show it running 7th Edition. Always > used to get a lot of interest, exactly because there's enough similarity > that people can find their way around, but enough things missing that > they notice (one of those things is speed, of course!). I did similar things with my 11/73 running 2.11BSD on the Vintage Computer Festival Europa. Fun to see people type "ps -elf"... :-) -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From tiggerlasv at aim.com Thu Jun 4 12:31:05 2009 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:31:05 -0400 Subject: SLU's backpanel for one BA11-SB box (PDP-11/23 PLUS) Message-ID: <8CBB3515F8A764F-1464-5F5@webmail-dh09.sysops.aol.com> Sorry about that -- I forgot that the BA11 doesn't have those bulkhead openings on the back door. Let me guess -- the back door is just a solid piece of metal, with a small adjustable slot towards the bottom, to allow cables to pass through. . . If that is the case, then what you would do is to obtain one of the metal bulkhead frames that they use for expansion on the q-bus & unibus boxes. It's basically a rack-mountable metal piece, with a bunch of bulkhead openings on it. I don't know the DEC part number for that, but someone with a DEC Systems & Options catalog from say. . . 1986 . . . would be able to help you. From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Thu Jun 4 12:43:35 2009 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 19:43:35 +0200 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <20090604194335.ed1bd0e5.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:31:29 -0700 Josh Dersch wrote: > I figure it's rather unlikely it'll be hacked into In 2001 I took my 11/73 running 2.11BSD with me to HAL2001 [1]. It was connected to the network, telnet and FTP wide open, but nobody hacked the machine. Either people stoped in awe, or they where simply unable to hack PDP-11 assembler instead downloading the latest Linux root-kit. > I'm thinking of seeing if I can squeeze an older > version of Apache on it if I ever find the time... Apache? OMG! How will you squeze this pice of bloat into a 16 bit addres space, even with overlays? There are several "small" http daemons out there. E.g. thttpd or bozohttpd. [1] http://www.hal2001.org/ A few thousand hackers camping at a university campus, tents with computers and everything networked... There is somthing similar going on this year: https://har2009.org/ -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From spedraja at ono.com Thu Jun 4 12:52:49 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 19:52:49 +0200 Subject: SLU's backpanel for one BA11-SB box (PDP-11/23 PLUS) In-Reply-To: <8CBB3515F8A764F-1464-5F5@webmail-dh09.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CBB3515F8A764F-1464-5F5@webmail-dh09.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: You're right. I got one photo of the back side of one BA11-SB and it's exactly as you describe it. Options ? Doing some homebrew would be possible to replace the back cover with one bulkhead of, perhaps, one BA23 :-) And, of course, you can get one BA23. But I have the BA11 in mind (by now) and I need to reuse some BA23 components. Regards Sergio 2009/6/4 > > Sorry about that -- I forgot that the BA11 doesn't have those > bulkhead openings on the back door. > > Let me guess -- the back door is just a solid piece of metal, > with a small adjustable slot towards the bottom, to allow > cables to pass through. . . > > If that is the case, then what you would do is to obtain > one of the metal bulkhead frames that they use for > expansion on the q-bus & unibus boxes. > > It's basically a rack-mountable metal piece, > with a bunch of bulkhead openings on it. > > I don't know the DEC part number for that, > but someone with a DEC Systems & Options catalog > from say. . . 1986 . . . would be able to help you. > > > > > From spedraja at ono.com Thu Jun 4 12:55:02 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 19:55:02 +0200 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 11:42 AM, John Floren wrote: > > Interesting, I didn't know a /23 could run V7--all I know for sure is > > that it works on /45s and /70s. Do you know any other machines it runs > > on? I'd like to try installing on my 11/73 (KDJ11-A) if possible. > In PUPS repository exists one V7 version and even one V6 version, I think Sergio From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Jun 4 12:58:44 2009 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:58:44 -0400 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> Message-ID: <4A280B54.10107@atarimuseum.com> It was a great point of view from the actual engineers and not management... to read about the daily frustration and struggles getting the first system going, the visualization of the wirewrapped "mess" being worked on and the toil they went through to get such a great computer design completed and out the door made for a very good read... Evan Koblentz wrote: >> If you enjoy reading it, also read Soul of a new Machine, its about >> the creation of Data General and I think that was an even better read. > I disagree. Nobody would have bought Soul if it was titled, "How Data > General designed its latest computer." I found it very dull, whereas > Dealers tells a story of a whole new era in computing. > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 4 12:27:40 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 18:27:40 +0100 (BST) Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 3, 9 03:25:29 pm Message-ID: > > On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > I thoght that one state was a positive voltage between +3V and +25V wrt > > signal ground and the other state was a negative voltage between -3V and > > -25V wrt signal ground. > > You might be on to something there... I checked and the 1488/1489 pair > is rated up to +/-30VDC. > > > Anything between -3V and +3V is illegal. > > Illegal, yes, but as others have pointed out, 0V might work with some > modern equipment. Of course. Most devices didn't bother to detect an illegal state on an input line and moan about it. They just had an input stage with a threshold somewhere between -3V and +3V. Any valid RS232 signal would be handled correctly, IIRC the well-known 1489 RS232 receiver chip has a threshold a little about 0V. You can drive the input (RS232 side) of such a chip with a TTL level signal and expect it to work -- I've done it myself many times for testing/quick hacks. If I know the RS232 device I am tryign to drive uses a 1489, I might well feed TTL signals into it. But I wouldn't do that in anything I ecpected others to use. Incidentally, I am suprised that any older RS232 device required 15V signals and wouldn't work on 12V signals. I've got some older HP RS232 interfaces (11205, 11206) that use 741 op-amps to drive the RS232 outputs. They run off a +/-9V supply The slightly later HP11284 uses 1488 drivers, again running off +/-9V. AFAIK that is totally within the RS232 spec. > > > There's no requiremnt, AFAIK, for the 2 votlages to be of the same > > magnitude. A signal which swings between +12V and -5V is perfectly valid. > > True, and I've seen +12V/-5V designs when the manufacturer didn't want > to spring for -12V but had -5V lying around. I couldn't tell you > where right now, but it was in something from the 1970s. I am not suprised. There's no reason not to do this, it meets the standard. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 4 12:32:10 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 18:32:10 +0100 (BST) Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: <4A26F30B.7192B636@cs.ubc.ca> from "Brent Hilpert" at Jun 3, 9 03:02:51 pm Message-ID: > Well, just to wade in with another 'opinion', if I have it correct: > the transmitter must drive the lines within the range +/-5V to +/-15V, > the receiver must respond correctly to signals in the range +/-3V to +/-25V. I think that is correct. > If there were one thing about RS232 and (smart) modems that I wish had been > differently, it would be that the hayes modem standard had permitted some > technique to switch between data mode and control mode without having those 2 > second guard periods. That was (is) so annoying waiting for dial-up software to > get the modem into control mode. The point weas that the Smartmodem would work using only the TxD and RxD data lines (it didn't use the control lines, simply because you couldn't rely on them even existing on some RS232 interfaces) _and_ it could not be fooled if the special sequence of characters to go to command mode occured e.g. in a file download. It was assumed (I think quite reasonably) that you'd not get the characters _and the pauses_ in a download. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 4 13:00:16 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 19:00:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: QIC cartridge tape compatibility In-Reply-To: <4A26CD85.7591.C89D6EE@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 3, 9 07:22:45 pm Message-ID: > What QIC-02 drives taking DC-600-sized carts require preformatted > tape? Not with a QIC02 interface (in fact the host interface is HPIB), but HP made a couple of drives (9144 and 9145 at least) that used takes with the same form factoer as the DC600, but which had to be factory formatted. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 4 12:56:44 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 18:56:44 +0100 (BST) Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: <1244130173.3399.2.camel@elric> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Jun 4, 9 04:42:52 pm Message-ID: > > On Tue, 2009-06-02 at 18:54 +0100, Tony Duell wrote: > > > Okay, let's try again. I have a circa-70s 300-baud modem, that will > > > generate incorrect tones when it's plugged into a USB-to-serial > > > > Waht's the make and model of the modem? > > > > > converter, but not when it's plugged into a real serial port. > > > > Have you measured the voltage on the RS232 TxD pin in both cases? > > Tony is closest ;-) > > The USB serial adaptor only seems to put out a really tiny current. > More than a few microamps (!) into a load makes it put out a train of In which case it's not even close to being RS232 compatible (I seem to remmebr an input impedance of the order of kilohms being OK for RS232 receivers). > spikes at about 20kHz more like a sawtooth wave, than nice neat pulses. Is it possible that the DC-DC converter is playing up? I asusme this USB-RS"32 converter is powered from the 5V on the USB port so presumably it contains some kinde of DC-DC converter to get RS232 levels, possible inside a MAXnnnn IC.Perhaps that can't supply enough current to the drivers. I saw this years ago on the RS232 card in my Philip P850. That card had a potted module on it to provide +/- 12 V (for 1488s) from the 5V logic supply. Mione had failed (I assume dried up capacitors) and output some interesting waveforms. The result, of course, was garbage on all the RS232 outputs. I will have to admit I've still not fixed it. There are pluggable jumpers on this board to disconnect this module and instead power the 1488s from pins on the serial cable connecotr. I did that, and provided a simple +/-12V unregulated supply. Works fine... -tony From steve at cosam.org Thu Jun 4 12:25:36 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 19:25:36 +0200 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906040842w2e4d0479k65d116ddab774e56@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A27E4BF.60404@dunnington.plus.com> <7d3530220906040842w2e4d0479k65d116ddab774e56@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <95838e090906041025h58dc334emb6021d6174acf6c8@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/4 John Floren wrote: > Interesting, I didn't know a /23 could run V7--all I know for sure is > that it works on /45s and /70s. Do you know any other machines it runs > on? I'd like to try installing on my 11/73 (KDJ11-A) if possible. I think V7 should run, the only problem is that vanilla V7 doesn't support the hardware often associated with later PDP-11s. It needs to be patched if you want to use RL02 drives, for example. You might want to try V7M (M for "modified" IIRC) which was tweaked by DEC and includes drivers for a lot of later hardware. It runs great on my KDJ11-A from two RL02s (one for root and swap, the other for /usr). I did however need to compile some bits and bobs in order to install it using VTServer and assemble a new boot block to get the ROM bootstraps to work. Cheers, -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 4 13:19:56 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 14:19:56 -0400 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) In-Reply-To: <334108.73252.qm@web112205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <334108.73252.qm@web112205.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <0A051393-090B-48C9-954A-9A05E2E40EB3@neurotica.com> On Jun 4, 2009, at 10:21 AM, Christian Liendo wrote: > This is not dealing with tragedy, this is just tasteless. > > I can understand humor (I am a big fan of lowbrow humor myself) to > try and deal with a tragedy, but this is not the example. > > There is also a time and a place for everything, the time is to > close and this is not the forum. > > What was said was tasteless and the only thing it did was reflect > poorly on those who wrote it. Good lord. Find a hobby, eh? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 12:58:00 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 13:58:00 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <20090604194335.ed1bd0e5.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <20090604194335.ed1bd0e5.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Jochen Kunz wrote: > On Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:31:29 -0700 > Josh Dersch wrote: > >> I figure it's rather unlikely it'll be hacked into > In 2001 I took my 11/73 running 2.11BSD with me to HAL2001 [1]. It was > connected to the network, telnet and FTP wide open, but nobody hacked > the machine. Either people stoped in awe, or they where simply unable > to hack PDP-11 assembler instead downloading the latest Linux root-kit. Yeah... there has to be *lots* of buffer-overrun-exploit potential on a 2BSD machine (gets() anyone?), but you have to know what to overflow the buffer *with* to get anywhere. -ethan From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jun 4 13:14:23 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:14:23 +0100 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A280EFF.9020504@dunnington.plus.com> On 04/06/2009 17:20, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 11:42 AM, John Floren wrote: >> Interesting, I didn't know a /23 could run V7--all I know for sure is >> that it works on /45s and /70s. Do you know any other machines it runs >> on? I'd like to try installing on my 11/73 (KDJ11-A) if possible. > > I think it would come down to disk drivers. If the kernel will run on > an 11/70, there's no difference I can think of off the top of my head > why it wouldn't run on a KDJ-11, unless there's something about the > 22-bit Unibus mapping on the 11/70 vs no mapping on the Qbus. > > Disks, though... a 11/73 is likely to have an MSCP disk controller, > but the 11/70 has quite a number of supported disk controllers. Yes, and there's no MSCP driver for V7. Even the RL driver was a special case. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From blkline at attglobal.net Thu Jun 4 13:24:29 2009 From: blkline at attglobal.net (Barry L. Kline) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:24:29 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A28115D.7060300@attglobal.net> Josh Dersch wrote: > At any rate, it's online, so to speak, so if you feel like playing > around, just telnet to yahozna.dyndns.org. (login: guest, password > Guest1!) Be kind, it's not the speediest thing out there. I figure it's > rather unlikely it'll be hacked into, and if it is, worst case I can > restore the drive from the image I made of it... Cool! Thanks for putting that online. Barry From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 4 13:26:18 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:26:18 -0700 Subject: QIC cartridge tape compatibility In-Reply-To: References: <4A26CD85.7591.C89D6EE@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 3, 9 07:22:45 pm, Message-ID: <4A27AF5A.26193.FFC2AC9@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Jun 2009 at 19:00, Tony Duell wrote: > Not with a QIC02 interface (in fact the host interface is HPIB), but > HP made a couple of drives (9144 and 9145 at least) that used takes > with the same form factoer as the DC600, but which had to be factory > formatted. Aren't those the Iomat-formatted tapes? (no holes in the tape, nor angled mirror for sensing them. --Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jun 4 13:26:17 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:26:17 -0700 Subject: QIC cartridge tape compatibility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2811C9.3080705@bitsavers.org> >> What QIC-02 drives taking DC-600-sized carts require preformatted >> tape? none The original QIC-11 and QIC-24 formats do a full width erase on the first track written. There are many QIC standards. 11 and 24 are the original on-tape format specs, with differing numbers of tracks. QIC-36 is the unformatted drive interface, QIC-02 was an intelligent interface that was quickly replaced by SCSI. Most converters were for QIC-36 to SCSI. Very early Sun systems used QIC-02 to SASI converters, but they switched to Emulex QIC-36 to SCSI adapters before going to embedded SCSI controllers on the 150mb archive drives. Unfortunately, the QIC web site doesn't have many of the early standards, you have to look at the specs for the drives or host adapters. I have heard that HP 914x 16 and 32 track drives used 3M CAPAMAT format, as did Apple's 40 meg tape drive, and require formatted tapes. I beleive the HP tapes are wound backwards as well. From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Thu Jun 4 13:31:51 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:31:51 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A281317.4090501@mail.msu.edu> Dan Gahlinger wrote: > why would you ruin a perfectly good PDP with something as awful as BSD? > what's the point? > > is there any advantage to ruining such wonderful hardware rather than running > BSD say on an old 286 or something? > > it completely loses it's uniqueness, no special software, never seeing those wonderful command lines > unique look and feel, everything that makes the machine special. > > might as well run a vanilla BSD box, no one would know the difference. > except some of the commands that show what it's running on, but big whoop there. > > so is there something special you can do that shows it's uniqueness? > > Dan. > Well, was going to install my copy of OS/2 for PDP-11 from TK50, but I didn't have the proper Matrox framebuffer, alas. Josh From blkline at attglobal.net Thu Jun 4 13:37:28 2009 From: blkline at attglobal.net (Barry L. Kline) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:37:28 -0400 Subject: IBM AS400 inquiry In-Reply-To: <60584.67.93.24.222.1244135148.squirrel@www.hawkmountain.net> References: <60584.67.93.24.222.1244135148.squirrel@www.hawkmountain.net> Message-ID: <4A281468.1060008@attglobal.net> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 rescue at hawkmountain.net wrote: > A friend of mine just obtained an AS400. > > It is a "9406-170 System S104V7NM Subsystem QCTL". > > I know nothing of AS400s. He did say it boots. > > So, what specs are this ? What does it run (OS ?, Apps ?), > and what can be done with it (he was originally going to use > it as an end table !!! until he found it actually booted). The 9406-170 runs OS/400. I think it will run up to V4R5 of the OS. OS/400 runs jobs segregated into subsystems, each tuned for their particular purpose. Subsystem QCTL is the controlling subsystem from which the remainder of the subsystems are started. When the system is in restricted state (think unix init 1) you have control over all objects. As for apps -- it's a business system. There are various languages available, including RPG, C, CL, COBOL, Java and perhaps a few others. I contend that Microsoft got many of its widely-touted-as-innovative features in the .NET languages from the AS/400, as the Integrated Language Environment (ILE) allowed you to seamlessly link between various ILE/languages. FWIW, there is a customized version of Apache on OS/400, as well as FTP and TELNET servers. Barry -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFKKBRoCFu3bIiwtTARAv04AJ9hUcf7IzoYX0V5fOqqKLVoYES4eACeLYYc Pbjw6YwR76vUvoFp6xDaT/0= =tNkk -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jun 4 13:27:35 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:27:35 +0100 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> Message-ID: <4A281217.7050600@dunnington.plus.com> On 04/06/2009 07:03, Mark Davidson wrote: > On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 10:48 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: >>> If you enjoy reading it, also read Soul of a new Machine, its about the >>> creation of Data General and I think that was an even better read. >> I disagree. Nobody would have bought Soul if it was titled, "How Data >> General designed its latest computer." I found it very dull, whereas >> Dealers tells a story of a whole new era in computing. > > Oh no, I have to agree with Curt... Soul Of A New Machine is a great > read, as was Dealers. Of course, I'm a huge DG fan so I'm probably > biased a bit. ;) I first read Soul Of A New Machine many years ago, and have re-read it since. I too found it a better read than Dealers of Lightning, but that's just me. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 12:40:54 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 13:40:54 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <20090604192843.3f5fdbf1.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A27E4BF.60404@dunnington.plus.com> <20090604192843.3f5fdbf1.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Jochen Kunz wrote: > I did similar things with my 11/73 running 2.11BSD on the Vintage > Computer Festival Europa. Fun to see people type "ps -elf"... :-) Heh... I just did that on yahozna.dyndns.org... well... it was more like "ps -ef^H^H^Haux". ;-) -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 4 13:43:58 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 14:43:58 -0400 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A280EFF.9020504@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4A280EFF.9020504@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <51FE580A-8CB0-4651-A230-BE667C6DEA94@neurotica.com> On Jun 4, 2009, at 2:14 PM, Pete Turnbull wrote: >>> Interesting, I didn't know a /23 could run V7--all I know for >>> sure is >>> that it works on /45s and /70s. Do you know any other machines it >>> runs >>> on? I'd like to try installing on my 11/73 (KDJ11-A) if possible. >> I think it would come down to disk drivers. If the kernel will >> run on >> an 11/70, there's no difference I can think of off the top of my head >> why it wouldn't run on a KDJ-11, unless there's something about the >> 22-bit Unibus mapping on the 11/70 vs no mapping on the Qbus. >> Disks, though... a 11/73 is likely to have an MSCP disk controller, >> but the 11/70 has quite a number of supported disk controllers. > > Yes, and there's no MSCP driver for V7. Even the RL driver was a > special case. Wasn't the MSCP driver backported from 2.11BSD to something earlier? Hmm, come to think of it, I think that was 2.9BSD, not V7. Hmm, MSCP on my PDP-11/24. 8-) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 4 14:00:04 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:00:04 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A27E4BF.60404@dunnington.plus.com> <20090604192843.3f5fdbf1.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <9C550673-304E-4FB2-A848-3C7341DE8E2D@neurotica.com> On Jun 4, 2009, at 1:40 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> I did similar things with my 11/73 running 2.11BSD on the Vintage >> Computer Festival Europa. Fun to see people type "ps -elf"... :-) > > Heh... I just did that on yahozna.dyndns.org... well... it was more > like "ps -ef^H^H^Haux". ;-) soda -> keyboard -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 4 14:03:20 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 20:03:20 +0100 (BST) Subject: QIC cartridge tape compatibility In-Reply-To: <4A27AF5A.26193.FFC2AC9@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 4, 9 11:26:18 am Message-ID: > > On 4 Jun 2009 at 19:00, Tony Duell wrote: > > > Not with a QIC02 interface (in fact the host interface is HPIB), but > > HP made a couple of drives (9144 and 9145 at least) that used takes > > with the same form factoer as the DC600, but which had to be factory > > formatted. > > Aren't those the Iomat-formatted tapes? (no holes in the tape, nor > angled mirror for sensing them. It's been a long time since I've been inside a 9144/5, but I seem to remember there is no optical stuff for a hole sensor. I can't comment on the name of the format. The 9145 contains a 68000 CPU and some battery-backed RAM modules, and alas some ASICs. One day I'll figure out something about it. -tony From hamren at sdu.se Thu Jun 4 14:12:15 2009 From: hamren at sdu.se (Lars Hamren) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:12:15 +0200 Subject: TI Silent 700 model 733 manual In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A281C8F.8060308@sdu.se> Hi, Bob > "Model 732/733 ASR/KSR Maintenance Manual Sound like what I am looking for. > I'll try and get it over to Al to be scanned if he has the time. Excellent! I look forward to that. I will contact you off-list. /Lars From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jun 4 14:15:39 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 12:15:39 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> Message-ID: > From: Keith Monahan > Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 9:23 PM > Has anyone read Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the > Computer Age ? You should also read _Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer_, first published in 1988 when the look&feel lawsuits were getting hot. For those interested in the business side of this kind of book, there is a good bit more of that here. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell From vp at drexel.edu Thu Jun 4 14:16:12 2009 From: vp at drexel.edu (vp) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 22:16:12 +0300 Subject: Repairing an HP3421A (Signature Analysis) Message-ID: I am trying to repair an HP3421A data acquisition and control unit that fails its power on tests. In the service manual it refers to a number of "Signature Analysis" tests that essentially mean that the unit runs some diagnostic routine and you go and collect "signatures" from various test points. Unfortunately I do not have a device to compute these signatures. Does anybody know how to calculate them using a logic analyzer (I have a Bitscope and an HP 1630D), or something similar? Thanks **vp From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 14:17:18 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:17:18 -0400 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <51FE580A-8CB0-4651-A230-BE667C6DEA94@neurotica.com> References: <4A280EFF.9020504@dunnington.plus.com> <51FE580A-8CB0-4651-A230-BE667C6DEA94@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > ?Wasn't the MSCP driver backported from 2.11BSD to something earlier? ?Hmm, > come to think of it, I think that was 2.9BSD, not V7. Yes. The MSCP driver was backported to 2.9BSD from 2.11BSD. I have yet to give that a try, but I'm looking forward to it when I have time to get back to that corner of the basement. > ?Hmm, MSCP on my PDP-11/24. 8-) Yep. I have at least one UDA50 and more than one SDI disk. :-) -ethan From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 14:20:20 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:20:20 -0400 Subject: IBM AS400 inquiry In-Reply-To: <60584.67.93.24.222.1244135148.squirrel@www.hawkmountain.net> References: <60584.67.93.24.222.1244135148.squirrel@www.hawkmountain.net> Message-ID: <4A281E74.4070401@gmail.com> rescue at hawkmountain.net wrote: > A friend of mine just obtained an AS400. > > It is a "9406-170 System S104V7NM Subsystem QCTL". > > I know nothing of AS400s. He did say it boots. > > So, what specs are this ? What does it run (OS ?, Apps ?), > and what can be done with it (he was originally going to use > it as an end table !!! until he found it actually booted). Runs OS/400 (or i5/OS or whatever else they're calling it these days). Primarily programmed in RPG. Kicks some database ass. Has DB2 built-in to the operating system. The memory management architecture can be considered unusual. Peace... Sridhar From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jun 4 14:21:15 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:21:15 +0100 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <51FE580A-8CB0-4651-A230-BE667C6DEA94@neurotica.com> References: <4A280EFF.9020504@dunnington.plus.com> <51FE580A-8CB0-4651-A230-BE667C6DEA94@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A281EAB.8050003@dunnington.plus.com> On 04/06/2009 19:43, Dave McGuire wrote: > Wasn't the MSCP driver backported from 2.11BSD to something earlier? > Hmm, come to think of it, I think that was 2.9BSD, not V7. > > Hmm, MSCP on my PDP-11/24. 8-) Yes, with a high-speed RD52 for authenticity ;-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From fsmith at ladylinux.com Thu Jun 4 14:24:30 2009 From: fsmith at ladylinux.com (Fran C. Smith) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:24:30 -0400 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200906041524.35119.fsmith@ladylinux.com> On Thursday 04 June 2009 15:05:10 cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: This list is a HOBBY .. watching you guys go back and forth on this is annoying and NOT a Hobby. The point is made. One side finds humor in bad times (Good Trait) One side finds such humor offensive (Another Good Trait) You are both within your rights. But what any of this had to do with classic computers is beyond me. Now if this was the bruised egos mailing list .. > Good lord. ?Find a hobby, eh? > > ? ? ? ? ? ?-Dave -- Kindest Regards, Fran Smith CEO "No Problems Only Solutions" L.B. Network Consultants LLC. Baltimore, Maryland From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jun 4 14:25:44 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 12:25:44 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: > From: Curt @ Atari Museum > Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 10:35 PM > If you enjoy reading [_Dealers of Lightning_], also read Soul of a new > Machine, its about the creation of Data General and I think that was an > even better read. De gustibus non disputandum. However, _Soul_ is very much NOT about "the creation of Data General", which was incorporated in 1968. It is rather about DG's effort, c. 1976, to get to market with a so-called supermini, in order to compete with DEC's VAX (which was under development at the same time). I first read _Soul_ as a serial in _Computerworld_ in the summer of 1977, and enjoyed it enough that I put it on my Christmas list (hey, I was still in grad school and had no money for extra books). Even so... Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell From emu at e-bbes.com Thu Jun 4 14:26:45 2009 From: emu at e-bbes.com (e.stiebler) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:26:45 -0400 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: <200906022316.53813.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200906022258.53816.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200906022316.53813.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4A281FF5.6080005@e-bbes.com> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > And, they've been claimed. > That was fast. Yes, I can imagine. I gave mine away, and now I'm missing it ;-) From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jun 4 14:29:19 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 12:29:19 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: References: <9d193b54d05f1670412dc9650ad2e0cf@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: > From: Gene Buckle > Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 6:12 AM Regarding _Soul of a New Machine_, Gene wrote: > I think my favorite quote from that book is (approximately), "I shall deal > with no measurement of time shorter than a fortnight". :) "season". The engineer in question left DG to live on an agrarian commune. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Thu Jun 4 15:11:37 2009 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 22:11:37 +0200 Subject: Repairing an HP3421A (Signature Analysis) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2D41E9C369A84DFBAF7492485B01D79C@xp1800> In the HP Journal issue of May 1977 http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/hpjindex.html there is an article about signature analysis. Otherwise the service manual of the HP 5004 http://www.gamearchive.com/General/Data_Sheets/HP5004.pdf or 5006 should help you further. The signature check is related to the CRC check. -Rik > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens vp > Verzonden: donderdag 4 juni 2009 21:16 > Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Onderwerp: Repairing an HP3421A (Signature Analysis) > > I am trying to repair an HP3421A data acquisition and control > unit that fails its power on tests. > > In the service manual it refers to a number of "Signature Analysis" > tests that essentially mean that the unit runs some > diagnostic routine and you go and collect "signatures" from > various test points. > > Unfortunately I do not have a device to compute these signatures. > > Does anybody know how to calculate them using a logic > analyzer (I have a Bitscope and an HP 1630D), or something similar? > > Thanks > > **vp > > > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 14:52:40 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:52:40 -0400 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: <4A281FF5.6080005@e-bbes.com> References: <200906022258.53816.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200906022316.53813.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A281FF5.6080005@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 3:26 PM, e.stiebler wrote: > Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> >> And, they've been claimed. >> That was fast. > > Yes, I can imagine. I gave mine away, and now I'm missing it ;-) Indeed. 15 years ago, I was able to save the 11/750 from work, but could not find room for a pair of RK07s and a pickup-truck-load of RK07 cartridges. Those were good drives - easy to repair, decent amount of storage for the day, fast. Just don't get your fingers behind the ears on the voice coil during a power-down - those heads snap back *fast*! (when the NiCd pack is good, that is). Someone just got a fun little system to play with. Hopefully we'll hear what it's running and how it's loaded before too long. -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 4 15:20:56 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 16:20:56 -0400 Subject: Repairing an HP3421A (Signature Analysis) In-Reply-To: <2D41E9C369A84DFBAF7492485B01D79C@xp1800> References: <2D41E9C369A84DFBAF7492485B01D79C@xp1800> Message-ID: And actual HP signature multimeters show up everywhere, and tend to be cheap. -Dave On Jun 4, 2009, at 4:11 PM, Rik Bos wrote: > In the HP Journal issue of May 1977 > http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/hpjindex.html there > is an > article about signature analysis. > Otherwise the service manual of the HP 5004 > http://www.gamearchive.com/General/Data_Sheets/HP5004.pdf or 5006 > should > help you further. > The signature check is related to the CRC check. > > -Rik > >> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- >> Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org >> [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens vp >> Verzonden: donderdag 4 juni 2009 21:16 >> Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Onderwerp: Repairing an HP3421A (Signature Analysis) >> >> I am trying to repair an HP3421A data acquisition and control >> unit that fails its power on tests. >> >> In the service manual it refers to a number of "Signature Analysis" >> tests that essentially mean that the unit runs some >> diagnostic routine and you go and collect "signatures" from >> various test points. >> >> Unfortunately I do not have a device to compute these signatures. >> >> Does anybody know how to calculate them using a logic >> analyzer (I have a Bitscope and an HP 1630D), or something similar? >> >> Thanks >> >> **vp >> >> >> -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 4 15:23:54 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 16:23:54 -0400 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: <4A281FF5.6080005@e-bbes.com> References: <200906022258.53816.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200906022316.53813.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A281FF5.6080005@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: <1C03C1A4-6BA1-4DCE-965B-7AD5FE09F878@neurotica.com> On Jun 4, 2009, at 3:26 PM, e.stiebler wrote: >> And, they've been claimed. >> That was fast. > > Yes, I can imagine. I gave mine away, and now I'm missing it ;-) I did too, with both an 11/750 and an RK07. The RK07 was never used on the 11/750, though. I regretted it for years. A few years ago, though, John Wilson gave me a pair of RK07s (one of which runs!), and last fall, I picked up an 11/750 from Patrick. I still owe Patrick something for the 11/750 (as well as some other stuff, Patrick, we'll get together on that). I am grateful to both he and John for helping me to recover from my own stupidity. :) I dearly love this hardware. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From chrise at pobox.com Thu Jun 4 06:31:17 2009 From: chrise at pobox.com (Chris Elmquist) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 06:31:17 -0500 Subject: TI Silent 700 model 733 manual In-Reply-To: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> References: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> Message-ID: <20090604113117.GG5509@n0jcf.net> I also have a 733 without cassette drives (is that a different model #)? It would be nice to have access to the service manual for it. It's been in an attic for about 10 yrs but I plan to bring it back to life real soon. Oh-- it has a 300 baud acoustic coupler on the side too :-) It's this one, http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/ti-tymshare-100/DSC02096.JPG mine is not Tymshare branded however. Chris On Thursday (06/04/2009 at 10:20AM +0200), Lars Hamren wrote: >> If I remember correctly, someone was looking for a TI 733 manual. > > That was me, a few weeks ago. > >> I found one today while sorting some boxes. > > Which manual did you find? > > I am looking for a service/repair manual. I already have > > "Model 733 ASR/KSR Operating Instructions, 959227-9701, Rev C" > > revised October 1974. > >> This is the large TI terminal, not the portable one. > > Mine is the large one with casette drives, pictured here: > > http://www.sdu.se/computer-automation-museum/pub/gallery/ti--silent-733-asr-with-casette-drives.jpg > > Thanks in advance > /Lars Hamr?n -- Chris Elmquist From snhirsch at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 06:44:52 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 07:44:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Question re: 8" drive form-factor In-Reply-To: <4A27336A.7050605@brouhaha.com> References: <4A27336A.7050605@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 3 Jun 2009, Eric Smith wrote: > Steven Hirsch wrote: >> Here's a strange one: I recently acquired two Shugart 851 drives from >> another cctech-er. They were in nice shape and operate fine. The weird >> part is their form-factor. >> >> I have 8 or 10 other 8" drives in my collection, both half-height and >> full-height, including two other 851 Shugarts. All of these are 8.5" wide, >> with faceplate and frame being exactly the same size. >> >> These two "new" Shugart units are _9.5"_ wide at the faceplate and require >> a clearance of about 9-1/8" for the frame. Can anyone explain this odd >> sizing? Were they perhaps manufactured against an earlier standard? > > IIRC, the "R" suffix drives are intended to be rack-mounted in pairs. I have > no idea, though, how that could be better than using the standard-width > drives since either way they're going to need some mounting hardware. Nothing on these units indicates an "R" model, but your explanation makes sense. I'd expect there to be an obvious way to fasten the drives together along their common edge, but don't see anything that jumps out at me. Live and learn. If anyone has a particular need for this type of drive, let me know? A swap for one of the 8.5" wide units would be ideal. Steve -- From snhirsch at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 09:15:08 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 10:15:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Question re: 8" drive form-factor In-Reply-To: <4A27336A.7050605@brouhaha.com> References: <4A27336A.7050605@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 3 Jun 2009, Eric Smith wrote: > Steven Hirsch wrote: >> Here's a strange one: I recently acquired two Shugart 851 drives from >> another cctech-er. They were in nice shape and operate fine. The weird >> part is their form-factor. >> >> I have 8 or 10 other 8" drives in my collection, both half-height and >> full-height, including two other 851 Shugarts. All of these are 8.5" wide, >> with faceplate and frame being exactly the same size. >> >> These two "new" Shugart units are _9.5"_ wide at the faceplate and require >> a clearance of about 9-1/8" for the frame. Can anyone explain this odd >> sizing? Were they perhaps manufactured against an earlier standard? > > IIRC, the "R" suffix drives are intended to be rack-mounted in pairs. I have > no idea, though, how that could be better than using the standard-width > drives since either way they're going to need some mounting hardware. I found the OEM manual on bitsavers and it's actually the 'R' model that matches what I believed to the industry form-factor of 8.5" width. The "standard" (non-R) model is 9.5" wide. Odd standard, since I've never seen another 8" drive that size. Always something to learn! -- From dwbrown at tva.gov Thu Jun 4 09:21:21 2009 From: dwbrown at tva.gov (Brown, Dennis William) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 10:21:21 -0400 Subject: Free Mitsubishi MP 286L Message-ID: <9F1FF506EB0B6C4DB13BAADE8B53617306414572@TVACOCXVS1.main.tva.gov> Mitsubishi MP 286L, needs power cord. Free to good home. Local Pick-Up Only or You pay shipping costs. Soon to be recycled. Thanks, Denny Brown, P.E. Environmental Engineer TVA-Power Control Systems 1101 Market Street, SP4H-C Chattanooga, TN 37402 office: 423-751-2807 mobile: 423-605-8614 From tim at tim-mann.org Thu Jun 4 12:30:41 2009 From: tim at tim-mann.org (Tim Mann) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 10:30:41 -0700 Subject: cctech Digest, Vol 70, Issue 6 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090604103041.65065c3a@venice.mumblefrotz.org> On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:57:20 -0500, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Has anyone read Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the > Computer Age ? ... > Anyone have any back stories or have read the book? I've got it on > order, but I've read some scathing reviews about how the author got it > wrong. I know some of the scathing reviews might be by people who > weren't described in a favorable light in the book --- but I've seen > plenty of technical stories get screwed up. I remember reading and enjoying Dealers of Lightning several years ago when it came out. I worked with some of the PARC folks at their next gig (DEC Systems Research Center, run by Bob Taylor), and I don't remember people there having major complaints about the book getting things wrong. Of course a book like this never gets everything right -- certainly not to everyone's satisfaction, since different people who experienced the same events don't see them the same way. -- Tim Mann tim at tim-mann.org http://tim-mann.org/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 4 15:27:14 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 16:27:14 -0400 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: References: <200906022258.53816.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200906022316.53813.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A281FF5.6080005@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: <3AFF39F3-C4CC-4DA6-A3D3-E4B6F733ABB9@neurotica.com> On Jun 4, 2009, at 3:52 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > Indeed. 15 years ago, I was able to save the 11/750 from work, but > could not find room for a pair of RK07s and a pickup-truck-load of > RK07 cartridges. Those were good drives - easy to repair, decent > amount of storage for the day, fast. Just don't get your fingers > behind the ears on the voice coil during a power-down - those heads > snap back *fast*! (when the NiCd pack is good, that is). *SLAM!* Yes, I nearly got my finger caught in one of those. It's a shame you weren't able to grab those RK07s. They're pretty thin on the ground nowadays. I agree that they're really, really nice drives. > Someone just got a fun little system to play with. Hopefully we'll > hear what it's running and how it's loaded before too long. Did it go to someone here? If not, perhaps that person should be invited to join. That said...I've been sorta halfway thinking of starting a VAX-11 "registry" of sorts, as there aren't huge numbers of those machines left. They're not super-rare, I know, but there seem to be far fewer of them than, say, Kaypros. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 4 15:27:54 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 16:27:54 -0400 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A281EAB.8050003@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4A280EFF.9020504@dunnington.plus.com> <51FE580A-8CB0-4651-A230-BE667C6DEA94@neurotica.com> <4A281EAB.8050003@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: On Jun 4, 2009, at 3:21 PM, Pete Turnbull wrote: >> Wasn't the MSCP driver backported from 2.11BSD to something >> earlier? Hmm, come to think of it, I think that was 2.9BSD, not V7. >> Hmm, MSCP on my PDP-11/24. 8-) > > Yes, with a high-speed RD52 for authenticity ;-) Ugh! But I must admit, I love the sounds RD52s make. :) Actually I was thinking more of an SDI-connected drive on a UDA50. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 4 15:29:33 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 16:29:33 -0400 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: References: <4A280EFF.9020504@dunnington.plus.com> <51FE580A-8CB0-4651-A230-BE667C6DEA94@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <435FC1BA-DAF7-49B4-A42C-4C44E6F695FD@neurotica.com> On Jun 4, 2009, at 3:17 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> Wasn't the MSCP driver backported from 2.11BSD to something >> earlier? Hmm, >> come to think of it, I think that was 2.9BSD, not V7. > > Yes. The MSCP driver was backported to 2.9BSD from 2.11BSD. I have > yet to give that a try, but I'm looking forward to it when I have time > to get back to that corner of the basement. Ahh yes, I thought I had seen something about that. Cool. >> Hmm, MSCP on my PDP-11/24. 8-) > > Yep. I have at least one UDA50 and more than one SDI disk. :-) Yummy. :-) I am looking for a (nearby) RA60, as I like them, and I have a number of packs. I had one about ten years ago, but I gave it away. It was in pretty bad shape and I don't know if it even worked. So if anyone in Florida or perhaps Georgia has an RA60 that they want gone, please let me know. :) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From vern4wright at yahoo.com Thu Jun 4 15:38:24 2009 From: vern4wright at yahoo.com (Vernon Wright) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 13:38:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? Message-ID: <642854.69741.qm@web65501.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> > From: Rich Alderson > Subject: RE: anyone read dealers of lightning? > > If you enjoy reading [_Dealers of Lightning_], also > read Soul of a new > > Machine, its about the creation of Data General and I > think that was an > > even better read. > > De gustibus non disputandum.? However, _Soul_ is very > much NOT about "the > creation of Data General", which was incorporated in > 1968.? It is rather > about DG's effort, c. 1976, to get to market with a > so-called supermini, in > order to compete with DEC's VAX (which was under > development at the same > time). > > I first read _Soul_ as a serial in _Computerworld_ in the > summer of 1977, and > enjoyed it enough that I put it on my Christmas list (hey, > I was still in > grad school and had no money for extra books). Even so... I also read _Soul_ about the same time, and bought many copies (in paperback) to give to friends who would ask me "what is it that you techies do? and why?". I particularly thought his exposition of "signing up" for a project was the most valuable part of the book. Kidder either used to live here in San Diego, or still does. Anyway, I had never met him (odd, since I am a major collector of books as well as of all sorts of computers) until last year when he was giving a talk at the Central Library about _Mountains Beyond Mountains_ (a very affecting book in itself). I pulled out my last remaining copy of _Soul_ (paperback, someone walked off with the hardback) and took it down to have him sign it. He barely recalled the book that won him the National Book Award and the Pulitzer (OK, it HAS been 30 odd years) and told me that he had changed his approach to research and writing. But he kindly inscribed the book to me and went on to give a great talk about Dr. Paul Farmer (the subject of _Mountains_). It was a Very pleasant evening. Vern Wright From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 4 16:00:59 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:00:59 -0700 Subject: QIC cartridge tape compatibility In-Reply-To: References: <4A27AF5A.26193.FFC2AC9@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 4, 9 11:26:18 am, Message-ID: <4A27D39B.2383.1089C556@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Jun 2009 at 20:03, Tony Duell wrote: > The 9145 contains a 68000 CPU and some battery-backed RAM modules, > and alas some ASICs. One day I'll figure out something about it. Probably later than my Adic drive, then. It's got a 6800 and a 2716 EPROM with a 3M copyright sticker on it--one of several cards stacked up in a little card cage with backplane under and behind the tape area. If you stick a traditional DC300/600... tape in it, it spins it briefly before announcing with a loud buzz and LED that there's a fault condition. --Chuck From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Thu Jun 4 16:10:24 2009 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:10:24 +0100 Subject: Repairing an HP3421A (Signature Analysis) In-Reply-To: References: <2D41E9C369A84DFBAF7492485B01D79C@xp1800> Message-ID: <4A283840.9010300@philpem.me.uk> Dave McGuire wrote: > > And actual HP signature multimeters show up everywhere, and tend to be > cheap. Of course, if they're not cheap enough, you can always build a signature analyser out of a couple of LSTTL chips. If memory serves, the core of the HP 5004 analyser is an LS86 XOR, a pair of LS164 shift registers, and some logic to drive the displays. If you can live with having to do some hex -> signature-code conversions (it's basically a quick substitution of the letters from one to the other), then four TIL311s will work nicely as a display. If I didn't have any TIL311s to hand, I'd probably program an EPROM to do the conversion, and use a couple of 7-segment LED displays. Rik's right though, the May 1977 HPJ tells you just about all you really need to know to clone a HP signature analyser... -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From rickb at bensene.com Thu Jun 4 16:15:58 2009 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 14:15:58 -0700 Subject: 8" Floppies In-Reply-To: <20090604113117.GG5509@n0jcf.net> References: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> <20090604113117.GG5509@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: Hello, all, I've got a batch of 30 brand new 8" Floppies that I can't figure out. They are hard-sectored disks. The weird part is that the index hole placement is strange on these disks. They don't work on my Altair 8" drives since the index sensor doesn't line up with the hole. On all of the other hard-sectored 8" floppies that I have, the index hole is punched such that it is nearly vertical with relationship to the spindle hole, meaning that if you draw a centerline through the spindle hole up toward the index hole, the center of the index hole will fall close to this line. On these particular group of floppies, the index hole is offset to the right of the centerline, perhaps four or five degrees so. Anyone know what these might be for? Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Thu Jun 4 16:27:13 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 14:27:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Question on, A Historical Research Guide to the Microcomputer, 2nd Edition Message-ID: <959222.2752.qm@web112212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Has anyone read this? Is it any good? http://www.lulu.com/content/159715 http://www.amazon.com/Historical-Research-Guide-Microcomputer-2nd/dp/1411646525 From leolists at seidkr.com Thu Jun 4 16:37:58 2009 From: leolists at seidkr.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Philip_Leonard_WV=D8T?=) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:37:58 -0500 Subject: IBM AS400 inquiry In-Reply-To: <60584.67.93.24.222.1244135148.squirrel@www.hawkmountain.net> References: <60584.67.93.24.222.1244135148.squirrel@www.hawkmountain.net> Message-ID: <4A283EB6.80400@seidkr.com> rescue at hawkmountain.net wrote: > A friend of mine just obtained an AS400. > > It is a "9406-170 System S104V7NM Subsystem QCTL". > > I know nothing of AS400s. He did say it boots. > > So, what specs are this ? What does it run (OS ?, Apps ?), > and what can be done with it (he was originally going to use > it as an end table !!! until he found it actually booted). > > -- Curt > I have 3 AS/400's...um I mean iSeries. A 9406-500 and two 9406-730's. The 500 has some issues and will only come up into diagnostic mode. The two 730's are running OS/400 V5R3 and work well. Mine are all Heavy and Black (no beige here). http://www.findibm.com/as400/as400early.asp#170 - basic specs on the 170 Philip From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 4 16:44:11 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 17:44:11 -0400 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: <1C03C1A4-6BA1-4DCE-965B-7AD5FE09F878@neurotica.com> References: <200906022258.53816.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A281FF5.6080005@e-bbes.com> <1C03C1A4-6BA1-4DCE-965B-7AD5FE09F878@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <200906041744.11150.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 04 June 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 4, 2009, at 3:26 PM, e.stiebler wrote: > >> And, they've been claimed. > >> That was fast. > > > > Yes, I can imagine. I gave mine away, and now I'm missing it ;-) > > I did too, with both an 11/750 and an RK07. The RK07 was never > used on the 11/750, though. I regretted it for years. A few years > ago, though, John Wilson gave me a pair of RK07s (one of which > runs!), and last fall, I picked up an 11/750 from Patrick. Oddly enough, I'm giving up the 11/750 (the third or fourth that has gone through my hands), mostly because it's too small, and not nearly as interesting as my 11/780(s). :) Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 4 16:46:40 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:46:40 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <4A2840C0.895325A2@cs.ubc.ca> Rich Alderson wrote: > > De gustibus non disputandum. However, _Soul_ is very much NOT about "the > creation of Data General", which was incorporated in 1968. It is rather > about DG's effort, c. 1976, to get to market with a so-called supermini, in > order to compete with DEC's VAX (which was under development at the same > time). Can someone acquainted with both machines weigh in with an opinion of how they compared in terms of performance and capability? Did the VAX win out because it was DEC (market prominence, etc.) or because in the main it was a better machine, or some other reason? (I used and programmed with 780's and 750's under both VMS and BSD in the 80's but never worked with DG machines.) From wmaddox at pacbell.net Thu Jun 4 16:52:47 2009 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 14:52:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 8" Floppies Message-ID: <948243.70489.qm@web82603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 6/4/09, Rick Bensene wrote: > I've got a batch of 30 brand new 8" Floppies that I can't > figure out. They are hard-sectored disks. > The weird part is that the index hole placement is strange > on these disks.? They are probably double-sided disks. The index hole sensor was offset on the double-sided drives to prevent the use of disks intended for singled-sided use only. --Bill From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 16:00:33 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 17:00:33 -0400 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <435FC1BA-DAF7-49B4-A42C-4C44E6F695FD@neurotica.com> References: <4A280EFF.9020504@dunnington.plus.com> <51FE580A-8CB0-4651-A230-BE667C6DEA94@neurotica.com> <435FC1BA-DAF7-49B4-A42C-4C44E6F695FD@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 4:29 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > ?Yummy. :-) ?I am looking for a (nearby) RA60, as I like them, and I have a > number of packs. ?I had one about ten years ago, but I gave it away. ?It was > in pretty bad shape and I don't know if it even worked. When I left the RK07s behind in 1993, I also left an RA60 behind, too. It had too poor of a weight-to-MB ratio to rescue, so it stayed. I only ever had one pack for it, so it was essentially a fixed-pack drive in practice. Another victim was a VAX 8530. :-( I had no way to power it in a home environment. > ?So if anyone in Florida or perhaps Georgia has an RA60 that they want gone, > please let me know. :) That's far, far from me, and all I have is an RA60 pack in dubious shape (stored in a basement for 15 years). -ethan From steve at cosam.org Thu Jun 4 10:36:12 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 17:36:12 +0200 Subject: TK50 tribulations In-Reply-To: <4A254655.5060909@e-bbes.com> References: <95838e090906020819v36d45508j4fa8f0a746c73c61@mail.gmail.com> <4A254655.5060909@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: <95838e090906040836w26c33e56rf2a56958fa49b322@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/2 e.stiebler : > Did you also clean the LEDs ? The tach ? Yep, the LEDs and what I presume are their "sensor" partners all got taken out for a good going over with alcohol. The tach appeared OK but I cleaned it too anyway. Something tells me the problem is along these lines though. I will check what they're up to. -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 09:51:06 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 10:51:06 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <7d3530220906040751h634442c0h509459aff2e556f8@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 9:52 AM, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > why would you ruin a perfectly good PDP with something as awful as BSD? > what's the point? > You're right, BSD is pretty awful. It would be better if he could run v7 UNIX. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Thu Jun 4 17:10:43 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:10:43 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906040751h634442c0h509459aff2e556f8@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <7d3530220906040751h634442c0h509459aff2e556f8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5FF32105-0644-4399-98CB-2FD741B7C335@mail.msu.edu> On Jun 4, 2009, at 7:51 AM, John Floren wrote: > On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 9:52 AM, Dan Gahlinger > wrote: >> >> why would you ruin a perfectly good PDP with something as awful as >> BSD? >> what's the point? >> > > You're right, BSD is pretty awful. It would be better if he could > run v7 UNIX. > > John I'll try to get that running on the 11/40 once I work out the hardware issues :) Josh > > -- > "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS > reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, > Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba > From mdavidson1963 at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 17:15:45 2009 From: mdavidson1963 at gmail.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:15:45 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A2840C0.895325A2@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A2840C0.895325A2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 2:46 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Rich Alderson wrote: >> >> De gustibus non disputandum. ?However, _Soul_ is very much NOT about "the >> creation of Data General", which was incorporated in 1968. ?It is rather >> about DG's effort, c. 1976, to get to market with a so-called supermini, in >> order to compete with DEC's VAX (which was under development at the same >> time). > > Can someone acquainted with both machines weigh in with an opinion of how they > compared in terms of performance and capability? Did the VAX win out because it > was DEC (market prominence, etc.) or because in the main it was a better > machine, or some other reason? > > (I used and programmed with 780's and 750's under both VMS and BSD in the 80's > but never worked with DG machines.) I don't have nearly as much experience with VAXen as I do with DG machines, but I will say this (and please remember, I LOVE DG hardware and software)... VMS simply rocks IMHO. AOS/VS is a very cool OS, but doesn't hold much of a candle to VMS. I'll go crawl back in my hole now... :) Mark From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 4 17:37:11 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:37:11 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A2840C0.895325A2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A284C98.90BFC358@cs.ubc.ca> Mark Davidson wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 2:46 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: > > Rich Alderson wrote: > >> > >> De gustibus non disputandum. ?However, _Soul_ is very much NOT about "the > >> creation of Data General", which was incorporated in 1968. ?It is rather > >> about DG's effort, c. 1976, to get to market with a so-called supermini, in > >> order to compete with DEC's VAX (which was under development at the same > >> time). > > > > Can someone acquainted with both machines weigh in with an opinion of how they > > compared in terms of performance and capability? Did the VAX win out because it > > was DEC (market prominence, etc.) or because in the main it was a better > > machine, or some other reason? > > > > (I used and programmed with 780's and 750's under both VMS and BSD in the 80's > > but never worked with DG machines.) > > I don't have nearly as much experience with VAXen as I do with DG > machines, but I will say this (and please remember, I LOVE DG hardware > and software)... VMS simply rocks IMHO. AOS/VS is a very cool OS, but > doesn't hold much of a candle to VMS. > > I'll go crawl back in my hole now... :) Well, the manufacturer operatings systems are another variable, perhaps another way of expressing the question would be: how would the machines compare if BSD had targetted the DG machine instead of the VAX? From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 4 17:37:44 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:37:44 -0700 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 References: Message-ID: <4A284CB9.293FAAFE@cs.ubc.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > > If there were one thing about RS232 and (smart) modems that I wish had been > > differently, it would be that the hayes modem standard had permitted some > > technique to switch between data mode and control mode without having those 2 > > second guard periods. That was (is) so annoying waiting for dial-up software to > > get the modem into control mode. > > The point weas that the Smartmodem would work using only the TxD and RxD > data lines (it didn't use the control lines, simply because you couldn't > rely on them even existing on some RS232 interfaces) _and_ it could not > be fooled if the special sequence of characters to go to command mode > occured e.g. in a file download. It was assumed (I think quite > reasonably) that you'd not get the characters _and the pauses_ in a download. It's no mystery what the original point was. From hamren at sdu.se Thu Jun 4 17:36:48 2009 From: hamren at sdu.se (Lars Hamren) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:36:48 +0200 Subject: TI Silent 700 model 733 manual In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A284C80.9000900@sdu.se> > I also have a 733 without cassette drives (is that a different model #)? The model with the two cassette drives is the 733 ASR (Automatic Send/Receive) and the model without is the 733 KSR (Keyboard Send/Receive) > http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/ti-tymshare-100/DSC02096.JPG Is this really a 733? It does not look like one. According to the picture in my "Operating Instructions", the KSR looks identical to the ASR, except for the cassette driver, and it is not designed to be portable. But perhaps it's a 733 in a Tymshare carrying case. Does yours look virtually identical to the one on the picture? /Lars From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 4 14:15:24 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:15:24 -0400 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: References: <1244130173.3399.2.camel@elric> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 1:56 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> > Have you measured the voltage on the RS232 TxD pin in both cases? >> >> Tony is closest ;-) >> >> The USB serial adaptor only seems to put out a really tiny current. >> More than a few microamps (!) into a load makes it put out a train of > > In which case it's not even close to being RS232 compatible (I seem to > remmebr an input impedance of the order of kilohms being OK for RS232 > receivers). One wonders if the in-house product test was more rigorous than connecting two devices with a 2m cable and sending a few characters at 9600 bps, or more likely, the engineers said that the design as given wouldn't meet the formal spec without spending $0.25 on more robust components and were told to keep it cheap since it would probably work for most customers, or at least work well enough that few customers would return the item. >> spikes at about 20kHz more like a sawtooth wave, than nice neat pulses. > > Is it possible that the DC-DC converter is playing up? I asusme this > USB-RS"32 converter is powered from the 5V on the USB port so presumably > it contains some kinde of DC-DC converter to get RS232 levels, possible > inside a MAXnnnn IC.Perhaps that can't supply enough current to the drivers. The USB serial devices I've seen have been a 1-chip design - presumably USB, UART, and level converters all on one die, with a few discretes for the DC-DC converter. I don't remember seeing any separate Maxim devices in them. > I saw this years ago on the RS232 card in my Philip P850. That card had a > potted module on it to provide +/- 12 V (for 1488s) from the 5V logic > supply. Mione had failed (I assume dried up capacitors) and output some > interesting waveforms. The result, of course, was garbage on all the > RS232 outputs. We had something like that happen with our Qbus COMBOARDs when an early customer installed theirs into a Qbus backplane that didn't provide -15V (which is, ISTR, most of them). Things didn't make sense until we figured out the lack of negative voltage to the 1488s/1489s. Every Qboard after that had a DC-DC converter on it (and I still have dozens of those, new on the slab of foam). -ethan From chris at mainecoon.com Thu Jun 4 18:04:01 2009 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Chris Kennedy) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:04:01 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A284C98.90BFC358@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A2840C0.895325A2@cs.ubc.ca> <4A284C98.90BFC358@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A2852E1.4030800@mainecoon.com> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Well, the manufacturer operatings systems are another variable, perhaps another > way of expressing the question would be: how would the machines compare if BSD > had targetted the DG machine instead of the VAX? Interesting question, but a difficult one to answer. Both Eagle (MV) and VAX architectures had good and bad implementations, with (from an ISA standpoint) the VAX being decidedly the more CISC-ish of the two (the Eagle retaining a lot of the RISC-ish flavor of the original Nova and then Eclipse families). Somewhat to its detriment the Eagle retained the horrible Nova I/O bus (although in some cases several distinct instances of it), but eventually compensated by hanging relatively intelligent devices off of it. In the end targeting *nix to the Eagle was problematic because of the way that byte pointers work (or don't) relative to what was expected by C, making implementation of the language a great deal more difficult. It was eventually done, but it was decidedly a later arrival in the marketplace. I suspect a better apples-to-apples comparison might be the theoretical porting of Multics to each architecture. There, that should put the fox in with the chickens ;) -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jun 4 18:36:32 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 16:36:32 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: From: Rich Alderson Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 12:26 PM > I first read _Soul_ as a serial in _Computerworld_ in the summer of 1977, > and enjoyed it enough that I put it on my Christmas list (hey, I was still > in grad school and had no money for extra books). Even so... Ha. No, I didn't. Summer of 1977 I was still in New Haven working on being a grad student there. I read it in 1981, when it was published, like anyone else. Some of the ECC bits aren't quite up to snuff, any longer, but the backing store eventually catches up. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell From steve at cosam.org Thu Jun 4 14:58:34 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 21:58:34 +0200 Subject: SLU's backpanel for one BA11-SB box (PDP-11/23 PLUS) In-Reply-To: References: <8CBB3515F8A764F-1464-5F5@webmail-dh09.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <95838e090906041258l6317d370wbbb3f872aafa3663@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/4 SPC : > You're right. I got one photo of the back side of one BA11-SB and it's > exactly as you describe it. Ah, I thought you had a BA11 and were going to put that in some kind of table-top enclosure which had the bulkhead holes in it. I must admit, I was kind of wondering what that was. Does the BA11 you're looking at have a cover? On mine, the cover is actually also what holds the thing in the rack; the chassis slides in from the front. > Options ? Doing some homebrew would be possible to replace the back cover > with one bulkhead of, perhaps, one BA23 :-) The BA23 panel is a very different shape, I'm afraid, and there's not an awful lot of clearance behind the BA11 panel for bulkheads. You might just get some to fit if you can fabricate a suitable panel. There may be enough room to mount some ports at the bottom of the BA11 panel if you remove the sliding adjustable parts. Or how about just building a couple of homemade adapters/cables? For example, an IDC connector at one end and a DE9 or DB25 at the other for the console. > And, of course, you can get one BA23. But I have the BA11 in mind (by now) > and I need to reuse some BA23 components. An actual BA23 is indeed very handy to have around. Which parts are you looking to reuse? -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 4 21:14:46 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 22:14:46 -0400 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: <200906041744.11150.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200906022258.53816.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A281FF5.6080005@e-bbes.com> <1C03C1A4-6BA1-4DCE-965B-7AD5FE09F878@neurotica.com> <200906041744.11150.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <69ACC482-B9DB-4E57-9897-EA9FEE71796E@neurotica.com> On Jun 4, 2009, at 5:44 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >>>> And, they've been claimed. >>>> That was fast. >>> >>> Yes, I can imagine. I gave mine away, and now I'm missing it ;-) >> >> I did too, with both an 11/750 and an RK07. The RK07 was never >> used on the 11/750, though. I regretted it for years. A few years >> ago, though, John Wilson gave me a pair of RK07s (one of which >> runs!), and last fall, I picked up an 11/750 from Patrick. > > Oddly enough, I'm giving up the 11/750 (the third or fourth that has > gone through my hands), mostly because it's too small, and not nearly > as interesting as my 11/780(s). :) ROFL! -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From brain at jbrain.com Thu Jun 4 21:44:25 2009 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:44:25 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A288689.5010206@jbrain.com> Tony Duell wrote: > The point weas that the Smartmodem would work using only the TxD and RxD > data lines (it didn't use the control lines, simply because you couldn't > rely on them even existing on some RS232 interfaces) _and_ it could not > be fooled if the special sequence of characters to go to command mode > occured e.g. in a file download. It was assumed (I think quite > reasonably) that you'd not get the characters _and the pauses_ in a download. > It was a bear to properly emulate that sequence in tcpser, as many BBS systems used it to hang up: +++ ath0 in lieu of dropping DTR. I'm not quite sure I have it *exactly* emulated, but it must be close enough, as I never get bug reports on that aspect of it anymore. Jim From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jun 4 23:00:20 2009 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 23:00:20 -0500 Subject: SLU's backpanel for one BA11-SB box (PDP-11/23 PLUS) References: <8CBB2FAC99914D2-B50-209A@WEBMAIL-MC20.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <023101c9e592$2552a950$c600a8c0@JWEST> It was written.... > You *could* build a custom ribbon cable to interface > the DZV11 / DHV11 / DHQ11 bulkheads to work with > the DEC standard 10-pin connectors, but it's easier > just to find the proper bulkheads. It is? Not in my world. I've been looking for bulkhead/cabkits for a couple DEC unibus multiport serial boards for eons. Still not found any! Jay From ragooman at comcast.net Thu Jun 4 23:18:21 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:18:21 -0400 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <4A2840C0.895325A2@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A2840C0.895325A2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A289C8D.5040201@comcast.net> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Rich Alderson wrote: > >> De gustibus non disputandum. However, _Soul_ is very much NOT about "the >> creation of Data General", which was incorporated in 1968. It is rather >> about DG's effort, c. 1976, to get to market with a so-called supermini, in >> order to compete with DEC's VAX (which was under development at the same >> time). >> > > Can someone acquainted with both machines weigh in with an opinion of how they > compared in terms of performance and capability? Did the VAX win out because it > was DEC (market prominence, etc.) or because in the main it was a better > machine, or some other reason? > > (I used and programmed with 780's and 750's under both VMS and BSD in the 80's > but never worked with DG machines.) The SEL Systems 32 series out performed both the Vax 11/780 and the MV8000(not released until '80) in the 70's. The Vax 11/780 was built _after_ the SEL Systems 32 series as well. =Dan [ S.E.L. = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/computers_mini_sel.html ] From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 00:47:45 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 00:47:45 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> So I got around to hooking some things up and seeing what works. I have a quadra 700 with system 7.6 on it. I also had a 7 bay scsi enclosure lying around, a couple scsi hard drives, and a slot loading dvd drive. My goal here is first to get the quadra on the network so I can share files with it. Also, I'd like to be able to read CDs or DVDs from the quadra. Once one of those is successful, I plan to use ADT to transfer a prodos or apple 3.3 dos disk image to an apple 2gs over a serial cable, then create a bootable floppy for my 2e. :-P lol. It's looking like a fun project. I should note that I have zero floppy disks for the mac or apple 2e/2gs. So this is sort of a fun boot-strapping project to see if I can get there from here. Much to my surprise, the quadra 700 detected the two scsi hard drives and dvd drive. The quadra already had some scsi utilities and each of the drives show up. One of them has a mount button, but it refuses to mount a CD in the DVD drive. No surprise there I guess. Any idea how I can get the machine to mount a CD or DVD? I might have a termination problem. I have this black centronics thingy with the apple logo on it. It sort of looks like a terminator, but you can plug another centronics cable into the back of it, so I'm doubting it's a terminator. Networking doesn't seem to work. I get a light on the hub, but it doesn't seem interested in letting me get to the network. The machine has Timbuktu installed, but the open menu option is ghosted out. The info menu option works, but nothing is listed on the networking tab. I found this link: http://www.atpm.com/network/files/file_sharing.htm The menu options they talk about are missing. I have some applescript menu options somewhere else that talk about turning on file sharing, but they don't work either. I'm thinking I might need to reinstall the system software at some point. Any tips on how I can get this machine on the network? I suspect the floppy drive is bad. I put a new HD floppy in the drive. It detects it as a 1.4meg floppy disk, but formatting doesn't work. It claims the disk is bad. I have another drive in the IIfx that I might try swapping in to see if I can get the floppy drive working. I copied a dos file to the floppy as a test to see if I could get the mac to read it. No luck. It wants to format the disk. Any ideas on how I can be able to share floppies between the PC and mac? I know the mac drives are a little odd. fun stuff. From adam at adamandliz.com Fri Jun 5 01:28:16 2009 From: adam at adamandliz.com (Adam White) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:28:16 +0100 Subject: IBM AS400 inquiry In-Reply-To: <60584.67.93.24.222.1244135148.squirrel@www.hawkmountain.net> References: <60584.67.93.24.222.1244135148.squirrel@www.hawkmountain.net> Message-ID: <4A28BB00.2050402@adamandliz.com> The AS/400, otherwise known as iSeries or System i5 (IBM do love their re-branding) run OS/400. What level I can't remember, but possibly only up to around V5R3 ish for this machine. It was borne out of the system/38 back in about 87 with a range of CICS machines, the 170 is a RISC powerpc machine that was nicknamed "invader". Designed by Dr Frank Soltis, these were the first machines to include an integrated database that conformed to Ted Codds Rules. I code on similar, although significantly bigger machines today for a top bank, and it runs a huge amount of the worlds banking systems. It is also very heavily used in manufacturing and distribution. Some people run apache on it and thus use it as a very secure web-server. There is a large amount of vendor software written for it such as SAP, Coda, JBA to name a few out of many. To actually connect and do something with it, you will need a 5250 emulator on your pc, I dare say it came with one such a Client Access, or there is as teast one free version available. VT100 emulation is possible, but it isn't great. A few commands you can try: WRKACTJOB - Work with active jobs WRKSPLF - Work withj spooled files PWRDWMSYS - Power it downwhen you've given up trying to work out how to use it STRPDM - Start programming development manager GO MAIN - go into the main menu where you can do lots of stuff withou knowing what commands to use CRTBNDRPG - create an RPG program CRTCLPGM - create a CL program there are thousands of commands....far to many to list here. To get coding you will need a source file. You program source will be a member in this file. To Create a library to put it in CRTLIB then press F4 To create a source file CRTSRCPF, press F4 and enter the details to create a source member STRPDM and then select option to work with members, put your file and library name in, then press F6 to create and off you go.... There are numerous web-sites around that says what it does and with code that can be downloaded. I suggest you do a little googling. Adam On 04/06/2009 18:05, rescue at hawkmountain.net wrote: > A friend of mine just obtained an AS400. > > It is a "9406-170 System S104V7NM Subsystem QCTL". > > I know nothing of AS400s. He did say it boots. > > So, what specs are this ? What does it run (OS ?, Apps ?), > and what can be done with it (he was originally going to use > it as an end table !!! until he found it actually booted). > > -- Curt > > From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 5 01:37:44 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 23:37:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 5, 9 00:47:45 am" Message-ID: <200906050637.n556bi9R029020@floodgap.com> > My goal here is first to get the quadra on the network so I can share > files with it. Also, I'd like to be able to read CDs or DVDs from the > quadra. Once one of those is successful, I plan to use ADT to > transfer a prodos or apple 3.3 dos disk image to an apple 2gs over a > serial cable, then create a bootable floppy for my 2e. :-P lol. > It's looking like a fun project. > > I should note that I have zero floppy disks for the mac or apple > 2e/2gs. So this is sort of a fun boot-strapping project to see if I > can get there from here. > > Much to my surprise, the quadra 700 detected the two scsi hard drives > and dvd drive. The quadra already had some scsi utilities and each of > the drives show up. One of them has a mount button, but it refuses to > mount a CD in the DVD drive. No surprise there I guess. Any idea how > I can get the machine to mount a CD or DVD? I might have a > termination problem. I have this black centronics thingy with the > apple logo on it. It sort of looks like a terminator, but you can > plug another centronics cable into the back of it, so I'm doubting > it's a terminator. Nope, that's a terminator, actually. The problem could be the file system, but if it's Mac OS 7.6, it should understand ISO 9660 as long as the standard extensions are there. The other problem is the drive. 7.6 probably won't recognize the DVD-ROM, and won't recognize many CD-ROMs unless they are Apple ROMmed or there are appropriate drivers. I use Apple-branded CD-ROMs with all my systems. > Networking doesn't seem to work. I get a light on the hub, but it > doesn't seem interested in letting me get to the network. AppleTalk or TCP/IP? Do you have a MacTCP control panel? TCP/IP? > I suspect the floppy drive is bad. I put a new HD floppy in the > drive. It detects it as a 1.4meg floppy disk, but formatting doesn't > work. It claims the disk is bad. I have another drive in the IIfx > that I might try swapping in to see if I can get the floppy drive > working. I copied a dos file to the floppy as a test to see if I > could get the mac to read it. No luck. It wants to format the disk. > Any ideas on how I can be able to share floppies between the PC and > mac? I know the mac drives are a little odd. Check that you have the File Exchange control panel installed, but this again should be a standard part of 7.6. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Die, v.: To stop sinning suddenly. -- Elbert Hubbard ----------------------- From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 5 01:42:14 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 23:42:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <200906050637.n556bi9R029020@floodgap.com> from Cameron Kaiser at "Jun 4, 9 11:37:44 pm" Message-ID: <200906050642.n556gElb029694@floodgap.com> > Check that you have the File Exchange control panel installed, but this > again should be a standard part of 7.6. PC Exchange even. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Please dispose of this message in the usual manner. -- Mission: Impossible - From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 5 01:52:48 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:52:48 -0700 Subject: Question re: 8" drive form-factor In-Reply-To: References: <4A27336A.7050605@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A28C0C0.3060708@brouhaha.com> Steven Hirsch wrote: > I found the OEM manual on bitsavers and it's actually the 'R' model > that matches what I believed to the industry form-factor of 8.5" > width. The "standard" (non-R) model is 9.5" wide. Odd standard, > since I've never seen another 8" drive that size. Ah, that was it. They made the "R" model narrower to make it easier to fit them side by side in a rack. I'm guessing that the 9.5" size might match the size of the genuine IBM 33FD, 43FD, or 53FD drives. Although I have some 53FD drives, I've never taken them out of the equipment they're installed in, so I haven't had occasion to measure their dimensions. Eric From pontus at Update.UU.SE Fri Jun 5 02:03:36 2009 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 09:03:36 +0200 Subject: More vintage hardware still alive and kickin' In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090605070336.GA15143@Update.UU.SE> On Thu, Jun 04, 2009 at 03:41:45PM +0000, Mike Ross wrote: > > Enjoy > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RCgIrZiC6c > Thanks for sharing. I saw one of those at a museum here in Sweden, and even after watching yours run, I wonder how they work. /P From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 5 02:16:59 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:16:59 -0700 Subject: 8" Floppies In-Reply-To: References: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> <20090604113117.GG5509@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: <4A28C66B.6090306@brouhaha.com> Rick Bensene wrote: > I've got a batch of 30 brand new 8" Floppies that I can't figure out. > They are hard-sectored disks. > The weird part is that the index hole placement is strange on these > disks. > > They don't work on my Altair 8" drives since the index sensor doesn't > line up with the hole. > They're double-sided disks. Not too uncommon. If you want to see some really strange 8" floppy disks, I have a box of Memorex disks that are hard-sectored and have the sector/index hole near the outer edge of the disk, rather than near the rim. IBM used an outer-edge index hole on the very first floppy drive, the Minnow (23FD), which was a read-only drive used for microcode storage. Minnow only stored about 80KB and spun at 90 RPM (vs. 360 for "modern" 8-inch floppy drives). The 23FD drive and media were not offered as separate products. Memorex introduced the first commercially-sold 8" read/write floppy drive, the 650, and later a 651 with faster seek times. These were hard-sectored and had the sector/index hole near the outer edge, and spun at 375 RPM. I don't know whether the diskettes used by the Memorex 65x drives were interchangeable with Minnow disks, but my box of Memorex disks were presumably for the Memorex 65x drive. I've heard that the 65x drive was used in some early word processing systems. Eric From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Fri Jun 5 04:00:35 2009 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 11:00:35 +0200 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: <3AFF39F3-C4CC-4DA6-A3D3-E4B6F733ABB9@neurotica.com> References: <200906022258.53816.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200906022316.53813.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A281FF5.6080005@e-bbes.com> <3AFF39F3-C4CC-4DA6-A3D3-E4B6F733ABB9@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20090605090034.GI32351@lug-owl.de> On Thu, 2009-06-04 16:27:14 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: > > That said...I've been sorta halfway thinking of starting a VAX-11 > "registry" of sorts, as there aren't huge numbers of those machines > left. They're not super-rare, I know, but there seem to be far fewer of > them than, say, Kaypros. Unfortunately, I only have a 6320. But if anybody wants to get rid of their VAX gear (anything sized from VXT to 9000, maybe with the exception of the most common 4000/60, /90 and /90A models), I'll give them a good, new home! MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de +49-172-7608481 Signature of: Wenn ich wach bin, tr?ume ich. the second : From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 06:27:58 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 06:27:58 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <200906050642.n556gElb029694@floodgap.com> References: <200906050637.n556bi9R029020@floodgap.com> <200906050642.n556gElb029694@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906050427o7d85750epdf87fcf181a31d32@mail.gmail.com> I saw file exchange and pc exchange in there, but I couldn't manage to make either of them work. I'll focus on them tonight. On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 1:42 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> Check that you have the File Exchange control panel installed, but this >> again should be a standard part of 7.6. > > PC Exchange even. > > -- > ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- > ?Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com > -- Please dispose of this message in the usual manner. -- Mission: Impossible - > From spedraja at ono.com Fri Jun 5 06:54:04 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 13:54:04 +0200 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s In-Reply-To: <4A28DB3F.8050000@softjar.se> References: <4A28DB3F.8050000@softjar.se> Message-ID: > > I'd look at the 7th Ed. sources and the install process to see what >> 7th Ed. is expecting to load onto. >> > > You need to rewrite things. There is no way you can get something written > for the Unibus, and large memory, work on a q-bus without rewriting some > stuff. > I suggest to begin by this: http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/other/Tim_Shoppa_v6/README ... and later by this: http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/other/Tim_Shoppa_v6/ Not the 'official' thing but a good point to begin. In fact is what I'm preparing for my PDP-11/23 PLUS Regards Sergio From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jun 5 08:27:23 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 06:27:23 -0700 Subject: Question re: 8" drive form-factor In-Reply-To: <4A28C0C0.3060708@brouhaha.com> References: <4A27336A.7050605@brouhaha.com> <4A28C0C0.3060708@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 23:52:48 -0700 > From: eric at brouhaha.com > To: > Subject: Re: Question re: 8" drive form-factor > > Steven Hirsch wrote: >> I found the OEM manual on bitsavers and it's actually the 'R' model >> that matches what I believed to the industry form-factor of 8.5" >> width. The "standard" (non-R) model is 9.5" wide. Odd standard, >> since I've never seen another 8" drive that size. > Ah, that was it. They made the "R" model narrower to make it easier to > fit them side by side in a rack. > > I'm guessing that the 9.5" size might match the size of the genuine IBM > 33FD, 43FD, or 53FD drives. Although I have some 53FD drives, I've > never taken them out of the equipment they're installed in, so I haven't > had occasion to measure their dimensions. > > Eric > Hi I have both form factors in the 800 models and 900 modles as well so it was used before the 851s. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Storage_062009 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jun 5 08:32:08 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 06:32:08 -0700 Subject: 8" Floppies In-Reply-To: <4A28C66B.6090306@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> <20090604113117.GG5509@n0jcf.net> <4A28C66B.6090306@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 00:16:59 -0700 > From: eric at brouhaha.com > To: > Subject: Re: 8" Floppies > > Rick Bensene wrote: >> I've got a batch of 30 brand new 8" Floppies that I can't figure out. >> They are hard-sectored disks. >> The weird part is that the index hole placement is strange on these >> disks. >> >> They don't work on my Altair 8" drives since the index sensor doesn't >> line up with the hole. >> > They're double-sided disks. Not too uncommon. If you want to see some > really strange 8" floppy disks, I have a box of Memorex disks that are > hard-sectored and have the sector/index hole near the outer edge of the > disk, rather than near the rim. > > IBM used an outer-edge index hole on the very first floppy drive, the > Minnow (23FD), which was a read-only drive used for microcode storage. > Minnow only stored about 80KB and spun at 90 RPM (vs. 360 for "modern" > 8-inch floppy drives). The 23FD drive and media were not offered as > separate products. > > Memorex introduced the first commercially-sold 8" read/write floppy > drive, the 650, and later a 651 with faster seek times. These were > hard-sectored and had the sector/index hole near the outer edge, and > spun at 375 RPM. I don't know whether the diskettes used by the Memorex > 65x drives were interchangeable with Minnow disks, but my box of Memorex > disks were presumably for the Memorex 65x drive. I've heard that the > 65x drive was used in some early word processing systems. > > Eric > Hi If he wants to use them, just get a hand hole punch. Slip a piece of thin cardboard between the envelop and the disk then slide the punch in and put the hole where you'd like. The cardboard will protect the disk while punching. I admit to doing it myself. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live?: Keep your life in sync. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009 From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Fri Jun 5 08:40:23 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 06:40:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) Message-ID: <608471.68192.qm@web112209.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I don't have this anymore other wise I would send it to you but if you can find a copy of FWB Hard Disk Tool Kit.. It will help you mount pretty much anything. It will handle the CD-ROM problem.. FWB is no longer is business but the software is the best. You wont be able to mount DVDs on 7.6.. I think I was up to 9.2 before I got a DVD drive.. I do recommend getting an Apple CD ROM because if you want to upgrade the OS from a CD you will need a bootable CD ROM drive and those are the best. From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Fri Jun 5 08:45:06 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 06:45:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Looking for a Wameco CPU card for a QM-1A Message-ID: <871580.50422.qm@web112221.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I got my hands on a nice Wameco QM-1A board Here is a pic: http://lh6.ggpht.com/_gUrHnv1nh-4/ShtCKBhWr6I/AAAAAAAAAh4/K-86gLf7Nl4/s720/IMG_1614.JPG I am looking for a CPU card for this. If someone has one that they don't want and is reasonable please let me know. Please contact me off-list. Thanks From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jun 5 08:50:21 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:50:21 -0700 Subject: 8" Floppies In-Reply-To: <4A28C66B.6090306@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> <20090604113117.GG5509@n0jcf.net> <4A28C66B.6090306@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A29229D.7000705@bitsavers.org> Eric Smith wrote: > Memorex introduced the first commercially-sold 8" read/write floppy > drive, the 650, and later a 651 with faster seek times. These were > hard-sectored and had the sector/index hole near the outer edge, and > spun at 375 RPM. I don't know whether the diskettes used by the Memorex > 65x drives were interchangeable with Minnow disks, but my box of Memorex > disks were presumably for the Memorex 65x drive. I've heard that the > 65x drive was used in some early word processing systems. > They were also sold by AED in the 2500 floppy disc subsystem. Burroughs also used this style floppy. There is a notch in the outer case on those. From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 09:12:28 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 09:12:28 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <200906050637.n556bi9R029020@floodgap.com> References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> <200906050637.n556bi9R029020@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906050712h3ca6570bw80e7260bb4ec318e@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 1:37 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > Nope, that's a terminator, actually. The problem could be the file system, > but if it's Mac OS 7.6, it should understand ISO 9660 as long as the > standard extensions are there. > The other problem is the drive. 7.6 probably won't recognize the DVD-ROM, > and won't recognize many CD-ROMs unless they are Apple ROMmed or there are > appropriate drivers. I use Apple-branded CD-ROMs with all my systems. It's actually a copy of windows xp I had sitting in another machine. So it should be ISO9660. Maybe the mac won't read it out of principle. ;-) I had originally planned to use this scsi box with my amiga which isn't so hardware-picky. I've been wanting to get one of those external apple-branded cdrom drives so maybe I should start shopping for one of those. >> Networking doesn't seem to work. ?I get a light on the hub, but it >> doesn't seem interested in letting me get to the network. > > AppleTalk or TCP/IP? Do you have a MacTCP control panel? TCP/IP? tcp/ip. MacTCP looks like it's there, but again, it doesn't seem to work. I'll send out an exact error message and a description of what I'm doing tonight. > Check that you have the File Exchange control panel installed, but this > again should be a standard part of 7.6. I'll play with that it more tonight. brian From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jun 5 09:23:53 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:23:53 -0700 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906050712h3ca6570bw80e7260bb4ec318e@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> <200906050637.n556bi9R029020@floodgap.com> <6dbe3c380906050712h3ca6570bw80e7260bb4ec318e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A292A79.7060901@bitsavers.org> Brian Lanning wrote: > It's actually a copy of windows xp I had sitting in another machine. > So it should be ISO9660. Maybe the mac won't read it out of > principle. ;-) > Correct. The principle being MAC OS doesn't know anything about NTFS. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jun 5 09:29:46 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 11:29:46 -0300 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <31f401c9e5eb$b2dd69a0$0dce19bb@desktaba> > I should note that I have zero floppy disks for the mac or apple > 2e/2gs. So this is sort of a fun boot-strapping project to see if I > can get there from here. There are utilities you can type (yes!) on an apple and transfer floppy image files to disk. Lots of people do that for floppy creation when they have nothing, and no apple user around. You just need a null-modem cable and a serial board on the apple. From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 5 09:50:46 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 07:50:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906050712h3ca6570bw80e7260bb4ec318e@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 5, 9 09:12:28 am" Message-ID: <200906051450.n55Eok6u024248@floodgap.com> > I had originally planned to use this scsi box with my amiga which > isn't so hardware-picky. I've been wanting to get one of those > external apple-branded cdrom drives so maybe I should start shopping > for one of those. Yes, you should. It will solve a lot of problems. > >> Networking doesn't seem to work. _I get a light on the hub, but it > >> doesn't seem interested in letting me get to the network. > > > > AppleTalk or TCP/IP? Do you have a MacTCP control panel? TCP/IP? > > tcp/ip. MacTCP looks like it's there, but again, it doesn't seem to > work. I'll send out an exact error message and a description of what > I'm doing tonight. You should see (the Q700 has built-in Ethernet IIRC) something like LocalTalk and the built-in Ethernet. Select Ethernet in MacTCP, and click More... if you want to adjust things like subnet mask and so on. If you are using an ENet card in one of the NuBus slots, make sure you have a driver for it. I would just use the built-in ENet; AAUI connectors are dirt-cheap and common as, well, dirt. > > Check that you have the File Exchange control panel installed, but this > > again should be a standard part of 7.6. > > I'll play with that it more tonight. You mentioned in your message that PC/File Exchange were all installed. When you select them from the Control Panels, no error? Otherwise, yeah, I suspect the floppy drive. The auto-inject drives are all getting long in the tooth. A thorough cleaning would be a good start. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Born free. Taxed to death. ------------------------------------------------- From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 09:57:17 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 09:57:17 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <31f401c9e5eb$b2dd69a0$0dce19bb@desktaba> References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> <31f401c9e5eb$b2dd69a0$0dce19bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906050757x1d2624c3wfdf0a0b053418b8b@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 9:29 AM, Alexandre Souza wrote: >> I should note that I have zero floppy disks for the mac or apple >> 2e/2gs. ?So this is sort of a fun boot-strapping project to see if I >> can get there from here. > > ? There are utilities you can type (yes!) on an apple and transfer floppy > image files to disk. Lots of people do that for floppy creation when they > have nothing, and no apple user around. You just need a null-modem cable and > a serial board on the apple. I found this thing called ADT that does what you describe. You point it at a disk image on a mac or PC (if you have the right cable) and type IN#2 on the 2e or 2gs, then it does what you describe. It looks like it does a call-151 then types in a bunch of binary that represents the entire OS. lol That's my goal. But I need ADT and 2e disk images on the mac first. From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Jun 5 10:21:19 2009 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 17:21:19 +0200 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: References: <1244130173.3399.2.camel@elric> Message-ID: <20090605172119.06cd9734.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:15:24 -0400 Ethan Dicks wrote: > We had something like that happen with our Qbus COMBOARDs when an > early customer installed theirs into a Qbus backplane that didn't > provide -15V (which is, ISTR, most of them). Things didn't make sense > until we figured out the lack of negative voltage to the 1488s/1489s. > Every Qboard after that had a DC-DC converter on it (and I still have > dozens of those, new on the slab of foam). Even DEC did it. The, IIRC, DHV11 QBus 8 line RS232 has a DC-DC converter on it. I saw several DHV11 where the poted torroidal inductivity of this discrete DC-DC converter was ripped of the PCB. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 10:22:28 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 10:22:28 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <200906051450.n55Eok6u024248@floodgap.com> References: <6dbe3c380906050712h3ca6570bw80e7260bb4ec318e@mail.gmail.com> <200906051450.n55Eok6u024248@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906050822x2d30a1bx7fa7a2ea33a3dd28@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 9:50 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> tcp/ip. ?MacTCP looks like it's there, but again, it doesn't seem to >> work. ?I'll send out an exact error message and a description of what >> I'm doing tonight. > > You should see (the Q700 has built-in Ethernet IIRC) something like > LocalTalk and the built-in Ethernet. Select Ethernet in MacTCP, and click > More... if you want to adjust things like subnet mask and so on. > If you are using an ENet card in one of the NuBus slots, make sure you > have a driver for it. I would just use the built-in ENet; AAUI connectors > are dirt-cheap and common as, well, dirt. I have the AAUI connector. I'm thinking it's working since I get a light on the hub. I was able to switch it from appletalk to tcp/ip and set it to dhcp, but it looks like it didn't even try to ask for an ip address. >> > Check that you have the File Exchange control panel installed, but this >> > again should be a standard part of 7.6. >> >> I'll play with that it more tonight. > > You mentioned in your message that PC/File Exchange were all installed. > When you select them from the Control Panels, no error?\ I tried 100 different things last night and can't remember the details now. Some items weren't on the control panel at all. Others were there, but would complain that the application necessary to run the thing wasn't there. Others complained that they weren't installed correctly. I'll post details tonight. > Otherwise, yeah, I suspect the floppy drive. The auto-inject drives are all > getting long in the tooth. A thorough cleaning would be a good start. It's a little rickety. When I put the disk in, it doesn't drop onto the spindle and engage entirely. I have to put a screwdriver and push down on the disk (push to the right) to get the drive to notice the disk. I blew it out with compressed air when I first got it, but it's probably full of crud and probably has dirty heads. brian From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 10:32:15 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 11:32:15 -0400 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: <20090605172119.06cd9734.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <1244130173.3399.2.camel@elric> <20090605172119.06cd9734.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Jochen Kunz wrote: > On Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:15:24 -0400 > Ethan Dicks wrote: > >> We had something like that happen with our Qbus COMBOARDs when an >> early customer installed theirs into a Qbus backplane that didn't >> provide -15V (which is, ISTR, most of them). ?Things didn't make sense >> until we figured out the lack of negative voltage to the 1488s/1489s. >> Every Qboard after that had a DC-DC converter on it (and I still have >> dozens of those, new on the slab of foam). > Even DEC did it. The, IIRC, DHV11 QBus 8 line RS232 has a DC-DC > converter on it. I saw several DHV11 where the poted torroidal > inductivity of this discrete DC-DC converter was ripped of the PCB. I think our issue (and maybe DEC's as well), is that old (16 bit?) Qbus backplanes provided -15V, but not the BA23 and newer. I might be mistaken, but we did start Qbus product development before we had a MicroVAX-I on site. We tested with a 4-slot LSI-11 box (and the Fluke 9010A I was talking about last week) for initial functional testing (CSR bits, DMA, local RAM/ROM, etc.) I do remember that the Rev 0 board had a DC-DC converter attached in dead-bug mode. -ethan From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jun 5 11:32:24 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 13:32:24 -0300 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com><31f401c9e5eb$b2dd69a0$0dce19bb@desktaba> <6dbe3c380906050757x1d2624c3wfdf0a0b053418b8b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <33e601c9e5fb$71d58360$0dce19bb@desktaba> >I found this thing called ADT that does what you describe. You point >it at a disk image on a mac or PC (if you have the right cable) and >type IN#2 on the 2e or 2gs, then it does what you describe. It looks >like it does a call-151 then types in a bunch of binary that >represents the entire OS. lol That's my goal. But I need ADT and 2e >disk images on the mac first. Disk images are easy to spot by, and why not use a PC? From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Fri Jun 5 11:36:45 2009 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:36:45 -0400 Subject: receptacles (was IBM 029 Keypunch has arrived) In-Reply-To: <4A263676.17879.A3BCEF5@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4A2534D4.27037.64D5D1E@cclist.sydex.com>, <4A2695D8.2040701@sbcglobal.net> <4A263676.17879.A3BCEF5@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A29499D.30006@sbcglobal.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3 Jun 2009 at 11:25, Dave Woyciesjes wrote: > >> Thanks... I'll have to pass this to my person inside Hubbell to see >> if >> they have something like this. I like it. > > There's also a shallow box offered for it that makes for a very neat > surface-mount or extension-cord type use. > > --Chuck > > > Here's what we found from Hubbell: (Caution: Line wrap) http://www.hubbellcatalog.com/wiring/section-a-ss.asp?FAM=Straight_Blade&P=199,264,7660,7691,7996,7997,8000,8001,8003,8004,8005,8007,8008,8011,8017,8020,8021,8036,13462,13467,13469,13470,13474,28883,28884,28885,28886,28887,373,933,979,1096,1214,1220,1351,1526,1543,4943,7604,7605 Or go to: http://www.hubbellcatalog.com/wiring/part_search.asp?SRCH=hbl415i&sType=TXT (search results from the Hubbell catalog) Also: http://www.hubbell-wiring.com/ -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 11:42:24 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 11:42:24 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <33e601c9e5fb$71d58360$0dce19bb@desktaba> References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> <31f401c9e5eb$b2dd69a0$0dce19bb@desktaba> <6dbe3c380906050757x1d2624c3wfdf0a0b053418b8b@mail.gmail.com> <33e601c9e5fb$71d58360$0dce19bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906050942w23c3381fn7c25e0c931677d20@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Alexandre Souza wrote: >> I found this thing called ADT that does what you describe. ?You point >> it at a disk image on a mac or PC (if you have the right cable) and >> type IN#2 on the 2e or 2gs, then it does what you describe. ?It looks >> like it does a call-151 then types in a bunch of binary that >> represents the entire OS. ?lol ?That's my goal. ?But I need ADT and 2e >> disk images on the mac first. > > > ? Disk images are easy to spot by, and why not use a PC? Can I write mac or apple 2gs floppies with a PC floppy drive? I don't have the right serial cable to go from the PC right to the mac or 2gs, but I know there's a version of ADT for the PC. And I wanted to get the mac going anyway. From ray at arachelian.com Fri Jun 5 12:03:59 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:03:59 -0400 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> Message-ID: <4A294FFF.8070301@arachelian.com> Mark Davidson wrote: > Oh no, I have to agree with Curt... Soul Of A New Machine is a great > read, as was Dealers. Of course, I'm a huge DG fan so I'm probably > biased a bit. ;) > I'm not specifically a DG fan and I've enjoyed Soul of a New Machine quite a bit. :-) So there's another data point. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 09:09:14 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 10:09:14 -0400 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <608471.68192.qm@web112209.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <608471.68192.qm@web112209.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 9:40 AM, Christian Liendo wrote: > I don't have this anymore other wise I would send it to you but if you can find a copy of FWB Hard Disk Tool Kit.. It will help you mount pretty much anything. It will handle the CD-ROM problem.. FWB is no longer is business but the software is the best. I remember always using the FWB Toolkit in the 6.x and 7.x days. I got a copy with a Reno external CD-ROM drive/portable audio drive (the disc transport detached from the SCSI base). > You wont be able to mount DVDs on 7.6.. > I think I was up to 9.2 before I got a DVD drive.. I don't have specific datapoints, but that sounds about right. You _might_ be able to use a DVD-R with 8.x, but I can't recall for certain. > I do recommend getting an Apple CD ROM because if you want to upgrade the OS from a CD you will need a bootable CD ROM drive and those are the best. ISTR you can use a Sun CD-ROM drive, too, because of the 512-bytes-per-block mode, but that may be a fuzzy memory (I'm reasonably certain you can install Solaris on old Sun gear with a bootable Apple drive). What I don't recall is if the CD-ROM drive needs to merely support 512-b-p-b mode by responding to a specific SCSI packet, or if it has to default to 512-b-p-b mode at power-on (old Suns won't send the packet, but newer ones will, which is why I'm a little fuzzy with that level of detail off the top of my head - all of this has been hashed and rehashed, so if I personally were setting something up, I'd start googling about bootable CD-ROM drives to refresh my memory). -ethan From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 5 12:07:01 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 10:07:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906050942w23c3381fn7c25e0c931677d20@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 5, 9 11:42:24 am" Message-ID: <200906051707.n55H71V6027578@floodgap.com> > Can I write mac or apple 2gs floppies with a PC floppy drive? If you have a raw disk image, sure. Only the original GCR disks cannot be written that way, but the later MFM disks (of which the Q700 can most definitely read) can be done with a PC from an image. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- require "std_disclaimer.pl"; ----------------------------------------------- From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 5 12:11:22 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 10:11:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906050822x2d30a1bx7fa7a2ea33a3dd28@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 5, 9 10:22:28 am" Message-ID: <200906051711.n55HBMVg022112@floodgap.com> > > You should see (the Q700 has built-in Ethernet IIRC) something like > > LocalTalk and the built-in Ethernet. Select Ethernet in MacTCP, and click > > More... if you want to adjust things like subnet mask and so on. > > If you are using an ENet card in one of the NuBus slots, make sure you > > have a driver for it. I would just use the built-in ENet; AAUI connectors > > are dirt-cheap and common as, well, dirt. > > I have the AAUI connector. I'm thinking it's working since I get a > light on the hub. I was able to switch it from appletalk to tcp/ip > and set it to dhcp, but it looks like it didn't even try to ask for an > ip address. I've never used MacTCP for DHCP. Assign it a static address first and see how far you get. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Dread each day as it comes. -- Donald Kaul --------------------------------- From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 12:13:48 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 12:13:48 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <200906051707.n55H71V6027578@floodgap.com> References: <6dbe3c380906050942w23c3381fn7c25e0c931677d20@mail.gmail.com> <200906051707.n55H71V6027578@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906051013v1604a59brb6d3240b1aeff42d@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> Can I write mac or apple 2gs floppies with a PC floppy drive? > > If you have a raw disk image, sure. Only the original GCR disks cannot > be written that way, but the later MFM disks (of which the Q700 can most > definitely read) can be done with a PC from an image. !!! Got a link to some software to do this? Also, does it need to be through the floppy disk controller or can I do this with a usb floppy drive? I was under the impression that mac floppy drives used some sort of variable speed voodoo that made them incompatible with PCs. brian From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 12:15:48 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 12:15:48 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <200906051711.n55HBMVg022112@floodgap.com> References: <6dbe3c380906050822x2d30a1bx7fa7a2ea33a3dd28@mail.gmail.com> <200906051711.n55HBMVg022112@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906051015h519bf7f2ue91d5c17ad709bd5@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> > You should see (the Q700 has built-in Ethernet IIRC) something like >> > LocalTalk and the built-in Ethernet. Select Ethernet in MacTCP, and click >> > More... if you want to adjust things like subnet mask and so on. >> > If you are using an ENet card in one of the NuBus slots, make sure you >> > have a driver for it. I would just use the built-in ENet; AAUI connectors >> > are dirt-cheap and common as, well, dirt. >> >> I have the AAUI connector. I'm thinking it's working since I get a >> light on the hub. ?I was able to switch it from appletalk to tcp/ip >> and set it to dhcp, but it looks like it didn't even try to ask for an >> ip address. > > I've never used MacTCP for DHCP. Assign it a static address first and > see how far you get. ok. I'm lost without a command line. Is there a version of ping in there somewhere? What about samba/windows shares or maybe ftp? brian From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 5 12:22:18 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 10:22:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906051013v1604a59brb6d3240b1aeff42d@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 5, 9 12:13:48 pm" Message-ID: <200906051722.n55HMIZq013208@floodgap.com> > > > Can I write mac or apple 2gs floppies with a PC floppy drive? > > > > If you have a raw disk image, sure. Only the original GCR disks cannot > > be written that way, but the later MFM disks (of which the Q700 can most > > definitely read) can be done with a PC from an image. > > !!! > Got a link to some software to do this? Well, rawrite, anything like that :) > through the floppy disk controller or can I do this with a usb floppy > drive? Depends on the program. I've only ever done this with an internal FDC drive but I don't see a reason why an external USB wouldn't work. > I was under the impression that mac floppy drives used some sort of > variable speed voodoo that made them incompatible with PCs. Not the (more) current MFM disks. The original GCR disks above do indeed use a variable speed system and cannot be written by conventional PC drives. However, the later MFM disks and "SuperDrives" (not to be confused with Apple's contemporary use of the term) are bog standard except for the HFS. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- When in doubt, take a pawn. -- Mission: Impossible ("Crack-Up") ------------ From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Fri Jun 5 12:26:02 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 10:26:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) Message-ID: <434756.14208.qm@web112204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> nope... you need whatroute http://www.whatroute.net/ --- On Fri, 6/5/09, Brian Lanning wrote: > From: Brian Lanning > Subject: Re: Classic mac fun (and some questions) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Date: Friday, June 5, 2009, 1:15 PM > On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 12:11 PM, > Cameron Kaiser > wrote: > >> > You should see (the Q700 has built-in > Ethernet IIRC) something like > >> > LocalTalk and the built-in Ethernet. Select > Ethernet in MacTCP, and click > >> > More... if you want to adjust things like > subnet mask and so on. > >> > If you are using an ENet card in one of the > NuBus slots, make sure you > >> > have a driver for it. I would just use the > built-in ENet; AAUI connectors > >> > are dirt-cheap and common as, well, dirt. > >> > >> I have the AAUI connector. I'm thinking it's > working since I get a > >> light on the hub. ?I was able to switch it from > appletalk to tcp/ip > >> and set it to dhcp, but it looks like it didn't > even try to ask for an > >> ip address. > > > > I've never used MacTCP for DHCP. Assign it a static > address first and > > see how far you get. > > > ok.? I'm lost without a command line.? Is there a > version of ping in > there somewhere?? What about samba/windows shares or > maybe ftp? > > brian > From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Fri Jun 5 12:27:10 2009 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 19:27:10 +0200 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: References: <200906022258.53816.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200906022316.53813.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A281FF5.6080005@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: > Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:52:40 -0400 > Subject: Re: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 > From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 3:26 PM, e.stiebler wrote: >> Patrick Finnegan wrote: >>> >>> And, they've been claimed. >>> That was fast. >> >> Yes, I can imagine. I gave mine away, and now I'm missing it ;-) > > Indeed. 15 years ago, I was able to save the 11/750 from work, but > could not find room for a pair of RK07s and a pickup-truck-load of > RK07 cartridges. Those were good drives - easy to repair, decent > amount of storage for the day, fast. Just don't get your fingers > behind the ears on the voice coil during a power-down - those heads > snap back *fast*! (when the NiCd pack is good, that is). > > Someone just got a fun little system to play with. Hopefully we'll > hear what it's running and how it's loaded before too long. > > -ethan Definitely good advice to keep your fingers away from the heads and carriage near the voice coil! I have a movie clip on my site showing the loading of the heads on an RK07. Moving in *fast* from the rest position (far rear) to track 00 and then slowish to the inner track and then back to track 00. After that the READY light will lit. The movement from the far rear to the edge of the platter is quite fast ... But I wanted to see what would happen if you disconnect the head that reads the servo track ... pity that I do not have a movie of that, but I sure don't want to repeat that just for a movie. The heads move from the far rear at full speed all the way to the inner track and then at that same fast speed back outward. Having your fingers there would certainly hurt a lot. Now, without control, just by NiCad pack at brute force, I can imagine that the movement will be even more deadly for your fingers. If you have an RK07 drive, open the rear top lid, use a piece of wood to push down the lock mechanism of the head carriage and carefully try to pull the heads out of their far rear position. If the NiCads are still OK, you will need a lot of force the moment the microswitch clicks. At that point I stopped. I don't know how good the NiCads in that drive are (still need to check that), but it was impressive. I guess the RK05 will behave similar with a good NiCad pack. I have five (!) RK07 drives. I want to keep 3 of them, so sooner or later two drives will have to go (in The Netherlands). I plan to connect them all to the RK07 Field Test Box to see in what shape they are. They should all be OK ... - Henk. From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 5 12:29:47 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 10:29:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906051015h519bf7f2ue91d5c17ad709bd5@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 5, 9 12:15:48 pm" Message-ID: <200906051729.n55HTlAp022562@floodgap.com> > > > I have the AAUI connector. I'm thinking it's working since I get a > > > light on the hub. _I was able to switch it from appletalk to tcp/ip > > > and set it to dhcp, but it looks like it didn't even try to ask for an > > > ip address. > > > > I've never used MacTCP for DHCP. Assign it a static address first and > > see how far you get. > > ok. I'm lost without a command line. Is there a version of ping in > there somewhere? What about samba/windows shares or maybe ftp? You should be able to assign it a static address from the More... screen. That doesn't work? As far as Windows shares, I *think* there was something that would run on 7.6, but good luck finding it. If you want to try connecting to an FTP server (though without DNS that should be fun ;-), you can get Fetch 4.0.3 from here which I believe is 68k: gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/4/archive/info-mac/comm/inet/fetch-403.hqx If not, try gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/4/archive/userserve-ucsd-edu/Communications%20Programs/FTP%20Software/Fetch%203.0.3%20Installer.hqx for 3.0. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Never refuse a breath mint. -- Daniel Handler ------------------------------ From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 12:48:47 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 12:48:47 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <200906051722.n55HMIZq013208@floodgap.com> References: <6dbe3c380906051013v1604a59brb6d3240b1aeff42d@mail.gmail.com> <200906051722.n55HMIZq013208@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906051048k45cab2a7pfaa9cbdcdf92137a@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 12:22 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> > > Can I write mac or apple 2gs floppies with a PC floppy drive? >> > >> > If you have a raw disk image, sure. Only the original GCR disks cannot >> > be written that way, but the later MFM disks (of which the Q700 can most >> > definitely read) can be done with a PC from an image. >> >> !!! >> Got a link to some software to do this? > > Well, rawrite, anything like that :) > >> through the floppy disk controller or can I do this with a usb floppy >> drive? > > Depends on the program. I've only ever done this with an internal FDC > drive but I don't see a reason why an external USB wouldn't work. > >> I was under the impression that mac floppy drives used some sort of >> variable speed voodoo that made them incompatible with PCs. > > Not the (more) current MFM disks. The original GCR disks above do indeed > use a variable speed system and cannot be written by conventional PC drives. > However, the later MFM disks and "SuperDrives" (not to be confused with > Apple's contemporary use of the term) are bog standard except for the HFS. Thanks. I'll try all that out tonight as well. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 12:23:35 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 13:23:35 -0400 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906051013v1604a59brb6d3240b1aeff42d@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906050942w23c3381fn7c25e0c931677d20@mail.gmail.com> <200906051707.n55H71V6027578@floodgap.com> <6dbe3c380906051013v1604a59brb6d3240b1aeff42d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Brian Lanning wrote: > I was under the impression that mac floppy drives used some sort of > variable speed voodoo that made them incompatible with PCs. 400K/800K have variable numbers of sectors per track. That was done in the original single-sided drives (400K only) by varying the drive speed. Since I don't remember hearing double-sided drives change pitch, they must have done it the way Commodore did with their 5.25" floppies (starting with the CBM 2040 in the late 1970s), by changing the bit clock in software (the CBM drives have a "divide-by-N" 16-pin TTL counter chip, but the lower two bits of "N" are attached to a 6522, so the firmware gets to decide (track by track) to divide the clock by 12, 13, 14, or 15. In Macs, that functionality is built into the IWM (Integrated Woz Machine) AFAIK). Later Macs can read/write PC-compatible floppies, so there must be a way to select a bit-clock-divider that is compatible with PC-formatted media. The rest is all software. -ethan From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Fri Jun 5 14:23:46 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:23:46 -0700 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <4A292A79.7060901@bitsavers.org> References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> <200906050637.n556bi9R029020@floodgap.com> <6dbe3c380906050712h3ca6570bw80e7260bb4ec318e@mail.gmail.com> <4A292A79.7060901@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4A2970C2.9000706@mail.msu.edu> Al Kossow wrote: > Brian Lanning wrote: > >> It's actually a copy of windows xp I had sitting in another machine. >> So it should be ISO9660. Maybe the mac won't read it out of >> principle. ;-) >> > > Correct. The principle being MAC OS doesn't know anything about NTFS. > The XP CD is a standard ISO9660 format disk (possibly with Joliet extensions, I don't recall.) At any rate, the Mac should be able to read it. (I'm not sure it's possible to put NTFS on a CD, that would be interesting...) Josh From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jun 5 14:41:13 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 12:41:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906050942w23c3381fn7c25e0c931677d20@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> <31f401c9e5eb$b2dd69a0$0dce19bb@desktaba> <6dbe3c380906050757x1d2624c3wfdf0a0b053418b8b@mail.gmail.com> <33e601c9e5fb$71d58360$0dce19bb@desktaba> <6dbe3c380906050942w23c3381fn7c25e0c931677d20@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090605123630.T17386@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Brian Lanning wrote: > Can I write mac or apple 2gs floppies with a PC floppy drive? NO. exceptions: you CAN write Mac 1.4M disks. but NOT Apple 2 5.25", nor Mac 400K/800K the DRIVE is not the limitation. the disk controller is the limitation. There exist special add-on boards for the PC that permit reading and writing GCR. Although MicroSolutions did make some, the Compaticard is NOT the answer. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jun 5 14:44:49 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 12:44:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906051013v1604a59brb6d3240b1aeff42d@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906050942w23c3381fn7c25e0c931677d20@mail.gmail.com> <200906051707.n55H71V6027578@floodgap.com> <6dbe3c380906051013v1604a59brb6d3240b1aeff42d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090605124133.L17386@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Brian Lanning wrote: > I was under the impression that mac floppy drives used some sort of > variable speed voodoo that made them incompatible with PCs. The drive rotational speed is NOT the problem. The Central Point Option Board 2 can read and write 400k/800K disks. All that is needed to deal with the rotational speed is to vary the data transfer rate to compensate. The issue that needs to be dealt with is that no 765 style disk controller, nor even WD 17** style disk controller can read nor write GCR. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jun 5 14:46:57 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 12:46:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <200906051722.n55HMIZq013208@floodgap.com> References: <200906051722.n55HMIZq013208@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <20090605124614.P17386@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > Depends on the program. I've only ever done this with an internal FDC > drive but I don't see a reason why an external USB wouldn't work. Has anybody ever seen a USB drive that can do GCR? From segin2005 at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 14:58:42 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:58:42 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Josh Dersch wrote: > Hey All -- > > So, instead of debugging my 11/40 last night I decided to get my > 11/73 running again since all it needed was to be put back together > :). Installed 2.11BSD on it from TK50 tape, and it was only > slightly faster than the last time I installed it -- at 19.2kbps > using vtserver :). > > At any rate, it's online, so to speak, so if you feel like playing > around, just telnet to yahozna.dyndns.org. (login: guest, password > Guest1!) Be kind, it's not the speediest thing out there. I figure > it's rather unlikely it'll be hacked into, and if it is, worst case > I can restore the drive from the image I made of it... > > Is there a repository of source/binaries for stuff people have > (back) ported to 2.11BSD? I'm thinking of seeing if I can squeeze > an older version of Apache on it if I ever find the time... > > - Josh > > (Specs, just in case anyone cares: > 11/73 CPU, > 2mb RAM, > TK50 tape, > DEQNA ethernet, > TS11 -> M4 9 track (currently non functional) > Emulex U07 SCSI -> SCSI->IDE bridge -> IBM Microdrive (4gb)) > > > > Well, out of curiosity, I'm going to attempt to build gzip and wget on it. I hope it doesn't crash. I've never used anything from this era before, in terms of "capable" computers. Apple ]['s don't count. It's damnably slow, but at least it works. It sucks, though, by the time I was born, the age of the killer micros had just begun. Damn the 90's. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkopePEACgkQF9H43UytGiYKAwCgm3GBcWhtUZRFrOyeCHWm5d90 5jYAnju7lpCd9z8/+MKszVXB4dZchjSw =rYE1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 5 15:07:11 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:07:11 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 5, 2009, at 3:58 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > Well, out of curiosity, I'm going to attempt to build gzip and wget on > it. I hope it doesn't crash. That'll be fun. > It's damnably slow, but at least it works. Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite zippy on a machine like that. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Fri Jun 5 15:24:34 2009 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:24:34 +0100 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <4A2970C2.9000706@mail.msu.edu> References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> <200906050637.n556bi9R029020@floodgap.com> <6dbe3c380906050712h3ca6570bw80e7260bb4ec318e@mail.gmail.com> <4A292A79.7060901@bitsavers.org> <4A2970C2.9000706@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A297F02.9030003@philpem.me.uk> Josh Dersch wrote: > (I'm not sure it's possible to put NTFS on a CD, that would be > interesting...) It should be possible -- in theory. Create an NTFS filesystem image on a Linux box, then use cdrecord or wodim to write it to a CD-R. If I get sufficiently bored later on, I might try it, but I doubt even an XP box would be willing to read it... -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 5 15:16:37 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:16:37 -0400 Subject: 8" Floppies In-Reply-To: <4A28C66B.6090306@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> <20090604113117.GG5509@n0jcf.net> <4A28C66B.6090306@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <859B5F50-8AB4-4FF4-905C-46FC239FF0AE@neurotica.com> On Jun 5, 2009, at 3:16 AM, Eric Smith wrote: > They're double-sided disks. Not too uncommon. If you want to see > some really strange 8" floppy disks, I have a box of Memorex disks > that are hard-sectored and have the sector/index hole near the > outer edge of the disk, rather than near the rim. > > IBM used an outer-edge index hole on the very first floppy drive, > the Minnow (23FD), which was a read-only drive used for microcode > storage. Minnow only stored about 80KB and spun at 90 RPM (vs. 360 > for "modern" 8-inch floppy drives). The 23FD drive and media were > not offered as separate products. I'm pretty sure I have a large number of these floppies. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 5 15:30:24 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 13:30:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 5, 2009, at 3:58 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: >> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. > > Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite zippy on a > machine like that. Okay, now you almost have me curious enough to get 2.11BSD up and running on my /73. I've run the others on /73's, but never UNIX. Last time I looked 2.11BSD doesn't have the necessary patches applied to the distribution to work with my Viking SCSI controller. Zane From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 5 15:41:19 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:41:19 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> Message-ID: <76A560C9-D0EB-46D9-9C8A-BA154F9261BD@neurotica.com> On Jun 5, 2009, at 4:30 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >> >> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite >> zippy on a machine like that. > > Okay, now you almost have me curious enough to get 2.11BSD up and > running on > my /73. I've run the others on /73's, but never UNIX. Last time I > looked > 2.11BSD doesn't have the necessary patches applied to the > distribution to > work with my Viking SCSI controller. It's cool, but *really* slow. Dicking with the overlays when building new kernels is fun the first few times, but after that.. That said, though, I do keep an 11/83 ready-to-boot with 2.11BSD because it's very handy to be able to squirt disk images around via FTP and dd them to and from physical disks. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 5 15:46:33 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 13:46:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <76A560C9-D0EB-46D9-9C8A-BA154F9261BD@neurotica.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <76A560C9-D0EB-46D9-9C8A-BA154F9261BD@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > It's cool, but *really* slow. Dicking with the overlays when building new > kernels is fun the first few times, but after that.. Okay, that does not sound fun at all. Somehow that is more in line with why I've said I don't collect old UNIX boxes. All my old ones were much newer when I aquired them! :-) I like my UNIX fast and modern. > That said, though, I do keep an 11/83 ready-to-boot with 2.11BSD because > it's very handy to be able to squirt disk images around via FTP and dd them > to and from physical disks. I have a MicroVAX III that is currently in storage, but will soon be moving into our garage. I built it to handle those sort of things, and I have a SCSI box I can hook up to a Sun for the SCSI HD's on my PDP-11. That's the nice thing about the removable tray's on the PDP-11. The MicroVAX III handles reading and writing RL01 and RL02 images nicely. I'm glad you made me think of this, I need to be sure and leave room to get the row of 19" racks into the garage! It will be interesting to see how all the hardware has held up after being in storage for the past nine years. Though until I get the cooling and power issues solved I won't be able to run much. Zane From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 15:54:23 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:54:23 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> Dave McGuire wrote: >> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. > > Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite zippy > on a machine like that. Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. Peace... Sridhar From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 5 15:59:21 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:59:21 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> Message-ID: <621B149A-94E5-4AC7-9EF8-59C8DE237EA1@neurotica.com> On Jun 5, 2009, at 4:54 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite >> zippy on a machine like that. > > Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer > architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. That would be extremely yummy. Note that you typed "suck as PC" above...Freudian slip? ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 5 15:03:56 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 21:03:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: Repairing an HP3421A (Signature Analysis) In-Reply-To: from "vp" at Jun 4, 9 10:16:12 pm Message-ID: > > I am trying to repair an HP3421A data acquisition and control unit > that fails its power on tests. > > In the service manual it refers to a number of "Signature Analysis" > tests that essentially mean that the unit runs some diagnostic > routine and you go and collect "signatures" from various test points. > > Unfortunately I do not have a device to compute these signatures. > > Does anybody know how to calculate them using a logic analyzer > (I have a Bitscope and an HP 1630D), or something similar? Let me say that I regard signature analysis as being a pretty useless diagnostic technique (second only to board-swapping?). Perhaps I should explain a bit... A signature anaylser is basically a shift register with XOR feedback, like a CRC generator/checker. The clock and 'start' / 'stop' signals come from the decvice under test, the input to the XORs (the data you'd be calculating the CRC of if it was a CRC generator) comes from the probe, and thus the point you want to know the signature of. The 'signature' is the data in the shfit register at the end. IIRC the HP anaylsers use a 16 bit shift register, the signature is 4 hex characters, but HP didn't use 'A' to 'F' but some odd letters. THey said this was to prevent them being misread on a 7 segment display, I am not convinced... I don;t know the XOR circuit used (==the CRC polynomial), but IIRC the service manual for at least one HP signature analyser is on the web (possibly on one of the video games repair sites). It uses simple TTL chips and a couple of ROMs (one as the control state machine, the other as the display decoder) so you should be able to deduce the polynomial if you want to. Anyway, as you know, the CRC of a stream of data is totally different for small changes in the data (unlike a simple parity check where an odd number of bit errors gives the same partiy bit). Of course with a 16 bit register there are only 65536 possible signature, which is less than the number of possible pulse trains you can analyse, so there's always a chance that an incorrect signal will have the right signature, but it's unlikely (much as it's unlikly a corrupted file or data stream will have the right CRC). THat is not the reason for my dislike of the technique. What I dislike is that while it'll tell you a signal is wrong, it doesn't tell you how it's wrong. Suppose you have a subcircuit with 2 inputs an an output (maybe just a simple gate). If that's part of a complex malfunctioning system, then perhaps all 3 signatures (2 inputs and output) are wrong. But what you don't know (and can't easily work out) is whether the signature you see for the output is the correct one for the 2 input signals (given their signatures). So you don;t know if this cirucit is working correctly (and the fault is elsewhere) or whether it's malfunctioning and the incorrect output of that circuit is causing other parts of the unit to do the wrong things and thus give the wrong input to this little bit. And of course in a microprocessor-controlled device, the signatures of just about all signals round the procesosr/memory are very dependant on what program it's running. Yes, you run a test routine, but I am sure I've seen service manuals where the signatures you should get depend on the ROM version fitted. Great if you don't know the version, or if you have a version later than the ones in the manual. Signature analysis will probably tell you if something is working correctly or not. But I don't think it's much help in finding out _why_ it's not working. My guess is that given the data captured by a logic analyser (taking account of the clock, start and stop signals) and the polynomial used, you could calcuate the signatures. Whether it'll help you get the 3412 working is another matter. BTW, what is the problem with your 3421? I assume you know to do the initial tests using the HPIL interface not hPIB (if you have that option). The point meing that the 3421 is internally an HPIL device, the HPIB interface goes to a circuit somewhat similar to an HP82169 which links to the HPIL port on the mainboard. So if it won't work in HPIL mode, it certianly won't work in HPIB mode (but if it's OK as an HPIL device but not as an HPIB one, the problam is on the HPIB interface PCB). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 5 15:08:30 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 21:08:30 +0100 (BST) Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 4, 9 03:52:40 pm Message-ID: > Indeed. 15 years ago, I was able to save the 11/750 from work, but > could not find room for a pair of RK07s and a pickup-truck-load of I think I'd have takne the drives (and put them on an 11 or something) and left the VAX. The 11/750 is not a machine I greatly care for.... > RK07 cartridges. Those were good drives - easy to repair, decent I am not convinced abotu the 'easy to repair'. I've read the printset, and that servo system is _complicated_. And don't you need some rather special tools/test gear to fit new heads? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 5 14:46:19 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 20:46:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 4, 9 03:15:24 pm Message-ID: > One wonders if the in-house product test was more rigorous than > connecting two devices with a 2m cable and sending a few characters at > 9600 bps, or more likely, the engineers said that the design as given > wouldn't meet the formal spec without spending $0.25 on more robust > components and were told to keep it cheap since it would probably work > for most customers, or at least work well enough that few customers > would return the item. Or, given that many people seem to have problems with RS232 interfaces [1], they'd simply claim the cable was wired wrongly, or you haven't set the baud rate/parity/word length correctly, or... And of coruse support is non-existant, as it seems to be for all thigns these days :-( [1] I don't seem to have too many problems. But then of course I don't just wire the cable and hope, I read the manuals and more imporatantly stick a breakout box or prootcol analyser on the devives first. > >> spikes at about 20kHz more like a sawtooth wave, than nice neat pulses. > > > > Is it possible that the DC-DC converter is playing up? I asusme this > > USB-RS"32 converter is powered from the 5V on the USB port so presumably > > it contains some kinde of DC-DC converter to get RS232 levels, possible > > inside a MAXnnnn IC.Perhaps that can't supply enough current to the drivers. > > The USB serial devices I've seen have been a 1-chip design - > presumably USB, UART, and level converters all on one die, with a few > discretes for the DC-DC converter. I don't remember seeing any > separate Maxim devices in them. Ah... I thought I heard of a USB-TTL level async serial chip (i.e. you need to feed the asynch side through a MAXnnn or similar) and assumed that's what was used in these adapters. Probably not. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 5 15:14:18 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 21:14:18 +0100 (BST) Subject: QIC cartridge tape compatibility In-Reply-To: <4A27D39B.2383.1089C556@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 4, 9 02:00:59 pm Message-ID: > > On 4 Jun 2009 at 20:03, Tony Duell wrote: > > > The 9145 contains a 68000 CPU and some battery-backed RAM modules, > > and alas some ASICs. One day I'll figure out something about it. > > Probably later than my Adic drive, then. It's got a 6800 and a 2716 Probably... The HP9144 (16 track) has a 68B09 and maybe another microcontroller in it. Which is what I expected given what you find in the HP hard disk boxes. When I took the conver off that 9145, I was rather suppised by the big 64 pin DIL package... > EPROM with a 3M copyright sticker on it--one of several cards stacked > up in a little card cage with backplane under and behind the tape One of the HP drives (I think it's the 9144 went through many revisions with different numbers of PCBs. Some had 2 boards under the mchanism and, ITRC, 3 boards for the cotnroller fitted round it, I think the latest versio had everything on one PCB. Mien is somewhere in the middle... > area. If you stick a traditional DC300/600... tape in it, it spins > it briefly before announcing with a loud buzz and LED that there's a > fault condition. I seem to rememebr the HP drives do something similar -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 5 15:55:32 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 21:55:32 +0100 (BST) Subject: TI Silent 700 model 733 manual In-Reply-To: <20090604113117.GG5509@n0jcf.net> from "Chris Elmquist" at Jun 4, 9 06:31:17 am Message-ID: > > I also have a 733 without cassette drives (is that a different model #)? > It would be nice to have access to the service manual for it. It's been i= > n > an attic for about 10 yrs but I plan to bring it back to life real soon. I'll certainly take a look at the service manual if it ends up on Bitsavers or somewhere similar. I haev 2 of these terminals... At a radio rally nearly 20 years ago I bought a KSR version (no tape drives). The seller had 4 old printers, he started off trying to sell them for a farly high price (\pounds 10.00 each or something), by the end of the take he too \pounds 5.00 for all 4. The one I particularly wanted was the Teletpye KSR43, the others with the TI 733 and a couple of Cnetronics printes (brand, not (just) interface) with a strange carriage feed mechanism. At the same rally, from another seller I bought the dual tape drive unit. I didn't realise it would go on the TI terminal until I got it home, saw the TI logo all over the tape drive parts, and relaised the 'feet' would fit on top of the terminal if I remvoed a couple of cover plates. What I didn't have was the cable to link them. Oh, the tape unt is missing the outer cover but otherwise seems to be complete/ Anyway, about 10 years later a friend of mine had the ASR model, complete with covers and cable. I asked if I could 'buzz out' the cable and he gave me the complete device. So I have one complete ASR model, a KSR one, and the working bits of a tape unit. > > Oh-- it has a 300 baud acoustic coupler on the side too :-) I don't have that. -tony From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 5 16:12:34 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 14:12:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Dave McGuire wrote: >>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >> >> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite zippy on >> a machine like that. > > Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer architecture > (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. > > Peace... Sridhar > It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically POSIX, or DOS/Windows running native on a PC. Zane From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 5 16:24:16 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 17:24:16 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> On Jun 5, 2009, at 5:12 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >>> >>> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite >>> zippy on a machine like that. >> >> Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer >> architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. > > It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically > POSIX, or > DOS/Windows running native on a PC. ColorForth!! -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 5 17:00:36 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:00:36 -0700 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: References: <6dbe3c380906050942w23c3381fn7c25e0c931677d20@mail.gmail.com> <200906051707.n55H71V6027578@floodgap.com> <6dbe3c380906051013v1604a59brb6d3240b1aeff42d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A299584.60501@brouhaha.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > 400K/800K have variable numbers of sectors per track. That was done > in the original single-sided drives (400K only) by varying the drive > speed. Since I don't remember hearing double-sided drives change > pitch, they must have done it the way Commodore did with their 5.25" > floppies (starting with the CBM 2040 in the late 1970s), by changing > the bit clock in software (the CBM drives have a "divide-by-N" 16-pin > TTL counter chip, but the lower two bits of "N" are attached to a > 6522, so the firmware gets to decide (track by track) to divide the > clock by 12, 13, 14, or 15. In Macs, that functionality is built into > the IWM (Integrated Woz Machine) AFAIK). > > No, the Apple 800K drives varied the spindle motor speed also. They were quieter, so it is less obvious. > Later Macs can read/write PC-compatible floppies, so there must be a > way to select a bit-clock-divider that is compatible with PC-formatted > media. The rest is all software. > The Apple "SuperDrive"/FDHD floppy drives that supported 720K/1440K MFM format in addition to 400K/800K GCR format used variable motor speed for GCR, and fixed for MFM. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 5 17:02:44 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:02:44 -0700 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <20090605124614.P17386@shell.lmi.net> References: <200906051722.n55HMIZq013208@floodgap.com> <20090605124614.P17386@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A299604.5040102@brouhaha.com> Fred Cisin wrote: > Has anybody ever seen a USB drive that can do GCR? > Yes, I saw a demo of such a thing, which apparently didn't become a product. Eric From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 5 17:04:23 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:04:23 -0700 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <20090605124614.P17386@shell.lmi.net> References: <200906051722.n55HMIZq013208@floodgap.com>, <20090605124614.P17386@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A2933F7.18939.15EA2A26@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Jun 2009 at 12:46, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > Depends on the program. I've only ever done this with an internal > > FDC drive but I don't see a reason why an external USB wouldn't > > work. > > Has anybody ever seen a USB drive that can do GCR? Depends on the length of the "group"... But no, I've never seen one. --Chuck From slawmaster at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 16:25:49 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 14:25:49 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906051425k3c313650v502c4981cc5f2402@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 5, 2009, at 5:12 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>>>> >>>>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >>>> >>>> ?Yep. ?The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite zippy >>>> on a machine like that. >>> >>> Hmmm. ?Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer >>> architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. >> >> It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically POSIX, or >> DOS/Windows running native on a PC. > > ?ColorForth!! > Plan 9! We don't pretend to follow POSIX, we just had Thompson and Kernighan do what they wanted. ;) John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 5 17:24:47 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:24:47 -1000 Subject: wire wrap machine pins In-Reply-To: <4A2603EF.1040309@brouhaha.com> References: <645CE5E3D8F14DB08EBB7BAD70B87E7E@andrewdesktop> <4A2603EF.1040309@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A299B2F.2040004@databasics.us> Eric Smith wrote: > A short piece of copper tubing and a hammer work wonders. Right! The same is true in labor negotiations, as well.... Warren From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 5 17:47:42 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 18:47:42 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906051425k3c313650v502c4981cc5f2402@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> <7d3530220906051425k3c313650v502c4981cc5f2402@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <05CFA042-91D3-4A22-8EEF-E263838B8B4A@neurotica.com> On Jun 5, 2009, at 5:25 PM, John Floren wrote: >>> It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically >>> POSIX, or >>> DOS/Windows running native on a PC. >> >> ColorForth!! >> > Plan 9! We don't pretend to follow POSIX, we just had Thompson and > Kernighan do what they wanted. ;) I would love to play with Plan 9 again. Has it been under active development? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 5 17:46:48 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:46:48 -1000 Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A29A058.1010604@databasics.us> Tony Duell wrote: > Sure. It is always best to look for the obvious things first (says the > guy who once spent a long time fioguring out a low contrast fault on a > VT100 video board, only to find the CRT screen needed cleaning...). But > after a bit, it's best to attack the problem logically. Long ago, I bought a Heathkit color television -- it was gorgeous. Needed some work. Also, while I was contemplating buying it, the owner offered to throw in a 'scope, too. It had never worked he said. The screen was "grainy" and a new tube cost too much. I accepted. The television was easy to fix (Heathkit, I said). But, when I fired up the 'scope, I was shocked. He was right. The scope image could be focused, but it never got clear. It looked like the phosphor was painted on the tube with a roller. Then, I had to laugh.... I took off the bezel, pulled off the graticule screen, and peeled the tyvek sticky paper off the back of the plastic screen, and voila! A nice clear trace. Warren From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 5 17:49:55 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 18:49:55 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <76A560C9-D0EB-46D9-9C8A-BA154F9261BD@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <05FE2A12-8A56-4705-954A-B197DD90FAC7@neurotica.com> On Jun 5, 2009, at 4:46 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> It's cool, but *really* slow. Dicking with the overlays when >> building new kernels is fun the first few times, but after that.. > > Okay, that does not sound fun at all. Somehow that is more in line > with why > I've said I don't collect old UNIX boxes. All my old ones were > much newer > when I aquired them! :-) I like my UNIX fast and modern. Same here. >> That said, though, I do keep an 11/83 ready-to-boot with 2.11BSD >> because it's very handy to be able to squirt disk images around >> via FTP and dd them to and from physical disks. > > I have a MicroVAX III that is currently in storage, but will soon > be moving into our garage. I built it to handle those sort of > things, and I have a SCSI box I can hook up to a Sun for the SCSI > HD's on my PDP-11. That's the nice thing about the removable > tray's on the PDP-11. That sounds like it'll be very handy. > The MicroVAX III > handles reading and writing RL01 and RL02 images nicely. I'm glad > you made > me think of this, I need to be sure and leave room to get the row > of 19" > racks into the garage! What OS are you running on the -III? > It will be interesting to see how all the hardware > has held up after being in storage for the past nine years. Though > until I > get the cooling and power issues solved I won't be able to run much. I've dug quite a few things out of storage (~8yrs) over the past year, and have had mostly good luck. That damnable disintegrating filter foam makes a hell of a mess, but beyond that, most things have survived. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 5 17:50:08 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:50:08 -1000 Subject: vintage hardware still alive and kickin' -- another successful launch from vandenberg afb In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906031140p3fc9abfbt247ed310a94dc10@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A25EEBC.4060200@comcast.net> <1244017734.1093.50.camel@elric> <7d3530220906031140p3fc9abfbt247ed310a94dc10@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A29A120.1000300@databasics.us> John Floren wrote: > More like > L@@K RARE CDC CYBER IBM MAINFRAME SUPERCOMPUTER DEC UNIVAC PDP > BURROUGHS HONEYWELL VAX CRAY NEW IN BOX > HA! Nicely done. I've seen that too many times... > given the way some sellers seem to like sticking every computer name > under the sun in their descriptions. > "Every computer name under the *sun* in their descriptions"? I see what you did there.... Warren From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 5 17:52:09 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:52:09 -1000 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A29A199.7080608@databasics.us> Tony Duell wrote: > I thoght that one state was a positive voltage between +3V and +25V wrt > signal ground and the other state was a negative voltage between -3V and > -25V wrt signal ground. Anything between -3V and +3V is illegal. > That is what I remember. Warren From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 5 18:02:52 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:02:52 -1000 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) In-Reply-To: <01C9E47B.2D3491A0@MSE_D03> References: <01C9E47B.2D3491A0@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <4A29A41C.9070602@databasics.us> M H Stein wrote: > Boy, tough crowd! > > So, do you guys go around to funerals in your spare time wearing funny hats and > telling the bereaved mother that her son's untimely death is insignificant compared > to the starving kids in Africa, and besides, he would have died some day anyway? > And when someone suggests that's a bit inappropriate you deck 'em? > Aw, you've been spying on me. No fair. > Inability to empathize is often the result of a brain injury; had any bad bumps > on the head lately? > And, this is you demonstrating tact and appropriate behavior, Lumpy? Warren From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 18:05:43 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:05:43 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A29A4C7.109@gmail.com> Dave McGuire wrote: >>>>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >>>> >>>> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite >>>> zippy on a machine like that. >>> >>> Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer >>> architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. >> >> It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically POSIX, or >> DOS/Windows running native on a PC. > > ColorForth!! Interesting! Peace... Sridhar From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 5 18:22:53 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:22:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <05FE2A12-8A56-4705-954A-B197DD90FAC7@neurotica.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <76A560C9-D0EB-46D9-9C8A-BA154F9261BD@neurotica.com> <05FE2A12-8A56-4705-954A-B197DD90FAC7@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 5, 2009, at 4:46 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> >> I have a MicroVAX III that is currently in storage, but will soon be moving >> into our garage. I built it to handle those sort of things, and I have a >> SCSI box I can hook up to a Sun for the SCSI HD's on my PDP-11. That's the >> nice thing about the removable tray's on the PDP-11. > > That sounds like it'll be very handy. It was back before I switched to SCSI for my PDP-11's. Even my PDP-11/44 has a SCSI controller in it, so the main system I see it being of use for now days is the PDP-11/23 that resides in the same rack, as it only has RL01 and RL02 drives. >> The MicroVAX III >> handles reading and writing RL01 and RL02 images nicely. I'm glad you made >> me think of this, I need to be sure and leave room to get the row of 19" >> racks into the garage! > > What OS are you running on the -III? It runs OpenVMS 7.2 and has a pair of RA72's and a pair of RA73's. It's a pretty nice system. IIRC though it's only 16MB RAM. It was running VAX/VMS 4.x on a RD53 when I got it, sadly the drive didn't last long enough for me to get a backup of it. I went with 7.2 instead of 5.5 to get better TCP/IP support, though used a 5.5 disk to bootstrap it. I did all this about 10 years ago. >> It will be interesting to see how all the hardware >> has held up after being in storage for the past nine years. Though until I >> get the cooling and power issues solved I won't be able to run much. > > I've dug quite a few things out of storage (~8yrs) over the past year, and > have had mostly good luck. That damnable disintegrating filter foam makes a > hell of a mess, but beyond that, most things have survived. I'm most concerned about the PowerMac 8500/180, MicroVAX III, PDP-11/44, Atari TT030, and my two Amiga 3000's (the one 3000 was last booted about 7 years ago, at which time I had it running Amiga OS 3.9). I'm pretty sure my Amiga 500 is dead, as I couldn't get it running a couple years ago when I tried. :-( I'll probably also try to get an Apple ][e or ][gs up and running as well. My main Commodore 64 has been running off and on, so it should be Okay (last running around Christmas). I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest. My interests have changed a lot over the past 9 years. Realistically the only system I have a "pressing need" to get back up and running is my antique PowerMac 8500/180 and the UMAX scanner I have for it, as I want to be able to use the scanner to scan Medium and Large format film. In addition to shooting digital, I find myself shooting a lot of film these days, and am making the step up from 35mm to both Medium and Large format cameras. Zane From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 18:22:03 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:22:03 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <621B149A-94E5-4AC7-9EF8-59C8DE237EA1@neurotica.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <621B149A-94E5-4AC7-9EF8-59C8DE237EA1@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A29A89B.4080709@gmail.com> Dave McGuire wrote: >>>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >>> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite >>> zippy on a machine like that. >> >> Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer >> architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. > > That would be extremely yummy. I wonder how hard it would be? I can't say that I'm very familiar with the capabilities of RSX, but, considering the size of the code we're talking about, could it be possible that it wouldn't involve as much work as writing a more modern, featureful, cluttered, bloaty operating system? > Note that you typed "suck as PC" above...Freudian slip? ;) Probably. 8-) Peace... Sridhar From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 15:20:18 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:20:18 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 5, 2009, at 3:58 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: >> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. > > ?Yep. ?The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite zippy on a > machine like that. RT-11 screams on pretty much anything faster than a KDF-11. On a KDF-11, RT-11 always gave me acceptable single-user performance. On machines with a hard disk (not floppy-only), the console serial line speed always felt like the limiting factor. Running games, editing files with EDT, compiling MACRO-11 programs, etc., all "felt" fine, even on a machine that wasn't totally decked out. LSI-11s were a bit sluggish, though. -ethan From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 5 18:38:27 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:38:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A29A89B.4080709@gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <621B149A-94E5-4AC7-9EF8-59C8DE237EA1@neurotica.com> <4A29A89B.4080709@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Dave McGuire wrote: >>>>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >>>> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite zippy >>>> on a machine like that. >>> >>> Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer >>> architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. >> >> That would be extremely yummy. > > I wonder how hard it would be? I can't say that I'm very familiar with the > capabilities of RSX, but, considering the size of the code we're talking > about, could it be possible that it wouldn't involve as much work as writing > a more modern, featureful, cluttered, bloaty operating system? The main problem I see with porting it is that to do so would be in violation of copywrite. The second problem I see is that I'm not sure what exists in the way of source code. You would need some sort of Macro-11 to Macro-x86 compilier. An easier port might be something like RSTS/E, though the source code for it is somewhere around 150MB, IIRC. Realistically time might be better spent on writing a TCP Stack and running it under an emulator. Zane From slawmaster at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 17:58:50 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 15:58:50 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <05CFA042-91D3-4A22-8EEF-E263838B8B4A@neurotica.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> <7d3530220906051425k3c313650v502c4981cc5f2402@mail.gmail.com> <05CFA042-91D3-4A22-8EEF-E263838B8B4A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906051558k17e7ceb4n624f7a1048145b57@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 3:47 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 5, 2009, at 5:25 PM, John Floren wrote: >>>> >>>> It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically POSIX, >>>> or >>>> DOS/Windows running native on a PC. >>> >>> ?ColorForth!! >>> >> Plan 9! We don't pretend to follow POSIX, we just had Thompson and >> Kernighan do what they wanted. ;) > > ?I would love to play with Plan 9 again. ?Has it been under active > development? > > ? ? ? ? ?-Dave > Oh yeah, it's still being developed. My job is writing Plan 9 kernel code at a national lab. I'd say grab a basic PC, burn the CD, and go at it! Just read the 9fans mailing list archives *before* posting questions there ;) John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From blstuart at bellsouth.net Fri Jun 5 19:00:23 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 19:00:23 -0500 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <05CFA042-91D3-4A22-8EEF-E263838B8B4A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <93015cf47b0c242c40c7ac181b95871d@bellsouth.net> > On Jun 5, 2009, at 5:25 PM, John Floren wrote: >>>> It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically >>>> POSIX, or >>>> DOS/Windows running native on a PC. >>> >>> ColorForth!! >>> >> Plan 9! We don't pretend to follow POSIX, we just had Thompson and >> Kernighan do what they wanted. ;) > > I would love to play with Plan 9 again. Has it been under active > development? Yeah, it's been under slow but steady development. I don't know when you last used it, but there are some really interesting developments recently. For example, there's a version of the Plan9 kernel that runs in an interestinging virtualization/sandbox environment called vx32. So I'm composing this message in the acme mail client on this 9vx kernel which is running as a terminal connected to a Plan 9 file server I have upstairs. The biggest limitation is in device drivers, particularly for network interfaces. BLS From ingrammp at earthlink.net Fri Jun 5 19:29:16 2009 From: ingrammp at earthlink.net (mike ingram) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 17:29:16 -0700 Subject: Altos 686 In-Reply-To: References: <2B2AE65A-62B1-4413-8163-9C010976ABC5@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <1729B331-DBDC-4B93-95DC-3CA1818FE261@earthlink.net> Hi Sergio Uh... never mind the tarball stuff.... Dave has the files on his site all arranged in their separate disks... some were sent by me and some by another user. He also has a program that will allow you to create floppies on a PC type machine,,,, So, one takes these IMD images ( they are actually images of separate floppy disks ).. and burns floppies and then the Altos can read those floppies. His site is: www.classiccmp.org/dunfield Easiest method it to get the IMD program, those files, and a stack of floppies, then find a PC with a 5 1/2 floppy drive, and have at it for a bit. Then you go to the Altos and you should be able to read the files right there. Yes, you could use "cu" to get the IMD images over, but then you'd still have the problem of how to decode the IMD images, and some of the files weren't even unix files ( like the MP/M operating system and the ADX Diagnostic disk ).. Hope it helps Mike On May 27, 2009, at 12:01 AM, SPC wrote: > A lot of thanks, sincerely :-) > > The Altos is in good shape and working state and I consider a waste > don't > hack it a little. And, more important, I did a test and probe that > I can > manage it using the serial port of my laptop and one original Dec > VT220 > (that I use eventually to connect in old-fashion mode to SIMH by > the same > way, but this is other story). > > Only one point to clear... you speak about send IMD images in a > tarball, > isn't so ? Or perhaps... Do you speak about the single files of the > disks > (one by one) ? In this last case, I wonder if would be possible to > send > files to the Altos Xenix using 'cu' or something similar... Only > assorted > thoughts, you know... :-) > > Thanks again. Kind Regards. > Sergio > > > 2009/5/27 mike ingram > >> Hi Sergio >> >> I had given Dave Dunfield copies of a C compiler and some other >> stuff that >> I won on an Ebay auction a couple of years ago. >> >> Dave used to have a site at http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/ >> museum/img/index.htm >> that had copies of this, but it doesn't seem to be working.. >> ( anybody >> know where this is now ???? ) >> >> Anyways, I had these disks: >> >> Xenix Development System version 3.0BS0, which includes 7 floppies, >> SCCS 3.0B0 disk 1 of 1 >> Spelling Checker 3.0BS0 disk 1 of 1 >> Level II COBOL R2.02S0 RTS Rev 56 disk 1 of 1 >> INFORMIX demo version 3.11B two disks ( not ALTOS, but with >> INFORMIX >> label on it ) >> F77 Fortran version 1.2B0 disk 1 of 1 >> C Compiler 3.0BS1 two disks >> >> Be glad to email you what I have .... I think I just put it all >> into a tar >> ball and gzipped it, after using Dave's ImageDisk program to >> copy the >> original floppies into something more moveable. >> >> Mike >> >> >> >> >> >> On May 22, 2009, at 4:51 AM, SPC wrote: >> >> Hello. I have one Altos 686 with Xenix 3.2 in working state. I >> should like >>> to install on it one C compiler and eventually the Ryan-McFarland >>> Cobol >>> for >>> this platform if available. >>> >>> I remember something about IMD image disks available in some >>> place in the >>> Internet but I don't remember where. >>> >>> All help is welcome >>> >>> Kind Regards >>> Sergio >>> >> >> From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 5 19:54:44 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 20:54:44 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A29A89B.4080709@gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <621B149A-94E5-4AC7-9EF8-59C8DE237EA1@neurotica.com> <4A29A89B.4080709@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6E909621-049E-4E70-85E8-92E97DD07CA0@neurotica.com> On Jun 5, 2009, at 7:22 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>>>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >>>> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is >>>> quite zippy on a machine like that. >>> >>> Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer >>> architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. >> That would be extremely yummy. > > I wonder how hard it would be? I can't say that I'm very familiar > with the capabilities of RSX, but, considering the size of the code > we're talking about, could it be possible that it wouldn't involve > as much work as writing a more modern, featureful, cluttered, > bloaty operating system? Well as you know, x86 assembler is a damn ugly mess compared to PDP-11. I'd probably implement it in C for that reason alone, if working with x86. I'd want to put it on a more modern architecture. These early DEC operating systems are amazingly compact and efficient. I'd think something like a C implementation (and I'm talking a VERY close clone) of RSX-11M would be unbelievably fast on modern hardware. >> Note that you typed "suck as PC" above...Freudian slip? ;) > > Probably. 8-) :) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From lynchaj at yahoo.com Fri Jun 5 20:07:56 2009 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 21:07:56 -0400 Subject: N8VEM S-100 prototyping board PCBs available! Message-ID: <756D33E8156E4108A6DD86231FAE7B09@andrewdesktop> Hi! The N8VEM S-100 prototyping board PCBs are available. I tested one out and it seems to work fine. It fits in the S-100 connector on the N8VEM S-100 backplane just right and the pads line up with the pins as you would expect. I assembled the components and the proper voltages appear in the correct places. They seem really nice and I am very happy with how these turned out. Pads for +5V, +12V, and -12V regulators with filter capacitors are on the PCBs. You can optionally install them or change them around as you see fit. The PCBs are $25 each plus $2 shipping in the US and $5 shipping overseas. Please contact me off list if interested in some. I posted some photos in the N8VEM wiki S100 folder if you would like to see them. http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=S100 I am really looking forward to building some S-100 home brew computer stuff with these boards. This is going to be a lot of fun! Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 20:55:05 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 21:55:05 -0400 Subject: 8" Floppies In-Reply-To: <4A28C66B.6090306@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> <20090604113117.GG5509@n0jcf.net> <4A28C66B.6090306@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: > IBM used an outer-edge index hole on the very first floppy drive, the Minnow > (23FD), which was a read-only drive used for microcode storage. ?Minnow only > stored about 80KB and spun at 90 RPM (vs. 360 for "modern" 8-inch floppy > drives). ?The 23FD drive and media were not offered as separate products. I could use some extra 23FD media, and REALLY use a drive that can write a 23FD. -- Will From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 5 21:23:02 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:23:02 -0700 Subject: 8" Floppies In-Reply-To: References: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> <20090604113117.GG5509@n0jcf.net> <4A28C66B.6090306@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A29D306.6020201@brouhaha.com> William Donzelli wrote: > I could use some extra 23FD media, and REALLY use a drive that can write a 23FD. > I imagine that one could contrive to wire the head connector of a 23FD to a write amplifier of one's own devising, and use a 23FD to write. Not trivial, but perhaps not too terribly difficult. Since there's no erase head, it would be necessary to bulk-erase the disk first. Are the technical specs for 23FD in any surviving IBM maintenance documents? It might be helpful to know the track 0 radius, track pitch, media coercivity, etc. Beyond the obvious difference in the location of the index/sector hole, is here much other difference in the jacket of 23FD disks as compared to the later (standard) 8" disks? Back before I had any blank Twiggy disks for a Lisa, I took 5.25" high-density ("1.2MB") disks and hacked up the jackets to make crude but usable Twiggy disks. Could you make 23FD media that way? Eric From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jun 5 21:17:22 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 23:17:22 -0300 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com><31f401c9e5eb$b2dd69a0$0dce19bb@desktaba><6dbe3c380906050757x1d2624c3wfdf0a0b053418b8b@mail.gmail.com><33e601c9e5fb$71d58360$0dce19bb@desktaba> <6dbe3c380906050942w23c3381fn7c25e0c931677d20@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <038601c9e64e$322b5cf0$761e19bb@desktaba> Can I write mac or apple 2gs floppies with a PC floppy drive? I don't have the right serial cable to go from the PC right to the mac or 2gs, but I know there's a version of ADT for the PC. And I wanted to get the mac going anyway. ====================== No, you can't. But you can make (or buy) the cable to connect the pc to the 2gs (humpf, I never saw a 2GS near me :P This is the only apple I never could afford :oP) :oD From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 15:16:47 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:16:47 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > Well, out of curiosity, I'm going to attempt to build gzip and wget on > it. > I hope it doesn't crash. It probably won't crash, but the compiler might or might not be able to wedge all that code into the available code space. Checking on a handy 64-bit Linux system, the gzip binary is under 64K total size, so that might not go so poorly. OTOH, wget is nearly 256K. That will be "fun" to adapt. I recommend paring back unneeded features and learning how overlays work. I can just about guarantee that you'll have Makefile issues for projects large enough or new enough to use configure scripts. Back in the day, we crufted Makefiles by hand and edited source from other variants of UNIX to make them work in our own environments. That's why we have configure scripts now - you don't have to know as many fiddly details and you can gather, configure and compile projects with an absolute minimum of human input. > I've never used anything from this era before, in terms of "capable" > computers. Apple ]['s don't count. I started with BASIC and Assembler on the 6502, and the Apple II counts (to me) because I earned my living off of it for nearly a year. After that place closed (due to external factors like our publisher, Reader's Digest, changing direction radically), I learned C on an 11/750 (VMS 3.x and 4.0BSD, when they were new). Wow, what a difference. I think you should give it a shot, but when you run into problems and issues, just remember that back in that era, we all ran into the same sorts of roadblocks and issues all the time, especially 16-bit-pointer issues with the PDP-11. Some of that wisdom is still available to search through in Usenet archives, but ISTR the rise of Usenet and the rise of 32-bit computing are somewhat intertwined. 16-bit computing was still around, of course, but in the DEC world, it was vastly tilted towards RSX and RSTS and RT-11, not so much with Unix by the mid 1980s. You might also get some good advice looking into Minix issues - the 286 isn't close to identical to the PDP-11, but 16 bits is 16 bits. Even reading up on code development on MS-DOS will be illuminating (before the advent of "32-bit extenders"). Linux started on a 386, bypassing these sorts of growing pains, so experience gained there is mostly only helpful for user-level familiarity, not working through small memory model compiling issues. -ethan -ethan From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 21:34:41 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 22:34:41 -0400 Subject: 8" Floppies In-Reply-To: <4A29D306.6020201@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2783E1.5090803@sdu.se> <20090604113117.GG5509@n0jcf.net> <4A28C66B.6090306@brouhaha.com> <4A29D306.6020201@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: > Are the technical specs for 23FD in any surviving IBM maintenance documents? > ?It might be helpful to know the track 0 radius, track pitch, media > coercivity, etc. I think the 3830 docs have them. Some of the specs are actually on a sticker on the mechanism itself. -- Will From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 21:41:05 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:41:05 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A29D741.4020905@gmail.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: >> Well, out of curiosity, I'm going to attempt to build gzip and wget on >> it. >> I hope it doesn't crash. > > It probably won't crash, but the compiler might or might not be able > to wedge all that code into the available code space. > > Checking on a handy 64-bit Linux system, the gzip binary is under 64K > total size, so that might not go so poorly. OTOH, wget is nearly > 256K. That will be "fun" to adapt. I recommend paring back unneeded > features and learning how overlays work. But are those executables dynamically linked? If so, wouldn't the static executables be way larger? Peace... Sridhar From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 22:55:03 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 22:55:03 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906051048k45cab2a7pfaa9cbdcdf92137a@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906051013v1604a59brb6d3240b1aeff42d@mail.gmail.com> <200906051722.n55HMIZq013208@floodgap.com> <6dbe3c380906051048k45cab2a7pfaa9cbdcdf92137a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906052055o6dc4a1bfg2a042dfaff6cc3aa@mail.gmail.com> Here's what I see: Control Panels -> TCP/IP (AOL) This works. Is set it to ethernet and manually and plugged in good values. Control Panels -> Appletalk I set it to ethernet. It says "current zone: no zones available" Control Panels -> Apple Remote Access not setup correctly. please install from the disk and try again. I found file sharing and turned it on. I'm unable to ping the quadra from another machine on the network, but I do get a light on the hub. Apple file exchange works, but neither floppy drive that I have works. Writing apple disk images from a usb floppy appears to not work. I have another machine I plan to get going this weekend that has a floppy drive and a real disk controller. I'll try it from there. And to make matters worse, I noticed that there was an 8.1 installation in a separate system folder. I found the system folder picker and switched it to the 8.1 folder. Now the machine won't boot. I just get the happy face. Is there some bootup key combination that can undo this? brian From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 23:54:01 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 00:54:01 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A29D741.4020905@gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A29D741.4020905@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 10:41 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: >> Checking on a handy 64-bit Linux system, the gzip binary is under 64K >> total size, so that might not go so poorly. ?OTOH, wget is nearly >> 256K. ?That will be "fun" to adapt. ?I recommend paring back unneeded >> features and learning how overlays work. > > But are those executables dynamically linked? ?If so, wouldn't the static > executables be way larger? Ah, yes... right you are. Well... those aren't stripped binaries, so there's some symbol cruft to clean out. But then in the case of gzip, there's the issue of the size of any compression matrices vs the size of the data segment. Any way you slice it, it's likely to be a challenge to port modern tools like gzip and wget to the PDP-11, but with some effort, it might still be possible to squeeze them in. Oh... then there's the whole ANSI-C vs K&R thing... This is giving me flashbacks to when this stuff didn't always work like the READMEs said it should. -ethan From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Sat Jun 6 00:34:17 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:34:17 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A29D741.4020905@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A29FFD9.5080800@mail.msu.edu> Ethan Dicks wrote: > > This is giving me flashbacks to when this stuff didn't always work > like the READMEs said it should. > That's a pretty good one-sentence summary of UNIX ;). > -ethan > > > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 00:42:56 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 01:42:56 -0400 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> One wonders if the in-house product test was more rigorous than >> connecting two devices with a 2m cable and sending a few characters at >> 9600 bps... > > Or, given that many people seem to have problems with RS232 interfaces > [1], they'd simply claim the cable was wired wrongly, or you haven't set > the baud rate/parity/word length correctly, or... And of coruse support > is non-existant, as it seems to be for all thigns these days :-( Or tell you just to reinstall the drivers. :-P >> > Is it possible that the DC-DC converter is playing up? >> >> The USB serial devices I've seen have been a 1-chip design - >> presumably USB, UART, and level converters all on one die, with a few >> discretes for the DC-DC converter. ?I don't remember seeing any >> separate Maxim devices in them. > > Ah... I thought I heard of a USB-TTL level async serial chip (i.e. you > need to feed the asynch side through a MAXnnn or similar) and assumed > that's what was used in these adapters. Probably not. I know there are "FTDI"-based USB seriual converters which would presumably also have either an external MAXnnn or a bunch of discretes for a charge-pump and level conversion, but I haven't dismantled any of those. The ones I have dismantled (by sliding the plastic housing away from the DE-9) were because they were ultra-cheap (like $4 at the Thrift Store) to see what it would take to route +5V from the USB cable over pin 9, since I have a few serial-interfaced devices, like a toolbooth terminal, that the only external connection is a DE-9 w/pins 2, 3, 5, and 9 passing in/out (TxD, RxD and GND on the expected pins, plus Vcc on pin 9). The hack would be simple - sever any connection between the DE-9 pin 9 and the PCB, then run a jumper wire across the inside of the adapter and reassemble (or in one case, mount inside the enclosure and run the USB cable out a new hole). I realize it's no standard, but I've seen power-over-pin-9 enough to want a simple hack instead of these reverse-Y-cables I've made to tap serial and either PS/2 or USB for power to run these items. The extra cable gets a little clunky after a while. -ethan From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jun 6 01:03:29 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 23:03:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <4A297F02.9030003@philpem.me.uk> from Philip Pemberton at "Jun 5, 9 09:24:34 pm" Message-ID: <200906060603.n5663TXA015970@floodgap.com> > > (I'm not sure it's possible to put NTFS on a CD, that would be > > interesting...) > > It should be possible -- in theory. Create an NTFS filesystem image on a > Linux > box, then use cdrecord or wodim to write it to a CD-R. > > If I get sufficiently bored later on, I might try it, but I doubt even an XP > box would be willing to read it... It certainly wouldn't boot from it, given that El Torito virtually mandates ISO 9660. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The faster we go, the rounder we get. -- The Grateful Dead, on relativity -- From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jun 6 01:04:26 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 23:04:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <20090605124614.P17386@shell.lmi.net> from Fred Cisin at "Jun 5, 9 12:46:57 pm" Message-ID: <200906060604.n5664Q6q021882@floodgap.com> > > Depends on the program. I've only ever done this with an internal FDC > > drive but I don't see a reason why an external USB wouldn't work. > > Has anybody ever seen a USB drive that can do GCR? Never with my own eyes, though I have heard apocryphal mentions of such things. I was referring to writing MFM disk images with a PC FD, which may not have been clear from the context. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- In memory of Douglas Adams ------------------------------------------------- From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jun 6 01:09:58 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 23:09:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906052055o6dc4a1bfg2a042dfaff6cc3aa@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 5, 9 10:55:03 pm" Message-ID: <200906060609.n5669wsF023320@floodgap.com> > Control Panels -> TCP/IP (AOL) > This works. Is set it to ethernet and manually and plugged in good values. This is where installing something like WhatRoute or NCSA Telnet would be helpful. > Control Panels -> Appletalk > I set it to ethernet. It says "current zone: no zones available" Not surprising if you have no other AppleTalk hosts on the network. (It would need to be old-style EtherTalk, at that.) > I found file sharing and turned it on. This only works for AppleTalk hosts, at least for 7.6. > And to make matters worse, I noticed that there was an 8.1 > installation in a separate system folder. I found the system folder > picker and switched it to the 8.1 folder. Now the machine won't boot. > I just get the happy face. Is there some bootup key combination that > can undo this? You could try zapping PRAM (Cmd-Opt-P-R as the machine starts up; let it chime a couple times with the keys held down) but this may not help as the bogus System Folder will still be blessed. A sure fix would be to boot from a valid secondary device, but with a bum floppy drive you're really hosed. I'm suspecting the Mac you have was messed up by its previous owner -- a lot of these errors would be inexplicable with normal use. A full reinstall of 7.6 or 8.1 from an external CD-ROM would be strongly advised. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- So what's my point? I don't know, it's fun to talk about. -- Judy Blackburn From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 6 01:17:26 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 02:17:26 -0400 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jun 6, 2009, at 1:42 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >>>> Is it possible that the DC-DC converter is playing up? >>> >>> The USB serial devices I've seen have been a 1-chip design - >>> presumably USB, UART, and level converters all on one die, with a >>> few >>> discretes for the DC-DC converter. I don't remember seeing any >>> separate Maxim devices in them. >> >> Ah... I thought I heard of a USB-TTL level async serial chip (i.e. >> you >> need to feed the asynch side through a MAXnnn or similar) and assumed >> that's what was used in these adapters. Probably not. > > I know there are "FTDI"-based USB seriual converters which would > presumably also have either an external MAXnnn or a bunch of discretes > for a charge-pump and level conversion, but I haven't dismantled any > of those. The FTDI USB-interfaced UART that I've designed with, the FT232BM, does not have on-chip level conversion. My design used a MAX232 powered from the system power supply. (the unit was not powered from USB) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 6 01:26:00 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 02:26:00 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A29D741.4020905@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 6, 2009, at 12:54 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >>> Checking on a handy 64-bit Linux system, the gzip binary is under >>> 64K >>> total size, so that might not go so poorly. OTOH, wget is nearly >>> 256K. That will be "fun" to adapt. I recommend paring back >>> unneeded >>> features and learning how overlays work. >> >> But are those executables dynamically linked? If so, wouldn't the >> static >> executables be way larger? > > Ah, yes... right you are. Well... those aren't stripped binaries, so > there's some symbol cruft to clean out. But then in the case of gzip, > there's the issue of the size of any compression matrices vs the size > of the data segment. Indeed, that might be the biggest rub. Find the source code for the original "compress" (the LZW algorithm) and look for the HSIZE preprocessor define. Even LZW is pretty painful in a 16-bit address space. -Dave > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 12:46:29 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 13:46:29 -0400 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: References: <200906022258.53816.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200906022316.53813.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A281FF5.6080005@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 1:27 PM, Henk Gooijen wrote: > I have five (!) RK07 drives. I want to keep 3 of them, so sooner or > later two drives will have to go (in The Netherlands). > I plan to connect them all to the RK07 Field Test Box to see in what > shape they are. They should all be OK ... They probably are... in my experience, they are very sturdy mechanically and electrically. I was cleaning and prepping for sale a pair of them about 21 years ago.. one was just fine, but when I flipped the breaker on the second one, *huge* amounts of thick black smoke poured out of the PSU. I slapped the breaker off and tipped back the PSU to see what happened - two of the rectifier diodes (1N4007 or similar) were charred and perforated. A few minutes with a DVM narrowed down the problem to a completely-shorted filter cap. It was great that it was held in with #8 bolts, not solder. The "hard part" of the repair was replacing the diodes. Lots of smoke + two $0.07 diodes + one C-battery-sized filter cap == working drive! It was one of the easiest DEC repairs I ever had. -ethan From segin2005 at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 03:49:22 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:49:22 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <20090604113556.GA27464@Update.UU.SE> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A278057.30706@machineroom.info> <20090604113556.GA27464@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <4A2A2D92.7020502@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > On Thu, Jun 04, 2009 at 09:05:43AM +0100, James Wilson wrote: >> As one of the, I suspect, younger members of the list (37) I've >> always fancied a proper blinkenlights 11 but never been in the >> right place at the right time. Compiling "hello world" on real >> hardware is just about the next best thing! > > Not to brag, but I'm 28 :) And I know of two more below 30, but I > guess the average is a bit higher. > > Congrats on the cherrypopping (not something I thought I would say > on this list) > > Cheers, Pontus Pfft, I'm 19, and this is the first time I've ever used a PDP-11. Or 2BSD. I want to play with it, see what (if any) modern software will build on it. Probably GNU project packages, like wget and gzip. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoqLZEACgkQF9H43UytGibvawCffzNAsWDLpcyY/Ga0XzoPqB0t Lu4AnRzXWDWIBPiNuipIzrw2oTtIe4iW =aniq -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jun 6 04:22:05 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 02:22:05 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A2A2D92.7020502@gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A278057.30706@machineroom.info> <20090604113556.GA27464@Update.UU.SE> <4A2A2D92.7020502@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2A353D.90908@brouhaha.com> Kirn Gill wrote: > this is the first time I've ever used a PDP-11. > Or 2BSD. > > I want to play with it, see what (if any) modern software will build > on it. > Probably GNU project packages, like wget and gzip. > Ah! Someone looking for big challenges! I'm not sure about wget, as I've never looked at its source code, but I'll be quite impressed if you get gzip, or even just a generally usable zlib, running on a PDP-11. Eric From snhirsch at gmail.com Fri Jun 5 06:39:51 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 07:39:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Question re: 8" drive form-factor In-Reply-To: <4A28C0C0.3060708@brouhaha.com> References: <4A27336A.7050605@brouhaha.com> <4A28C0C0.3060708@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 4 Jun 2009, Eric Smith wrote: > Steven Hirsch wrote: >> I found the OEM manual on bitsavers and it's actually the 'R' model that >> matches what I believed to the industry form-factor of 8.5" width. The >> "standard" (non-R) model is 9.5" wide. Odd standard, since I've never seen >> another 8" drive that size. > Ah, that was it. They made the "R" model narrower to make it easier to fit > them side by side in a rack. > > I'm guessing that the 9.5" size might match the size of the genuine IBM 33FD, > 43FD, or 53FD drives. Although I have some 53FD drives, I've never taken > them out of the equipment they're installed in, so I haven't had occasion to > measure their dimensions. Intriguing that Shugart actually tooled up for two different die-cast chassis rather than simply providing a wider faceplate and some spacer plates for the 8.5" units. I guess money grew on trees back then. Steve -- From les at hildenbrandt.com Fri Jun 5 07:58:34 2009 From: les at hildenbrandt.com (Les Hildenbrandt) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:58:34 -0600 Subject: 8" Floppies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A29167A.8050308@hildenbrandt.com> > > >They're double-sided disks. Not too uncommon. If you want to see some >really strange 8" floppy disks, I have a box of Memorex disks that are >hard-sectored and have the sector/index hole near the outer edge of the >disk, rather than near the rim. > I had a drive that used those disks. I think it was the first 8" drive I had, and was never able to use it. It was a memorex drive as I recall. From bqt at softjar.se Fri Jun 5 03:45:51 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:45:51 +0200 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A28DB3F.8050000@softjar.se> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 11:42 AM, John Floren wrote: >> > Interesting, I didn't know a /23 could run V7--all I know for sure is >> > that it works on /45s and /70s. Do you know any other machines it runs >> > on? I'd like to try installing on my 11/73 (KDJ11-A) if possible. > > I think it would come down to disk drivers. If the kernel will run on > an 11/70, there's no difference I can think of off the top of my head > why it wouldn't run on a KDJ-11, unless there's something about the > 22-bit Unibus mapping on the 11/70 vs no mapping on the Qbus. Yikes! No, I would not expect it to work well at all. The first, and most obvious problem is the bus. The Unibus is an 18-bit address bus, while the q-bus is 22-bits. So, an 11/70 have a Unibus map which is involved in all DMA from the Unibus. The q-bus don't have anything like that. This obviously affects all device drivers doing DMA. And then we have the obvious problem that the most likely disks used on V7 would have been massbus disks, which you have no correspondance to on a q-bus. But even with disks of a similar nature, such an RL, there are still differences between the controllers, so that you can't just run the version from a unibus on a q-bus machine without a little modification. I don't know how much features V7 uses, but there are plenty of things in the 11/70 which the KDJ11 don't do. Stack limits are different. The MMU is different (although I don't think anyone uses the 11/70-specific features). Now V7 is old enough to not make much use of the hardware, which still makes it easier to get it running on different machines (no split I/D space, no supervisor mode stuff). So, as always, it is possible, but you can't just drop the software in, and expect it to run. > Disks, though... a 11/73 is likely to have an MSCP disk controller, > but the 11/70 has quite a number of supported disk controllers. True. > I'd look at the 7th Ed. sources and the install process to see what > 7th Ed. is expecting to load onto. You need to rewrite things. There is no way you can get something written for the Unibus, and large memory, work on a q-bus without rewriting some stuff. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From bqt at softjar.se Fri Jun 5 03:49:55 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:49:55 +0200 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A28DC33.1040201@softjar.se> Pete Turnbull wrote: > On 04/06/2009 19:43, Dave McGuire wrote: >> Wasn't the MSCP driver backported from 2.11BSD to something earlier? >> Hmm, come to think of it, I think that was 2.9BSD, not V7. >> >> Hmm, MSCP on my PDP-11/24. 8-) > > Yes, with a high-speed RD52 for authenticity ;-) Not possible. The only MSCP controller DEC did for Unibus was to SDI (tha UDA50). The only MSCP to MFM controller DEC did was for Q-bus (the RQDX series). 3rd party manufacturers also made MSCP controller for Unibus to SCSI. Might be that something more also exist, but I doubt very much you could find one to MFM. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From jgevaryahu at comcast.net Fri Jun 5 09:22:34 2009 From: jgevaryahu at comcast.net (Jonathan Gevaryahu) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:22:34 -0400 Subject: DEC vt52 question: rom dumps Message-ID: <4A292A2A.4060406@comcast.net> Does anyone have a DEC VT52 (or any of the VT5x series really) and the means to read out the 8 firmware PROMS on the rom/uart board, and/or the character ROM? The MESS team is trying to get ahold of this data for preservation/emulation. The PROM chips (according to the schematic on bitsavers: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/terminal/vt52/MP00035_VT52schem.pdf) are 82s129 or pinout compatible with 82s129 (or maybe the open collector 82s126 version?). According to the maintenance manual (also on bitsavers: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/terminal/vt52/EK-VT52-MM-002_maint_Jul78.pdf page titled A-02) there are three different 'prom sets' of this firmware for the vt52 (and since the prom sets can be upgraded, I'm guessing they're socketed). Also, the MESS team is looking for a dump of the character generator rom; there are two versions of this rom, and the chip is an early non-jedec pinout ?mask? rom; the pinout is listed on the schematic on page 43. (It happens to have a nearly identical pinout to the MCM6830A ?eprom? used on the early heathkit et4000 non-a units) Thanks everyone for your time, and have a good day! -- Jonathan Gevaryahu AKA Lord Nightmare jgevaryahu at comcast.net jgevaryahu at hotmail.com From vax at purdue.edu Fri Jun 5 15:14:15 2009 From: vax at purdue.edu (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:14:15 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200906051614.15873.vax@purdue.edu> On Friday 05 June 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 5, 2009, at 3:58 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > > Well, out of curiosity, I'm going to attempt to build gzip and wget > > on it. I hope it doesn't crash. > > That'll be fun. > > > It's damnably slow, but at least it works. > > Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite > zippy on a machine like that. Or, RT-11. Though, RT-11 is quite zippy even on an 11/03. :) Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing -- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcac From derschjo at msu.edu Fri Jun 5 16:53:02 2009 From: derschjo at msu.edu (derschjo at msu.edu) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:53:02 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20090605175302.187448lmqqcxm85a@mail.msu.edu> Quoting "Dave McGuire" : > On Jun 5, 2009, at 5:12 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>>>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >>>> >>>>? Yep.? The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite >>>> zippy on a machine like that. >>> >>> Hmmm.? Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer >>> architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. >> >> It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically POSIX, or >> DOS/Windows running native on a PC. > >? ?ColorForth!! ROM Basic? > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > > From chrise at pobox.com Fri Jun 5 16:53:18 2009 From: chrise at pobox.com (Chris Elmquist) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:53:18 -0500 Subject: TI Silent 700 model 733 manual In-Reply-To: References: <20090604113117.GG5509@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: <20090605215318.GV8895@n0jcf.net> On Friday (06/05/2009 at 09:55PM +0100), Tony Duell wrote: > > > > I also have a 733 without cassette drives (is that a different model #)? > > It would be nice to have access to the service manual for it. It's been i= > > n > > an attic for about 10 yrs but I plan to bring it back to life real soon. My mistake-- I just fetched the unit from the attic and it is a model 725 not a 733. Sorry for the confusion. Although it was described as a "portable data terminal" and it is built into a large suitcase. One really has to question the definition of portable :-) Man that thing is heavy. And to answer Lar's question about the picture, mine does indeed look exactly like the one here, http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/ti-tymshare-100/DSC02096.JPG except that there are no Tymshare logos on it and the metal plate just below the acoustic coupler does not extend all the way to the front. On mine it is only about 2" wide with the carrier detect light directly centered on that plate. Mine also unfortunately, has more of yellow green color now instead of the greenish-grey it was originally. Time takes it toll. It's most definitely a model 725. Serial 725-11237. Part 954783-1. > I'll certainly take a look at the service manual if it ends up on > Bitsavers or somewhere similar. So, I will need to track down a model 725 service manual. The user's manual is still inside the top cover so that is good. > I haev 2 of these terminals... At a radio rally nearly 20 years ago I > bought a KSR version (no tape drives). The seller had 4 old printers, he > started off trying to sell them for a farly high price (\pounds 10.00 > each or something), by the end of the take he too \pounds 5.00 for all 4. > The one I particularly wanted was the Teletpye KSR43, the others with the > TI 733 and a couple of Cnetronics printes (brand, not (just) interface) > with a strange carriage feed mechanism. At the same rally, from another > seller I bought the dual tape drive unit. I didn't realise it would go on > the TI terminal until I got it home, saw the TI logo all over the tape > drive parts, and relaised the 'feet' would fit on top of the terminal if > I remvoed a couple of cover plates. What I didn't have was the cable to > link them. Oh, the tape unt is missing the outer cover but otherwise > seems to be complete/ > > Anyway, about 10 years later a friend of mine had the ASR model, complete > with covers and cable. I asked if I could 'buzz out' the cable and he > gave me the complete device. Now that is a _good_ friend. > So I have one complete ASR model, a KSR one, and the working bits of a > tape unit. > > > > > Oh-- it has a 300 baud acoustic coupler on the side too :-) > > I don't have that. Mine's still there. With the giant "CARRIER DETECT" light-- not LED of course-- right below it. The unit actually powers up and it still types!! Even the paper wasn't totally black from 10 yrs of heat in the attic. Amazing. However, the paper does not feed correctly. On inspection, I've already found that the grease in the little solonoid that lifts the head from the paper when it advances has turned to something more sticky than honey. I'm in the process of addressing that. I also see that the stepper motor that actually turns the platen (or equiv of) is not making a full increment each time. Sometimes it advances but other times it de-advances. So, something it messed up in the stepper circuit or the grease in that stepper motor has turned to honey too. This is a really cool machine though. I grew up with this thing hooked to my first computer (an MEK6800D1 eval board) in 1975. I went through thousands of rolls of thermal paper as I typed in machine code to MIKBUG's '*' prompt one line at time :-) There's no microprocessor in the thing-- not even a UART. It's all done with 7400 TTL and electronically, it's extremely fixable. It's pretty funny but as soon as I took the lid off the Silent 700, the smell of that plastic brought back the same impressions of coolness and excitement I had as a kid. Everything else is on the back burner now-- gotta get this baby printing right! :-) Chris -- Chris Elmquist From lproven at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 08:00:50 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:00:50 +0100 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906060600y773232c4qcecd9f0cc66bdba1@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/5 Zane H. Healy : > > > On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > >> Dave McGuire wrote: >>>> >>>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >>> >>> ?Yep. ?The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite zippy on >>> a machine like that. >> >> Hmmm. ?Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer >> architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. >> >> Peace... ?Sridhar >> > > It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically POSIX, or > DOS/Windows running native on a PC. > > Zane How about TSX-32? Commercial, alas, but there's a free demo version. IIRC it's not too happy inside most VMs, though. http://www.sandh.com/sandh.htm Derived or inspired by a PDP-11 OS, TSX, which I think shares some ancestry with RSTS or something. I'm afraid PDPs were a bit before my time - I cut my FORTRAN teeth on a VAX 11/780. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jun 6 08:49:45 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 10:49:45 -0300 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo References: Message-ID: <064b01c9e6ad$b0dfd6c0$761e19bb@desktaba> >> I know there are "FTDI"-based USB seriual converters which would >> presumably also have either an external MAXnnn or a bunch of discretes >> for a charge-pump and level conversion, but I haven't dismantled any >> of those. > The FTDI USB-interfaced UART that I've designed with, the FT232BM, > does not have on-chip level conversion. My design used a MAX232 > powered from the system power supply. (the unit was not powered from > USB) Small tip here: The FT-232 chip is a hell of expensive. Buy an old NOKIA data cable (one with the fun port connector) or like (siemens, maxom, any very old data cable) for $1 and you have the USB-to-TTL-Serial(needs max-232 to be a full usb to rs-232 cable) for a cheap. I do it everyday here. Greetz from Brazil, PU1BZZ Alexandre From lproven at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 09:24:10 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 15:24:10 +0100 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <200906051729.n55HTlAp022562@floodgap.com> References: <6dbe3c380906051015h519bf7f2ue91d5c17ad709bd5@mail.gmail.com> <200906051729.n55HTlAp022562@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906060724s2fc6717cx8a04134ade8e3f@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/5 Cameron Kaiser : >> > > I have the AAUI connector. I'm thinking it's working since I get a >> > > light on the hub. _I was able to switch it from appletalk to tcp/ip >> > > and set it to dhcp, but it looks like it didn't even try to ask for an >> > > ip address. >> > >> > I've never used MacTCP for DHCP. Assign it a static address first and >> > see how far you get. >> >> ok. ?I'm lost without a command line. ?Is there a version of ping in >> there somewhere? ?What about samba/windows shares or maybe ftp? > > You should be able to assign it a static address from the More... screen. > That doesn't work? > > As far as Windows shares, I *think* there was something that would run on > 7.6, but good luck finding it. Not 100% sure if it ran on a version that old, but the 2 main contenders were Thursby Software's DAVE and Connectix' DoubleTalk. As luck would have it, I've been trying to give away a copy of DoubleTalk on the LowEndMac swaps list for ages. Free for the cost of postage from the UK. :?) No idea if a demo of DAVE is still available anywhere... I believe the makers are still around, selling tools to enhance ActiveDirectory integration on Mac OS X. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From lproven at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 09:42:40 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 15:42:40 +0100 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906060742j3fda34bfl418f5c23fd7ca811@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/5 Brian Lanning : > So I got around to hooking some things up and seeing what works. ?I > have a quadra 700 with system 7.6 on it. ?I also had a 7 bay scsi > enclosure lying around, a couple scsi hard drives, and a slot loading > dvd drive. > > My goal here is first to get the quadra on the network so I can share > files with it. ?Also, I'd like to be able to read CDs or DVDs from the > quadra. ?Once one of those is successful, I plan to use ADT to > transfer a prodos or apple 3.3 dos disk image to an apple 2gs over a > serial cable, then create a bootable floppy for my 2e. ?:-P ? lol. > It's looking like a fun project. > > I should note that I have zero floppy disks for the mac or apple > 2e/2gs. ?So this is sort of a fun boot-strapping project to see if I > can get there from here. > > Much to my surprise, the quadra 700 detected the two scsi hard drives > and dvd drive. ?The quadra already had some scsi utilities and each of > the drives show up. ?One of them has a mount button, but it refuses to > mount a CD in the DVD drive. ?No surprise there I guess. ?Any idea how > I can get the machine to mount a CD or DVD? ?I might have a > termination problem. ?I have this black centronics thingy with the > apple logo on it. ?It sort of looks like a terminator, but you can > plug another centronics cable into the back of it, so I'm doubting > it's a terminator. > > Networking doesn't seem to work. ?I get a light on the hub, but it > doesn't seem interested in letting me get to the network. ?The machine > has Timbuktu installed, but the open menu option is ghosted out. ?The > info menu option works, but nothing is listed on the networking tab. > I found this link: ?http://www.atpm.com/network/files/file_sharing.htm > ?The menu options they talk about are missing. ?I have some > applescript menu options somewhere else that talk about turning on > file sharing, but they don't work either. ?I'm thinking I might need > to reinstall the system software at some point. ?Any tips on how I can > get this machine on the network? > > I suspect the floppy drive is bad. ?I put a new HD floppy in the > drive. ?It detects it as a 1.4meg floppy disk, but formatting doesn't > work. ?It claims the disk is bad. ?I have another drive in the IIfx > that I might try swapping in to see if I can get the floppy drive > working. ?I copied a dos file to the floppy as a test to see if I > could get the mac to read it. ?No luck. ?It wants to format the disk. > Any ideas on how I can be able to share floppies between the PC and > mac? ?I know the mac drives are a little odd. > > fun stuff. Quadra 700 - so it's a 25MHz 68040. How much RAM has it got? http://lowendmac.com/quadra/quadra-700.html I'd strongly suggest, as others have observed, wiping it & installing MacOS 8.1. It's got much better TCP/IP handling and also better handling of alien disk formats. You might even have a chance of recognising and handling a DVD, though I wouldn't put money on it. A bit more info as to why: http://lowendmac.com/sable/06/0911.html 8.1 boot CDs are rare. It's easier to get a copy of 8.0 and download and install the free 8.1 update, which Apple still offers. If you're really stuck, I might be able to find a spare CD of 8.0 somewhere for you. It'll still require 3rd party tools to talk to a Windows network, though. If you have NT Server, though, it has a Mac file-sharing mode, even back in NT3. That will work fine. To access a non-Apple optical drive, you either need a 3rd party driver or a hacked version of the Apple driver.There's a guide here: http://www.kan.org/6100/cd.html & a little more here: http://macfaq.org/hardware/media.shtml For 3rd party hard disks, you also need a 3rd party tool, although it's not a driver as such - it's just a partitioner/formatter. (Technically, it embeds the driver into the partition structure of the drive, so the MacOS automatically loads it the 1st time that it sees the drive. This is transparent - you can even boot off such a drive.) I use SilverLining but there's also a LaCie tool and various others - most vendors of 3rd party SCSI hard disks offered them. In my experience, reading non-Mac CDs on Classic MacOS is very iffy, especially if they're home-burned ones. I've never found an adequate way around this. It's /supposed/ to work but often won't. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 09:02:07 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 10:02:07 -0400 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: <064b01c9e6ad$b0dfd6c0$761e19bb@desktaba> References: <064b01c9e6ad$b0dfd6c0$761e19bb@desktaba> Message-ID: On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 9:49 AM, Alexandre Souza wrote: > ? Small tip here: > > ? The FT-232 chip is a hell of expensive. I wouldn't say it was that expensive - USB-to-TTL-serial cables are $20 new here, and they are quite tidy and end in a dressed 0.1" header. For me, it's more of a case of being too fine-pitched for easy breadboarding and I'm usually too lazy to cut a fresh board just for USB-serial, so I use the ready-to-go cables. > Buy an old NOKIA data cable (one > with the fun port connector) or like (siemens, maxom, any very old data > cable) for $1 and you have the USB-to-TTL-Serial(needs max-232 to be a full > usb to rs-232 cable) for a cheap. Can you point me to pictures of such cables? I see phone adapters at the thrift stores every time I go, and I don't mind hacking a $1 cable (which is what they are here, too) to save $20. I just don't know exactly what I'm looking for. "the fun port connector" doesn't mean much to me - I've never owned a Nokia phone (in fact, I've only owned two cell phones in 10 years, so I'm _not_ the right person for knowing different vendors' quirks). These data cables have an FTDI chip in them, but what identifier do they send to the host? I do some USB development (for LCD screens) and have run across a number of questions raised about serial drivers and chips not matching up and having to reset the identifiers and such (or hack the driver to look for the "right" thing). Thanks, -ethan From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jun 6 11:50:23 2009 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 12:50:23 -0400 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906060742j3fda34bfl418f5c23fd7ca811@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Liam Proven" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Saturday, June 06, 2009 10:42 AM Subject: Re: Classic mac fun (and some questions) OS 7.1 is fast and with Opentransport 1.1.1 and 1.1.2 update (both available on Apples website) you have DHCP for networking. If you have plenty of RAM and want to have greater then 2GB bootable partitions then OS 8.1 is the way to go. OS 7.6.1 can do 2GB for boot drives and larger for extra drives. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 6 12:10:05 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 18:10:05 +0100 (BST) Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s In-Reply-To: <4A28DC33.1040201@softjar.se> from "Johnny Billquist" at Jun 5, 9 10:49:55 am Message-ID: > >> Hmm, MSCP on my PDP-11/24. 8-) > > > > Yes, with a high-speed RD52 for authenticity ;-) > > Not possible. The only MSCP controller DEC did for Unibus was to SDI > (tha UDA50). The only MSCP to MFM controller DEC did was for Q-bus (the > RQDX series). What happens if you put a DW11B (Unius - Qbus interface) in the Unibus machine and connect the Qbus side of that to an RQDXm? Obviously it can only support 18 it DMA, but it does support that. I know for a fact that you can use an RLV11 on a Unibus machine that way, I did it on an 11/45 with no problems. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 6 12:17:35 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 18:17:35 +0100 (BST) Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 5, 9 01:46:29 pm Message-ID: > > I plan to connect them all to the RK07 Field Test Box to see in what > > shape they are. They should all be OK ... > > They probably are... in my experience, they are very sturdy > mechanically and electrically. Indeeed. My second RK07 was given to me after it was flooded by a leaking water pipe (no, it wasn't powered up at the time). I figured some its might still be good in it. Anyway, when I took it off the stand to get it home, water came out of the mouting screw holes. The hollow base plate/air duct was full of water. I took it apart and cleaned and dried it. Everything looked OK, so I fired up the PSU. It worked. Added the logic boards. Everything seemd to work. So for a laugh I put in a scratch pack, fully expecting a head crash. No, the heads loaded with no prolems. And it worked (and works) fine... > > I was cleaning and prepping for sale a pair of them about 21 years > ago.. one was just fine, but when I flipped the breaker on the second > one, *huge* amounts of thick black smoke poured out of the PSU. I > slapped the breaker off and tipped back the PSU to see what happened - > two of the rectifier diodes (1N4007 or similar) were charred and > perforated. A few minutes with a DVM narrowed down the problem to a > completely-shorted filter cap. It was great that it was held in with > #8 bolts, not solder. The "hard part" of the repair was replacing the > diodes. > > Lots of smoke + two $0.07 diodes + one C-battery-sized filter cap == > working drive! Excellent... Reminds me of the time smoke poured out of a 3rd party (Plessey IIRC) Unibus expanison box. It was clearly coming from the PSU area and I thought I could see something glowing orange inside. Turns out (after takign the PSU apart) that a bridge recifier had shorted and the orange glow was the wires linking that to the transformer -- all the insulation had burnt off and they were more than red hot. Replaced the rectifier and thw wires, no problems... -tony From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jun 6 12:14:33 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:14:33 -0300 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo References: <064b01c9e6ad$b0dfd6c0$761e19bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <079b01c9e6cb$a55b6670$761e19bb@desktaba> (fast answer, I'm doing barbecue here, anyone served? :D) >Can you point me to pictures of such cables? I see phone adapters at >the thrift stores every time I go, and I don't mind hacking a $1 cable >(which is what they are here, too) to save $20. I just don't know >exactly what I'm looking for. "the fun port connector" doesn't mean >much to me - I've never owned a Nokia phone (in fact, I've only owned >two cell phones in 10 years, so I'm _not_ the right person for knowing >different vendors' quirks). Since this info may interest other people, I'll do a small page with photos, drivers, etc and put it online, hope to do it this night, hold on. >These data cables have an FTDI chip in them, but what identifier do >they send to the host? I do some USB development (for LCD screens) >and have run across a number of questions raised about serial drivers >and chips not matching up and having to reset the identifiers and such >(or hack the driver to look for the "right" thing). Usually they use the prolific chipset, I'll send more detailed info later today Gfb Alexandre, PU1BZZ From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 6 12:22:06 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 18:22:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at Jun 5, 9 02:12:34 pm Message-ID: > It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically POSIX, or > DOS/Windows running native on a PC. ROM BASIC? (Technically, it performs some of the functions of an OS) Standalone Forth? (there must be at least one..) UCSD P-system? CP/M-86? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 6 12:28:04 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 18:28:04 +0100 (BST) Subject: TI Silent 700 model 733 manual In-Reply-To: <20090605215318.GV8895@n0jcf.net> from "Chris Elmquist" at Jun 5, 9 04:53:18 pm Message-ID: > However, the paper does not feed correctly. On inspection, I've already > found that the grease in the little solonoid that lifts the head from the > paper when it advances has turned to something more sticky than honey. > I'm in the process of addressing that. This is a well-known problem on all sorts of devices. Someitmes the grease will soften with common solvents (propan-2-ol, etc). There's a green grease used in some camera lans mounts that goes rock hard with age and nothing wil shift it short of scraping it out.... > I also see that the stepper motor that actually turns the platen (or equiv > of) is not making a full increment each time. Sometimes it advances but > other times it de-advances. So, something it messed up in the stepper > circuit or the grease in that stepper motor has turned to honey too. Maybe you've lost the drive to one of hte stepper phases. That can make them step in thwe wrong direction sometimes. > > This is a really cool machine though. I grew up with this thing hooked > to my first computer (an MEK6800D1 eval board) in 1975. I went through > thousands of rolls of thermal paper as I typed in machine code to MIKBUG's > '*' prompt one line at time :-) > > There's no microprocessor in the thing-- not even a UART. It's all done > with 7400 TTL and electronically, it's extremely fixable. The 733 is like that too, although there's probably at least one ROM (the character generator). From what I rmember there's a cardcage of PCBs between the 2 tape drives in the ASR add-on (behind the swtich/LED panel in the middle -- in fact I think that's mounted on the frontmost PCB in the cage). Anyway, about the most complicated chip on those boards is a little bipolar RAM. No microprocessor. > > It's pretty funny but as soon as I took the lid off the Silent 700, > the smell of that plastic brought back the same impressions of coolness > and excitement I had as a kid. > > Everything else is on the back burner now-- gotta get this baby > printing right! :-) I'm almost convinced to dig mine out and have a go with it... Too many projects, not enough bench space... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 6 12:30:36 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 18:30:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: <4A29A058.1010604@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 5, 9 12:46:48 pm Message-ID: > Long ago, I bought a Heathkit color television -- it was gorgeous. > Needed some work. Also, while I was contemplating buying it, the owner > offered to throw in a 'scope, too. It had never worked he said. The > screen was "grainy" and a new tube cost too much. I accepted. The > television was easy to fix (Heathkit, I said). > > But, when I fired up the 'scope, I was shocked. He was right. The > scope image could be focused, but it never got clear. It looked like > the phosphor was painted on the tube with a roller. Then, I had to > laugh.... > > I took off the bezel, pulled off the graticule screen, and peeled the > tyvek sticky paper off the back of the plastic screen, and voila! A > nice clear trace. ROFL!! I wodnered why complex electronic instruments came with such losing manuals, after all, surely the sort of person to buy a 'scope or logic analuyser has more than 2 working braincells. Now I know... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 6 12:31:17 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 18:31:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: wire wrap machine pins In-Reply-To: <4A299B2F.2040004@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 5, 9 12:24:47 pm Message-ID: > > Eric Smith wrote: > > A short piece of copper tubing and a hammer work wonders. > > Right! The same is true in labor negotiations, as well.... And a reasonable substitue for a clue-by-four... -tony From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 6 12:54:31 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 13:54:31 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <71D88B8A-9200-41F9-BF59-619FB74E44F0@neurotica.com> On Jun 6, 2009, at 1:22 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > Standalone Forth? (there must be at least one..) I've played with ColorForth and RetroForth, they're both rather interesting. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 6 12:58:51 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 10:58:51 -0700 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: References: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 5, 9 01:46:29 pm, Message-ID: <4A2A4BEB.8969.1A2FB903@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jun 2009 at 18:17, Tony Duell wrote: > Reminds me of the time smoke poured out of a 3rd party (Plessey IIRC) > Unibus expanison box. It was clearly coming from the PSU area and I > thought I could see something glowing orange inside. Turns out (after > takign the PSU apart) that a bridge recifier had shorted and the > orange glow was the wires linking that to the transformer -- all the > insulation had burnt off and they were more than red hot. Replaced the > rectifier and thw wires, no problems... That UPS I wrote about a couple of days ago turned out to have a similar problem that should have resulted in magic smoke, but a thoughtful engineer saved me from that. An inspection of the curcuit showed that the UPS will not engage when powered on unless the batteries (4x12v wet cell lead-acid) are supplying current. Once energized, the unit will supply power as long as AC power is present (allows you to change batteries without interrupting power). The batteries were flat. A test with an automotive battery charger/tester showed that all would hold a full charge. What caused my unit to brick was a shorted 1000uF 100V filter cap in the charging circuit. But no bulging cans, magic smoke or any other sign that anything was wrong. An ECO had been added at some time that included a 20A fuse in the secondary of the inverter transformer. Said fuse was in a holder tucked away under a nest of wires attached to the inside front panel with an adhesive cable tie. The unit kept operating until a thunderstorm caused the power to glitch momentarily. With no battery power, the unit would not power- cycle when the line supply recovered. That fuse could have blown months ago without showing any outward sign. Once the (blown) fuse was discovered, it was pretty obvious that something upstream was wrong. A quick check with an ohmmeter turned up the bad cap. The charging circuit is pretty crude by modern standards--an LM317K TO3 regulator on a large (4"x6") heatsink with a 50W zener and a thermostatic switch. It could probably benefit with some upgrading to a "smarter" circuit. This UPS has been in continuous service since 1989. --Chuck From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jun 6 13:00:24 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 15:00:24 -0300 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 References: Message-ID: <081101c9e6d1$744bfc60$761e19bb@desktaba> > I took it apart and cleaned and dried it. Everything looked OK, so I fired > up the PSU. It worked. Added the logic boards. Everything seemd to work. > So for a laugh I put in a scratch pack, fully expecting a head crash. No, > the heads loaded with no prolems. And it worked (and works) fine... Usually, water does no damage IF the equipment is unpowered AND it is properly dried up before powering From segin2005 at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 13:10:41 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:10:41 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Kirn Gill > wrote: >> Well, out of curiosity, I'm going to attempt to build gzip and >> wget on it. I hope it doesn't crash. > > It probably won't crash, but the compiler might or might not be > able to wedge all that code into the available code space. > > Checking on a handy 64-bit Linux system, the gzip binary is under > 64K total size, so that might not go so poorly. OTOH, wget is > nearly 256K. That will be "fun" to adapt. I recommend paring back > unneeded features and learning how overlays work. > > I can just about guarantee that you'll have Makefile issues for > projects large enough or new enough to use configure scripts. Back > in the day, we crufted Makefiles by hand and edited source from > other variants of UNIX to make them work in our own environments. > That's why we have configure scripts now - you don't have to know > as many fiddly details and you can gather, configure and compile > projects with an absolute minimum of human input. > >> I've never used anything from this era before, in terms of >> "capable" computers. Apple ]['s don't count. > > I started with BASIC and Assembler on the 6502, and the Apple II > counts (to me) because I earned my living off of it for nearly a > year. After that place closed (due to external factors like our > publisher, Reader's Digest, changing direction radically), I > learned C on an 11/750 (VMS 3.x and 4.0BSD, when they were new). > Wow, what a difference. > > I think you should give it a shot, but when you run into problems > and issues, just remember that back in that era, we all ran into > the same sorts of roadblocks and issues all the time, especially > 16-bit-pointer issues with the PDP-11. Some of that wisdom is > still available to search through in Usenet archives, but ISTR the > rise of Usenet and the rise of 32-bit computing are somewhat > intertwined. 16-bit computing was still around, of course, but in > the DEC world, it was vastly tilted towards RSX and RSTS and RT-11, > not so much with Unix by the mid 1980s. You might also get some > good advice looking into Minix issues - the 286 isn't close to > identical to the PDP-11, but 16 bits is 16 bits. Even reading up > on code development on MS-DOS will be illuminating (before the > advent of "32-bit extenders"). > > Linux started on a 386, bypassing these sorts of growing pains, so > experience gained there is mostly only helpful for user-level > familiarity, not working through small memory model compiling > issues. > > -ethan > > > -ethan I've messed with Minix on a 286; I used to keep a copy of i86 Minix with the DOSMINIX laucher on a flash drive because it would run on NTVDM (Windows NT's DOS VM). I've also messed with DOS programming. It's a pain and a half and I avoided it like the plague; DOS is dead and not of any intristic value unless you enjoy playing corny-looking games or running horrid multitasking GUIs made by Microsoft. I know enough C to make compilers shut up when porting code; I have tried writing software on my own and I can show you some failed attempts I just left behind (also due to lack of motivation, I get tired of doing all the work myself) If the /pointers/ on a PDP-11 are 16-bit as well, then I know what I am up against. I've done a bit of coding with ELKS and (aforementioned) Minix for pre-386 chips. I wouldn't write any software on the machine, there's nothing useful I can think of writing that I would actually deal with using. The fact that the local 'vi' doesn't respond to ANSI/VT100 directional keys, and only responds to h, j, k, l instead is enough to make me hate it. And no, that's not going to motivate me to write a better editor. I don't know how. If I did, I would have already done it and the holy Emacs vs. Vi war would have been over, both sides having both lost. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoqsSAACgkQF9H43UytGiZybACfSnYD40kWotXU0Wgpo1VoS6Tc ewUAn3C4TJ7qZk5DV7FQ53y1DcV3ErkY =2M26 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 6 13:12:54 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:12:54 -0700 Subject: wire wrap machine pins In-Reply-To: References: <4A299B2F.2040004@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 5, 9 12:24:47 pm, Message-ID: <4A2A4F36.17120.1A3C9540@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jun 2009 at 18:31, Tony Duell wrote: > > > A short piece of copper tubing and a hammer work wonders. > > > > Right! The same is true in labor negotiations, as well.... > > And a reasonable substitue for a clue-by-four... I machined a tool for this from a piece of 1/4" brass rod. A light tap on the end with a rawhide hammer does the trick without bending the pin. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 6 13:50:44 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:50:44 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <200906051614.15873.vax@purdue.edu> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <200906051614.15873.vax@purdue.edu> Message-ID: <7F6649CA-BCB5-48E4-B50D-F214CE097715@neurotica.com> On Jun 5, 2009, at 4:14 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >>> Well, out of curiosity, I'm going to attempt to build gzip and wget >>> on it. I hope it doesn't crash. >> >> That'll be fun. >> >>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >> >> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite >> zippy on a machine like that. > > Or, RT-11. Though, RT-11 is quite zippy even on an 11/03. :) Yebbut...RT-11 doesn't really do a whole lot. ;) I'm a RSTS/E and RSX-11 man. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 6 13:50:56 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:50:56 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <20090605175302.187448lmqqcxm85a@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> <20090605175302.187448lmqqcxm85a@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <37E4B28F-5090-4D85-8645-3A7159916585@neurotica.com> On Jun 5, 2009, at 5:53 PM, derschjo at msu.edu wrote: >>>>>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >>>>> >>>>> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite >>>>> zippy on a machine like that. >>>> >>>> Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer >>>> architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. >>> >>> It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically >>> POSIX, or >>> DOS/Windows running native on a PC. >> >> ColorForth!! > > ROM Basic? Sick. SICK! -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Jun 6 13:59:26 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:59:26 -0700 Subject: Stupid problems / was Re: Further 11/40 unibus questions... References: Message-ID: <4A2ABC8D.88204AC3@cs.ubc.ca> Warren Wolfe wrote: > But, when I fired up the 'scope, I was shocked. He was right. The > scope image could be focused, but it never got clear. It looked like > the phosphor was painted on the tube with a roller. Then, I had to > laugh.... > > I took off the bezel, pulled off the graticule screen, and peeled the > tyvek sticky paper off the back of the plastic screen, and voila! A > nice clear trace. As a kid, my first scope (a low-end tube-based TV servicing scope) developed a problem with 60Hz noise in the trace, that is, even with the V input shorted, there would still be a slight 60Hz sine wave on the trace rather than flat. The problem was intermittent as well. Opened it up (of course the problem went away when opened), tried to diagnose it as much as possible (now that I didn't have a scope to diagnose with). No luck. I suffered with the problem for ages, then finally clued in that my bench/lab power supply - which of course contained a power transformer which of course would generate a magnetic field - was sitting on top of the scope, just above the CRT. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Jun 6 14:00:35 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:00:35 -0600 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <37E4B28F-5090-4D85-8645-3A7159916585@neurotica.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> <20090605175302.187448lmqqcxm85a@mail.msu.edu> <37E4B28F-5090-4D85-8645-3A7159916585@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A2ABCD3.2050906@jetnet.ab.ca> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 5, 2009, at 5:53 PM, derschjo at msu.edu wrote: >>>>>>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >>>>>> >>>>>> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite >>>>>> zippy on a machine like that. >>>>> >>>>> Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer >>>>> architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. >>>> >>>> It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically >>>> POSIX, or >>>> DOS/Windows running native on a PC. >>> >>> ColorForth!! >> >> ROM Basic? > > Sick. SICK! > rom FOCAL :) From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 6 14:04:46 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 15:04:46 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 6, 2009, at 2:10 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > And no, that's not going to motivate me to write a better editor. I > don't know how. If I did, I would have already done it and the holy > Emacs vs. Vi war would have been over, both sides having both lost. Emacs won that war ages ago. ;) [dave dives for cover] But seriously...Editors are usually complex, but they don't always have to be. I've done a lot of work with CamelForth on Z80 (I have two homebrew SBCs running it) and have added mass storage support to it. In support of that, I needed an editor. I wrote a very basic full-screen editor in Z80 assembler. I must emphasize that it is VERY basic, and it is very much tied to Forth system usage, but the assembler source file is only 728 lines long. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 6 14:11:44 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 15:11:44 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A2ABCD3.2050906@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> <20090605175302.187448lmqqcxm85a@mail.msu.edu> <37E4B28F-5090-4D85-8645-3A7159916585@neurotica.com> <4A2ABCD3.2050906@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <9DA2C4FA-D147-46F6-B8C9-B18AED0784BD@neurotica.com> On Jun 6, 2009, at 3:00 PM, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: >>>>>>>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is >>>>>>> quite >>>>>>> zippy on a machine like that. >>>>>> >>>>>> Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer >>>>>> architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. >>>>> >>>>> It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically >>>>> POSIX, or >>>>> DOS/Windows running native on a PC. >>>> >>>> ColorForth!! >>> >>> ROM Basic? >> Sick. SICK! > rom FOCAL :) [head explodes] -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 6 14:08:41 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 20:08:41 +0100 (BST) Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: <4A2A4BEB.8969.1A2FB903@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 6, 9 10:58:51 am Message-ID: > > On 6 Jun 2009 at 18:17, Tony Duell wrote: > > > Reminds me of the time smoke poured out of a 3rd party (Plessey IIRC) > > Unibus expanison box. It was clearly coming from the PSU area and I > > thought I could see something glowing orange inside. Turns out (after > > takign the PSU apart) that a bridge recifier had shorted and the > > orange glow was the wires linking that to the transformer -- all the > > insulation had burnt off and they were more than red hot. Replaced the > > rectifier and thw wires, no problems... > > That UPS I wrote about a couple of days ago turned out to have a > similar problem that should have resulted in magic smoke, but a > thoughtful engineer saved me from that. Yes, fuses are very useful for protecting things like transformers and wiring harnesses. On the other hand, expensive power semiconductors are useful for protecting fuses ;-) > The charging circuit is pretty crude by modern standards--an LM317K > TO3 regulator on a large (4"x6") heatsink with a 50W zener and a What's tyhe 50W zener for, given you have a regualtor chip? > thermostatic switch. It could probably benefit with some upgrading > to a "smarter" circuit. > > This UPS has been in continuous service since 1989. Well, if it's been working for 20 years with no problems, I am not sure any 'upgrade' is going to be that beneficial :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 6 14:10:21 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 20:10:21 +0100 (BST) Subject: wire wrap machine pins In-Reply-To: <4A2A4F36.17120.1A3C9540@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 6, 9 11:12:54 am Message-ID: > > On 6 Jun 2009 at 18:31, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > > A short piece of copper tubing and a hammer work wonders. > > > > > > Right! The same is true in labor negotiations, as well.... > > > > And a reasonable substitue for a clue-by-four... > > I machined a tool for this from a piece of 1/4" brass rod. A light For what? Remoing wire-wrap contacts, or 'educating' lusers? > tap on the end with a rawhide hammer does the trick without bending > the pin. -tony From brianlanning at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 14:13:00 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:13:00 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <200906060609.n5669wsF023320@floodgap.com> References: <6dbe3c380906052055o6dc4a1bfg2a042dfaff6cc3aa@mail.gmail.com> <200906060609.n5669wsF023320@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906061213u7d229f9euc33cf5c5f4a6d8f5@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 1:09 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > You could try zapping PRAM (Cmd-Opt-P-R as the machine starts up; let it > chime a couple times with the keys held down) but this may not help as the > bogus System Folder will still be blessed. A sure fix would be to boot > from a valid secondary device, but with a bum floppy drive you're really > hosed. I'll try this tonight. > I'm suspecting the Mac you have was messed up by its previous owner -- a > lot of these errors would be inexplicable with normal use. A full reinstall > of 7.6 or 8.1 from an external CD-ROM would be strongly advised. An apple CDROM drive, like the 300 or 600 is on the shopping list. Any ideas where I can get a OS image I can burn from vista? Also, which version would be best on a quadra 700? I've heard that 7.6 was best for performance, but I care less about performance and more about functionality. Is there an advantage to upgrading to 8.1? The scsi hard drive that's in there now is a smaller capacity, but it's half-height, slightly too big for the case. The top latches in place, but you have to bend it slightly to do that. I have a 1gig scsi drive(1" high, quantum iirc) from an amiga that I can use instead. If I'm going to reinstall the OS, maybe I should go that route. Anything I should consider before trying to do that? Does anyone make a scsi floppy drive that I could put in my external enclosure? Do these even exist? What about zip/jaz/syquest drives? Is it possible to install 7.6 or 8.1, then pull the hard drive and attach it to a PC, mount the mac parition, and copy a large number of disk images over? I have a PCI adaptec scsi controller floating around somwhere. What about booting from an ubuntu CD? Another angle is the adaptec scsi disk in a PC, copy files over, mount the disk on a mac. I have another 100gig disk I could use for this. Are there any non-mac file systems that the mac can mount, like maybe fat32? Also, where can I buy two new/refurb mac floppy drives? thanks brian From dm561 at torfree.net Sat Jun 6 14:34:21 2009 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 15:34:21 -0400 Subject: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) Message-ID: <01C9E6BC.48A23580@MSE_D03> Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:02:52 -1000 From: Warren Wolfe Subject: Re: Inappropriate remarks (Was Fwd: Mystery object... ) M H Stein wrote: > Boy, tough crowd! > > So, do you guys go around to funerals in your spare time wearing funny hats and > telling the bereaved mother that her son's untimely death is insignificant compared > to the starving kids in Africa, and besides, he would have died some day anyway? > And when someone suggests that's a bit inappropriate you deck 'em? > Aw, you've been spying on me. No fair. > Inability to empathize is often the result of a brain injury; had any bad bumps > on the head lately? > And, this is you demonstrating tact and appropriate behavior, Lumpy? Warren -----------Reply: Well, the original "humorous" comments didn't bother me much, but I did find it puzzling and disturbing to subsequently read that unless we ourselves had lost someone it is *offensive* and we have no business asking for a little consideration for those who did, that while the twin tower and Katrina victims (Americans, incidentally) deserve our respect the 200+ folks lost on the way from Brazil to France apparently don't, and that since everybody dies one day anyway what's the fuss about. That does seem to demonstrate a lack of empathy, which is generally considered as a possible mental aberration, so I was just looking for a plausible explanation that would allow *me* to empathize with the folks expressing the above views, assuming they weren't just trolling. If the folks in question really did suffer from head injuries, then they do have my sympathy and I apologize. A fascinating and disturbing glimpse into different perspectives... m From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Sat Jun 6 14:39:56 2009 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:39:56 -0400 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906061213u7d229f9euc33cf5c5f4a6d8f5@mail.gmail.co m> References: <200906060609.n5669wsF023320@floodgap.com> <6dbe3c380906052055o6dc4a1bfg2a042dfaff6cc3aa@mail.gmail.com> <200906060609.n5669wsF023320@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20090606153239.04f1b8c8@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Brian Lanning may have mentioned these words: >Does anyone make a scsi floppy drive that I could put in my external >enclosure? Do these even exist? What about zip/jaz/syquest drives? The only ones I know of were used in DEC machines, it was a standard floppy drive mounted into a "bridge board" which endowed the lowly floppy with "Super SCSI Powers!" ;-) They're tough to find (well, maybe not _around here_) and I do not know if they supported booting from them; but they do exist. In times past, I owned SCSI Zip drives, one each internal & external. Not sure if I even still have them; but they certainly exist and might be easy (if not cheap) to acquire thru ePay. I had kept the internal one for one of my CoCos "just in case" I acquired a SCSI card for it, but now that I have IDE, I'm torn whether to set it up with an available IDE zip drive I have, setup an IDE Castlewood Orb for that purpose, or inform my wife that I "Really Need[TM]" an upgrade for a my Nikon D70, so I could use my 1G compact flash cards currently allocated to that task for the CoCo. Hope this helps, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me zmerch at 30below.com. | SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers From brianlanning at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 14:48:34 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:48:34 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20090606153239.04f1b8c8@mail.30below.com> References: <6dbe3c380906052055o6dc4a1bfg2a042dfaff6cc3aa@mail.gmail.com> <200906060609.n5669wsF023320@floodgap.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20090606153239.04f1b8c8@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906061248s18e4a855h537ae0a57d45017@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Roger Merchberger wrote: > Rumor has it that Brian Lanning may have mentioned these words: > In times past, I owned SCSI Zip drives, one each internal & external. Not > sure if I even still have them; but they certainly exist and might be easy > (if not cheap) to acquire thru ePay. They show up on ebay all the time. They're on the shopping list as well. This external scsi enclosure was sort of intended to hold all sorts of removable scsi contraptions that I wanted to play with. >I had kept the internal one for one of > my CoCos "just in case" I acquired a SCSI card for it, but now that I have > IDE, I'm torn whether to set it up with an available IDE zip drive I have, > setup an IDE Castlewood Orb for that purpose, or inform my wife that I > "Really Need[TM]" an upgrade for a my Nikon D70, so I could use my 1G > compact flash cards currently allocated to that task for the CoCo. I guess a zip or jaz drive formatted to fat32 should work with file exchange since it seems to know about PC floppy disks. Does this sound right? brian From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Jun 6 14:59:43 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 15:59:43 -0400 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: <4A2A4BEB.8969.1A2FB903@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A2A4BEB.8969.1A2FB903@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200906061559.43722.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Saturday 06 June 2009, Chuck Guzis wrote: > The charging circuit is pretty crude by modern standards--an LM317K > TO3 regulator on a large (4"x6") heatsink with a 50W zener and a > thermostatic switch. It could probably benefit with some upgrading > to a "smarter" circuit. > > This UPS has been in continuous service since 1989. There's really only 3 reasons I bother upgrading my UPSes whenever I can find a newer, cheap to free one: 1) Newer models seem to have a charging circuit that's smart enough not to overcharge nearly-dead batteries to the point at which they expand and blow their seals. Cleaning batteries that have done this out of a UPS runs somewhere from "difficult" to "a complete mess". And, I've had to clean this up several times out of UPSes I've received; the only good thing is that it usually makes the UPS much less expensive to acquire. :) 2) Higher-efficiency inverters mean more runtime out of the same batteries, and usually at the same time, a lighter UPS. Considering how often I seem to move stuff around, lighter is definately a plus. 3) Better monitoring. I really like the amount of information that I can get out of SNMP on a modern UPS's network card. That said, if you replace the batteries as recommended (3-5 years) with good quality batteries, an older UPS will do quite admirably for most people, and can be more useful for hacking up to do different things (like mashing three of them into being a 3-phase inverter, which is somewhere on my project list, to power stuff like my IBM 3420, and Liebert System/3). Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 6 15:32:23 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:32:23 -0700 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2A4BEB.8969.1A2FB903@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 6, 9 10:58:51 am, Message-ID: <4A2A6FE7.19792.1ABC4A5D@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jun 2009 at 20:08, Tony Duell wrote: > Yes, fuses are very useful for protecting things like transformers and > wiring harnesses. On the other hand, expensive power semiconductors > are useful for protecting fuses ;-) A friend who worked as a DEC field engineer used to talk about DEC being notorious for "transistor protected fuses". > > The charging circuit is pretty crude by modern standards--an LM317K > > TO3 regulator on a large (4"x6") heatsink with a 50W zener and a > > What's tyhe 50W zener for, given you have a regualtor chip? It's on the output side of the LM317, so I imagine it's intended as battery protection. There's also a honking big diode across the output before the 50A cartridge fuse in the lead going to the batteries. I assume it's to protect the circuitry in case the batteries are connected with reversed polarity. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 6 15:45:15 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:45:15 -0700 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: <200906061559.43722.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: , <4A2A4BEB.8969.1A2FB903@cclist.sydex.com>, <200906061559.43722.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4A2A72EB.3168.1AC80F7D@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jun 2009 at 15:59, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > 1) Newer models seem to have a charging circuit that's smart enough > not to overcharge nearly-dead batteries to the point at which they > expand and blow their seals. Cleaning batteries that have done this > out of a UPS runs somewhere from "difficult" to "a complete mess". > And, I've had to clean this up several times out of UPSes I've > received; the only good thing is that it usually makes the UPS much > less expensive to acquire. :) I think the LM317(mumble-mumble-high-voltage-suffix) is limited to about 1.5A output current anyway. And the batteries I'm using are basically garden-tractor batteries, not gel-cells, which seem to have a rather short (3-4 years) in UPS. I replace the batteries (in their own box) in mine about every 6 years--and I check the electrolyte level every 6 monts. > 2) Higher-efficiency inverters mean more runtime out of the same > batteries, and usually at the same time, a lighter UPS. Considering > how often I seem to move stuff around, lighter is definately a plus. No argument there, except that many cheap inverters deliver only an approximation to a sinewave output. > 3) Better monitoring. I really like the amount of information that I > can get out of SNMP on a modern UPS's network card. This one has some sort of RS-232 output, but I haven't the faintest what it indicates, other than "your power just failed". I've got the software for it somewhere, but have never run it. ... and can be more useful for hacking up to do different > things (like mashing three of them into being a 3-phase inverter, > which is somewhere on my project list, to power stuff like my IBM > 3420, and Liebert System/3). They also make great sources of big power transformers for linear power supplies. Some have multiple high-voltage windings, so they can also serve as isolation transformers. --Chuck From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jun 6 15:47:45 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 20:47:45 +0000 (GMT) Subject: More vintage hardware still alive and kickin' Message-ID: <643785.88114.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Pretty cool video. It's just a shame there weren't any closeups of the punched cards. I'm just curious... how many cards would a machine like that sort through in a day, or a week? That counter has 6 digits and it sorted ~90 cards in less than 10 seconds. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Thu, 4/6/09, Mike Ross wrote: From: Mike Ross Subject: More vintage hardware still alive and kickin' To: "cctech cctech" Date: Thursday, 4 June, 2009, 4:41 PM Enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RCgIrZiC6c Mike http://www.corestore.org _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live?: Keep your life in sync. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009 From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 6 15:48:51 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:48:51 -0700 Subject: wire wrap machine pins In-Reply-To: References: <4A2A4F36.17120.1A3C9540@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 6, 9 11:12:54 am, Message-ID: <4A2A73C3.10174.1ACB5D02@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jun 2009 at 20:10, Tony Duell wrote: > For what? Remoing wire-wrap contacts, or 'educating' lusers? Either. It's a multi-use tool. --Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 13:36:30 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:36:30 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 2:10 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: >> On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Kirn Gill >> wrote: >>> Well, out of curiosity, I'm going to attempt to build gzip and >>> wget on it. I hope it doesn't crash. >> >> It probably won't crash, but the compiler might or might not be >> able to wedge all that code into the available code space. >> >> I can just about guarantee that you'll have Makefile issues for >> projects large enough or new enough to use configure scripts... > > I've messed with Minix on a 286; I used to keep a copy of i86 Minix > with the DOSMINIX laucher on a flash drive because it would run on > NTVDM (Windows NT's DOS VM). OK. Some of that experience is relevant. > I've also messed with DOS programming. > It's a pain and a half and I avoided it like the plague; Me, too. I only ever had one job programming in DOS and it was horrible (one of my assigned tasks was to implement overlays because we had exceeded the available application size at about 525KB - yes "DOS" has 640K, but your program doesn't get to snarf it all up - there are a few things that users tend to have - even a clean DOS setup for gaming left noticeably less than the full 640KB. > DOS is dead > and not of any intristic value unless you enjoy playing corny-looking > games or running horrid multitasking GUIs made by Microsoft. I happen to enjoy playing corny-looking games, but I happen to own original copies and was playing them when they were the latest thing. I still have Master of Orion I close at hand, plus a few others. > I know > enough C to make compilers shut up when porting code; Also a handy skill, but different environments provide different challenges. DOS pointers are not really like UNIX pointers if you do anything more than reference and dereference them. > I have tried > writing software on my own and I can show you some failed attempts I > just left behind (also due to lack of motivation, I get tired of doing > all the work myself) Back in the comp.sources.games days, it was *very helpful* (nearly essential) to be an accomplished C programmer if you were trying to build something as complex as Larn on something that wasn't one of the 3-4 common environments (BSD on a VAX being very, very common, other environments at varying degrees). > If the /pointers/ on a PDP-11 are 16-bit as well, then I know what I > am up against. I've done a bit of coding with ELKS and > (aforementioned) Minix for pre-386 chips. Yes. Pointers are 16 bits. There's none of this x86 segment register twiddling. 16 bits. On a large machine like an 11/73, you can have 16 bits for data and 16 bits for code, and don't you dare try to twiddle the MMU yourself. > I wouldn't write any software on the machine, there's nothing useful I > can think of writing that I would actually deal with using. 2BSD on a PDP-11 was much more compelling in 1992 when PDP-11s were affordable by mortals and 32-bit UNIX ran on hardware we could never hope to own ourselves with licenses we could never hope to afford. Even in the early days of Linux, products like Interactive UNIX on a 386 was more "useful". I had plenty of PDP-11 gear (over $1000 out-of-pocket in addons plus lots of freebies) and I had problems marshalling the resources to load 2BSD. Fast-forward to when most serious computer types had a 386 or a 486 w/16MB of RAM and 80-200MB of disk (1994-1995, say), and Linux started to look mighty attractive, if still a little rough around the edges. 2BSD on an -11 is viable when your alternative is an 80286 or 8086. Not so much when a 32-bit x86 costs less than the -11 gear, even at reseller and rescue prices. > The fact > that the local 'vi' doesn't respond to ANSI/VT100 directional keys, > and only responds to h, j, k, l instead is enough to make me hate it. It's vi, not vim. That's all we had for a long time. > And no, that's not going to motivate me to write a better editor. I > don't know how. If I did, I would have already done it and the holy > Emacs vs. Vi war would have been over, both sides having both lost. I use both. I guess that makes me a heretic. -ethan From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jun 6 16:01:54 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:01:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906061213u7d229f9euc33cf5c5f4a6d8f5@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906052055o6dc4a1bfg2a042dfaff6cc3aa@mail.gmail.com> <200906060609.n5669wsF023320@floodgap.com> <6dbe3c380906061213u7d229f9euc33cf5c5f4a6d8f5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090606135854.N96807@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 6 Jun 2009, Brian Lanning wrote: > Does anyone make a scsi floppy drive that I could put in my external > enclosure? Do these even exist? What about zip/jaz/syquest drives? "Floptical" drives The one that I was using was SCSI and did 20M floptical, and did 1.4M floppy. External SCSI ZIP drives were readily available. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 6 16:07:11 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:07:11 -0700 Subject: More vintage hardware still alive and kickin' In-Reply-To: <643785.88114.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <643785.88114.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A2A780F.19281.1ADC248A@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jun 2009 at 20:47, Andrew Burton wrote: > > Pretty cool video. It's just a shame there weren't any closeups of the > punched cards. > > I'm just curious... how many cards would a machine like that sort > through in a day, or a week? That counter has 6 digits and it sorted > ~90 cards in less than 10 seconds. Well, an 083 will feed about 1000 cards/minute and a good operator can keep it running all day. How many cards could be sorted, depends, of course, on the number of colums being sorted (one pass per column, plus fumble and jam time... --Chuck From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jun 6 16:05:22 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 18:05:22 -0300 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com><4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> Message-ID: <08c801c9e6eb$813a6280$761e19bb@desktaba> >> And no, that's not going to motivate me to write a better editor. I >> don't know how. If I did, I would have already done it and the holy >> Emacs vs. Vi war would have been over, both sides having both lost. > I use both. I guess that makes me a heretic. (messing with what I don't know, I wasn't been invited to the party, I'm completely dumb on this subject) Why not port JOE (a wordstar clone) to it? :o) From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 13:08:29 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:08:29 -0400 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> Indeed. ?15 years ago, I was able to save the 11/750 from work, but >> could not find room for a pair of RK07s and a pickup-truck-load of > > I think I'd have takne the drives (and put them on an 11 or something) > and left the VAX. The 11/750 is not a machine I greatly care for.... I've seen your posting about the 11/750 and I cannot refute them given your interests and proclivities, but this happened to be the machine I first learned VMS on, the first machine I wrote a UNIX driver on, and one that' I'd upgraded internally many times (it shipped with 512K and I upgraded it myself to 8MB to give it five more years of use as the company's main machine for all e-mail, software development and sales activity). This machine and I have a history going back some time, so I couldn't just leave it behind. The drives weren't stackable (unlike the RL02s and the RA81s) so they had a large footprint for 28MB each and I just didn't have a place for them. >> RK07 cartridges. ?Those were good drives - easy to repair, decent > > I am not convinced abotu the 'easy to repair'. I've read the printset, > and that servo system is _complicated_. And don't you need some rather > special tools/test gear to fit new heads? I don't know about heads - in a decade of running RK07s daily, we never had to fiddle with heads - we just kept from crashing our packs. Our failures were all electronics and easy to access, diagnose, and repair. My experience only, of course, YMMV. -ethan From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Sat Jun 6 16:45:04 2009 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 22:45:04 +0100 Subject: IBM 029 progress Message-ID: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> To cut a long story short, we have put a 240v/50Hz motor from an IBM 56 verifier in the keypunch and that part works great. We transplanted the motor cradle and motor start relay too. The manual showed how the DC power supply could be configured for 115v or 208v or 240v, though all at 60Hz. Well we tried that and the DC produced was about 41volts instead of 48v, which was more or less what was predicted by collective list wisdom. The relay logic intermittently seems to work. The existing capacitor in the ferro-resonant power supply is marked 15MF (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad), and rated at 330VAC. I think this means ideally I need (90/50)^2 * 15 which is 21.6MF. I have ordered two more capacitors to connect in parallel, one 5uF and one 1.5uF, to give 21.5 total, both at 440VAC. There was one wire hanging off the bottom of the mechanism which we have reconnected. The mechanical side gradually came back to life, probably the grease had gone hard at the surface or oil needed spreading about a bit. It now fairly reliably moves cards from the input hopper to the output stacker. There were chads stuck all over the place and at first, the top row did not poke the chads out of the holes and we joked about hanging chads and George Bush coming back. Comparing my old keypunch and this one, there is an auger screw in the old one but not in this, but after looking through the parts list, it seems IBM deleted that part. Anyway a 9mm twist drill pushed up the empty auger hole and twisted and wiggled and a backlog of old chads and strangely black cloth came out and now it punches cleanly, or at least it does when the relay logic feels like it. It even prints the codes. To get alpha I had to hold down the alpha key, though I think it should latch in logic, probably the low DC supply again. The whole thing looks like it has been re-sprayed in the right colour/ texture of paint and thoroughly cleaned. Maybe a factory refurbished unit. Picture of it with cards in the track here, covers off: http://www.ict1301.co.uk/emulator/029_03_09 I hope to be using it soon to correct any cards which wreck when I try to read in the library of ICT 1301 software so I can capture it on my Mac, from where I can load it via RS232 into my 1301 as well as make it available to others. Roger Holmes From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 6 16:56:09 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:56:09 -0700 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <20090606135854.N96807@shell.lmi.net> References: <6dbe3c380906052055o6dc4a1bfg2a042dfaff6cc3aa@mail.gmail.com>, <6dbe3c380906061213u7d229f9euc33cf5c5f4a6d8f5@mail.gmail.com>, <20090606135854.N96807@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A2A8389.2581.1B08FA91@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jun 2009 at 14:01, Fred Cisin wrote: > "Floptical" drives > The one that I was using was SCSI and did 20M floptical, and did 1.4M > floppy. > > External SCSI ZIP drives were readily available. I think I still have a 20MB Tulin 3.5" drive around somewhere. And there's always the Imation Superdrive available in SCSI. In conventional floppies, Teac offered the FD-235HS 3.5" in SCSI. And there were makers (Xebec, OMTI) of SCSI-to-floppy bridge cards. SCSI floppies are fine as long as you don't need to get "creative" with sector sizing and ID marks. Remember that SCSI is essentially a relative-block type of protocol, so you can forget about reading those Microsoft DMF floppies. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 6 17:01:10 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:01:10 -0700 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <4A2A84B6.13249.1B0D90A4@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jun 2009 at 22:45, Roger Holmes wrote: > Anyway a 9mm twist drill pushed up the > empty auger hole and twisted and wiggled and a backlog of old chads > and strangely black cloth came out and now it punches cleanly, or at > least it does when the relay logic feels like it. Sounds great, Roger. That black cloth may just be old shredded ribbon from the print mechanism. I think MAI here in the US used to buy up old IBM card gear, refurb, then lease it out again. --CHuck From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Jun 6 17:51:50 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:51:50 -0700 Subject: IBM 029 progress References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <4A2AF306.74303EAB@cs.ubc.ca> Roger Holmes wrote: > > To cut a long story short, we have put a 240v/50Hz motor from an IBM > 56 verifier in the keypunch and that part works great. We transplanted > the motor cradle and motor start relay too. The manual showed how the > DC power supply could be configured for 115v or 208v or 240v, though > all at 60Hz. Well we tried that and the DC produced was about 41volts > instead of 48v, which was more or less what was predicted by > collective list wisdom. The relay logic intermittently seems to work. > The existing capacitor in the ferro-resonant power supply is marked > 15MF (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad), and rated > at 330VAC. I think this means ideally I need (90/50)^2 * 15 which is > 21.6MF. I have ordered two more capacitors to connect in parallel, one > 5uF and one 1.5uF, to give 21.5 total, both at 440VAC. It will be interesting to hear how the additional caps work out, both as to how it works out for the ferro-resonant power supply and whether the proper voltage improves the relay circuitry behaviour. IIRC, the IBM relay practices document someone pointed to earlier in the discussion made some mention of a large variation tolerance, but it may have meant the system tolerance was fairly narrow so as to accept a wide variation amongst individual relays, rather than implying a large tolerance on system parameters. In my own hacking/design experience with semi-complex relay circuitry I did find them more sensitive to voltage levels than initially expected, when trying to get optimum performance. There were some conflicting characteristics involving voltage and the stored energy in the relay solenoid vs clock speed and system design that resulted in the power supply requirements being tighter than expected. From ats at offog.org Sat Jun 6 18:05:52 2009 From: ats at offog.org (Adam Sampson) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:05:52 +0100 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: (Zane H. Healy's message of "Fri\, 5 Jun 2009 14\:12\:34 -0700 \(PDT\)") References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> Message-ID: "Zane H. Healy" writes: > It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically POSIX, > or DOS/Windows running native on a PC. Some colleagues of mine are working on a PC operating system: http://rmox.net/ Definitely not classic hardware, but written in an extended version of a classic programming language, at least. You can port transputer applications to it fairly easily. There are various other unusual research-oriented and hobbyist operating systems around -- for example, EROS and its descendents, SkyOS, etc. -- Adam Sampson From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sat Jun 6 18:07:34 2009 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:07:34 +0100 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <200906060603.n5663TXA015970@floodgap.com> References: <200906060603.n5663TXA015970@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4A2AF6B6.3020406@philpem.me.uk> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > It certainly wouldn't boot from it, given that El Torito virtually > mandates ISO 9660. You could always put an NTFS FS in a file on an El Torito-formatted ISO9660 CD-ROM or DVD. So effectively you have: [CDROM] | +--- ElTorito Boot image | | | +--- Bootloader that can read ISO9660 + NTFS (GRUB?) | +--- NTFS.VOL (NTFS image) Though if you're not fussed that your CD is unbootable, treating it as a block device and blatting it with a raw NTFS image is a valid, if kludgy, way of dealing with it. Linux + ntfs3g would doubtless have no issues with block sizes and so forth (CDs have a blocksize of 2048 or 2336 bytes, depending on which Mode you're using). I do wonder if WinXP's NTFS loader can deal with NTFS partitions on odd devices and with strange blocksizes... Interestingly enough, this is (technically) on topic, because version 1.0 of the El Torito spec was released on January 25th, 1995. I seriously didn't think it was that old, though I should probably have guessed... The overriding question is, of course, "WHY?!" -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Jun 6 18:39:33 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:39:33 +0100 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20090606153239.04f1b8c8@mail.30below.com> References: <200906060609.n5669wsF023320@floodgap.com> <6dbe3c380906052055o6dc4a1bfg2a042dfaff6cc3aa@mail.gmail.com> <200906060609.n5669wsF023320@floodgap.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20090606153239.04f1b8c8@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <4A2AFE35.60202@dunnington.plus.com> On 06/06/2009 20:39, Roger Merchberger wrote: > Rumor has it that Brian Lanning may have mentioned these words: > >> Does anyone make a scsi floppy drive that I could put in my external >> enclosure? Do these even exist? What about zip/jaz/syquest drives? > > The only ones I know of were used in DEC machines, it was a standard > floppy drive mounted into a "bridge board" which endowed the lowly > floppy with "Super SCSI Powers!" ;-) I've got an RX23 like that. I also have a couple of 5.25" TEAC GFR-55S drives, a 20MB floptical that can read/write 3.5" MFM disks, a small TEAC FD235 SCSI 3.5" floppy with motorised eject, and two Silicon Graphics external SCSI floppy drives that are SCSI. I don't remember where the GFR-55Ss came from, maybe a Sun. I've never opened the SGI ones to see how it's done, but I suspect it's another bridge board system. The trouble with all of these is that the SCSI controller expects a certain disk layout, typically 512 byte sectors numbered 1 to , and won't be happy with, say, sectors numbered 0 to or different sector sizes. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jun 6 18:51:37 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:51:37 -0700 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s In-Reply-To: <4A28DC33.1040201@softjar.se> References: <4A28DC33.1040201@softjar.se> Message-ID: <4A2B0109.2010702@brouhaha.com> Johnny Billquist wrote: > The only MSCP controller DEC did for Unibus was to SDI (tha UDA50). Three others come to mind: RUX50 (M7522) interface to RX50 floppy KLESI-UA (M8739) interface to RC25 disk (or can be configured for TMSCP with TU81) RRD50-U (M7490-YA) interface to RRD50 CD-ROM > The only MSCP to MFM controller DEC did was for Q-bus (the RQDX series). Though DEC did have other Q-bus MSCP interfaces for devices other than the RX50 and RDxx, such as: KLESI-QA (M7740) interface to RC25 disk (or can be configured for TMSCP with TU81) KDA50 (M7165) SDI interface KFQSA (M7769) DSSI interface From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jun 6 18:54:31 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:54:31 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2B01B7.3050905@brouhaha.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > Checking on a handy 64-bit Linux system, the gzip binary is under 64K > total size, so that might not go so poorly. Yes, but size of the executable is NOT the problem you're going to face with gzip or zlib on a PDP-11. Eric From IanK at vulcan.com Sat Jun 6 18:57:53 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 16:57:53 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> , <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> Message-ID: Actually, MSDOS is alive and well. It is commonly used as the "boot loader" for many, many systems. It's no longer under development by Microsoft, but they still make money from sales to people who need something on top of the bare hardware before their custom software starts up. -- Ian ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Kirn Gill [segin2005 at gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, June 06, 2009 11:10 AM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 [snip] I've messed with Minix on a 286; I used to keep a copy of i86 Minix with the DOSMINIX laucher on a flash drive because it would run on NTVDM (Windows NT's DOS VM). I've also messed with DOS programming. It's a pain and a half and I avoided it like the plague; DOS is dead and not of any intristic value unless you enjoy playing corny-looking games or running horrid multitasking GUIs made by Microsoft. I know enough C to make compilers shut up when porting code; I have tried writing software on my own and I can show you some failed attempts I just left behind (also due to lack of motivation, I get tired of doing all the work myself) If the /pointers/ on a PDP-11 are 16-bit as well, then I know what I am up against. I've done a bit of coding with ELKS and (aforementioned) Minix for pre-386 chips. I wouldn't write any software on the machine, there's nothing useful I can think of writing that I would actually deal with using. The fact that the local 'vi' doesn't respond to ANSI/VT100 directional keys, and only responds to h, j, k, l instead is enough to make me hate it. And no, that's not going to motivate me to write a better editor. I don't know how. If I did, I would have already done it and the holy Emacs vs. Vi war would have been over, both sides having both lost. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoqsSAACgkQF9H43UytGiZybACfSnYD40kWotXU0Wgpo1VoS6Tc ewUAn3C4TJ7qZk5DV7FQ53y1DcV3ErkY =2M26 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jun 6 19:04:37 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 17:04:37 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2B0415.3060009@brouhaha.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > RT-11 screams on pretty much anything faster than a KDF-11. And everyone seems to have forgotten that that's how an operating system is supposed to be. Sigh. It wasn't too bad even on an 11/03, unless your system device was a TU58. Eric From ploopster at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 22:38:05 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:38:05 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2B361D.4010205@gmail.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 6, 2009, at 2:10 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: >> And no, that's not going to motivate me to write a better editor. I >> don't know how. If I did, I would have already done it and the holy >> Emacs vs. Vi war would have been over, both sides having both lost. > > Emacs won that war ages ago. ;) [dave dives for cover] XEDIT and XEDIT only. Sent down by God himself. Peace... Sridhar From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jun 6 22:56:18 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 20:56:18 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <575131af0906060600y773232c4qcecd9f0cc66bdba1@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <575131af0906060600y773232c4qcecd9f0cc66bdba1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: At 2:00 PM +0100 6/6/09, Liam Proven wrote: > > It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically POSIX, or >> DOS/Windows running native on a PC. >> >> Zane > >How about TSX-32? Commercial, alas, but there's a free demo version. >IIRC it's not too happy inside most VMs, though. > >http://www.sandh.com/sandh.htm > >Derived or inspired by a PDP-11 OS, TSX, which I think shares some >ancestry with RSTS or something. I'm afraid PDPs were a bit before my >time - I cut my FORTRAN teeth on a VAX 11/780. I was actually thinking about TSX-32 when I wrote that. I've never run TSX-32, but have run TSX-11. I wasn't aware they were still around. I'm actually a little surprised that the website has been updated since I was last there. Although as the price list is from June of 2001, I have to question how alive they actually are. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jun 6 23:09:02 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 21:09:02 -0700 Subject: Master of Orion (was: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> Message-ID: At 2:36 PM -0400 6/6/09, Ethan Dicks wrote: >I happen to enjoy playing corny-looking games, but I happen to own >original copies and was playing them when they were the latest thing. >I still have Master of Orion I close at hand, plus a few others. Take a look at the Mac version if you can find it. I forget just how large of a screen it supports, but it's most of a 1024x1280 display (not all). Same with Warlords II, while on DOS you're limited to 640x480 for both. These are two of my favorite computer games. I really want to get my one Mac setup so I can play these and Harpoon again. I can still play Master of Orion on Mac OS X 10.4.11 on my G5. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jun 6 23:09:45 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 21:09:45 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> Message-ID: At 2:36 PM -0400 6/6/09, Ethan Dicks wrote: >2BSD on a PDP-11 was much more compelling in 1992 when PDP-11s were >affordable by mortals and 32-bit UNIX ran on hardware we could never >hope to own ourselves with licenses we could never hope to afford. >Even in the early days of Linux, products like Interactive UNIX on a >386 was more "useful". > >I had plenty of PDP-11 gear (over $1000 out-of-pocket in addons plus >lots of freebies) and I had problems marshalling the resources to load >2BSD. Fast-forward to when most serious computer types had a 386 or a >486 w/16MB of RAM and 80-200MB of disk (1994-1995, say), and Linux >started to look mighty attractive, if still a little rough around the >edges. I was running Linux on my 486/33 w/8MB RAM in January of '92. I upgraded in '93 to 20MB RAM specifically for Linux. Then when I went back to sea at the beginning of '94 I had to downgrade to a 386SX/16 laptop with only 4MB RAM. That was painful, but I was able to use TeX, and I could just run X-Windows well enough to use xdvi. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jun 6 23:13:30 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 21:13:30 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <08c801c9e6eb$813a6280$761e19bb@desktaba> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com><4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> <08c801c9e6eb$813a6280$761e19bb@desktaba> Message-ID: At 6:05 PM -0300 6/6/09, Alexandre Souza wrote: >>>And no, that's not going to motivate me to write a better editor. I >>>don't know how. If I did, I would have already done it and the holy >>>Emacs vs. Vi war would have been over, both sides having both lost. >>I use both. I guess that makes me a heretic. > > (messing with what I don't know, I wasn't been invited to the >party, I'm completely dumb on this subject) > > Why not port JOE (a wordstar clone) to it? :o) If I'm at the command-line in UNIX, then 'joe' is my editor of choice. I really like that they've added context-colouring to it! However, most of my programming is done under xemacs or Visual Studio. On OpenVMS I used either EDIT from the command-line or 'nedit' under X-Windows. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jun 6 23:51:10 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 21:51:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jun 6, 9 02:36:30 pm" Message-ID: <200906070451.n574pAKD014322@floodgap.com> > > And no, that's not going to motivate me to write a better editor. I > > don't know how. If I did, I would have already done it and the holy > > Emacs vs. Vi war would have been over, both sides having both lost. > > I use both. I guess that makes me a heretic. No, just a polytheist. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm rethreading my toothbrush bristles." - From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 7 00:57:23 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:57:23 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu>, , <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2AF453.28265.1CC18BE8@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jun 2009 at 14:10, Kirn Gill wrote: > I wouldn't write any software on the machine, there's nothing useful I > can think of writing that I would actually deal with using. The fact > that the local 'vi' doesn't respond to ANSI/VT100 directional keys, > and only responds to h, j, k, l instead is enough to make me hate it. > > And no, that's not going to motivate me to write a better editor. I > don't know how. If I did, I would have already done it and the holy > Emacs vs. Vi war would have been over, both sides having both lost. Try doing your program development on a keypunch, with a 407 for 80- 80 listing. Get off my lawn... Chuck From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de Sat Jun 6 06:23:07 2009 From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:23:07 +0200 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <05CFA042-91D3-4A22-8EEF-E263838B8B4A@neurotica.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> <7d3530220906051425k3c313650v502c4981cc5f2402@mail.gmail.com> <05CFA042-91D3-4A22-8EEF-E263838B8B4A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A2A519B.2090307@iais.fraunhofer.de> Dave McGuire schrieb: > On Jun 5, 2009, at 5:25 PM, John Floren wrote: > >> Plan 9! We don't pretend to follow POSIX, we just had Thompson and >> Kernighan do what they wanted. ;) >> > > I would love to play with Plan 9 again. Has it been under active > development? > > -Dave > > http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/ -- Regards Holger From james at machineroom.info Sat Jun 6 14:27:40 2009 From: james at machineroom.info (James Wilson) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:27:40 +0100 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2AC32C.1070103@machineroom.info> Tony Duell wrote: >> It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically POSIX, or >> DOS/Windows running native on a PC. >> > > ROM BASIC? (Technically, it performs some of the functions of an OS) > Standalone Forth? (there must be at least one..) > UCSD P-system? > CP/M-86? > > -tony > UCSD P-system? Now theres a name I haven't seen in a while.... 10 or so years ago I worked for a company in Bristol (UK) who supposedly had the rights to the P-System. Went by the name of Cabot Software, formerly Pecan Systems IIRC. Great system but didn't keep up with the times. We had the interpreter running on a selection of digital TV STBs with C as the preferred source language (no, not a logical choice for the P-System!). That led to them getting into the MHEG-5 market and eventually swallowed up by a TV manufacturer. Anyway, the story goes that the P-System was considered by IBM along with CP/M for the PC. Don't know how much thuth there was to that but even in my time we had several customers still running P-System natively on a variety of hardware - AppleII, a contemporary mini (can't remember which) at Norwich Union and some 68K based (Stride?) systems. Happy days! James From charlesleecourtney at yahoo.com Sat Jun 6 17:09:45 2009 From: charlesleecourtney at yahoo.com (Lee Courtney) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 15:09:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM 029 progress Message-ID: <280410.68831.qm@web35306.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > I think MAI here in the US used to buy up old IBM card > gear, refurb, > then lease it out again. At University (UT-Arlington) we had scores of former IBM 026 keypunches from MAI that were refreshed, painted blue (from IBM 026 battleship grey), and (I think) refitted with 029 character set. Lee Courtney --- On Sat, 6/6/09, Chuck Guzis wrote: > From: Chuck Guzis > Subject: Re: IBM 029 progress > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Date: Saturday, June 6, 2009, 3:01 PM > On 6 Jun 2009 at 22:45, Roger Holmes > wrote: > > > Anyway a 9mm twist drill pushed up the > > empty auger hole and twisted and wiggled and a backlog > of old chads > > and strangely black cloth came out and now it punches > cleanly, or at > > least it does when the relay logic feels like it. > > Sounds great, Roger.? That black cloth may just be old > shredded > ribbon from the print mechanism. > > I think MAI here in the US used to buy up old IBM card > gear, refurb, > then lease it out again. > > --CHuck > > From hall99 at windstream.net Sat Jun 6 18:10:16 2009 From: hall99 at windstream.net (Ron and Phyllis Hall) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 18:10:16 -0500 Subject: Radio Shack Science Fair manuals Message-ID: <2DE818F196EF4D31999DD44B91CA2FC4@RONCOMP> Hi: I ran across your posting for Radio Shack Manual for a 28-249 200 in One Electronic Project Lab. I have the Lab and an 11 year old grandson, but no manual. Can you help me locate one? R Hall Nebraska From chrise at pobox.com Sat Jun 6 19:39:33 2009 From: chrise at pobox.com (Chris Elmquist) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 19:39:33 -0500 Subject: TI Silent 700 model 733 manual In-Reply-To: References: <20090605215318.GV8895@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: <20090607003933.GZ8895@n0jcf.net> On Saturday (06/06/2009 at 06:28PM +0100), Tony Duell wrote: > > However, the paper does not feed correctly. On inspection, I've already > > found that the grease in the little solonoid that lifts the head from the > > paper when it advances has turned to something more sticky than honey. > > I'm in the process of addressing that. > > This is a well-known problem on all sorts of devices. Someitmes the > grease will soften with common solvents (propan-2-ol, etc). There's a > green grease used in some camera lans mounts that goes rock hard with age > and nothing wil shift it short of scraping it out.... yes... I had to clean it out of the raceway of the solonoid as well as off the plunger. It was really like glue. WD-40 seemed to do a nice job cutting it actually. > > I also see that the stepper motor that actually turns the platen (or equiv > > of) is not making a full increment each time. Sometimes it advances but > > other times it de-advances. So, something it messed up in the stepper > > circuit or the grease in that stepper motor has turned to honey too. > > Maybe you've lost the drive to one of hte stepper phases. That can make > them step in thwe wrong direction sometimes. That was absolutely it. It was a fun afternoon tracing out the circuit and finding a bad TIP31B (NPN, 3A, 40W) on the driver board. Of course I didn't have a TIP31B in stock so I stuck a TIP29B in there temporarily and we're back online. A pile of TIP31B have been ordered for spares. I remember having to change one of them once before in the distant past and the evidence of that (solder rosin) was still on the board so I've been here before... can't understand why I would have forgotten after 30 yrs of not using this thing :-) > > There's no microprocessor in the thing-- not even a UART. It's all done > > with 7400 TTL and electronically, it's extremely fixable. > > The 733 is like that too, although there's probably at least one ROM (the > character generator). From what I rmember there's a cardcage of PCBs > between the 2 tape drives in the ASR add-on (behind the swtich/LED panel > in the middle -- in fact I think that's mounted on the frontmost PCB in > the cage). Anyway, about the most complicated chip on those boards is a > little bipolar RAM. No microprocessor. Great stuff. Cool to see all those TTL parts and not a one of them is LS or HCT or anything close. 74XX was it in 1973. > > Everything else is on the back burner now-- gotta get this baby > > printing right! :-) > > I'm almost convinced to dig mine out and have a go with it... Too many > projects, not enough bench space... oh it's fun! Great to see the thing printing crisp and clear and feeding the paper as it should. Note that I have really good luck with modern thermal FAX paper in these units. Around here it is readily available at office supply stores on 98 ft rolls. They have a 1/2" dia core which needs a piece of dowel to support it in the 725 (and probably in the 733 too) and it is a much smaller roll than the 725 can take... but it works. I also use it in my 745 and there the roll is a perfect fit. http://www.officemax.com/catalog/sku.jsp?productId=ARS27286&history=vu04vnc2|prodPage~15^freeText~thermal+fax+paper^paramValue~true^refine~1^region~1^param~return_skus^return_skus~Y 6 rolls for $17. Chris -- Chris Elmquist From iamvirtual at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 23:13:45 2009 From: iamvirtual at gmail.com (B M) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 22:13:45 -0600 Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 Message-ID: <2645f9870906062113p609bd61cqc1e280296c0022a1@mail.gmail.com> I am finally ready to load a disk image onto a RK05 disk for my PDP-11/10. I have RK05 disk images for RSTS-11 (my goal). What is the easiest way to load the disk image onto a RK05 cartridge? I was thinking of using vtserver to transfer the image over a serial line, but the 'copy' program is not compatible with my PDP-11/05 (it uses the 'mul' and 'div' instructions which is not available on my PDP-11/10). Here is what I have available: PDP-11/10 with 32kw core memory serial connection (max 2400 baud) RK05 (non-bootable cartridge but does load properly) external dual TU58 DecTapeII drive Many thanks for any information. I am really looking for a nudge in the right direction. ;-) --barrym From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jun 7 03:55:28 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:55:28 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <7F6649CA-BCB5-48E4-B50D-F214CE097715@neurotica.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <200906051614.15873.vax@purdue.edu> <7F6649CA-BCB5-48E4-B50D-F214CE097715@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A2B8080.9020109@brouhaha.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > Yebbut...RT-11 doesn't really do a whole lot. ;) Sometimes that's a virtue. > I'm a RSTS/E and RSX-11 man. I don't have much RSX-11 experience, but I definitely like RSTS/E. From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jun 7 03:56:28 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:56:28 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A2ABCD3.2050906@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2985FF.70209@gmail.com> <4BB72BDF-E150-4E00-AA3C-88911F55294A@neurotica.com> <20090605175302.187448lmqqcxm85a@mail.msu.edu> <37E4B28F-5090-4D85-8645-3A7159916585@neurotica.com> <4A2ABCD3.2050906@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4A2B80BC.9070808@brouhaha.com> bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > rom FOCAL :) I've never seen it, but it's reported to have existed on some computers made in the former Soviet Union. From spedraja at ono.com Sun Jun 7 04:57:26 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 11:57:26 +0200 Subject: Altos 686 In-Reply-To: <1729B331-DBDC-4B93-95DC-3CA1818FE261@earthlink.net> References: <2B2AE65A-62B1-4413-8163-9C010976ABC5@earthlink.net> <1729B331-DBDC-4B93-95DC-3CA1818FE261@earthlink.net> Message-ID: Thanks, Mike. I know that some part of the stuff is non-Xenix... but my question was about the Xenix specific. What I told was something that perhaps Dave don't had in mind when it developed ImageDisk. I speak about write the output of one IMD image using ImageDisk... but in one RAW image, not in one physical drive. This raw image could be compatible with some of the emulators available actually, from SIMH to other for Z80 or PC platforms. Then, you could startup one Unix (or compatible) emulated system, and mount as a diskette one of these raw images. If it's one Xenix filesystem it could possible to access it for some Unix compatible systems. And once mounted, you could connect with 'cu' or 'uucp' using the serial line (in my case, redirecting via IP to the Serial Port) with one REAL Altos Xenix (as is my case) to transfer the files what you want to send. With independence of this, and one more time, my thanks to Dave for its invaluable tool (ImageDisk). Regards Sergio 2009/6/6 mike ingram > Hi Sergio > > Uh... never mind the tarball stuff.... Dave has the files on his site > all arranged in their separate disks... some were sent by me and some by > another user. > > He also has a program that will allow you to create floppies on a PC type > machine,,,, So, one takes these IMD images ( they are actually images of > separate floppy disks ).. and burns floppies and then the Altos can read > those floppies. His site is: > > www.classiccmp.org/dunfield > > Easiest method it to get the IMD program, those files, and a stack of > floppies, then find a PC with a 5 1/2 floppy drive, and have at it for a > bit. Then you go to the Altos and you should be able to read the files > right there. > > Yes, you could use "cu" to get the IMD images over, but then you'd still > have the problem of how to decode the IMD images, and some of the files > weren't even unix files ( like the MP/M operating system and the ADX > Diagnostic disk ).. > > Hope it helps > > Mike > > > > > > > On May 27, 2009, at 12:01 AM, SPC wrote: > > A lot of thanks, sincerely :-) >> >> The Altos is in good shape and working state and I consider a waste don't >> hack it a little. And, more important, I did a test and probe that I can >> manage it using the serial port of my laptop and one original Dec VT220 >> (that I use eventually to connect in old-fashion mode to SIMH by the same >> way, but this is other story). >> >> Only one point to clear... you speak about send IMD images in a tarball, >> isn't so ? Or perhaps... Do you speak about the single files of the disks >> (one by one) ? In this last case, I wonder if would be possible to send >> files to the Altos Xenix using 'cu' or something similar... Only assorted >> thoughts, you know... :-) >> >> Thanks again. Kind Regards. >> Sergio >> >> >> 2009/5/27 mike ingram >> >> Hi Sergio >>> >>> I had given Dave Dunfield copies of a C compiler and some other stuff >>> that >>> I won on an Ebay auction a couple of years ago. >>> >>> Dave used to have a site at http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/ >>> museum/img/index.htm >>> >>> that had copies of this, but it doesn't seem to be working.. ( >>> anybody >>> know where this is now ???? ) >>> >>> Anyways, I had these disks: >>> >>> Xenix Development System version 3.0BS0, which includes 7 floppies, >>> SCCS 3.0B0 disk 1 of 1 >>> Spelling Checker 3.0BS0 disk 1 of 1 >>> Level II COBOL R2.02S0 RTS Rev 56 disk 1 of 1 >>> INFORMIX demo version 3.11B two disks ( not ALTOS, but with INFORMIX >>> label on it ) >>> F77 Fortran version 1.2B0 disk 1 of 1 >>> C Compiler 3.0BS1 two disks >>> >>> Be glad to email you what I have .... I think I just put it all into a >>> tar >>> ball and gzipped it, after using Dave's ImageDisk program to copy the >>> original floppies into something more moveable. >>> >>> Mike >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On May 22, 2009, at 4:51 AM, SPC wrote: >>> >>> Hello. I have one Altos 686 with Xenix 3.2 in working state. I should >>> like >>> >>>> to install on it one C compiler and eventually the Ryan-McFarland Cobol >>>> for >>>> this platform if available. >>>> >>>> I remember something about IMD image disks available in some place in >>>> the >>>> Internet but I don't remember where. >>>> >>>> All help is welcome >>>> >>>> Kind Regards >>>> Sergio >>>> >>>> >>> >>> > From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Sun Jun 7 06:00:59 2009 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 13:00:59 +0200 Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <2645f9870906062113p609bd61cqc1e280296c0022a1@mail.gmail.com> References: <2645f9870906062113p609bd61cqc1e280296c0022a1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 22:13:45 -0600 > Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 > From: iamvirtual at gmail.com > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > > I am finally ready to load a disk image onto a RK05 disk for my > PDP-11/10. I have RK05 disk images for RSTS-11 (my goal). > > What is the easiest way to load the disk image onto a RK05 cartridge? > > I was thinking of using vtserver to transfer the image over a serial > line, but the 'copy' program is not compatible with my PDP-11/05 (it > uses the 'mul' and 'div' instructions which is not available on my > PDP-11/10). > > Here is what I have available: > PDP-11/10 with 32kw core memory > serial connection (max 2400 baud) > RK05 (non-bootable cartridge but does load properly) > external dual TU58 DecTapeII drive > > Many thanks for any information. I am really looking for a nudge in > the right direction. ;-) > > --barrym Have a peek at http://www.fpns.net/willy/pdp11/tu58-emu.htm - Henk From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Sun Jun 7 06:04:23 2009 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 13:04:23 +0200 Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <2645f9870906062113p609bd61cqc1e280296c0022a1@mail.gmail.com> References: <2645f9870906062113p609bd61cqc1e280296c0022a1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: And I forgot the one I used a year ago or so! Sorry Don. http://www.ak6dn.com/PDP-11/TU58-images/ - Henk. From dave09 at dunfield.com Sun Jun 7 07:43:54 2009 From: dave09 at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 07:43:54 -0500 Subject: Altos 686 In-Reply-To: References: <1729B331-DBDC-4B93-95DC-3CA1818FE261@earthlink.net> Message-ID: > Thanks, Mike. I know that some part of the stuff is non-Xenix... but my > question was about the Xenix specific. What I told was something that > perhaps Dave don't had in mind when it developed ImageDisk. I speak about > write the output of one IMD image using ImageDisk... but in one RAW image, > not in one physical drive. This raw image could be compatible with some of > the emulators available actually, from SIMH to other for Z80 or PC > platforms. The ImageDisk Utility (IMDU - included with ImageDisk) can do many things with an ImageDisk image including convert it to a raw binary file (linear dump of sectors). Many simulators and emulators can mount that binary file. Dave -- dave09 (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sun Jun 7 09:22:31 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:22:31 +0100 Subject: free to a good home (York, UK) Message-ID: <4A2BCD27.5000704@dunnington.plus.com> I've been tidying up again. Always a bad idea, and now I can't find shelf space for the following. All are free to collect from York, or I could post them if you pay P&P: HP JetDirect card, J2552-60001, 10Mb/s with BNC (10base 2), RJ45 (10baseT) and 8-pin mini-DIN (LocalTalk) connectors. Worked fine last time it was in a printer, but hasn't been tested in "quite a while". NEC Multspin CD-ROM drive. Takes a caddy (which I can supply), and may support 512-byte sectors -- ISTR using this to boot SGIs in the distant past. Worked last time I used it but that was years ago. Matrox G45 dual head VGA AGP card (G45FMDHA32DB). I used to use this for photo editing. IIRC it has 32MB on board. Sinclair Spectrum Centronics printer interface, made by Computers For All. Untested, but worked last time I used it. Lear Siegler ADM 5 Dumb Terminal Video Display Unit Users Reference Manual, March 1981. Looks almost new. Cromemco manuals: -- D+7A Input/Output Module Instruction Manual -- 16FDC Floppy Disk Controller Instruction Manual (I have two of those 16FDC manuals, for some reason) US Robotics Sportster 14400 Fax Modem, with PSU. V32bis + V42bis. Plessey Peripheral Systems PM-DDV11/B and PM-DDA11/B Disc Drives Manual for 5 Megabyte 1500 RPM Front Loader. Pair of spare heads for an RL01 drive. Used, taken from a working drive that was cannibalised. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From jfoust at threedee.com Sun Jun 7 11:40:04 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:40:04 -0500 Subject: Rescue Fwd: pld IBM P/S2 model 30 computer Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090607113930.048f6860@mail.threedee.com> If interested, respond to Sue below. >From: "Sue Brenner" >To: >Subject: pld IBM P/S2 model 30 computer >Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 09:09:21 -0700 > >Greetings, > >I have an old IBM P/S2 Model 30 in excellent working order I trying to find a home for. >The monitor is the 8512 IBM color monitor. > >I live in the Phoenix area in Arizona. > >The exact model and serial number are: >Model : 8530-021 >Serial: 72-1134784 > >It is all the original issue except I added a Paradise VGA 16-bit internal card along the way. > >If you could put it to good use or know someone who would, I would be glad to arrange to get it to you. > >Jonathan Brenner >gthalo at aol.com >gthalo at cox.net > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 7 12:08:48 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 18:08:48 +0100 (BST) Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 6, 9 02:08:29 pm Message-ID: > > On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > >> Indeed. =A015 years ago, I was able to save the 11/750 from work, but > >> could not find room for a pair of RK07s and a pickup-truck-load of > > > > I think I'd have takne the drives (and put them on an 11 or something) > > and left the VAX. The 11/750 is not a machine I greatly care for.... > > I've seen your posting about the 11/750 and I cannot refute them given > your interests and proclivities, but this happened to be the machine I Note that I said that I'd take the drives and leave the VAX. Not that that that was necessarily the right thing to do, or the thing that you should have done :-) Of the VAX 11/7xx machines, the 11/750 is my least favourite, due to the fact it's stuffed with gate arrays that are, I assume unobtainable now (and from what I remmeber, when they were avaialble from DEC, they were ridiculously expensive!) If I had the sapce, I'd love an 11/78x. But I don't, so I have an 11/730 that I must get round to looking at [1] That one is 2910s for the data path and rows of unprotected PALs... [1] I've been spending far too much of my time on HP stuff. Maybe I should try another manufacturer for a change :-) > first learned VMS on, the first machine I wrote a UNIX driver on, and > one that' I'd upgraded internally many times (it shipped with 512K and > I upgraded it myself to 8MB to give it five more years of use as the Ah, that's a darn good reason for wanting to keep it :-). I still have a soft spot for the machines I fiest wrote device drivers on, for my own hardware. Namely a TRS-80 Model 3 running LDOS and a CoCo 2 (later a CoCo 3) running OS9. [...] > >> RK07 cartridges. =A0Those were good drives - easy to repair, decent > > > > I am not convinced abotu the 'easy to repair'. I've read the printset, > > and that servo system is _complicated_. And don't you need some rather > > special tools/test gear to fit new heads? > > I don't know about heads - in a decade of running RK07s daily, we > never had to fiddle with heads - we just kept from crashing our packs. > Our failures were all electronics and easy to access, diagnose, and > repair. Yes, the RK07 electronics is certainly easy to get to. It's quite complicated, but given the prints, it is not too hard to figure out what's going on. I suspect sorting out a subtle prolem in that head positioner servo (there seem to be 3 feedback loops, from the optical transducer used for load/unload, from the velocity transducer used when moving, and from the servo head, used when it's locked to a track) could be an interesting job, though. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 7 12:16:21 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 18:16:21 +0100 (BST) Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2AC32C.1070103@machineroom.info> from "James Wilson" at Jun 6, 9 08:27:40 pm Message-ID: > UCSD P-system? > > Now theres a name I haven't seen in a while.... 10 or so years ago I This _is_ classiccmp :-) [...] > up by a TV manufacturer. Anyway, the story goes that the P-System was > considered by IBM along with CP/M for the PC. Don't know how much thuth I was under the impression it was actually available for the 5150 PC, but that it was never updated to handle hard drives (so pretty useless on a 5160 PC/XT). > there was to that but even in my time we had several customers still > running P-System natively on a variety of hardware - AppleII, a > contemporary mini (can't remember which) at Norwich Union and some 68K > based (Stride?) systems. > The Sage II (and I assume Sage IV) are 68K machines that normally run the P-system. I've never tried it (too many projects...), but the HP Pascal for the 9000/200 machines looks remarkably like the P-system from the manuals I've seen. And of course the PERQ running the POS operating system had microcode that interpretted something called Q-codes. This was remarkably similar in concept (and architecture IIRC) to the P-system. It was just done properly :-). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 7 12:22:45 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 18:22:45 +0100 (BST) Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: <4A2A72EB.3168.1AC80F7D@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 6, 9 01:45:15 pm Message-ID: > This one has some sort of RS-232 output, but I haven't the faintest > what it indicates, other than "your power just failed". I've got the > software for it somewhere, but have never run it. For older/simpler UPSes, it's quite common for that not to be a real serial port, but just a collection of status lines (mains failed, batteries getting low, etc) which can be read over the 'handshake' inputs of an RS232 port. And the cable might be strange. It might even have components in it. At least one manufacturer put optoisolators in the cable (!). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 7 12:34:14 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 18:34:14 +0100 (BST) Subject: TI Silent 700 model 733 manual In-Reply-To: <20090607003933.GZ8895@n0jcf.net> from "Chris Elmquist" at Jun 6, 9 07:39:33 pm Message-ID: > > This is a well-known problem on all sorts of devices. Someitmes the > > grease will soften with common solvents (propan-2-ol, etc). There's a > > green grease used in some camera lans mounts that goes rock hard with age > > and nothing wil shift it short of scraping it out.... > > yes... I had to clean it out of the raceway of the solonoid as well as > off the plunger. It was really like glue. WD-40 seemed to do a nice > job cutting it actually. I hope you cleaned the WD40 off as well. The problem is that the lighter solvents evaporate and leave a waxy deposity (the longer chain hydrocarbons) behind. Just what you want for its original use of Water Displacemnt, but not what you want in a Silent 700. > > > > I also see that the stepper motor that actually turns the platen (or equiv > > > of) is not making a full increment each time. Sometimes it advances but > > > other times it de-advances. So, something it messed up in the stepper > > > circuit or the grease in that stepper motor has turned to honey too. > > > > Maybe you've lost the drive to one of hte stepper phases. That can make > > them step in thwe wrong direction sometimes. > > That was absolutely it. It was a fun afternoon tracing out the circuit Occasionally i make a good guess :-) > Great stuff. Cool to see all those TTL parts and not a one of them is > LS or HCT or anything close. 74XX was it in 1973. Well, at that time there was also 74Lxx (lower power, slower), 74Hxx (higher power, faster) and 74Sxx (fast!). I've come across all those families in classic HP hardware of that period. > > Note that I have really good luck with modern thermal FAX paper in these > units. Around here it is readily available at office supply stores on I am not suprised. I use it in my HP thermal printers with no problems. My 9866A (full-width thermal printhead, it's a sort of line printer...) just works.... I repaired an HP2761G (moving head thermal printer). I went to a stationers locally, and all they had was 210mm wide paper, the 2761 having a 216mm wide chassis. I found if I positioned the roll just right, it would work, and the head wouldn't snag on the edge of the paper. So I machined a couple of brass disks to put on the paper roll spindle to hold it in the right place. Worked fine, and I was happy until I went to another branch of the same stationers to find they also had 216mm thermal papepr... > 98 ft rolls. They have a 1/2" dia core which needs a piece of dowel > to support it in the 725 (and probably in the 733 too) and it is a much I am sure I can make up something to hold it... -tony From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 7 13:08:06 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:08:06 -0700 Subject: For pickup: VAX-11/750 and RK07 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2A72EB.3168.1AC80F7D@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 6, 9 01:45:15 pm, Message-ID: <4A2B9F96.22912.1F5E7FAD@cclist.sydex.com> On 7 Jun 2009 at 18:22, Tony Duell wrote: > For older/simpler UPSes, it's quite common for that not to be a real > serial port, but just a collection of status lines (mains failed, > batteries getting low, etc) which can be read over the 'handshake' > inputs of an RS232 port. That's probably the extent of it--there's a DIP switch group that I imagine dictates what goes to what. But no UARTs or other signs of intelligence. --Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jun 7 13:14:07 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:14:07 -0700 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2AC32C.1070103@machineroom.info> References: <4A2AC32C.1070103@machineroom.info> Message-ID: <4A2C036F.1000108@bitsavers.org> James Wilson wrote: > UCSD P-system? > > Now theres a name I haven't seen in a while.... 10 or so years ago I > worked for a company in Bristol (UK) who supposedly had the rights to > the P-System. Do you know anyone who still has the code from them? There is an active P-System Yahoo group, and they have been looking for it. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/UCSDPascal/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 7 13:30:08 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 14:30:08 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A2B8080.9020109@brouhaha.com> References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <200906051614.15873.vax@purdue.edu> <7F6649CA-BCB5-48E4-B50D-F214CE097715@neurotica.com> <4A2B8080.9020109@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Jun 7, 2009, at 4:55 AM, Eric Smith wrote: >> Yebbut...RT-11 doesn't really do a whole lot. ;) > > Sometimes that's a virtue. Yes, I agree. I'm just a fan of multiuser/multitasking operating systems. I'm aware of foreground/background, but I like to be able to do things like stick compilations in the background, etc. on occasion. >> I'm a RSTS/E and RSX-11 man. > > I don't have much RSX-11 experience, but I definitely like RSTS/E. RSX-11 is very nice too. I'm amazed at how powerful it can be while being so compact. I think RSTS/E is probably my favorite, though. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ploopster at gmail.com Sun Jun 7 13:29:48 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:29:48 -0400 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2AC32C.1070103@machineroom.info> References: <4A2AC32C.1070103@machineroom.info> Message-ID: <4A2C071C.90002@gmail.com> James Wilson wrote: > Tony Duell wrote: >>> It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically >>> POSIX, or >>> DOS/Windows running native on a PC. >>> >> >> ROM BASIC? (Technically, it performs some of the functions of an OS) >> Standalone Forth? (there must be at least one..) >> UCSD P-system? >> CP/M-86? >> >> -tony >> > > UCSD P-system? > > Now theres a name I haven't seen in a while.... 10 or so years ago I > worked for a company in Bristol (UK) who supposedly had the rights to > the P-System. Went by the name of Cabot Software, formerly Pecan Systems > IIRC. Great system but didn't keep up with the times. We had the > interpreter running on a selection of digital TV STBs with C as the > preferred source language (no, not a logical choice for the P-System!). > That led to them getting into the MHEG-5 market and eventually swallowed > up by a TV manufacturer. Anyway, the story goes that the P-System was > considered by IBM along with CP/M for the PC. Don't know how much thuth > there was to that but even in my time we had several customers still > running P-System natively on a variety of hardware - AppleII, a > contemporary mini (can't remember which) at Norwich Union and some 68K > based (Stride?) systems. I know for a fact that IBM offered p-System for the PC, because I have a copy of *IBM's* p-System and all its manuals (binder-in-box) for the PC. The binders are blue. The PC-DOS ones are beige/tan, if my memory serves me. Peace... Sridhar From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 7 13:39:42 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 14:39:42 -0400 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jun 7, 2009, at 1:16 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> there was to that but even in my time we had several customers still >> running P-System natively on a variety of hardware - AppleII, a >> contemporary mini (can't remember which) at Norwich Union and some >> 68K >> based (Stride?) systems. > > The Sage II (and I assume Sage IV) are 68K machines that normally > run the > P-system. I've never tried it (too many projects...), but the HP > Pascal > for the 9000/200 machines looks remarkably like the P-system from the > manuals I've seen. I have a Sage II, with a P-system boot disk. It's neat. I'd love to find CP/M-68K for it though. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Jun 7 13:55:32 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:55:32 +0100 Subject: 1964 Antique MODEM Live Demo In-Reply-To: <5DCEDAB8-409B-4D36-A30D-41B2C33B2119@drexel.edu> References: <5DCEDAB8-409B-4D36-A30D-41B2C33B2119@drexel.edu> Message-ID: <1244400932.4035.8.camel@elric> On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 23:27 +0300, vp wrote: > > Something weird there -- at 6:20 or so, he has a URL on the > screen. It > > looks to me like "http://ww.wikipedia.org". And it connects. But > it is > > "ww" not "www". There is no reason for him to go and fake it, but it > > bugs me nevertheless. > > Maybe the missing "w" was mangled by line noise. Or maybe it was "en.wikipedia.org", which would display the first page he goes to. If it *was* www.wikipedia.org you'd get the language selector. Gordon From legalize at xmission.com Sun Jun 7 14:25:44 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 13:25:44 -0600 Subject: Fwd: [alt.folklore.computer] Workstation Computervision CDS 3000-20 Message-ID: This message has been forwarded from Usenet. To reply to the original author, use the email address from the forwarded message. Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 09:58:10 -0700 (PDT) Groups: alt.folklore.computer From: rainer at terpe.de Org: http://groups.google.com Subject: Workstation Computervision CDS 3000-20 Id: <1c674f21-02d6-4b7a-b81e-26a45e73e2b2 at l32g2000vba.googlegroups.c om> ======== I do not have time enough and I do not have space enough. Therefor I really want to offer my very old workstation Computervision CDS 3000-20. The workstation is made of 2 seperate devices, one device contains mainboard with CPU board, memory board and interface boards, the other device contains hard disk drive and magnetic tape drive. There is also a huge CRT and keyboard. Inside the workstation there is a SUN 2 working. This offer includes various magnetic tapes and some documintation also. I'm not able to say a lot about technical condition because I haven't switched on the workstation for some years. The installation effort is quite high. If someone is interested or is knowing someone who could be interested, please answer to me. I really do not want to scrap this machine. Kind regards, Rainer From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 7 14:33:57 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 20:33:57 +0100 (BST) Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: from "Dave McGuire" at Jun 7, 9 02:39:42 pm Message-ID: > I have a Sage II, with a P-system boot disk. It's neat. I'd love > to find CP/M-68K for it though. I have a Sage II, a minimal P-system boot disk, but nothing more. And alas I don't have things like the pascal compiler... I do have the excellent user manual with schematics and parts lists. CP/M-68K exited for it. I believe Don Maslin had it, but alas that's no help now :-( -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 7 14:36:26 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 20:36:26 +0100 (BST) Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2C071C.90002@gmail.com> from "Sridhar Ayengar" at Jun 7, 9 02:29:48 pm Message-ID: > I know for a fact that IBM offered p-System for the PC, because I have a > copy of *IBM's* p-System and all its manuals (binder-in-box) for the PC. > The binders are blue. The PC-DOS ones are beige/tan, if my memory > serves me. One of them is pink, I forget if that's PC-DOS or BASIC, but probably the latter. Technical reference manuals are purple, Hardware Maintenance and Service (boardswapper guides) are dark blue, and Guide to Operations are red. The former are the ones I tend to read... -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jun 7 14:51:53 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 12:51:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2AC32C.1070103@machineroom.info> References: <4A2AC32C.1070103@machineroom.info> Message-ID: <20090607124801.T30858@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 6 Jun 2009, James Wilson wrote: > UCSD P-system? > Now theres a name I haven't seen in a while.... 10 or so years ago I > worked for a company in Bristol (UK) who supposedly had the rights to > the P-System. non-exclusive - Regents of University of California (San Diego) > up by a TV manufacturer. Anyway, the story goes that the P-System was > considered by IBM along with CP/M for the PC. Don't know how much thuth > there was to that but even in my time we had several customers still > running P-System natively on a variety of hardware - AppleII, a > contemporary mini (can't remember which) at Norwich Union and some 68K > based (Stride?) systems. I guess that you could say that there was some thuth to the story. IBM, for the 5150, sold PC-DOS (MS-DOS), CP/M-86, and UCSD P System. Crunch! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jun 7 12:05:17 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 13:05:17 -0400 Subject: Master of Orion (was: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu> <4A2978F2.3000200@gmail.com> <4A2AB121.7040600@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 12:09 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 2:36 PM -0400 6/6/09, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> >> I happen to enjoy playing corny-looking games, but I happen to own >> original copies and was playing them when they were the latest thing. >> I still have Master of Orion I close at hand, plus a few others. > > Take a look at the Mac version if you can find it. That might be a little bit obscure, but I'll look for it. I never did much Mac gaming, mostly Risk and NetTrek (and the occasional Infocom game). > ?I forget just how large > of a screen it supports, but it's most of a 1024x1280 display (not all). Nice. > ?Same with Warlords II, while on DOS you're limited to 640x480 for both. Yeah. I remember playing a lot of DOS games, and they held their own until 800x600 became the norm. Thanks for the tip. -ethan From spedraja at ono.com Sun Jun 7 16:55:15 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 23:55:15 +0200 Subject: Altos 686 In-Reply-To: References: <1729B331-DBDC-4B93-95DC-3CA1818FE261@earthlink.net> Message-ID: Hello: > The ImageDisk Utility (IMDU - included with ImageDisk) can do many things > with an ImageDisk image including convert it to a raw binary file (linear > dump of sectors). Many simulators and emulators can mount that binary file. > I checked it by myself. At least the first attemps made readable the content of IMD expanded with a simple "type". Thanks ! Regards Sergio From dm561 at torfree.net Sun Jun 7 18:08:46 2009 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 19:08:46 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet Message-ID: <01C9E7A5.8D4502A0@MSE_D03> Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:57:23 -0700 From: "Chuck Guzis" Subject: Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet >Try doing your program development on a keypunch, with a 407 for 80- >80 listing. >Get off my lawn... >Chuck ------ You were lucky! We had to punch the cards with a Wright Line one-character-at-a-time manual punch and read our "listings" off the top of the cards... ;-) I gave up on my lawn long ago... m From dm561 at torfree.net Sun Jun 7 18:24:08 2009 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 19:24:08 -0400 Subject: More vintage hardware still alive and kickin' Message-ID: <01C9E7A5.8ED65100@MSE_D03> ---------------Original Message: From: "Chuck Guzis" Subject: Re: More vintage hardware still alive and kickin' To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Message-ID: <4A2A780F.19281.1ADC248A at cclist.sydex.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII >On 6 Jun 2009 at 20:47, Andrew Burton wrote: >> I'm just curious... how many cards would a machine like that sort >> through in a day, or a week? That counter has 6 digits and it sorted >> ~90 cards in less than 10 seconds. >Well, an 083 will feed about 1000 cards/minute and a good operator >can keep it running all day. How many cards could be sorted, >depends, of course, on the number of colums being sorted (one pass >per column, plus fumble and jam time... >--Chuck ------------Reply: Oh yeah! A jam would really cut into your production, especially if the sense switches didn't shut it down quickly or at all; the cards would crumple and pile up pretty quickly. And of course since you were handling stacks of 4000+ cards sooner or later you inevitably dropped one, sending them literally sailing around the room; digging them out from under all the other machines really made your day... Fond memories of my days as a junior operator... m From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jun 7 18:45:32 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:45:32 -0700 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <20090607124801.T30858@shell.lmi.net> References: <4A2AC32C.1070103@machineroom.info> <20090607124801.T30858@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A2C511C.8020906@bitsavers.org> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Sat, 6 Jun 2009, James Wilson wrote: >> UCSD P-system? >> Now theres a name I haven't seen in a while.... 10 or so years ago I >> worked for a company in Bristol (UK) who supposedly had the rights to >> the P-System. > > non-exclusive - Regents of University of California (San Diego) > As I understand it, the UC Regents sold the rights to Softech, who then sold it to Pecan. The PC version was from Softech. HP sold a heavily modified version for the 9836, called the Pascal Workstation, which was sold as an alternative to BASIC. CHM is in the process of getting HP to grant us a non-commercial license for the Pascal Workstation software. We have what survived from Colorado Springs for the product, just have to get the paperwork finished and the media holding the sources recovered. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 7 18:46:52 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:46:52 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <01C9E7A5.8D4502A0@MSE_D03> References: <01C9E7A5.8D4502A0@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <4A2BEEFC.22305.20946200@cclist.sydex.com> On 7 Jun 2009 at 19:08, M H Stein wrote: > You were lucky! We had to punch the cards with a Wright Line > one-character-at-a-time manual punch and read our "listings" > off the top of the cards... > ;-) Heh. You must have worked for GM. :p At one place I worked, there were a couple of 024 keypunches, which didn't print across the top of the card and many punctuation characters had to be multi-punched. At CDC Sunnyvale, one of programmers in CPD was blind. Cards were very easy for him to read--and he didn't have to bother running them through the IBM 557... --Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jun 7 18:47:11 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:47:11 -0700 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2C517F.9090700@bitsavers.org> Dave McGuire wrote: > I have a Sage II, with a P-system boot disk. It's neat. I'd love to > find CP/M-68K for it though. > try http://www.sageandstride.org/ From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jun 7 18:48:05 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:48:05 -0700 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2C511C.8020906@bitsavers.org> References: <4A2AC32C.1070103@machineroom.info> <20090607124801.T30858@shell.lmi.net> <4A2C511C.8020906@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4A2C51B5.9030301@bitsavers.org> Al Kossow wrote: > We have what survived from Colorado > Springs for the product argh.. Fort Collins not Colorado Springs From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 7 19:05:32 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 17:05:32 -0700 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: <4A274E21.4030604@mail.msu.edu>, <575131af0906060600y773232c4qcecd9f0cc66bdba1@mail.gmail.com>, Message-ID: <4A2BF35C.5097.20A56D28@cclist.sydex.com> Somebody wrote: > It would be nice to see just about any OS that wasn't basically > POSIX, or DOS/Windows running native on a PC. I was cleaning one of my bookcases out and found a DDJ tucked in between two binders. May, 1994. There's an article about a "roll your own 32-bit OS" called MMURTL. A quick google shows: http://www.ipdatacorp.com/mmurtl.htm and http://www.ipdatacorp.com/mmpd.html Dave Dunfield may know more about MMURTL's current state, as his name is mentioned in connection with it. A funny from the same DDJ was an article with the lede "Will we gain portability at the expense of performance?" Answer: not really, we'll just lose performance at the expense of creeping featurism-- even Macs are x86 now. --Chuck From lproven at gmail.com Sun Jun 7 19:12:29 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 01:12:29 +0100 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906061213u7d229f9euc33cf5c5f4a6d8f5@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906052055o6dc4a1bfg2a042dfaff6cc3aa@mail.gmail.com> <200906060609.n5669wsF023320@floodgap.com> <6dbe3c380906061213u7d229f9euc33cf5c5f4a6d8f5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906071712qcc18ab5jdcb6f335d6b093de@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/6 Brian Lanning : > On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 1:09 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> You could try zapping PRAM (Cmd-Opt-P-R as the machine starts up; let it >> chime a couple times with the keys held down) but this may not help as the >> bogus System Folder will still be blessed. A sure fix would be to boot >> from a valid secondary device, but with a bum floppy drive you're really >> hosed. > > I'll try this tonight. > >> I'm suspecting the Mac you have was messed up by its previous owner -- a >> lot of these errors would be inexplicable with normal use. A full reinstall >> of 7.6 or 8.1 from an external CD-ROM would be strongly advised. > > An apple CDROM drive, like the 300 or 600 is on the shopping list. > Any ideas where I can get a OS image I can burn from vista? > > Also, which version would be best on a quadra 700? ?I've heard that > 7.6 was best for performance, but I care less about performance and > more about functionality. ?Is there an advantage to upgrading to 8.1? > > The scsi hard drive that's in there now is a smaller capacity, but > it's half-height, slightly too big for the case. ?The top latches in > place, but you have to bend it slightly to do that. ?I have a 1gig > scsi drive(1" high, quantum iirc) ?from an amiga that I can use > instead. ?If I'm going to reinstall the OS, maybe I should go that > route. ?Anything I should consider before trying to do that? > > Does anyone make a scsi floppy drive that I could put in my external > enclosure? ?Do these even exist? ?What about zip/jaz/syquest drives? > > Is it possible to install 7.6 or 8.1, then pull the hard drive and > attach it to a PC, mount the mac parition, and copy a large number of > disk images over? ?I have a PCI adaptec scsi controller floating > around somwhere. ?What about booting from an ubuntu CD? > > Another angle is the adaptec scsi disk in a PC, copy files over, mount > the disk on a mac. ?I have another 100gig disk I could use for this. > Are there any non-mac file systems that the mac can mount, like maybe > fat32? > > Also, where can I buy two new/refurb mac floppy drives? > > thanks > > brian Erm. I already answered some of these questions. If you'd like to reply to my message from yesterday, pointing out which bits I've not addressed, I'll see what I can tell you. If you're prepared to pay shipping from the UK, I'll post a Mac floppy drive or two for free. Same for a couple of smallish Mac SCSI hard disks. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 7 19:29:28 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 20:29:28 -0400 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2C517F.9090700@bitsavers.org> References: <4A2C517F.9090700@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Jun 7, 2009, at 7:47 PM, Al Kossow wrote: >> I have a Sage II, with a P-system boot disk. It's neat. I'd >> love to find CP/M-68K for it though. > > try http://www.sageandstride.org/ Whoa, thanks! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From brianlanning at gmail.com Sun Jun 7 20:25:08 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 20:25:08 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <575131af0906060742j3fda34bfl418f5c23fd7ca811@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906060742j3fda34bfl418f5c23fd7ca811@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906071825t274f84e3r502aa3caa167b30a@mail.gmail.com> Sorry, I didn't see this email until today. Gmail has a tendency to stack things up and hide them from me. > Quadra 700 - so it's a 25MHz 68040. How much RAM has it got? I can't check now since it's hosed. But I believe it's 4megs. There's 4 simms in there I know. > I'd strongly suggest, as others have observed, wiping it & installing > MacOS 8.1. It's got much better TCP/IP handling and also better > handling of alien disk formats. You might even have a chance of > recognising and handling a DVD, though I wouldn't put money on it. > A bit more info as to why: > http://lowendmac.com/sable/06/0911.html > 8.1 boot CDs are rare. It's easier to get a copy of 8.0 and download > and install the free 8.1 update, which Apple still offers. > If you're really stuck, I might be able to find a spare CD of 8.0 > somewhere for you. I've ordered a 600e cdrom drive and also one auto-inject floppy drive, but i need one for the IIfx also. Still can't find an 8.0 cd. What would it cost to send a floppy drive and the 8.0 cd? Also, do you have some VRAM simms that you would be willing to part with? > It'll still require 3rd party tools to talk to a Windows network, > though. If you have NT Server, though, it has a Mac file-sharing mode, > even back in NT3. That will work fine. Once floppies are working, that should be straight-forward. > For 3rd party hard disks, you also need a 3rd party tool, although > it's not a driver as such - it's just a partitioner/formatter. > (Technically, it embeds the driver into the partition structure of the > drive, so the MacOS automatically loads it the 1st time that it sees > the drive. This is transparent - you can even boot off such a drive.) > I use SilverLining but there's also a LaCie tool and various others - > most vendors of 3rd party SCSI hard disks offered them. There are three or four of these sorts of things on the machine already. When I put the new disk in, I'll put the old one in the external box and pull the software off. > In my experience, reading non-Mac CDs on Classic MacOS is very iffy, > especially if they're home-burned ones. I've never found an adequate > way around this. It's /supposed/ to work but often won't. I'll tinker. Once it's on the network, even with just ftp, I won't really need to read CDs anymore, although it would certainly make things easier. brian From charlesmorris800 at centurytel.net Sun Jun 7 20:43:13 2009 From: charlesmorris800 at centurytel.net (Charles Morris) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:43:13 -0500 Subject: Calculator repair fun Message-ID: <79qo2553scb70drjipdflsbt379fd52tlh@4ax.com> This is a perfect example of why I never throw anything away... a couple of months ago I found a nice Craig (Bowmar) 8-digit calculator at an antique mall for $3. No charger, so of course it didn't work. Finally got around to disassembling it - the six AA nicads had leaked grossly but fortunately did little damage to the board above it. Powered it up from a bench supply and promptly discovered that one segment of one digit wouldn't light... not much good in a calculator since 8 and 9 looked the same :( But - I looked in my "LED drawer" and there was a little PCB with eight MAN-3A displays mounted on it. I remember buying that out of my pocket money at Radio Shack (couldn't have been Poly Paks because it works) when I was about 12. And that was thirty-five years ago... It was the same overall size as the one-piece (bare LEDs with bonding wires beneath a glued-on red lens) display PCB that was in there. And a battery and resistor showed that it had the same common-cathode matrix, and even the same number of connections! I unsoldered the old display and double-checked that the one digit's segment was indeed bad - put in the new display, powered back up and it worked 100% :) I even had two three-packs of AA nicads bought at Marden's (an odd-lots store in Maine) several years ago because they were on sale... so I installed them in the base, screwed everything back together, the calculator is now working perfectly! So that's why I never throw anything away. Who'd have thought that an LED display stick I bought over 30 years ago would find a home in an early 70's calculator... in 2009. Of course now I have yet another vintage four-function calculator I don't need, but it still feels good to fix something that would otherwise have ended up in the trash. From brianlanning at gmail.com Sun Jun 7 20:44:54 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 20:44:54 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906071825t274f84e3r502aa3caa167b30a@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906042247p488bb10ete9fa7d369fb304b0@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906060742j3fda34bfl418f5c23fd7ca811@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906071825t274f84e3r502aa3caa167b30a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906071844o903ca4bjf7b7f0cd675f88a7@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 8:25 PM, Brian Lanning wrote: > Still can't find an 8.0 cd. Fleabay had a full retail 8.0 cd for $16. Should be here in a week or so. :-) brian From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 7 21:05:06 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:05:06 -0700 Subject: Calculator repair fun In-Reply-To: <79qo2553scb70drjipdflsbt379fd52tlh@4ax.com> References: <79qo2553scb70drjipdflsbt379fd52tlh@4ax.com> Message-ID: <4A2C0F62.5259.21131A2F@cclist.sydex.com> On 7 Jun 2009 at 20:43, Charles Morris wrote: > So that's why I never throw anything away. Who'd have thought that an > LED display stick I bought over 30 years ago would find a home in an > early 70's calculator... in 2009. Of course now I have yet another > vintage four-function calculator I don't need, but it still feels good > to fix something that would otherwise have ended up in the trash. I hate throwing things away particularly if they're not working (I don't mind giving away working things) I recently repaired a cordless drill with a MOSFET taken from an old 1/2" tape drive controller board. I figure that it's a disease. --Chuck From tosteve at yahoo.com Sun Jun 7 21:26:41 2009 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven stengel) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 19:26:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: "Cheap" Kaypro II, Baltimore, Maryland Message-ID: <960458.44480.qm@web110604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Deborah Becker has a Kaypro II, contact her (not me) if interested! She would like a few dollars, make an offer. Printer and books included. Location is actually Catonsville 21228 Her email is: comemy69 at aol.com From brianlanning at gmail.com Sun Jun 7 21:30:19 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 21:30:19 -0500 Subject: Calculator repair fun In-Reply-To: <4A2C0F62.5259.21131A2F@cclist.sydex.com> References: <79qo2553scb70drjipdflsbt379fd52tlh@4ax.com> <4A2C0F62.5259.21131A2F@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906071930y1aed6e91t3c7fb7e194e53402@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 9:05 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7 Jun 2009 at 20:43, Charles Morris wrote: > >> So that's why I never throw anything away. Who'd have thought that an >> LED display stick I bought over 30 years ago would find a home in an >> early 70's calculator... in 2009. Of course now I have yet another >> vintage four-function calculator I don't need, but it still feels good >> to fix something that would otherwise have ended up in the trash. > > I hate throwing things away particularly if they're not working (I > don't mind giving away working things) ?I recently repaired a > cordless drill with a MOSFET taken from an old 1/2" tape drive > controller board. > > I figure that it's a disease. I'm still mourning the loss of things I got rid of over the years. I had an original 5150 with the high persistence monochrome monitor and single sided full height floppy drives. I also had an amiga 500. I had a number of vintage hand-held games also, like that classic red display football game, a merlin, that little professor math educational calculator thing, a colecovision, and a big track with the dump truck trailer. But the worst of all was a nintendo famicom with a dozen games and the computer keyboard and cartidge add-on that I bought new in person in japan back in the early 80s. Then when my wife's grandfather was nearing his end, I had the option to acquire all of his vintage computers including an apple 2e, and another computer I haven't quite identified. I believe it was a TRS-80. The give-away for everyone here would be that it came with a suitcase that fit all the pieces. Anyway, I passed on all of it and grandma put it at the curb. Face-palm. Most of my stuff went through various garage sales over the years. I've managed to replace some of it. But other things would be expensive to replace now. And now that I'm old enough to feel a perceived quality difference between things that I used in the 70s and 80 vs things now, it's getting difficult for me to throw anything out. Will things be even crappier in 10 or 20 years? I'm really starting to resist the disposable society. I'm also seriously into woodworking which is a disease all by itself. Woodworkers never throw out wood scraps figuring they'll fit perfectly somewhere eventually, same for dull drill bits and chisels we'll sharpen some day. Then there's vintage machinery. The only way to buy woodworking machines that are made in america now is to buy used. It's an extreme case of "they don't make them like they used to". The chinese machines in my shop are very serviceable, but it's just not the same. I have plans to eventually restore a 40s or 50s era tablesaw (and others) when I find the time. brian From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jun 7 21:41:29 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 19:41:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906071825t274f84e3r502aa3caa167b30a@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 7, 9 08:25:08 pm" Message-ID: <200906080241.n582fTU5021076@floodgap.com> > > Quadra 700 - so it's a 25MHz 68040. How much RAM has it got? > > I can't check now since it's hosed. But I believe it's 4megs. > There's 4 simms in there I know. For 8.1 you will need much more than 4MB -- 4MB would run 7.1 comfortably but 7.6 is going to be unhappy and 8.1 will probably not even start (that might have been the problem you had). Definitely verify total RAM. I wouldn't attempt 8.1 with anything less than 16MB of RAM, and even that is going to be somewhat painful. Try for 32MB. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Time wounds all heels. -- Groucho Marx ------------------------------------- From brianlanning at gmail.com Sun Jun 7 21:47:05 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 21:47:05 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <200906080241.n582fTU5021076@floodgap.com> References: <6dbe3c380906071825t274f84e3r502aa3caa167b30a@mail.gmail.com> <200906080241.n582fTU5021076@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906071947q3365903ev506f578b6aca30d6@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 9:41 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> > Quadra 700 - so it's a 25MHz 68040. How much RAM has it got? >> >> I can't check now since it's hosed. ?But I believe it's 4megs. >> There's 4 simms in there I know. > > For 8.1 you will need much more than 4MB -- 4MB would run 7.1 comfortably > but 7.6 is going to be unhappy and 8.1 will probably not even start (that > might have been the problem you had). Definitely verify total RAM. I wouldn't > attempt 8.1 with anything less than 16MB of RAM, and even that is going to > be somewhat painful. Try for 32MB. I could easily be wrong. It might be 4 4s instead of 4 1s. brian From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jun 7 22:09:05 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 20:09:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906071947q3365903ev506f578b6aca30d6@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 7, 9 09:47:05 pm" Message-ID: <200906080309.n58395d2013804@floodgap.com> > I could easily be wrong. It might be 4 4s instead of 4 1s. That does seem more likely for 7.6. Even that will be tight for 8.1, however. It should start, but it will be tight. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Art is either plagiarism or revolution. -- Paul Gauguin -------------------- From iamvirtual at gmail.com Sun Jun 7 17:32:05 2009 From: iamvirtual at gmail.com (B M) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 16:32:05 -0600 Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 Message-ID: <2645f9870906071532o3c5280ednb1e52c6f6290057@mail.gmail.com> > Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 22:13:45 -0600 > Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 > From: iamvirtual at gmail.com > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > > I am finally ready to load a disk image onto a RK05 disk for my > PDP-11/10. I have RK05 disk images for RSTS-11 (my goal). > > What is the easiest way to load the disk image onto a RK05 cartridge? > > I was thinking of using vtserver to transfer the image over a serial > line, but the 'copy' program is not compatible with my PDP-11/05 (it > uses the 'mul' and 'div' instructions which is not available on my > PDP-11/10). > > Here is what I have available: > PDP-11/10 with 32kw core memory > serial connection (max 2400 baud) > RK05 (non-bootable cartridge but does load properly) > external dual TU58 DecTapeII drive > > Many thanks for any information. I am really looking for a nudge in > the right direction. ;-) > > --barrym Henk Gooijen henk.gooijen at hotmail.com wrote: > >Have a peek at http://www.fpns.net/willy/pdp11/tu58-emu.htm > >- Henk How would one go about installing a RSTS-11 disk image onto the RK05 using the TU-58 (assuming there is a bootstrap!) ? Thanks. --barrym From csquared3 at tx.rr.com Sun Jun 7 21:02:53 2009 From: csquared3 at tx.rr.com (CSquared) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 21:02:53 -0500 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net><4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> <4A294FFF.8070301@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <001c01c9e7dd$3c680b10$6400a8c0@acerd3c08b49af> I've been following all the comments about Soul with considerable interest. Am I the only one who found it a bit sad? I finally got around to reading it a couple of years ago, and it seemed to me to describe all too accurately what strikes me as the employee abuse that characterized way too much of the engineering development process during that era. Later, Charlie Carothers -- My email address is csquared3 at tx dot rr dot com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ray Arachelian" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, June 05, 2009 12:03 PM Subject: Re: anyone read dealers of lightning? > Mark Davidson wrote: >> Oh no, I have to agree with Curt... Soul Of A New Machine is a great >> read, as was Dealers. Of course, I'm a huge DG fan so I'm probably >> biased a bit. ;) >> > I'm not specifically a DG fan and I've enjoyed Soul of a New Machine > quite a bit. :-) > So there's another data point. > > From spedraja at ono.com Mon Jun 8 04:46:01 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 11:46:01 +0200 Subject: Mounting one Xenix Altos 686 disk img under Linux or Unix virtual system Message-ID: Hello. As a continuation of the Altos 686 previous messages, I should like to know if someone could have one Linux or Unix system (or virtual appliance that which could be used under one simulator) with the kernel support for SysV and Xenix filesystems active. The objective would be to mount one raw image of the Altos 686 Xenix diskettes and access its contents. Regards Sergio From r.bazzano at ulm.it Mon Jun 8 06:22:20 2009 From: r.bazzano at ulm.it (Roberto Bazzano) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 13:22:20 +0200 Subject: DTC-510B controller Message-ID: <525F300ED06D4D86862557450CD75356@HPRoberto> Hello. I'm trying to replace a Xebec S1410A SASI controller with a Data Technology Corp. DTC-510B or DTC-510A, for a old homebrew computer (http://www.z80ne.com) The problem is that, even if the controllers should be "almost" compatible, the DTC-510A/B doesn't work (while the Xebec works fine). I'm not able to find any manual about it, only some dipswitch settings. Perhaps has someone a user manual for DTC-510B (and DTC-510A) so that I can compare commands, configurations, etc. with Xebec S1410A? Thank you very much. Roberto Bazzano From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Mon Jun 8 06:25:13 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:25:13 +0100 Subject: Calculator repair fun In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906071930y1aed6e91t3c7fb7e194e53402@mail.gmail.com> References: <79qo2553scb70drjipdflsbt379fd52tlh@4ax.com> <4A2C0F62.5259.21131A2F@cclist.sydex.com> <6dbe3c380906071930y1aed6e91t3c7fb7e194e53402@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1244460314.21598.8.camel@elric> On Sun, 2009-06-07 at 21:30 -0500, Brian Lanning wrote: > Face-palm. Sorry Jay, for mentioning cars yet again in a classic computing thread, but I know where there's a really solid 1977 Mini Clubman estate. Interior good, paint a little dull but nothing that wouldn't polish up. Only thing wrong was the head gasket blew and in 1988 it just wasn't worth repairing. An identical one (similar registration even) went on eBay about a month ago, for ?4000. I can even tell you where to start digging, and how deep... Gordon From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jun 8 07:38:13 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:38:13 -0600 Subject: SRP aids unit testing Message-ID: I've been retrofitting tests onto legacy code at work as I make some changes to it. (So what's new?) The code has classes that are not really following the singlre responsibility principle. The other day I extracted a class to separate out a responsibility. Once I did that, I could more easily fit tests for that single responsibility onto the newly extracted class. When a class does too many things, its really hard to write tests for it, because you have to configure the universe in order to setup the initial conditions for the test. With a single responsibility the amount of setup is much less and the setup is directly relevant to the test you're trying to write. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dave09 at dunfield.com Mon Jun 8 08:43:29 2009 From: dave09 at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 08:43:29 -0500 Subject: Altos 686 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <14CB56797E30@dunfield.com> > > The ImageDisk Utility (IMDU - included with ImageDisk) can do many things > > with an ImageDisk image including convert it to a raw binary file (linear > > dump of sectors). Many simulators and emulators can mount that binary file. > > > > I checked it by myself. At least the first attemps made readable the content > of IMD expanded with a simple "type". Thanks ! There's also IMDV (IMageDisk Viewer) which lets you examining the content of an IMD file as hex/ascii dumps, can search for strings, find and display all strings etc. -- dave09 (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jun 8 08:03:02 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:03:02 -0600 Subject: SRP aids unit testing In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:38:13 -0600. Message-ID: Gahhh... damn sleepy fingers sent this to the wrong mailing list, sorry guys. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com Mon Jun 8 06:39:03 2009 From: c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com (Murray McCullough) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 07:39:03 -0400 Subject: cctalkDigest, June 4, 2009, History of the Microcomputer Message-ID: >From June 4, 2009, cctalkDigest, Vol. 70, Issue 12, Message 27: "Question on, A Historical Research Guide to the Microcomputer, 2nd Edition." Thanks Christian for mentioning my book. It's a Canadian perspective on what is essentially an American invention though a Canadian played an important role in the birth of the microcomputer! The highly electronized tool, albeit one from bygone days, we use on a daily basis - I use the Coleco ADAM, has a fascinating history. Murray McCullough From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jun 8 10:20:25 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:20:25 -0700 Subject: DTC-510B controller In-Reply-To: <525F300ED06D4D86862557450CD75356@HPRoberto> References: <525F300ED06D4D86862557450CD75356@HPRoberto> Message-ID: <4A2D2C39.5050305@bitsavers.org> Roberto Bazzano wrote: > Hello. > I'm trying to replace a Xebec S1410A SASI controller with a Data > Technology Corp. DTC-510B or DTC-510A, for a old homebrew computer > (http://www.z80ne.com) > > The problem is that, even if the controllers should be "almost" > compatible, the DTC-510A/B doesn't work (while the Xebec works fine). > I'm not able to find any manual about it, only some dipswitch settings. > > Perhaps has someone a user manual for DTC-510B (and DTC-510A) so that I > can compare commands, configurations, etc. with Xebec S1410A? > I have uploaded the manual for the 4 drive version (520A) to bitsavers. Before SCSI, there was no common command set for disc adapters. I seriously doubt the on-disk format or the command set is exactly compatible between Xebec and DTC. From IanK at vulcan.com Mon Jun 8 10:50:53 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 08:50:53 -0700 Subject: TC08 documentation Message-ID: Hi all, I'm troubleshooting a TC08 DECtape controller, and one thing I'm missing is the module 'utilization' (placement) guide that exists in other documentation (e.g. TC01, TU56). It appears from sequence numbers that the online copy of the TC08 Maintenance Manual might be missing that page. Does anyone have a copy that they would be willing to scan? I want to know which G888 is which, i.e. which one serves the mark track, which the diagnostics tell me is not happy. Also, the maintenance guide states that there are values for various settings on the engineering diagrams; no such values appear on the drawings in the appendix to the maintenance guide. Does anyone have the engineering drawings for the TC08? Thanks -- Ian Ian King, Vintage Systems Engineer PDP Planet Project Vulcan, Inc. http://www.pdpplanet.com From spedraja at ono.com Mon Jun 8 12:12:56 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 19:12:56 +0200 Subject: Altos 686 In-Reply-To: <14CB56797E30@dunfield.com> References: <14CB56797E30@dunfield.com> Message-ID: Thanks, Dave. I used it and let me see the contents of the image disk file. Some garbage information appears from time to time between the cobol text. I suppose this is information from the disk track itself or some kind of binary... I shall not know it until I can mount the image in one Unix or Linux system. Regards Sergio 2009/6/8 Dave Dunfield > > > The ImageDisk Utility (IMDU - included with ImageDisk) can do many > things > > > with an ImageDisk image including convert it to a raw binary file > (linear > > > dump of sectors). Many simulators and emulators can mount that binary > file. > > > > > > > I checked it by myself. At least the first attemps made readable the > content > > of IMD expanded with a simple "type". Thanks ! > > There's also IMDV (IMageDisk Viewer) which lets you examining the content > of an > IMD file as hex/ascii dumps, can search for strings, find and display all > strings > etc. > > -- > dave09 (at) Dave Dunfield > dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com > com Collector of vintage computing equipment: > http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html > From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jun 8 12:19:04 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:19:04 -0700 Subject: TC08 documentation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2D4808.2070004@bitsavers.org> Ian King wrote: > Hi all, > > It appears from sequence numbers that the online copy of the TC08 Maintenance Manual might be missing that page. It looks like the even numbered schematic pages may all be missing. I'm checking to see if I forgot to scan them. From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 8 12:24:25 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:24:25 -0400 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2D4949.6080509@gmail.com> Tony Duell wrote: >> I know for a fact that IBM offered p-System for the PC, because I have a >> copy of *IBM's* p-System and all its manuals (binder-in-box) for the PC. >> The binders are blue. The PC-DOS ones are beige/tan, if my memory >> serves me. > > > One of them is pink, I forget if that's PC-DOS or BASIC, but probably the > latter. BASIC is definitely pink. Peace... Sridhar From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 8 12:57:06 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 18:57:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2C517F.9090700@bitsavers.org> from "Al Kossow" at Jun 7, 9 04:47:11 pm Message-ID: > > Dave McGuire wrote: > > > I have a Sage II, with a P-system boot disk. It's neat. I'd love to > > find CP/M-68K for it though. > > > > try http://www.sageandstride.org/ Thanks for that. I see the P-system disks are there too... I am going to have to get imagedisk running on my strange machine... And then dig out the Sage, and replace the chip I 'borrowed' from it (the fact that all ICs are socketed measn it was a prime candidate as a donor :-(). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 8 13:04:50 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 19:04:50 +0100 (BST) Subject: Calculator repair fun In-Reply-To: <79qo2553scb70drjipdflsbt379fd52tlh@4ax.com> from "Charles Morris" at Jun 7, 9 08:43:13 pm Message-ID: > > This is a perfect example of why I never throw anything away... I think that applies to most people on this list, or at least most hardware types here. I certainly have things that other (sane?) people would have thrown away years ago. And one day they come in very useful... > > a couple of months ago I found a nice Craig (Bowmar) 8-digit > calculator at an antique mall for $3. No charger, so of course it > didn't work. > > =46inally got around to disassembling it - the six AA nicads had leaked > grossly but fortunately did little damage to the board above it. > Powered it up from a bench supply and promptly discovered that one > segment of one digit wouldn't light... not much good in a calculator > since 8 and 9 looked the same :( > > But - I looked in my "LED drawer" and there was a little PCB with Ah, yopu actaully sort your bits. I just have a houseful, and hope I can rememebr where I've put things.... > eight MAN-3A displays mounted on it. I remember buying that out of my > pocket money at Radio Shack (couldn't have been Poly Paks because it > works) when I was about 12. And that was thirty-five years ago... > > It was the same overall size as the one-piece (bare LEDs with bonding > wires beneath a glued-on red lens) display PCB that was in there. And > a battery and resistor showed that it had the same common-cathode > matrix, and even the same number of connections! I unsoldered the old > display and double-checked that the one digit's segment was indeed bad > - put in the new display, powered back up and it worked 100% :) I rememebr once repairing a friend's Novus calculator using a display taken from a dead Commoodore machine. Like you, it looked the same, had the same number of pins. and a bit of testing with PSU and resistor showed the connections were the same (as far as I could test, the working segments in the defective display were wired between the same pins on the good display). > So that's why I never throw anything away. Who'd have thought that an > LED display stick I bought over 30 years ago would find a home in an > early 70's calculator... in 2009. Of course now I have yet another > vintage four-function calculator I don't need, but it still feels good > to fix something that would otherwise have ended up in the trash. One of my favourite HPs is a 'worthless' HP45. It's worthless because it's in very poor condition (legends rubbed off, the display digits aren't all the same size, etc). And the reason I like it is becasue I built it from junk. A collection of bits from anotehr HPCC memeber. The displays (3 off 5 digit modules) came off a couple of boards (which is why they're not all the same size), the logic board has a A&R (Arithmetic and Registers) chip taken from another board, and a transistor from my junk box, etc. Works fine... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 8 13:07:09 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 19:07:09 +0100 (BST) Subject: Calculator repair fun In-Reply-To: <4A2C0F62.5259.21131A2F@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 7, 9 07:05:06 pm Message-ID: > I hate throwing things away particularly if they're not working (I > don't mind giving away working things) I recently repaired a > cordless drill with a MOSFET taken from an old 1/2" tape drive > controller board. Round here, it would more likely be the reverse -- fixing a magtape controller using a transistor taken from a cordless drill :-)... I think I mentioned I once raided a CRT from a portable TV to fix a somewhat odd terminal (Volker-Craig VC414 with APL character set). -tony From vrs at msn.com Mon Jun 8 13:59:20 2009 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 11:59:20 -0700 Subject: TC08 documentation References: Message-ID: > I'm troubleshooting a TC08 DECtape controller, and one thing I'm > missing is the module 'utilization' (placement) guide that exists > in other documentation (e.g. TC01, TU56). It's in the FSTM: http://www.pdp8online.com/bklatt/TechTips.html http://www.pdp8online.com/bklatt/705.png Vince From trag at io.com Mon Jun 8 14:06:18 2009 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 14:06:18 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7926644e39f21d8ad873d0b6857ddeb0.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> > Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 21:47:05 -0500 > From: Brian Lanning > On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 9:41 PM, Cameron Kaiser > wrote: >>> > Quadra 700 > I could easily be wrong. It might be 4 4s instead of 4 1s. The Q700 has 4 MB soldered to the logic board and four 30-pin SIMM sockets. So the minimum RAM is 4 MB unless someone has been stealing chips off of the thing. With four SIMMs installed, it should have at least 8 MB, although if 256KB SIMMs were supported it could be as low as 5 MB. I don't remember if they were. It supports up to 16 MB SIMMs, so the maximum RAM possible is 68 MB. Its big brother, the Quadra 900, supports up to 256 MB of RAM with sixteen 30-pin SIMM sockets. Pretty good for a computer from 1991. Jeff Walther From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Mon Jun 8 15:30:41 2009 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:30:41 -0400 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?Remembering_the_true*_first_portable_?= =?windows-1252?Q?computer_=95_The_Register?= Message-ID: <4A2D74F1.2090104@sbcglobal.net> And on the last page, they give credit to CHM for letting them "drool over the machinery": http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/05/tob_minuteman_1/ -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss From IanK at vulcan.com Mon Jun 8 15:57:51 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 13:57:51 -0700 Subject: TC08 documentation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks! On that same site, one of my colleagues found the step-by-step alignment procedure for a TC08, including all those values that weren't on the drawings. I'm taking a break from going through that - it does involve getting one's self into some interesting positions (trim this pot while watching the scope....) -- Ian > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Vincent Slyngstad > Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 11:59 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: TC08 documentation > > > I'm troubleshooting a TC08 DECtape controller, and one thing I'm > > missing is the module 'utilization' (placement) guide that exists > > in other documentation (e.g. TC01, TU56). > > It's in the FSTM: > http://www.pdp8online.com/bklatt/TechTips.html > http://www.pdp8online.com/bklatt/705.png > > Vince From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jun 8 16:32:38 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 14:32:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) In-Reply-To: <7926644e39f21d8ad873d0b6857ddeb0.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> from Jeff Walther at "Jun 8, 9 02:06:18 pm" Message-ID: <200906082132.n58LWc3t020492@floodgap.com> > > I could easily be wrong. It might be 4 4s instead of 4 1s. > > The Q700 has 4 MB soldered to the logic board and four 30-pin SIMM > sockets. D'oh, I was thinking of the IIci ... -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- there's a dance or two in the old dame yet. -- mehitabel ------------------- From evan at snarc.net Mon Jun 8 16:47:35 2009 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:47:35 -0400 Subject: =?UTF-8?B?UmU6IFJlbWVtYmVyaW5nIHRoZSB0cnVlKiBmaXJzdCBwb3J0YWJsZSA=?= =?UTF-8?B?Y29tcHV0ZXIg4oCiIFRoZSBSZWdpc3Rlcg==?= In-Reply-To: <4A2D74F1.2090104@sbcglobal.net> References: <4A2D74F1.2090104@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <4A2D86F7.6090604@snarc.net> DYSEAC was running in 1954. It was mounted in an Army truck. Not quite a Osborne, but it was the first time a modern, digital computer was specifically designed for mobility. From lists at databasics.us Mon Jun 8 18:32:47 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:32:47 -1000 Subject: Stupid problems / was Re: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: <4A2ABC8D.88204AC3@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A2ABC8D.88204AC3@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A2D9F9F.7030003@databasics.us> Brent Hilpert wrote: > > I suffered with the problem for ages, then finally clued in that my bench/lab > power supply - which of course contained a power transformer which of course > would generate a magnetic field - was sitting on top of the scope, just above > the CRT. Back in the old days, I got a call from a friend who was being driven nuts by his CP/M computer, which was a current, nice machine at the time. His 8" disks were randomly flaking out on him, and he had taken the whole system in to the store several times (a difficult task, back then) and when they set it up, there were no problems. He was going crazy, keeping multiple backups of each session, and still losing a lot of work. He had had numerous people over after business hours to try to find the problem, but had had no luck. With a techie there, there was never a problem. I went over to his place, and we watched for a while, with no effect. I wrote a program which wrote pseudo-random crap on the disk, and then randomly skipped around reading various tracks and sectors, checking the data, and then re-writing it, ringing the bell like a hunchback on crack if it found one of the sectors did not have the proper information or if a write failed. (Program: Quasi.com) We ran that sucker for hours, with no problems detected. I told him that my wife and I had plans for dinner that I didn't want to mess with, so when she called, that was it, I had to leave. It was getting near the time when she would call, and he was getting desperate. He appeared to be close to tears with frustration. "Look, I know there's no problem NOW, but, really, it fails all the time when I'm doing actual work. What's different about that?" Whiner. Finally, as things happen, my time was up -- my wife called.... And the terminal bell started going nuts at the same time. We both started, and I reached to pick up the phone.... which was sitting on top of his disk drive enclosure. The (Old Bell System) phone had a real bell, and the magnetic field generated when the phone rang was scrambling any disks in the drive at the time. During work, of course, he got lots of calls, hence had lots of problems. After work, nobody called. Sheesh. I moved his phone to the other side of the desk... problem solved. Warren From doug at stillhq.com Mon Jun 8 18:39:11 2009 From: doug at stillhq.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:39:11 +1000 Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <2645f9870906062113p609bd61cqc1e280296c0022a1@mail.gmail.com> References: <2645f9870906062113p609bd61cqc1e280296c0022a1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2DA11F.6020504@stillhq.com> B M wrote - in relation to using vtserver to load an image onto a PDP-11/10: > "I was thinking of using vtserver to transfer the image over a serial > line, but the 'copy' program is not compatible with my PDP-11/05 (it > uses the 'mul' and 'div' instructions which is not available on my > PDP-11/10)." > > Is this the same reason why I cant get vtserver to work with my PDP-11/04 and PDP-11/34? Has anybody else had success with this? Has anybody considered a guaranteel clean version of vtserver that 'just ran' on all PDP-11 hardware (or is that a pipedream)? Doug From RichA at vulcan.com Mon Jun 8 19:20:58 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 17:20:58 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: <001c01c9e7dd$3c680b10$6400a8c0@acerd3c08b49af> References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net><4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> <4A294FFF.8070301@arachelian.com> <001c01c9e7dd$3c680b10$6400a8c0@acerd3c08b49af> Message-ID: > From: CSquared > Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 7:03 PM > I've been following all the comments about Soul with considerable interest. > Am I the only one who found it a bit sad? I finally got around to reading > it a couple of years ago, and it seemed to me to describe all too accurately > what strikes me as the employee abuse that characterized way too much of the > engineering development process during that era. "during that era"? I saw the same kinds of things 20 years later, and don't think they've stopped since then. It's something you sign up for, in expectation of appropriate reward. From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jun 8 19:39:36 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 20:39:36 -0400 Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <4A2DA11F.6020504@stillhq.com> References: <2645f9870906062113p609bd61cqc1e280296c0022a1@mail.gmail.com> <4A2DA11F.6020504@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <2E8F69A2-B0C6-4018-B13B-F9211A5A3947@neurotica.com> On Jun 8, 2009, at 7:39 PM, Doug Jackson wrote: >> "I was thinking of using vtserver to transfer the image over a serial >> line, but the 'copy' program is not compatible with my PDP-11/05 (it >> uses the 'mul' and 'div' instructions which is not available on my >> PDP-11/10)." >> > Is this the same reason why I cant get vtserver to work with my > PDP-11/04 and PDP-11/34? Has anybody else had success with this? I've not used it on either of those models, but if memory serves, the 11/34 has mul/div instructions, but the 11/04 does not. > Has anybody considered a guaranteel clean version of vtserver that > 'just ran' on all PDP-11 hardware (or is that a pipedream)? We really need some enterprising person to spend a weekend hacking on vtserver. Extend the file size limitations, support more target processors, etc. I'd love to do it myself, but as with everyone else, no time. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jun 8 20:34:40 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 21:34:40 -0400 Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <4A2DA11F.6020504@stillhq.com> References: <2645f9870906062113p609bd61cqc1e280296c0022a1@mail.gmail.com> <4A2DA11F.6020504@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <200906082134.41111.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 08 June 2009, Doug Jackson wrote: > B M wrote - in relation to using vtserver to load an image onto a > > PDP-11/10: > > "I was thinking of using vtserver to transfer the image over a > > serial line, but the 'copy' program is not compatible with my > > PDP-11/05 (it uses the 'mul' and 'div' instructions which is not > > available on my PDP-11/10)." > > Is this the same reason why I cant get vtserver to work with my > PDP-11/04 and PDP-11/34? Has anybody else had success with this? Well, IIRC, vtserver requires an MMU and >32kW of ram, though I don't remember how much exactly. So, that pretty much excludes anything less than an 11/23, or some higher numbered models without an MMU or enough memory installed. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From lynchaj at yahoo.com Mon Jun 8 20:51:49 2009 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 21:51:49 -0400 Subject: S-100 home brew project Message-ID: Hi! Is anyone interested in an S-100 home brew project? I am thinking build a system using the principles in the Libes and Bursky books. A group project where everyone builds the boards on prototyping boards as we go. For example, an 8080A or Z80 CPU board, a SRAM/ROM board, a serial board, etc. Keep the boards relatively simple and low chip count -- nothing exotic. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Mon Jun 8 21:25:17 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:25:17 -0700 Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <2E8F69A2-B0C6-4018-B13B-F9211A5A3947@neurotica.com> References: <2645f9870906062113p609bd61cqc1e280296c0022a1@mail.gmail.com> <4A2DA11F.6020504@stillhq.com> <2E8F69A2-B0C6-4018-B13B-F9211A5A3947@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A2DC80D.1070906@mail.msu.edu> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 8, 2009, at 7:39 PM, Doug Jackson wrote: >>> "I was thinking of using vtserver to transfer the image over a serial >>> line, but the 'copy' program is not compatible with my PDP-11/05 (it >>> uses the 'mul' and 'div' instructions which is not available on my >>> PDP-11/10)." >>> >> Is this the same reason why I cant get vtserver to work with my >> PDP-11/04 and PDP-11/34? Has anybody else had success with this? > > I've not used it on either of those models, but if memory serves, > the 11/34 has mul/div instructions, but the 11/04 does not. > >> Has anybody considered a guaranteel clean version of vtserver that >> 'just ran' on all PDP-11 hardware (or is that a pipedream)? > > We really need some enterprising person to spend a weekend hacking > on vtserver. Extend the file size limitations, support more target > processors, etc. I'd love to do it myself, but as with everyone else, > no time. Well, I've been working (slowly, in my _spare_ spare time) on a Windows version of VTServer (I know there is one out there, but it never worked for me). I'm basically porting the original C code over to C# and doing some severe cleanup/refactoring/etc. Getting rid of the 32mb limit was one goal, I wasn't aware of the processor limitation, but I think that would be worthwhile too. (And it should run fine on any system that can run Mono, so I'm not leaving you Unix guys out, honest...) One of these days I'll finish it... > > -Dave > From lists at databasics.us Mon Jun 8 21:34:30 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:34:30 -1000 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> Roger Holmes wrote: > (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. Warren From drb at msu.edu Mon Jun 8 21:43:32 2009 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:43:32 -0400 Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 In-Reply-To: (Your message of Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:39:11 +1000.) <4A2DA11F.6020504@stillhq.com> References: <4A2DA11F.6020504@stillhq.com> <2645f9870906062113p609bd61cqc1e280296c0022a1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200906090243.n592hWmp006043@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > "I was thinking of using vtserver to transfer the image over a serial > line, but the 'copy' program is not compatible with my PDP-11/05 (it > uses the 'mul' and 'div' instructions which is not available on my > PDP-11/10)." I haven't exhaustively searched for such instructions, but a sample multiplication found in the C source didn't turn into a mul instruction. You sure this is the cause? De From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jun 8 22:26:40 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 20:26:40 -0700 Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon Message-ID: Is anyone interested in stuff located in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon? I'm not sure what all it would included. It might even depend on the persons interests. The stuff needs to be out of storage by this weekend, a lot has already been moved into the garage of our new house, and the rest will hopefully be moved between now and Sunday. Some free, some not so free. I'm looking to downsize and tighten the focus my collection since realistically I don't mess with the stuff much any more. Some items such as spares for my PDP-11's I'm not really interested in getting rid of. Though for the right price I could be talked out of most things. My focus has shifted primarily to DEC PDP-11, VAX, and Alpha as well as C-64. Though I'm hoping to get an Apple ][ of some sort up and running as well as a couple others now that I have the space. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From nico at farumdata.dk Mon Jun 8 22:27:53 2009 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 05:27:53 +0200 Subject: IBM 029 progress References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> Message-ID: <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> > Roger Holmes wrote: >> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) > > Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it > really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. > > I wonder how many Farads a car battery helds Nico From IanK at vulcan.com Mon Jun 8 22:37:44 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 20:37:44 -0700 Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I live in Seattle and own a truck. :-) I'm primarily interested in minicomputers, and not necessarily just 'mainstream' ones - for instance, I recently acquired a Nuclear Data mini. Also, I'm usually interested in peripherals, as it seems one never has enough. For instance, I thought I'd made a deal to pick up a couple of RK05s, but it fell through. So what's outside the PDP-11/VAX/Alpha realm? I'm interested. BTW, I'm responding as an individual, not necessarily on behalf of my company. Thanks -- Ian ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy [healyzh at aracnet.com] Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 8:26 PM To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon Is anyone interested in stuff located in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon? I'm not sure what all it would included. It might even depend on the persons interests. The stuff needs to be out of storage by this weekend, a lot has already been moved into the garage of our new house, and the rest will hopefully be moved between now and Sunday. Some free, some not so free. I'm looking to downsize and tighten the focus my collection since realistically I don't mess with the stuff much any more. Some items such as spares for my PDP-11's I'm not really interested in getting rid of. Though for the right price I could be talked out of most things. My focus has shifted primarily to DEC PDP-11, VAX, and Alpha as well as C-64. Though I'm hoping to get an Apple ][ of some sort up and running as well as a couple others now that I have the space. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jun 8 23:04:50 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 00:04:50 -0400 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?Re=3A_Remembering_the_true=2A_first_portable_computer_?= =?windows-1252?Q?=95_The_Register?= In-Reply-To: <4A2D74F1.2090104@sbcglobal.net> References: <4A2D74F1.2090104@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: > ? ? ? ?And on the last page, they give credit to CHM for letting them "drool > over the machinery": > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/05/tob_minuteman_1/ One has to take everything about missile tech history as if it has a huge red flag on it. The guidance computer from the article is a real oddball, in that it is one of the missile subsystems that somehow managed to get out into the public. Most never did, nor any documentation, and what little is still around is perilously close to being lost. Was there a missile guidance computer before the Minuteman 1 machines? Maybe. Maybe not. Don't take anything as gospel. The same is generally true for submarine tech, and of course crypto tech. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jun 8 23:07:34 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 00:07:34 -0400 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?Re=3A_Remembering_the_true=2A_first_portable_computer_?= =?windows-1252?Q?=95_The_Register?= In-Reply-To: <4A2D86F7.6090604@snarc.net> References: <4A2D74F1.2090104@sbcglobal.net> <4A2D86F7.6090604@snarc.net> Message-ID: > DYSEAC was running in 1954. ?It was mounted in an Army truck. ?Not quite a > Osborne, but it was the first time a modern, digital computer was > specifically designed for mobility. Do not be surprised if the crypto guys had something before that. But they ain't talking... -- Will From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 8 23:52:35 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:52:35 -0400 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> Message-ID: <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> Warren Wolfe wrote: > Roger Holmes wrote: >> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) > > Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it > really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. You could probably beat 100F by building into a 55gal drum and designing carefully. Peace... Sridhar From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jun 8 23:53:30 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 21:53:30 -0700 Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The only mini's I have left are DEC. I had a DG core plane, but most have gotten rid of it at some point. A lot of it went to Jim Willing when I got married (I don't even think I want to know what happened to it). There is a -8/e and a -8/f, but they'd take real money to get me to part with them. I know there is a RAM board (I think 128k) for the -8/a that came out of a DEC warehouse when Compaq was selling the contents of the warehouses off, I think the rest of the -8 parts are for the e and f. There is some 8-bit stuff. Some old Mac's, and a bunch of PC stuff. I'm honestly not sure what all there is that I don't want. I'm pretty sure there are some DEC spares, but that would take some time to figure out. Zane At 8:37 PM -0700 6/8/09, Ian King wrote: >I live in Seattle and own a truck. :-) I'm primarily interested in >minicomputers, and not necessarily just 'mainstream' ones - for >instance, I recently acquired a Nuclear Data mini. Also, I'm >usually interested in peripherals, as it seems one never has enough. >For instance, I thought I'd made a deal to pick up a couple of >RK05s, but it fell through. > >So what's outside the PDP-11/VAX/Alpha realm? I'm interested. BTW, >I'm responding as an individual, not necessarily on behalf of my >company. Thanks -- Ian >________________________________________ >From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] >On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy [healyzh at aracnet.com] >Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 8:26 PM >To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org >Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon > >Is anyone interested in stuff located in the vicinity of Portland, >Oregon? I'm not sure what all it would included. It might even >depend on the persons interests. > >The stuff needs to be out of storage by this weekend, a lot has >already been moved into the garage of our new house, and the rest >will hopefully be moved between now and Sunday. Some free, some not >so free. I'm looking to downsize and tighten the focus my collection >since realistically I don't mess with the stuff much any more. Some >items such as spares for my PDP-11's I'm not really interested in >getting rid of. Though for the right price I could be talked out of >most things. > >My focus has shifted primarily to DEC PDP-11, VAX, and Alpha as well >as C-64. Though I'm hoping to get an Apple ][ of some sort up and >running as well as a couple others now that I have the space. > >Zane > > >-- >| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | >| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | >| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | >+----------------------------------+----------------------------+ >| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | >| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | >| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jun 9 00:43:42 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:43:42 -0700 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2D4949.6080509@gmail.com> References: <4A2D4949.6080509@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2DF68E.7030801@mail.msu.edu> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Tony Duell wrote: >>> I know for a fact that IBM offered p-System for the PC, because I >>> have a copy of *IBM's* p-System and all its manuals (binder-in-box) >>> for the PC. The binders are blue. The PC-DOS ones are beige/tan, >>> if my memory serves me. >> >> >> One of them is pink, I forget if that's PC-DOS or BASIC, but probably >> the latter. > > BASIC is definitely pink. Hmm. I have DOS 1.1 and it's pink; the manual for BASIC is Dark Green-ish... > > Peace... Sridhar > > From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Jun 9 00:46:25 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 22:46:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: bizarre capacitance Message-ID: Anyone here use an Extech multimeter? This thing seems to get confused with certain capacitors. In particular, a new 10uF electrolytic register randomly from 1 to 8 nF whereas a 1-year-old 1uF electrolytic registers fine. -- 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? From james at machineroom.info Mon Jun 8 14:49:38 2009 From: james at machineroom.info (James Wilson) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:49:38 +0100 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2C036F.1000108@bitsavers.org> References: <4A2AC32C.1070103@machineroom.info> <4A2C036F.1000108@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4A2D6B52.4030608@machineroom.info> Al Kossow wrote: > James Wilson wrote: > >> UCSD P-system? >> >> Now theres a name I haven't seen in a while.... 10 or so years ago I >> worked for a company in Bristol (UK) who supposedly had the rights to >> the P-System. > > Do you know anyone who still has the code from them? > > There is an active P-System Yahoo group, and they have been > looking for it. > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/UCSDPascal/ > > Sadly not. AFAIK none of the original staff are still with the company, now called "Cabot communications" (cabot.co.uk). A good contact, if you can find him, would be Gordon Wilkie who used to be the technical manager and knew the P-System inside out. (A quick bit of hunting shows him as a freelance - http://www.bristolitservices.co.uk/index.html). Good luck! James From snhirsch at gmail.com Mon Jun 8 18:49:07 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 19:49:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: DTC-510B controller In-Reply-To: <525F300ED06D4D86862557450CD75356@HPRoberto> References: <525F300ED06D4D86862557450CD75356@HPRoberto> Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Jun 2009, Roberto Bazzano wrote: > Hello. > I'm trying to replace a Xebec S1410A SASI controller with a Data Technology > Corp. DTC-510B or DTC-510A, for a old homebrew computer > (http://www.z80ne.com) > > The problem is that, even if the controllers should be "almost" compatible, > the DTC-510A/B doesn't work (while the Xebec works fine). > I'm not able to find any manual about it, only some dipswitch settings. The S1410 required you to either tell it the drive size at startup or burn a custom EPROM. Later units saved this information on a reserved track and read it at controller reset. Is it possible the DTC and Xebec differ in this important area? -- From ohh at panix.com Tue Jun 9 00:25:45 2009 From: ohh at panix.com (O. Sharp) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 01:25:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Transistor Substitution Message-ID: Okay: I admit it, I am sometimes pig-ignorant about basic hardware questions. :/ I have a couple of DEC machines which I need to replace a few components on, and also stock up spares of others. With the transistors and diodes, however, I often can't find a direct replacement - and don't know how to figure out what a modern substitute is. For a 2N3009, for example, I can find basic information and a datasheet online easily enough - but as for choosing a functional, available substitute for it, I'm honestly not even sure where to begin. Is there a basic resource for determining modern equivalents for older transistors and diodes? Can someone helpfully provide me with a clue here? :) Thanks! -O.- From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jun 9 01:09:06 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:09:06 -0700 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> Message-ID: <4A2DFC82.60800@brouhaha.com> Nico de Jong wrote: > I wonder how many Farads a car battery helds Nico If you empty it out and fill it with capacitors, it will hold a few megafarads at 2 volts. From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jun 9 01:10:00 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:10:00 -0700 Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2DFCB8.7030207@mail.msu.edu> Tony Duell wrote: >>> Then I'd look at all the Unibus signals both with the terminator out >>> (they will still be terminated by the resistors at at the CPU end -- IIRC >>> on an 11/40 these are on the Unibus jumper between the CPU and first >>> expansion backplane) and with it fitted. I would guess something is >>> changing state, let's find out what. >>> >>> >> I will start looking at this tonight (assuming I have the time tonight >> :)). Thanks. >> > > OK, let us know how you get on :-) > > -tony > Ok, finally stopped being distracted by other shiny objects for long enough to do some more fiddling with the 11/40. And of course, instead of hooking up the logic analyzer, I decided to play around with the Console SLU/LTC board. Because I evidently don't follow suggestions well. But this has a good ending, sort of. Maybe. So the SLU was unresponsive no matter what I did. Tried it at 9600 baud, no go. Dialed it down to 300, no dice. Checked the continuity of the dip switches, of which there are approximately 500. No problems there. Checked, and double-checked the wiring on the serial cable I built. No go. Stole the cable from my 8/e... still no good. So I moved it out of the 9th slot on the processor backplane and into the first slot on Unibus backplane. (And put a grant card in the 9th slot...) And hey, it works. Toggled in a short "echo" program and what I type on the terminal keyboard is echoed back, at a blistering 300 baud. So... clearly there's something wrong with the SPC slot on the processor backplane. A couple more questions: 1) Is the NPG grant on the unibus slot on the processor backplane (slot 9) supposed to be connected to the NPG grants on the Unibus expansion? That is -- right now if I set my DMM to continuity mode and put one probe on CA1 on the first slot of the unibus expansion, and the other on CB1 on the last slot of the unibus expansion, since all NPG grant jumpers are in place, the DMM shows the circuit as closed. This is as I'd expect. However, if I move the probe from CA1 on the first slot of the expansion to CA1 on slot 9 of the processor backplane, the circuit is then open. I'm guessing this is not correct. (There is currently an NPG jumper installed on slot 9.) 2) Where is the +15V to the processor backplane supposed to be connected? (I suspect this may be the reason the SLU won't function in slot 9...). Right now it's plugged into pin CV1 on slot 9 (if I'm reading the Unibus pin chart right :)) but the docs I have found say this should be ACLO_L... Thanks as always... Josh From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 01:11:02 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 02:11:02 -0400 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2DF68E.7030801@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2D4949.6080509@gmail.com> <4A2DF68E.7030801@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A2DFCF6.60906@gmail.com> Josh Dersch wrote: > > > Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> Tony Duell wrote: >>>> I know for a fact that IBM offered p-System for the PC, because I >>>> have a copy of *IBM's* p-System and all its manuals (binder-in-box) >>>> for the PC. The binders are blue. The PC-DOS ones are beige/tan, >>>> if my memory serves me. >>> >>> >>> One of them is pink, I forget if that's PC-DOS or BASIC, but probably >>> the latter. >> >> BASIC is definitely pink. > > Hmm. I have DOS 1.1 and it's pink; the manual for BASIC is Dark > Green-ish... I have a DOS in tan. I have a BASIC in pink, and a BASIC in dark brown. I suspect age may have a part to play. Peace... Sridhar From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 01:34:11 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 02:34:11 -0400 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2DFCF6.60906@gmail.com> References: <4A2D4949.6080509@gmail.com> <4A2DF68E.7030801@mail.msu.edu> <4A2DFCF6.60906@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47084091-37DF-4527-8CD2-B6E3A1AF56FA@neurotica.com> On Jun 9, 2009, at 2:11 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>>>> I know for a fact that IBM offered p-System for the PC, because >>>>> I have a copy of *IBM's* p-System and all its manuals (binder- >>>>> in-box) for the PC. The binders are blue. The PC-DOS ones >>>>> are beige/tan, if my memory serves me. >>>> >>>> One of them is pink, I forget if that's PC-DOS or BASIC, but >>>> probably the latter. >>> >>> BASIC is definitely pink. >> Hmm. I have DOS 1.1 and it's pink; the manual for BASIC is Dark >> Green-ish... > > I have a DOS in tan. I have a BASIC in pink, and a BASIC in dark > brown. > > I suspect age may have a part to play. Yours, or the manuals'? ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jun 9 01:51:08 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:51:08 -0700 Subject: IBM 029 progress References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> Message-ID: <4A2E065B.6ED92383@cs.ubc.ca> Nico de Jong wrote: > > > Roger Holmes wrote: > >> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) > > > > Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it > > really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. > > > I wonder how many Farads a car battery helds Well, here's a rough off-the-cuff comparison of the two as energy storage devices: - If a 12V 40Ah battery supplies 40A for one hour into a load, then the load resistance is 12V/40A = 0.3 Ohms. - To achieve an RC time constant of 1 hour with 0.3 ohm R requires C of: 1h * 60m/h * 60s/m / 0.3 Ohms = 12000 Farads. (There is a lot to criticise in this comparison, notably that the RC time constant involves a significant drop in the voltage and hence current. A better comparison would utilise energy equations but then I'd have to look them up.) With that said, a battery is not a capacitor. They have a gross similarity as electrical energy storage devices but the electrochemical reactions of the battery result in very different electrical characteristics and response than does the 'pure' electrostatic nature of a capacitor. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 9 02:06:57 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:06:57 -0700 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A2E065B.6ED92383@cs.ubc.ca> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk>, <4A2E065B.6ED92383@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A2DA7A1.3668.274E1F23@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Jun 2009 at 23:51, Brent Hilpert wrote: > With that said, a battery is not a capacitor. They have a gross > similarity as electrical energy storage devices but the > electrochemical reactions of the battery result in very different > electrical characteristics and response than does the 'pure' > electrostatic nature of a capacitor. Have you been following the mystery of eeStor? They claim a capacitor with a better energy density than any secondary cell. They seem to be using a high voltage (3Kv) on some sort of barium titanate setup. It it's real, it'll be Very BIg News, but many think it's unadulterated snake oil. --Chuck From mike at brickfieldspark.org Tue Jun 9 03:05:39 2009 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 09:05:39 +0100 Subject: [personal] Transistor Substitution References: Message-ID: <000a01c9e8d9$14b36c20$961ca8c0@mss.local> > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "O. Sharp" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 6:25 AM > Subject: [personal] Transistor Substitution > I have a couple of DEC machines which I need to replace a few components > on, and also stock up spares of others. With the transistors and diodes, > however, I often can't find a direct replacement - and don't know how to > figure out what a modern substitute is. > > For a 2N3009, for example, I can find basic information and a datasheet > online easily enough - but as for choosing a functional, available > substitute for it, I'm honestly not even sure where to begin. Given the age of most DEC equipment there will be lots of transistors that will do the job. A quick Google with 2N3009 will come up with lots of info, Eg this site http://qrp.kd4ab.org/1997/971031/0071.html lists 2N3009 as an eqivalent to 2N2222 along with tons of others, any/most of which could be suitable. within reason a switching application would be less critical about spec changes than a precision analog application. Look for the basic overall ratings to be similar, voltage, current, power dissipation and gain. Package type is not so important until you get to the larger power types, but watch for pinouts there are multiple variants of TO92, TO18 and the rest, you might have to move legs around for an equivalent. You could go to the extent os setting up a small test rig & scope, get the signal conditions for a 2N3009 and then test some others. > > Is there a basic resource for determining modern equivalents for older > transistors and diodes? Can someone helpfully provide me with a clue here? > :) > > Thanks! > Best regards, Mike Hatch Web - www.soemtron.org PDP-7 - www.soemtron.org/pdp7.html Email - mike at soemtron.org Looking for a PDP-7 (some hope!) and an ASR33 From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Tue Jun 9 03:50:44 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:50:44 +0100 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> On Tue, 2009-06-09 at 00:52 -0400, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Warren Wolfe wrote: > > Roger Holmes wrote: > >> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) > > > > Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it > > really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. > > You could probably beat 100F by building into a 55gal drum and designing > carefully. Not that carefully. a 100F 2.7V capacitor is about the size of your thumb. Gordon From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Jun 9 05:22:47 2009 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:22:47 -0400 Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <2E8F69A2-B0C6-4018-B13B-F9211A5A3947@neurotica.com> References: <2645f9870906062113p609bd61cqc1e280296c0022a1@mail.gmail.com> <4A2DA11F.6020504@stillhq.com> <2E8F69A2-B0C6-4018-B13B-F9211A5A3947@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <15062.1244542967@mini> Dave McGuire wrote: >> Is this the same reason why I cant get vtserver to work with my >> PDP-11/04 and PDP-11/34? Has anybody else had success with this? I've used it on an 11/34. It works fine. It won't work on an 11/44 due to console issues (the console is not a clear channel). I have not tried it on anything else. Later this summer I plan to have an 11/34 with RK05's and a SCSI card and I'd be happy to load up RK05's for anyone; but I'd like to borrow/buy/trade-for an alignment disk first, just to be careful. -brad From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 07:58:36 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:58:36 -0400 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A2E5C7C.8090701@gmail.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > On Tue, 2009-06-09 at 00:52 -0400, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> Warren Wolfe wrote: >>> Roger Holmes wrote: >>>> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) >>> Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it >>> really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. >> You could probably beat 100F by building into a 55gal drum and designing >> carefully. > > Not that carefully. a 100F 2.7V capacitor is about the size of your > thumb. I was thinking of a waay higher voltage than that. Peace... Sridhar From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jun 9 08:39:56 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 06:39:56 -0700 Subject: Stupid problems / was Re: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: <4A2D9F9F.7030003@databasics.us> References: <4A2ABC8D.88204AC3@cs.ubc.ca> <4A2D9F9F.7030003@databasics.us> Message-ID: > From: lists at databasics.us > > Brent Hilpert wrote: >> >> I suffered with the problem for ages, then finally clued in that my bench/lab >> power supply - which of course contained a power transformer which of course >> would generate a magnetic field - was sitting on top of the scope, just above >> the CRT. > > > Back in the old days, I got a call from a friend who was being driven > nuts by his CP/M computer, which was a current, nice machine at the > time. His 8" disks were randomly flaking out on him, and he had taken > the whole system in to the store several times (a difficult task, back > then) and when they set it up, there were no problems. He was going > crazy, keeping multiple backups of each session, and still losing a lot > of work. He had had numerous people over after business hours to try to > find the problem, but had had no luck. With a techie there, there was > never a problem. > > I went over to his place, and we watched for a while, with no effect. I > wrote a program which wrote pseudo-random crap on the disk, and then > randomly skipped around reading various tracks and sectors, checking the > data, and then re-writing it, ringing the bell like a hunchback on crack > if it found one of the sectors did not have the proper information or if > a write failed. (Program: Quasi.com) > > We ran that sucker for hours, with no problems detected. I told him > that my wife and I had plans for dinner that I didn't want to mess with, > so when she called, that was it, I had to leave. It was getting near > the time when she would call, and he was getting desperate. He appeared > to be close to tears with frustration. "Look, I know there's no problem > NOW, but, really, it fails all the time when I'm doing actual work. > What's different about that?" Whiner. > > Finally, as things happen, my time was up -- my wife called.... And the > terminal bell started going nuts at the same time. We both started, and > I reached to pick up the phone.... which was sitting on top of his disk > drive enclosure. The (Old Bell System) phone had a real bell, and the > magnetic field generated when the phone rang was scrambling any disks in > the drive at the time. During work, of course, he got lots of calls, > hence had lots of problems. After work, nobody called. Sheesh. I > moved his phone to the other side of the desk... problem solved. > > Warren > Hi I'd seen similar problems from setting the video monitor on top of the PC. The color screens had the de-guassing coil that came on when turned on. It would get the disk to. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Lauren found her dream laptop. Find the PC that?s right for you. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/choosepc/?ocid=ftp_val_wl_290 From mross666 at hotmail.com Tue Jun 9 08:53:20 2009 From: mross666 at hotmail.com (Mike Ross) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 13:53:20 +0000 Subject: Remembering the true* first portable computer ? The Register In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Why would the crypto guys want anything portable way back then? Common sense says it's easier to send the data to the computer than the computer to the data! Mike http://www.corestore.org _________________________________________________________________ Lauren found her dream laptop. Find the PC that?s right for you. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/choosepc/?ocid=ftp_val_wl_290 From hadsell at blueskystudios.com Tue Jun 9 09:16:15 2009 From: hadsell at blueskystudios.com (Richard Hadsell) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:16:15 -0400 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2E6EAF.9080804@blueskystudios.com> David Griffith wrote: > > Anyone here use an Extech multimeter? This thing seems to get > confused with certain capacitors. In particular, a new 10uF > electrolytic register randomly from 1 to 8 nF whereas a 1-year-old 1uF > electrolytic registers fine. > Aren't electrolytics polarized? I think you would get a bad number if you have reversed the polarity. Try connecting the opposite test leads. -- Dick Hadsell 203-992-6320 Fax: 203-992-6001 Reply-to: hadsell at blueskystudios.com Blue Sky Studios http://www.blueskystudios.com 1 American Lane, Greenwich, CT 06831-2560 From dgahling at hotmail.com Tue Jun 9 09:30:31 2009 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 10:30:31 -0400 Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: your email address bounced. you wouldn't happen to have a microvax 2 in there would ya? Dan. > Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 20:26:40 -0700 > To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org > From: healyzh at aracnet.com > Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon > > Is anyone interested in stuff located in the vicinity of Portland, > Oregon? I'm not sure what all it would included. It might even > depend on the persons interests. > > The stuff needs to be out of storage by this weekend, a lot has > already been moved into the garage of our new house, and the rest > will hopefully be moved between now and Sunday. Some free, some not > so free. I'm looking to downsize and tighten the focus my collection > since realistically I don't mess with the stuff much any more. Some > items such as spares for my PDP-11's I'm not really interested in > getting rid of. Though for the right price I could be talked out of > most things. > > My focus has shifted primarily to DEC PDP-11, VAX, and Alpha as well > as C-64. Though I'm hoping to get an Apple ][ of some sort up and > running as well as a couple others now that I have the space. > > Zane > > > -- > | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | > | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | > | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | > +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ > | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | > | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | > | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | _________________________________________________________________ Attention all humans. We are your photos. Free us. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9666046 From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jun 9 09:45:41 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 07:45:41 -0700 Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Strange, it shouldn't have bounced. The only time it should do that is when my mailbox fills up (typically people sending to many photo's). I have spare MicroVAX II board sets (not sure how many), but no spare chassis's. Except for my VAXstation II/RC, all the chassis's are classified as spares for the PDP-11's or II/RC. Something I should have mentioned is that I might be interested in trading computer gear for the right Medium or Large Format photography equipment. Zane At 10:30 AM -0400 6/9/09, Dan Gahlinger wrote: >your email address bounced. >you wouldn't happen to have a microvax 2 in there would ya? > >Dan. > >> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 20:26:40 -0700 >> To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org >> From: healyzh at aracnet.com >> Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon >> >> Is anyone interested in stuff located in the vicinity of Portland, >> Oregon? I'm not sure what all it would included. It might even >> depend on the persons interests. >> >> The stuff needs to be out of storage by this weekend, a lot has >> already been moved into the garage of our new house, and the rest >> will hopefully be moved between now and Sunday. Some free, some not >> so free. I'm looking to downsize and tighten the focus my collection >> since realistically I don't mess with the stuff much any more. Some >> items such as spares for my PDP-11's I'm not really interested in >> getting rid of. Though for the right price I could be talked out of >> most things. >> >> My focus has shifted primarily to DEC PDP-11, VAX, and Alpha as well >> as C-64. Though I'm hoping to get an Apple ][ of some sort up and >> running as well as a couple others now that I have the space. >> >> Zane >> >> >> -- >> | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | >> | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | >> | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | >> +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ >> | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | >> | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | >> | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | > >_________________________________________________________________ >Attention all humans. We are your photos. Free us. >http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9666046 -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From jws at jwsss.com Tue Jun 9 03:04:46 2009 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:04:46 -0700 Subject: Thanks to Henk G for Cipher 100X parts Message-ID: <4A2E179E.5000401@jwsss.com> Henk has sent a care package from the Netherlands to LA, Ca with the most useful 10 kilo's of parts from a 100X he was scrapping out. Just wanted to relay thanks to him for a really long distance scrounge via the group. I just reorganized the stash with one of the most serviceable of my drives, so it will be interesting to compare the parts with my drive revision when they get here. I prioritized the selection to take the parts with the most likely to degrade first, then the motion control and read/write boards, then a variety of other sensors and power supply boards. The entire drive would have been prohibitive to ship. Anyone else had to distill a large unit and what were the priorities or choices made to scrounge? Did they pay off yet (have you ever raided your stash and actually fixed one of your units or someone else's?) Jim From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de Tue Jun 9 04:43:15 2009 From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:43:15 +0200 Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2E2EB3.70106@iais.fraunhofer.de> O. Sharp schrieb: > Okay: I admit it, I am sometimes pig-ignorant about basic hardware > questions. :/ > > I have a couple of DEC machines which I need to replace a few components > on, and also stock up spares of others. With the transistors and diodes, > however, I often can't find a direct replacement - and don't know how to > figure out what a modern substitute is. > > For a 2N3009, for example, I can find basic information and a datasheet > online easily enough - but as for choosing a functional, available > substitute for it, I'm honestly not even sure where to begin. > > Is there a basic resource for determining modern equivalents for older > transistors and diodes? Can someone helpfully provide me with a clue > here? :) There exist books which provide cross references replacement types for obsolete components. Often manufacturers also provide lists in the Web which recommend their own modern components for such old transistors. Google is your friend there. The point, however, is that one should carefully look at the circuit itself to find out what the transistor is actually used for. Take a basic amplifier, for instance (two resistors at the base, and one each at the collector and emitter, resp., AC-coupled). This circuit is built around certain transistor characteristics; IIRC, the AoE book describes the formulas. Unless you also replace the passive components around it, you should have a replacement with the same hfe21, Ube, Ic, Ib, and maybe even fT, etc. But often, this whole work is not required at all. The 2N3009 is not a "high speed switching NPN" with respect to modern devices - it may have been 30 years ago, and the other parameters do not really suggest it is something really uncommon. For some HF transistors, there may be a problem (cf. amplifiers!), but unlikely here. In digital DEC machines, such a beast is possibly just used for driving display bulbs, in the power supply, or converting voltage levels - I don't know the circuit you refer to. In such a case, I have no problems to take some modern standard NPN with almost the same characteristics (Ic, Uce, P, hfe) which I find in my semiconductor box. -- Holger From fti1983 at xmission.com Tue Jun 9 11:59:01 2009 From: fti1983 at xmission.com (Steve Moulding) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 10:59:01 -0600 Subject: Transistor Substitution References: <4A2E2EB3.70106@iais.fraunhofer.de> Message-ID: Holger Veit wrote: > O. Sharp schrieb: >> Okay: I admit it, I am sometimes pig-ignorant about basic hardware >> questions. :/ >> >> I have a couple of DEC machines which I need to replace a few >> components on, and also stock up spares of others. With the >> transistors and diodes, however, I often can't find a direct >> replacement - and don't know how to figure out what a modern >> substitute is. >> >> For a 2N3009, for example, I can find basic information and a >> datasheet online easily enough - but as for choosing a functional, >> available substitute for it, I'm honestly not even sure where to >> begin. >> >> Is there a basic resource for determining modern equivalents for >> older transistors and diodes? Can someone helpfully provide me with >> a clue here? :) > > There exist books which provide cross references replacement types for > obsolete components. Often manufacturers also provide lists in the Web > which recommend their own modern components for such old transistors. > Google is your friend there. > > The point, however, is that one should carefully look at the circuit > itself to find out what the transistor is actually used for. > > Take a basic amplifier, for instance (two resistors at the base, and > one each at the collector and emitter, resp., AC-coupled). This > circuit > is built around certain transistor characteristics; IIRC, the AoE book > describes the formulas. Unless you also replace the passive components > around it, you should have a replacement with the same hfe21, Ube, > Ic, Ib, > and maybe even fT, etc. > > But often, this whole work is not required at all. The 2N3009 is not > a "high speed switching NPN" with respect to modern devices - it may > have been 30 years ago, > and the other parameters do not really suggest it is something really > uncommon. > For some HF transistors, there may be a problem (cf. amplifiers!), > but unlikely here. > > In digital DEC machines, such a beast is possibly just used for > driving > display bulbs, in the power supply, or converting voltage levels - > I don't know the circuit you refer to. > In such a case, I have no problems to take some modern standard NPN > with > almost the same characteristics (Ic, Uce, P, hfe) which I find in my > semiconductor box. Try FindChips.com They show three vendors that have the 2N3009 in stock. Steve From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 9 12:08:09 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:08:09 -0700 Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <4A2E3489.15995.29749A2C@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jun 2009 at 10:59, Steve Moulding wrote: > Try FindChips.com They show three vendors that have the 2N3009 in > stock. Let's not forget NTE: http://nte01.nteinc.com/nte/NTExRefSemiProd.nsf/$$Search Which shows that the replacement for the 2n3009 is NTE123A. --Chuck From tshoppa at wmata.com Tue Jun 9 12:21:56 2009 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 13:21:56 -0400 Subject: bizarre capacitance Message-ID: David writes: ? Anyone here use an Extech multimeter? This thing seems ? to get confused with certain capacitors. In particular, ? a new 10uF electrolytic register randomly from 1 to 8 ? nF whereas a 1-year-old 1uF electrolytic registers fine. I never trust autoranging multimeters. What's happening is that it is applying a charging current, seeing a dV/dt response that's in a different range, trying to switch to a different range, applying a different charging current, seeing dV/dt in some other range, switching to a different charging current, etc. The textbook definition of capacitance I = C dV/dt works great in a truly linear world but old electrolytics have leakage, soakage, nonlinearities, and other things messing up the textbook definition. Soakage is always fun. Take a big electrolytic, short it out and remove the short, let it sit for a while on the bench, then put a hi-impedance voltmeter on it. It will not read 0V. Tim. From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 12:48:19 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 13:48:19 -0400 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> On Jun 9, 2009, at 1:21 PM, Shoppa, Tim wrote: > Soakage is always fun. Take a big electrolytic, short it out and > remove the short, let it sit for a while on the bench, then put a > hi-impedance voltmeter on it. It will not read 0V. I've run into this! Except one doesn't need a high-impedance meter for it...I've seen them somehow recover enough charge to produce a spark when re-shorted. It's very odd. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jun 9 12:55:10 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:55:10 -0700 Subject: (OT) batteries & e storage / was Re: IBM 029 progress References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk>, <4A2E065B.6ED92383@cs.ubc.ca> <4A2DA7A1.3668.274E1F23@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A2EA1FD.1E69F0B@cs.ubc.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Have you been following the mystery of eeStor? They claim a > capacitor with a better energy density than any secondary cell. They > seem to be using a high voltage (3Kv) on some sort of barium titanate > setup. It it's real, it'll be Very BIg News, but many think it's > unadulterated snake oil. No, hadn't heard, I'll have to go look it up. A year or so ago I heard a news interview about an aluminum/oxide fuel cell, that is, the fuel is aluminum, handled in such a way that electrical energy is released as it undergoes controlled oxidation. Haven't heard anything since; struck me as sounds good in theory, not so much in practice and economics. From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Tue Jun 9 11:46:57 2009 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:46:57 -0700 Subject: Transistor Substitution References: Message-ID: <002101c9e921$e7e92a60$0201a8c0@hal9000> I don't know where you are physically located (?) but I still think this will be helpful. First place I check is the NTE Cross Reference Search ; http://nte01.nteinc.com/nte/NTExRefSemiProd.nsf/$$Search?OpenForm I've found it to be very helpful finding replacement parts and even datasheets I couldn't find elsewhere. According to their PDF datasheet an NTE123A is a replacement. TO18 package, 40 Volt, 0.8 Amp, 300 MHz NPN bipolar transistor. A 2N2222 would not work well here. Hope this helps. Best regards, Steven ----- Original Message ----- From: "O. Sharp" To: Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 10:25 PM Subject: Transistor Substitution > > Okay: I admit it, I am sometimes pig-ignorant about basic hardware > questions. :/ > > I have a couple of DEC machines which I need to replace a few components > on, and also stock up spares of others. With the transistors and diodes, > however, I often can't find a direct replacement - and don't know how to > figure out what a modern substitute is. > > For a 2N3009, for example, I can find basic information and a datasheet > online easily enough - but as for choosing a functional, available > substitute for it, I'm honestly not even sure where to begin. > > Is there a basic resource for determining modern equivalents for older > transistors and diodes? Can someone helpfully provide me with a clue > here? :) > > Thanks! From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 9 13:00:11 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 11:00:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> Message-ID: <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> >> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) > Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it > really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. Would a "thunder cloud" be considered a capacitor? If so, how many MF would lightning take? Was "capacitator" ever a valid name? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 9 12:37:50 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 18:37:50 +0100 (BST) Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 8, 9 04:34:30 pm Message-ID: > > Roger Holmes wrote: > > (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) > > Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it > really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. I rememebr seeing a 2.7kF (yes, kilofarad) capactior in a catalogue, but I think it's now been discontinued... I've never seen anythlng larger. The reason MF (or MFD) was used for microfarad was, I guess, they couldn't print/stamp lower case or greek letters onto the components. I've also seem MMFD (micro micro farad) for what is more commonly called pF. I guess this is one reason why mF (millifarad (1000uF)) is not commonly used. It would casue too much confusion with the old MF. Anyone else rememebr an upside-down Omega being used for megohms? And I am sure I've seen 'M' being used for 1000 In resistor values in some old service manuals (maybe RCA). Caused a lot of confusion to me at first (why does this valve have a 47 meg resistor feeding the screen grid??? Oh, they mean 47k..) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 9 12:40:51 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 18:40:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> from "Nico de Jong" at Jun 9, 9 05:27:53 am Message-ID: > > > > > Roger Holmes wrote: > >> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) > > > > Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it > > really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. > > > > > I wonder how many Farads a car battery helds It doesn't. The 'intennal' difference being that a capacitor stores energy in an electrostatic field, a car battery stores it chemcially. The practical diffeeence being that a car battery can only be used close to its nominal voltage, a capacitor can be charged to any voltage up to its breakdown voltage (if I have a 12V capacitor, I can charge it to 3V, or 7V, or.. but I can't charge a car battery to anythign other than 12V). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 9 12:53:39 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 18:53:39 +0100 (BST) Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: from "O. Sharp" at Jun 9, 9 01:25:45 am Message-ID: > > > Okay: I admit it, I am sometimes pig-ignorant about basic hardware > questions. :/ > > I have a couple of DEC machines which I need to replace a few components > on, and also stock up spares of others. With the transistors and diodes, > however, I often can't find a direct replacement - and don't know how to > figure out what a modern substitute is. > > For a 2N3009, for example, I can find basic information and a datasheet > online easily enough - but as for choosing a functional, available > substitute for it, I'm honestly not even sure where to begin. > > Is there a basic resource for determining modern equivalents for older > transistors and diodes? Can someone helpfully provide me with a clue > here? :) It depends on what the transistor is being used for.. In general transsitors used in the logic (particulalry low-speed ones, for things like lamp drivers) and transsitors used in linear PSUs are fairly easy to substitute. Transsitors used for high energy pulse work (SMPSU choppers, horizontal output transsitors in monitors) are a lot more critical, and the data sheet may bot help. Basically, you need to get the following right : Tpye/polarity (NPN or PNP etc) VOltage ratings high enough to stand voltages in the circuit (if the ratings of the substitute exceed those of the original, you should be OK) Current ratings (particularly Ic, collector current). Again, if your substitute is better than the original it should be OK Gain (hfe and all its varients) is not too critical in most classic computer applications, particularly for switich transiustors which are driven hard into saturation. But try not to use a transistor of too low a gain. Max frequency (Ft, etc) is something you should look at in logic transistors, particularly in higher speed circuits, clock oscillators, etc. But my experience is if you pick something of the same polarity and similar characteristics, it'll work in most classic computer circuits (except for SMPSUs and horizontal output stages). Probaly 99% of small-signal transistors can be replaced y 2N3904 (NPN) and 2N3906 (PNP) :-) Diodes are evem more generic. Most switching diodes can be replaced with 1N4148 :-). For PSU rectiifers in linear PSUs (again, SMPSUs are another story), choose something with sufficient votlage rating (PIV -- peak inverse votlage) (2*sqrt(2)*output voltage should be safe, say 3 times the output voltage or more) and sufficient current rating (If, forward current). When there are similar diodes of different PIV ratings, I normally buy the highest. It's not much more expensive, and I'm on the side of safety. -tony From slawmaster at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 13:17:30 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 11:17:30 -0700 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <7d3530220906091117ydea64c8x377b6b72ac5f0ea9@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Fred Cisin wrote: > > Was "capacitator" ever a valid name? > It's what I used to say in 7th grade but I think I just read it wrong. Somebody corrected me and I've only seen 'capacitor' since. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 13:22:26 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 14:22:26 -0400 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <34A0F926-E7E8-400A-B71A-6FD0E4FBA856@neurotica.com> On Jun 9, 2009, at 2:00 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) >> Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it >> really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. > > Would a "thunder cloud" be considered a capacitor? Of course, with the other "plate" being the earth. > If so, how many MF would lightning take? LOTS. Think plate area. :) > Was "capacitator" ever a valid name? I don't believe so, but many of people have used it as such. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Jun 9 13:19:39 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 15:19:39 -0300 Subject: IBM 029 progress References: Message-ID: <116801c9e92f$09a1c060$af5419bb@desktaba> >> > Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it >> > really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. I imagine the BANG curto-circuiting a 100F cap :D From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 9 13:26:04 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:26:04 -0700 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jun 2009 at 13:48, Dave McGuire wrote: > I've run into this! Except one doesn't need a high-impedance > meter for it...I've seen them somehow recover enough charge to > produce a spark when re-shorted. It's very odd. Anyone who has done a lot of work on CRTs has experienced this. Disconnect the anode lead, short the anode cap, come back in a few minutes only to get another spark. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 9 13:29:16 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:29:16 -0700 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: References: <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 8, 9 04:34:30 pm, Message-ID: <4A2E478C.8933.29BEDE32@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jun 2009 at 18:37, Tony Duell wrote: > Anyone else rememebr an upside-down Omega being used for megohms? No--the common use was to use an inverted omega for the unit of conductance, the mho (now the Siemens or S). --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 9 13:30:46 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:30:46 -0700 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk>, <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric>, <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A2E47E6.26705.29C03C7A@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jun 2009 at 11:00, Fred Cisin wrote: > Was "capacitator" ever a valid name? Maybe--a Taser could be termed an "incapacitator"... --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 13:34:11 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 14:34:11 -0400 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Jun 9, 2009, at 2:26 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I've run into this! Except one doesn't need a high-impedance >> meter for it...I've seen them somehow recover enough charge to >> produce a spark when re-shorted. It's very odd. > > Anyone who has done a lot of work on CRTs has experienced this. > Disconnect the anode lead, short the anode cap, come back in a few > minutes only to get another spark. Yes. I used to work on TVs a lot when I was a kid; I'd dig dead ones out of dumpsters and (sometimes) fix and sell them. I got two or three good jolts from CRTs before I figured out what was going on. I never did quite understand how it happened, though...do you know the physics behind it? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jun 9 13:46:22 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:46:22 -0700 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> <34A0F926-E7E8-400A-B71A-6FD0E4FBA856@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A2EADFD.18958D84@cs.ubc.ca> Dave McGuire wrote: > > On Jun 9, 2009, at 2:00 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > >>> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) > >> Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it > >> really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. > > > > Would a "thunder cloud" be considered a capacitor? > > Of course, with the other "plate" being the earth. > > > If so, how many MF would lightning take? > > LOTS. Think plate area. :) Without some numbers, I'm not entirely sure about that. Large plate area but also a rather thick dielectric and hence large plate separation. Yes, a tremendous amount of energy is released in a lightning strike (aka dielectric breakdown) but that comes with a very high voltage. C=Q/V, energy is also a function of Q & V, large amount of energy does not necessarily imply large C. > > Was "capacitator" ever a valid name? Sounds like a political leader or a type of potato chip. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jun 9 13:48:40 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:48:40 -0600 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A2E5C7C.8090701@gmail.com> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <4A2E5C7C.8090701@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2EAE88.2020100@jetnet.ab.ca> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> On Tue, 2009-06-09 at 00:52 -0400, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> Warren Wolfe wrote: >>>> Roger Holmes wrote: >>>>> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) >>>> Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it >>>> really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. >>> You could probably beat 100F by building into a 55gal drum and >>> designing carefully. >> >> Not that carefully. a 100F 2.7V capacitor is about the size of your >> thumb. > > I was thinking of a waay higher voltage than that. > > Peace... Sridhar > Remind me not pick up any steel drums made by Sridhar. :) From doc at vaxen.net Tue Jun 9 13:47:51 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 13:47:51 -0500 (CDT) Subject: UNIX V7 Message-ID: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> Not sure whether this is on-topic or not, but it promises to be fun: http://www.nordier.com/v7x86/ UNIX v7 for PeeCee! Doc From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 13:52:05 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 14:52:05 -0400 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A2EADFD.18958D84@cs.ubc.ca> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> <34A0F926-E7E8-400A-B71A-6FD0E4FBA856@neurotica.com> <4A2EADFD.18958D84@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On Jun 9, 2009, at 2:46 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: >>>>> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) >>>> Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it >>>> really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. >>> >>> Would a "thunder cloud" be considered a capacitor? >> >> Of course, with the other "plate" being the earth. >> >>> If so, how many MF would lightning take? >> >> LOTS. Think plate area. :) > > Without some numbers, I'm not entirely sure about that. Large plate > area but > also a rather thick dielectric and hence large plate separation. > Yes, a > tremendous amount of energy is released in a lightning strike (aka > dielectric > breakdown) but that comes with a very high voltage. C=Q/V, energy > is also a > function of Q & V, large amount of energy does not necessarily > imply large C. Hmm yes, I agree. I'd love to do a SPICE simulation of some sort of oscillator using a cloud/earth capacitor. :) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jun 9 14:08:07 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:08:07 -0700 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2EB317.5030409@brouhaha.com> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > You could probably beat 100F by building into a 55gal drum and > designing carefully. If by "designing carefully" you mean putting a lot of parallel supercaps inside the drum, yes. If you mean designing an actual capacitor yourself out of materials you machine yourself with resources available to a serious hobbyist, most likely not. Making high-value capacitors is NOT easy, which is why capacitors >1F didn't become generally available until the mid-1980s. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jun 9 14:15:15 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:15:15 -0700 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A2EB4C3.8090007@brouhaha.com> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > You could probably beat 100F by building into a 55gal drum and > designing carefully. Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Not that carefully. a 100F 2.7V capacitor is about the size of your thumb. Sure, a product with a huge amount of engineering behind it and significant manufacturing technology can be made like that. For a do-it-yourself capacitor design, I'll be extremely impressed with someone that makes a true 100F capacitor from raw materials, that has less than one ohm ESR, and is ANY size. Allowing the volume to be 55 gallons does not make it that much easier. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jun 9 14:16:48 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:16:48 -0700 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A2E5C7C.8090701@gmail.com> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <4A2E5C7C.8090701@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2EB520.2080009@brouhaha.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Not that carefully. a 100F 2.7V capacitor is about the size of your > thumb. Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > I was thinking of a waay higher voltage than that. > Then the size is proportionately "waay higher". Eric From segin2005 at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 14:20:34 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:20:34 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> Message-ID: <4A2EB602.6020107@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Doc wrote: > Not sure whether this is on-topic or not, but it promises to be fun: > > http://www.nordier.com/v7x86/ > > UNIX v7 for PeeCee! > > > Doc > I have the sources and utilities to build a copy of UNIX v6 against a 286. Too bad the porters didn't speak English and their modifications are hard to discern from the code (since the comments, being in a language I cannot read, are totally useless) I have it around here somewhere, if I find it, should I mail it to the list? Also, if you mail me off-list about this, I request that, no matter what you put in your subject field, it must start with "*** UNIX V6 286 SOURCE" because I have a high-traffic inbox. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoutgIACgkQF9H43UytGiaVxACgu3dI1HCetw59IscuMQXStpVl wHsAmwZr4K/cpSUiZXOpYVjCfMaR6X75 =gtXS -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From segin2005 at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 14:31:52 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:31:52 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> Message-ID: <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Doc wrote: > Not sure whether this is on-topic or not, but it promises to be > fun: > > http://www.nordier.com/v7x86/ > > UNIX v7 for PeeCee! > > > Doc > Ok, so I downloaded the image, got it running, and tried to use it Note: The user 'root' is password-protected, and I can't find the documentation showing the default pass. Login as 'bin', there is no password. Editing is a pain (for me): $ vi vi: not found $ ex ex: not found $ ed ^D $ haha, ed, fuck that. I need a screen editor. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkouuKcACgkQF9H43UytGiau/QCgj5DowSiveKOJpjZls59qrtF1 VPYAnikeo36koJDqLLEeqsfWwlGV9+8Z =xG3h -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 14:54:27 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 15:54:27 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > I need a screen editor. Get off my lawn... -ethan From segin2005 at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 15:12:03 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:12:03 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2EC213.5030005@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Kirn Gill > wrote: >> I need a screen editor. > > Get off my lawn... > > -ethan Get off my graphics display. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkouwhMACgkQF9H43UytGibkIgCeLJTTKYwRnM+NWYCm5DSs309V NoMAoKuGAz+xfRKujnbtnF+Zlr2CeRG6 =/oyb -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jun 9 14:58:26 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 12:58:26 -0700 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> <34A0F926-E7E8-400A-B71A-6FD0E4FBA856@neurotica.com> <4A2EADFD.18958D84@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On Jun 9, 2009, at 11:52 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 9, 2009, at 2:46 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: >>>>>> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) >>>>> Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it >>>>> really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. >>>> >>>> Would a "thunder cloud" be considered a capacitor? >>> >>> Of course, with the other "plate" being the earth. >>> >>>> If so, how many MF would lightning take? >>> >>> LOTS. Think plate area. :) >> >> Without some numbers, I'm not entirely sure about that. Large plate >> area but >> also a rather thick dielectric and hence large plate separation. >> Yes, a >> tremendous amount of energy is released in a lightning strike (aka >> dielectric >> breakdown) but that comes with a very high voltage. C=Q/V, energy >> is also a >> function of Q & V, large amount of energy does not necessarily >> imply large C. > > Hmm yes, I agree. I'd love to do a SPICE simulation of some sort > of oscillator using a cloud/earth capacitor. :) > Then add in a flux-capacitor / delorean simulator to test out Doc Brown's theories on time travel... > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 9 15:17:54 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:17:54 -0600 Subject: govliq: SGI 4D/280GTXB, IBM 9395, 3 RL02, VAX-6000/310, PDP-11/84, PDP-11 kennedy 9400 (Jacksonville, FL) Message-ID: Large bundle of stuff. The SGI machine looks in great cosmetic condition. RL02s look a little beat up, VAX and PDP-11/84 look in good cosmetic shape. The lot description says Textile Scrap, Misc. so I would enquire directly with the contact phone first before bidding. Roughly two weeks left to bid on it, though. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Jun 9 15:38:09 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 13:38:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> References: <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 9, 2009, at 1:21 PM, Shoppa, Tim wrote: >> Soakage is always fun. Take a big electrolytic, short it out and remove the >> short, let it sit for a while on the bench, then put a hi-impedance >> voltmeter on it. It will not read 0V. > > I've run into this! Except one doesn't need a high-impedance meter for > it...I've seen them somehow recover enough charge to produce a spark when > re-shorted. It's very odd. Isn't that why the Right Thing to do with big capacitors is to store them shorted? -- 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? From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jun 9 15:39:47 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:39:47 -0600 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> <34A0F926-E7E8-400A-B71A-6FD0E4FBA856@neurotica.com> <4A2EADFD.18958D84@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A2EC893.6050602@jetnet.ab.ca> Josh Dersch wrote: > Then add in a flux-capacitor / delorean simulator to test out Doc > Brown's theories on time travel... That goes with the other thread ... Earliest mobile computer :) Notice that only in Star trek/Bab 5 are computers used ... Every other kind of Si-Fi is all analog. :) Ben. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 15:46:23 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 16:46:23 -0400 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A2EC893.6050602@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> <34A0F926-E7E8-400A-B71A-6FD0E4FBA856@neurotica.com> <4A2EADFD.18958D84@cs.ubc.ca> <4A2EC893.6050602@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > That goes with the other thread ... Earliest mobile computer :) > Notice that only in Star trek/Bab 5 ?are computers used ... Every other kind > of Si-Fi is all analog. :) "Just what do you think you're doing, Ben? Ben, I really think I'm entitled to an answer to that question." -- Will From slawmaster at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 15:49:51 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 13:49:51 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 12:54 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: >> I need a screen editor. > > Get off my lawn... > > -ethan > ed /is/ the standard editor When all else fails -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 15:54:14 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 16:54:14 -0400 Subject: govliq: SGI 4D/280GTXB, IBM 9395, 3 RL02, VAX-6000/310, PDP-11/84, PDP-11 kennedy 9400 (Jacksonville, FL) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Large bundle of stuff. ?The SGI machine looks in great cosmetic > condition. ?RL02s look a little beat up, VAX and PDP-11/84 look in > good cosmetic shape. > > > > The lot description says Textile Scrap, Misc. so I would enquire > directly with the contact phone first before bidding. ?Roughly two > weeks left to bid on it, though. Big screw up - I bet that auction gets pulled. It is a good pile to watch, as there is good stuff (ES/9000). Enquire, yes, lest you win 1200 pounds of used Army socks. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 15:56:32 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 16:56:32 -0400 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: References: <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > Isn't that why the Right Thing to do with big capacitors is to store them > shorted? Yes, for high voltage caps. I had some 0.0015uF 120 kV capacitors that were new in the crates, but had a little wire shorting each out. -- Will From hadsell at blueskystudios.com Tue Jun 9 16:09:50 2009 From: hadsell at blueskystudios.com (Richard Hadsell) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:09:50 -0400 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A2ECF9E.9040209@blueskystudios.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > Yes. I used to work on TVs a lot when I was a kid; I'd dig dead > ones out of dumpsters and (sometimes) fix and sell them. I got two or > three good jolts from CRTs before I figured out what was going on. I > never did quite understand how it happened, though...do you know the > physics behind it? I have always thought that there was some residual charge in the body of the capacitor. It would take some time for all of it to migrate to the electrodes after the main charge on the electrodes was first removed. I assume the time it takes to fully discharge a large capacitor is the reason we are told to hold a computer's power button down for 15 or 30 sec before opening it up to work on it. -- Dick Hadsell 203-992-6320 Fax: 203-992-6001 Reply-to: hadsell at blueskystudios.com Blue Sky Studios http://www.blueskystudios.com 1 American Lane, Greenwich, CT 06831-2560 From segin2005 at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 16:10:17 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:10:17 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 John Floren wrote: > On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 12:54 PM, Ethan Dicks > wrote: >> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Kirn Gill >> wrote: >>> I need a screen editor. > > ed /is/ the standard editor > > When all else fails It might seem odd, but I don't know how to use 'ed'. I kinda know 'ex' due to the fact 'vi' is 'ex' turned from a line editor to a screen editor. Most of what I know about computers from way back is mostly limited to UNIX (and that's only because UNIX didn't die like the other OSes.) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkouz7kACgkQF9H43UytGibXwACeKbEwHdRFbJWR2GEQTLhT6sai CNEAn3lCmbG1dAaI0H+XvdP6eDeSSYIa =JS57 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 9 16:25:17 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:25:17 -0600 Subject: govliq: SGI 4D/280GTXB, IBM 9395, 3 RL02, VAX-6000/310, PDP-11/84, PDP-11 kennedy 9400 (Jacksonville, FL) In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:54:14 -0400. Message-ID: In article , William Donzelli writes: > > Large bundle of stuff. =A0The SGI machine looks in great cosmetic > > condition. =A0RL02s look a little beat up, VAX and PDP-11/84 look in > > good cosmetic shape. > > > > > > > > The lot description says Textile Scrap, Misc. so I would enquire > > directly with the contact phone first before bidding. =A0Roughly two > > weeks left to bid on it, though. > > Big screw up - I bet that auction gets pulled. It is a good pile to > watch, as there is good stuff (ES/9000). > > Enquire, yes, lest you win 1200 pounds of used Army socks. Definately best to enquire, but it feels more likely to me that the categorization is wrong than the photos and auction description. I just purchased a 4D/480 from them, so I suspect its more likely to be computers than textile scrap. Its likely that the 4D/280 would have been surplussed at the same time as the 4D/480. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 9 16:50:27 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:50:27 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jun 2009 at 13:49, John Floren wrote: > ed /is/ the standard editor Just curious, does anyone here use (as their editor) Epsilon? --Chuck From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Tue Jun 9 16:55:14 2009 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 22:55:14 +0100 Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <017101c9e94c$f927a100$eb76e300$@jarratt@ntlworld.com> I am interested in MicroVAX II CPU and memory boards. I am in the UK and would need to have them shipped. Would you be prepared to consider that? Any idea what it might all come to cost me? Thanks Rob > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy > Sent: 09 June 2009 15:46 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: Stuff in Portland, Oregon > > Strange, it shouldn't have bounced. The only time it should do that > is when my mailbox fills up (typically people sending to many > photo's). > > I have spare MicroVAX II board sets (not sure how many), but no spare > chassis's. Except for my VAXstation II/RC, all the chassis's are > classified as spares for the PDP-11's or II/RC. > > Something I should have mentioned is that I might be interested in > trading computer gear for the right Medium or Large Format > photography equipment. > > Zane > > > > > At 10:30 AM -0400 6/9/09, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > >your email address bounced. > >you wouldn't happen to have a microvax 2 in there would ya? > > > >Dan. > > > >> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 20:26:40 -0700 > >> To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org > >> From: healyzh at aracnet.com > >> Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon > >> > >> Is anyone interested in stuff located in the vicinity of Portland, > >> Oregon? I'm not sure what all it would included. It might even > >> depend on the persons interests. > >> > >> The stuff needs to be out of storage by this weekend, a lot has > >> already been moved into the garage of our new house, and the rest > >> will hopefully be moved between now and Sunday. Some free, some > not > >> so free. I'm looking to downsize and tighten the focus my > collection > >> since realistically I don't mess with the stuff much any more. > Some > >> items such as spares for my PDP-11's I'm not really interested in > >> getting rid of. Though for the right price I could be talked out > of > >> most things. > >> > >> My focus has shifted primarily to DEC PDP-11, VAX, and Alpha as > well > >> as C-64. Though I'm hoping to get an Apple ][ of some sort up and > >> running as well as a couple others now that I have the space. > >> > >> Zane > >> > >> > >> -- > >> | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | > >> | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | > >> | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | > >> +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ > >> | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | > >> | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | > >> | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | > > > >_________________________________________________________________ > >Attention all humans. We are your photos. Free us. > >http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9666046 > > > -- > | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | > | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | > | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | > +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ > | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | > | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | > | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From doug at stillhq.com Tue Jun 9 17:06:10 2009 From: doug at stillhq.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:06:10 +1000 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 9 Jun 2009 at 13:49, John Floren wrote: > > >> ed /is/ the standard editor >> > > Just curious, does anyone here use (as their editor) Epsilon? > > --Chuck > > No - I don't but I am reminded of my youth. Years ago I used to repair PC's (Back when you had to type stuff to do things, and when the 8087 was just awesome...) My editor of choice was the MSDOS EDLIN tool. Without fail, every client who watched me working asked why I didn't use QEDIT34 or ExtraED98 or "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", to which I would always reply - 'you may have "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", but I can never guarantee the next client will have it, so I got good at using the standard editor! That saved me so much time! Now, where is that copy of TECO that I found for windoze recently..... From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 17:09:22 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 18:09:22 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <3C8A1D44-2873-4813-8E24-0F29F73C3769@neurotica.com> On Jun 9, 2009, at 5:50 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> ed /is/ the standard editor > > Just curious, does anyone here use (as their editor) Epsilon? I used it many years ago, but haven't used DOS in forever. Howabout Brief? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Tue Jun 9 17:14:23 2009 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:14:23 +0100 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: <4A2ECF9E.9040209@blueskystudios.com> References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2ECF9E.9040209@blueskystudios.com> Message-ID: <4A2EDEBF.8030408@philpem.me.uk> Richard Hadsell wrote: > I > assume the time it takes to fully discharge a large capacitor is the > reason we are told to hold a computer's power button down for 15 or 30 > sec before opening it up to work on it. See, I don't get the point of that. Nearly every latching push-on/push-off mains power switch I've seen will hold in the "on" position if you press it in and hold it while it's in the 'on' state. There's even less point doing this to a rocker or toggle switch... The only time I can see any point to it is when you're dealing with a fairly recent PC -- holding down the power switch on an ATX system forces the power off. You've still got DC 5V running through the components though (via the 5V standby power circuit). I wouldn't touch one of these without pulling the IEC plug out of the back of the power supply (though /technically/ it's a wire-mounted socket -- sockets generally have holes, plugs have pins). Of course, it's entirely possible (and highly likely) that I've got the wrong end of the stick here. That said, my Standard Operating Procedure of finding the end of the mains cable and pulling it out of the wall before removing the case screws has served me well for long enough. -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 17:31:38 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 18:31:38 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <06653695-D603-4C24-9B5A-B678715B9B69@neurotica.com> On Jun 9, 2009, at 6:06 PM, Doug Jackson wrote: > Years ago I used to repair PC's (Back when you had to type stuff to > do things, and when the 8087 was just awesome...) My editor of > choice was the MSDOS EDLIN tool. Without fail, every client who > watched me working asked why I didn't use QEDIT34 or ExtraED98 or > "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", to which I would always reply - 'you > may have "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", but I can never guarantee > the next client will have it, so I got good at using the standard > editor! I just carried around a copy of Turbo Pascal 3.0 on a floppy. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mdavidson1963 at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 17:30:28 2009 From: mdavidson1963 at gmail.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 15:30:28 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <3C8A1D44-2873-4813-8E24-0F29F73C3769@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> <3C8A1D44-2873-4813-8E24-0F29F73C3769@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 3:09 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 9, 2009, at 5:50 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> >>> ed /is/ the standard editor >> >> Just curious, does anyone here use (as their editor) Epsilon? > > ?I used it many years ago, but haven't used DOS in forever. ?Howabout Brief? > > ? ? ? ? ?-Dave Now THAT brings back some memories. I was an avid Brief user for years and even after they stopped selling it, I would reconfigure other editors to use the Brief keystrokes. And as for Epsilon... I wanted to use that editor at one time, but I thought it a bit pricey back in the days (at least for me). Lugaru software still has a web site and they still sell Epsilon (checking...yep, they still exist at http://www.lugaru.com and have V13 of Epsilon available for early evaluation; they still want $250 a copy). Mark From segin2005 at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 17:32:18 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:32:18 -0400 Subject: IRC channel? Message-ID: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Do we have an IRC channel? I'd really like to know. The mailing list seems like a clumsy medium at times. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkou4vEACgkQF9H43UytGiZd2ACgv0bdGz7m1riZqHd4pNgJPHWX pCsAnR8C+DoKfHFoZWiTSqxeGEJDQmva =Ye1R -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jun 9 17:32:03 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:32:03 -0500 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <4A2D6B52.4030608@machineroom.info> References: <4A2AC32C.1070103@machineroom.info> <4A2C036F.1000108@bitsavers.org> <4A2D6B52.4030608@machineroom.info> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090609172248.0465f418@mail.threedee.com> At 02:49 PM 6/8/2009, James Wilson wrote: >Sadly not. AFAIK none of the original staff are still with the company, now called "Cabot communications" (cabot.co.uk). A good contact, if you can find him, would be Gordon Wilkie who used to be the technical manager and knew the P-System inside out. (A quick bit of hunting shows him as a freelance - http://www.bristolitservices.co.uk/index.html). Good find! There were once a handful of non-exclusive licensees, but Cabot was the last one standing with UCSD. A decade ago, they were pushing the P-System to drive set-top cable boxes (presumably as an alternative to Java). I think that hope faded around 2001. UCSD did release I.5: http://invent.ucsd.edu/technology/cases/1995-prior/SD1991-807.shtml as assembled by David Barto: http://www.kdbarto.org/UCSD_Pascal.html - John From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jun 9 17:37:13 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:37:13 -0700 Subject: bizarre capacitance References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A2EE41A.A0AA128C@cs.ubc.ca> Dave McGuire wrote: > > On Jun 9, 2009, at 2:26 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> I've run into this! Except one doesn't need a high-impedance > >> meter for it...I've seen them somehow recover enough charge to > >> produce a spark when re-shorted. It's very odd. > > > > Anyone who has done a lot of work on CRTs has experienced this. > > Disconnect the anode lead, short the anode cap, come back in a few > > minutes only to get another spark. > > Yes. I used to work on TVs a lot when I was a kid; I'd dig dead > ones out of dumpsters and (sometimes) fix and sell them. I got two > or three good jolts from CRTs before I figured out what was going > on. I never did quite understand how it happened, though...do you > know the physics behind it? I don't claim to have a full physics understanding of the issue but I think a rough hand-waving explanation is that with the capacitor charged and the dielectric under potential stress, some charge creeps into and is held by the dielectric itself. It takes time for the charge to creep into the dielectric. Once the potential is removed by shorting/loading the cap, the dielectric charge will redistribute itself to reflect the new potential state, i.e. creep back out, but this too takes time. If the discharge path has been removed the charge will accumulate on the plates. Search for "dielectric absorption", or look up "permittivity" in Wikipedia to get an idea of just how complex capacitors are (!) If my understanding is correct, the phenomenom will show up if the dielectric is a material, as it involves the atoms of the material, but will not if the dielectric is a vacuum. From doug at stillhq.com Tue Jun 9 17:49:06 2009 From: doug at stillhq.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:49:06 +1000 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <06653695-D603-4C24-9B5A-B678715B9B69@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> <06653695-D603-4C24-9B5A-B678715B9B69@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A2EE6E2.3030804@stillhq.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 9, 2009, at 6:06 PM, Doug Jackson wrote: >> Years ago I used to repair PC's (Back when you had to type stuff to >> do things, and when the 8087 was just awesome...) My editor of >> choice was the MSDOS EDLIN tool. Without fail, every client who >> watched me working asked why I didn't use QEDIT34 or ExtraED98 or >> "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", to which I would always reply - 'you >> may have "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", but I can never guarantee the >> next client will have it, so I got good at using the standard editor! > > I just carried around a copy of Turbo Pascal 3.0 on a floppy. > > -Dave > Stopped relying on floppies after I did some work for a government organisation here (who shall remain nameless) - who gave me a shiny new box of floppies to replace my box of diag floppies after they had been in their site. Bummer! Nowadays - they simply dont let the media in at all! From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Tue Jun 9 17:49:53 2009 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:49:53 +0100 Subject: IRC channel? In-Reply-To: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> References: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2EE711.1050106@philpem.me.uk> Kirn Gill wrote: > Do we have an IRC channel? > I'd really like to know. The mailing list seems like a clumsy medium > at times. #classiccmp on irc.freenode.net. -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 17:51:12 2009 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:51:12 +0100 Subject: IRC channel? In-Reply-To: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> References: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> Message-ID: sure #classiccmp on irc.freenode.net Dave Caroline From mdavidson1963 at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 17:57:13 2009 From: mdavidson1963 at gmail.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 15:57:13 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <06653695-D603-4C24-9B5A-B678715B9B69@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> <06653695-D603-4C24-9B5A-B678715B9B69@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 9, 2009, at 6:06 PM, Doug Jackson wrote: >> >> Years ago I used to repair PC's (Back when you had to type stuff to do >> things, and when the 8087 was just awesome...) ?My editor of choice was the >> MSDOS EDLIN tool. ?Without fail, every client who watched me working asked >> why I didn't use QEDIT34 or ExtraED98 or "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", to >> which I would always reply - 'you may have "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", >> but I can never guarantee the next client will have it, so I got good at >> using the standard editor! > > ?I just carried around a copy of Turbo Pascal 3.0 on a floppy. I should have mentioned that, apparently, the $250 price for Epsilon includes executables for every OS they support (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, OS/2, DOS)... not a bad deal, I suppose. :) Mark From chd_1 at nktelco.net Tue Jun 9 18:14:13 2009 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:14:13 -0400 Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: <4A2E3489.15995.29749A2C@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4A2E3489.15995.29749A2C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A2EECC5.6070901@nktelco.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 9 Jun 2009 at 10:59, Steve Moulding wrote: > > >> Try FindChips.com They show three vendors that have the 2N3009 in >> stock. >> > > Let's not forget NTE: > > http://nte01.nteinc.com/nte/NTExRefSemiProd.nsf/$$Search > > Which shows that the replacement for the 2n3009 is NTE123A. > > --Chuck > > ECG (now part of NTE I think) seems to get you a worst case though. I had a request a couple of weeks ago from the maintenance department for an ECG such and such... I looked in my stores and found nothing that could match it. I asked what the number on the part was and he said 2N3904. I had a handful of those on my desk. -chuck From doug at stillhq.com Tue Jun 9 18:34:36 2009 From: doug at stillhq.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:34:36 +1000 Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: <4A2EECC5.6070901@nktelco.net> References: , <4A2E3489.15995.29749A2C@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EECC5.6070901@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <4A2EF18C.4020404@stillhq.com> Hey - Isn't the 2n2222 the replacement transistor for *everything? :-P > From db at db.net Tue Jun 9 18:47:48 2009 From: db at db.net (Diane Bruce) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 19:47:48 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090609234748.GA45666@night.db.net> On Tue, Jun 09, 2009 at 05:10:17PM -0400, Kirn Gill wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > John Floren wrote: > > On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 12:54 PM, Ethan Dicks > > wrote: > >> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Kirn Gill > >> wrote: > >>> I need a screen editor. > > ... > due to the fact 'vi' is 'ex' turned from a line editor to a screen > editor. Most of what I know about computers from way back is mostly I got very good with the UofT extended version of ed because our sys admin refused to load up vi. vi was too much of a system load for the pdp-11. I still use ed on occasion if it is a quick fix. - Diane -- - db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db 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? From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 9 18:56:58 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:56:58 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <3C8A1D44-2873-4813-8E24-0F29F73C3769@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com>, <3C8A1D44-2873-4813-8E24-0F29F73C3769@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A2E945A.10290.2AEAE12C@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jun 2009 at 18:09, Dave McGuire wrote: > > Just curious, does anyone here use (as their editor) Epsilon? > > I used it many years ago, but haven't used DOS in forever. > Howabout Brief? Toyed with Brief a bit, as well as Vedit. The reason I asked about Epsilon is because years ago (over 20) a friend made me a gift of Epsilon and I'm ashamed to say that I never bothered to look at it. I recently ran across the manual for it while looking for something else. I like my editors stupid to match my natural inclination. :) For most stuff, I'm still using the (ported and re-ported) version of an editor I wrote in the 70's to run on an 8085. If I don't like something, I can always change it. So much software, so little time... --Chuck From ragooman at comcast.net Tue Jun 9 19:15:16 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:15:16 -0400 Subject: Help with identifying digital transistor circuit cards. Message-ID: <4A2EFB14.4060304@comcast.net> I was at the recent hamfest here in Pittsburgh and was lucky enough to pickup for free some old digital transistor circuit cards. There wasn't any identifying logos are names on any of them. I'm hoping someone here might have a clue as to what system these are from. Below are links to the photos of each circuit card. http://tinyurl.com/kuuxoq http://tinyurl.com/m94cpq http://tinyurl.com/nj6mza http://tinyurl.com/ld6gy9 http://tinyurl.com/me53ly thanks, =Dan -- [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From chd_1 at nktelco.net Tue Jun 9 19:21:45 2009 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:21:45 -0400 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: <4A2EE41A.A0AA128C@cs.ubc.ca> References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EE41A.A0AA128C@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A2EFC99.9020900@nktelco.net> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Search for "dielectric absorption", or look up "permittivity" in Wikipedia to > get an idea of just how complex capacitors are (!) > Bob Pease called this soakage. -chuck From evan at snarc.net Tue Jun 9 19:30:21 2009 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:30:21 -0400 Subject: Bricklin's new book Message-ID: <4A2EFE9D.80204@snarc.net> I plan to read this soon: "Bricklin on Technology" -- http://www.bricklin.com/bontech/ From ragooman at comcast.net Tue Jun 9 19:30:55 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:30:55 -0400 Subject: TEACO Floppy drive Tester - any info available online ? Message-ID: <4A2EFEBF.8000805@comcast.net> I picked up this TEACO CD 2-3 floppy drive tester for only $5 at the recent hamfest here in Pittsburgh and like to get it working again. I did a search and found some old postings on here from 10+yrs ago, but without any leads to any info for this tester. I hope somebody might have a clue about this tester and some leads on finding a manual. http://tinyurl.com/l9o5gn thanks =Dan -- [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jun 9 19:40:38 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 17:40:38 -0700 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: <4A2EFC99.9020900@nktelco.net> References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EE41A.A0AA128C@cs.ubc.ca> <4A2EFC99.9020900@nktelco.net> Message-ID: > From: chd_1 at nktelco.net > > Brent Hilpert wrote: >> Search for "dielectric absorption", or look up "permittivity" in Wikipedia to >> get an idea of just how complex capacitors are (!) >> > Bob Pease called this soakage. > > -chuck > > Hi There are actually two factors. Dielectric absorption is one of them. The other is induced charge. Others have described dielectric absorption. Induced charge works like this. When the internal part is discharged, it induces a charge on all the dust and surfaces that are not covered with conductive paint. These get a negative charge on them from doing this discharge. Over time, this outside charge leaks to the conductive surfaces, reinducing a positive back onto the internal surface. The two are factors. I've found that the induced charge is a major factor. While holding the short, wiping all the external surfaces reduces the charge that builds by quite a bit. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail?. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009 From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 9 20:05:44 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 18:05:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Editor (Was: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <20090609174839.S33811@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Doug Jackson wrote: > No - I don't but I am reminded of my youth. . . > "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", to which I would always reply - 'you may > have "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", but I can never guarantee the next > client will have it, so I got good at using the standard editor! I used Windows WRITE for my PhD written exams. I was the first person in the department to ever use a word processor for the writtens! (I wanted my answers to be logible) Shortly after my father died, one of his friends decided to wipe some programs from his computer. His buddy, who "knows all about computers", erased *.* When that seemed to leave two file behind, he erased . and erased .. When I repaired the file deletions, I needed to edit his AUTOEXEC.BAT His buddy was being obnoxiously overly present. As soon as I started DEBUG to edit with, his buddy found a reason to leave in a hurry. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 9 20:11:59 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 18:11:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IRC channel? In-Reply-To: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> References: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090609181001.M33811@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Kirn Gill wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > Do we have an IRC channel? > I'd really like to know. The mailing list seems like a clumsy medium > at times. > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iEYEARECAAYFAkou4vEACgkQF9H43UytGiZd2ACgv0bdGz7m1riZqHd4pNgJPHWX > pCsAnR8C+DoKfHFoZWiTSqxeGEJDQmva > =Ye1R > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Are your computers new enough to handle IRC well? Is this the sort of communication for which we need to PGP sign? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Tue Jun 9 20:27:23 2009 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:27:23 -0400 Subject: Remembering the true* first portable computer The Register In-Reply-To: References: <4A2D86F7.6090604@snarc.net> <4A2D74F1.2090104@sbcglobal.net> <4A2D86F7.6090604@snarc.net> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20090609211657.014b56e0@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that William Donzelli may have mentioned these words: > > DYSEAC was running in 1954. It was mounted in an Army truck. Not quite a > > Osborne, but it was the first time a modern, digital computer was > > specifically designed for mobility. > >Do not be surprised if the crypto guys had something before that. But >they ain't talking... Prolly due to security clearances... Despite the fact that dollars to doughnuts it could prolly be hacked in about 12 seconds flat nowadays, there's still things I can be jailed for life (or worse... but I doubt it would come to that ;-) under the charge of treason if I disclosed in public, AFAIK. In class where I learned about these items I'm not telling you about, we weren't allowed to take any form of physical notes - things had to be committed to memory (mammalian only, not electronic. ;-). Last time I checked (with military personnel with correct security clearance) it was still classified, but that was at least a decade ago. Not to worry - of what I speak is on topic - it was my first taste of papertape after all... and that's all I'll say. ;-) Now back to drinking Tequila & looking for the black helicopters on the horizon... "Merch" -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers _??_ zmerch at 30below.com (?||?) If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead _)(_ disarmament should *not* be your first career choice. From doug at stillhq.com Tue Jun 9 20:49:56 2009 From: doug at stillhq.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:49:56 +1000 Subject: IRC channel? In-Reply-To: <20090609181001.M33811@shell.lmi.net> References: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> <20090609181001.M33811@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A2F1144.4080000@stillhq.com> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Kirn Gill wrote: > >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >> Hash: SHA1 >> Do we have an IRC channel? >> I'd really like to know. The mailing list seems like a clumsy medium >> at times. >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >> Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) >> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org >> >> iEYEARECAAYFAkou4vEACgkQF9H43UytGiZd2ACgv0bdGz7m1riZqHd4pNgJPHWX >> pCsAnR8C+DoKfHFoZWiTSqxeGEJDQmva >> =Ye1R >> -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- >> > > Are your computers new enough to handle IRC well? > > Is this the sort of communication for which we need to PGP sign? > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > I have just loaded up an IRC client, and am watching the channel - it is very quiet But on the subject of PGP signatures - I like it - it gives me additional random characters to use as passwords in the future - Now I just need somewhere safe to store the little sticky yellow paper with the newest password on it! From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Jun 9 20:58:11 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 22:58:11 -0300 Subject: IRC channel? References: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> <20090609181001.M33811@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <178a01c9e96f$251e8a90$af5419bb@desktaba> >> Do we have an IRC channel? This seems a nice idea :D From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 21:12:43 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 22:12:43 -0400 Subject: IRC channel? In-Reply-To: <20090609181001.M33811@shell.lmi.net> References: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> <20090609181001.M33811@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <925A798B-4285-4B6F-90CE-21A82D4C35F4@neurotica.com> On Jun 9, 2009, at 9:11 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > Are your computers new enough to handle IRC well? One doesn't need much at all to handle IRC. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 9 21:14:59 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:14:59 -0700 Subject: IRC channel? In-Reply-To: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> References: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2EB4B3.5120.2B693969@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jun 2009 at 18:32, Kirn Gill wrote: > Do we have an IRC channel? Is International Resistor Corp. still in business? I had no idea... --Chuck From dbetz at xlisper.com Tue Jun 9 21:21:25 2009 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 22:21:25 -0400 Subject: Atari 800xl Super Video 2.1 mod Message-ID: <1DBDCF32-00D9-4700-B066-0482DAA0F5DC@xlisper.com> I recently acquired an Atari 800xl and would like to apply the Super Video 2.1 mod to get better video but have been unable to locate the description of how to do it anywhere on the web. I've done a google search and found many links to it but they all led to dead ends. Can someone point me to the article describing this mod? Thanks, David Betz From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 21:31:30 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 22:31:30 -0400 Subject: Remembering the true* first portable computer The Register In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20090609211657.014b56e0@mail.30below.com> References: <4A2D74F1.2090104@sbcglobal.net> <4A2D86F7.6090604@snarc.net> <5.1.0.14.2.20090609211657.014b56e0@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: > Prolly due to security clearances... Despite the fact that dollars to > doughnuts it could prolly be hacked in about 12 seconds flat nowadays, That is actually not the point to keeping this stuff secret. The point is that we want the Other Guys to make all the dumb mistakes we made - great for tracking progress of Their technology. > In class where I learned about these items I'm not telling you about, we > weren't allowed to take any form of physical notes - things had to be > committed to memory (mammalian only, not electronic. ;-). > > Last time I checked (with military personnel with correct security > clearance) it was still classified, but that was at least a decade ago. We will probably all be dead when it gets declassified completely. There are actually some technologies over 100 years old that are still classified. At least you asked about the current classification. One of the problems I am always run up against talking to electronics oldtimers is the nobody tells them when stuff if declassified, so they shut up tight until I can convince them that it is safe to talk (most often by showing a tech manual with a big declassification stamp on it). In any case - and I know I probably will run into the exact same problem right here and now - but you can at least say what system you worked on (TSEC/KWT-mumblefoo). The model numbers of the equipments, and even now some fuzzy pictures of some models, is declassified, with the exception of the very latest stuff. -- Will From IanK at vulcan.com Tue Jun 9 21:45:07 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 19:45:07 -0700 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) Message-ID: WHO died? Let's see, what operating systems have I used in the past year? VMS RT-11 CP/M Tops-10 Tops-20 RSX-11 OS-8 MVS too many versions of Unix to count (including v6, which did NOT include a screen editor!) several 'tiny OS' products MSDOS ...and several versions of Windows, including Win95, W2K, WinXP, WinCE and that Vista 'thing' Your definition of "from way back" seems somewhat limited... by the way, did you realize that VMS is still a supported OS, more than thirty years after its introduction? Further, your reluctance to use non-screen-oriented editors is, shall we say, 'bad juju' in this community. While I certainly prefer a screen editor such as vi (and not such as EMACS), I can easily do ed or TECO as needed, because I MUST in order to work with truly vintage systems. -- Ian ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Kirn Gill [segin2005 at gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 2:10 PM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: UNIX V7 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 John Floren wrote: > On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 12:54 PM, Ethan Dicks > wrote: >> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Kirn Gill >> wrote: >>> I need a screen editor. > > ed /is/ the standard editor > > When all else fails It might seem odd, but I don't know how to use 'ed'. I kinda know 'ex' due to the fact 'vi' is 'ex' turned from a line editor to a screen editor. Most of what I know about computers from way back is mostly limited to UNIX (and that's only because UNIX didn't die like the other OSes.) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkouz7kACgkQF9H43UytGibXwACeKbEwHdRFbJWR2GEQTLhT6sai CNEAn3lCmbG1dAaI0H+XvdP6eDeSSYIa =JS57 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From dbetz at xlisper.com Tue Jun 9 21:54:27 2009 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 22:54:27 -0400 Subject: Atari 800xl Super Video 2.1 mod (and other video mods) In-Reply-To: <1DBDCF32-00D9-4700-B066-0482DAA0F5DC@xlisper.com> References: <1DBDCF32-00D9-4700-B066-0482DAA0F5DC@xlisper.com> Message-ID: <725511F2-87D0-46E5-B99E-7C8EEDA9458C@xlisper.com> On Jun 9, 2009, at 10:21 PM, David Betz wrote: > I recently acquired an Atari 800xl and would like to apply the Super > Video 2.1 mod to get better video but have been unable to locate the > description of how to do it anywhere on the web. I've done a google > search and found many links to it but they all led to dead ends. Can > someone point me to the article describing this mod? Okay, I finally managed to find the Super Video 2.1 instructions but now find that they seem to be in addition to the Super Video 2.0 mods rather than a newer version of them. I also find that some people recommend against making them but instead suggest some simpler mods to improve the 800xl video. Has anyone here had any experience with trying to improve the video output of the 800xl? What do you recommend? I'd like to at least enable the S-video output. Thanks, David From segin2005 at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 21:58:26 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:58:26 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <06653695-D603-4C24-9B5A-B678715B9B69@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> <06653695-D603-4C24-9B5A-B678715B9B69@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A2F2152.8060808@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 9, 2009, at 6:06 PM, Doug Jackson wrote: >> Years ago I used to repair PC's (Back when you had to type stuff to >> do things, and when the 8087 was just awesome...) My editor of >> choice was the MSDOS EDLIN tool. Without fail, every client who >> watched me working asked why I didn't use QEDIT34 or ExtraED98 or >> "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", to which I would always reply - 'you >> may have "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", but I can never guarantee >> the next client will have it, so I got good at using the standard >> editor! > > I just carried around a copy of Turbo Pascal 3.0 on a floppy. > > -Dave > I carry around a copy of Vim on a flash drive. Trust me, it's a very handy diagnostic. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkovIVIACgkQF9H43UytGibPbACeIpJ9Khp2wgj/aENW6PNL4VEb SaAAn1abaFqdbCyo1ktW0+oZfdi1RVCk =HlFa -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 22:01:24 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:01:24 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> On Jun 9, 2009, at 10:45 PM, Ian King wrote: > Your definition of "from way back" seems somewhat limited... by the > way, did you realize that VMS is still a supported OS, more than > thirty years after its introduction? Not only supported, but still under very active development! > Further, your reluctance to use non-screen-oriented editors is, > shall we say, 'bad juju' in this community. While I certainly > prefer a screen editor such as vi (and not such as EMACS), I can > easily do ed or TECO as needed, because I MUST in order to work > with truly vintage systems. -- Ian Please cut the guy some slack, Ian. The OP was Kirn, who is 19. His idea of "way back" is pretty different from yours or mine. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 22:06:59 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:06:59 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> <06653695-D603-4C24-9B5A-B678715B9B69@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jun 9, 2009, at 6:57 PM, Mark Davidson wrote: >>> Years ago I used to repair PC's (Back when you had to type stuff >>> to do >>> things, and when the 8087 was just awesome...) My editor of >>> choice was the >>> MSDOS EDLIN tool. Without fail, every client who watched me >>> working asked >>> why I didn't use QEDIT34 or ExtraED98 or >>> "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", to >>> which I would always reply - 'you may have >>> "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", >>> but I can never guarantee the next client will have it, so I got >>> good at >>> using the standard editor! >> >> I just carried around a copy of Turbo Pascal 3.0 on a floppy. > > I should have mentioned that, apparently, the $250 price for Epsilon > includes executables for every OS they support (Windows, Linux, Mac OS > X, FreeBSD, OS/2, DOS)... not a bad deal, I suppose. :) Wow, I had no idea that they'd ported it to so many platforms. Neat! WAY overpriced, though. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From segin2005 at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 22:08:34 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:08:34 -0400 Subject: IRC channel? In-Reply-To: <20090609181001.M33811@shell.lmi.net> References: <4A2EE2F2.7080305@gmail.com> <20090609181001.M33811@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A2F23B2.6080300@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Kirn Gill wrote: > Are your computers new enough to handle IRC well? If it has TELNET, it can IRC. So, since they're newer than ENIAC, I hope so. $ telnet irc.freenode.net 6667 USER segin :segin NICK segin PRIVMSG NickServ :IDENTIFY ********** JOIN #classiccmp PRIVMSG #classiccmp :hi folks, how ya'll doin'? Give it a whirl on anything you have that is Internet-connected. Just be warned that you might want to read up on the IRC protocol. > Is this the sort of communication for which we need to PGP sign? I PGP sign everything, though if I am sending HTML or anything else that would be MIME/MultiPart, I use PGP/MIME and sign it as an attachment. Otherwise it's inline. > - Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkovI7IACgkQF9H43UytGiYM3gCeMTNOUNiDYZ3oFiaKK0eyvEuE 8QgAn0aLRg8n1jk1XbAmh2Oa4pSLfUVu =trxg -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 22:24:31 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:24:31 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > ?Not only supported, but still under very active development! It is still a sinking ship, unfortunately. -- Will From IanK at vulcan.com Tue Jun 9 22:28:38 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 20:28:38 -0700 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: >-----Original Message----- >From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- >bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire >Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 8:01 PM >To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >Subject: Re: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) > >On Jun 9, 2009, at 10:45 PM, Ian King wrote: >> Your definition of "from way back" seems somewhat limited... by the >> way, did you realize that VMS is still a supported OS, more than >> thirty years after its introduction? > > Not only supported, but still under very active development! > >> Further, your reluctance to use non-screen-oriented editors is, >> shall we say, 'bad juju' in this community. While I certainly >> prefer a screen editor such as vi (and not such as EMACS), I can >> easily do ed or TECO as needed, because I MUST in order to work >> with truly vintage systems. -- Ian > > Please cut the guy some slack, Ian. The OP was Kirn, who is 19. >His idea of "way back" is pretty different from yours or mine. > > -Dave > Dave, in truth I spent no little time writing a less harsh response than I might have, but I feel it is necessary to address his dismissive attitude toward the realities of vintage systems and their software, if he wants to play in this pool. It's not the lack of knowledge - that can be corrected, as I experience every day in my own life - but what I perceive as the attitude that "it's not worth knowing" that harshes my mellow. -- Ian From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 22:32:10 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:32:10 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jun 9, 2009, at 11:24 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> Not only supported, but still under very active development! > > It is still a sinking ship, unfortunately. Why is that? Because it's not Windows? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From brianlanning at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 22:33:40 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 22:33:40 -0500 Subject: Interesting IBM 5150... or something Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906092033n3dfb48f9k6c07c7a59b7beb05@mail.gmail.com> I've never heard of this. Looks even more tank-like than the 5150. Look at the backplane where the cables go in. http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-IBM-Tempest-Computer-for-Classified-work_W0QQitemZ190313579086QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2c4f92c24e&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A10|66%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A4|294%3A50 From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 22:42:34 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:42:34 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > ?Why is that? ?Because it's not Windows? Mostly, yes. Head out of the sand, man. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 22:45:42 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:45:42 -0400 Subject: Interesting IBM 5150... or something In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906092033n3dfb48f9k6c07c7a59b7beb05@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906092033n3dfb48f9k6c07c7a59b7beb05@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > I've never heard of this. ?Looks even more tank-like than the 5150. > Look at the backplane where the cables go in. A whole bunch of these came out of surplus maybe ten years ago. I would like to know what the IBM mpdel number is. -- Will From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jun 9 22:46:20 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:46:20 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200906092346.20414.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 09 June 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 9, 2009, at 11:24 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > >> Not only supported, but still under very active development! > > > > It is still a sinking ship, unfortunately. > > Why is that? Because it's not Windows? Probably because its usage is going down over time? I can't be completely sure, but I'm willing to bet that if HP ported it to x86/amd64 instead of ia64, it would have had a better chance of holding ground. There are things other than Windows that aren't "sinking ships." Probably all of them run on (or at least support) amd64 instruction-set processors. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jun 9 22:50:25 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:50:25 -0700 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A2F2D81.4000500@mail.msu.edu> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 9, 2009, at 11:24 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >>> Not only supported, but still under very active development! >> >> It is still a sinking ship, unfortunately. > > Why is that? Because it's not Windows? It's also not UNIX (which killed off its share of OSes back in the day...) Josh > > -Dave > From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 22:53:02 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:53:02 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jun 9, 2009, at 11:42 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> Why is that? Because it's not Windows? > > Mostly, yes. > > Head out of the sand, man. I could say the same to you. ;) I think it's probably best that we end this conversation here. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jun 9 22:53:04 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:53:04 -0700 Subject: (Resending) Re: Further 11/40 unibus questions... Message-ID: <4A2F2E20.8040106@mail.msu.edu> Resending this, as it seems to have not made it to the list for whatever reason. (Sorry if this ends up in people's mailboxes twice...) Tony Duell wrote: >>> Then I'd look at all the Unibus signals both with the terminator out >>> (they will still be terminated by the resistors at at the CPU end -- >>> IIRC on an 11/40 these are on the Unibus jumper between the CPU and >>> first expansion backplane) and with it fitted. I would guess >>> something is changing state, let's find out what. >>> >> I will start looking at this tonight (assuming I have the time >> tonight :)). Thanks. >> > > OK, let us know how you get on :-) > > -tony > Ok, finally stopped being distracted by other shiny objects for long enough to do some more fiddling with the 11/40. And of course, instead of hooking up the logic analyzer, I decided to play around with the Console SLU/LTC board. Because I evidently don't follow suggestions well. But this has a good ending, sort of. Maybe. So the SLU was unresponsive no matter what I did. Tried it at 9600 baud, no go. Dialed it down to 300, no dice. Checked the continuity of the dip switches, of which there are approximately 500. No problems there. Checked, and double-checked the wiring on the serial cable I built. No go. Stole the cable from my 8/e... still no good. So I moved it out of the 9th slot on the processor backplane and into the first slot on Unibus backplane. (And put a grant card in the 9th slot...) And hey, it works. Toggled in a short "echo" program and what I type on the terminal keyboard is echoed back, at a blistering 300 baud. So... clearly there's something wrong with the SPC slot on the processor backplane. A couple more questions: 1) Is the NPG grant on the unibus slot on the processor backplane (slot 9) supposed to be connected to the NPG grants on the Unibus expansion? That is -- right now if I set my DMM to continuity mode and put one probe on CA1 on the first slot of the unibus expansion, and the other on CB1 on the last slot of the unibus expansion, since all NPG grant jumpers are in place, the DMM shows the circuit as closed. This is as I'd expect. However, if I move the probe from CA1 on the first slot of the expansion to CA1 on slot 9 of the processor backplane, the circuit is then open. I'm guessing this is not correct. (There is currently an NPG jumper installed on slot 9.) 2) Where is the +15V to the processor backplane supposed to be connected? (I suspect this may be the reason the SLU won't function in slot 9...). Right now it's plugged into pin CV1 on slot 9 (if I'm reading the Unibus pin chart right :)) but the docs I have found say this should be ACLO_L... Thanks as always... Josh From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 9 22:55:44 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:55:44 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <08E6E831-C9AE-4197-A024-9E926CAD6CB1@neurotica.com> On Jun 9, 2009, at 11:28 PM, Ian King wrote: >>> Further, your reluctance to use non-screen-oriented editors is, >>> shall we say, 'bad juju' in this community. While I certainly >>> prefer a screen editor such as vi (and not such as EMACS), I can >>> easily do ed or TECO as needed, because I MUST in order to work >>> with truly vintage systems. -- Ian >> >> Please cut the guy some slack, Ian. The OP was Kirn, who is 19. >> His idea of "way back" is pretty different from yours or mine. >> > Dave, in truth I spent no little time writing a less harsh response > than I might have, but I feel it is necessary to address his > dismissive attitude toward the realities of vintage systems and > their software, if he wants to play in this pool. It's not the > lack of knowledge - that can be corrected, as I experience every > day in my own life - but what I perceive as the attitude that "it's > not worth knowing" that harshes my mellow. -- Ian I don't think it's anything to worry about. Most guys his age think "vintage computer" means a Pentium-4 that's clocked at less than 2GHz. I've talked to him; he is clueful. He is also local to me, and I expect I'll be setting him up with some good stuff. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From starbase89 at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 22:53:20 2009 From: starbase89 at gmail.com (Joe Giliberti) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:53:20 -0400 Subject: Interesting IBM 5150... or something In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906092033n3dfb48f9k6c07c7a59b7beb05@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906092033n3dfb48f9k6c07c7a59b7beb05@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2b1f1f550906092053t12dfcdcbi7a83bfadcd4bfb88@mail.gmail.com> Looks like an AT On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 11:33 PM, Brian Lanning wrote: > I've never heard of this. Looks even more tank-like than the 5150. > Look at the backplane where the cables go in. > > > http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-IBM-Tempest-Computer-for-Classified-work_W0QQitemZ190313579086QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2c4f92c24e&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A10|66%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A4|294%3A50 > From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jun 9 22:55:55 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:55:55 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <200906092346.20414.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200906092346.20414.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200906092355.55514.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 09 June 2009, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Tuesday 09 June 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > > On Jun 9, 2009, at 11:24 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > > >> Not only supported, but still under very active development! > > > > > > It is still a sinking ship, unfortunately. > > > > Why is that? Because it's not Windows? > > Probably because its usage is going down over time? I can't be > completely sure, but I'm willing to bet that if HP ported it to > x86/amd64 instead of ia64, it would have had a better chance of > holding ground. > > There are things other than Windows that aren't "sinking ships." > Probably all of them run on (or at least support) amd64 > instruction-set processors. Sigh, except for "embedded" stuff, anyways. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jun 9 23:06:24 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 21:06:24 -0700 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: At 11:32 PM -0400 6/9/09, Dave McGuire wrote: >On Jun 9, 2009, at 11:24 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >>> Not only supported, but still under very active development! >> >>It is still a sinking ship, unfortunately. > > Why is that? Because it's not Windows? No, because a sizable portion of the Development group's last day working was last Friday. :-( I'm honestly not sure who is left. HP in their infinite lack of wisdom has chosen to do away with highly experienced members of the VMS Development teams and outsource their jobs to India. This does not bode well for VMS. As much as it pains me to say this, after last Friday I have to question just how active the development of VMS is. :-( Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From brianlanning at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 23:24:15 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:24:15 -0500 Subject: Interesting IBM 5150... or something In-Reply-To: <2b1f1f550906092053t12dfcdcbi7a83bfadcd4bfb88@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906092033n3dfb48f9k6c07c7a59b7beb05@mail.gmail.com> <2b1f1f550906092053t12dfcdcbi7a83bfadcd4bfb88@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906092124u33916297u6342fce6cfa2081a@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 10:53 PM, Joe Giliberti wrote: > Looks like an AT It has 3 half-height drive bay openings on the front. The AT had two, but an internal HH 5.25" bay where that bottom drive is (iirc). And the back of the case is totally different. brian From curt at atarimuseum.com Tue Jun 9 23:39:09 2009 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:39:09 -0400 Subject: Atari 800xl Super Video 2.1 mod In-Reply-To: <1DBDCF32-00D9-4700-B066-0482DAA0F5DC@xlisper.com> References: <1DBDCF32-00D9-4700-B066-0482DAA0F5DC@xlisper.com> Message-ID: <4A2F38ED.2040604@atarimuseum.com> This will be of help: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=41580 Curt David Betz wrote: > I recently acquired an Atari 800xl and would like to apply the Super > Video 2.1 mod to get better video but have been unable to locate the > description of how to do it anywhere on the web. I've done a google > search and found many links to it but they all led to dead ends. Can > someone point me to the article describing this mod? > > Thanks, > David Betz > From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Tue Jun 9 16:38:12 2009 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:38:12 -0400 Subject: Transistor Substitution Message-ID: <0KKZ008F8QP1CHH8@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Transistor Substitution > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:53:39 +0100 (BST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >> >> Okay: I admit it, I am sometimes pig-ignorant about basic hardware >> questions. :/ >> >> I have a couple of DEC machines which I need to replace a few components >> on, and also stock up spares of others. With the transistors and diodes, >> however, I often can't find a direct replacement - and don't know how to >> figure out what a modern substitute is. >> >> For a 2N3009, for example, I can find basic information and a datasheet >> online easily enough - but as for choosing a functional, available >> substitute for it, I'm honestly not even sure where to begin. >> >> Is there a basic resource for determining modern equivalents for older >> transistors and diodes? Can someone helpfully provide me with a clue >> here? :) > >It depends on what the transistor is being used for.. In general >transsitors used in the logic (particulalry low-speed ones, for things >like lamp drivers) and transsitors used in linear PSUs are fairly easy to >substitute. Transsitors used for high energy pulse work (SMPSU choppers, >horizontal output transsitors in monitors) are a lot more critical, and >the data sheet may bot help. > >Basically, you need to get the following right : > >Tpye/polarity (NPN or PNP etc) > >VOltage ratings high enough to stand voltages in the circuit (if the >ratings of the substitute exceed those of the original, you should be OK) > >Current ratings (particularly Ic, collector current). Again, if your >substitute is better than the original it should be OK > >Gain (hfe and all its varients) is not too critical in most classic >computer applications, particularly for switich transiustors which are >driven hard into saturation. But try not to use a transistor of too low >a gain. > >Max frequency (Ft, etc) is something you should look at in logic >transistors, particularly in higher speed circuits, clock oscillators, etc. > >But my experience is if you pick something of the same polarity and >similar characteristics, it'll work in most classic computer circuits >(except for SMPSUs and horizontal output stages). Probaly 99% of >small-signal transistors can be replaced y 2N3904 (NPN) and 2N3906 (PNP) :-) > >Diodes are evem more generic. Most switching diodes can be replaced with >1N4148 :-). For PSU rectiifers in linear PSUs (again, SMPSUs are another >story), choose something with sufficient votlage rating (PIV -- peak >inverse votlage) (2*sqrt(2)*output voltage should be safe, say 3 times the >output voltage or more) and sufficient current rating (If, forward current). >When there are similar diodes of different PIV ratings, I normally buy >the highest. It's not much more expensive, and I'm on the side of safety. > >-tony Way too much information.. What he needs to know is what can he buy now that should work to replace a 2n3009? Answer: the 2N2222A (metal can not the plastic PN2222) has the same or close enough FT, Ic and breakdown voltages. It would be my first choice if I could not purchase/salvage the exact part. Also the 2n2222A is available and usually cheap. I buy them usually in for groups of 25 for about $0.08US each. DEC used a lot of 2n2907, 2n2905. 2n2219, 2n3553 and 2n2222A equivilents under different marking schemes. These parts are still very common. To assure the substitution it would help to know how that 2n3009 was used but from working on a lot of DEC gear the 2n2222 is a good bet. The only case where they type transistor is a bit fussy is some of the faster flip chip cards (logic) and SMPS. FYI: Older DEC machines like straight-8 and friends used a lot fo the ceramic epoxy parts similar to the 2n3638 and 2n3563. Those are ceramic headers with a block of epoxy covering the die and are prone to popping the epoxy and the symptom works when cold or mechanically intermittent. Allison From iamvirtual at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 16:45:16 2009 From: iamvirtual at gmail.com (B M) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 15:45:16 -0600 Subject: loading disk image on PDP-11 Message-ID: <2645f9870906091445w45a888e3q262c9e3c2c52d394@mail.gmail.com> Dennis Boone drb at msu.edu wrote: > > "I was thinking of using vtserver to transfer the image over a serial > > line, but the 'copy' program is not compatible with my PDP-11/05 (it > > uses the 'mul' and 'div' instructions which is not available on my > > PDP-11/10)." > > I haven't exhaustively searched for such instructions, but a sample > multiplication found in the C source didn't turn into a mul > instruction. You sure this is the cause? > > De Looking at the source for vtserver v2.3, the srt0.s file contains the 'mul' instructions. The copy program is aware of the I&D space. It appears the primary purpose of vtserver is to allow the installation/copy of early Unix versions onto RK05's. The source to vtserver appears to be implemented using the early unix version, so it is not really what I need since I cannot modify it to work on my PDP-11/10. The initial vtboot portion of vtserver does work properly on my PDP-11/10. I am able to have the 'copy' program transferred over to the /10 but the processor halts soon after execution begins. The source for vtboot does look like it should work on most machines. I updated the code slightly to make it position independent. I am thinking I will need to write something that will allow me to transfer the disk image over a serial port. I just don't want to re-invent the wheel ;-) My needs are to take a disk image on a host machine and get it transferred over to a PDP-11 via a serial port to be scribbled onto a RK05 disk. Does anyone know of another tool that can do this? I am aware of the TU58 emulator, but that only helps getting something into memory on the PDP-11, but does not help in getting the data onto the RK05. Thank you so much for the information to date! I really appreciate the pointers and discussion. --barrym From listmail at athenet.net Tue Jun 9 17:15:15 2009 From: listmail at athenet.net (Tom) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:15:15 -0500 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> References: <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20090609171028.025c9bd0@localhost> At 11:00 AM 6/9/2009 -0700, you wrote: >> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) > Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it > really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. Would a "thunder cloud" be considered a capacitor? If so, how many MF would lightning take? Was "capacitator" ever a valid name? I wonder if Al K has heard this story. When my good friend Don was still alive, he'd tell the story of working for a hospital many decades ago. He'd get calls from med techs and nurses about defibrillators that no longer worked. Some uncluefull person playing with them would stick the business end of the paddles together and rub them around, like he's seen on TV. Problem is, the uncluefull one would then bump the button that discharges the paddles. One time, when someone asked what was wrong with the unit, he mentioned that the big capacitor inside got blowed up when the paddles were discharged into a short circuit. Sure enough, next time she called and forever after, she'd say, Can you fix this defib? I think the cazapiter is fried again. -T ----- 865. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise. --Ps 111:10 (NIV) --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From snhirsch at gmail.com Tue Jun 9 20:19:21 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 21:19:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Looking for IMI 5018 MFM drive Message-ID: Title says it. Need to replace the drive mechanism in one of my Corvus flat-cable drives. Firmware expects 6-heads and 306 cylinders and gets boggled by anything larger, unfortunately. Could also probably work with Seagate ST419 or Rodime RO203, which are the only other drives I've found with the same geometry. Steve -- From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Wed Jun 10 00:14:28 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:14:28 -0700 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... Message-ID: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> I have in my grubby little hands an Elektronika MK-85 calculator, which externally is a spot-on clone of the Casio FX-700P BASIC programmable calculator. Functionally, it's identical as well, with a few enhancements (pixel-addressable graphics, a Cyrillic character-set, etc) Internally though, they're 100% different -- the processor in the MK-85 is a Russian PDP-11 knockoff. It's not a power-efficient CPU by any means, so to ensure decent battery life the CPU speed is severely limited. Not sure exactly what speed it runs at (anyone out there know?) but the result is by far the slowest calculator I've ever used. Computing the sine of an angle in degrees using the built-in "SIN" function takes anywhere between 2 and 7 seconds by my stopwatch. So the MK-85 takes an otherwise-elegant and useful 16-bit CPU, attaches it to a mere 2K of RAM and 8K of ROM and runs at an insanely low clock speed in order to allow the battery life to be more than a few minutes... I just have to wonder why they decided to go with a PDP-11 clone over, say, a Z80 clone... :). (The BASIC implementation is also incredibly buggy, mostly due to poor argument checking... see http://www.pisi.com.pl/piotr433/mk85mc1e.htm for a cool example of exploiting a bug in INPUT to do machine-language coding, in a way only a contortionist could love...) I just find this machine fascinating, for a number of reasons. A handheld PDP-11! (Sort of.) Anyone else know of examples of odd-duck machines like this, where the hardware is probably not the best choice for the application? (But it's cool anyway?) - Josh From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jun 10 00:30:11 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 22:30:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Josh Dersch wrote: > I have in my grubby little hands an Elektronika MK-85 calculator, which > externally is a spot-on clone of the Casio FX-700P BASIC programmable > calculator. Functionally, it's identical as well, with a few enhancements > (pixel-addressable graphics, a Cyrillic character-set, etc) With all the stuff that the Russians did with PDP-11 knockoffs, I wonder what would have happened if DEC took the market of home computers seriously. The UKNC (which to me resembles an MSX), is particularly interesting. -- 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? From mwichary at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 01:01:43 2009 From: mwichary at gmail.com (Marcin Wichary) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:01:43 -0700 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? In-Reply-To: References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com> <4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net> <4A294FFF.8070301@arachelian.com> <001c01c9e7dd$3c680b10$6400a8c0@acerd3c08b49af> Message-ID: <1debc0350906092301p7d06efffkafd230effe93039c@mail.gmail.com> Ars Technica just reviewed and recommendedthe book as a Father?s Day gift: > Tracy Kidder's *Soul of a New Machine* was first published in 1981, so it > may not, at first glance, seem very relevant to today's technology?but it's > important to see where we've been before thinking about where we might be > going. The book chronicles the development of Data General's first 32-bit > minicomputer?and the hackers and young college grads that spent the better > part of a year making it happen in record time. The story, which Kidder > fleshes out with clever character studies of those on the hardware and > software teams (which were often at odds with each other), is oddly similar > to the "90 hours a week and loving it" story of the development of the > Macintosh chronicled in *Revolution in the Valley*. > Contributing writer Chris Foresman believes the tale is still relevant: > "While computers are rarely designed in the manner that the Data General > MV/8000 (aka "Eagle") was," he says, "the long hours, constant stress, and > odd camaraderie are not unlike that experienced in many of today's > technology startups." On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 5:20 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > > From: CSquared > > Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 7:03 PM > > > I've been following all the comments about Soul with considerable > interest. > > Am I the only one who found it a bit sad? I finally got around to > reading > > it a couple of years ago, and it seemed to me to describe all too > accurately > > what strikes me as the employee abuse that characterized way too much of > the > > engineering development process during that era. > > "during that era"? I saw the same kinds of things 20 years later, and > don't think they've stopped since then. It's something you sign up for, > in expectation of appropriate reward. > -- Marcin Wichary Sr. user experience designer, Google Graphical User Interface gallery >> www.guidebookgallery.org From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jun 10 01:23:06 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:23:06 -0600 Subject: Remembering the true* first portable computer The Register In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:31:30 -0400. Message-ID: In article , William Donzelli writes: > > Prolly due to security clearances... Despite the fact that dollars to > > doughnuts it could prolly be hacked in about 12 seconds flat nowadays, > > That is actually not the point to keeping this stuff secret. The point > is that we want the Other Guys to make all the dumb mistakes we made - > great for tracking progress of Their technology. I'm hoping they make more mistakes than we did! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From lists at databasics.us Wed Jun 10 01:37:19 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:37:19 -1000 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <200906070451.n574pAKD014322@floodgap.com> References: <200906070451.n574pAKD014322@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4A2F549F.3050100@databasics.us> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>> And no, that's not going to motivate me to write a better editor. I >>> don't know how. If I did, I would have already done it and the holy >>> Emacs vs. Vi war would have been over, both sides having both lost. >>> >> I use both. I guess that makes me a heretic. >> > > No, just a polytheist. > Huh. I was just going to say he was bi...textual. Warren From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 10 01:49:00 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:49:00 -0700 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A2EF4EC.3795.2C640EE9@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jun 2009 at 22:14, Josh Dersch wrote: > I have in my grubby little hands an Elektronika MK-85 calculator, > which externally is a spot-on clone of the Casio FX-700P BASIC > programmable calculator. Functionally, it's identical as well, with a > few enhancements (pixel-addressable graphics, a Cyrillic > character-set, etc) Very cool, Josh! I've admired the universal application of the Soviet LSI-11 clone chips. Probalbly the one item that represents the height of it all is the MK-87--a pocket-sized calculator: http://rk86.com/frolov/mk-87.htm I have no idea how long the batteries lasted on that one... --Chuck From rodsmallwood at btconnect.com Wed Jun 10 02:03:25 2009 From: rodsmallwood at btconnect.com (Rod Smallwood) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:03:25 +0100 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4599C4892C10428FB954F90044896374@EDIConsultingLtd.local> OMG! Really? Short term, short sighted and it will come back and haunt them. Regards Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy Sent: 10 June 2009 05:06 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) At 11:32 PM -0400 6/9/09, Dave McGuire wrote: >On Jun 9, 2009, at 11:24 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >>> Not only supported, but still under very active development! >> >>It is still a sinking ship, unfortunately. > > Why is that? Because it's not Windows? No, because a sizable portion of the Development group's last day working was last Friday. :-( I'm honestly not sure who is left. HP in their infinite lack of wisdom has chosen to do away with highly experienced members of the VMS Development teams and outsource their jobs to India. This does not bode well for VMS. As much as it pains me to say this, after last Friday I have to question just how active the development of VMS is. :-( Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From jzg22 at drexel.edu Wed Jun 10 03:00:35 2009 From: jzg22 at drexel.edu (Jonathan Gevaryahu) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:00:35 -0400 Subject: IRC channel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2F6823.50701@drexel.edu> We have an IRC channel (of sorts): Network: Freenode (irc.freenode.net) Channel: #classiccmp -- Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu(@t)hotmail(d0t)com jzg22(@t)drexel(d0t)edu From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Wed Jun 10 06:25:06 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:25:06 +0100 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <200906092346.20414.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200906092346.20414.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <1244633106.5593.11.camel@elric> On Tue, 2009-06-09 at 23:46 -0400, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Tuesday 09 June 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > > On Jun 9, 2009, at 11:24 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > > >> Not only supported, but still under very active development! > > > > > > It is still a sinking ship, unfortunately. > > > > Why is that? Because it's not Windows? > > Probably because its usage is going down over time? I can't be > completely sure, but I'm willing to bet that if HP ported it to > x86/amd64 instead of ia64, it would have had a better chance of holding > ground. I'm surprised there hasn't been an open-source clone of VMS yet. There's a pretty much functional open-source clone of BeOS, a pretty much functional open-source clone of Windows, and more open-source Unix-alikes than you could shake quite a large stick at. There's even a fairly "early days yet" OS/2 clone - anyone fancy porting it to a PDP11? Maybe I haven't looked hard enough for VMS. Gordon From bdwheele at indiana.edu Wed Jun 10 07:29:36 2009 From: bdwheele at indiana.edu (Brian Wheeler) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:29:36 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <1244633106.5593.11.camel@elric> References: <200906092346.20414.pat@computer-refuge.org> <1244633106.5593.11.camel@elric> Message-ID: <1244636976.29765.2.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> On Wed, 2009-06-10 at 12:25 +0100, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > On Tue, 2009-06-09 at 23:46 -0400, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > On Tuesday 09 June 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > > > On Jun 9, 2009, at 11:24 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > > > >> Not only supported, but still under very active development! > > > > > > > > It is still a sinking ship, unfortunately. > > > > > > Why is that? Because it's not Windows? > > > > Probably because its usage is going down over time? I can't be > > completely sure, but I'm willing to bet that if HP ported it to > > x86/amd64 instead of ia64, it would have had a better chance of holding > > ground. > > I'm surprised there hasn't been an open-source clone of VMS yet. > There's a pretty much functional open-source clone of BeOS, a pretty > much functional open-source clone of Windows, and more open-source > Unix-alikes than you could shake quite a large stick at. There's even a > fairly "early days yet" OS/2 clone - anyone fancy porting it to a PDP11? > > Maybe I haven't looked hard enough for VMS. > > Gordon > There's FreeVMS at http://www.freevms.net. Its pretty early and its based off of linux, so YMMV. From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jun 10 07:39:00 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:39:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> from Josh Dersch at "Jun 9, 9 10:14:28 pm" Message-ID: <200906101239.n5ACd0on012018@floodgap.com> > (The BASIC implementation is also incredibly buggy, mostly due to poor > argument checking... see http://www.pisi.com.pl/piotr433/mk85mc1e.htm > for a cool example of exploiting a bug in INPUT to do machine-language > coding, in a way only a contortionist could love...) That is outstanding. This reminds me of the stack-pave trick for writing to Tomy Tutor VDP RAM by exploiting bugs in SCELL and GCELL (although no explicit execution of 9900 assembly ... yet). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- This manual has been carefully for errors to make sure correct. -- classiccmp From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 07:45:25 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:45:25 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jun 10, 2009, at 12:06 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>>> Not only supported, but still under very active development! >>> >>> It is still a sinking ship, unfortunately. >> >> Why is that? Because it's not Windows? > > No, because a sizable portion of the Development group's last day > working was last Friday. :-( I'm honestly not sure who is left. > HP in their infinite lack of wisdom has chosen to do away with > highly experienced members of the VMS Development teams and > outsource their jobs to India. This does not bode well for VMS. > As much as it pains me to say this, after last Friday I have to > question just how active the development of VMS is. :-( Oh my, now that's a different matter entirely. (and a reason that has a basis in reality) That is most disturbing. I sincerely hope that someone leaks the last-good source code before the "hey we're cheaper" guys start screwing it up. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 07:47:59 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:47:59 -0500 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A2FAB7F.8080107@gmail.com> Josh Dersch wrote: > Internally though, they're 100% different -- the processor in the MK-85 > is a Russian PDP-11 knockoff. It's not a power-efficient CPU by any > means, so to ensure decent battery life the CPU speed is severely > limited. Not sure exactly what speed it runs at (anyone out there > know?) but the result is by far the slowest calculator I've ever used. That's interesting. Does it have provision for AC input? Just curious if it auto-magically ups the clock speed when not running from the battery, as that would be kinda cool (and an early example of a power-saving mode :-) > (The BASIC implementation is also incredibly buggy, mostly due to poor > argument checking... see http://www.pisi.com.pl/piotr433/mk85mc1e.htm > for a cool example of exploiting a bug in INPUT to do machine-language > coding, in a way only a contortionist could love...) Gah, one of the home micro BASICs did something similar, so you could throw MC in there as a character string and 'trick' the BASIC into executing it by tripping the parser up - but my brain's refusing to tell me which one it was now. > Anyone else know of examples of odd-duck machines like this, where the > hardware is probably not the best choice for the application? Anything ever done using an IBM-compatible PC? > (But it's cool anyway?) Oh. Scratch that, then. ;-) From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 07:52:22 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:52:22 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <1244633106.5593.11.camel@elric> References: <200906092346.20414.pat@computer-refuge.org> <1244633106.5593.11.camel@elric> Message-ID: <3B5FBA71-99F9-409D-9BC1-5D8F361841B0@neurotica.com> On Jun 10, 2009, at 7:25 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > I'm surprised there hasn't been an open-source clone of VMS yet. > There's a pretty much functional open-source clone of BeOS, a pretty > much functional open-source clone of Windows, and more open-source > Unix-alikes than you could shake quite a large stick at. There's > even a > fairly "early days yet" OS/2 clone - anyone fancy porting it to a > PDP11? > > Maybe I haven't looked hard enough for VMS. Does anyone remember PC-VMS from Wendin? Better yet, does anyone have a copy? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 08:07:31 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:07:31 -0400 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <4A2FAB7F.8080107@gmail.com> References: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> <4A2FAB7F.8080107@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 10, 2009, at 8:47 AM, Jules Richardson wrote: >> (The BASIC implementation is also incredibly buggy, mostly due to >> poor argument checking... see http://www.pisi.com.pl/piotr433/ >> mk85mc1e.htm for a cool example of exploiting a bug in INPUT to do >> machine-language coding, in a way only a contortionist could love...) > > Gah, one of the home micro BASICs did something similar, so you > could throw MC in there as a character string and 'trick' the BASIC > into executing it by tripping the parser up - but my brain's > refusing to tell me which one it was now. This is a pretty common trick on the ZX81/TS-1000. You'd embed machine code into a REM statement at the top of a program, as a string of characters. It was a real bitch to enter that stuff from magazines. :-) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From redodd at comcast.net Wed Jun 10 08:08:13 2009 From: redodd at comcast.net (Ralph E. Dodd) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:08:13 -0400 Subject: Atari 800xl Super Video 2.1 mod (and other video mods) Message-ID: <7F8BA525012F4DD3A8929DF297EB350E@thisecb16ac7bc> Subject: Re: Atari 800xl Super Video 2.1 mod (and other video mods) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Message-ID: <725511F2-87D0-46E5-B99E-7C8EEDA9458C at xlisper.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes On Jun 9, 2009, at 10:21 PM, David Betz wrote: > I recently acquired an Atari 800xl and would like to apply the Super > Video 2.1 mod to get better video but have been unable to locate the > description of how to do it anywhere on the web. I've done a google > search and found many links to it but they all led to dead ends. Can > someone point me to the article describing this mod? >Okay, I finally managed to find the Super Video 2.1 instructions but >now find that they seem to be in addition to the Super Video 2.0 mods >rather than a newer version of them. I also find that some people >recommend against making them but instead suggest some simpler mods to >improve the 800xl video. Has anyone here had any experience with >trying to improve the video output of the 800xl? What do you >recommend? I'd like to at least enable the S-video output. David, I've done the Super Video 2.0 & 2.1 mods about 5 times now and it always works perfectly. My brother has a 52" Samsung LCD and the picture is unbelievable! The S-video output is perfect. We had an Atari party and everyone wanted to know why the picture was so flawless. I have no experience with the other mods, but I highly recommend the 2.0 & 2.1 mods. Here's a link. http://www.wolfpup.net/atarimods/supervid.html Good luck and have fun. Ralph From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 08:14:45 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:14:45 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4599C4892C10428FB954F90044896374@EDIConsultingLtd.local> References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> <4599C4892C10428FB954F90044896374@EDIConsultingLtd.local> Message-ID: > Short term, short sighted and it will come back and haunt them. In reality, probably not. Like the waning days of Alpha, the highly experienced people have already jumped ship years ago. What is (was) left is a mere shell of what was. At the June MIT Flea I will ask around and get the true story, as there are some relatively high ranking DECheads that attend. -- Will From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jun 10 08:26:55 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:26:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: from Dave McGuire at "Jun 10, 9 09:07:31 am" Message-ID: <200906101326.n5ADQtmi015936@floodgap.com> > >> (The BASIC implementation is also incredibly buggy, mostly due to > >> poor argument checking... see http://www.pisi.com.pl/piotr433/ > >> mk85mc1e.htm for a cool example of exploiting a bug in INPUT to do > >> machine-language coding, in a way only a contortionist could love...) > > > > Gah, one of the home micro BASICs did something similar, so you > > could throw MC in there as a character string and 'trick' the BASIC > > into executing it by tripping the parser up - but my brain's > > refusing to tell me which one it was now. > > This is a pretty common trick on the ZX81/TS-1000. You'd embed > machine code into a REM statement at the top of a program, as a > string of characters. It was a real bitch to enter that stuff from > magazines. :-) Right, you could do this on a C64 also and probably many machines, but this was just a convenient means of storage -- execution of arbitrary ML was still permitted by the interpreter. The MK-85 hack is noteworthy because it allows you to run stuff on the CPU even though the BASIC supposedly doesn't let you (no CALL, SYS, USR(), etc). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The son becomes the father, the father becomes the son, the uncle has a beer. From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 08:33:08 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:33:08 -0400 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <200906101326.n5ADQtmi015936@floodgap.com> References: <200906101326.n5ADQtmi015936@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <69DE4FA1-D5D9-4AA0-A623-D76D40E3A388@neurotica.com> On Jun 10, 2009, at 9:26 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>>> (The BASIC implementation is also incredibly buggy, mostly due to >>>> poor argument checking... see http://www.pisi.com.pl/piotr433/ >>>> mk85mc1e.htm for a cool example of exploiting a bug in INPUT to do >>>> machine-language coding, in a way only a contortionist could >>>> love...) >>> >>> Gah, one of the home micro BASICs did something similar, so you >>> could throw MC in there as a character string and 'trick' the BASIC >>> into executing it by tripping the parser up - but my brain's >>> refusing to tell me which one it was now. >> >> This is a pretty common trick on the ZX81/TS-1000. You'd embed >> machine code into a REM statement at the top of a program, as a >> string of characters. It was a real bitch to enter that stuff from >> magazines. :-) > > Right, you could do this on a C64 also and probably many machines, > but this > was just a convenient means of storage -- execution of arbitrary ML > was > still permitted by the interpreter. The MK-85 hack is noteworthy > because it > allows you to run stuff on the CPU even though the BASIC supposedly > doesn't > let you (no CALL, SYS, USR(), etc). OH! Oh yes, I see what you mean. Different trick entirely. Very cool. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Wed Jun 10 08:30:54 2009 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:30:54 -0500 Subject: IRC channel? In-Reply-To: <4A2F6823.50701@drexel.edu> References: <4A2F6823.50701@drexel.edu> Message-ID: <4A2FB58E.10203@brutman.com> On of the applications I've written to exercise my TCP/IP code for DOS is an IRC client: Requirements: - Hardware: 8088 class with 192 to 256K of RAM - Display: All of the classics - OS: DOS 3.3 or better. (I tested once with 2.1) - Ethernet: something with a packet driver Besides physical hardware, it works in DosBox if you get the build with NE2000 emulation. Features: - TCP/IP is built in. Just provide the packet driver - Backscroll buffer, logging, timestamps, ... - Runs well on the slowest hardware Go here for more details: http://www.brutman.com/mTCP/IRCjr.html Yes, it's a shameless plug. But I like using a classic interface when I talk about vintage machines, so this is the perfect IRC client for me. And the more people that use it, the more testing I get on the TCP/IP part. Regards, Mike From tshoppa at wmata.com Wed Jun 10 08:33:52 2009 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:33:52 -0400 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... Message-ID: Josh writes: ? the processor in the MK-85 ? is a Russian PDP-11 knockoff. It's not a power-efficient CPU by any ? means, The joke in the cold war era was this: A Russian scientist shows up at a international conference with his amazing whiz-bang wrist computer. It has word processing, E-mail, advanced calculations, etc., all built-in. Every attendee comes by and Expresses complete amazement. At the end of the day when it's time to pack up, the Russian scientist asks "could someone help Me with my suitcase?" One, two, three others come to help him but are barely able to move The suitcase. They ask "what do you have in here that could be so heavy?" The answer: "It's the power supply for my wrist computer". Tim. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 09:21:38 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:21:38 -0400 Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: <0KKZ008F8QP1CHH8@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KKZ008F8QP1CHH8@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 5:38 PM, Allison wrote: > Way too much information.. ?What he needs to know is what can he buy now that > should work to replace a 2n3009? I could use that info, too, since I also have older DEC equipment that uses the 2N3009. > Answer: the 2N2222A (metal can not the plastic PN2222) has the same or close > enough FT, Ic and breakdown voltages. ?It would be my first choice if I could > not purchase/salvage the exact part. Also the 2n2222A is available and usually > cheap. ?I buy them usually in for groups of 25 for about $0.08US each. What is different about the metal can and the plastic case part? I have a few of each, and have so-far interchanged them in circuits where performance isn't an issue (i.e., where a 2N3904 would work fine, too). Obviously 2N2222s aren't expensive, but I'd like to know why I should set aside the metal-cased ones for repairing specific items. > The only case where they type transistor is a bit fussy is some of the faster > flip chip cards (logic) and SMPS. What categories of FLIP-CHIPs are you thinking of when you say "faster"? I have three R-series CPUs and a few DF-32s. I have yet to delve into component-level repair, but I know I'll need to soon. > FYI: Older DEC machines like straight-8 and friends used a lot fo the ceramic > epoxy parts similar to the 2n3638 and 2n3563. Good to know (since I have more than one item from that era). > Those are ceramic headers with > a block of epoxy covering the die and are prone to popping the epoxy and the > symptom works when cold or mechanically intermittent. Is that visually apparent, or is that an internal fault? If I identified a bad transistor and removed it from a FLIP-CHIP, would it be difficult to set up something with an oscilloscope to watch some output then tap on the transistor to watch the trace "change" to verify mechanical fragility? Thanks, -ethan From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 10:38:24 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:38:24 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> Kirn Gill wrote: > It might seem odd, but I don't know how to use 'ed'. I kinda know 'ex' > due to the fact 'vi' is 'ex' turned from a line editor to a screen > editor. Most of what I know about computers from way back is mostly > limited to UNIX (and that's only because UNIX didn't die like the > other OSes.) I hate statements like this. Died like what OSes? MVS? VM? VSE? There are a bunch of OSes from back then which are still around. Peace... Sridhar From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 10:55:46 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:55:46 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> Message-ID: <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> On Jun 10, 2009, at 11:38 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> It might seem odd, but I don't know how to use 'ed'. I kinda know >> 'ex' >> due to the fact 'vi' is 'ex' turned from a line editor to a screen >> editor. Most of what I know about computers from way back is mostly >> limited to UNIX (and that's only because UNIX didn't die like the >> other OSes.) > > I hate statements like this. Died like what OSes? MVS? VM? VSE? > There are a bunch of OSes from back then which are still around. This attitude is common even here, amongst people who presumably should know better. Just because VMS was around thirty years ago, that means it's a thirty-year-old OS. "Wow, I can't believe we're still using cars. They're so old! Since there were cars in 1908, that means ALL cars are from 1908!" The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the only thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. Do these people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From slawmaster at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 10:58:17 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:58:17 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906100858k18a4d0e9ic6351270efbd9cb0@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 8:55 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 10, 2009, at 11:38 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> >>> It might seem odd, but I don't know how to use 'ed'. I kinda know 'ex' >>> due to the fact 'vi' is 'ex' turned from a line editor to a screen >>> editor. Most of what I know about computers from way back is mostly >>> limited to UNIX (and that's only because UNIX didn't die like the >>> other OSes.) >> >> I hate statements like this. ?Died like what OSes? ?MVS? ?VM? ?VSE? There >> are a bunch of OSes from back then which are still around. > > ?This attitude is common even here, amongst people who presumably should > know better. ?Just because VMS was around thirty years ago, that means it's > a thirty-year-old OS. ?"Wow, I can't believe we're still using cars. > ?They're so old! ?Since there were cars in 1908, that means ALL cars are > from 1908!" > > ?The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know > better is the visibility factor. ?VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are > *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the only > thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. ?Do these > people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, > maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? > > ? ? ? ? ?-Dave Anything without pipes makes me choke and condemn it to a rightful and speedy death. I like my 30 year old OSes to at least include my favorite 40 year old innovation ;) John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 11:01:46 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:01:46 -0400 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: <4A2EE41A.A0AA128C@cs.ubc.ca> References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EE41A.A0AA128C@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <7E3C6977-F936-4E54-8570-D66ACE40B0BD@neurotica.com> On Jun 9, 2009, at 6:37 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: > I don't claim to have a full physics understanding of the issue but > I think a rough hand-waving explanation is that with the capacitor > charged and > the dielectric under potential stress, some charge creeps into and > is held by > the dielectric itself. It takes time for the charge to creep into the > dielectric. Once the potential is removed by shorting/loading the > cap, the > dielectric charge will redistribute itself to reflect the new > potential state, > i.e. creep back out, but this too takes time. If the discharge path > has been > removed the charge will accumulate on the plates. Interesting. And bizarre. > Search for "dielectric absorption", or look up "permittivity" in > Wikipedia to > get an idea of just how complex capacitors are (!) Yes, I'm aware of their complexity...From my childhood days I thought they were simple, but in recent years I've studied them pretty closely. I've been dabbling in metrology for a few years now and have become amazed at the complexity behind the "simple" things that are the underpinnings of all things electronic. It's fascinating. Anyone interested in electronics would do well to investigate this a bit. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From tshoppa at wmata.com Wed Jun 10 11:06:34 2009 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:06:34 -0400 Subject: Transistor Substitution Message-ID: Allison writes: > Answer: the 2N2222A (metal can not the plastic PN2222) has the same or close > enough FT, Ic and breakdown voltages. It would be my first choice if I could > not purchase/salvage the exact part. Also the 2n2222A is available and usually > cheap. I buy them usually in for groups of 25 for about $0.08US each. Ethan asks: ? What is different about the metal can and the plastic case part? Mostly lead spacing and cosmetics. Metal can pinouts are in a semicircle, the TO92 is a straight line layout. If the original was a metal can soldered down flat to the PCB, chances are the plastic transistor will be showing some leg if used as a replacement. Metal cans can be heat sinked better than a plastic part obviously, and for peripheral or line drivers heat dissipation may be important. For a while in the 60's and 70's, the metal can parts had superior hermetic seals that were important in some space and mil-spec applications, but since then the plastic packages have been entirely perfected. Tim. From ajp166 at verizon.net Wed Jun 10 08:57:42 2009 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (Allison) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:57:42 -0400 Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: References: <0KKZ008F8QP1CHH8@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <4A2FBBD6.4000502@verizon.net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 5:38 PM, Allison wrote: > >> Way too much information.. What he needs to know is what can he buy now that >> should work to replace a 2n3009? >> > > I could use that info, too, since I also have older DEC equipment that > uses the 2N3009. > > >> Answer: the 2N2222A (metal can not the plastic PN2222) has the same or close >> enough FT, Ic and breakdown voltages. It would be my first choice if I could >> not purchase/salvage the exact part. Also the 2n2222A is available and usually >> cheap. I buy them usually in for groups of 25 for about $0.08US each. >> > > What is different about the metal can and the plastic case part? I > have a few of each, and have so-far interchanged them in circuits > where performance isn't an issue (i.e., where a 2N3904 would work > fine, too). Obviously 2N2222s aren't expensive, but I'd like to know > why I should set aside the metal-cased ones for repairing specific > items. > > They are essentially the same die but due to mounting and the absence of the metal the pn2222 does not stand he same Ic and power dissapation. if you really need the plastic part you might as well use the 2n3904. >> The only case where they type transistor is a bit fussy is some of the faster >> flip chip cards (logic) and SMPS. >> > > What categories of FLIP-CHIPs are you thinking of when you say > "faster"? I have three R-series CPUs and a few DF-32s. I have yet to > delve into component-level repair, but I know I'll need to soon. > > some of the older boards that used transistors for logic. one place you would see those is in an 8l or straight 8 and part of the core memory subsystem of the omnibus machines. >> FYI: Older DEC machines like straight-8 and friends used a lot fo the ceramic >> epoxy parts similar to the 2n3638 and 2n3563. >> > > Good to know (since I have more than one item from that era). > > >> Those are ceramic headers with >> a block of epoxy covering the die and are prone to popping the epoxy and the >> symptom works when cold or mechanically intermittent. >> > > Is that visually apparent, or is that an internal fault? If I > identified a bad transistor and removed it from a FLIP-CHIP, would it > be difficult to set up something with an oscilloscope to watch some > output then tap on the transistor to watch the trace "change" to > verify mechanical fragility? > > Its rare to see the top epoxy pop off but it happens. usually the part either fails or is most often thermally intermittent. Lot's of years working with transistors from that era and noo small amount of DEC scrap boards during my time with DEC for spares and as resource. Allison > Thanks, > > -ethan > > From keithvz at verizon.net Wed Jun 10 09:59:21 2009 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith M) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:59:21 -0400 Subject: TEACO Floppy drive Tester - any info available online ? In-Reply-To: <4A2EFEBF.8000805@comcast.net> References: <4A2EFEBF.8000805@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A2FCA49.8040200@verizon.net> Dan Roganti wrote: > > I picked up this TEACO CD 2-3 floppy drive tester for only $5 at the > recent hamfest here in Pittsburgh and like to get it working again. I > did a search and found some old postings on here from 10+yrs ago, but > without any leads to any info for this tester. I hope somebody might > have a clue about this tester and some leads on finding a manual. > http://tinyurl.com/l9o5gn > > thanks > =Dan > Looks pretty cool. I wish I would have been at that hamfest (which one was it?) -- I would have bought it first! I'm jealous. I have a Brian Instruments Brikon 723 tester. I haven't played with it yet, but I have a picture here http://www.techtravels.org/amiga/amigablog/?p=214 with manuals. Thanks Keith From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 10 11:04:29 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:04:29 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com>, <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A2F771D.4702.2E60A537@cclist.sydex.com> On 10 Jun 2009 at 11:55, Dave McGuire wrote: > This attitude is common even here, amongst people who presumably > should know better. Just because VMS was around thirty years ago, > that means it's a thirty-year-old OS. "Wow, I can't believe we're > still using cars. They're so old! Since there were cars in 1908, > that means ALL cars are from 1908!" So, does anyone know of an open-source clone for FMS II? or DOS/360? --Chuck From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Wed Jun 10 11:45:52 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:45:52 +0100 Subject: Interesting IBM 5150... or something In-Reply-To: References: <6dbe3c380906092033n3dfb48f9k6c07c7a59b7beb05@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1244652352.5593.12.camel@elric> On Tue, 2009-06-09 at 23:45 -0400, William Donzelli wrote: > > I've never heard of this. Looks even more tank-like than the 5150. > > Look at the backplane where the cables go in. > > A whole bunch of these came out of surplus maybe ten years ago. I > would like to know what the IBM mpdel number is. A quick "Ask the seller a question..." and it turns out to be a 4469. Have another look at the listing, he added more pics. Gordon From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jun 10 11:52:40 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:52:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know > better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are > *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the only thing > they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. Do these people > really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, maintain > hospital databases, or run railroads? I agree with this statement, and out side of this audience how many people even know anything besides Windows exists? There are a lot of people that think all computers run Windows. As for people thinking certain OS's are dead, I just want to say that I continue to be amazed that GCOS-8 is still alive. Though having worked as a Systems Analyist on a DPS-8 running GCOS-8, I suspect the problem is the difficulty people have getting off of it, coupled with the fact Group Bull seems to have the brains to keep supporting it. I shudder to think what it must cost a site to run a GCOS-8 system! I would also be interested in knowing just how large of a user base there is. Zane From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 12:02:10 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:02:10 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > ?This attitude is common even here, amongst people who presumably should > know better. The finger points to me? > ?Just because VMS was around thirty years ago, that means it's > a thirty-year-old OS. ?"Wow, I can't believe we're still using cars. > ?They're so old! ?Since there were cars in 1908, that means ALL cars are > from 1908!" I never said VMS is dead - if I did, please point it out and acknowledge. I did say VMS is a "sinking ship". Not only is the market share tiny and shrinking, but its installation base (number of machines running VMS in production) is also shrinking. There are pretty much no new VMS customers. VMS is speeding along to being insignificant. And yes, OS/400, VM, MVS (yes, keeping the old names here) are also sinking ships for much the same reason, although they are still viable products. Yes, they are important, and are still cutting edge, but the truth is still that there will be a day in the future when these OSes are in the same league as MCP or TOPS-20. Hopefully that day will be long off. Here is a challenge to the whole list membership. Lots of folks here are well embedded into the industry, so I think this is a good sample. Try to think of as many new customers (not upgrades) for the following OSes (again, keeping the old names): AOS/VS, MCP, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, OS/2200, VM, MVS, VSE, OS/400, Multics, PrimOS. Lets keep this to year 2009. I bet we can not even get to twenty. -- Will From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jun 10 09:50:07 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:50:07 -0300 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <1bb301c9e9db$14a8b480$af5419bb@desktaba> > Please cut the guy some slack, Ian. The OP was Kirn, who is 19. > His idea of "way back" is pretty different from yours or mine. And think about most of the young boys never seen a DOS prompt... From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 12:04:40 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:04:40 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > As for people thinking certain OS's are dead, I just want to say that I > continue to be amazed that GCOS-8 is still alive. ?Though having worked as a > Systems Analyist on a DPS-8 running GCOS-8, I suspect the problem is the > difficulty people have getting off of it, coupled with the fact Group Bull > seems to have the brains to keep supporting it. Yes, I forgot about GCOS. Pretty much in the same league as the Unisys OSes. I have heard that there are now less than 50 customers for MCP and OS/2200. The water is sloshing on the main deck. Does this seem right? -- Will From slawmaster at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 12:45:57 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:45:57 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906101045y214bfa35wb445df6f2c5a579d@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 10:02 AM, William Donzelli wrote: >> ?This attitude is common even here, amongst people who presumably should >> know better. > > The finger points to me? > >> ?Just because VMS was around thirty years ago, that means it's >> a thirty-year-old OS. ?"Wow, I can't believe we're still using cars. >> ?They're so old! ?Since there were cars in 1908, that means ALL cars are >> from 1908!" > > I never said VMS is dead - if I did, please point it out and > acknowledge. I did say VMS is a "sinking ship". Not only is the market > share tiny and shrinking, but its installation base (number of > machines running VMS in production) is also shrinking. There are > pretty much no new VMS customers. VMS is speeding along to being > insignificant. > > And yes, OS/400, VM, MVS (yes, keeping the old names here) are also > sinking ships for much the same reason, although they are still viable > products. Yes, they are important, and are still cutting edge, but the > truth is still that there will be a day in the future when these OSes > are in the same league as MCP or TOPS-20. Hopefully that day will be > long off. > > Here is a challenge to the whole list membership. Lots of folks here > are well embedded into the industry, so I think this is a good sample. > Try to think of as many new customers (not upgrades) for the following > OSes (again, keeping the old names): AOS/VS, MCP, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, > OS/2200, VM, MVS, VSE, OS/400, Multics, PrimOS. Lets keep this to year > 2009. I bet we can not even get to twenty. > > -- > Will > At this point, Multics does not run anywhere in the world and, to my knowledge, nobody even has the hardware to run it... well, CHM has DOCKMASTER, but can that still run? John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jun 10 13:00:40 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:00:40 -0700 Subject: Transistor Substitution References: <0KKZ008F8QP1CHH8@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> <4A2FBBD6.4000502@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4A2FF4C8.30AD60AD@cs.ubc.ca> Allison wrote: > >> FYI: Older DEC machines like straight-8 and friends used a lot fo the ceramic > >> epoxy parts similar to the 2n3638 and 2n3563. > >> > >> Those are ceramic headers with > >> a block of epoxy covering the die and are prone to popping the epoxy and the > >> symptom works when cold or mechanically intermittent. > >> > > > > Is that visually apparent, or is that an internal fault? If I > > identified a bad transistor and removed it from a FLIP-CHIP, would it > > be difficult to set up something with an oscilloscope to watch some > > output then tap on the transistor to watch the trace "change" to > > verify mechanical fragility? > > > Its rare to see the top epoxy pop off but it happens. usually the part > either fails > or is most often thermally intermittent. TMK, only Fairchild made those packages, although they had JEDEC numbers (TO-105 and TO-106). I kind of liked them somehow, perhaps a nostalgia thing. (Never seen them fail mechanically, myself.) In all sorts of commercial equipment around the mid-60's to 70's. 2N3638 was very popular. From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 13:09:36 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:09:36 -0400 Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: <4A2FF4C8.30AD60AD@cs.ubc.ca> References: <0KKZ008F8QP1CHH8@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> <4A2FBBD6.4000502@verizon.net> <4A2FF4C8.30AD60AD@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On Jun 10, 2009, at 2:00 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: > TMK, only Fairchild made those packages, although they had JEDEC > numbers > (TO-105 and TO-106). > > I kind of liked them somehow, perhaps a nostalgia thing. (Never > seen them fail > mechanically, myself.) In all sorts of commercial equipment around > the mid-60's > to 70's. 2N3638 was very popular. I got a bag of 2N3638s at a hamfest when I was a kid. I think they're the first transistors I ever did anything fun with, with the exception of the 2SA/2SB-somethingorothers in the Radio Shack 65-in-1 kit. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 13:11:35 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:11:35 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> On Jun 10, 2009, at 12:52 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should >> know better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM >> are *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because >> the only thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running >> Windows. Do these people really believe PCs running Windows >> process their bank transactions, maintain hospital databases, or >> run railroads? > > I agree with this statement, and out side of this audience how many > people > even know anything besides Windows exists? There are a lot of > people that > think all computers run Windows. Well, this isn't the only group of technical people in the world. As far as knowing about what the real data processing world uses, it's not classic computer enthusiasts vs. the rest of the world, it's knowledgeable computer people vs. the rest of the world. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From IanK at vulcan.com Wed Jun 10 13:25:15 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:25:15 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906101045y214bfa35wb445df6f2c5a579d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <7d3530220906101045y214bfa35wb445df6f2c5a579d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of John Floren > Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 10:46 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: UNIX V7 > > > At this point, Multics does not run anywhere in the world and, to my > knowledge, nobody even has the hardware to run it... well, CHM has > DOCKMASTER, but can that still run? > No. It is missing the swapping disk. Replacing it could be done, but it would be a non-trivial (and non-cheap) enterprise. -- Ian From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jun 10 13:25:02 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:25:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 10, 2009, at 12:52 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>> The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know >>> better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are >>> *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the only >>> thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. Do these >>> people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, >>> maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? >> >> I agree with this statement, and out side of this audience how many people >> even know anything besides Windows exists? There are a lot of people that >> think all computers run Windows. > > Well, this isn't the only group of technical people in the world. As far as > knowing about what the real data processing world uses, it's not classic > computer enthusiasts vs. the rest of the world, it's knowledgeable computer > people vs. the rest of the world. Of course this isn't the only group of technical people. The disturbing thing is, there are a sizable group of "technical" people who thing Windows is all there is, and either don't realize anything else exists, or that anything else still exists. These are the people that really scare me. Zane From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 13:37:07 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:37:07 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> On Jun 10, 2009, at 2:25 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>>> The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) >>>> should know better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, >>>> and VM are *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow >>>> "dead" because the only thing they see in for sale in WalMart is >>>> PCs running Windows. Do these people really believe PCs running >>>> Windows process their bank transactions, maintain hospital >>>> databases, or run railroads? >>> I agree with this statement, and out side of this audience how >>> many people >>> even know anything besides Windows exists? There are a lot of >>> people that >>> think all computers run Windows. >> >> Well, this isn't the only group of technical people in the world. >> As far as knowing about what the real data processing world uses, >> it's not classic computer enthusiasts vs. the rest of the world, >> it's knowledgeable computer people vs. the rest of the world. > > Of course this isn't the only group of technical people. The > disturbing > thing is, there are a sizable group of "technical" people who thing > Windows > is all there is, and either don't realize anything else exists, or > that > anything else still exists. These are the people that really scare > me. Same here, but I don't really consider them to be "technical people". Being that I don't use (or work on) Windows machines, I tend not to work with those people professionally, and I certainly don't associate with them on a social level...they give me that "not so fresh" feeling. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 13:34:47 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:34:47 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 1:02 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > I never said VMS is dead - if I did, please point it out and > acknowledge. I did say VMS is a "sinking ship". You did. And it is (and I have made a lot of money on the ride down). > Not only is the market > share tiny and shrinking, but its installation base (number of > machines running VMS in production) is also shrinking. There are > pretty much no new VMS customers. VMS is speeding along to being > insignificant. I saw that start in the late 1980s when DEC was at the "top of its game"... we sold our products to DEC's customers, and when their userbase stopped growing at the rate it had been at, our potential market pool stopped growing, too. DEC kept making more money and newer and faster boxes, but they were mostly selling them to their existing customers as upgrades. Sure, folks were adding capacity all over the place, but the number of physical installations essentially stopped expanding 20 years ago, long before it obviously began to shrink. > Try to think of as many new customers (not upgrades) for the following > OSes (again, keeping the old names): AOS/VS, MCP, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, > OS/2200, VM, MVS, VSE, OS/400, Multics, PrimOS. Lets keep this to year > 2009. I bet we can not even get to twenty. New in 2009? I have no candidates (and the number does not go up for 'new since 1999'). I love VMS, but I don't see it as a growth industry. It's not dead-and-gone, but neither is it thriving nor has it for a very long time. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 13:35:54 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:35:54 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906101045y214bfa35wb445df6f2c5a579d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <7d3530220906101045y214bfa35wb445df6f2c5a579d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 1:45 PM, John Floren wrote: > At this point, Multics does not run anywhere in the world and, to my > knowledge, nobody even has the hardware to run it... well, CHM has > DOCKMASTER, but can that still run? Is that the same Dockmaster that Cliff Stoll mentioned in "The Cuckoo's Egg"? -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 13:38:26 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:38:26 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: > ?This attitude is common... > ... the only > thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. ?Do these > people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, > maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? Common indeed - an example from just this week: I was volunteering at FreeGeek Columbus, sifting through a pile of donated 2U servers, when one of the other volunteers _who uses Linux_ asked me what they were (because he honestly didn't recognize a boxy slab as a computer). Upon hearing the answer, he asked what a server does and where you'd use one. It's a bit tough to explain to someone the difference between a rackable server-class machine and a desktop machine when there's little common conceptual ground or vocabulary. I don't know how much of I was saying was starting to make sense because the last question was, "I'm thinking of starting a business with some friends. Do we need a server?" Besides the cop-out answer of "probably, at some point", I really didn't have a good answer for him. It's a good thing I'm not in Sales. -ethan From slawmaster at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 13:42:06 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:42:06 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <7d3530220906101045y214bfa35wb445df6f2c5a579d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906101142m23168d5bxb7645873efaf0bb2@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 1:45 PM, John Floren wrote: >> At this point, Multics does not run anywhere in the world and, to my >> knowledge, nobody even has the hardware to run it... well, CHM has >> DOCKMASTER, but can that still run? > > Is that the same Dockmaster that Cliff Stoll mentioned in "The Cuckoo's Egg"? > > -ethan > If "The Cuckoo's Egg" is about the NSA, then probably yes? -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jun 10 13:43:44 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:43:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <7d3530220906101045y214bfa35wb445df6f2c5a579d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Ian King wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- >> bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of John Floren >> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 10:46 AM >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> Subject: Re: UNIX V7 >> >> >> At this point, Multics does not run anywhere in the world and, to my >> knowledge, nobody even has the hardware to run it... well, CHM has >> DOCKMASTER, but can that still run? >> > > No. It is missing the swapping disk. Replacing it could be done, but it > would be a non-trivial (and non-cheap) enterprise. -- Ian > What kind of hardware are you talking here? Looking at http://www.multicians.org/site-dockmaster.html I assume you're talking about the "4 MW paging device (bulk store)", though the same page mentions that CHM didn't recieve the disks. Are the drives all the removable diskpack type? We used mainly fixed disks, but had a few removable packs. Does anyone know what it takes to connect IBM DASD to a DPS-8, and if Multic's would support it? I know that it is possible with GCOS-8, but I do not know what model, or how it would be connected. As *INSANE* as it sounds, someone dropped one of the two DASD units for the site I worked at off the back of the truck, and it wasn't replaced (not sure why), as a result we were unable to bring the IBM DASD online. As of this last weekend my Honeywell manuals are out of storage, and at home. I'm just not sure where they are in the garage, though I've a pretty good idea. It will be interesting to see just what I have manuals for as it has been years since I've seen them. I'm sure I don't have anything on Mulitics, as I worked at a GCOS-8 site. I'm not sure what I might have on hardware. I do know that when I can find the time, I want to go through and refresh my memory on GCOS-8. I haven't touched it in nearly 16 years. Zane From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Wed Jun 10 13:53:15 2009 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:53:15 -0400 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?Kinda_OT=3A_Apollo_11_-_The_Owners=27?= =?windows-1252?Q?_Workshop_Manual_=95_The_Register?= Message-ID: <4A30011B.3040501@sbcglobal.net> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/10/apollo_owners_manual/ ...and... http://www.haynes.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=47367&langId=-1 -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss From RichA at vulcan.com Wed Jun 10 13:55:46 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:55:46 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <7d3530220906101045y214bfa35wb445df6f2c5a579d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: Ethan Dicks > Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 11:36 AM > On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 1:45 PM, John Floren wrote: >> At this point, Multics does not run anywhere in the world and, to my >> knowledge, nobody even has the hardware to run it... well, CHM has >> DOCKMASTER, but can that still run? > Is that the same Dockmaster that Cliff Stoll mentioned in "The Cuckoo's Egg"? Yes. For the gent who followed up asking about _The Cuckoo's Egg_, it's the story of a Berkeley astronomy geek tracking down a KGB cracker working out of East Germany. some of the systems at Stanford were part of the compromised network. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From brianlanning at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 14:00:46 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:00:46 -0500 Subject: Interesting IBM 5150... or something In-Reply-To: <2b1f1f550906092053t12dfcdcbi7a83bfadcd4bfb88@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906092033n3dfb48f9k6c07c7a59b7beb05@mail.gmail.com> <2b1f1f550906092053t12dfcdcbi7a83bfadcd4bfb88@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906101200q1dff4858u429c2e2f28a2a684@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 10:53 PM, Joe Giliberti wrote: > Looks like an AT you're right. 5150 was a typeo From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 14:04:03 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:04:03 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > ?The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know > better is the visibility factor. ?VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are > *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the only > thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. ?Do these > people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, > maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers of *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd are the worst offenders. -- Will From RichA at vulcan.com Wed Jun 10 14:05:22 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:05:22 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <7d3530220906101045y214bfa35wb445df6f2c5a579d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: Zane H. Healy > Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 11:44 AM > On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Ian King wrote: >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- >>> bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of John Floren >>> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 10:46 AM >>> At this point, Multics does not run anywhere in the world and, to my >>> knowledge, nobody even has the hardware to run it... well, CHM has >>> DOCKMASTER, but can that still run? >> No. It is missing the swapping disk. Replacing it could be done, but it >> would be a non-trivial (and non-cheap) enterprise. -- Ian Ian is not quite correct in this statement. The HDAs from the Winchester- technology disk drives were removed before the machine was moved out of its computer room. It's not *just* the swapping disks, it's *all* the disks. > What kind of hardware are you talking here? Looking at > http://www.multicians.org/site-dockmaster.html I assume you're talking about > the "4 MW paging device (bulk store)", though the same page mentions that > CHM didn't recieve the disks. Are the drives all the removable diskpack > type? We used mainly fixed disks, but had a few removable packs. These appear to be CDC drives (9670?) similar to the DEC RP07. A search throughout the Honeywell universe turned up no surviving examples of these drives, nor HDAs for same. > Does anyone know what it takes to connect IBM DASD to a DPS-8, and if > Multic's would support it? I know that it is possible with GCOS-8, but I do > not know what model, or how it would be connected. As *INSANE* as it > sounds, someone dropped one of the two DASD units for the site I worked at > off the back of the truck, and it wasn't replaced (not sure why), as a > result we were unable to bring the IBM DASD online. IBM DASD can connect to a Multics system using an interface created by one of the long time Multicians for one of his customers. The first issue is that you have to replace the bus-and-tag connectors with FIPS standard connectors. > As of this last weekend my Honeywell manuals are out of storage, and at > home. I'm just not sure where they are in the garage, though I've a pretty > good idea. It will be interesting to see just what I have manuals for as it > has been years since I've seen them. I'm sure I don't have anything on > Mulitics, as I worked at a GCOS-8 site. I'm not sure what I might have on > hardware. I do know that when I can find the time, I want to go through and > refresh my memory on GCOS-8. I haven't touched it in nearly 16 years. We have been told (by eminent Multicians) that there are differences in the electronics between a DPS-8 (GCOS) and a DPS-8M (Multics) CPU. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jun 10 14:10:51 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:10:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: from William Donzelli at "Jun 10, 9 03:04:03 pm" Message-ID: <200906101910.n5AJApxY013074@floodgap.com> > > _The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know > > better is the visibility factor. _VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are > > *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the only > > thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. _Do these > > people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, > > maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? > > Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers of > *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd are > the worst offenders. I'll drink to that (strychnine, probably). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Just another Sojourner of the Dispersion (1 Peter 1:1) --------------------- From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 14:14:57 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:14:57 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jun 10, 2009, at 3:04 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should >> know >> better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are >> *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the >> only >> thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. Do >> these >> people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank >> transactions, >> maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? > > Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers of > *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd are > the worst offenders. We're in agreement there. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jun 10 14:16:23 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:16:23 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 10 June 2009, William Donzelli wrote: > > ?The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should > > know better is the visibility factor. ?VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are > > *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the > > only thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. > > ?Do these people really believe PCs running Windows process their > > bank transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? > > Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers > of *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd > are the worst offenders. Really? I assumed that you were saying that Linux was (dead|a sinking ship) because it wasn't Windows. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jun 10 14:22:47 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:22:47 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <200906101522.47505.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 10 June 2009, William Donzelli wrote: > > ?The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should > > know better is the visibility factor. ?VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are > > *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the > > only thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. > > ?Do these people really believe PCs running Windows process their > > bank transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? > > Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers > of *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd > are the worst offenders. Having seen inside CSX Railroad's control room in Indianapolis, I can tell you that there's a lot of PCs running the(ir) railroad, even if they're not running Windows. They're also not the only business I've removed classic gear from that has quite successfully switched to a commodity hardware platform. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From bdwheele at indiana.edu Wed Jun 10 14:24:37 2009 From: bdwheele at indiana.edu (Brian Wheeler) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:24:37 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> On Wed, 2009-06-10 at 15:14 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 10, 2009, at 3:04 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > >> The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should > >> know > >> better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are > >> *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the > >> only > >> thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. Do > >> these > >> people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank > >> transactions, > >> maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? > > > > Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers of > > *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd are > > the worst offenders. > > We're in agreement there. > > -Dave > As one of the Penguin Crowd, I agree. The local linux user's group seems to be filled with people more interested in flashy gui stuff than understanding how the system works. Asking any kind of technical question of them usually meets with silence. I guess if I asked about configuring compiz or upping my FPS I'd get a lot of answers. Brian From bdwheele at indiana.edu Wed Jun 10 14:27:26 2009 From: bdwheele at indiana.edu (Brian Wheeler) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:27:26 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906101522.47505.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101522.47505.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <1244662046.9042.17.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> On Wed, 2009-06-10 at 15:22 -0400, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Wednesday 10 June 2009, William Donzelli wrote: > > > The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should > > > know better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are > > > *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the > > > only thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. > > > Do these people really believe PCs running Windows process their > > > bank transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? > > > > Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers > > of *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd > > are the worst offenders. > > Having seen inside CSX Railroad's control room in Indianapolis, I can > tell you that there's a lot of PCs running the(ir) railroad, even if > they're not running Windows. They're also not the only business I've > removed classic gear from that has quite successfully switched to a > commodity hardware platform. > As a railroading fan, I've got to know: what do they use? > Pat From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jun 10 14:32:31 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:32:31 -0700 Subject: bizarre capacitance References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EE41A.A0AA128C@cs.ubc.ca> <7E3C6977-F936-4E54-8570-D66ACE40B0BD@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A300A4E.58FD41CD@cs.ubc.ca> Dave McGuire wrote: > > Search for "dielectric absorption", or look up "permittivity" in > > Wikipedia to > > get an idea of just how complex capacitors are (!) > > Yes, I'm aware of their complexity...From my childhood days I > thought they were simple, but in recent years I've studied them > pretty closely. I've been dabbling in metrology for a few years now > and have become amazed at the complexity behind the "simple" things > that are the underpinnings of all things electronic. It's > fascinating. Anyone interested in electronics would do well to > investigate this a bit. > .. we tend to coast along with 'adequate' models for day to day efforts. Having an appreciation for the underlying principles helps when things don't work as expected, amongst other benefits. -- OT: Too easily distracted from things I should be doing, here are two ballpark approaches to determining the capacitance of a cloud: - by cloud and earth as (perfect) plates: Given a cloud with a base of 2 km diameter, situated 3km above the ground, (p is permittivity of air), then: C = pA/d = 8.9e-12 * 3.14*(2000/2)^2 / 3000 = 0.009 uF - by energy content: If a lightning strike delivers 30 KWh of energy at 200 million volts, then: E = 1/2 CV^2 C = 2E / V^2 = 2 * 30,000 Jh/S * 3600 S/h / (2e8 J/C)^2 = 5.4e-9 C^2/J = 0.005 uF E & V parameters were just some numbers picked off web sites about lightning. Interesting they came out with a rough equivalence. Going by such web sites, there isn't really that much energy in a lightning strike (it's just very high power as it is released so quickly.) From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jun 10 14:31:33 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:31:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Looking for IMI 5018 MFM drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090610122907.V68379@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Steven Hirsch wrote: > Title says it. Need to replace the drive mechanism in one of my Corvus > flat-cable drives. Firmware expects 6-heads and 306 cylinders and gets > boggled by anything larger, unfortunately. > Could also probably work with Seagate ST419 or Rodime RO203, which are the > only other drives I've found with the same geometry. There were a few more "15 meg" drives with that structure. Sure that you can't fool it into ignoring a few heads or cylinders with a 8 x 306 or 6 x 600? 20 and 30 Meg are a little easier to find. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 14:35:47 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:35:47 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: > Really? ?I assumed that you were saying that Linux was (dead|a sinking > ship) because it wasn't Windows. Dead is a sunk ship. Dying is a sinking ship. Basic seamanship. -- Will From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Wed Jun 10 14:44:10 2009 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:44:10 +0200 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:04:40 -0400 > Subject: Re: UNIX V7 > From: wdonzelli at gmail.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > > As for people thinking certain OS's are dead, I just want to say that I > > continue to be amazed that GCOS-8 is still alive. Though having worked as a > > Systems Analyist on a DPS-8 running GCOS-8, I suspect the problem is the > > difficulty people have getting off of it, coupled with the fact Group Bull > > seems to have the brains to keep supporting it. > > Yes, I forgot about GCOS. Pretty much in the same league as the Unisys > OSes. I have heard that there are now less than 50 customers for MCP > and OS/2200. The water is sloshing on the main deck. Does this seem > right? > > -- > Will I am not sure if I need to change the topic header ... Just out of curiosity Will, is OS/2200 the follow-up of EXEC on the Sperry1100? I worked on those machines, using EXEC1100 39R5 in 1985-1990. In the end I worked for the company helping another company setting up a 2200 system. The modern follow-up of the 1100, but then the OS was still EXEC1100. I did the EXEC internals course, and was able (then) to read and process a panic dump printout and find the culprit that caused the (very stable) OS to crash. Fond memories of that time ... loved PLUS and MASM1100. Does some EXEC 1100 simulation exist? Not the real hardware, but if I could enter @ASG,T and @USE would be cool! Coding in MASM1100 would be fun to relive! thanks, - Henk. From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Wed Jun 10 14:49:05 2009 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:49:05 +0100 Subject: Nearly there with IBM 029 KeyPunch In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <04F4F247-EE9B-4C77-BFAE-78FE1316883F@microspot.co.uk> The theory said to change the resonant frequency of my keypunch's ferro-resonant power regulator from 60Hz to 50Hz I should up the 15uF capacitor to 21.6 uF. Well I tried 21.5, and the voltage went up by ONE volt. Hmm, scratch head, at least it went in the right direction. Search around for AC capacitors and find one in a defunct large electric lawnmower. Its 30uF, I think about replacing the 15 with it but if an extra 6.5uF only gained one volt, and I need 6 then it seemed reasonable to combine it and try 45 uF. That gives me 46volts, only 2 volts short. I throw in the 6.5uF too and I get 47 volts. I try the punch and it works much better. Not 100%, but that could well be down to other problems. For one thing, the alpha shift key does not latch, I need to hold it down. There are keys for numeric and alpha. If it was not meant to latch, why would they have a numeric key? Its so many years since I used an 029 (at university as my first job was at a paper tape using establishment) that I can't remember for sure. Anyway, thats sounds like an easy problem to find in relay logic, though these wire relays are difficult to see if they are active or not. Maybe I'll add LEDs (and resistors of course). Another problem is 1 to 7 print fine, but not 8 and 9. The alphabet print only their numeric component, 1 to 7 and again not 8 or 9. I tried using it in interpret mode, it fired like a machine gun but the card did not move, but the time I worked out how to stop it there was the smell of overheating solenoids. I don't think I damaged anything, just a bit hot. Thanks for all your help. From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jun 10 14:50:20 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:50:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <7d3530220906101045y214bfa35wb445df6f2c5a579d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090610124816.F68379@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Rich Alderson wrote: > For the gent who followed up asking about _The Cuckoo's Egg_, it's the > story of a Berkeley astronomy geek tracking down a KGB cracker working > out of East Germany. some of the systems at Stanford were part of the > compromised network. Clif once told me that he has a dream of trying to make a webserver running on punch cards. He got a box of cards and a core plane from my office. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 14:50:42 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:50:42 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > Just out of curiosity Will, is OS/2200 the follow-up of EXEC on the Sperry1100? Yes. > Does some EXEC 1100 simulation exist? I think its all in simulation now, as Unisys apparently does not make their own processors. -- Will From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jun 10 14:54:32 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:54:32 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200906101554.32589.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 10 June 2009, William Donzelli wrote: > > Really? ?I assumed that you were saying that Linux was (dead|a > > sinking ship) because it wasn't Windows. > > Dead is a sunk ship. Dying is a sinking ship. Basic seamanship. I wasn't saying that they were equivalent, just that it was one or the other. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 10 14:11:44 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:11:44 +0100 (BST) Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: <0KKZ008F8QP1CHH8@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> from "Allison" at Jun 9, 9 05:38:12 pm Message-ID: > >> I have a couple of DEC machines which I need to replace a few components > >> on, and also stock up spares of others. With the transistors and diodes, > >> however, I often can't find a direct replacement - and don't know how to > >> figure out what a modern substitute is. > >> > >> For a 2N3009, for example, I can find basic information and a datasheet > >> online easily enough - but as for choosing a functional, available > >> substitute for it, I'm honestly not even sure where to begin. [...] > Way too much information.. What he needs to know is what can he buy now that > should work to replace a 2n3009? There is a saying in England : 'Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for life'. I try to use that principle when posting here. I try to show how solve similar problems in the future. None of us will be around for ever [1] and I think it's important the information, methods, 'tricks', etc get passed on [1] It would only take one careless mistake when repairing an SMPSU... As the bit of the original message I've left above semems to suggest, the 2N3309 is an example, and the OP possibly needs to substitute other transistors as well. > The only case where they type transistor is a bit fussy is some of the faster > flip chip cards (logic) and SMPS. Maybe in DEC equipment... But I can assure you that the HP9100 is 'touchy'. It's not particularly high-speed, it's certainly not an SMPSU, but you will have 'fun' working out what transistors to use. -tony From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jun 10 15:30:24 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:30:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: from William Donzelli at "Jun 10, 9 03:50:42 pm" Message-ID: <200906102030.n5AKUO4s013040@floodgap.com> > > Does some EXEC 1100 simulation exist? > > I think its all in simulation now, as Unisys apparently does not make > their own processors. Yes, they are all simulated now TTBOMK. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Time makes more converts than reason. -- Thomas Payne ---------------------- From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jun 10 15:30:41 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:30:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <7d3530220906101045y214bfa35wb445df6f2c5a579d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Rich Alderson wrote: >> From: Zane H. Healy >> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 11:44 AM > >> On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Ian King wrote: > >>> No. It is missing the swapping disk. Replacing it could be done, but it >>> would be a non-trivial (and non-cheap) enterprise. -- Ian > > Ian is not quite correct in this statement. The HDAs from the Winchester- > technology disk drives were removed before the machine was moved out of its > computer room. It's not *just* the swapping disks, it's *all* the disks. I was wondering about this, due to where the machine came from it seemed unlikely that any HD's or media would have escaped distruction. > These appear to be CDC drives (9670?) similar to the DEC RP07. A search > throughout the Honeywell universe turned up no surviving examples of these > drives, nor HDAs for same. I'm not familiar with the RP07's, but the look close. There is a good chance I have details on the models. > IBM DASD can connect to a Multics system using an interface created by one of > the long time Multicians for one of his customers. The first issue is that you > have to replace the bus-and-tag connectors with FIPS standard connectors. That is good to know. > We have been told (by eminent Multicians) that there are differences in the > electronics between a DPS-8 (GCOS) and a DPS-8M (Multics) CPU. I don't doubt that. I'd love to see a emulator capable of running Multic's and DPS-8, but at the same time, I have doubts Group Bull would let copies of GCOS-8 out into the wild. Zane From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jun 10 15:35:51 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:35:51 -0700 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A301927.7000900@brouhaha.com> Josh Dersch wrote: > I have in my grubby little hands an Elektronika MK-85 calculator, > which externally is a spot-on clone of the Casio FX-700P BASIC > programmable calculator. Functionally, it's identical as well, with a > few enhancements (pixel-addressable graphics, a Cyrillic > character-set, etc) Pixel-addressable characters. I wouldn't really call it "graphics" since there are gaps between the character cells. > Internally though, they're 100% different -- the processor in the > MK-85 is a Russian PDP-11 knockoff. There is also the MK-90, with a larger graphics display and removable RAM cartridges. Purportedly came with a RAM cartridge containing a Tetris game, but there are no known surviving copies of the game. Eric From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 10 15:37:19 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:37:19 -0700 Subject: Nearly there with IBM 029 KeyPunch In-Reply-To: <04F4F247-EE9B-4C77-BFAE-78FE1316883F@microspot.co.uk> References: , <04F4F247-EE9B-4C77-BFAE-78FE1316883F@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <4A2FB70F.27563.2F5A6EB6@cclist.sydex.com> Silly question, Roger... What is the AC line voltage at the keypunch? At the time that punch was made "nominal" nameplate voltage was about 117VAC. It's crept up a bit over the years to 120VAC (I just measured the voltage at an outlet here and it's 126VAC). --Chuck From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jun 10 15:39:16 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:39:16 -0700 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <1244633106.5593.11.camel@elric> References: <200906092346.20414.pat@computer-refuge.org> <1244633106.5593.11.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A3019F4.3050606@brouhaha.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > There's even a > fairly "early days yet" OS/2 clone - anyone fancy porting it to a PDP11? > Why, when there are much nicer operating systems already running on the PDP-11? From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jun 10 15:51:19 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:51:19 -0700 Subject: Nearly there with IBM 029 KeyPunch References: <04F4F247-EE9B-4C77-BFAE-78FE1316883F@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <4A301CC7.6F05E6BA@cs.ubc.ca> Roger Holmes wrote: > > The theory said to change the resonant frequency of my keypunch's > ferro-resonant power regulator from 60Hz to 50Hz I should up the 15uF > capacitor to 21.6 uF. Well I tried 21.5, and the voltage went up by > ONE volt. Hmm, scratch head, at least it went in the right direction. > Search around for AC capacitors and find one in a defunct large > electric lawnmower. Its 30uF, I think about replacing the 15 with it > but if an extra 6.5uF only gained one volt, and I need 6 then it > seemed reasonable to combine it and try 45 uF. That gives me 46volts, > only 2 volts short. I throw in the 6.5uF too and I get 47 volts. I try I had a niggling concern about this when the suggestion to change the C was first profferred. I don't have a thorough enough understanding of the ferro-resonant principle to categorically say what the problem is but I can half-think of a few possible issues: - Because the ferroresonance principle involves the inductor working in the core saturation region, the standard resonance equation with which you calculated the new C may not be applicable. (I see you got the square of f proportion.) - If the changed LC relationship changes the circulating current in the LC circuit then the core magnetic field will also be affected, which would upset the rest of the transformer design targets. - Changing the C changes the resonant frequency in an LC circuit, as you desire to accomplish. However, the Q factor of the resonant circuit is dependant upon the ratio of L/C, so you have also changed the Q factor. I'm less sure if this would matter, as the circuit is operating at a well-fixed frequency. My remaining concern might be that even with the new C bringing the V up, the regulation function of the supply may have been lost if the transformer is no longer functioning in the regions it was designed to. From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jun 10 16:08:15 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:08:15 -0700 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > Do these people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank > transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? Unfortunately there actually ARE hospitals using Windows servers for their critical infrastructure. I've seen them, and I've seen what happens when they blue-screen. I've heard stories about banks that have migrated their transaction processing from IBM mainframes to Windows, but they may just be stories. I have no idea what railroads are using. The US Navy at one point was switching from Unix to Windows. They had major problems with this on the USS Yorktown, and had to tow it back to port. I don't know whether they've completed the switch. "We are putting equipment in the engine room that we cannot maintain and, when it fails, results in a critical failure" -- Anthony DiGiorgio, civilian engineer with the Atlantic Fleet Technical Support Center in Norfolk "Although Unix is more reliable, NT may become more reliable with time." -- Ron Redman, deputy director of the Fleet Introduction Division of the Aegis Program Executive Office Redman said that NT had been chosen for political rather than technical reasons. Where's the line between stupidity and treason? It's been more recently reported that the British Royal Navy is using Windows to run their nuclear submarines. One of the best reasons not to use Windows for critical infrastructure has nothing to do with flaws in Windows. Over and over again I've seen people have failures of Windows-based systems that were intended to serve a single purpose, such as control the HVAC systems for a large building, because some damn fool thought it would be a good idea to install a bunch of extra software on them, including games, and various random software downloaded from the Internet. Eric From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 10 16:20:01 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:20:01 -0600 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A302381.6040000@jetnet.ab.ca> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > I hate statements like this. Died like what OSes? MVS? VM? VSE? > There are a bunch of OSes from back then which are still around. > > Peace... Sridhar And I still have learn OS/8 ... no Mac here, No coco ... Just a Plain Jane PDP -8 qnd IDE drive. From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jun 10 16:16:09 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:16:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Brian Wheeler wrote: > As one of the Penguin Crowd, I agree. The local linux user's group > seems to be filled with people more interested in flashy gui stuff than > understanding how the system works. > > Asking any kind of technical question of them usually meets with > silence. I guess if I asked about configuring compiz or upping my FPS > I'd get a lot of answers. I haven't considered myself to be part of the "Linux Community" for a very long time. I've been involved with Linux since January of '92, and I'm typing this on a Linux box. Having said that I've been disgusted with the attitude of the community since some time in the '98 timeframe. Don't even get me started on RMS, as I view him and his Cult as being a large part of the problem. The level of fanaticism and hatred of commercial software really turns me off. Something else that irritates me is that Linux programmers seem to be just as bad about writing non-portable code as Windows programmers. This is the main reason I continue to use Linux at home at all. I'd much rather simply go with Mac OS X (which is now my primary UNIX platform at home), and I'd just as soon use OpenBSD, Solaris, or even IRIX. OTOH, I'd rather run Linux than AIX or HP-UX, but that's just a question of preferences. :-) At the same time a *LOT* of good has come out of the Linux community, and a lot of really awesome pieces of software. The same can even be said about Microsoft. While I hate Microsoft, I have to admit they have some really nice developers tools. I for one really like the C# work that has been done both by Microsoft and the Mono teams. An interesting way of looking at this would be to voice my key dislikes for the various OS's I currently use. Windows - It is a mess, and it is Microsoft Mac OS X - It is a resource hog, and I question the efficiency of the microkernal, especially based on tests against Linux. Linux - The community (I have some performance complaints, but am not sure how accurate they still are) OpenBSD - Theo de Raadt doing things that harm the project OpenVMS - The Corporation(s) owning it trying to kill it and starving it for resources. I fear that HP has decided to kill it off, in a slow and painful manner. Solaris - I'm concerned about its continued viability, as such I'm less likely to use it in the future. Other OS's Amiga OS - Not practical, I'm not sure if you can even get V4.x, or the hardware to run it on at this time. I'm stuck at V3.9 due to my best machine being an Amiga 3000. Lack of user base. OpenBeOS - Not sure if that's the right name, but I really need to check out the current state. Lack of user base. AROS - I continue to keep an eye on this. Lack of user base. IRIX - I wish it wasn't a dead end, as it is really an amazing OS and it ran on amazing hardware. TOPS-20 - Again I wish it wasn't a dead end. Zane From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jun 10 16:25:26 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:25:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at "Jun 10, 9 02:16:09 pm" Message-ID: <200906102125.n5ALPQxO014236@floodgap.com> > microkernal, I can tell you've been using Commodores too long ;-) -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- there's a dance or two in the old dame yet. -- mehitabel ------------------- From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 16:23:52 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:23:52 -0500 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A3019F4.3050606@brouhaha.com> References: <200906092346.20414.pat@computer-refuge.org> <1244633106.5593.11.camel@elric> <4A3019F4.3050606@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A302468.4070102@gmail.com> Eric Smith wrote: > Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> There's even a >> fairly "early days yet" OS/2 clone - anyone fancy porting it to a PDP11? >> > Why, when there are much nicer operating systems already running on the > PDP-11? Oh come on, it'll be good, I'm sure. Not sure what the preferred distribution media should be - TK50 tape, perhaps? :-) From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Wed Jun 10 16:29:09 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:29:09 -0700 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <2273625B-B44B-4249-B450-0F4A0FD856D0@mail.msu.edu> Can we please -not- have this conversation again? We just had one last month and it has just as little to do with classic computing as it did then. On Jun 10, 2009, at 2:08 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > Dave McGuire wrote: >> Do these people really believe PCs running Windows process their >> bank transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? > Unfortunately there actually ARE hospitals using Windows servers for > their critical infrastructure. I've seen them, and I've seen what > happens when they blue-screen. > > I've heard stories about banks that have migrated their transaction > processing from IBM mainframes to Windows, but they may just be > stories. > > I have no idea what railroads are using. > > The US Navy at one point was switching from Unix to Windows. They > had major problems with this on the USS Yorktown, and had to tow it > back to port. I don't know whether they've completed the switch. > > "We are putting equipment in the engine room that we cannot > maintain > and, when it fails, results in a critical failure" > -- Anthony DiGiorgio, civilian engineer with the Atlantic > Fleet > Technical Support Center in Norfolk > > "Although Unix is more reliable, NT may become more reliable > with time." > -- Ron Redman, deputy director of the Fleet Introduction > Division > of the Aegis Program Executive Office > > Redman said that NT had been chosen for political rather than > technical reasons. Where's the line between stupidity and treason? > > It's been more recently reported that the British Royal Navy is > using Windows to run their nuclear submarines. > > One of the best reasons not to use Windows for critical > infrastructure has nothing to do with flaws in Windows. Over and > over again I've seen people have failures of Windows-based systems > that were intended to serve a single purpose, such as control the > HVAC systems for a large building, because some damn fool thought it > would be a good idea to install a bunch of extra software on them, > including games, and various random software downloaded from the > Internet. > > Eric > > From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 16:30:54 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:30:54 -0500 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <200906101326.n5ADQtmi015936@floodgap.com> References: <200906101326.n5ADQtmi015936@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4A30260E.2010802@gmail.com> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > Right, you could do this on a C64 also and probably many machines, but this > was just a convenient means of storage -- execution of arbitrary ML was > still permitted by the interpreter. The MK-85 hack is noteworthy because it > allows you to run stuff on the CPU even though the BASIC supposedly doesn't > let you (no CALL, SYS, USR(), etc). Yes, the one I'm remembering was similar to that - I wish I could remember more, but it was entered via some function which had a utterly different purpose during normal use, but invoked in a certain way it could be used to run sequences of MC. Dave's message rings a bell though, in that I think the actual MC data was encoded into a character string (possibly as a REM statement, but I can't be sure). If my memory coughs up the name of the system I'll shout :-) From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 16:36:13 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:36:13 -0400 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: > The US Navy at one point was switching from Unix to Windows. ?They had major > problems with this on the USS Yorktown, and had to tow it back to port. ?I > don't know whether they've completed the switch. That wiki entry seems a little biased, doesn't it? ALL ships in the US Navy have an incredible amount of redundancy, and there are always ways to go two or three technology generations back to get things back up in running. The idea that somehow this network was such a single point of failure to the point that the ship was dead in the water just STINKS of being urban legend. Did something fail? Sure - this was a test bed, and these things are supposed to fail. And when they fail, the engineers scour over the results and do not get into emergency mode. It already seems like the whole towing claim is dubious at best. A -- Will From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 16:34:30 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:34:30 -0500 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3026E6.9040807@gmail.com> Shoppa, Tim wrote: > The joke in the cold war era was this: Heh, that's interesting - I've only ever heard a variant of that, told about a watch at a large airport, which presumably makes it a bit more recent. Funny how these things get recycled over the years... From mdavidson1963 at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 16:38:10 2009 From: mdavidson1963 at gmail.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:38:10 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> Message-ID: Ok, gotta throw my 2 cents in here... :) On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Brian Wheeler wrote: > >> As one of the Penguin Crowd, I agree. ?The local linux user's group >> seems to be filled with people more interested in flashy gui stuff than >> understanding how the system works. >> >> Asking any kind of technical question of them usually meets with >> silence. ?I guess if I asked about configuring compiz or upping my FPS >> I'd get a lot of answers. > > I haven't considered myself to be part of the "Linux Community" for a very > long time. ?I've been involved with Linux since January of '92, and I'm > typing this on a Linux box. ?Having said that I've been disgusted with the > attitude of the community since some time in the '98 timeframe. ?Don't even > get me started on RMS, as I view him and his Cult as being a large part of > the problem. ?The level of fanaticism and hatred of commercial software > really turns me off. No kidding. I remember booting the Linux kernel on floppies (I think it was v0.99 or something like that), and I also remember the joy I felt when I booted Yggdrasil Linux and saw X come up. Before that, I had to use either SCO Open Desktop or Interactive ix/386 (both of which were horribly expensive) on my Northgate 386. I also can agree about RMS... I find him somewhat irritating, but I have to give the guy credit for sticking to his principles. He really believes what he says. The attitude of the community can be horrible. > Something else that irritates me is that Linux programmers seem to be just > as bad about writing non-portable code as Windows programmers. ?This is the > main reason I continue to use Linux at home at all. ?I'd much rather simply > go with Mac OS X (which is now my primary UNIX platform at home), and I'd > just as soon use OpenBSD, Solaris, or even IRIX. ?OTOH, I'd rather run Linux > than AIX or HP-UX, but that's just a question of preferences. :-) Oh, if I could, I'd haul one of my HP PA-RISC boxes down to work and use that, but I work for McAfee and security about hardware here is incredibly tight. I could easily bring it in here, but it would be a major pain to get it back out of the building. > At the same time a *LOT* of good has come out of the Linux community, and a > lot of really awesome pieces of software. ?The same can even be said about > Microsoft. ?While I hate Microsoft, I have to admit they have some really > nice developers tools. ?I for one really like the C# work that has been done > both by Microsoft and the Mono teams. Agreed. I'm no fan of MS and I do have quite a bit of experience with Windows. I spent 13 years writing code for Win16 and Win32, and when they put their minds to it they can produce some cool stuff. > An interesting way of looking at this would be to voice my key dislikes for > the various OS's I currently use. > Windows ?- It is a mess, and it is Microsoft Yow. Vista. > Mac OS X - It is a resource hog, and I question the efficiency of the > microkernal, especially based on tests against Linux. True, but what a development framework! :) > Linux ? ?- The community (I have some performance complaints, but am not > sure how accurate they still are) The community wants to be on top but all the infighting is killing that. > OpenBSD ?- Theo de Raadt doing things that harm the project No comment. :) > OpenVMS ?- The Corporation(s) owning it trying to kill it and starving it > for resources. ?I fear that HP has decided to kill it off, in a slow and > painful manner. Yes, but at least you can get a decent semi-free license for it. > Solaris ?- I'm concerned about its continued viability, as such I'm less > likely to use it in the future. I'd love to see this continue... OpenSolaris can be a lot of fun. > IRIX ? ? - I wish it wasn't a dead end, as it is really an amazing OS and it > ran on amazing hardware. Damn... you hit that one on the head. Mark From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 16:39:49 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:39:49 -0400 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: DAMMIT, SENT TOO EARLY! A retry: That wiki entry seems a little biased, doesn't it? ALL ships in the US Navy have an incredible amount of redundancy, and there are always ways to go two or three technology generations back to get things back up in running. The idea that somehow this network was such a single point of failure to the point that the ship was dead in the water just STINKS of being urban legend. Did something fail? Sure - this was a test bed, and these things are supposed to fail. And when they fail, the engineers scour over the results and do not get into emergency mode. It already seems like the whole towing claim is dubious at best. And it seems like some of the people quoted may have an axe to grind. -- Will From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 16:43:53 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:43:53 -0400 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <028D3888-837C-40DD-8888-11BB1A818334@neurotica.com> On Jun 10, 2009, at 5:36 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> The US Navy at one point was switching from Unix to Windows. They >> had major >> problems with this on the USS Yorktown, and had to tow it back to >> port. I >> don't know whether they've completed the switch. > > That wiki entry seems a little biased, doesn't it? If "showing a failure of Windows" means "biased", yes. > ALL ships in the US Navy have an incredible amount of redundancy, and > there are always ways to go two or three technology generations back > to get things back up in running. The idea that somehow this network > was such a single point of failure to the point that the ship was dead > in the water just STINKS of being urban legend. I saw it on CNN when it happened. > Did something fail? > Sure - this was a test bed, and these things are supposed to fail. And > when they fail, the engineers scour over the results and do not get > into emergency mode. It already seems like the whole towing claim is > dubious at best. A Sorry, it happened. Unless the whole thing was a hoax, complete with pictures. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 16:44:23 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:44:23 -0400 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A302468.4070102@gmail.com> References: <200906092346.20414.pat@computer-refuge.org> <1244633106.5593.11.camel@elric> <4A3019F4.3050606@brouhaha.com> <4A302468.4070102@gmail.com> Message-ID: <85B07DDC-4268-42C6-8DB8-59677A893319@neurotica.com> On Jun 10, 2009, at 5:23 PM, Jules Richardson wrote: >>> There's even a >>> fairly "early days yet" OS/2 clone - anyone fancy porting it to a >>> PDP11? >>> >> Why, when there are much nicer operating systems already running >> on the PDP-11? > > Oh come on, it'll be good, I'm sure. Not sure what the preferred > distribution media should be - TK50 tape, perhaps? :-) ROFL!! -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Wed Jun 10 16:56:59 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:56:59 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> Message-ID: <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> On Wed, 2009-06-10 at 14:16 -0700, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Something else that irritates me is that Linux programmers seem to be just > as bad about writing non-portable code as Windows programmers. One of the problems I ran into with a couple of packages I wrote was Debian "maintainers" buggering about with stuff to get it to compile on all supported platforms and not passing changes back to me. I wouldn't have minded so much, but the software was *specifically* only intended for use on a PC or (at a pinch) a Mac with a serious audio card. Why they were bitching about it being able to compile on S390 or MIPSEL, I really don't know. It hasn't a hope in hell of being useful on anything other than a PC. Gordon From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jun 10 16:58:49 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:58:49 -0700 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A302C99.3000204@brouhaha.com> William Donzelli wrote: > That wiki entry seems a little biased, doesn't it? What wiki entry? The story was in the mainstream news at the time; I first read it in the local newspaper. I have no doubt that it's covered in one or more wikis somewhere, but I haven't seen them. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 17:03:38 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:03:38 -0400 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <028D3888-837C-40DD-8888-11BB1A818334@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <028D3888-837C-40DD-8888-11BB1A818334@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > ?Sorry, it happened. ?Unless the whole thing was a hoax, complete with > pictures. Do you know *anything* about Naval ships and machinery? Forget it. I give up. I am wasting my time. -- Will From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 17:11:30 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:11:30 -0400 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <028D3888-837C-40DD-8888-11BB1A818334@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jun 10, 2009, at 6:03 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> Sorry, it happened. Unless the whole thing was a hoax, complete >> with >> pictures. > > Do you know *anything* about Naval ships and machinery? Likely not as much as you do, but I worked in weapons and countermeasures design for a few years. I'm not without exposure to the defense industry. > Forget it. I give up. I am wasting my time. Apparently. Go look up the news archives for the Yorktown story. Read the facts before you make assumptions and accuse people of not knowing what they're talking about just because you don't like what they're saying. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dundas at caltech.edu Wed Jun 10 17:10:21 2009 From: dundas at caltech.edu (John A. Dundas III) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:10:21 -0700 Subject: Help with MS11-M and /24 or /44 Message-ID: Does anyone have a pair of (working) MS11-M memory modules (any size, both the same) in a PDP-11/24 or /44? [I believe those were the only models to support that memory.] If so, could I talk to you offline about how they interleave? Background: I'm working on a memory simulator for SIMH (PDP-11). I have it working with most parity memory models and the ECC models as well. [The MS11-M uses 7-bit ECC.] I have the MS11-M successfully simulated in a non-interleaved manner now. I'm struggling with getting interleaving to work correctly with the diagnostics. What I'd like to do is give someone a short fragment of code to execute on their machine and let me know the results. This would help me finish the simulation. Yes, I have carefully examined the documents Manx turns up, but that information is not sufficient for my needs. Alternatively, if someone had the listings for either XXDP diagnostics ZMSDD0 or ZMSPC0, that would also likely solve the problems I'm encountering. As a teaser, here's SIMH simulating a /44 with 2 MS11-M (128kW) modules, non-interleaved: .R ZMSDD0 ZMSDD0.BIN CZMSDD - MS11L/M MEMORY DIAGNOSTIC 11/44 CACHE AVAILABLE FS COMMAND MODE COMMAND:99 COMMANDS AVAILABLE: 0 = EXIT 1 = READ CSR 2 = LOAD CSR 3 = EXAMINE MEMORY 4 = MODIFY MEMORY 5 = SELECT BANK & PATTERN 6 = TYPE CONFIG MAP 7 = SOB-A-LONG TEST 8 = ERROR SUMMARY 9= REFRESH TEST 10= SET FILL COUNT 11= ENTER KAMIKAZE MODE 12= EXIT KAMIKAZE MODE 13= TURN CACHE OFF 14= TURN CACHE ON 15= TEST SELECTED BANKS 16= TEST ALL BANKS 17= ENABLE TRACE 18= DISABLE TRACE COMMAND:11 ENTERING KAMIKAZE MODE COMMAND: LEAVING FS MODE 256K OF MS11-M 256K WORDS OF MEMORY TOTAL MEMORY CONFIGURATION MAP 16K WORD BANKS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 012345670123456701234567012345670123456701234567012345670123 ERRORS CPU MAP 1111111111111111 INTRLV ---------------- MEMTYPE MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM CSR 0000000011111111 PROTECT PP I END PASS # 1 END PASS # 2 Thanks, John From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 17:18:08 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:18:08 -0400 Subject: early PA-RISC machines Message-ID: Hey PA-RISC aficionados. Was there in fact a production PA-RISC machine whose CPU was implemented with standard TTL chips? If so, which one, and does anyone have one that they'd like to trade away? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Wed Jun 10 17:18:27 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:18:27 -0700 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <028D3888-837C-40DD-8888-11BB1A818334@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <10F0EF4A-AD31-428A-9D90-334143CB28CD@mail.msu.edu> On Jun 10, 2009, at 3:11 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 10, 2009, at 6:03 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >>> Sorry, it happened. Unless the whole thing was a hoax, complete >>> with >>> pictures. >> >> Do you know *anything* about Naval ships and machinery? > > Likely not as much as you do, but I worked in weapons and > countermeasures design for a few years. I'm not without exposure to > the defense industry. > >> Forget it. I give up. I am wasting my time. > > Apparently. Go look up the news archives for the Yorktown story. > Read the facts before you make assumptions and accuse people of not > knowing what they're talking about just because you don't like what > they're saying. > I've never seen an explanation of what the failure actually was, just lots of articles stating that Windows NT was being used as the OS and - something- went wrong. It could just as easily have been buggy client software that crashed. The Wired article I read says "They [naval engineers] rushed this stuff on the ship, there was no real prototype and then they tried to make things work as they went along...". I will let you draw your conclusions from that. Oh. It also says "the source of the problem was bad data fed to an APPLICATION running..." which caused whatever ad-hoc network they were running to crash... Whether this was an NT bug or not is indeterminate... No further details are available. > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Wed Jun 10 17:25:37 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:25:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: The Yorktown Message-ID: <181555.91844.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> http://gcn.com/articles/1998/08/31/smart-ship-inquiry-a-go.aspx Can this end now? --- On Wed, 6/10/09, Dave McGuire wrote: > From: Dave McGuire > Subject: Re: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 5:43 PM > On Jun 10, 2009, at 5:36 PM, William > Donzelli wrote: > >> The US Navy at one point was switching from Unix > to Windows.? They had major > >> problems with this on the USS Yorktown, and had to > tow it back to port.? I > >> don't know whether they've completed the switch. > > > > That wiki entry seems a little biased, doesn't it? > > ? If "showing a failure of Windows" means "biased", > yes. > > > ALL ships in the US Navy have an incredible amount of > redundancy, and > > there are always ways to go two or three technology > generations back > > to get things back up in running. The idea that > somehow this network > > was such a single point of failure to the point that > the ship was dead > > in the water just STINKS of being urban legend. > > ? I saw it on CNN when it happened. > > > Did something fail? > > Sure - this was a test bed, and these things are > supposed to fail. And > > when they fail, the engineers scour over the results > and do not get > > into emergency mode. It already seems like the whole > towing claim is > > dubious at best. A > > ? Sorry, it happened.? Unless the whole thing was > a hoax, complete with pictures. > > ? ? ? ???-Dave > > --Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jun 10 17:25:47 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:25:47 -0700 Subject: early PA-RISC machines In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3032EB.30502@brouhaha.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > Hey PA-RISC aficionados. Was there in fact a production PA-RISC > machine whose CPU was implemented with standard TTL chips? If so, > which one, Yes, the "Indigo", HP 9000 model 840 and HP 3000 model 930. > and does anyone have one that they'd like to trade away? I doubt that there are many around. I know someone who has one, but he intends to donate it to the Computer History Museum. (Or maybe he already has done so.) Eric From gyorpb at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 17:30:15 2009 From: gyorpb at gmail.com (Joost van de Griek) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:30:15 +0200 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <1BAC2F3D-820E-4575-AB46-A9B82FBC63FB@gmail.com> On Jun 10, 2009, at 23:08, Eric Smith wrote: > I've heard stories about banks that have migrated their transaction > processing from IBM mainframes to Windows, but they may just be > stories. Every now and then, I run into one of those morons that plans to "streamline" or "optimise" IT operations by standardising on a single platform... Heh. "Show me a Windows machine that can run your monthly prolongation batch run and finish /before/ the next weekend, and I might stop calling you a moron for proposing things like that, moron. Until such time, I think we'll keep the high-volume databases on real iron and keep calling you a moron." .tsooJ -- Dog: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - they must be gods! Cat: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - I must be a god! -- Joost van de Griek From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 10 17:38:24 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:38:24 -0700 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <4A3026E6.9040807@gmail.com> References: , <4A3026E6.9040807@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2FD370.17280.2FC951AC@cclist.sydex.com> On 10 Jun 2009 at 16:34, Jules Richardson wrote: > Heh, that's interesting - I've only ever heard a variant of that, told > about a > watch at a large airport, which presumably makes it a bit more > recent. Funny > how these things get recycled over the years... Heh, I received a Dilbert version of the joke in my inbox today from EDN. Dilbert is talking to his pointy-haired boss: PHB: "We ship our new MP3 player in two days. How's the Elbonian factory coming along? D: "The prototype is the size of a small tractor and it will only play Elbonian polkas." PHB: "I'll budget a little extra for marketing." D: "It's made of asbestos." --Chuck From lists at databasics.us Wed Jun 10 18:05:37 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:05:37 -1000 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A2DFC82.60800@brouhaha.com> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> <4A2DFC82.60800@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A303C41.9090402@databasics.us> Eric Smith wrote: > Nico de Jong wrote: >> I wonder how many Farads a car battery helds Nico > If you empty it out and fill it with capacitors, it will hold a few > megafarads at 2 volts. Erm... I doubt this. I saw a 2 farad cap at a surplus place in Lima, Ohio. It was rated at 12 volts, and looked like a sawed-off oil drum. I think there's some sort of square-cube thing going on here that makes ever-increasing values of capacitance ever huger. Warren From lists at databasics.us Wed Jun 10 18:05:45 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:05:45 -1000 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?Re=3A_Remembering_the_true*_first_por?= =?windows-1252?Q?table_computer_=95_The_Register?= In-Reply-To: References: <4A2D74F1.2090104@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <4A303C49.4000903@databasics.us> William Donzelli wrote: >> And on the last page, they give credit to CHM for letting them "drool >> over the machinery": >> >> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/05/tob_minuteman_1/ >> > > One has to take everything about missile tech history as if it has a > huge red flag on it. The guidance computer from the article is a real > oddball, in that it is one of the missile subsystems that somehow > managed to get out into the public. Most never did, nor any > documentation, and what little is still around is perilously close to > being lost. Was there a missile guidance computer before the Minuteman > 1 machines? Maybe. Maybe not. Don't take anything as gospel. > > The same is generally true for submarine tech, and of course crypto tech. > This is true. I know from experience. Even when the technology is totally outdated, valuable information can be gained by a potential enemy by examining the reality, and comparing it to the stories told by the defense community at the time. If the pattern of deception can be learned, that pattern can be used to analyze current deceptions. I could tell you more, but... Warren From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Wed Jun 10 18:11:25 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:11:25 +0100 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A303C41.9090402@databasics.us> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> <4A2DFC82.60800@brouhaha.com> <4A303C41.9090402@databasics.us> Message-ID: <1244675485.5593.41.camel@elric> On Wed, 2009-06-10 at 13:05 -1000, Warren Wolfe wrote: > Eric Smith wrote: > > Nico de Jong wrote: > >> I wonder how many Farads a car battery helds Nico > > If you empty it out and fill it with capacitors, it will hold a few > > megafarads at 2 volts. > > Erm... I doubt this. I saw a 2 farad cap at a surplus place in Lima, > Ohio. It was rated at 12 volts, and looked like a sawed-off oil drum. > I think there's some sort of square-cube thing going on here that makes > ever-increasing values of capacitance ever huger. You can buy 10F 15V capacitors in car audio shops. They're about the size of a beer can (a normal UK/EU 500ml can, not a dinky little US 330ml can). Gordon From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 18:16:01 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:16:01 -0400 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A303C41.9090402@databasics.us> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> <4A2DFC82.60800@brouhaha.com> <4A303C41.9090402@databasics.us> Message-ID: <4DE5ECEE-8F4B-4966-AE7C-2B3BB5FE85FD@neurotica.com> On Jun 10, 2009, at 7:05 PM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >>> I wonder how many Farads a car battery helds Nico >> If you empty it out and fill it with capacitors, it will hold a >> few megafarads at 2 volts. > > Erm... I doubt this. I saw a 2 farad cap at a surplus place in > Lima, Ohio. It was rated at 12 volts, and looked like a sawed-off > oil drum. I think there's some sort of square-cube thing going on > here that makes ever-increasing values of capacitance ever huger. Urr? I've got a bag of 0.5F 5.5V capacitors in my parts stocks. They're about 0.5" in diameter and 0.25" tall. Times have changed. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From lists at databasics.us Wed Jun 10 18:25:26 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:25:26 -1000 Subject: P-System (was Re: PDP 11/73 on the Internet) In-Reply-To: <47084091-37DF-4527-8CD2-B6E3A1AF56FA@neurotica.com> References: <4A2D4949.6080509@gmail.com> <4A2DF68E.7030801@mail.msu.edu> <4A2DFCF6.60906@gmail.com> <47084091-37DF-4527-8CD2-B6E3A1AF56FA@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A3040E6.1000607@databasics.us> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 9, 2009, at 2:11 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>>>>> I know for a fact that IBM offered p-System for the PC, because I >>>>>> have a copy of *IBM's* p-System and all its manuals >>>>>> (binder-in-box) for the PC. The binders are blue. The PC-DOS >>>>>> ones are beige/tan, if my memory serves me. >>>>> >>>>> One of them is pink, I forget if that's PC-DOS or BASIC, but >>>>> probably the latter. >>>> >>>> BASIC is definitely pink. >>> Hmm. I have DOS 1.1 and it's pink; the manual for BASIC is Dark >>> Green-ish... >> >> I have a DOS in tan. I have a BASIC in pink, and a BASIC in dark brown. >> >> I suspect age may have a part to play. > > Yours, or the manuals'? ;) Ta-Dah! We have a winner. (chuckling). However, IBM's ROM BASIC manual was actually very dark olive green when printed, and if one purchased the basic program to run under DOS, THAT manual was pink. Warren From ragooman at comcast.net Wed Jun 10 18:43:40 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:43:40 -0400 Subject: The Yorktown In-Reply-To: <181555.91844.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <181555.91844.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A30452C.5050407@comcast.net> Christian Liendo wrote: > > http://gcn.com/articles/1998/08/31/smart-ship-inquiry-a-go.aspx > > Can this end now ? > yea, that's the story - it's a shame too. A truely reliable OS doesn't let any kind of user app bring down the whole system/network/etc - Microsoft's excuse is purely irresponsible. Heaven forbid they ever use it on a fighter jet or spacecraft. I would seriously doubt that a windows os would pass any of the regression tests used in aerospace systems. Oh and be forewarned, if your flying to LA - I wonder how the FAA managed to avoid regression tests for the ATC system on these windows servers Can you say "grease the palm" http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsid=2275 =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Wed Jun 10 19:00:17 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:00:17 -0700 Subject: The Yorktown In-Reply-To: <4A30452C.5050407@comcast.net> References: <181555.91844.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4A30452C.5050407@comcast.net> Message-ID: <44E0C7E9-AFB2-437C-9D8E-1D6E79FB1574@mail.msu.edu> On Jun 10, 2009, at 4:43 PM, Dan Roganti wrote: > > > Christian Liendo wrote: >> >> http://gcn.com/articles/1998/08/31/smart-ship-inquiry-a-go.aspx >> >> Can this end now ? >> > > yea, that's the story - it's a shame too. A truely reliable OS > doesn't let any kind of user app bring down the whole system/network/ > etc - Microsoft's excuse is purely irresponsible. That depends on what the article's use of the much-overloaded term "crashed computers" -actually- means here. It is unclear (and I have never seen clarification) as to whether this was a BSOD or just an app crash that propagated to the other apps on the network. NT did have many bugs. Whether it was at fault in this case may never be known. (by us) > > > Heaven forbid they ever use it on a fighter jet or spacecraft. I > would seriously doubt that a windows os would pass any of the > regression tests used in aerospace systems. > I seriously doubt -any- off-the-shelf OS would without serious modifications. - josh > Oh and be forewarned, if your flying to LA - I wonder how the FAA > managed to avoid regression tests for the ATC system on these > windows servers > Can you say "grease the palm" > http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsid=2275 > > =Dan > > [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] > > > From tpeters at mixcom.com Wed Jun 10 19:19:11 2009 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:19:11 -0500 Subject: DEC DSSI board? Maybe? Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20090610173421.02982490@localhost> What is it? I have an unidentified board, approx 3.75 inches by 4, or about 94mm x 104mm. It says on the silkscreen, "DSSI DAUGHTER CARD" and "50-21836-01 B1" There's about 4 chips on it, and some SMD caps & resistors and a big honkin' diode. The main chip has something like 200 pins, on all four sides of the chip, soldered to the component side of the board, and sporting a tower-style heat sink apparently cemented to the top of the chip. There's also 3 each 10-pin SIP resistors next to each other, like termination r's. And three each 2-pin jumpers marked "4 2 1" - addressing, obviously. All three are in place = 7. The two main connectors are a black D-shaped one that makes me thing of SCSI SCA, with 50 pins. The other is a blue Berg-style, I'm guessing for an IDC connector on the end of a ribbon cable. The pins that are marked on the board say "1" and "49" so I'm going to say 50 pins as well, with locking ears you close to seat the cable and lock it in place. It was in a Digital Equipment Corp shipping box, one that looks to be the right width for the board but probably twice as long as it needed to be. It was in a static bag- the original, from the looks of it. The grainy photograph on the box doesn't match the board. It's in perfect shape. On the box someone has scrawled "Single DSSI controller for 4000's" Worth anything to anyone? ----- 465. [Philosophy] ". . . a boss who is forced to part a man's hair with a wrench has failed at some point." Heinlein: Podkayne, quoting her mother, _Podkayne of Mars_ --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 19:34:37 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:34:37 -0400 Subject: early PA-RISC machines In-Reply-To: <4A3032EB.30502@brouhaha.com> References: <4A3032EB.30502@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <62D68FD2-BA91-4269-A757-EA48604712AD@neurotica.com> On Jun 10, 2009, at 6:25 PM, Eric Smith wrote: >> Hey PA-RISC aficionados. Was there in fact a production PA-RISC >> machine whose CPU was implemented with standard TTL chips? If so, >> which one, > Yes, the "Indigo", HP 9000 model 840 and HP 3000 model 930. Cool, thanks for the info. > > and does anyone have one that they'd like to trade away? > > I doubt that there are many around. I know someone who has one, > but he intends to donate it to the Computer History Museum. (Or > maybe he already has done so.) :-( -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From IanK at vulcan.com Wed Jun 10 19:36:20 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:36:20 -0700 Subject: The Yorktown In-Reply-To: <4A30452C.5050407@comcast.net> References: <181555.91844.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4A30452C.5050407@comcast.net> Message-ID: I thought we were done with the gratuitous Microsoft bashing. -- Ian PS: it's my understanding the International Space Station runs on NT. BTW, it was a spontaneous reboot loop in a non-Microsoft embedded OS (VxWorks, as I recall) that crippled one of the Mars rovers for a considerable time. ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dan Roganti [ragooman at comcast.net] Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 4:43 PM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: The Yorktown Christian Liendo wrote: > > http://gcn.com/articles/1998/08/31/smart-ship-inquiry-a-go.aspx > > Can this end now ? > yea, that's the story - it's a shame too. A truely reliable OS doesn't let any kind of user app bring down the whole system/network/etc - Microsoft's excuse is purely irresponsible. Heaven forbid they ever use it on a fighter jet or spacecraft. I would seriously doubt that a windows os would pass any of the regression tests used in aerospace systems. From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 19:43:01 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:43:01 -0400 Subject: The Yorktown In-Reply-To: References: <181555.91844.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4A30452C.5050407@comcast.net> Message-ID: <30C33F83-4812-4CAA-A6FA-5DF05971761E@neurotica.com> On Jun 10, 2009, at 8:36 PM, Ian King wrote: > PS: it's my understanding the International Space Station runs on NT. "Show me the screenshots." -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From lynchaj at yahoo.com Wed Jun 10 19:45:01 2009 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:45:01 -0400 Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual Message-ID: <94CD0793220C4C44B6E87283C30F251B@andrewdesktop> Hi! Does anyone have the NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual? I am looking for one as part of research on building a home brew NEC 7220 video board. On a related but different subject if anyone is interested, I just got the N8VEM VDU board working (SY6545 based) and there are photos in the N8VEM wiki. http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=VDU Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jun 10 19:45:51 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:45:51 -0700 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A303C41.9090402@databasics.us> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> <4A2DFC82.60800@brouhaha.com> <4A303C41.9090402@databasics.us> Message-ID: <4A3053BF.1020601@brouhaha.com> Warren Wolfe wrote: > Erm... I doubt this. I saw a 2 farad cap at a surplus place in Lima, > Ohio. It was rated at 12 volts, and looked like a sawed-off oil drum. That's much older technology. As others here have observed, you can now get a 100F capacitor that is quite compact, though they have voltage ratings between 2V and 2.7V. > I think there's some sort of square-cube thing going on here that > makes ever-increasing values of capacitance ever huger. Not really. For a given technology, the volume is roughly linearly related to the product of the capacitance and voltage. From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Wed Jun 10 19:56:08 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:56:08 -0700 Subject: The Yorktown In-Reply-To: <30C33F83-4812-4CAA-A6FA-5DF05971761E@neurotica.com> References: <181555.91844.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4A30452C.5050407@comcast.net> <30C33F83-4812-4CAA-A6FA-5DF05971761E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jun 10, 2009, at 5:43 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 10, 2009, at 8:36 PM, Ian King wrote: >> PS: it's my understanding the International Space Station runs on NT. > > "Show me the screenshots." Wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2001/04/42912. Sounds like it was a bit bumpy :). > > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From john_finigan at yahoo.com Wed Jun 10 21:09:27 2009 From: john_finigan at yahoo.com (John Finigan) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:09:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 Message-ID: <846190.94827.qm@web37007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > Here is a challenge to the whole list membership. Lots of folks here > are well embedded into the industry, so I think this is a good sample. > Try to think of as many new customers (not upgrades) for the following > OSes (again, keeping the old names): AOS/VS, MCP, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, > OS/2200, VM, MVS, VSE, OS/400, Multics, PrimOS. Lets keep this to year > 2009. I bet we can not even get to twenty. For what it's worth, here's two recent articles about what Unisys is up to with the MCP / OS2200 machines: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/26/unisys_mainframe_upgrades http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/08/unisys_clearpath_kickers Apparently a mix of emulation on the low end and "real" chips on the high end. What I find fascinating is that Unisys sells a laptop (lx170) for MCP devs which runs the emulator on top of Windows (seems like the lowest-end emulated MCP servers are Dells running Windows too). I have no idea who buys this stuff though. I'm under 30, so I don't remember the early 80s. It seems like Burroughs had some pretty good technology up to that point. What happened to them that didn't happen to IBM? John Finigan From ragooman at comcast.net Wed Jun 10 21:26:37 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:26:37 -0400 Subject: The Yorktown In-Reply-To: References: <181555.91844.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4A30452C.5050407@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A306B5D.6010103@comcast.net> Ian King wrote: > I thought we were done with the gratuitous Microsoft bashing. -- Ian > not bashing - just saying > PS: it's my understanding the International Space Station runs on NT. umm, their laptops don't operate the space station, neither do the NT file servers. Aerospace vehicles are always using a FAA DO-178B level A certified rtos, whichever happens to be installed on this - I don't recall at the moment - but it sure as hell isn't Microsoft Windows. > > > BTW, it was a spontaneous reboot loop in a non-Microsoft embedded OS (VxWorks, as I recall) that crippled one of the Mars rovers for a considerable time. FYI -- the third party file system became full, as such, they never wrote an exception trap handler for this(nobody's OS can recover without the proper exception trap handlers) -- that was a classic example of a failure in not anticipating the unforeseeable(even years from now) -- something we as engineers get paid to do -- and not performing a stringent regression test for a user application simulating long time periods -- although the project was planned to last only 90days(but actually lasted a lot longer)-- something which a project engineer is expected to define, to make sure the engineers did their job right - as such it which was circumvented afterwards when a more realistic scenario was experienced in the real world(space). BTW, the Mars Exploration EDL vehicle (which transported the rover) also used VxWorks and it happened to work flawlessly Flight vehicles have more stringent testing requirements than land vehicles. =Dan sorry for getting off-topic here [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From frustum at pacbell.net Wed Jun 10 21:44:07 2009 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:44:07 -0500 Subject: large capacitors [was: IBM 029 progress] In-Reply-To: <4A3053BF.1020601@brouhaha.com> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> <4A2DFC82.60800@brouhaha.com> <4A303C41.9090402@databasics.us> <4A3053BF.1020601@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A306F77.3060800@pacbell.net> Eric Smith wrote: > Warren Wolfe wrote: >> Erm... I doubt this. I saw a 2 farad cap at a surplus place in Lima, >> Ohio. It was rated at 12 volts, and looked like a sawed-off oil drum. > That's much older technology. As others here have observed, you can now > get a 100F capacitor that is quite compact, though they have voltage > ratings between 2V and 2.7V. >> I think there's some sort of square-cube thing going on here that >> makes ever-increasing values of capacitance ever huger. > Not really. For a given technology, the volume is roughly linearly > related to the product of the capacitance and voltage. That doesn't make sense. energy = 1/2 * C * V^2. You are saying if you double the size of the cap you can handle double the voltage, but that means four times the energy. That isn't right. It is the stored energy that is linear with the size of the cap (roughly). I agree that you can double the capacitance if you double the volume, which means doubling the stored energy. Great. This is demonstrated by wiring two "x" farad caps in parallel. But if you wire them in series so they can handle twice the voltage, the capacitance is also cut in half. E = 1/2 * (1/2 C) * (2V)^2, which works out to double the 1/2*C*V^2. From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jun 10 21:52:42 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:52:42 -0500 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> At 12:02 PM 6/10/2009, William Donzelli wrote: >I never said VMS is dead - if I did, please point it out and >acknowledge. I did say VMS is a "sinking ship". Not only is the market >share tiny and shrinking, but its installation base (number of >machines running VMS in production) is also shrinking. There are >pretty much no new VMS customers. VMS is speeding along to being >insignificant. Not intending to fan flames, but what might those two numbers be? What's VMS's present estimated installed base, what was its direction and rate of change in the last decade? - John From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jun 10 21:51:26 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:51:26 -0500 Subject: The Yorktown In-Reply-To: References: <181555.91844.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4A30452C.5050407@comcast.net> <30C33F83-4812-4CAA-A6FA-5DF05971761E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090610215039.040e94a8@mail.threedee.com> >>>PS: it's my understanding the International Space Station runs on NT. >> >> "Show me the screenshots." I think there's a big difference between "runs on" and "they used XYZ for email and file sharing". - John From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jun 10 21:56:29 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:56:29 -0500 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <3B5FBA71-99F9-409D-9BC1-5D8F361841B0@neurotica.com> References: <200906092346.20414.pat@computer-refuge.org> <1244633106.5593.11.camel@elric> <3B5FBA71-99F9-409D-9BC1-5D8F361841B0@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212651.040fd0b8@mail.threedee.com> At 07:52 AM 6/10/2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > Does anyone remember PC-VMS from Wendin? Better yet, does anyone >have a copy? Looks like they might've hired several packrat consultants: http://personallyinteresting.blogspot.com/2009/04/computer-archeology.html http://www.datapackrat.com/source/vim.html - John From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jun 10 21:59:56 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:59:56 -0500 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090610215750.03aaaf90@mail.threedee.com> At 07:52 AM 6/10/2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > Does anyone remember PC-VMS from Wendin? Better yet, does anyone >have a copy? And another, oddly from yesterday: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.vms/browse_thread/thread/7b241214552d7e12?pli=1 And a claimed author of it: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevejonesinwashington - John From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Wed Jun 10 22:13:24 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:13:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Manual for a Wameco WMC QM-1A Message-ID: <144992.27818.qm@web112204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Anyone have a PDF of the QM-1A Manual? From ragooman at comcast.net Wed Jun 10 22:37:40 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:37:40 -0400 Subject: TEACO Floppy drive Tester - any info available online ? In-Reply-To: <4A2FCA49.8040200@verizon.net> References: <4A2EFEBF.8000805@comcast.net> <4A2FCA49.8040200@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4A307C04.8070503@comcast.net> Keith M wrote: > > Looks pretty cool. I wish I would have been at that hamfest (which > one was it?) -- I would have bought it first! I'm jealous. > > I have a Brian Instruments Brikon 723 tester. I haven't played with > it yet, but I have a picture here > > http://www.techtravels.org/amiga/amigablog/?p=214 > > with manuals. > This was the Breezeshooters hamfest in Butler,PA (close to Pittsburgh) it one of the biggest in the tristate region(PA,OH,WV). That floppy drive tester you have looks a lot more fun to use than mine - I like to find one of those too. =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Wed Jun 10 23:34:54 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:34:54 -0700 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <4A30260E.2010802@gmail.com> References: <200906101326.n5ADQtmi015936@floodgap.com> <4A30260E.2010802@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A30896E.50008@mail.msu.edu> Jules Richardson wrote: > Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> Right, you could do this on a C64 also and probably many machines, >> but this >> was just a convenient means of storage -- execution of arbitrary ML was >> still permitted by the interpreter. The MK-85 hack is noteworthy >> because it >> allows you to run stuff on the CPU even though the BASIC supposedly >> doesn't >> let you (no CALL, SYS, USR(), etc). > > Yes, the one I'm remembering was similar to that - I wish I could > remember more, but it was entered via some function which had a > utterly different purpose during normal use, but invoked in a certain > way it could be used to run sequences of MC. > > Dave's message rings a bell though, in that I think the actual MC data > was encoded into a character string (possibly as a REM statement, but > I can't be sure). > > If my memory coughs up the name of the system I'll shout :-) > Then there's the fun undocumented 'CALL "EXEC"' command for the Tektronix 4051, which executes 6800 assembly instructions in a specially-encoded 7-bit ASCII string, two characters per byte... Josh From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Wed Jun 10 23:39:03 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:39:03 -0700 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <4A301927.7000900@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> <4A301927.7000900@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A308A67.2040301@mail.msu.edu> Eric Smith wrote: > Josh Dersch wrote: >> I have in my grubby little hands an Elektronika MK-85 calculator, >> which externally is a spot-on clone of the Casio FX-700P BASIC >> programmable calculator. Functionally, it's identical as well, with >> a few enhancements (pixel-addressable graphics, a Cyrillic >> character-set, etc) > Pixel-addressable characters. I wouldn't really call it "graphics" > since there are gaps between the character cells. Well, that's just being pedantic :). I can plot a point at any arbitrary x,y coordinate. It's just that there are gaps here and there along the X axis :). >> Internally though, they're 100% different -- the processor in the >> MK-85 is a Russian PDP-11 knockoff. > There is also the MK-90, with a larger graphics display and removable > RAM cartridges. Purportedly came with a RAM cartridge containing a > Tetris game, but there are no known surviving copies of the game. > > Eric > > Yeah, the MK-90 looks really neat. love to find one one of those someday... As far as Tetris (and other games)... looks like there's at least one known copy out there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48pmWw4TG1o (See at about 2:13). Josh From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 10 23:43:48 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:43:48 -0400 Subject: The Yorktown In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20090610215039.040e94a8@mail.threedee.com> References: <181555.91844.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4A30452C.5050407@comcast.net> <30C33F83-4812-4CAA-A6FA-5DF05971761E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610215039.040e94a8@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: <976D35AA-D7E9-4CD7-9B21-5FA172B17964@neurotica.com> On Jun 10, 2009, at 10:51 PM, John Foust wrote: >>>> PS: it's my understanding the International Space Station runs >>>> on NT. >>> >>> "Show me the screenshots." > > I think there's a big difference between "runs on" and "they used > XYZ for email and file sharing". Exactly. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jun 10 23:52:34 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:52:34 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906102125.n5ALPQxO014236@floodgap.com> References: <200906102125.n5ALPQxO014236@floodgap.com> Message-ID: At 2:25 PM -0700 6/10/09, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > microkernal, > >I can tell you've been using Commodores too long ;-) That or I can't spell! ;-) Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 00:04:57 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:04:57 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> Message-ID: At 2:38 PM -0700 6/10/09, Mark Davidson wrote: >On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >No kidding. I remember booting the Linux kernel on floppies (I think >it was v0.99 or something like that), and I also remember the joy I >felt when I booted Yggdrasil Linux and saw X come up. Before that, I >had to use either SCO Open Desktop or Interactive ix/386 (both of >which were horribly expensive) on my Northgate 386. 0.12 boot and root floppies here. In fact Linux is *WHY* I first got Internet access, and at the time, even though I was working for the US Navy in Washington DC, that took a lot of effort. X-Windows just about drove me crazy. I tried 2 different ET-4000 based cards in my 486/33, and neither agreed with my computer. I was on cloud 9 the day the version that would run on my Trident card was released! Of course then 8MB started feeling cramped and before long I was running with 20MB of RAM. > > just as soon use OpenBSD, Solaris, or even IRIX. OTOH, I'd >rather run Linux >> than AIX or HP-UX, but that's just a question of preferences. :-) > >Oh, if I could, I'd haul one of my HP PA-RISC boxes down to work and >use that, but I work for McAfee and security about hardware here is >incredibly tight. I could easily bring it in here, but it would be a >major pain to get it back out of the building. I have a HP PA-RISC box under my desk at work, but it's not plugged into the network. I scavenged it to refresh my HP-UX skills. I used to be an HP-UX Sys Admin, same with AIX, SunOS and Solaris, which is why I dislike AIX as well. I really love Solaris, but am now stuck with Linux and Windows. > > Windows - It is a mess, and it is Microsoft > >Yow. Vista. I've managed to escape using Vista. I work for a major corporation, and they refuse to downgrade to Vista. > > Mac OS X - It is a resource hog, and I question the efficiency of the >> microkernal, especially based on tests against Linux. > >True, but what a development framework! :) I haven't done development for the Mac since the System 8 days. All of my programming on Mac OS X has been in Perl, Ruby, and a little Ada95. > > OpenVMS - The Corporation(s) owning it trying to kill it and starving it >> for resources. I fear that HP has decided to kill it off, in a slow and >> painful manner. > >Yes, but at least you can get a decent semi-free license for it. Yes, and I use that. I think most here know what a rabid OpenVMS supporter I am, but I've started to loose hope, and question my continued support of the OS. > > Solaris - I'm concerned about its continued viability, as such I'm less >> likely to use it in the future. > >I'd love to see this continue... OpenSolaris can be a lot of fun. I have yet to have time to check out OpenSolaris. Most of my time has been spent on Solaris 2.6, and 8 with a little time on 10. I also spent a *LOT* of time with SunOS both on Sun systems, and on Auspex servers. > > IRIX - I wish it wasn't a dead end, as it is really an >amazing OS and it >> ran on amazing hardware. > >Damn... you hit that one on the head. While was responsible for a couple SGI boxes at a previous job, I didn't get to really play with them. When I got my R5k/180 o2 (the really crappy version) with very little RAM about 6 years ago, I was blown away by what it could do. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 00:06:41 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:06:41 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> Message-ID: >On Wed, 2009-06-10 at 14:16 -0700, Zane H. Healy wrote: > >> Something else that irritates me is that Linux programmers seem to be just >> as bad about writing non-portable code as Windows programmers. > >One of the problems I ran into with a couple of packages I wrote was >Debian "maintainers" buggering about with stuff to get it to compile on >all supported platforms and not passing changes back to me. > >I wouldn't have minded so much, but the software was *specifically* only >intended for use on a PC or (at a pinch) a Mac with a serious audio >card. > >Why they were bitching about it being able to compile on S390 or MIPSEL, >I really don't know. It hasn't a hope in hell of being useful on >anything other than a PC. > >Gordon Now *THAT* is to funny! Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 00:10:54 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:10:54 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: At 9:52 PM -0500 6/10/09, John Foust wrote: >At 12:02 PM 6/10/2009, William Donzelli wrote: >>I never said VMS is dead - if I did, please point it out and >>acknowledge. I did say VMS is a "sinking ship". Not only is the market >>share tiny and shrinking, but its installation base (number of >>machines running VMS in production) is also shrinking. There are >>pretty much no new VMS customers. VMS is speeding along to being >>insignificant. > >Not intending to fan flames, but what might those two numbers be? > >What's VMS's present estimated installed base, what was its >direction and rate of change in the last decade? IIRC, they've claimed 400,000 for years, and at the same time you're always hearing of customers moving off of it. The reasons for the lack of new customers are totally the Corporate owners fault. It has been on a decline for well over a decade. The moves to kill it off started with DEC itself. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 00:13:45 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:13:45 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> Message-ID: <1160E7C8-A197-4D17-A4B2-94084C71F109@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:04 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > I have yet to have time to check out OpenSolaris. Most of my time > has been spent on Solaris 2.6, and 8 with a little time on 10. I > also spent a *LOT* of time with SunOS both on Sun systems, and on > Auspex servers. Auspex!! What awesome machines they are. For years I ran an NS-6000 and two NS-7000s at work. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 00:17:01 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:17:01 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:10 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> What's VMS's present estimated installed base, what was its >> direction and rate of change in the last decade? > > IIRC, they've claimed 400,000 for years, and at the same time > you're always hearing of customers moving off of it. The reasons > for the lack of new customers are totally the Corporate owners > fault. It has been on a decline for well over a decade. The moves > to kill it off started with DEC itself. That strikes me as very odd. Why on earth would they do this? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Thu Jun 11 03:53:29 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:53:29 -0700 Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <4A2FAB7F.8080107@gmail.com> References: <4A2F4134.7090001@mail.msu.edu> <4A2FAB7F.8080107@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A30C609.40401@mail.msu.edu> Jules Richardson wrote: > Josh Dersch wrote: >> Internally though, they're 100% different -- the processor in the >> MK-85 is a Russian PDP-11 knockoff. It's not a power-efficient CPU >> by any means, so to ensure decent battery life the CPU speed is >> severely limited. Not sure exactly what speed it runs at (anyone out >> there know?) but the result is by far the slowest calculator I've >> ever used. > > That's interesting. Does it have provision for AC input? Just curious > if it auto-magically ups the clock speed when not running from the > battery, as that would be kinda cool (and an early example of a > power-saving mode :-) It has an external power input, via some weird connector on the side. It _does_ have a "high speed" mode -- if you turn it on while holding "+" it runs 6 or 7 times faster (tested by running a program that just runs a FOR loop from 0 to 1000 -- ~28 seconds in "normal" mode, ~4 seconds in "high speed" mode). No idea how it affects battery life, but I can't imagine it's good :). > >> (The BASIC implementation is also incredibly buggy, mostly due to >> poor argument checking... see >> http://www.pisi.com.pl/piotr433/mk85mc1e.htm for a cool example of >> exploiting a bug in INPUT to do machine-language coding, in a way >> only a contortionist could love...) > > Gah, one of the home micro BASICs did something similar, so you could > throw MC in there as a character string and 'trick' the BASIC into > executing it by tripping the parser up - but my brain's refusing to > tell me which one it was now. > >> Anyone else know of examples of odd-duck machines like this, where the > > hardware is probably not the best choice for the application? > > Anything ever done using an IBM-compatible PC? > >> (But it's cool anyway?) > > Oh. Scratch that, then. :) Josh > > ;-) > > > > From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Thu Jun 11 04:02:59 2009 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:02:59 +0100 Subject: Nearly there with IBM 029 KeyPunch In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <071C15D4-92BC-4D88-890C-9EEA25C1092C@microspot.co.uk> > From: "Chuck Guzis" > > Silly question, Roger... > > What is the AC line voltage at the keypunch? At the time that punch > was made "nominal" nameplate voltage was about 117VAC. It's crept up > a bit over the years to 120VAC (I just measured the voltage at an > outlet here and it's 126VAC). > > --Chuck The 029's power supply has been strapped for 230v operation. The actual supply is usually around 245 volts, though I have seen it as high as 253 and the specification is 216 to 253. The keypunch also has an option for strapping to 208 volts as well as the original straps for 115v. Roger Holmes From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 11 04:10:50 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:10:50 -0700 Subject: large capacitors [was: IBM 029 progress] In-Reply-To: <4A306F77.3060800@pacbell.net> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> <4A2DFC82.60800@brouhaha.com> <4A303C41.9090402@databasics.us> <4A3053BF.1020601@brouhaha.com> <4A306F77.3060800@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <4A30CA1A.7080109@brouhaha.com> Warren Wolfe wrote: > I think there's some sort of square-cube thing going on here that > makes ever-increasing values of capacitance ever huger. I wrote: > Not really. For a given technology, the volume is roughly linearly > related to the product of the capacitance and voltage. Jim Battle wrote: > That doesn't make sense. energy = 1/2 * C * V^2. You are saying if > you double the size of the cap you can handle double the voltage, but > that means four times the energy. That isn't right. It is the stored > energy that is linear with the size of the cap (roughly). You're right. I should have said that for a given technology and rated voltage, the volume is roughly linearly related to the capacitance. No square or cube there. Eric From als at thangorodrim.de Thu Jun 11 04:33:21 2009 From: als at thangorodrim.de (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:33:21 +0200 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20090611093321.GA20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 11:55:46AM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 10, 2009, at 11:38 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> It might seem odd, but I don't know how to use 'ed'. I kinda know >>> 'ex' >>> due to the fact 'vi' is 'ex' turned from a line editor to a screen >>> editor. Most of what I know about computers from way back is mostly >>> limited to UNIX (and that's only because UNIX didn't die like the >>> other OSes.) >> >> I hate statements like this. Died like what OSes? MVS? VM? VSE? >> There are a bunch of OSes from back then which are still around. > > This attitude is common even here, amongst people who presumably > should know better. Just because VMS was around thirty years ago, that > means it's a thirty-year-old OS. "Wow, I can't believe we're still using > cars. They're so old! Since there were cars in 1908, that means ALL > cars are from 1908!" > > The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know > better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are > *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the only > thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. Do these > people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank > transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? Probably yes - and the frightening thing is that they are partially right. There _are_ definitely hospital databases running on Windows machines. If you count ATMs, then yes, there are Windows machines that process bank transactions (and some of those ATMs have been hacked to forward your credit card details to ... elsewhere). I don't know about railroads, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was some Windows there as well. From their home machines running Windows, people appear to be used to computers not being that reliable, so in the eyes of non technical people, Windows is 'good enough' - and all they know. *sigh* I've seen projects to run significant systems on non-Windows platforms canned in favor of running them on Windows (with a massive increase in CapEx and OpEx) simply because the manager in charge knew about Windows and didn't like anything he didn't know about. The curses from the techs who had to deal with the fallout (and massive problems) from this decision could be heard for months ... Regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From als at thangorodrim.de Thu Jun 11 05:26:12 2009 From: als at thangorodrim.de (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:26:12 +0200 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20090611102612.GB20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 03:04:03PM -0400, William Donzelli wrote: > > ?The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know > > better is the visibility factor. ?VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are > > *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the only > > thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. ?Do these > > people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, > > maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? > > Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers of > *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd are > the worst offenders. As a longtime member of said penguin crowd, I unfortunately have to agree. The general trend there seems to be a focus on flashy stuff (Look! It's shiny! And colorful!). People who actually understand (and care about) what happens below the surface seem to be as rare as ever. Regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From jfk at kuenzigbooks.com Wed Jun 10 14:34:41 2009 From: jfk at kuenzigbooks.com (Kuenzig Books, John F. Kuenzig) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:34:41 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A300AD1.1080406@kuenzigbooks.com> Zane - Although I primarily lurk here, one of the reasons I really like reading this list is the feeling that the older stuff is being kept alive. As one of those techies who did development work on early voicemail (on UNIX platforms even), much of the older systems seemed "dead" to my colleagues. At one point when I started my own company I used to buy old disk drives, etc off back docks to sell to legacy system operators (insurance companies, old financial houses, etc) that couldn't find old disk drives, etc to keep their systems running. Kept us alive until we had positive cashflow ourselves. Much like antiques, it feels good to in some small way support the maintenance of these systems. Thanks to all who do, and keep posting! It's great fun to read...one day with sufficient funds (and SPACE and time) I'll do some salvaging myself... John Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > >> On Jun 10, 2009, at 12:52 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>>> The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should >>>> know better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are >>>> *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the >>>> only thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. >>>> Do these people really believe PCs running Windows process their >>>> bank transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? >>> >>> I agree with this statement, and out side of this audience how many >>> people >>> even know anything besides Windows exists? There are a lot of >>> people that >>> think all computers run Windows. >> >> Well, this isn't the only group of technical people in the world. As >> far as knowing about what the real data processing world uses, it's >> not classic computer enthusiasts vs. the rest of the world, it's >> knowledgeable computer people vs. the rest of the world. > > Of course this isn't the only group of technical people. The disturbing > thing is, there are a sizable group of "technical" people who thing > Windows > is all there is, and either don't realize anything else exists, or that > anything else still exists. These are the people that really scare me. > > Zane > > > > -- Kuenzig Books, ABAA PO Box 452, Topsfield, MA 01983 978-887-4053 9am-7pm Eastern Standard Time 866-512-3053 tollfree 9am-7pm EST inquiries at kuenzigbooks.com Important Books in Science, Technology and Engineering Secure ordering at http://www.kuenzigbooks.com Save time, money and earn other exclusive benefits. Members of: ABAA http://www.abaa.org MARIAB http://www.mariab.org ESA http://www.ephemerasociety.org Buying 18th-21st century books, manuscripts, ephemera, scientific instruments, artifacts, and related material as well as quality books and manuscripts in many fields. From jws at jwsss.com Wed Jun 10 01:40:39 2009 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:40:39 -0700 Subject: Interesting IBM 5150... or something In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906092124u33916297u6342fce6cfa2081a@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906092033n3dfb48f9k6c07c7a59b7beb05@mail.gmail.com> <2b1f1f550906092053t12dfcdcbi7a83bfadcd4bfb88@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906092124u33916297u6342fce6cfa2081a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2F5567.2020702@jwsss.com> The CIA had devices which could read the screen contents from the emitted EMF in the late 60s according to a friend who worked for them. It is good to see the secure display is still with it. I assume that emissions from the original keyboard would have been suppressed as well. The construction looks similar to the IBM Industrial AT's but I assume with more attention to blocking emissions that could be intercepted. I think the Tempest specs are public as far as emissions, as a lot of manufacturers have to build equipment that is used in the environment where security is required. Really interesting find for someone who collects odd IBM Pc gear. One of the oddballs that one might want to watch out for is a special set of PC's that were made in Korea for supporting Hangul language for IBM mainframe 3270 operation. When we got some of the units that were supposed to connect up, they were running dos, and only in Hangul. There was a need to support the special 16 bit data over 3270 that drove the people who had to implement it nuts. But later we also used the same terminals with a different program to support Kanji language display. Again having to guess what the messages were in Hangul when installing the floppies. Jim Brian Lanning wrote: > On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 10:53 PM, Joe Giliberti wrote: > >> Looks like an AT >> > > It has 3 half-height drive bay openings on the front. The AT had two, > but an internal HH 5.25" bay where that bottom drive is (iirc). > > And the back of the case is totally different. > > brian > > > From william.berkeley at yahoo.com.sg Wed Jun 10 03:23:40 2009 From: william.berkeley at yahoo.com.sg (william.berkeley at yahoo.com.sg) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:23:40 +0800 (SGT) Subject: DEC computer hardware for sale Message-ID: <184286.76165.qm@web76310.mail.sg1.yahoo.com> for a list of dec, sun and other legacy computer hardware, pls visit: http://decsurplus.wordpress.com/ New Email names for you! Get the Email name you've always wanted on the new @ymail and @rocketmail. Hurry before someone else does! http://mail.promotions.yahoo.com/newdomains/sg/ From snhirsch at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 06:37:42 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:37:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: TEACO Floppy drive Tester - any info available online ? In-Reply-To: <4A2EFEBF.8000805@comcast.net> References: <4A2EFEBF.8000805@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Dan Roganti wrote: > > I picked up this TEACO CD 2-3 floppy drive tester for only $5 at the recent > hamfest here in Pittsburgh and like to get it working again. I did a search > and found some old postings on here from 10+yrs ago, but without any leads to > any info for this tester. I hope somebody might have a clue about this tester > and some leads on finding a manual. > http://tinyurl.com/l9o5gn I found a similar model (TEACO 4077) at a hamfest several years ago. The company was still in business and one of the "old timers" there dug up a photocopy of the manual. Yours looks like an IDE/ATA version of my unit (for MFM/RLL drives), but the basic functions should be similar. I'll try to get it scanned this weekend and mail you a PDF. Steve -- From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de Wed Jun 10 07:38:07 2009 From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:38:07 +0200 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2FA92F.7030300@iais.fraunhofer.de> Kirn Gill schrieb: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Doc wrote: >> Not sure whether this is on-topic or not, but it promises to be >> fun: >> >> http://www.nordier.com/v7x86/ >> >> UNIX v7 for PeeCee! >> >> >> Doc >> > Ok, so I downloaded the image, got it running, and tried to use it > > Note: The user 'root' is password-protected, and I can't find the > documentation showing the default pass. > Login as 'bin', there is no password. The image starts in single user mode, and will go into multi-user-mode after entering CTRL-D. Well, before entering this, enter at the # prompt # passwd root and set the password you like. -- Holger From ohh at panix.com Wed Jun 10 12:43:09 2009 From: ohh at panix.com (O. Sharp) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:43:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: <4A2FBBD6.4000502@verizon.net> References: <0KKZ008F8QP1CHH8@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> <4A2FBBD6.4000502@verizon.net> Message-ID: Thanks for all the replies so far. While what I've seen so far is definitely helpful, particularly regarding the 2N3009, I'd like to take a step back and generalize the question a bit. Let's say you have a system where something dies, and you trace it down to a particular transistor. You do a search for the part number, and find out that particular part is no longer manufactured and/or available. You find a datasheet, though,, and between that and the circuit you get a pretty reasonable idea what the transistor's specifications ought to be like. So far, so good. The problem I run into at this point is how to go about finding a modern substitute. Some of you are up on your specs for modern transisitors to the point where you can just casually say, "Oh, well, I know a part that ought to be able to handle that," and you're home free. It's admirable, and I'm glad many of you are in that position. Unfortunately I'm not, and I suspect I'm not the only one. :/ I'm _hoping_ there's an alternative to just blind-referencing thousands of transistor specs in hopes of running across a suitable one. (I suppose "repeatedly pestering those of you who _have_ kept up" is an alternative, but somehow it doesn't seem like the most acceptable one. ) * Soooooo...: I guess my real question is, once you know what properties you want in a transistor, how do you go about finding a transistor that's currently available which matches or exceeds those specs? Is it simply a question of plowing through datasheets, or are there resources available to help narrow down the search to a handful of possibly-suitable parts? ...It's not just the 2N3009 I'm after, obviously. :) -O.- * - If somebody who _has_ kept up were to offer a "Transistor Cross-Reference Service" for a slight fee, I suspect the hobbyist market could keep them in fairly adequate beer-money. :) From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de Wed Jun 10 14:17:07 2009 From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:17:07 +0200 Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: References: <0KKZ008F8QP1CHH8@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <4A3006B3.7020405@iais.fraunhofer.de> Ethan Dicks schrieb: > On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 5:38 PM, Allison wrote: > What is different about the metal can and the plastic case part? I > have a few of each, and have so-far interchanged them in circuits > where performance isn't an issue (i.e., where a 2N3904 would work > fine, too). Obviously 2N2222s aren't expensive, but I'd like to know > why I should set aside the metal-cased ones for repairing specific > items. Older transistors were generally put into a metal, and sometimes into a ceramic package, case for manufacturing reasons and better thermal distribution. Even earlier transistor cases were made of glass, painted black (you can make good photo transistors from old OCxxx devices when scratching the black paint away). Plastic packages came up around late 60s when industry found materials with both good insulation and good thermal conduction. Nowadays, putting a semiconductor chip into a casted plastic case for low power and low frequencies is mainly a factor of production costs, so if power dissipation permits there is no longer a reason to prefer a metal case over a plastic one. Same holds for old eight-legged opamp ICs which came in a round metal case. For a few high frequency applications, though, the metal case makes a Faraday cage which is connected to ground then. And still, if a lot of power has to be carried away, the thermal resistance is lower for metal obivously. For the work horses 2N2222 and 2N3904, this is no real argument though, the 2N3055 with its 15A maximum Ic there are pretty many Watts to be distributed. -- Holger From snhirsch at gmail.com Wed Jun 10 17:40:19 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:40:19 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Looking for IMI 5018 MFM drive In-Reply-To: <20090610122907.V68379@shell.lmi.net> References: <20090610122907.V68379@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Steven Hirsch wrote: >> Title says it. Need to replace the drive mechanism in one of my Corvus >> flat-cable drives. Firmware expects 6-heads and 306 cylinders and gets >> boggled by anything larger, unfortunately. >> Could also probably work with Seagate ST419 or Rodime RO203, which are the >> only other drives I've found with the same geometry. > > There were a few more "15 meg" drives with that structure. > > Sure that you can't fool it into ignoring a few heads or cylinders with a > 8 x 306 or 6 x 600? 20 and 30 Meg are a little easier to find. I've tried, trust me. Would likely require disassembly and patching of the controller EPROM. I'll attempt that if all else fails. -- From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Wed Jun 10 17:50:10 2009 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:50:10 -0400 Subject: Transistor Substitution Message-ID: <0KL1002CJOOV1GBH@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Transistor Substitution > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:11:44 +0100 (BST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >> I have a couple of DEC machines which I need to replace a few components >> >> on, and also stock up spares of others. With the transistors and diodes, >> >> however, I often can't find a direct replacement - and don't know how to >> >> figure out what a modern substitute is. >> >> >> >> For a 2N3009, for example, I can find basic information and a datasheet >> >> online easily enough - but as for choosing a functional, available >> >> substitute for it, I'm honestly not even sure where to begin. > >[...] > >> Way too much information.. What he needs to know is what can he buy now that >> should work to replace a 2n3009? > >There is a saying in England : > >'Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed >him for life'. Yes Teach a man to fish... Often the problem has greater scope. Recently I when through a similar situation.. problem was the psrson could solder and somewhat read a schematic.. Terms like breakdown voltage, Ic, Beta and Ft were completely lost as he had no context other than what building a lot of kits taught him. So sometimes the scope is not only teaching fishing, but what a fish is and why one wants to catch one. >I try to use that principle when posting here. I try to show how solve >similar problems in the future. None of us will be around for ever [1] >and I think it's important the information, methods, 'tricks', etc get >passed on I was trying to be light but maybe a ;-) may have helped. >[1] It would only take one careless mistake when repairing an SMPSU... > >As the bit of the original message I've left above semems to suggest, the >2N3309 is an example, and the OP possibly needs to substitute other >transistors as well. There are many substitutes possible, likely dozens or more. I picked one that is generally easy to find in many places. The other case was without context I ahd to pick a robust solution rather than one that oen that might work. An example is for simple logic a 2n3904 or the plastic pn2222 should do fine but if it drives a relay or lamp the added current capability if the 2n2222 is a better choice or maybe 2n2219. >> The only case where they type transistor is a bit fussy is some of the faster >> flip chip cards (logic) and SMPS. > >Maybe in DEC equipment... But I can assure you that the HP9100 is >'touchy'. It's not particularly high-speed, it's certainly not an SMPSU, >but you will have 'fun' working out what transistors to use. There were some applications that DEC used transistors that wanted faster transistors, core drivers and head drivers being those that easily come to mind.. Others it was sufficient to insure it was SI or Ge and the proper PNP or NPN. If the design had any vestage of ECL or other non-saturating logic then a lot of parameters become important. Then it is more difficult. SMPSUs are an animal and yes the wrong part there can cause pain or at best end up in a troubleshooting endless loop. Some old logic from the days before silicon devices can be fussy as they use MADT and other generational germainium devices and yes those do not substitute well without a carefull examination as to how they are applied. The gates and flipflops from the TX2 are a good example of early fast logic using germainium transistors. For context fast in early transistor computer designs is anything over a few megahertz (like greater than 1mhz!). Allison >-tony From bqt at softjar.se Thu Jun 11 06:20:19 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:20:19 +0200 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A30E873.9090306@softjar.se> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Dave McGuire wrote: >>> >> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >> > >> > Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite zippy >> > on a machine like that. > > Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer > architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. Not a big problem as such. You could probably almost reuse much of the existing code. The big problem would be that you'd need to write all the applications as well. The paradisgms of RSX comes nowhere near Unix, so almost no existing programs will be very usable under RSX. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From als at thangorodrim.de Thu Jun 11 07:06:16 2009 From: als at thangorodrim.de (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:06:16 +0200 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20090611120616.GC20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> On Tue, Jun 09, 2009 at 11:42:34PM -0400, William Donzelli wrote: > > ?Why is that? ?Because it's not Windows? > > Mostly, yes. > > Head out of the sand, man. Not so fast. Looks like we are going to have a nice mix of platforms with a good chunk of non-Windows for quite some time to come[0]. Yes, most end user desktop probably are Windows with a bit of MacOS X and a tiny sprinkling of Linux, but if you look at servers, things look rather differently. Although, working for a company with a not so small number of Linux servers, my view might be a bit biased. Regards, Alex. [0] Yes, less variance than there used to be, but it's not all monoculture and it doesn't look like it will be anytime soon. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 11 07:44:29 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:44:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at "Jun 10, 9 10:04:57 pm" Message-ID: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> > > > than AIX or HP-UX, but that's just a question of preferences. :-) > > I have a HP PA-RISC box under my desk at work, but it's not plugged > into the network. I scavenged it to refresh my HP-UX skills. I used > to be an HP-UX Sys Admin, same with AIX, SunOS and Solaris, which is > why I dislike AIX as well. I really love Solaris, but am now stuck > with Linux and Windows. I think Doc Shipley and I must be the only people who *like* AIX. ;-) -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. -- Socrates ----------- From dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net Thu Jun 11 07:47:33 2009 From: dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net (Daniel Seagraves) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:47:33 -0500 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> Message-ID: <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> DEBIAN PROJECT KNOWS BEST. YOU WILL NOT QUESTION DEBIAN PROJECT! My favorite so far is how Debian Project disables encryption in a certain RADIUS package because Debian Project disagrees with the license of the encryption library the programmer used. You have to go out of your way to build a local version and NOT have Debian overwrite your local version with their lobotomized version on every upgrade. If you ask about this you are informed that you should pick another RADIUS package because the programmer is "an asshole" who "won't compromise" over a "simple change". The stupid part is that the part that Debian thinks they should be exempt from is a provision of the crypto library requiring the programmer to acknowledge use of the library in promotional materials, which they say is against the GPL. (After all, you should be working for THE COMMUNITY and not looking for personal credit for your work!) There's also the stupid new provision in the installer that you MUST create a local non-root user to install the system. But Debian Project, what if I use LDAP and Kerberos to provide users on my system? The answer is "You aren't supposed to do that!" The workaround is to install the system without a root password. DEBIAN PROJECT KNOWS BEST. YOU WILL NOT QUESTION DEBIAN PROJECT! (But isn't this the same kind of behavior I was bitching about coming from Redmond back in the NT4 days?) On Jun 10, 2009, at 4:56 PM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > On Wed, 2009-06-10 at 14:16 -0700, Zane H. Healy wrote: > >> Something else that irritates me is that Linux programmers seem to be >> just >> as bad about writing non-portable code as Windows programmers. > > One of the problems I ran into with a couple of packages I wrote was > Debian "maintainers" buggering about with stuff to get it to compile on > all supported platforms and not passing changes back to me. > > I wouldn't have minded so much, but the software was *specifically* > only > intended for use on a PC or (at a pinch) a Mac with a serious audio > card. > > Why they were bitching about it being able to compile on S390 or > MIPSEL, > I really don't know. It hasn't a hope in hell of being useful on > anything other than a PC. > > Gordon From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 11 07:47:40 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:47:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Oddest mismatch in hardware for a given purpose... In-Reply-To: <4A308A67.2040301@mail.msu.edu> from Josh Dersch at "Jun 10, 9 09:39:03 pm" Message-ID: <200906111247.n5BCleOj014580@floodgap.com> > > > I have in my grubby little hands an Elektronika MK-85 calculator, > > > which externally is a spot-on clone of the Casio FX-700P BASIC > > > programmable calculator. Functionally, it's identical as well, with > > > a few enhancements (pixel-addressable graphics, a Cyrillic > > > character-set, etc) > > Pixel-addressable characters. I wouldn't really call it "graphics" > > since there are gaps between the character cells. > Well, that's just being pedantic :). I can plot a point at any > arbitrary x,y coordinate. It's just that there are gaps here and there > along the X axis :). Now that is interesting. Most pocket computers in that form factor don't have internal support for that (precisely because of the gaps) -- using the ML exploit doesn't count ;-) The only Tandy Pocket Computer I've seen, for example, with dot-addressable graphics was the PC-2 because it was the only one with a gapless display. Naturally there were quite a few Sharps and Casios, etc., that could, but still the majority with a character based display have no such feature in their BASIC. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. -- C.S. Lewis ----- From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 08:29:46 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:29:46 -0400 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <10F0EF4A-AD31-428A-9D90-334143CB28CD@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <028D3888-837C-40DD-8888-11BB1A818334@neurotica.com> <10F0EF4A-AD31-428A-9D90-334143CB28CD@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A3106CA.4090000@gmail.com> Josh Dersch wrote: >> Apparently. Go look up the news archives for the Yorktown story. >> Read the facts before you make assumptions and accuse people of not >> knowing what they're talking about just because you don't like what >> they're saying. > > I've never seen an explanation of what the failure actually was, just > lots of articles stating that Windows NT was being used as the OS and > -something- went wrong. It could just as easily have been buggy client > software that crashed. The explanation at the time was that one of the operators put a zero into a database field he shouldn't have, which caused a divide-by-zero problem which led to a buffer overrun which cascaded to all of the workstations on the network. Peace... Sridhar From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Thu Jun 11 08:57:13 2009 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:57:13 -0400 Subject: large capacitors [was: IBM 029 progress] In-Reply-To: <4A306F77.3060800@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <200906111357.n5BDvFND004439@keith.ezwind.net> On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:44:07 -0500, Jim Battle wrote: >> Not really. For a given technology, the volume is roughly linearly >> related to the product of the capacitance and voltage. >That doesn't make sense. energy = 1/2 * C * V^2. You are saying if you >double the size of the cap you can handle double the voltage, but that >means four times the energy. That isn't right. It is the stored energy >that is linear with the size of the cap (roughly). >I agree that you can double the capacitance if you double the volume, >which means doubling the stored energy. Great. This is demonstrated by >wiring two "x" farad caps in parallel. >But if you wire them in series so they can handle twice the voltage, the >capacitance is also cut in half. E = 1/2 * (1/2 C) * (2V)^2, which >works out to double the 1/2*C*V^2. Peek working voltage is determined by the strength of the dielectric not the surface area of the plates. The thinner the dialetic (insolator) the greater the Capacitance with a resulting lowering of the max working voltage given the reduced insilation. The other factor for determing the the working voltage is the amount of heat generated from leakage due to internal resistance, which is also directly related to the insulator used ans its thickness. The leakage current for a given dielectric goes up with the voltage. I=E/R Tells us given a fixed leakage as the voltage goes up so does the current, so if both the I and the E both go up then the power (watts to be dissipated) has noware to go but in the form of heat. Often with a big bang if the overvoltage or the breakdown of the dialetic are extream. Using activated carbon or better yet nano tubes as plates and an unspecified molecularily thin super insolator, we double-layer supercapacitors measured in Farads the size of your thumb. The semiconductor industery showed us how by making the insolation layer very, very thin we could bulid on chip capacitors with microscopic plate areas. So given the previous examples in this thread are we talking, waxpaper and aluminum foil, silver plated mica, oil filed, or super-capacitors ? The other Bob From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jun 11 09:07:02 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:07:02 -0500 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090611065940.03e34908@mail.threedee.com> At 12:10 AM 6/11/2009, Zane H. Healy wrote: >IIRC, they've claimed 400,000 for years, and at the same time you're always hearing of customers moving off of it. The reasons for the lack of new customers are totally the Corporate owners fault. It has been on a decline for well over a decade. The moves to kill it off started with DEC itself. You'd think if someone knows somebody on the recently exiled development / maintenance team, they might be able to relate better numbers on how many systems were still in use... As they say, even if you're coasting, you must be going downhill. Any business process faces the same issue. If you can't easily expand or duplicate the process, if you can't easily hire the people to run it, you'll seek a replacement. There's always the proverbial PDP-8 running a CNC machine for decades, but it's more difficult with systems that deal with changing product lines and increasing numbers of employees and their connected technologies. - John From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jun 11 09:05:51 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:05:51 -0500 Subject: The Yorktown In-Reply-To: <976D35AA-D7E9-4CD7-9B21-5FA172B17964@neurotica.com> References: <181555.91844.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4A30452C.5050407@comcast.net> <30C33F83-4812-4CAA-A6FA-5DF05971761E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610215039.040e94a8@mail.threedee.com> <976D35AA-D7E9-4CD7-9B21-5FA172B17964@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090611090345.03cae900@mail.threedee.com> At 11:43 PM 6/10/2009, Dave McGuire wrote: >On Jun 10, 2009, at 10:51 PM, John Foust wrote: >>I think there's a big difference between "runs on" and "they used >>XYZ for email and file sharing". > > Exactly. Googling Payload and General Support Computer (PGSC) tells us more than we need to know. - John From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 09:11:33 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:11:33 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> References: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4A311095.508@gmail.com> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>>> than AIX or HP-UX, but that's just a question of preferences. :-) >> I have a HP PA-RISC box under my desk at work, but it's not plugged >> into the network. I scavenged it to refresh my HP-UX skills. I used >> to be an HP-UX Sys Admin, same with AIX, SunOS and Solaris, which is >> why I dislike AIX as well. I really love Solaris, but am now stuck >> with Linux and Windows. > > I think Doc Shipley and I must be the only people who *like* AIX. ;-) I don't like AIX. I love it. Peace... Sridhar From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 09:25:37 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:25:37 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Daniel Seagraves wrote: > DEBIAN PROJECT KNOWS BEST. YOU WILL NOT QUESTION DEBIAN PROJECT! Um... yeah. I love Linux and have been using it since the boot/root disk days, but I've avoided Debian the entire time. Fortunately, there are always alternatives. You aren't locked into a single provider. -ethan From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 09:27:43 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:27:43 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> Message-ID: At 7:47 AM -0500 6/11/09, Daniel Seagraves wrote: >DEBIAN PROJECT KNOWS BEST. YOU WILL NOT QUESTION DEBIAN PROJECT! > >My favorite so far is how Debian Project disables encryption in a >certain RADIUS package because Debian Project disagrees with the >license of the encryption library the programmer used. You have to >go out of your way to build a local version and NOT have Debian >overwrite your local version with their lobotomized version on every >upgrade. If you ask about this you are informed that you should pick >another RADIUS package because the programmer is "an asshole" who >"won't compromise" over a "simple change". > >The stupid part is that the part that Debian thinks they should be >exempt from is a provision of the crypto library requiring the >programmer to acknowledge use of the library in promotional >materials, which they say is against the GPL. (After all, you should >be working for THE COMMUNITY and not looking for personal credit for >your work!) > >There's also the stupid new provision in the installer that you MUST >create a local non-root user to install the system. But Debian >Project, what if I use LDAP and Kerberos to provide users on my >system? The answer is "You aren't supposed to do that!" The >workaround is to install the system without a root password. > >DEBIAN PROJECT KNOWS BEST. YOU WILL NOT QUESTION DEBIAN PROJECT! >(But isn't this the same kind of behavior I was bitching about >coming from Redmond back in the NT4 days?) This is exactly the sort of BS I was talking about when I mentioned OpenBSD. Theo de Raadt is infamous for these sorts of stupid mistakes. One version for the Alpha shipped without the ability to use it as a firewall because he threw a hissy-fit over a license change in 'pf'. Of course that was also the only version I was able to get running on my AlphaStation 500/333 (a very nice box that isn't suited to OpenVMS because I don't have enough RAM for it). More recently he cost OpenBSD funding for a major programmer gathering because he through another hissy-fit. He doesn't give proper thought to the consequences of his actions. Your complaints against Debian show how firmly entrenched in the dogma of the "Cult of RMS" it is. At least with OpenBSD they'll write a competing product that in the long run might very well become the standard. OpenBSD is all about security. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 09:31:14 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:31:14 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <20090611093321.GA20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <20090611093321.GA20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> Message-ID: At 11:33 AM +0200 6/11/09, Alexander Schreiber wrote: >Probably yes - and the frightening thing is that they are partially >right. There _are_ definitely hospital databases running on Windows >machines. If you count ATMs, then yes, there are Windows machines that Even worse than hospital databases is the critical monitoring equipment running on Windows. When our first child was born the fetal monitor crashed. It was running Windows NT, and guess who had to get it back up and running when none of the Hospital staff could. I was not amused. I was even less amused by how ancient of a version of the OS they had running on a very modern Dell box. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 09:51:02 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:51:02 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A311095.508@gmail.com> References: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> <4A311095.508@gmail.com> Message-ID: At 10:11 AM -0400 6/11/09, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>>>>than AIX or HP-UX, but that's just a question of preferences. :-) >>>I have a HP PA-RISC box under my desk at work, but it's not >>>plugged into the network. I scavenged it to refresh my HP-UX >>>skills. I used to be an HP-UX Sys Admin, same with AIX, SunOS and >>>Solaris, which is why I dislike AIX as well. I really love >>>Solaris, but am now stuck with Linux and Windows. >> >>I think Doc Shipley and I must be the only people who *like* AIX. ;-) > >I don't like AIX. I love it. > >Peace... Sridhar We know. :-) There are things I like about AIX, but I have a hard time considering it to be UNIX, and *I DO NOT LIKE* IBM's attitude towards support of tape drives. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 09:56:08 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:56:08 -0400 Subject: TEACO Floppy drive Tester - any info available online ? In-Reply-To: <4A307C04.8070503@comcast.net> References: <4A2EFEBF.8000805@comcast.net> <4A2FCA49.8040200@verizon.net> <4A307C04.8070503@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 11:37 PM, Dan Roganti wrote: > This was the Breezeshooters hamfest in Butler,PA (close to Pittsburgh) it > one of the biggest in the tristate region(PA,OH,WV). I wish I'd known about that one - I'm about 3.5 hrs from Butler (and I go camping near there every July/August I'm in the States). If it's a good hamfest, I know the region and it's not too far to make the trek. I'll have to watch for that next year. -ethan From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Thu Jun 11 10:06:10 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:06:10 -0700 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A3106CA.4090000@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <028D3888-837C-40DD-8888-11BB1A818334@neurotica.com> <10F0EF4A-AD31-428A-9D90-334143CB28CD@mail.msu.edu> <4A3106CA.4090000@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A311D62.2010906@mail.msu.edu> Yeah, I re-read that later (see my later mails). The whole set up sounds like a huge lesson in project mis-management, even leaving out the OS decision. (NT was not really ready for mission-critical tasks. My UNIX experience at the time (1998?) was with Linux, and I don't know I'd trust it to the task either. Maybe Solaris? No idea. What was the recommended high-availability UNIX OS at the time?) But back to the Yorktown: So you're the designer, and you're telling me that: 1) You're putting commodity PC hardware (regardless of the OS) in the _sole_ position of controlling important functions of the ship, without ANY sort of backup? 1.5) Really? 2) You're putting said system in place in a very ad-hoc manner -- quote from wired article: "They rushed this stuff on the ship, there was no real prototype, and then they tried to make things work as they went along," (And it does sound very ad-hoc -- the database does no data validation? ("a crew member entered a zero into a /database/ field causing a divide by zero...") The client app doesn't bother to check the data either? There's no backup system? There's _no_ backup system of ANY kind?) Yeah, that sounds like a recipe for success no matter how you slice it :). I admit, my experience/bias with Windows NT 4.0 makes me want to know whether the divide by zero / buffer overflow was a _complete_ system crash (i.e. a BSOD) which is what everyone who hates Windows assumes it was, or whether it was more along the lines of : 1) operator puts invalid data in the database, 2) all client machines pick up and use new invalid data without validations, 3) all client ship-controlling apps crash due to bad data, bringing down the ship system. I say this, because as many problems as NT had, it wasn't _all_ that easy to write a client app that would BSOD it :). (Don't get me started about a couple of in-box hardware drivers, though...) Oh, there was that infamous CSRSS.exe bug, but you'd have to WANT to trigger that one :). There's a lot of bias in the articles I read on the Yorktown fiasco, generally anti-Windows (see: the wired article I'm quoting above) I've never seen any _real_ information on the crash other than generic clauses like "the system(s) crashed" which could mean anything between "an outright BSOD of every system on the network" and "a poorly written/specified/designed app/distributed system going down". If there is a real post-mortem analysis of this that's been publicly released, I'd be interested in reading it. Just my (at this point, way more than) two cents. And I keep promising myself I won't get involved in these kinds of off-topic discussions. I'm a bad boy. I'm done now :). - Josh Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Josh Dersch wrote: >>> Apparently. Go look up the news archives for the Yorktown story. >>> Read the facts before you make assumptions and accuse people of not >>> knowing what they're talking about just because you don't like what >>> they're saying. >> >> I've never seen an explanation of what the failure actually was, just >> lots of articles stating that Windows NT was being used as the OS and >> -something- went wrong. It could just as easily have been buggy >> client software that crashed. > > The explanation at the time was that one of the operators put a zero > into a database field he shouldn't have, which caused a divide-by-zero > problem which led to a buffer overrun which cascaded to all of the > workstations on the network. > > Peace... Sridhar > > From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 10:06:54 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:06:54 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/10 Patrick Finnegan : > On Wednesday 10 June 2009, William Donzelli wrote: >> > ?The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should >> > know better is the visibility factor. ?VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are >> > *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the >> > only thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. >> > ?Do these people really believe PCs running Windows process their >> > bank transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? >> >> Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers >> of *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd >> are the worst offenders. > > Really? ?I assumed that you were saying that Linux was (dead|a sinking > ship) because it wasn't Windows. > > Pat > -- > Purdue University Research Computing --- ?http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ > The Computer Refuge ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?--- ?http://computer-refuge.org I didn't see that implication, myself. I think one of the most powerful things in Linux's favour is that it shares a native hardware platform with the world's most successful (as in, in the marketplace) OS. Linux runs very well on cheap, commodity kit. Solaris, from what I read, still runs best on Sun kit, especially Sun SPARC kit; I just today tried the latest 2009-06 build of OpenSolaris on my own PC, to find that it can't drive either of my on-board Ethernet controllers, so I can't even get online to download drivers. (q.v. http://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/16772.html ) Linux may only have 1% of the desktop PC market, but that's 1% of an awful lot. It is now a mass-market OS, with significant support, lots of drivers and so on. This isn't true of the BSDs, OpenSolaris, Mac OS X or Darwin, or indeed of *anything* else except Windows. All the other x86 PC OSs other than Windows and Linux are still specialist, minority tools... But still, this is why I am always glad to see relatively obscure minority OSs making it to the PC. The commercial versions may dead or as good as, but there's a small chance of survival for AmigaOS (in the form of AROS) and BeOS (in the form of Haiku) because they're now open source projects running on commodity x86 hardware. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 10:14:44 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:14:44 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/10 Dave McGuire : > On Jun 10, 2009, at 2:25 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>>>> >>>>> The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know >>>>> better is the visibility factor. ?VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are >>>>> *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the only >>>>> thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. ?Do these >>>>> people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, >>>>> maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? >>>> >>>> I agree with this statement, and out side of this audience how many >>>> people >>>> even know anything besides Windows exists? ?There are a lot of people >>>> that >>>> think all computers run Windows. >>> >>> Well, this isn't the only group of technical people in the world. ?As far >>> as knowing about what the real data processing world uses, it's not classic >>> computer enthusiasts vs. the rest of the world, it's knowledgeable computer >>> people vs. the rest of the world. >> >> Of course this isn't the only group of technical people. ?The disturbing >> thing is, there are a sizable group of "technical" people who thing >> Windows >> is all there is, and either don't realize anything else exists, or that >> anything else still exists. ?These are the people that really scare me. > > ?Same here, but I don't really consider them to be "technical people". > ?Being that I don't use (or work on) Windows machines, I tend not to work > with those people professionally, and I certainly don't associate with them > on a social level...they give me that "not so fresh" feeling. ;) > > ? ? ? ? ? ?-Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL I reckon Zane is bang on the nail, actually. *Most* "techies" now know nothing except the x86-32 PC and Windows. DOS is a forgotten mystery; Windows 9x is historical and unknown. PCs have always been 32-bit and the 64-bit transition scares them. They have never seen or used any networking protocol other than TCP/IP (and that is a mystery except to specialists). They don't know how to use the command prompt and increasingly they have never used floppy disks. And yet, these are the "technical experts" who are building the systems upon which we all rely. These people think it's efficient to run a copy of Windows 2003 on a server (which needs a couple of gig of RAM to work well) and then run multiple VMs on that containing copies of Windows 2003 or other flavours of Windows. They think virtualisation is new and clever and it doesn't occur to them that not only is this wasteful of resources, but it's a nightmare to keep all those copies patched and current. They think that encapsulating SCSI over TCP/IP is an efficient way to connect servers to disk farms. They think that a full-screen GUI session at 1024x768 in 16,385 colours, carried over 100Mbit Ethernet, is an efficient way to remote-control a server. They can just about stand to use such a session carried over an 8Mbit ADSL connection, but they'll whinge about it. And these people build the systems that keep us alive in hospital, that contain and manage our money and taxes, that schedule and control our planes and trains. I find it terrifying, myself. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Jun 11 10:35:47 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:35:47 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> Message-ID: <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 07:47 -0500, Daniel Seagraves wrote: > There's also the stupid new provision in the installer that you MUST > create a local non-root user to install the system. Although this is offtopic for other reasons, it's probably been about 10 years since I had a usable root account on any system I've installed. These days you should be using sudo. Gordon From pontus at Update.UU.SE Thu Jun 11 10:36:48 2009 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:36:48 +0200 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> (Sorry for keeping this OT discussion continue, but one of my questions are vaguely on topic) > > These people think it's efficient to run a copy of Windows 2003 on a > server (which needs a couple of gig of RAM to work well) and then run > multiple VMs on that containing copies of Windows 2003 or other > flavours of Windows. They think virtualisation is new and clever and > it doesn't occur to them that not only is this wasteful of resources, > but it's a nightmare to keep all those copies patched and current. > I'm curious, what OS:es and software did virtualisation before VMware/XEN/Virtualbox and the like ? Also, why is it wasteful of resources? And finaly, why would keeping virtual installations up to date be any harder than non-virtual? /P From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Thu Jun 11 10:42:16 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:42:16 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3125D8.4010201@mail.msu.edu> Liam Proven wrote: > I reckon Zane is bang on the nail, actually. > > *Most* "techies" now know nothing except the x86-32 PC and Windows. > DOS is a forgotten mystery; Windows 9x is historical and unknown. PCs > have always been 32-bit and the 64-bit transition scares them. They > have never seen or used any networking protocol other than TCP/IP (and > that is a mystery except to specialists). They don't know how to use > the command prompt and increasingly they have never used floppy disks. > ...no floppy disks? SAY IT AIN'T SO! Can I just say that the "everyone is an idiot (except me)" argument is getting rather tired? Flash back 25 years ago and you'd hear the same arguments, only it'd be former ITS/TOPS-20/LispM users complaining about those upstart UNIX lusers. Or go back to 1965 ... I have a book here on IBM 1620 programming that states boldly, in the Preface, "There are too many programmers today who do not really know what they are doing..." I agree there are a lot of poorly educated tech guys out there. I'm not going to be so bold as to state that *MOST* of them are ignorant idiots. At least, not without evidence :). Josh > And yet, these are the "technical experts" who are building the > systems upon which we all rely. > > These people think it's efficient to run a copy of Windows 2003 on a > server (which needs a couple of gig of RAM to work well) and then run > multiple VMs on that containing copies of Windows 2003 or other > flavours of Windows. They think virtualisation is new and clever and > it doesn't occur to them that not only is this wasteful of resources, > but it's a nightmare to keep all those copies patched and current. > > They think that encapsulating SCSI over TCP/IP is an efficient way to > connect servers to disk farms. > > They think that a full-screen GUI session at 1024x768 in 16,385 > colours, carried over 100Mbit Ethernet, is an efficient way to > remote-control a server. They can just about stand to use such a > session carried over an 8Mbit ADSL connection, but they'll whinge > about it. > > And these people build the systems that keep us alive in hospital, > that contain and manage our money and taxes, that schedule and control > our planes and trains. > > I find it terrifying, myself. > > From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Jun 11 10:43:11 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:43:11 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2FA92F.7030300@iais.fraunhofer.de> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <4A2FA92F.7030300@iais.fraunhofer.de> Message-ID: <1244734991.5593.52.camel@elric> I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned Uzi yet: http://www.dougbraun.com/uzi.html I always thought the Amstrad PCW with its 256 or 512kBytes of bank-switched RAM would be a great platform for that... Gordon From hachti at hachti.de Thu Jun 11 10:46:33 2009 From: hachti at hachti.de (Philipp Hachtmann) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:46:33 +0200 Subject: early PA-RISC machines In-Reply-To: <62D68FD2-BA91-4269-A757-EA48604712AD@neurotica.com> References: <4A3032EB.30502@brouhaha.com> <62D68FD2-BA91-4269-A757-EA48604712AD@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A3126D9.5000106@hachti.de> > HP 9000 model 840 and HP 3000 model 930. I think I have seen one of those here in Germany - running HPUX 24/7 and being connected to the Internet. -- http://www.hachti.de From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Jun 11 10:35:00 2009 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:35:00 -0400 Subject: Looking for IMI 5018 MFM drive Message-ID: <01C9EA8A.6F08BD80@MSE_D03> ----------Original Message: Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:31:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Fred Cisin Subject: Re: Looking for IMI 5018 MFM drive On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Steven Hirsch wrote: > Title says it. Need to replace the drive mechanism in one of my Corvus > flat-cable drives. Firmware expects 6-heads and 306 cylinders and gets > boggled by anything larger, unfortunately. > Could also probably work with Seagate ST419 or Rodime RO203, which are the > only other drives I've found with the same geometry. There were a few more "15 meg" drives with that structure. Sure that you can't fool it into ignoring a few heads or cylinders with a 8 x 306 or 6 x 600? 20 and 30 Meg are a little easier to find. -----------Reply; The 5018 was available with both the 34 pin IMI interface as well as ST-506; I assume you're looking for ST-506. If you *really* can't use anything else I have a few with the IMI interface; the only difference is the top board, so if yours is OK then no problem. There is also a 5021 which, *AFAIK* is the same geometry. mike From hachti at hachti.de Thu Jun 11 10:50:57 2009 From: hachti at hachti.de (Philipp Hachtmann) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:50:57 +0200 Subject: PDP-8/L on eBay Message-ID: <4A3127E1.1000904@hachti.de> Hi folks, there is a "PDP-8/L" on eBay: 180367591215 One should better say: A rudiment of a PDP-8/L. The system lacks all M series modules - so there is no logic left. The green part around the memory looks quite populated. No key and a switch missing. Cosmetic overall condition seems to be nice. I'm thinking of bidding on it as spares. Would be nice to get it for not too much - I would have to pay international shipping anyway... Best wishes, Philipp -- http://www.hachti.de From ggs at shiresoft.com Thu Jun 11 10:53:26 2009 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:53:26 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> <4A311095.508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <10AACC64-7CD1-4822-AC34-9ADBDBA9CB3D@shiresoft.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 7:51 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 10:11 AM -0400 6/11/09, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>>>>> than AIX or HP-UX, but that's just a question of preferences. :-) >>>> I have a HP PA-RISC box under my desk at work, but it's not >>>> plugged into the network. I scavenged it to refresh my HP-UX >>>> skills. I used to be an HP-UX Sys Admin, same with AIX, SunOS >>>> and Solaris, which is why I dislike AIX as well. I really love >>>> Solaris, but am now stuck with Linux and Windows. >>> >>> I think Doc Shipley and I must be the only people who *like* >>> AIX. ;-) >> >> I don't like AIX. I love it. >> >> Peace... Sridhar > > We know. :-) > > There are things I like about AIX, but I have a hard time > considering it to be UNIX, and *I DO NOT LIKE* IBM's attitude > towards support of tape drives. What you have to understand is that in the case of the kernel, AIX is and internal IBM control program with Unix semantics "spray painted" over it. All of the AIX commands were written from scratch to match the Unix commands. In some cases with "improvements". In reality, AIX is the ultimate Unix clone since it's one of the few Unix-like OS' that is actually be branded as Unix(tm) by X/Open. Linux is a Unix-like OS and can't use the Unix(tm) because it can't pass the X/Open conformance tests which is a requirement for being able to use the Unix trademark. And for extra credit, what Unix(tm) is the highest volume Unix? TTFN - Guy From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 11:00:54 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:00:54 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3125D8.4010201@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <4A3125D8.4010201@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <575131af0906110900t4c029d49r8e67013b886ce74f@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/11 Josh Dersch : > > > Liam Proven wrote: >> >> I reckon Zane is bang on the nail, actually. >> >> *Most* "techies" now know nothing except the x86-32 PC and Windows. >> DOS is a forgotten mystery; Windows 9x is historical and unknown. PCs >> have always been 32-bit and the 64-bit transition scares them. They >> have never seen or used any networking protocol other than TCP/IP (and >> that is a mystery except to specialists). They don't know how to use >> the command prompt and increasingly they have never used floppy disks. >> > > ...no floppy disks? SAY IT AIN'T SO! > > Can I just say that the "everyone is an idiot (except me)" argument is > getting rather tired? ?Flash back 25 years ago and you'd hear the same > arguments, only it'd be former ITS/TOPS-20/LispM users complaining about > those upstart UNIX lusers. > Or go back to 1965 ... I have a book here on IBM 1620 programming that > states boldly, in the Preface, "There are too many programmers today who do > not really know what they are doing..." > I agree there are a lot of poorly educated tech guys out there. ?I'm not > going to be so bold as to state that *MOST* of them are ignorant idiots. ?At > least, not without evidence :). > > Josh Well, fair point... But is there a previous time when there was quite such a single-vendor monoculture as there is now? Because /that/ is what I find the really scary bit. It's not that I hate Windows. I hate all OSs - it is, of course, axiomatic that they all suck. I actually make most of my living from Windows, I just happen to mostly run Linux at home, and that's because my Mac's dead. The thing that worries me is the uniform uninterrupted Windows monoculture that MS has managed to create. I really do feel that that is very unhealthy. You can't make an informed decision about the best platform for the job - *any* job - when you only *know* one platform. And there still are other viable, valid platforms out there. SPARC and POWER are healthy, as are AIX and Solaris. IBM System i (the former OS/400) is also in reasonable fettle and can run on pretty much all the modern POWER machines - the only difference now between IBM POWER servers is the OS they run. The old RS/6000 and AS/400 lines have merged. I'd say HP/UX was fine, except it is stuck on Itanium, which isn't much cop. VMS could be a contented if HP pushed it, but it too is stuck on IA64. On the desktop, Mac OS X is a good solid system and it's a capable server as well. Both IBM and Unisys are still making new mainframes - there may be others, too, that I don't know about. The architectural horrors of 8086, 80286 and x86-32 are lessened by x86-64, which is ubiquitous now. Things are not quite a *complete* monoculture, but everything that isn't Windows is 5% of the market, and the non-x86 stuff is probably only a tenth of that, in terms of machines. That's not a good balance. Oh yes. ARM is selling billions of chips a year - many times more than all the x86 chips from all vendors put together. But almost all is in little battery-powered gadgets. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 10:57:16 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:57:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3125D8.4010201@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <4A3125D8.4010201@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Josh Dersch wrote: >> the command prompt and increasingly they have never used floppy disks. >> > ...no floppy disks? SAY IT AIN'T SO! Lucky B******! :-) Even more lucky since that indicates they've never used cassette tapes as a storage medium for computer data! > Can I just say that the "everyone is an idiot (except me)" argument is > getting rather tired? Flash back 25 years ago and you'd hear the same > arguments, only it'd be former ITS/TOPS-20/LispM users complaining about > those upstart UNIX lusers. > Or go back to 1965 ... I have a book here on IBM 1620 programming that states > boldly, in the Preface, "There are too many programmers today who do not > really know what they are doing..." > I agree there are a lot of poorly educated tech guys out there. I'm not > going to be so bold as to state that *MOST* of them are ignorant idiots. At > least, not without evidence :). The problem is summed up by the following, "those how forget history are doomed to repeat it". I forget who said that, and it is a very rough paraprase, but the meaning is clear. Businesses seem to favor the kids fresh out of College with the "bright new ideas". This needs to be balanced by people with a historical perspective. A prime example is a meeting we had at work on Monday, when we came to realize that a performace issue we're fighting is the exact same issue we had 8 years ago. The solution that solved the problem 8 years ago now suffers from the same exact problem due to the advances of testing. Those of us with a historical perspective were able to quickly explain why various "fixes" won't work. What really irritates me is all these "new" technoligies that Microsoft has "invented" that have been around for decades. Some aren't even new to the PC world. Zane From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Thu Jun 11 11:07:02 2009 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:07:02 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <20090611102612.GB20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <20090611102612.GB20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> Message-ID: <4A312BA6.5050706@sbcglobal.net> Alexander Schreiber wrote: > On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 03:04:03PM -0400, William Donzelli wrote: >>> The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know >>> better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are >>> *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the only >>> thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. Do these >>> people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, >>> maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? >> Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers of >> *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd are >> the worst offenders. > > As a longtime member of said penguin crowd, I unfortunately have to > agree. The general trend there seems to be a focus on flashy stuff > (Look! It's shiny! And colorful!). People who actually understand (and > care about) what happens below the surface seem to be as rare as ever. > > Regards, > Alex. And I still don't understand why Canonical decided to disabled [CTRL][ALT][BackSpace] in their latest release of Ubuntu Linux. At least I can re-enable it... Basards. -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 11:06:41 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:06:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Liam Proven wrote: > I think one of the most powerful things in Linux's favour is that it > shares a native hardware platform with the world's most successful (as > in, in the marketplace) OS. I would agree with this. > Linux runs very well on cheap, commodity kit. Solaris, from what I > read, still runs best on Sun kit, especially Sun SPARC kit; I just > today tried the latest 2009-06 build of OpenSolaris on my own PC, to > find that it can't drive either of my on-board Ethernet controllers, > so I can't even get online to download drivers. I was wondering about this, but haven't had time to try OpenSolaris, and the last version of Solaris I tried on x86 was Solaris 7. > Linux may only have 1% of the desktop PC market, but that's 1% of an > awful lot. It is now a mass-market OS, with significant support, lots > of drivers and so on. This isn't true of the BSDs, OpenSolaris, Mac OS > X or Darwin, or indeed of *anything* else except Windows. All the > other x86 PC OSs other than Windows and Linux are still specialist, > minority tools... If Linux only has 1% of the desktop PC market, it is a *LONG* way behind Mac OS X which has been increasing its market share at a nice pace. > But still, this is why I am always glad to see relatively obscure > minority OSs making it to the PC. The commercial versions may dead or > as good as, but there's a small chance of survival for AmigaOS (in the > form of AROS) and BeOS (in the form of Haiku) because they're now open > source projects running on commodity x86 hardware. BeOS ran for a number of years on x86. If Amiga wanted Amiga OS to survive, they'd port it to x86. Thanks for mentioning Haiku, I couldn't remember what the name changed to, and haven't had time to google it. What is its current state? Do you happen to have any idea which is closer to a V1.0 release, AROS or Haiku? It has been way to long since I've had time to follow such things. Zane From blstuart at bellsouth.net Thu Jun 11 11:23:01 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:23:01 -0500 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > *Most* "techies" now know nothing except the x86-32 PC and Windows. > DOS is a forgotten mystery; Windows 9x is historical and unknown. PCs > have always been 32-bit and the 64-bit transition scares them. They > have never seen or used any networking protocol other than TCP/IP (and > that is a mystery except to specialists). They don't know how to use > the command prompt and increasingly they have never used floppy disks. > > And yet, these are the "technical experts" who are building the > systems upon which we all rely. The bit that worries me the most is the way that companies, espeically HR departments, reinforce this. When advertising a position, they too often post a laundry list of whatever are the trendy buzzwords that week, and unless you've got some certification, you won't get to someone who know what they're looking at. Heaven forbid that they hire somebody who actually understands the way these things work and the history behind them. Much better to have someone who's read Pascal+#%& (as soon as I do that, they'll use another special character to suffix a language name...) for Dummies than someone who's actually created languages and written compilers. All too often they make the mistake of equating training with education. The reality is that if we make the decision to use language XYZ on Friday and my development team is any good, they'll be able to arrive on Monday morning ready to code in XYZ. And of course, I'm aware that you can't really describe in a job posting that kind of person. But the checklist is not the answer. Making sure the resumes are reviewed by someone who knows what they're looking at is. I'd much rather have 200 resumes put on my desk than to have 5 candidates vetted by HR and sent to me on the basis of their depth of knowledge of a specific language because they attended a 2-day training session on it. BLS From john_finigan at yahoo.com Thu Jun 11 11:29:40 2009 From: john_finigan at yahoo.com (John Finigan) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:29:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 Message-ID: <511547.71892.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Liam Proven wrote: >These people think it's efficient to run a copy of Windows 2003 on a >server (which needs a couple of gig of RAM to work well) and then run >multiple VMs on that containing copies of Windows 2003 or other >flavours of Windows. They think virtualisation is new and clever and >it doesn't occur to them that not only is this wasteful of resources, >but it's a nightmare to keep all those copies patched and current. >They think that encapsulating SCSI over TCP/IP is an efficient way to >connect servers to disk farms. I'm generally on board with what Liam said, in spirit at least. But I do look at these two issues differently: They are both "outboard" fixes to long-standing problems with NT and they make life easier in the trenches. iSCSI makes up (in a clumsy way) for a lack of a "first class citizen" network file protocol in NT. Since you can't run SQL Server over something like NFS, it is about the only way to get it on a networked storage device. And if you want some of the nice "storage virtualization" features like volume snaps and clones, you pretty much want network storage. Virtualization may waste resources, but CPU and RAM are the cheapeast part of the stack now. What you get is easy recovery of whole system images, plus the ability run a bunch of legacy setups that ran on dedicated machines 5 years ago on one new box. That actually saves resources. I guess what I am saying is, I'll take some slightly hacky ways to improve life with an OS that I can't easily avoid, over the alternative of just having to use said suboptimal OS with no extra help. From IanK at vulcan.com Thu Jun 11 11:35:59 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:35:59 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com>, Message-ID: Once upon a time, when I worked for a large software company, my recruiting team and I would sit down each Friday with a huge stack of resumes. I would skim them and sort them into plausible and you've-got-to-be-kidding, occasionally pulling one out and saying, "I want to see this person next week." The recruiters used this as training input, to help them understand our needs. They'd also ask for updates on the project, so they could further understand just what we were looking for - in fact, one of them got so good at it she eventually joined a product team. Of course, this was too good to last. By the time I left, Recruiting was a 'virtual' organization, and you never knew who would be answering your emails. (I never met my actual 'assigned' recruiter in person.) Before that, they'd assigned recruiters to candidates rather than teams, based on the candidate's last name (now that's relevant criteria). In either model, there was no opportunity for the recruiter to grow to understand our team's needs - or to bond with us, becoming part of our success and feeling accountability for it. (In the old days, we invited our recruiters to ship parties and such.) Candidate selection was based on wordsearch for buzzwords - I was actually required to provide a list of three to five 'key words' for each open position. I think they called this 'progress.' -- Ian ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of blstuart at bellsouth.net [blstuart at bellsouth.net] Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 9:23 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: UNIX V7 And of course, I'm aware that you can't really describe in a job posting that kind of person. But the checklist is not the answer. Making sure the resumes are reviewed by someone who knows what they're looking at is. I'd much rather have 200 resumes put on my desk than to have 5 candidates vetted by HR and sent to me on the basis of their depth of knowledge of a specific language because they attended a 2-day training session on it. BLS From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 11:38:47 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:38:47 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> References: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <28E8D498-BB5F-449D-90F1-B6E65938B9A3@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 8:44 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>>> than AIX or HP-UX, but that's just a question of preferences. :-) >> >> I have a HP PA-RISC box under my desk at work, but it's not plugged >> into the network. I scavenged it to refresh my HP-UX skills. I used >> to be an HP-UX Sys Admin, same with AIX, SunOS and Solaris, which is >> why I dislike AIX as well. I really love Solaris, but am now stuck >> with Linux and Windows. > > I think Doc Shipley and I must be the only people who *like* AIX. ;-) I like it ok. It's a little weird around the edges, but I like the fact that it's rock-solid and doesn't throw me too many surprises. I do some AIX work around town occasionally and I have a '397 here hosting a P/390. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 11:40:16 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:40:16 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20090611065940.03e34908@mail.threedee.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090611065940.03e34908@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 10:07 AM, John Foust wrote: > As they say, even if you're coasting, you must be going downhill. > Any business process faces the same issue. If you can't easily > expand or duplicate the process, if you can't easily hire the > people to run it, you'll seek a replacement. There's always the > proverbial PDP-8 running a CNC machine for decades, but it's > more difficult with systems that deal with changing product lines > and increasing numbers of employees and their connected technologies. Well, some industries don't really have changing product lines and increasing numbers of employees. I'm told (by someone who knows) that VMS is very widely used in the steel industry for controlling large plants (of the type for which downtime becomes unbelievably expensive), and for handling SMS messages in mobile phone networks, as two examples. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net Thu Jun 11 11:39:08 2009 From: dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net (Daniel Seagraves) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:39:08 -0500 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> Message-ID: <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> The next line is the important one. All my users and passwords come via the network. Root's mail gets sent to another account on another machine. The installer wants me to make a LOCAL user to sudo and etc but I want to use my REMOTE for that. For that I do the initial setup as root and then disable it. If I do things Debian's way I have to set up root and user passwords, log in as the user, sudo to set up the machine, make my remote user able to sudo, redirect root's mail, then remove the local user and hunt through the entire system looking for anywhere that username may have been referenced and remove it. (or leave the local user there as a time bomb to come back and kill me later WHEN (not IF) someone hacks it) On Jun 11, 2009, at 10:35 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 07:47 -0500, Daniel Seagraves wrote: > >> There's also the stupid new provision in the installer that you MUST >> create a local non-root user to install the system. > > Although this is offtopic for other reasons, it's probably been > about 10 > years since I had a usable root account on any system I've installed. > These days you should be using sudo. > > Gordon From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 11:44:44 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:44:44 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> Message-ID: <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 11:35 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> There's also the stupid new provision in the installer that you MUST >> create a local non-root user to install the system. > > Although this is offtopic for other reasons, it's probably been > about 10 > years since I had a usable root account on any system I've installed. > These days you should be using sudo. That's a pretty big sweeping assertion, one with which I wholeheartedly disagree. Sudo has been around for a very long time, and while it makes great sense for newbies, it gets in the way when people who know what they're doing are trying to manage a system. Use it if you like, but keep it the hell away from the systems I'm responsible for. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 11:51:18 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:51:18 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <511547.71892.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <511547.71892.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4583768C-62A5-47FB-8922-68A769FFA293@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 12:29 PM, John Finigan wrote: > iSCSI makes up (in a clumsy way) for a lack of a "first class citizen" > network file protocol in NT. Since you can't run SQL Server over > something > like NFS, it is about the only way to get it on a networked storage > device. > And if you want some of the nice "storage virtualization" features > like > volume snaps and clones, you pretty much want network storage. Eh. (and this is WAY OT) iSCSI is kinda interesting; I've been working with it quite a bit lately. It is a poor-man's replacement for FibreChannel, nothing more. The only other possible advantage is that it can be routed over a WAN, and anyone who tries to do that with low-level-access storage needs their head examined anyway. So...It's neat, it works, it's almost universally supported (even VMS has an iSCSI stack) it's reasonably interoperable, and when it grows up, it wants to be FibreChannel. -Dave > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 11:52:40 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:52:40 -0400 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A311D62.2010906@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <028D3888-837C-40DD-8888-11BB1A818334@neurotica.com> <10F0EF4A-AD31-428A-9D90-334143CB28CD@mail.msu.edu> <4A3106CA.4090000@gmail.com> <4A311D62.2010906@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A313658.9080705@gmail.com> Josh Dersch wrote: > And I keep promising myself I won't get involved in these kinds of > off-topic discussions. I'm a bad boy. I'm done now :). This isn't an off-topic discussion. Both the operating system being discussed, and the incident we're discussing, are more than 10 years old. Peace... Sridhar From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 12:00:13 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:00:13 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <10AACC64-7CD1-4822-AC34-9ADBDBA9CB3D@shiresoft.com> References: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> <4A311095.508@gmail.com> <10AACC64-7CD1-4822-AC34-9ADBDBA9CB3D@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906111000t4a13dde0y341136ceefe22ee3@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/11 Guy Sotomayor : > In reality, AIX is the ultimate Unix clone since it's one of the few > Unix-like OS' that is actually be branded as Unix(tm) by X/Open. ISTR it uses a real licensed kernel, or at least, did Way Back When?. > ?Linux is a > Unix-like OS and can't use the Unix(tm) because it can't pass the X/Open > conformance tests which is a requirement for being able to use the Unix > trademark. That, AFAIK, is incorrect. It is not that it /can't/ pass the tests, it's that nobody is willing to pay for it to be tested. It would cost something ITRO US$30K or more to be tested. The likes of Red Hat or Canonical/Ubuntu don't see the point; Novell until recently still had a branded Unix product it was selling, and so wouldn't then and probably can't afford to now; the Debian project can't afford the money and probably doesn't care; and so on. Those that can don't want to, those that might want to either can't afford it or aren't interested for other reasons. And Linux being what it is, if one distro was branded, it would not apply to all the others anyway. So it is not that Linux can't pass; it's that being a diffuse, public project, it's not really eligible or suitable and there's no real point. The Linux X server has become the official, canonical one now, inasmuch as X.org adopted the fork of XFree86 v4. I think that today one could argue that inasmuch as there's one Unix which runs on almost anything and is in widespread use, that is the default origin and target of most Unix apps, it's Linux. > And for extra credit, what Unix(tm) is the highest volume Unix? Apple's Mac OS X, by a country mile. I believe its sales - many tens of millions now, possibly even >100,000,000 - mean that it has outsold *all* other forms of commercial Unix ever from all vendors *put together*. But the vast majority of Mac OS X installations are single-user desktop or notebook machines. Its server penetration is tiny. Even so, its sales are so large that it probably has more interactive *users* than all the host-based Unices driving terminal sessions put together, too. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 12:00:35 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:00:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > Use it if you like, but keep it the hell away from the systems I'm > responsible for. I find 'sudo' to be very useful. As in 'sudo csh'. :-) Zane From bdwheele at indiana.edu Thu Jun 11 12:09:59 2009 From: bdwheele at indiana.edu (Brian Wheeler) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:09:59 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A312BA6.5050706@sbcglobal.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <20090611102612.GB20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> <4A312BA6.5050706@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <1244740199.13632.9.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 12:07 -0400, Dave Woyciesjes wrote: > Alexander Schreiber wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 03:04:03PM -0400, William Donzelli wrote: > >>> The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know > >>> better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are > >>> *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the only > >>> thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. Do these > >>> people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, > >>> maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? > >> Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers of > >> *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd are > >> the worst offenders. > > > > As a longtime member of said penguin crowd, I unfortunately have to > > agree. The general trend there seems to be a focus on flashy stuff > > (Look! It's shiny! And colorful!). People who actually understand (and > > care about) what happens below the surface seem to be as rare as ever. > > > > Regards, > > Alex. > > And I still don't understand why Canonical decided to disabled > [CTRL][ALT][BackSpace] in their latest release of Ubuntu Linux. > At least I can re-enable it... Basards. > > It was an X.org decsion, and it hit Fedora as well. I've heard it had something to do with a key combo used by some app (maybe emacs) which some people would fat finger when using the accessibility sticky-keys and would shut down X. Accessibility reasons have also made the default no-tap-to-click on my touchpad, which is irritating as well...but as you say, at least it can be re-enabled. From bdwheele at indiana.edu Thu Jun 11 12:10:05 2009 From: bdwheele at indiana.edu (Brian Wheeler) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:10:05 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <1244740205.13632.10.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 10:00 -0700, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > > > Use it if you like, but keep it the hell away from the systems I'm > > responsible for. > > I find 'sudo' to be very useful. As in 'sudo csh'. :-) > > Zane > I can't remember the last time I used sudo and the argument _wasn't_ a shell. I guess it defeats the purpose, but I'm the admin so I can su if I wanted to anyway. :) From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 12:05:22 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:05:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4583768C-62A5-47FB-8922-68A769FFA293@neurotica.com> References: <511547.71892.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4583768C-62A5-47FB-8922-68A769FFA293@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 12:29 PM, John Finigan wrote: >> iSCSI makes up (in a clumsy way) for a lack of a "first class citizen" >> network file protocol in NT. Since you can't run SQL Server over something >> like NFS, it is about the only way to get it on a networked storage device. >> And if you want some of the nice "storage virtualization" features like >> volume snaps and clones, you pretty much want network storage. > > Eh. (and this is WAY OT) iSCSI is kinda interesting; I've been working > with it quite a bit lately. It is a poor-man's replacement for FibreChannel, > nothing more. The only other possible advantage is that it can be routed > over a WAN, and anyone who tries to do that with low-level-access storage > needs their head examined anyway. > > So...It's neat, it works, it's almost universally supported (even VMS has an > iSCSI stack) it's reasonably interoperable, and when it grows up, it wants to > be FibreChannel. Currently iSCSI is only supported on VMS running on Itanium (I think it's in 8.3-1). The one feature I'm really looking forwards to in OpenVMS v8.4 is the iSCSI support, as it is supposed to be in there for Alpha as well ( hopefully they haven't dropped that feature). I just hope that it works with more than just HP storage solutions. I want to use iSCSI to connect my home VMS server to disks on my FreeNAS box. I'm mainly thinking of it as a backup solution, but if it works well enough, I'll likely look into moving most of my data disks over to iSCSI. Where I work iSCSI is most definitely *NOT* the answer, but there are plenty of situations where it is a good answer. I definitely find it to be interesting. Zane From keithvz at verizon.net Thu Jun 11 11:00:39 2009 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith Monahan) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:00:39 -0400 Subject: TEACO Floppy drive Tester - any info available online ? In-Reply-To: <4A307C04.8070503@comcast.net> References: <4A2EFEBF.8000805@comcast.net> <4A2FCA49.8040200@verizon.net> <4A307C04.8070503@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A312A27.2020406@verizon.net> Dan Roganti wrote: > This was the Breezeshooters hamfest in Butler,PA (close to Pittsburgh) > it one of the biggest in the tristate region(PA,OH,WV). > > That floppy drive tester you have looks a lot more fun to use than mine > - I like to find one of those too. > > =Dan Yeah, I'm probably about an hour South from Butler. Definitely close enough to make the trip. I took my ham test that was sponsored by Breezeshooters a couple years ago. Northland Public Library or something. Thanks Keith From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 11 12:12:40 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:12:40 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> <4A311095.508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200906111312.40910.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 11 June 2009, Zane H. Healy wrote: > We know. :-) > > There are things I like about AIX, but I have a hard time considering > it to be UNIX, and *I DO NOT LIKE* IBM's attitude towards support of > tape drives. AIX seems a lot nice when you stop trying to think of it as UNIX. AIX Isn't uniX. ;) Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 12:20:15 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:20:15 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/11 Zane H. Healy : >> Linux runs very well on cheap, commodity kit. Solaris, from what I >> read, still runs best on Sun kit, especially Sun SPARC kit; I just >> today tried the latest 2009-06 build of OpenSolaris on my own PC, to >> find that it can't drive either of my on-board Ethernet controllers, >> so I can't even get online to download drivers. > > I was wondering about this, but haven't had time to try OpenSolaris, and the > last version of Solaris I tried on x86 was Solaris 7. As a friend commented on my LJ: "OpenSolaris is very much 1990s Unix being dragged kicking and screaming into the present. Solaris 10 more or less managed this at the command line, OpenSolaris is trying it for the desktop. "Summary: if you're not a Solaris admin or programmer for a living, you probably don't or shouldn't care. If you are, you'll love that bug reports get comments from the programmers responsible explaining why things are the way they are (e.g. why there's no kernel support for SMB mounting)." >> Linux may only have 1% of the desktop PC market, but that's 1% of an >> awful lot. It is now a mass-market OS, with significant support, lots >> of drivers and so on. This isn't true of the BSDs, OpenSolaris, Mac OS >> X or Darwin, or indeed of *anything* else except Windows. All the >> other x86 PC OSs other than Windows and Linux are still specialist, >> minority tools... > > If Linux only has 1% of the desktop PC market, it is a *LONG* way behind Mac > OS X which has been increasing its market share at a nice pace. The Mac's at about 4-5% now, I believe. So a good 4x the penetration of /desktop/ Linux. But Linux has very wide penetration in servers and in embedded roles, which are very hard to count. I suspect the Mac is still ahead on sheer numbers, though, if we're talking interactive users. It's possible that millions of ADSL routers running Linux - or cellphones and what-have-you - might put Linux in the lead, but then, if you count them, every iPhone is running OS X... >> But still, this is why I am always glad to see relatively obscure >> minority OSs making it to the PC. The commercial versions may dead or >> as good as, but there's a small chance of survival for AmigaOS (in the >> form of AROS) and BeOS (in the form of Haiku) because they're now open >> source projects running on commodity x86 hardware. > > BeOS ran for a number of years on x86. Indeed, and Zeta for some years after that. If it hadn't done, it wouldn't exist in any form today. > ?If Amiga wanted Amiga OS to survive, > they'd port it to x86. Ha! Amiga don't. Amiga Inc. - the new name of KAOS Inc. after the original Amiga Inc., spun off from Commodre, went broke - don't have anything to do with AmigaOS 4.x. Amiga Inc. the 2nd licensed AmigaOS to Hyperion in Germany, who developed OS 4.0 for PowerPC, but they've fallen out & Hyperion have gone it alone to finish it, launch it and now put out v4.1. But there's no new PowerPC hardware to run it. Efforts are afoot to port it to Genesi's Efika, which infuriates Amiga Inc. II as Genesi are a rival. It's insanely incestuous and back-stabbing. As is the Acorn RISC OS world today. In a shrinking pond, the little fish turn to fighting... But yes, if the "real" AmigaOS were to have a hope, it should run on x86. x86-64, ideally: new, clean, not register-starved, and no legacy baggage of 32-bit drivers etc. Won't happen, though. AROS, in the meantime, is slowly but steadily making progress. I believe it now has native USB & Ethernet + TCP/IP stacks and a decent modern bundled web-browser. It's not really "there" yet (unless you're an Amiga user and are not accustomed to having all mod cons), but it's close. > ?Thanks for mentioning Haiku, I couldn't remember > what the name changed to, and haven't had time to google it. ?What is its > current state? Haiku too is getting there. It recently reached 2 milestones: the 1st, the more significant, it became self-hosting; the 2nd, they got it building and running with the current GCC. The snag is, build it with GCC 3 or 4, it works fine, but it's not binary-compatible with BeOS 5. Build it with GCC 2.whatever, it's binary compatible, but you're stuck with a legacy toolchain. I believe they're working on a compatibility sandbox or VM sort of thing, to keep the compatibility with BeOS r5 and Zeta apps, while allowing them to move forward with current dev tools. > Do you happen to have any idea which is closer to a V1.0 > release, AROS or Haiku? ?It has been way to long since I've had time to > follow such things. I've only played with both briefly, inside VMs. For my money, BeOS^H^H^H^H, I mean, Haiku is more modern and forward-looking, but AROS is probably marginally more "mature". But then, Haiku has some apps, at least, whereas AROS' apps must run under emulation. Currently, in the Amiga world, there are 3 threads of development: - AROS, primarily on x86 but with a PowerPC build, Free and open source; - MorphOS, from Genesi - semi-open-source in bits, 2 versions - one old one for classic Amigas with PowerPC boards, one for new Genesi PowerPC kit - AmigaOS 4.x, from Hyperion, strictly only for the tiny handful of PowerPC Amigas from 5-10y ago. Frankly, I reckon only AROS has a snowball's chance in hell of surviving. I'd like to see MorphOS open-sourced so the best of it can be incorporated into AROS, if that is at all technically viable. Meanwhile, if Haiku keeps it together, in a few years' time, it has the potential to be a really fast, smooth, POSIX-compatible GUI desktop OS that could stomp all over desktop Linux in performance. But probably, something like Google Android will get there first, sadly. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 11 12:24:52 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:24:52 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <10AACC64-7CD1-4822-AC34-9ADBDBA9CB3D@shiresoft.com> References: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> <10AACC64-7CD1-4822-AC34-9ADBDBA9CB3D@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <200906111324.52553.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 11 June 2009, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > And for extra credit, what Unix(tm) is the highest volume Unix? Does the iPhone OS count? If not, MacOS X is the obvious answer (especially considering who asked the question ;). Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 12:20:24 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:20:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244740199.13632.9.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <20090611102612.GB20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> <4A312BA6.5050706@sbcglobal.net> <1244740199.13632.9.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Brian Wheeler wrote: > It was an X.org decsion, and it hit Fedora as well. I've heard it had > something to do with a key combo used by some app (maybe emacs) which > some people would fat finger when using the accessibility sticky-keys > and would shut down X. > > Accessibility reasons have also made the default no-tap-to-click on my > touchpad, which is irritating as well...but as you say, at least it can > be re-enabled. What really irritates me is that Apple has disabled the -xrm flag for xterm on Mac OS X. I need that flag for xterm's that talk to VMS sessions. As a result *ALL* of my xterm's on Mac OS X have the key bindings modified. Zane From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jun 11 12:25:52 2009 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:25:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 11:35 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> years since I had a usable root account on any system I've installed. >> These days you should be using sudo. > > That's a pretty big sweeping assertion, one with which I wholeheartedly > disagree. Sudo has been around for a very long time, and while it makes > great sense for newbies, it gets in the way when people who know what they're > doing are trying to manage a system. > > Use it if you like, but keep it the hell away from the systems I'm > responsible for. > What, you've never heard of "sudo -s" ? :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 11 12:27:59 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:27:59 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> Message-ID: <200906111327.59564.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 11 June 2009, Daniel Seagraves wrote: > The next line is the important one. All my users and passwords come > via the network. Root's mail gets sent to another account on another > machine. The installer wants me to make a LOCAL user to sudo and etc > but I want to use my REMOTE for that. I haven't seen Debian's installer require you to do this, ever, even on Debian/Lenny. Perhaps booting with DEBCONF_PRIORITY=low or setting that option in the installer fixes this problem. FWIW, sometimes the "it has to be free" attitude of Debian gets annoying or in the way, but when they have their shit together, they seem to make a damn fine OS. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 11 12:28:57 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:28:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A311095.508@gmail.com> from Sridhar Ayengar at "Jun 11, 9 10:11:33 am" Message-ID: <200906111728.n5BHSvns010180@floodgap.com> > > I think Doc Shipley and I must be the only people who *like* AIX. ;-) > > I don't like AIX. I love it. Augh! Sridhar, how did I forget you in that list! *ashamed* -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- "Kirk to Enterprise: beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack." ---------------- From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 11 12:32:42 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:32:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at "Jun 11, 9 07:31:14 am" Message-ID: <200906111732.n5BHWgd1016452@floodgap.com> > > Probably yes - and the frightening thing is that they are partially > > right. There _are_ definitely hospital databases running on Windows > > machines. If you count ATMs, then yes, there are Windows machines that > > Even worse than hospital databases is the critical monitoring > equipment running on Windows. When our first child was born the > fetal monitor crashed. It was running Windows NT, and guess who had > to get it back up and running when none of the Hospital staff could. > I was not amused. I was even less amused by how ancient of a version > of the OS they had running on a very modern Dell box. I shall not mention the hospital, but during my residency I was appalled to discover the fetal monitors running *original* NT (this was in the days of NT 4 + umpteen service packs and W2K just around the corner). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Time makes more converts than reason. -- Thomas Payne ---------------------- From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jun 11 12:39:36 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:39:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <20090611093321.GA20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> Message-ID: <20090611103539.R8434@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Even worse than hospital databases is the critical monitoring > equipment running on Windows. When our first child was born the > fetal monitor crashed. It was running Windows NT, and guess who had > to get it back up and running when none of the Hospital staff could. > I was not amused. I was even less amused by how ancient of a version > of the OS they had running on a very modern Dell box. You have our sincerest sympathies. The medical profession suffers frrom a severe lack of understanding about current microcomputer tehnology. and it would still be INAPPROPRIATE for any of us to mention "Dude, you're getting a Dell!" From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 11 12:42:17 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:42:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: from "O. Sharp" at Jun 10, 9 01:43:09 pm Message-ID: > > > Thanks for all the replies so far. While what I've seen so far is > definitely helpful, particularly regarding the 2N3009, I'd like to take a > step back and generalize the question a bit. > > Let's say you have a system where something dies, and you trace it down to > a particular transistor. You do a search for the part number, and find out > that particular part is no longer manufactured and/or available. You find > a datasheet, though,, and between that and the circuit you get a pretty > reasonable idea what the transistor's specifications ought to be like. So > far, so good. > > The problem I run into at this point is how to go about finding a modern > substitute. Some of you are up on your specs for modern transisitors to > the point where you can just casually say, "Oh, well, I know a part that > ought to be able to handle that," and you're home free. It's admirable, That's the easy case :-). You tend to remember the common transistors (2N2222, 2N3904, 2N3906, 2N2219, 2N2907) and look up the specs of those first (if you can't remember them). Waht I used to do (I'll explain the 'used' in a minute) was based on the obvious fact that the substitute was only useful if I could get it. So I'd gra the catalogues for 2 or 3 suppliers and look down the list of transistors (normally only 2 or 3 pages) which included brief specs to see which would be suitable. If I was in doubt, I'd look up more detailed data on the couple of 'possible' devices. Why 'used to'? Well, you can't get paper catalouges from some suppliers any more. They expect you to use their web page. And I find it impossible to find transistors that way. The web pages were not set up by engineers, or even people remotely clueful in electronics. And you get some sillies (like some transistors being listed witha maximum collector current of 1A others 1000mA. Of course a search will find one and not the other...) I've kept paper catalouges from about 10 years ago, I look in those for suitable candidates and hope they're still available... -tony From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 12:45:03 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:45:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Liam Proven wrote: > The Mac's at about 4-5% now, I believe. So a good 4x the penetration > of /desktop/ Linux. But Linux has very wide penetration in servers and > in embedded roles, which are very hard to count. I suspect the Mac is > still ahead on sheer numbers, though, if we're talking interactive > users. It's possible that millions of ADSL routers running Linux - or > cellphones and what-have-you - might put Linux in the lead, but then, > if you count them, every iPhone is running OS X... Mac OS X hit 9.63% in December. It hasn't been as low as 4-5% for some time now. > Ha! Amiga don't. Amiga Inc. - the new name of KAOS Inc. after the > original Amiga Inc., spun off from Commodre, went broke - don't have > anything to do with AmigaOS 4.x. Amiga Inc. the 2nd licensed AmigaOS > to Hyperion in Germany, who developed OS 4.0 for PowerPC, but they've > fallen out & Hyperion have gone it alone to finish it, launch it and > now put out v4.1. You've been keeping up better than I have. It's been at least a couple years since I was able to follow this soap opera. > AROS, in the meantime, is slowly but steadily making progress. I > believe it now has native USB & Ethernet + TCP/IP stacks and a decent > modern bundled web-browser. It's not really "there" yet (unless you're > an Amiga user and are not accustomed to having all mod cons), but it's > close. I see they have a new update. USB support isn't quite there, but I believe from the last time I checked TCP/IP has been there for several months now. The new browser is good news. It sounds as if while it's not really "there", it is *VERY* close! Which makes me happy. > Haiku too is getting there. It recently reached 2 milestones: the 1st, > the more significant, it became self-hosting; the 2nd, they got it > building and running with the current GCC. The snag is, build it with > GCC 3 or 4, it works fine, but it's not binary-compatible with BeOS 5. > Build it with GCC 2.whatever, it's binary compatible, but you're stuck > with a legacy toolchain. Haiku has had a fraction of the time AROS has had to get to where it is. BTW, AROS can now build itself as well, which is another of its recent developements. > Currently, in the Amiga world, there are 3 threads of development: > > - AROS, primarily on x86 but with a PowerPC build, Free and open source; > - MorphOS, from Genesi - semi-open-source in bits, 2 versions - one > old one for classic Amigas with PowerPC boards, one for new Genesi > PowerPC kit > - AmigaOS 4.x, from Hyperion, strictly only for the tiny handful of > PowerPC Amigas from 5-10y ago. There are some tiny handfull of PPC based "Amiga" systems such as the AmigaOne which can run AmigaOS 4.x. They're insanely high priced for what they are. They were when they were brand new, and I imagine due to their rarity, it has only gotten worse. I wanted a PPC board for my Amiga 3000, but couldn't justify the cost. > Frankly, I reckon only AROS has a snowball's chance in hell of > surviving. I'd like to see MorphOS open-sourced so the best of it can > be incorporated into AROS, if that is at all technically viable. Agreed. > Meanwhile, if Haiku keeps it together, in a few years' time, it has > the potential to be a really fast, smooth, POSIX-compatible GUI > desktop OS that could stomp all over desktop Linux in performance. This would not surprise me, but I have my doubts that it will ever have a userbase to match Linux. Of course when I started out with Linux, I didn't think it would ever have the level of acceptance it has now. Zane From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 12:53:46 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:53:46 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A9FAE8D-737B-4875-8E94-FBB6192D2C41@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:00 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> Use it if you like, but keep it the hell away from the systems I'm >> responsible for. > > I find 'sudo' to be very useful. As in 'sudo csh'. :-) I'm right there with you on that. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 11 12:51:16 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:51:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: early PA-RISC machines In-Reply-To: from "Dave McGuire" at Jun 10, 9 06:18:08 pm Message-ID: > > > Hey PA-RISC aficionados. Was there in fact a production PA-RISC > machine whose CPU was implemented with standard TTL chips? If so, > which one, and does anyone have one that they'd like to trade away? I believe the HP9000/840 comes close. I don't think it was _all_ TTL chips, but the CPU wasn't one big custom thing from what I've read. FWIW, I'm looking for one too. It's supposed to be seriously rare... -tony From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Thu Jun 11 12:51:32 2009 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:51:32 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A314424.8030504@sbcglobal.net> Liam Proven wrote: > 2009/6/11 Zane H. Healy : > >>> Linux runs very well on cheap, commodity kit. Solaris, from what I >>> read, still runs best on Sun kit, especially Sun SPARC kit; I just >>> today tried the latest 2009-06 build of OpenSolaris on my own PC, to >>> find that it can't drive either of my on-board Ethernet controllers, >>> so I can't even get online to download drivers. >> I was wondering about this, but haven't had time to try OpenSolaris, and the >> last version of Solaris I tried on x86 was Solaris 7. > > As a friend commented on my LJ: > > "OpenSolaris is very much 1990s Unix being dragged kicking and > screaming into the present. Solaris 10 more or less managed this at > the command line, OpenSolaris is trying it for the desktop. > > "Summary: if you're not a Solaris admin or programmer for a living, > you probably don't or shouldn't care. If you are, you'll love that bug > reports get comments from the programmers responsible explaining why > things are the way they are (e.g. why there's no kernel support for > SMB mounting)." > >>> Linux may only have 1% of the desktop PC market, but that's 1% of an >>> awful lot. It is now a mass-market OS, with significant support, lots >>> of drivers and so on. This isn't true of the BSDs, OpenSolaris, Mac OS >>> X or Darwin, or indeed of *anything* else except Windows. All the >>> other x86 PC OSs other than Windows and Linux are still specialist, >>> minority tools... >> If Linux only has 1% of the desktop PC market, it is a *LONG* way behind Mac >> OS X which has been increasing its market share at a nice pace. > > The Mac's at about 4-5% now, I believe. So a good 4x the penetration > of /desktop/ Linux. But Linux has very wide penetration in servers and > in embedded roles, which are very hard to count. I suspect the Mac is > still ahead on sheer numbers, though, if we're talking interactive > users. It's possible that millions of ADSL routers running Linux - or > cellphones and what-have-you - might put Linux in the lead, but then, > if you count them, every iPhone is running OS X... > Don't forget my Dish Network box (Recorder) runs Linux. So that would count as another interactive user... -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 12:47:44 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:47:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <20090611103539.R8434@shell.lmi.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <20090611093321.GA20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> <20090611103539.R8434@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> Even worse than hospital databases is the critical monitoring >> equipment running on Windows. When our first child was born the >> fetal monitor crashed. It was running Windows NT, and guess who had >> to get it back up and running when none of the Hospital staff could. >> I was not amused. I was even less amused by how ancient of a version >> of the OS they had running on a very modern Dell box. > > You have our sincerest sympathies. > > The medical profession suffers frrom a severe lack of understanding about > current microcomputer tehnology. > and it would still be INAPPROPRIATE for any of us to mention > "Dude, you're getting a Dell!" I was a little surprised that they managed to get such an old version running on modern hardware. Zane From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 12:56:59 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:56:59 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <3F0247A5-314E-4920-BF8D-F7EADA6B2E4E@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:25 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: >>> years since I had a usable root account on any system I've >>> installed. >>> These days you should be using sudo. >> >> That's a pretty big sweeping assertion, one with which I >> wholeheartedly disagree. Sudo has been around for a very long >> time, and while it makes great sense for newbies, it gets in the >> way when people who know what they're doing are trying to manage a >> system. >> >> Use it if you like, but keep it the hell away from the systems I'm >> responsible for. > > What, you've never heard of "sudo -s" ? :) I just use "su". -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 12:50:43 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:50:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906111732.n5BHWgd1016452@floodgap.com> References: <200906111732.n5BHWgd1016452@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>> Probably yes - and the frightening thing is that they are partially >>> right. There _are_ definitely hospital databases running on Windows >>> machines. If you count ATMs, then yes, there are Windows machines that >> >> Even worse than hospital databases is the critical monitoring >> equipment running on Windows. When our first child was born the >> fetal monitor crashed. It was running Windows NT, and guess who had >> to get it back up and running when none of the Hospital staff could. >> I was not amused. I was even less amused by how ancient of a version >> of the OS they had running on a very modern Dell box. > > I shall not mention the hospital, but during my residency I was appalled > to discover the fetal monitors running *original* NT (this was in the days > of NT 4 + umpteen service packs and W2K just around the corner). This was six years ago, and XP was in full swing at the time. It was made worse becuase I remembered reading the license agreement for the version they were using, and it included a statement that said it shouldn't be used for this sort of task. Zane From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 12:59:18 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:59:18 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <20090611102612.GB20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> <4A312BA6.5050706@sbcglobal.net> <1244740199.13632.9.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> Message-ID: <932F1725-1ED7-46E8-AF61-230E917411ED@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:20 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > What really irritates me is that Apple has disabled the -xrm flag > for xterm > on Mac OS X. I need that flag for xterm's that talk to VMS > sessions. As a > result *ALL* of my xterm's on Mac OS X have the key bindings modified. Why not just recompile xterm? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 12:58:01 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:58:01 -0400 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> References: <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <4A3145A9.5000106@gmail.com> Pontus Pihlgren wrote: >> These people think it's efficient to run a copy of Windows 2003 on a >> server (which needs a couple of gig of RAM to work well) and then run >> multiple VMs on that containing copies of Windows 2003 or other >> flavours of Windows. They think virtualisation is new and clever and >> it doesn't occur to them that not only is this wasteful of resources, >> but it's a nightmare to keep all those copies patched and current. >> > > I'm curious, what OS:es and software did virtualisation before > VMware/XEN/Virtualbox and the like ? VM, of course. (And CP-67, if you want to go way back...) Peace... Sridhar From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 13:05:22 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:05:22 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <511547.71892.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4583768C-62A5-47FB-8922-68A769FFA293@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <86DD4011-63D5-4684-9A5E-923FC060DC13@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:05 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Currently iSCSI is only supported on VMS running on Itanium (I > think it's in > 8.3-1). The one feature I'm really looking forwards to in OpenVMS > v8.4 is > the iSCSI support, as it is supposed to be in there for Alpha as > well ( > hopefully they haven't dropped that feature). I'm looking forward to that too. I have a "grownup" SAN here, but I've been playing with iSCSI just to see what its capabilities and performance are like. So far I've been impressed with the implementations I've seen...except for the GlobalSAN initiator for OS X, which is buggy to the point of being useless, and the company doesn't seem to care. > I just hope that it works with more than just HP storage solutions. If it doesn't, then it's a sucky and buggy iSCSI implementation. I'd be surprised if they did that. -Dave > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 13:09:50 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:09:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <932F1725-1ED7-46E8-AF61-230E917411ED@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <20090611102612.GB20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> <4A312BA6.5050706@sbcglobal.net> <1244740199.13632.9.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <932F1725-1ED7-46E8-AF61-230E917411ED@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:20 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> What really irritates me is that Apple has disabled the -xrm flag for xterm >> on Mac OS X. I need that flag for xterm's that talk to VMS sessions. As a >> result *ALL* of my xterm's on Mac OS X have the key bindings modified. > > Why not just recompile xterm? That takes something I don't have. Time. Zane From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 13:15:38 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:15:38 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906111115s2457cea3g12034d1fe7f89d66@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 10:45 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > This would not surprise me, but I have my doubts that [Haiku] will ever have a > userbase to match Linux. ?Of course when I started out with Linux, I didn't > think it would ever have the level of acceptance it has now. > > Zane > Linux filled a hole. To my knowledge, there wasn't really any free Unix-like available when Linux was first released, so everybody jumped on the bandwagon. When the *BSDs came along, Linux wasn't that entrenched yet. By the time Plan 9 was released with a free license (around 2000), the dust had settled--Linux was on top, with the BSDs coming along behind. If we had released for free in the early 90s, maybe everyone would be using Plan 9 (and it would be as warty and ugly as Linux). Fact is, if it doesn't run Firefox, vim, and gcc, a huge percentage of the Unix userbase is automatically gone. We don't use X, we do C the way we like it, and not a lot of people want it. If Haiku were to repackage Ubuntu with a BeOS theme, they'd probably get far more users--the simple fact is that if your OS wants to diverge from the POSIX/Unix compatible world, you're not going to get a lot of users. You'll get hundreds of emails to the mailing list asking "Why doesn't it do XYZ exactly like Linux? Your OS sucks". As Rob Pike said, OS research is dead. (and we killed it) John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 11 13:26:10 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:26:10 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <3F0247A5-314E-4920-BF8D-F7EADA6B2E4E@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <3F0247A5-314E-4920-BF8D-F7EADA6B2E4E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A30E9D2.11583.3408DCAF@cclist.sydex.com> On 11 Jun 2009 at 13:56, Dave McGuire wrote: > I just use "su". I login as "root". :) --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 13:37:06 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:37:06 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A30E9D2.11583.3408DCAF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <3F0247A5-314E-4920-BF8D-F7EADA6B2E4E@neurotica.com> <4A30E9D2.11583.3408DCAF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <589BFBC3-AC4A-4954-A7D9-733AECF7EF71@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 2:26 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I just use "su". > > I login as "root". :) Well there you go. :) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 13:53:00 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:53:00 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 10, 2009, at 11:38 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> It might seem odd, but I don't know how to use 'ed'. I kinda know >>> 'ex' >>> due to the fact 'vi' is 'ex' turned from a line editor to a screen >>> editor. Most of what I know about computers from way back is mostly >>> limited to UNIX (and that's only because UNIX didn't die like the >>> other OSes.) >> >> I hate statements like this. Died like what OSes? MVS? VM? VSE? >> There are a bunch of OSes from back then which are still around. > > This attitude is common even here, amongst people who presumably > should know better. Just because VMS was around thirty years ago, > that means it's a thirty-year-old OS. "Wow, I can't believe we're > still using cars. They're so old! Since there were cars in 1908, > that means ALL cars are from 1908!" > > The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should > know better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are > *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the > only thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. > Do these people really believe PCs running Windows process their > bank transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? > > -Dave > I know VMS is not dead; if I wanted to get a "best of both worlds" experience (modern and ancient), and it not be UNIX on the software side, I'd get an Itanium box running OpenVMS. I referred to things like TOPS-20, ITS, etc., which, in terms of support and development, are dead. I know that OS/400 and MVS are not dead, either; one (or the other) is being used by my local school district (and has for years) as the OS for the "central glue" that holds their entire operation together. If you are wondering how I know this: TN3270 host 'rossac.sdhc.k12.fl.us' port 23 Try it. If you get prompted with a ASCII-art psudeographical login screen, with a large, hippyish "HCPS" ASCII-logo, that's it. > I hate statements like this. Died like what OSes? MVS? VM? VSE? There are a bunch of OSes from back then which are still around. I hate statements like this. It gives the feeling, without any actual implication (for you semantics nazis out there), that since a few good OSes survived (VMS, UNIX, MVS, etc.), the rest came along. CP/M? Dead. TOPS-20? Dead. TENEX? Dead. ITS? Dead. No, I am not saying that these four are "inferior" in that statement. My point is that no significant support and development happens for these OSes. Therefore, they are "dead". Of those four there, the only one I've actually used is TOPS-20. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxUowACgkQF9H43UytGibGsgCbBtmYWAxATk3Cyv7mvwCIkdOo dNYAni3nupeVBBUQD3WPagm7HXICtazY =zEqz -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 13:55:13 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:55:13 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A315311.6080605@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Kirn Gill wrote: >> It might seem odd, but I don't know how to use 'ed'. I kinda know >> 'ex' due to the fact 'vi' is 'ex' turned from a line editor to a >> screen editor. Most of what I know about computers from way back >> is mostly limited to UNIX (and that's only because UNIX didn't >> die like the other OSes.) > > I hate statements like this. Died like what OSes? MVS? VM? VSE? > There are a bunch of OSes from back then which are still around. > > Peace... Sridhar TOPS-20. ITS. TENEX. CP/M. There, I named four, I can't think of any others at the moment. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxUxAACgkQF9H43UytGibLRgCfSk8EwpjqfSisD9lAuKiFdXjN +lUAn3mB4nfPeLnmeuODbHeKztKIS6NS =xLwL -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Thu Jun 11 13:55:20 2009 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:55:20 +0100 Subject: Nearly there with IBM 029 KeyPunch In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8EDCD62B-7D2E-4831-95A4-4F63ED0E73D5@microspot.co.uk> > From: Brent Hilpert > > Roger Holmes wrote: >> >> The theory said to change the resonant frequency of my keypunch's >> ferro-resonant power regulator from 60Hz to 50Hz I should up the 15uF >> capacitor to 21.6 uF. Well I tried 21.5, and the voltage went up by >> ONE volt. Hmm, scratch head, at least it went in the right direction. >> Search around for AC capacitors and find one in a defunct large >> electric lawnmower. Its 30uF, I think about replacing the 15 with it >> but if an extra 6.5uF only gained one volt, and I need 6 then it >> seemed reasonable to combine it and try 45 uF. That gives me 46volts, >> only 2 volts short. I throw in the 6.5uF too and I get 47 volts. I >> try > > I had a niggling concern about this when the suggestion to change > the C was > first profferred. > I don't have a thorough enough understanding of the ferro-resonant > principle > to categorically say what the problem is but I can half-think of a few > possible issues: > > - Because the ferroresonance principle involves the inductor working > in the core saturation region, the standard resonance equation with > which you calculated the new C may not be applicable. (I see you got > the square of f proportion.) > > - If the changed LC relationship changes the circulating current > in the LC circuit then the core magnetic field will also be affected, > which would upset the rest of the transformer design targets. > > - Changing the C changes the resonant frequency in an LC circuit, > as you desire to accomplish. However, the Q factor of the resonant > circuit is dependant upon the ratio of L/C, so you have also changed > the Q factor. I'm less sure if this would matter, as the circuit > is operating at a well-fixed frequency. > > My remaining concern might be that even with the new C bringing the > V up, > the regulation function of the supply may have been lost if the > transformer > is no longer functioning in the regions it was designed to. Yes, but relays are unlikely to be damaged by a few volts too much. My concern is the current in the intermediate winding could damage itself. So far so good but I am charging a much larger capacitance for a slightly longer period so I would think the current would be higher. To get 48 volts I am going to have to add about another 6 uF, so about 48 F instead of 15, so very roughly three times the current, assuming (and its a big assumption I can't justify), that the voltage is the same. From pontus at update.uu.se Thu Jun 11 14:06:47 2009 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:06:47 +0200 Subject: PDP-8/L on eBay In-Reply-To: <4A3127E1.1000904@hachti.de> References: <4A3127E1.1000904@hachti.de> Message-ID: <4A3155C7.6080105@update.uu.se> > > I'm thinking of bidding on it as spares. Would be nice to get it for > not too much - I would have to pay international shipping anyway... > I wonder if posting about it on this list is a good idea :) Maybe people will be nice cause they know you need the spares (as you do). Or it will alert a lot other interrested buyers. Since I've seen it posted on other forums, I guess interested people already know. Good luck though! /P From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jun 11 14:07:53 2009 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:07:53 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net><511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com><200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org><575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com><575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Zane H. Healy" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 1:45 PM Subject: Re: UNIX V7 > > > On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Liam Proven wrote: > > Mac OS X hit 9.63% in December. It hasn't been as low as 4-5% for some > time > now. > How exactly is that measured (units shipped from the top 20 brands)? There are many new Windows machines built from parts by small stores even today that don't get counted. Funny thing is Apple sells mostly laptops and a bunch of people I know have switched from Apple laptops to Thinkpads recently. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 14:18:00 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:18:00 -0400 Subject: PDP-8/L on eBay In-Reply-To: <4A3127E1.1000904@hachti.de> References: <4A3127E1.1000904@hachti.de> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Philipp Hachtmann wrote: > Hi folks, > > there is a "PDP-8/L" on eBay: > > 180367591215 > > One should better say: A rudiment of a PDP-8/L. The system lacks all M > series modules - so there is no logic left. At least the core stack is there. That and certain components of the G-series modules are somewhat difficult to obtain as spares. > I'm thinking of bidding on it as spares. Would be nice to get it for not too > much - I would have to pay international shipping anyway... It looked interesting to me just because I have a pile of M-series logic and a spare PSU from a broken and gutted -8/L I got when I was 16 (it was missing the plexi, the core stack, the front steel backplane support member was detached from one side of the chassis, and a few of the backplane pins were broken off due to rough handling before I got it). I probably have everything on hand (including M220 modules) to get the one in the auction working, but I'd have to dig deep into my pile of M-series modules awaiting diagnosis and repair (including those M220 modules). Given what I've seen over the years on these particular machines, testing for defective 7440s and 7474s will identify 80% or more of the bad components. I'm mildly interested in the one in the auction, but not so interested as to run the price sky-high. -ethan From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 14:20:03 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:20:03 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3158E3.5030402@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Liam Proven wrote: > 2009/6/10 Dave McGuire : >> On Jun 10, 2009, at 2:25 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>>>>> The other amusing thing about which people here (at >>>>>> least) should know better is the visibility factor. VMS, >>>>>> OS/400, MVS, and VM are *everywhere*...but people think >>>>>> they're somehow "dead" because the only thing they see in >>>>>> for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. Do these >>>>>> people really believe PCs running Windows process their >>>>>> bank transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run >>>>>> railroads? >>>>> I agree with this statement, and out side of this audience >>>>> how many people even know anything besides Windows exists? >>>>> There are a lot of people that think all computers run >>>>> Windows. >>> Of course this isn't the only group of technical people. The >>> disturbing thing is, there are a sizable group of "technical" >>> people who thing Windows is all there is, and either don't >>> realize anything else exists, or that anything else still >>> exists. These are the people that really scare me. >> Same here, but I don't really consider them to be "technical >> people". Being that I don't use (or work on) Windows machines, I >> tend not to work with those people professionally, and I >> certainly don't associate with them on a social level...they give >> me that "not so fresh" feeling. ;) >> >> -Dave >> >> -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL > > I reckon Zane is bang on the nail, actually. > > *Most* "techies" now know nothing except the x86-32 PC and Windows. > DOS is a forgotten mystery; Windows 9x is historical and unknown. > PCs have always been 32-bit and the 64-bit transition scares them. > They have never seen or used any networking protocol other than > TCP/IP (and that is a mystery except to specialists). They don't > know how to use the command prompt and increasingly they have never > used floppy disks. > I'm a part of that generation. Windows 3.0 was released (1990-05-22) a mere 4 days after I was born. I guess I am lucky; I was introduced to computers when I was 4; I know of the exotics, those that rivaled the PC, and those that came before. VAXen and PDP-11s, Alphas, MIPS boxen, beige toasters (of both the 68k and PowerPC variety), Acorn units, SPARCstations and the like. I know of their software. I might not have used all of it, but I've tried. VMS, TOPS-20, UNIX (of many flavours, most available with sprinkle-on X11 toppings), CP/M, DOS (and it's various flavours), that awful, graphical pane-glass DOS multitasker and it's New Trashology variant, OS/2, classic Mac OS, and probably more. > And yet, these are the "technical experts" who are building the > systems upon which we all rely. Scary, isn't it? > These people think it's efficient to run a copy of Windows 2003 on > a server (which needs a couple of gig of RAM to work well) and then > run multiple VMs on that containing copies of Windows 2003 or other > flavours of Windows. They think virtualisation is new and clever > and it doesn't occur to them that not only is this wasteful of > resources, but it's a nightmare to keep all those copies patched > and current. > "couple of gigs"? When I think of servers, that's what I think for "required storage". 512MB of RAM should be enough for *everybody*, including servers. Ok, 1GB RAM for those servers that host multi-luser make-believe games. > They think that encapsulating SCSI over TCP/IP is an efficient way > to connect servers to disk farms. > > They think that a full-screen GUI session at 1024x768 in 16,385 > colours, carried over 100Mbit Ethernet, is an efficient way to > remote-control a server. They can just about stand to use such a > session carried over an 8Mbit ADSL connection, but they'll whinge > about it. 16,384 colours. Just fixin' the typo :) And acutally, I think if you want to run something GUI over the network, do it the X11 way. Instead of compositing the image and then sending a full image off, send off the operations to composite the image and composite it locally, e.g. send things like "draw line from (a, b) to (x, y)" over the wire, not a picture of a line :) > And these people build the systems that keep us alive in hospital, > that contain and manage our money and taxes, that schedule and > control our planes and trains. > > I find it terrifying, myself. Acutally, the NYSE runs on Linux servers. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxWOMACgkQF9H43UytGiZ8ewCgiJxg1y5eRzXZ3ATzUxw4Mb6R xi4An3sN4GG8Dc4XnA5hQDj5vGzG5cjy =SiFb -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From feldman.r at comcast.net Thu Jun 11 14:21:54 2009 From: feldman.r at comcast.net (feldman.r at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:21:54 +0000 (UTC) Subject: UNIX V7 Message-ID: <1009097556.391561244748114047.JavaMail.root@sz0065a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> >Message: 23 >Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:50:43 -0700 (PDT) >From: "Zane H. Healy" < healyzh at aracnet.com > >Subject: Re: UNIX V7 >> >> I shall not mention the hospital, but during my residency I was appalled >> to discover the fetal monitors running *original* NT (this was in the days >> of NT 4 + umpteen service packs and W2K just around the corner). >This was six years ago, and XP was in full swing at the time. ?It was made >worse becuase I remembered reading the license agreement for the version >they were using, and it included a statement that said it shouldn't be used >for this sort of task. The restriction (not for use in nuclear reactors, mission-critical programs, etc.) was for Java, IIRC, not Windows itself. >Zane From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Thu Jun 11 14:29:54 2009 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:29:54 +0200 (CEST) Subject: early PA-RISC machines In-Reply-To: <4A3032EB.30502@brouhaha.com> References: <4A3032EB.30502@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Eric Smith wrote: > Dave McGuire wrote: >> Hey PA-RISC aficionados. Was there in fact a production PA-RISC machine >> whose CPU was implemented with standard TTL chips? If so, which one, >> and does anyone have one that they'd like to trade away? > > I doubt that there are many around. I know someone who has one, but he > intends to donate it to the Computer History Museum. (Or maybe he already > has done so.) http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dev/hp9000_840/ We have the only 9000/840 still running (at least 24/7), it belongs to the university since it has been donated from HP in 1987 (and it is practically running since then!). It includes 24MB RAM, a 7978 tape drive, several 9144 cartridge drives and several 7933/7935 disk drives, although the system is currently running from SCSI disks (under the terminal). I have a complete spare board set (includes I/O, CPU and memory boards), too. The 9122 floppy drive has been moved to the HP1000. Some printout for the curious ;-) (c)Copyright 1983-1992 Hewlett-Packard Co., All Rights Reserved. (c)Copyright 1979, 1980, 1983, 1985-1990 The Regents of the Univ. of California (c)Copyright 1980, 1984, 1986 Unix System Laboratories, Inc. (c)Copyright 1986-1992 Sun Microsystems, Inc. (c)Copyright 1985, 1986, 1988 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (c)Copyright 1986 Digital Equipment Corp. (c)Copyright 1990 Motorola, Inc. (c)Copyright 1990, 1991, 1992 Cornell University (c)Copyright 1988 Carnegie Mellon RESTRICTED RIGHTS LEGEND Use, duplication, or disclosure by the U.S. Government is subject to restrictions as set forth in sub-paragraph (c)(1)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software clause in DFARS 252.227-7013. Hewlett-Packard Company 3000 Hanover Street Palo Alto, CA 94304 U.S.A. Rights for non-DOD U.S. Government Departments and Agencies are as set forth in FAR 52.227-19(c)(1,2). donaldo:~> uname -a HP-UX donaldo A.09.00 B 9000/840 8193 16-user license donaldo:~> uptime 9:24pm up 192 days, 9:23, 1 user, load average: 0.05, 0.02, 0.01 donaldo:~> bdf Filesystem kbytes used avail capacity Mounted on /dev/vg01/root 504134 154504 299216 34% / /dev/vg01/usr 1296422 490475 676304 42% /usr Christian From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 14:36:50 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:36:50 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net><511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com><200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org><575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com><575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 3:07 PM, Teo Zenios wrote: > Funny thing is Apple sells mostly laptops Really? What are the statistics on that? > and a bunch of people I know have switched from Apple laptops to > Thinkpads recently. Heh. I guess they got tired of the stability. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 11 14:41:37 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:41:37 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > I find 'sudo' to be very useful. As in 'sudo csh'. :-) Same here, except that I use a real shell. :-) Eric From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Thu Jun 11 14:44:13 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:44:13 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net><511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com><200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org><575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com><575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <60413E65-5228-4EEB-9A45-46B83F7FB11F@mail.msu.edu> On Jun 11, 2009, at 12:36 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 3:07 PM, Teo Zenios wrote: >> Funny thing is Apple sells mostly laptops > > Really? What are the statistics on that? > >> and a bunch of people I know have switched from Apple laptops to >> Thinkpads recently. > > Heh. I guess they got tired of the stability. ;) > Or having their laps burn off... I had a Macbook Pro and it was painful to use as a laptop due to the heat... :) Josh > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 11 14:45:36 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:45:36 -0700 Subject: early PA-RISC machines In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A315EE0.70302@brouhaha.com> Tony Duell wrote: > I believe the HP9000/840 comes close. I don't think it was _all_ TTL > chips, but the CPU wasn't one big custom thing from what I've read. > > FWIW, I'm looking for one too. It's supposed to be seriously rare... > The design was originally intended for internal use only, but the VLSI was behind schedule, so they decided to productize it. They dropped it as soon as the VLSI became available. Eric From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 14:48:09 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:48:09 -0400 Subject: early PA-RISC machines In-Reply-To: References: <4A3032EB.30502@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <27D6760C-F76E-4448-9EB4-7636F7087867@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 3:29 PM, Christian Corti wrote: >>> Hey PA-RISC aficionados. Was there in fact a production PA- >>> RISC machine whose CPU was implemented with standard TTL chips? >>> If so, which one, and does anyone have one that they'd like to >>> trade away? >> >> I doubt that there are many around. I know someone who has one, >> but he intends to donate it to the Computer History Museum. (Or >> maybe he already has done so.) > > http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dev/hp9000_840/ > > We have the only 9000/840 still running (at least 24/7), it belongs > to the university since it has been donated from HP in 1987 (and it > is practically running since then!). It includes 24MB RAM, a 7978 > tape drive, several 9144 cartridge drives and several 7933/7935 > disk drives, although the system is currently running from SCSI > disks (under the terminal). I have a complete spare board set > (includes I/O, CPU and memory boards), too. The 9122 floppy drive > has been moved to the HP1000. Wow...beautiful!! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 14:48:40 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:48:40 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <1A47C412-114D-4BAF-8E6A-E5D47EB73069@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 3:41 PM, Eric Smith wrote: >> I find 'sudo' to be very useful. As in 'sudo csh'. :-) > Same here, except that I use a real shell. :-) Ooohhh...you're a mean, bad man. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 14:49:00 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:49:00 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 3:36 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: >> and a bunch of people I know have switched from Apple laptops to Thinkpads >> recently. > > ?Heh. ?I guess they got tired of the stability. ;) I accidentally ran my Macbook battery down last year (fell asleep on the couch), and it terminated a 183-day login session. I find the stability to be acceptable. -ethan From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 14:51:17 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:51:17 -0400 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> References: <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <4A316035.7040404@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > (Sorry for keeping this OT discussion continue, but one of my > questions are vaguely on topic) > >> These people think it's efficient to run a copy of Windows 2003 >> on a server (which needs a couple of gig of RAM to work well) and >> then run multiple VMs on that containing copies of Windows 2003 >> or other flavours of Windows. They think virtualisation is new >> and clever and it doesn't occur to them that not only is this >> wasteful of resources, but it's a nightmare to keep all those >> copies patched and current. >> > > I'm curious, what OS:es and software did virtualisation before > VMware/XEN/Virtualbox and the like ? > > Also, why is it wasteful of resources? > > And finaly, why would keeping virtual installations up to date be > any harder than non-virtual? > > /P Let's stick to the realm of x86 virtualization here, because that's the architecture I know best. Starting off, generally, when you preform virtualization, your VM runs (usually) under an OS. This results in the raw, over-the-wire (i.e. raw addressing pins on the CPU) memory map of a virtual computer to be virtualized, not as the virtual memory map of a process, but as a PART of that processes memory map. Further, that processes memory map is also "virtualized" through the use of virtual memory.. Also, any OS running in the VM that's worth a damn would also be using virtual memory. Until about 2-3 years ago, x86 CPUs lacked the hardware to reliably perform multiple levels of virtual memory. Also, OSes perform actions in the VM that cannot be done as a normal process of a OS (and would crash the host OS), and this requires //emulation// of the guest CPU, even if it's partial emulation. One way to look at the memory complexity is this: Let's say a process in the guest OS writes to memory in it's process space. This write is virtualized like this: guestprocess.bin (0x0bfe0030) -> "raw" mem of VM, e.g. physical address if it were real (0x00100030) -> hypervisor's process space (0x0bef3230) -> bare metal addressing (0x00100340) Since the x86 CPUs seem to integrate the MMU directly into the addressing of the CPU, and virtual memory seems to be "second nature" to i386 and later, the "hypervisor to bare metal" address translation is done entirely in hardware, and is the same type of translation that any normal program faces. The "raw mem of VM" is the virtual machine's equivalent of bare-metal addressing, and this requires emulation of the CPU's addressing functions, and the guest OS's processes (unless the OS lacks virtual memory, like DOS or whatever) requires that the emulated address unit be attached to an emulated MMU. Also, you have to emulate "privileged" instructions, and those that change the CPU mode. If you didn't, the hypervisor process would run into a privilege trap, and if the x86 host actually honored instead of trapping, the whole bare-metal system would crash. A 2.8GHz Pentium 4 without the instruction sets for hardware-assisted virtualization will run the guest VM with about the speed and performance of a 800MHz Pentium-III, and the host OS will suffer a nasty performance penalty (at least, other host-level applications will "feel" it.) If you were to attempt to run a full virtualization engine on, e.g., a 486DX2, the guest would probably run so slow that you could debug each executed instruction in real-time. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxYDUACgkQF9H43UytGiaEiwCZAUDydfJY9xevQT5NP34eXPzg o5cAn2Qz/yok1/ysKMlP75coDAePTb5g =vC1U -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From chris at mainecoon.com Thu Jun 11 14:54:36 2009 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Christian Kennedy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:54:36 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <60413E65-5228-4EEB-9A45-46B83F7FB11F@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net><511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com><200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org><575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com><575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <60413E65-5228-4EEB-9A45-46B83F7FB11F@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <768CDD74-E4B1-4ECE-BA39-3B9313D20B84@mainecoon.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 12:44 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: > Or having their laps burn off... I had a Macbook Pro and it was > painful to use as a laptop due to the heat... :) I have a trio of 17" Macbook Pros, all of which have demonstrated the ability to maintain a surface temperature in excess of 100F at the keyboard when used hard and one of which actually got so hot as to warp the display such that the thing wouldn't stay shut. I've had a number of other heat-related failures on the machines as well, which has me quite happy that I make a habit of forking over the cash for AppleCare and ProCare. Even then, the MTBF on the machines is better than any Del or HP laptop that has crossed my desk. I eventually got the hint and picked up a new eight-core MacPro for doing real work and use the MBPs for less taxing tasks. -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 14:55:04 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:55:04 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2FA92F.7030300@iais.fraunhofer.de> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <4A2FA92F.7030300@iais.fraunhofer.de> Message-ID: <4A316118.6080608@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Holger Veit wrote: > Kirn Gill schrieb: >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 >> >> Doc wrote: >>> Not sure whether this is on-topic or not, but it promises to be >>> fun: >>> >>> http://www.nordier.com/v7x86/ >>> >>> UNIX v7 for PeeCee! >>> >>> >>> Doc >>> >> Ok, so I downloaded the image, got it running, and tried to use >> it >> >> Note: The user 'root' is password-protected, and I can't find the >> documentation showing the default pass. Login as 'bin', there is >> no password. > > The image starts in single user mode, and will go into > multi-user-mode after entering CTRL-D. > > Well, before entering this, enter at the # prompt # passwd root and > set the password you like. > I never saw a root shell, it booted straight into multi-user for me. Maybe I did something wrong? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxYRgACgkQF9H43UytGiYOpgCfeBR+7IK0MolU5hVx/F9+Lz39 U4AAn2+/RZ+YgmDOkcWn763uERLjrsoX =M3yf -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 14:59:46 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:59:46 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <60413E65-5228-4EEB-9A45-46B83F7FB11F@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net><511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com><200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org><575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com><575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <60413E65-5228-4EEB-9A45-46B83F7FB11F@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 3:44 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: >>> Funny thing is Apple sells mostly laptops >> >> Really? What are the statistics on that? >> >>> and a bunch of people I know have switched from Apple laptops to >>> Thinkpads recently. >> >> Heh. I guess they got tired of the stability. ;) >> > > Or having their laps burn off... I had a Macbook Pro and it was > painful to use as a laptop due to the heat... :) Oh, that was one of the new(old) x86 machines. The ones with the modern PPC processors run much cooler. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 15:01:12 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:01:12 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400B4627-76CB-4D49-9D8C-1FEFCEB15643@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 3:49 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >>> and a bunch of people I know have switched from Apple laptops to >>> Thinkpads >>> recently. >> >> Heh. I guess they got tired of the stability. ;) > > I accidentally ran my Macbook battery down last year (fell asleep on > the couch), and it terminated a 183-day login session. I find the > stability to be acceptable. Re-read my message, Ethan. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 14:59:29 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:59:29 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A316221.50304@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 William Donzelli wrote: >> This attitude is common even here, amongst people who presumably >> should know better. > > The finger points to me? > >> Just because VMS was around thirty years ago, that means it's a >> thirty-year-old OS. "Wow, I can't believe we're still using >> cars. They're so old! Since there were cars in 1908, that means >> ALL cars are from 1908!" > > I never said VMS is dead - if I did, please point it out and > acknowledge. I did say VMS is a "sinking ship". Not only is the > market share tiny and shrinking, but its installation base (number > of machines running VMS in production) is also shrinking. There are > pretty much no new VMS customers. VMS is speeding along to being > insignificant. > > And yes, OS/400, VM, MVS (yes, keeping the old names here) are also > sinking ships for much the same reason, although they are still > viable products. Yes, they are important, and are still cutting > edge, but the truth is still that there will be a day in the future > when these OSes are in the same league as MCP or TOPS-20. Hopefully > that day will be long off. > > Here is a challenge to the whole list membership. Lots of folks > here are well embedded into the industry, so I think this is a good > sample. Try to think of as many new customers (not upgrades) for > the following OSes (again, keeping the old names): AOS/VS, MCP, > TOPS-10, TOPS-20, OS/2200, VM, MVS, VSE, OS/400, Multics, PrimOS. > Lets keep this to year 2009. I bet we can not even get to twenty. > > -- Will And when I said the other OSes had died, this is what I meant. Glad to see that someone is objectionably rooted in reality. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxYiEACgkQF9H43UytGiYyRgCgrfrLApsR+LIt2/Eg6ofJCp5u TIoAoJiDEjZgJ1bkvRuLpxUE3BTvmrRW =Ltud -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 15:04:07 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:04:07 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <20090611102612.GB20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> <4A312BA6.5050706@sbcglobal.net> <1244740199.13632.9.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <932F1725-1ED7-46E8-AF61-230E917411ED@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <93B21252-A71E-41D4-B2E6-0334F0C59565@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 2:09 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>> What really irritates me is that Apple has disabled the -xrm flag >>> for xterm >>> on Mac OS X. I need that flag for xterm's that talk to VMS >>> sessions. As a >>> result *ALL* of my xterm's on Mac OS X have the key bindings >>> modified. >> >> Why not just recompile xterm? > > That takes something I don't have. Time. Ahh, understood. It shouldn't be a big deal, though...I'd encourage you to give it a shot. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net Thu Jun 11 15:04:08 2009 From: dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net (Daniel Seagraves) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:04:08 -0500 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8CA52B1C-2C16-4D45-8A0F-90BB3711D51A@lunar-tokyo.net> I pound the heck out of mine. Two VMs (Vista x64 and Linux) plus 5 xterms plus Safari plus Mail plus my IRC client is the usual workload. The machine is 2 years old now and has no issues aside from an ignorable screen issue. I put more RAM and a hard disk in it and that's it. It even replaced my desktop entirely after it died of PSU failure. On Jun 11, 2009, at 2:49 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 3:36 PM, Dave McGuire > wrote: >>> and a bunch of people I know have switched from Apple laptops to >>> Thinkpads >>> recently. >> >> Heh. I guess they got tired of the stability. ;) > > I accidentally ran my Macbook battery down last year (fell asleep on > the couch), and it terminated a 183-day login session. I find the > stability to be acceptable. > > -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 15:04:41 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:04:41 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3158E3.5030402@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <4A3158E3.5030402@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: >> *Most* "techies" now know nothing except the x86-32 PC and Windows. >> ?DOS is a forgotten mystery; Windows 9x is historical and unknown. >> PCs have always been 32-bit and the 64-bit transition scares them. >> They have never seen or used any networking protocol other than >> TCP/IP (and that is a mystery except to specialists). They don't >> know how to use the command prompt and increasingly they have never >> used floppy disks. This is starting to sound like those endless lists of "things today's high school graduates have always/never seen". I'm not really arguing with the above, but it's just an observation that as we all get older, the sort of tech we grew up on, no matter when we got started or how old we were then, eventually becomes lost to history and newer stuff comes along. In my case, I started with 1970s microcomputers when Bill Gates was still selling papertape and quickly moved on to 16-bit and 32-bit minicomputers for a living. > I'm a part of that generation. Windows 3.0 was released (1990-05-22) a > mere 4 days after I was born. > I guess I am lucky; I was introduced to computers when I was 4; I know > of the exotics, those that rivaled the PC, and those that came before... > > I know of their software. I might not have used all of it, but I've tried... That is more exposure than most of the people I work with every day... it's a mostly Java operation here, with lots of .NET, and there are two of us in the building who have ever done any development or system adminstration on anything older than a few years ago. >> These people think it's efficient to run a copy of Windows 2003 on >> a server (which needs a couple of gig of RAM to work well) and then >> run multiple VMs on that containing copies of Windows 2003 or other >> ?flavours of Windows... In our case, it's multiple VMs running Linux, but for at least one corner of the room, the rest applies. >> They think virtualisation is new and clever >> and it doesn't occur to them that not only is this wasteful of >> resources, but it's a nightmare to keep all those copies patched >> and current. It's no different to patch 10 virtuals than 10 physical boxes. I agree that there is some efficiency lost with the current approach to servers, but since present day OSes and applications are mostly terrible at sharing CPUs when you start to have 4 or 8 or 16 CPUs per box, I'd argue that you get more efficient CPU utilization by breaking up the CPUs into several smaller chunks. I/O bandwidth is another thing entirely (as is off-cache memory bandwidth), but if you have one large server and you try to double the RAM and double the CPU, you won't get close to double the amount of work done. > "couple of gigs"? When I think of servers, that's what I think for > "required storage". 512MB of RAM should be enough for *everybody*, > including servers. > Ok, 1GB RAM for those servers that host multi-luser make-believe games. You underestimate how quickly badly-written applications grab RAM as they fail to scale up gracefully. _Should_? Yes. _Is enough_? Not hardly. Programming resources are so expensive compared to hardware that if someone says it will take 10 hours to change the software, test and deploy it to make it more memory efficient, I can just about guarantee that the manager will approve doubling the memory in the machine before approving the labor to make the memory upgrade unnecessary. There's nothing new in this over the past several decades. Only the details of how many dollars buy how many units of memory changes. -ethan From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 15:05:09 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:05:09 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:10 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>> What's VMS's present estimated installed base, what was its >>> direction and rate of change in the last decade? >> >> IIRC, they've claimed 400,000 for years, and at the same time >> you're always hearing of customers moving off of it. The reasons >> for the lack of new customers are totally the Corporate owners >> fault. It has been on a decline for well over a decade. The >> moves to kill it off started with DEC itself. > > That strikes me as very odd. Why on earth would they do this? > > -Dave > Most likely someone at DEC foresaw that the rise of the killer micros was going to be as bad as it was, and managed to convince a few people that IBM PC-compatibles and their consumer OSes were the future for all. I seriously hope that this is not true, and that nobody foresaw computing as it exists today. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxY3UACgkQF9H43UytGibRjwCfb0EAr7ho/+pNOyOA2HVu6Quj KUkAn0GctlUNfCWbyr0Nu3R5K7MciDYA =lSXK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From doc at vaxen.net Thu Jun 11 15:09:16 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:09:16 -0500 (CDT) Subject: UNIX V7 Message-ID: Zane H. Healy wrote: > > There are things I like about AIX, but I have a hard time considering it to > be UNIX, and *I DO NOT LIKE* IBM's attitude towards support of tape drives. First rule of administering AIX: This Is Not UNIX. Deal with it. Doc From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 15:14:34 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:14:34 -0400 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A316035.7040404@gmail.com> References: <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> <4A316035.7040404@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > If you were to attempt to run a full virtualization engine on, e.g., a > 486DX2, the guest would probably run so slow that you could debug each > executed instruction in real-time. Years and years ago, when simh first broke onto the scene, my "fast" machine was a SPARC1 (20Mhz/12 MIPS) w/64MB of memory. One of the first things I loaded up, since I had real tapes on hand, was 2.9BSD. It was quite a bit slower than a real PDP-11, but I didn't have any real PDP-11 disks over 10MB, so the virtual environment was "better" because I could allocate 40MB of my 1.8GB disk to hold the guest OS. Fortunately, when I was debugging a problem with the RP module, I had moved up to a SPARC5 which ran a virtual PDP-11 faster than the real thing. Given how many times I rebooted the virtual PDP-11, I was very happy to be doing this on a faster platform. Speed isn't everything, but it sure is nice when you can get it. -ethan From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 15:17:12 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:17:12 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A316648.7030302@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Dave > McGuire wrote: >> This attitude is common... ... the only thing they see in for >> sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. Do these people really >> believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, >> maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? > > Common indeed - an example from just this week: I was volunteering > at FreeGeek Columbus, sifting through a pile of donated 2U servers, > when one of the other volunteers _who uses Linux_ asked me what > they were (because he honestly didn't recognize a boxy slab as a > computer). Upon hearing the answer, he asked what a server does and > where you'd use one. It's a bit tough to explain to someone the > difference between a rackable server-class machine and a desktop > machine when there's little common conceptual ground or vocabulary. > I don't know how much of I was saying was starting to make sense > because the last question was, "I'm thinking of starting a business > with some friends. Do we need a server?" > > Besides the cop-out answer of "probably, at some point", I really > didn't have a good answer for him. It's a good thing I'm not in > Sales. > > -ethan In my experience, the difference between "workstation" and "server" is how you use it. A "server" is a computer running various daemons that make the "server" machine the central point for activity of network clients. Web server, FTP server, mail server, NIS server, NFS server, Samba server, etc. A "workstation" is everything else. Web browsing (MySpace), Solitaire, and Minesweeper. For me, "server" hardware (that meant to be used as a server and not a workstation) is just specialized workstation hardware designed to maximize processor and data throughput. Geneally, these machines are also undesirable to be used as workstations (nonstandard disk options [RAID arrays and lack of CD-ROM], lack of a local console, graphics that go no further than 2D hardware accel, or even standard VGA), but can seriously outperform most workstations and some gaming rigs. A "blade" server is a good idea of a "server" system. A blade server is about 1.5 inches thick, contains a disk or two, and electrical connections are generally limited to a hot-swappable disk bay, Ethernet, mains power, a RS-232 port for a serial console, and USB if you're lucky. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxZkcACgkQF9H43UytGianzwCfQtK6P0S/GedjWwlZVFw3z+Fv Is4AoL6uIvDd/tfRbCboFI30Xe9tRPkh =ICTZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 15:18:52 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:18:52 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> Message-ID: <4A3166AC.2020406@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Brian Wheeler wrote: > On Wed, 2009-06-10 at 15:14 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: >> On Jun 10, 2009, at 3:04 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >>>> The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) >>>> should know better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, >>>> MVS, and VM are *everywhere*...but people think they're >>>> somehow "dead" because the only thing they see in for sale in >>>> WalMart is PCs running Windows. Do these people really >>>> believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, >>>> maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? >>> Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge >>> numbers of *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The >>> penguin crowd are the worst offenders. >> We're in agreement there. >> >> -Dave >> > > As one of the Penguin Crowd, I agree. The local linux user's group > seems to be filled with people more interested in flashy gui stuff > than understanding how the system works. > > Asking any kind of technical question of them usually meets with > silence. I guess if I asked about configuring compiz or upping my > FPS I'd get a lot of answers. > > Brian Just goes to show that computers are no longer for "computing", but for making pretty pictures. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxZqwACgkQF9H43UytGiaMKQCeMQOu3bhZIntUJaaSkAqRBTT/ 6LsAnjrMVtP7/dl6oN5QW3JB30WIJ6Nz =z42o -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From doc at vaxen.net Thu Jun 11 15:14:32 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:14:32 -0500 (CDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net><511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com><200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org><575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com><575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <60413E65-5228-4EEB-9A45-46B83F7FB11F@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A3164FD.4050102@vaxen.net> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 3:44 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: >>>> Funny thing is Apple sells mostly laptops >>> >>> Really? What are the statistics on that? >>> >>>> and a bunch of people I know have switched from Apple laptops to >>>> Thinkpads recently. >>> >>> Heh. I guess they got tired of the stability. ;) >>> >> >> Or having their laps burn off... I had a Macbook Pro and it was >> painful to use as a laptop due to the heat... :) > > Oh, that was one of the new(old) x86 machines. The ones with the > modern PPC processors run much cooler. ;) Jesus, Dave, put it in a .sig and give it a rest. You're starting to sound like the guys on bicycles - the ones with the white shirts and black ties. Doc From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 15:26:07 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:26:07 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> Message-ID: <4A31685F.3080301@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Brian Wheeler wrote: > >> As one of the Penguin Crowd, I agree. The local linux user's >> group seems to be filled with people more interested in flashy >> gui stuff than understanding how the system works. >> >> Asking any kind of technical question of them usually meets with >> silence. I guess if I asked about configuring compiz or upping >> my FPS I'd get a lot of answers. I'm a Linux user, and would rather use Linux than Windows, my problem is that I was born far too late and have been "spoiled" (more like "corrupted") by "modern computing" (also known as MySpace and the Pretty Picture Generators of Windows Aero and Compiz). Of course, what passes for "modern computing" for the majority of the population can easily be performed on an iPhone without anything really missing. (In fact, most people could trade in their PCs for iPhones and lose nothing) > An interesting way of looking at this would be to voice my key > dislikes for the various OS's I currently use. OpenBeOS - Not sure > if that's the right name, but I really need to check out the > current state. Lack of user base. Haiku is the name you're looking for. > IRIX - I wish it wasn't a dead end, as it is really an amazing > OS and it ran on amazing hardware. > I always wanted to get a SGI box and try to run IRIX on it. > Zane > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxaF8ACgkQF9H43UytGibR4wCggSWW55+gH4GrfRrKwcz0sLSn 22kAoLQYSvjRfYsos83t0M80dOVbyV+3 =nPnE -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 11 15:32:18 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:32:18 -0600 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> Message-ID: <4A3169D2.6020009@jetnet.ab.ca> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Daniel > Seagraves wrote: >> DEBIAN PROJECT KNOWS BEST. YOU WILL NOT QUESTION DEBIAN PROJECT! > > Um... yeah. I love Linux and have been using it since the boot/root > disk days, but I've avoided Debian the entire time. Fortunately, > there are always alternatives. You aren't locked into a single > provider. Well what I liked about Debain many years ago was that I could install the system via a dial up modem. Now days if I want linux I go to - cheap bytes - . > -ethan > From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 15:37:29 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:37:29 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A316648.7030302@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A316648.7030302@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 4:17 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > In my experience, the difference between "workstation" and "server" is > how you use it. A "server" is a computer running various daemons that > make the "server" machine the central point for activity of network > clients. Web server, FTP server, mail server, NIS server, NFS server, > Samba server, etc. A "workstation" is everything else. Web browsing > (MySpace), Solitaire, and Minesweeper. > > For me, "server" hardware (that meant to be used as a server and not a > workstation) is just specialized workstation hardware designed to > maximize processor and data throughput. It's more a matter of "computer" hardware being specialized to be an effective workstation or an effective server. There are big differences, despite many people very commonly using workstations as servers. > Geneally, these machines are > also undesirable to be used as workstations (nonstandard disk options > [RAID arrays and lack of CD-ROM], RAID array is quite a common "standard" disk configuration on servers. I don't think I've seen a server in the past ten years that didn't have an optical drive, though. > lack of a local console, graphics > that go no further than 2D hardware accel, or even standard VGA), but > can seriously outperform most workstations and some gaming rigs. Graphics hardware has *no* place on a server. The fact that many servers have graphics hardware doesn't change this. Though admittedly it is somewhat of a matter of opinion, I have damn good reasons for my opinion. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Thu Jun 11 15:35:54 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:35:54 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:05 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Dave McGuire wrote: >> On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:10 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>>> What's VMS's present estimated installed base, what was its >>>> direction and rate of change in the last decade? >>> >>> IIRC, they've claimed 400,000 for years, and at the same time >>> you're always hearing of customers moving off of it. The reasons >>> for the lack of new customers are totally the Corporate owners >>> fault. It has been on a decline for well over a decade. The >>> moves to kill it off started with DEC itself. >> >> That strikes me as very odd. Why on earth would they do this? >> >> -Dave >> > Most likely someone at DEC foresaw that the rise of the killer micros > was going to be as bad as it was, and managed to convince a few people > that IBM PC-compatibles and their consumer OSes were the future for > all. > > I seriously hope that this is not true, and that nobody foresaw > computing as it exists today. Yeah, what a horrible world we live in -- affordable, powerful hardware capable of running a wide variety of free, powerful, and useful operating systems and software and emulating every vintage system under the sun. A world -wide-network making the collecting and maintainance of our hobby projects possible. Digital watches. Yeah, we live in the worst of all possible worlds. Christ. You guys are too cynical for me... - josh > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iEYEARECAAYFAkoxY3UACgkQF9H43UytGibRjwCfb0EAr7ho/+pNOyOA2HVu6Quj > KUkAn0GctlUNfCWbyr0Nu3R5K7MciDYA > =lSXK > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 15:39:01 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:39:01 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31685F.3080301@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <4A31685F.3080301@gmail.com> Message-ID: <87007250-42AA-4418-9CC0-CACD2CB6F8C0@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 4:26 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: >> IRIX - I wish it wasn't a dead end, as it is really an amazing >> OS and it ran on amazing hardware. >> > I always wanted to get a SGI box and try to run IRIX on it. I can probably hook you up. My storage locker is in Madeira Beach; I'll drop you a note the next time I head up there. I think I have some SGI gear left in there. (but I'm not turning loose of the Jurassic Classic, even though its power supply is dead!) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jun 11 15:36:49 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:36:49 -0600 Subject: PDP-8/L on eBay In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:06:47 +0200. <4A3155C7.6080105@update.uu.se> Message-ID: In article <4A3155C7.6080105 at update.uu.se>, Pontus writes: > Since I've seen it posted on other forums, I guess interested people > already know. Anyone seriously looking for this stuff already has canned ebay searches that alert them within 24 hrs. of it being listed... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 11 15:39:50 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:39:50 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A316648.7030302@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200906111639.50806.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 11 June 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > Graphics hardware has *no* place on a server. The fact that many > servers have graphics hardware doesn't change this. Though > admittedly it is somewhat of a matter of opinion, I have damn good > reasons for my opinion. Howzabout an SGI box, or (it's "modern replacement") a render farm? Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 11 15:45:10 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:45:10 -0700 Subject: Nearly there with IBM 029 KeyPunch References: <8EDCD62B-7D2E-4831-95A4-4F63ED0E73D5@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <4A316CD5.D305D3CA@cs.ubc.ca> Roger Holmes wrote: > > > From: Brent Hilpert > > > > My remaining concern might be that even with the new C bringing the > > V up, > > the regulation function of the supply may have been lost if the > > transformer > > is no longer functioning in the regions it was designed to. > > Yes, but relays are unlikely to be damaged by a few volts too much. Not a concern about damaging the relays, rather that the voltage may vary with different load conditions (number of relays energised / state of the machine). How consequential that issue is in this 'small' machine, I don't know, but IBM did bother to provide it with a regulated supply, although that could have been motivated by supply-side concerns. > My concern is the current in the intermediate winding could damage > itself. > > So far so good but I am charging a much larger capacitance for a > slightly longer period so I would think the current would be higher. > To get 48 volts I am going to have to add about another 6 uF, so about > 48 F instead of 15, so very roughly three times the current, assuming > (and its a big assumption I can't justify), that the voltage is the > same. The other thing that changes with f is the inductive impedance of all the (other) windings of the transformer. Ferro-resonance transformers do not rely only on the resonance principle, magnetic/inductive issues are also very involved. I'm not at all convinced that simply changing the C is adapting the supply for the new frequency (50 Hz). That you are having to go so far off the theoretical new C would tend to support this. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 15:45:33 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:45:33 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: > Yeah, ?what a horrible world we live in... > ... Digital watches. _I_ do not happen to be wearing a digital watch... http://www.ledwatchstop.com/store/watch-zerone-ltblue-p-307.html -ethan From ragooman at comcast.net Thu Jun 11 15:48:21 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:48:21 -0400 Subject: TEACO Floppy drive Tester - any info available online ? In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EFEBF.8000805@comcast.net> <4A2FCA49.8040200@verizon.net> <4A307C04.8070503@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A316D95.5050008@comcast.net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > I wish I'd known about that one - I'm about 3.5 hrs from Butler (and I > go camping near there every July/August I'm in the States). If it's a > good hamfest, I know the region and it's not too far to make the trek. > > I'll have to watch for that next year. > no problem, I'll keep your email addr on the copy list then for the next time I send out the announcement for the vintage computer exhibit there next year. That link from the previous post has more pics from the hamfest. =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 15:48:58 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:48:58 -1000 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A316DBA.1040500@databasics.us> Tony Duell wrote: >> I rememebr seeing a 2.7kF (yes, kilofarad) capactior in a catalogue, but >> I think it's now been discontinued... I've never seen anythlng larger. >> Good Lord.... How big was that thing? And, what voltage? Warren From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 15:53:02 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:53:02 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3164FD.4050102@vaxen.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net><511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com><200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org><575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com><575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <60413E65-5228-4EEB-9A45-46B83F7FB11F@mail.msu.edu> <4A3164FD.4050102@vaxen.net> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 4:14 PM, Doc wrote: >>>>> Funny thing is Apple sells mostly laptops >>>> >>>> Really? What are the statistics on that? >>>> >>>>> and a bunch of people I know have switched from Apple laptops >>>>> to Thinkpads recently. >>>> >>>> Heh. I guess they got tired of the stability. ;) >>>> >>> >>> Or having their laps burn off... I had a Macbook Pro and it was >>> painful to use as a laptop due to the heat... :) >> Oh, that was one of the new(old) x86 machines. The ones with >> the modern PPC processors run much cooler. ;) > > Jesus, Dave, put it in a .sig and give it a rest. You're > starting to sound like the guys on bicycles - the ones with the > white shirts and black ties. Thanks Doc! I haven't mentioned anything about this, anywhere, in probably a year. The only thing I like less than x86 is x86 fanboys. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 15:53:48 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:53:48 -0400 Subject: PDP-8/L on eBay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 4:36 PM, Richard wrote: >> Since I've seen it posted on other forums, I guess interested people >> already know. > > Anyone seriously looking for this stuff already has canned ebay > searches that alert them within 24 hrs. of it being listed... You're probably right. I wonder what it'll go for. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 15:54:50 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:54:50 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906111639.50806.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A316648.7030302@gmail.com> <200906111639.50806.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 4:39 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> Graphics hardware has *no* place on a server. The fact that many >> servers have graphics hardware doesn't change this. Though >> admittedly it is somewhat of a matter of opinion, I have damn good >> reasons for my opinion. > > Howzabout an SGI box, or (it's "modern replacement") a render farm? Well, if it's a workstation, sure. But if it sits in a datacenter crunching math or databases or something? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 15:52:25 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:52:25 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A316648.7030302@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 4:17 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: >> In my experience, the difference between "workstation" and >> "server" is how you use it. A "server" is a computer running >> various daemons that make the "server" machine the central point >> for activity of network clients. Web server, FTP server, mail >> server, NIS server, NFS server, Samba server, etc. A >> "workstation" is everything else. Web browsing (MySpace), >> Solitaire, and Minesweeper. >> >> For me, "server" hardware (that meant to be used as a server and >> not a workstation) is just specialized workstation hardware >> designed to maximize processor and data throughput. > > It's more a matter of "computer" hardware being specialized to be > an effective workstation or an effective server. There are big > differences, despite many people very commonly using workstations > as servers. > >> Geneally, these machines are also undesirable to be used as >> workstations (nonstandard disk options [RAID arrays and lack of >> CD-ROM], > > RAID array is quite a common "standard" disk configuration on > servers. I don't think I've seen a server in the past ten years > that didn't have an optical drive, though. > >> lack of a local console, graphics that go no further than 2D >> hardware accel, or even standard VGA), but can seriously >> outperform most workstations and some gaming rigs. > > Graphics hardware has *no* place on a server. The fact that many > servers have graphics hardware doesn't change this. Though > admittedly it is somewhat of a matter of opinion, I have damn good > reasons for my opinion. > > -Dave > Graphics hardware on a server becomes useful if the server needs to be fixed. Though my idea of "graphics hardware" is a cheap VGA monitor and VESA text mode. Some of those VESA advanced text modes are nice. 132x60 is nice on a 21" display. It's also good for debugging. Otherwise, servers need no display, and should have no display. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxbokACgkQF9H43UytGiYq/gCfSi8pxKuddFUmIGkczIFYK7V5 v4IAn1aGqcR0muBWKZ47CmvwENRhhuLG =qb6N -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 15:54:20 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:54:20 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906111639.50806.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A316648.7030302@gmail.com> <200906111639.50806.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4A316EFC.90500@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Thursday 11 June 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: >> Graphics hardware has *no* place on a server. The fact that many >> servers have graphics hardware doesn't change this. Though >> admittedly it is somewhat of a matter of opinion, I have damn >> good reasons for my opinion. > > Howzabout an SGI box, or (it's "modern replacement") a render farm? > > > Pat Yes, but having the hardware is one thing. Having it as part of a local console (and for a PC, or other x86 server, a "local console" to me is an attached monitor, keyboard, and mouse.) is another. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxbvsACgkQF9H43UytGiaKAQCgsOljslcXP+OT43GrXa+BAP8D kwwAniYvcGXGiOyDT66/ctIMHxDQADHg =riUU -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 15:58:11 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:58:11 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> Message-ID: <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mark Davidson wrote: > Ok, gotta throw my 2 cents in here... :) > > On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Zane H. Healy > wrote: >> Mac OS X - It is a resource hog, and I question the efficiency of >> the microkernal, especially based on tests against Linux. > > True, but what a development framework! :) Yeah, but you have to use that horrid mess called Objective-C to use said framework. Which, all-in-all, makes said framework useless crap. I want to shoot the people responsible for Objective-C. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxb+IACgkQF9H43UytGiYtvwCeJXGD5xi89AarV4CUHPTxDHTm 5SwAoLUdavxaDvAggnWsRL7eMwggVepI =lRL5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 15:58:49 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:58:49 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <7d3530220906111358h703920ddo177d9f492fe697fd@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: >> Yeah, ?what a horrible world we live in... >> ... Digital watches. > > _I_ do not happen to be wearing a digital watch... > > http://www.ledwatchstop.com/store/watch-zerone-ltblue-p-307.html > > -ethan > Are you claiming that watch is not digital and you are wearing it? Or that it is the only True Digital Watch and you're *not* wearing it? John the confused -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 16:00:00 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:00:00 -1000 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> <34A0F926-E7E8-400A-B71A-6FD0E4FBA856@neurotica.com> <4A2EADFD.18958D84@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A317050.8080108@databasics.us> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 9, 2009, at 2:46 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: >>>>>> (incidentally, how come MF does not mean Mega Farad) >>>>> Since the largest capacitor I have ever heard of is 100 Farads, it >>>>> really doesn't seem likely that there will be any confusion. >>>> >>>> Would a "thunder cloud" be considered a capacitor? >>> >>> Of course, with the other "plate" being the earth. >>> >>>> If so, how many MF would lightning take? >>> >>> LOTS. Think plate area. :) >> >> Without some numbers, I'm not entirely sure about that. Large plate >> area but >> also a rather thick dielectric and hence large plate separation. Yes, a >> tremendous amount of energy is released in a lightning strike (aka >> dielectric >> breakdown) but that comes with a very high voltage. C=Q/V, energy is >> also a >> function of Q & V, large amount of energy does not necessarily imply >> large C. > > Hmm yes, I agree. I'd love to do a SPICE simulation of some sort of > oscillator using a cloud/earth capacitor. :) I'm just grateful the dielectric is self-healing after breakover.... Warren From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:05:45 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:05:45 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906111327.59564.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <200906111327.59564.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4A3171A9.20700@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Patrick Finnegan wrote: > FWIW, sometimes the "it has to be free" attitude of Debian gets > annoying or in the way, but when they have their shit together, > they seem to make a damn fine OS. > > Pat What can you say? They're Socialist! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxcakACgkQF9H43UytGiZLxgCfd3dAGV+QpY/z07gYJ8pYC0TN FXYAoMGZRGYthLfYmd34eR4hz4uiri1R =IFLr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 16:06:05 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:06:05 -1000 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A2EC893.6050602@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> <34A0F926-E7E8-400A-B71A-6FD0E4FBA856@neurotica.com> <4A2EADFD.18958D84@cs.ubc.ca> <4A2EC893.6050602@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4A3171BD.7050507@databasics.us> bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > Josh Dersch wrote: > >> Then add in a flux-capacitor / delorean simulator to test out Doc >> Brown's theories on time travel... > > That goes with the other thread ... Earliest mobile computer :) > Notice that only in Star trek/Bab 5 are computers used ... Every > other kind > of Si-Fi is all analog. :) Wot? Let's just take the other major SF franchise, Star Wars. 'Droids. Digital, no? Same for MANY others, if not all. Heck, what SF were you thinking of that's all analog? Forbidden Planet? Warren From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 16:07:12 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:07:12 -1000 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> <34A0F926-E7E8-400A-B71A-6FD0E4FBA856@neurotica.com> <4A2EADFD.18958D84@cs.ubc.ca> <4A2EC893.6050602@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4A317200.5060702@databasics.us> William Donzelli wrote: > "Just what do you think you're doing, Ben? Ben, I really think I'm > entitled to an answer to that question." Nicely played, sir. Warren From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 16:09:52 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:09:52 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A316648.7030302@gmail.com> <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com> Message-ID: <90A4BF9E-6AE1-46E1-97E8-B223052D3A2A@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 4:52 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > Graphics hardware on a server becomes useful if the server needs to be > fixed. *A console* on a server becomes useful if the server needs to be fixed. That console being a bit-mapped framebuffer with megabytes of software required to support it adds huge amounts of complexity to a debugging situation. Bad idea. This is why the very beefiest of servers still have very simple serial consoles. -Dave > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:08:33 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:08:33 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A315311.6080605@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <4A315311.6080605@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A317251.6000905@gmail.com> Kirn Gill wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> Kirn Gill wrote: >>> It might seem odd, but I don't know how to use 'ed'. I kinda know >>> 'ex' due to the fact 'vi' is 'ex' turned from a line editor to a >>> screen editor. Most of what I know about computers from way back >>> is mostly limited to UNIX (and that's only because UNIX didn't >>> die like the other OSes.) >> I hate statements like this. Died like what OSes? MVS? VM? VSE? >> There are a bunch of OSes from back then which are still around. >> >> Peace... Sridhar > TOPS-20. ITS. TENEX. CP/M. > There, I named four, I can't think of any others at the moment. It's still a sweeping generalization. Peace... Sridhar From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:10:07 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:10:07 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Liam Proven wrote: > Meanwhile, if Haiku keeps it together, in a few years' time, it has > the potential to be a really fast, smooth, POSIX-compatible GUI > desktop OS that could stomp all over desktop Linux in performance. > > But probably, something like Google Android will get there first, > sadly. Android? Performance? What kind of performance do you expect to get out of something mostly written in Java? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxcq4ACgkQF9H43UytGiaUdQCgwhTXEUTSpteKL9LlmF00+GMG 4iYAn0Vf+2ZiOY/DgLI3N4W6vAiZ15Bs =Tvfs -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Thu Jun 11 16:11:08 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:11:08 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4C309415-7F14-46AF-BE89-39D5FE30A421@mail.msu.edu> On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Mark Davidson wrote: >> Ok, gotta throw my 2 cents in here... :) >> >> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Zane H. Healy >> wrote: >>> Mac OS X - It is a resource hog, and I question the efficiency of >>> the microkernal, especially based on tests against Linux. >> >> True, but what a development framework! :) > Yeah, but you have to use that horrid mess called Objective-C to use > said framework. Beats the pants off C++. > > Which, all-in-all, makes said framework useless crap. > > I want to shoot the people responsible for Objective-C. Any -specific- objections to the language? And kid, seriously, calm the hell down... Josh > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iEYEARECAAYFAkoxb+IACgkQF9H43UytGiYtvwCeJXGD5xi89AarV4CUHPTxDHTm > 5SwAoLUdavxaDvAggnWsRL7eMwggVepI > =lRL5 > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:12:54 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:12:54 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A317356.8020907@gmail.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > I accidentally ran my Macbook battery down last year (fell asleep on > the couch), and it terminated a 183-day login session. I find the > stability to be acceptable. I've had ThinkPads go longer than that. However, they were not running Windows. Peace... Sridhar From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:14:00 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:14:00 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3171A9.20700@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <200906111327.59564.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A3171A9.20700@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906111414la47b28bh80c2f64845612220@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > > Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> FWIW, sometimes the "it has to be free" attitude of Debian gets >> annoying or in the way, but when they have their shit together, >> they seem to make a damn fine OS. >> >> Pat > > What can you say? They're Socialist! Every single mail message does not necessarily require a response. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From chris at mainecoon.com Thu Jun 11 16:16:26 2009 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Christian Kennedy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:16:26 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > I want to shoot the people responsible for Objective-C. Funny, I know more people who want to shoot the people responsible for C++. -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 11 16:16:47 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:16:47 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <200906111639.50806.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200906111716.47730.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 11 June 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 4:39 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >> Graphics hardware has *no* place on a server. The fact that > >> many servers have graphics hardware doesn't change this. Though > >> admittedly it is somewhat of a matter of opinion, I have damn good > >> reasons for my opinion. > > > > Howzabout an SGI box, or (it's "modern replacement") a render farm? > > Well, if it's a workstation, sure. But if it sits in a datacenter > crunching math or databases or something? I'm not sure how a cluster of rack-mount headless machines that use the video card's GPU as a co-processor is a collection of workstations, and not a collection of servers. GPUs can do a lot of math, very quickly (though aren't necessarily as accurate as general purpose processors). Otoh, I prefer serial consoles on servers to video consoles, even if my coworkers tend to disagree. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 16:19:18 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:19:18 -1000 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <4A3174D6.2090002@databasics.us> Doug Jackson wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: >> On 9 Jun 2009 at 13:49, John Floren wrote: >> >> >>> ed /is/ the standard editor >>> >> >> Just curious, does anyone here use (as their editor) Epsilon? >> >> --Chuck >> >> > No - I don't but I am reminded of my youth. > > Years ago I used to repair PC's (Back when you had to type stuff to do > things, and when the 8087 was just awesome...) My editor of choice > was the MSDOS EDLIN tool. Without fail, every client who watched me > working asked why I didn't use QEDIT34 or ExtraED98 or > "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", to which I would always reply - 'you > may have "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", but I can never guarantee the > next client will have it, so I got good at using the standard editor! > > That saved me so much time! All true, but EDLIN was way dumb. Reliable, but dumb. When I went to client sites, I always took a few diskettes -- and would load some public domain utilities and some batch files to the client machines. Among these diskettes was a copy of PC vi, and an editor called "BlackBeard" which was very cool. Among other characteristics, it would format a block of plain text, by breaking at word boundaries, and leave a plain ASCII text file. Very nice. I just looked around, and found a page of software downloads for editors: http://www.eunet.bg/simtel.net/msdos/editor-pre.html PC XEDIT is there, which was mentioned lately. Gosh, it's like an ecumenical convention over there! Warren From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:19:45 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:19:45 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A3174F1.8030804@gmail.com> Josh Dersch wrote: >> Most likely someone at DEC foresaw that the rise of the killer micros >> was going to be as bad as it was, and managed to convince a few people >> that IBM PC-compatibles and their consumer OSes were the future for all. >> >> I seriously hope that this is not true, and that nobody foresaw >> computing as it exists today. > > Yeah, what a horrible world we live in -- affordable, powerful hardware > capable of running a wide variety of free, powerful, and useful > operating systems and software and emulating every vintage system under > the sun. A world -wide-network making the collecting and maintainance > of our hobby projects possible. Digital watches. The world we live in today *is* great. But it wouldn't be great without all the invisible *large* **powerful** machines running off in the background somewhere doing a lot of heavy lifting. It's the people who predicted everything would be obsolete except the PC were *wrong*. Peace... Sridhar From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:20:55 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:20:55 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A316648.7030302@gmail.com> <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 4:52 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > Graphics hardware on a server becomes useful if the server needs to be > fixed. None of my SPARCservers have graphics hardware, but it's trivial to diagnose and repair them using the console serial port. Same goes for my VAXen. > It's also good for debugging. So is a VT100. An LA120 is better (by creating a literal paper trail). We ran printing consoles on our major machines at work through the end of the 80s. After that, the cost of the paper outweighed the value of what was printed, so we switched to dumb terminals. There was one time, though, when the paper console logs were useful - we came back to work after a weekend to find that someone had spent the entire weekend banging out dictionary attacks on our 11/24 RSTS/E accounting machine. ISTR they did eventually get in (hundreds of pages of printout later). Fortunately for us, it was a quad-RL02 machine and trivial to remove from service and restore. No extra configuration or effort required to save the information - just attach a printing or non-printing terminal to the console port and walk away. -ethan From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:23:56 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:23:56 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A316648.7030302@gmail.com> <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3175EC.3080006@gmail.com> Kirn Gill wrote: > Graphics hardware on a server becomes useful if the server needs to be > fixed. > Though my idea of "graphics hardware" is a cheap VGA monitor and VESA > text mode. > Some of those VESA advanced text modes are nice. > 132x60 is nice on a 21" display. > > It's also good for debugging. > > Otherwise, servers need no display, and should have no display. Not really. A serial console satisfies all those requirements. It also has another advantage. It's much easier to debug problems with a console itself when that console isn't a graphical one, with all the OS drivers, framebuffer chips, and other cruft that a graphical console brings. Peace... Sridhar From ragooman at comcast.net Thu Jun 11 16:24:25 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:24:25 -0400 Subject: TEACO Floppy drive Tester - any info available online ? In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EFEBF.8000805@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A317609.1090304@comcast.net> Steven Hirsch wrote: > I found a similar model (TEACO 4077) at a hamfest several years ago. > The company was still in business and one of the "old timers" there > dug up a photocopy of the manual. > > Yours looks like an IDE/ATA version of my unit (for MFM/RLL drives), > but the basic functions should be similar. > > I'll try to get it scanned this weekend and mail you a PDF. > From the looks of this I was hoping it would support the older mfm/rll floppy drives, especially since it has a large connector on there with 0.156" pin spacing. thanks for the help ! =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:24:47 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:24:47 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <90A4BF9E-6AE1-46E1-97E8-B223052D3A2A@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A316648.7030302@gmail.com> <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com> <90A4BF9E-6AE1-46E1-97E8-B223052D3A2A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A31761F.8010903@gmail.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 4:52 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: >> Graphics hardware on a server becomes useful if the server needs to be >> fixed. > > *A console* on a server becomes useful if the server needs to be > fixed. That console being a bit-mapped framebuffer with megabytes of > software required to support it adds huge amounts of complexity to a > debugging situation. Bad idea. This is why the very beefiest of > servers still have very simple serial consoles. Even today, one of my favorite diagnostic tools is the two-digit display on the front of RS/6000s. Peace... Sridhar From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 11 16:25:45 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:25:45 -0600 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A317050.8080108@databasics.us> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> <34A0F926-E7E8-400A-B71A-6FD0E4FBA856@neurotica.com> <4A2EADFD.18958D84@cs.ubc.ca> <4A317050.8080108@databasics.us> Message-ID: <4A317659.7030604@jetnet.ab.ca> Warren Wolfe wrote: > I'm just grateful the dielectric is self-healing after breakover.... It is the voice from the clouds that scare me ... *This is your first Warning* Ben From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 16:27:57 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:27:57 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A317251.6000905@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <4A315311.6080605@gmail.com> <4A317251.6000905@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 5:08 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>>> It might seem odd, but I don't know how to use 'ed'. I kinda know >>>> 'ex' due to the fact 'vi' is 'ex' turned from a line editor to a >>>> screen editor. Most of what I know about computers from way back >>>> is mostly limited to UNIX (and that's only because UNIX didn't >>>> die like the other OSes.) >>> I hate statements like this. Died like what OSes? MVS? VM? VSE? >>> There are a bunch of OSes from back then which are still around. >>> >>> Peace... Sridhar >> TOPS-20. ITS. TENEX. CP/M. >> There, I named four, I can't think of any others at the moment. > > It's still a sweeping generalization. This place is full of 'em. I deal with it by taking off my pants and sitting back with a glass of sangria. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 16:29:27 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:29:27 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> Message-ID: <86151387-B120-4921-9A1E-07163B889D41@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 5:10 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > Android? Performance? What kind of performance do you expect to get > out of something mostly written in Java? It certainly did seem to fizzle though, didn't it? I know of *one* person who bought one, and he doesn't even use it anymore due to the bugs. I had high hopes for it. I think someone should build a smart phone around a T11 chip. :) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:27:11 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:27:11 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3176AF.5080006@gmail.com> Kirn Gill wrote: > Android? Performance? What kind of performance do you expect to get > out of something mostly written in Java? High performance Java code does exist. Peace... Sridhar From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Thu Jun 11 16:28:27 2009 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:28:27 +0100 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <1BAC2F3D-820E-4575-AB46-A9B82FBC63FB@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <1BAC2F3D-820E-4575-AB46-A9B82FBC63FB@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3176FB.1010305@philpem.me.uk> Joost van de Griek wrote: > Every now and then, I run into one of those morons that plans to > "streamline" or "optimise" IT operations by standardising on a single > platform... Funny how square pegs don't usually fit into round holes. > Dog: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - they must be gods! > Cat: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - I must be a god! Chinchilla: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - I need to escape! -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 11 16:30:57 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:30:57 -0700 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A316035.7040404@gmail.com> References: <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> <4A316035.7040404@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A317791.2010408@brouhaha.com> Kirn Gill wrote: > Let's stick to the realm of x86 virtualization here, because that's > the architecture I know best. > > Starting off, generally, when you preform virtualization, your VM runs > (usually) under an OS. Some vendors extol the virtues of running a hypervisor on "bare metal". Of course, all this really means is that they're running it under a completely proprietary host operating system rather than on Linux or Windows. Perhaps there is some benefit if the off-the-shelf host operating system gets in the way of the hypervisor, but I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that Linux does. (I don't know enough about the details of the Windows kernel to comment on that.) Eric From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 16:34:05 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:34:05 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A317356.8020907@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <4A317356.8020907@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 5:12 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> I accidentally ran my Macbook battery down last year (fell asleep on >> the couch), and it terminated a 183-day login session. I find the >> stability to be acceptable. > > I've had ThinkPads go longer than that. However, they were not > running Windows. What OS? NetBSD? Gotta love machines with built-in UPSs. Oh, and you'll be pleased to know that my boss asked me about Scala yesterday. I forgot to mention that to you on the phone earlier. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 11 16:31:52 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:31:52 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A317251.6000905@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A315311.6080605@gmail.com>, <4A317251.6000905@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A311558.3019.34B2F1F2@cclist.sydex.com> Kirn Gill wrote: > There, I named four, I can't think of any others at the moment. In this entire discussion, no one mentioned Netware. Wow. How soon we forget... --Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:33:56 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:33:56 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A317844.7030301@gmail.com> Christian Kennedy wrote: > > On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > >> I want to shoot the people responsible for Objective-C. > > Funny, I know more people who want to shoot the people responsible for C++. Isn't that mostly just one person? Peace... Sridhar From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 16:34:13 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:34:13 -1000 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A2EE6E2.3030804@stillhq.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> <06653695-D603-4C24-9B5A-B678715B9B69@neurotica.com> <4A2EE6E2.3030804@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <4A317855.2040108@databasics.us> Doug Jackson wrote: > Stopped relying on floppies after I did some work for a government > organisation here (who shall remain nameless) - who gave me a shiny > new box of floppies to replace my box of diag floppies after they had > been in their site. Bummer! > > Nowadays - they simply dont let the media in at all! Ouch. Always take COPIES of your diskettes when you go on-site. One never knows... You can't have a fool-proof system; the fools are too ingenious. Warren From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 11 16:34:50 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:34:50 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A31787A.2080703@brouhaha.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > _I_ do not happen to be wearing a digital watch... > > http://www.ledwatchstop.com/store/watch-zerone-ltblue-p-307.html Well, if you're not wearing the digital watch seen at that URL, what *are* you doing with it? Eric From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 16:37:44 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:37:44 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 5:16 PM, Christian Kennedy wrote: >> I want to shoot the people responsible for Objective-C. > > Funny, I know more people who want to shoot the people responsible > for C++. I fall into that camp, though admittedly I've not looked at Objective-C. The more I look at [what I perceive to be] really *clean* languages (I'm thinking of Scheme right now), the more I abhor C++. I'm just glad the portability seems to be getting better over time. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 11 16:37:39 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:37:39 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A317924.ADBADD6B@cs.ubc.ca> Kirn Gill wrote: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Liam Proven wrote: > > Meanwhile, if Haiku keeps it together, in a few years' time, it has > > the potential to be a really fast, smooth, POSIX-compatible GUI > > desktop OS that could stomp all over desktop Linux in performance. > > > > But probably, something like Google Android will get there first, > > sadly. > Android? Performance? What kind of performance do you expect to get > out of something mostly written in Java? > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iEYEARECAAYFAkoxcq4ACgkQF9H43UytGiaUdQCgwhTXEUTSpteKL9LlmF00+GMG > 4iYAn0Vf+2ZiOY/DgLI3N4W6vAiZ15Bs > =Tvfs > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Topicality lecture time again, esp. for the newby: There are now several threads under the same subject heading. One or two of those threads might have something to do with 'classic computing'. While I might be accused of contributing to off-topic threads myself in the past few days (cloud C & lightning) the difference there is the thread was a couple of messages, had a fast decline in traffic, and was somewhat unique. All this stuff about preferences for and the (current) state of OS X, Haiku, Linux, Debian, Windows, et al has no business being here. It's a common (as in mundane) debate which is not about to be resolved here and has no foreseeable resolution, i.e. it's just going to generate an ongoing stream of off-topic messages. There are many other places on the net to debate such issues if that is really what you are interested in. Quit it, here. And reading in between all that PGP crap in every message is quite annoying. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 11 16:38:08 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:38:08 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <90A4BF9E-6AE1-46E1-97E8-B223052D3A2A@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com>, <90A4BF9E-6AE1-46E1-97E8-B223052D3A2A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A3116D0.3764.34B8B23C@cclist.sydex.com> On 11 Jun 2009 at 17:09, Dave McGuire wrote: > *A console* on a server becomes useful if the server needs to be > fixed. That console being a bit-mapped framebuffer with megabytes of > software required to support it adds huge amounts of complexity to a > debugging situation. Bad idea. This is why the very beefiest of > servers still have very simple serial consoles. I agree with you, there. Unless I know that I'm going to need some GUI interfaced program, I generally install *nix without X. My exposure to Unix dates from about 1981 and it just feels wrong somehow to run a GUI on top of it. --Chuck From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 16:40:23 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:40:23 -1000 Subject: Editor (Was: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <20090609174839.S33811@shell.lmi.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2E76B3.20345.2A770DBF@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com> <20090609174839.S33811@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A3179C7.1000702@databasics.us> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Doug Jackson wrote: > >> No - I don't but I am reminded of my youth. . . >> "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", to which I would always reply - 'you may >> have "InsertAwesomeEditorNameHere", but I can never guarantee the next >> client will have it, so I got good at using the standard editor! >> > > I used Windows WRITE for my PhD written exams. I was the first person in > the department to ever use a word processor for the writtens! > (I wanted my answers to be logible) > > > Shortly after my father died, one of his friends decided to wipe > some programs from his computer. His buddy, who "knows all about > computers", erased *.* > When that seemed to leave two file behind, he erased . and erased .. > When I repaired the file deletions, I needed to edit his AUTOEXEC.BAT > His buddy was being obnoxiously overly present. As soon as I started > DEBUG to edit with, his buddy found a reason to leave in a hurry. > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > That reminds me.... The precursor to WordStar was a program called WordMaster. It was pretty nice, given the timeframe, and would allow one to edit in all sorts of control characters, etc. It would even let one enter an EOF character into the file, thus terminating it for any O/S based operation. It would ask if you REALLY wanted to do that, and if you typed the "Y" it would do it, and then leave "TURKEY" up on the screen for about two or three seconds. I loved that. Warren From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:40:50 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:40:50 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A317356.8020907@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <4A317356.8020907@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: >> >> I accidentally ran my Macbook battery down last year (fell asleep on >> the couch), and it terminated a 183-day login session. ?I find the >> stability to be acceptable. > > I've had ThinkPads go longer than that. ?However, they were not running > Windows. It was running great, right up to the point that it was off AC mains. After that, it was a matter of time. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:41:46 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:41:46 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 5:16 PM, Christian Kennedy wrote: > > On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > >> I want to shoot the people responsible for Objective-C. > > Funny, I know more people who want to shoot the people responsible for C++. *shuffles over to the second camp*. -ethan From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 11 16:44:07 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:44:07 -0700 Subject: Supercaps (was Re: IBM 029 progress) In-Reply-To: <4A316DBA.1040500@databasics.us> References: <4A316DBA.1040500@databasics.us> Message-ID: <4A317AA7.20705@brouhaha.com> Tony Duell wrote: >> I rememebr seeing a 2.7kF (yes, kilofarad) capactior in a catalogue, >> but I think it's now been discontinued... I've never seen anythlng >> larger. >> Warren Wolfe wrote: > Good Lord.... How big was that thing? And, what voltage? Possibly an Epcos B49410B2276Q000, now obsolete. It was 75mm diameter by 150mm tall, rated at 2.5V (2.8V surge). Epcos made supercaps up to 5kF, but they appear to have gotten out of that market. Capacitors up to 100F are readily available from other vendors; I haven't looked for alternate sources of larger values. Eric From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 16:46:16 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:46:16 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4C309415-7F14-46AF-BE89-39D5FE30A421@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> <4C309415-7F14-46AF-BE89-39D5FE30A421@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: >> Yeah, but you have to use that horrid mess called Objective-C to use >> said framework. > > Beats the pants off C++. *nods* >> Which, all-in-all, makes said framework useless crap. >> >> I want to shoot the people responsible for Objective-C. > > Any -specific- objections to the language? I just went to a lunch-time presentation about developing an iPhone app. The only real problem I had was that the presenter really only knew Java (self-admitted), and any aspect of Objective C that wasn't Java-like confused him (he really did ask the audience if ".h" include files were part of C or not because he did *not* know the difference between C and Objective C). I guess it must be a whiz-bang development environment if someone who just doesn't know the language can write apps in it that are available for sale right now. He did say one thing that illuminated much for me - how many things are labelled "NS" because they came from NeXTStep. The rest of the room remained in the dark, but the light came on over my head. It makes me want to go home and fire up my NeXT cube. -ethan From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 16:46:29 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:46:29 -1000 Subject: Who's dead? (was RE: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> References: <697B813B-830F-4796-9A8C-93C55417F0C3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A317B35.4040403@databasics.us> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 9, 2009, at 10:45 PM, Ian King wrote: >> Your definition of "from way back" seems somewhat limited... by the >> way, did you realize that VMS is still a supported OS, more than >> thirty years after its introduction? > > Not only supported, but still under very active development! > >> Further, your reluctance to use non-screen-oriented editors is, >> shall we say, 'bad juju' in this community. While I certainly prefer >> a screen editor such as vi (and not such as EMACS), I can easily do >> ed or TECO as needed, because I MUST in order to work with truly >> vintage systems. -- Ian > > Please cut the guy some slack, Ian. The OP was Kirn, who is 19. > His idea of "way back" is pretty different from yours or mine. > > -Dave Ah, that magical age when DDR has nothing to do with East Germany... Warren From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 16:51:21 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:51:21 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906111716.47730.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <200906111639.50806.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200906111716.47730.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 5:16 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >>>> Graphics hardware has *no* place on a server. The fact that >>>> many servers have graphics hardware doesn't change this. Though >>>> admittedly it is somewhat of a matter of opinion, I have damn good >>>> reasons for my opinion. >>> >>> Howzabout an SGI box, or (it's "modern replacement") a render farm? >> >> Well, if it's a workstation, sure. But if it sits in a datacenter >> crunching math or databases or something? > > I'm not sure how a cluster of rack-mount headless machines that use > the > video card's GPU as a co-processor is a collection of workstations, > and > not a collection of servers. Oh, well that's another matter entirely. A coprocessor board does not a graphical console make! ;) *poke* > GPUs can do a lot of math, very quickly (though aren't necessarily as > accurate as general purpose processors). I'd love to hack on that at some point. > Otoh, I prefer serial consoles on servers to video consoles, even > if my > coworkers tend to disagree. Lots of people disagree. I'm with you on that one, though. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 16:53:11 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:53:11 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3174F1.8030804@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A3174F1.8030804@gmail.com> Message-ID: <39E28B6C-5E55-40C9-9589-F62AC6ABE9E6@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 5:19 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> Most likely someone at DEC foresaw that the rise of the killer >>> micros >>> was going to be as bad as it was, and managed to convince a few >>> people >>> that IBM PC-compatibles and their consumer OSes were the future >>> for all. >>> >>> I seriously hope that this is not true, and that nobody foresaw >>> computing as it exists today. >> Yeah, what a horrible world we live in -- affordable, powerful >> hardware capable of running a wide variety of free, powerful, and >> useful operating systems and software and emulating every vintage >> system under the sun. A world -wide-network making the collecting >> and maintainance of our hobby projects possible. Digital watches. > > The world we live in today *is* great. But it wouldn't be great > without all the invisible *large* **powerful** machines running off > in the background somewhere doing a lot of heavy lifting. > > It's the people who predicted everything would be obsolete except > the PC were *wrong*. Yup. And that includes the people who assert that everything IS CURRENTLY obsolete except the PC. It seems their idea of viability is defined as "I can buy it at WalMart". Pretty entertaining for the rest of us. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 11 16:51:02 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:51:02 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3174D6.2090002@databasics.us> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A2EDCD2.1060208@stillhq.com>, <4A3174D6.2090002@databasics.us> Message-ID: <4A3119D6.28580.34C48778@cclist.sydex.com> On 11 Jun 2009 at 11:19, Warren Wolfe wrote: > All true, but EDLIN was way dumb. Reliable, but dumb. When I went to > client sites, I always took a few diskettes -- and would load some > public domain utilities and some batch files to the client machines. What's remarkable is that the16 bit MS-DOS editor, EDLIN, was far dumber than the 8-bit CP/M editor ED. You could do some pretty nifty stuff with the latter. --Chuck From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 16:55:27 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:55:27 -1000 Subject: Interesting IBM 5150... or something In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906092033n3dfb48f9k6c07c7a59b7beb05@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906092033n3dfb48f9k6c07c7a59b7beb05@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A317D4F.4080708@databasics.us> Brian Lanning wrote: > I've never heard of this. Looks even more tank-like than the 5150. > Look at the backplane where the cables go in. > > http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-IBM-Tempest-Computer-for-Classified-work_W0QQitemZ190313579086QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2c4f92c24e&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A10|66%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A4|294%3A50 > Oh, for Pete's sake, a Tempest terminal, right when we're talking about classified info. Just so you know, this one is compromised by the insecure monitor (I think - it should be MUCH bigger, and not plastic, if Tempest approved) and the non-Tempest keyboard. "Tank-like" is a very concise description. I worked for a company that made (CP/M capable) Tempest terminals for the Burroughs TD-830 emulation market. The government would not tell you what acceptable levels of emissions were -- a company had to make a prototype, and send it in for testing. A while (gov't time) later, thumbs up or thumbs down. It often took many cycles to get a good one. Once it was approved, they bought them for HUGE prices. Quite a money-maker. Warren From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 11 16:56:33 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:56:33 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4C309415-7F14-46AF-BE89-39D5FE30A421@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> <4C309415-7F14-46AF-BE89-39D5FE30A421@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A317D91.2030409@brouhaha.com> >> I want to shoot the people responsible for Objective-C. > Any -specific- objections to the language? And kid, seriously, calm > the hell down... > I find the language to be OK. Not particularly great, but not as nasty as C++ either. On the other hand, the Cocoa class libraries that everyone else seems to have gone gaga over seem to suck to me. They seem overly complicated and difficult to use, compared to modern GUI class libraries (e.g., Qt, Swing, Android), though I'll credit that they're much easier to use than the old Mac toolbox. I'd much rather be using Qt for the iPhone apps I'm developing, even though I'd have to use C++ to do it. C'est la vie. Eric From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Jun 11 16:56:34 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:56:34 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <1244757395.5593.60.camel@elric> On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 12:44 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 11:35 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > >> There's also the stupid new provision in the installer that you MUST > >> create a local non-root user to install the system. > > > > Although this is offtopic for other reasons, it's probably been > > about 10 > > years since I had a usable root account on any system I've installed. > > These days you should be using sudo. > > That's a pretty big sweeping assertion, one with which I > wholeheartedly disagree. Sudo has been around for a very long time, > and while it makes great sense for newbies, it gets in the way when > people who know what they're doing are trying to manage a system. Likewise, having a root account makes great sense for newbies, but for more experienced users sudo is the way to go. Let the newbies make their "oops I accidentally /var while logged in as root", and let the proper sysadmins use the grown-up tools. Gordon From shumaker at att.net Thu Jun 11 16:57:05 2009 From: shumaker at att.net (steve shumaker) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:57:05 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906101142m23168d5bxb7645873efaf0bb2@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <7d3530220906101045y214bfa35wb445df6f2c5a579d@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906101142m23168d5bxb7645873efaf0bb2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A317DB1.9010507@att.net> yes. same one. steve shumaker John Floren wrote: > On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > >> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 1:45 PM, John Floren wrote: >> >>> At this point, Multics does not run anywhere in the world and, to my >>> knowledge, nobody even has the hardware to run it... well, CHM has >>> DOCKMASTER, but can that still run? >>> >> Is that the same Dockmaster that Cliff Stoll mentioned in "The Cuckoo's Egg"? >> >> -ethan >> >> > > If "The Cuckoo's Egg" is about the NSA, then probably yes? > > From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 11 16:58:42 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:58:42 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906111414la47b28bh80c2f64845612220@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A3171A9.20700@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111414la47b28bh80c2f64845612220@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200906111758.42580.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 11 June 2009, John Floren wrote: > On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > > Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >> FWIW, sometimes the "it has to be free" attitude of Debian gets > >> annoying or in the way, but when they have their shit together, > >> they seem to make a damn fine OS. > >> > >> Pat > > > > What can you say? They're Socialist! > > Every single mail message does not necessarily require a response. Indeed. ;) Sigh, I'm a bit surprised that Jay hasn't stepped in and pulled the plug on this mess yet. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Jun 11 17:00:15 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:00:15 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> Message-ID: <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 11:39 -0500, Daniel Seagraves wrote: > The next line is the important one. All my users and passwords come > via the network. Root's mail gets sent to another account on another > machine. The installer wants me to make a LOCAL user to sudo and etc > but I want to use my REMOTE for that. For that I do the initial setup > as root and then disable it. If I do things Debian's way I have to set > up root and user passwords, log in as the user, sudo to set up the > machine, make my remote user able to sudo, redirect root's mail, then > remove the local user and hunt through the entire system looking for > anywhere that username may have been referenced and remove it. (or > leave the local user there as a time bomb to come back and kill me > later WHEN (not IF) someone hacks it) If you're rolling out *that* many boxes that use some sort of common auth system, you might be better creating a suitably tweaked installer. That way you have a common image that you push to the box, maybe even netbooting it, and you don't have to worry about footering around with the config after - you can even include the packages you want that aren't installed by default. As someone said once before, the sequence goes "repetition, boredom, complacency, horrible accident, 'Jeeez I wish I was still bored'..." Gordon From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 11 17:01:56 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:01:56 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <86151387-B120-4921-9A1E-07163B889D41@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> <86151387-B120-4921-9A1E-07163B889D41@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A317ED4.9090202@brouhaha.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > It certainly did seem to fizzle though, didn't it? I know of *one* person who bought one, Anecdotal evidence aside, all indications are that it is selling quite well. While there are few models of Android phone available today, there will be many more from many vendors before the end of this year. > and he doesn't even use it anymore due to the bugs. I had high hopes for it. Which bugs? I've been using one since the day before the public release of the G1, and I haven't noticed any particularly horrible bugs. I got a Google Ion running 1.5 ("Cupcake") recently, and 1.5 seems even better. T-Mobile did finally push Cupcake for the G1 recently. Eric From pcw at mesanet.com Thu Jun 11 16:55:02 2009 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:55:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A3176FB.1010305@philpem.me.uk> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <1BAC2F3D-820E-4575-AB46-A9B82FBC63FB@gmail.com> <4A3176FB.1010305@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Philip Pemberton wrote: > Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:28:27 +0100 > From: Philip Pemberton > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > ; > Subject: Re: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) > > Joost van de Griek wrote: >> Every now and then, I run into one of those morons that plans to >> "streamline" or "optimise" IT operations by standardising on a single >> platform... > > Funny how square pegs don't usually fit into round holes. > > >> Dog: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - they must be gods! >> Cat: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - I must be a god! > > Chinchilla: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - I need to escape! Rabbit: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - I need chew through yet another computer cable! Peter Wallace (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 11 17:06:44 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:06:44 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A317FF4.4020905@brouhaha.com> Kirn Gill wrote: > Android? Performance? What kind of performance do you expect to get > out of something mostly written in Java? > I've been using (and developing for) Android, and I've found the UI performance to be comparable to most other phones. The Android team put a lot of effort into making their Dalvik VM efficient, even though it is currently an interpreter without JIT. (They might do JIT in a future software release.) Obviously if you're trying to do nuclear weapons simulation you're not going to do it on Android, but for typical smart phone applications, it's fine. It's possible to write native methods if you really need something to run faster, but it's not recommended since your app won't be portable to Android platforms that use a different processor architecture. Eric From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 17:13:06 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:13:06 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3176AF.5080006@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> <4A3176AF.5080006@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 5:27 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> Android? Performance? What kind of performance do you expect to get >> out of something mostly written in Java? > > High performance Java code does exist. This is true. I've seen Sridhar write it. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Jun 11 17:12:20 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:12:20 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <4A3158E3.5030402@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1244758340.5593.65.camel@elric> On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 16:04 -0400, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > "couple of gigs"? When I think of servers, that's what I think for > > "required storage". 512MB of RAM should be enough for *everybody*, > > including servers. > > Ok, 1GB RAM for those servers that host multi-luser make-believe games. > > You underestimate how quickly badly-written applications grab RAM as > they fail to scale up gracefully. Last night I twittered a comment that some of you may have seen, along the lines that I see no legitimate reason why a Java proggy needs to grab roughly 1.5GB of RAM to transfer a .wav file over MIDI to a sampler with 64kB of addressable RAM. Gordon From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 17:18:07 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:18:07 -1000 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: <7E3C6977-F936-4E54-8570-D66ACE40B0BD@neurotica.com> References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EE41A.A0AA128C@cs.ubc.ca> <7E3C6977-F936-4E54-8570-D66ACE40B0BD@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A31829F.20607@databasics.us> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 9, 2009, at 6:37 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: >> Search for "dielectric absorption", or look up "permittivity" in >> Wikipedia to >> get an idea of just how complex capacitors are (!) > > Yes, I'm aware of their complexity...From my childhood days I > thought they were simple, but in recent years I've studied them pretty > closely. I've been dabbling in metrology for a few years now and have > become amazed at the complexity behind the "simple" things that are > the underpinnings of all things electronic. It's fascinating. Anyone > interested in electronics would do well to investigate this a bit. I'm a NIST certified calibration technician. The amount of dorking around that is done to get around the effects of metal junctions, including all solder joints, and the effects of temperature and humidity, is amazing. Getting great accuracy is surprisingly difficult. Warren From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Jun 11 17:17:48 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:17:48 +0100 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A317659.7030604@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> <34A0F926-E7E8-400A-B71A-6FD0E4FBA856@neurotica.com> <4A2EADFD.18958D84@cs.ubc.ca> <4A317050.8080108@databasics.us> <4A317659.7030604@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <1244758668.5593.66.camel@elric> On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 15:25 -0600, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > Warren Wolfe wrote: > > > I'm just grateful the dielectric is self-healing after breakover.... > It is the voice from the clouds that scare me ... *This is your first Warning* "Awww fsckit, missed *again*..." Gordon From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 17:15:36 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:15:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906111115s2457cea3g12034d1fe7f89d66@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111115s2457cea3g12034d1fe7f89d66@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, John Floren wrote: > Linux filled a hole. To my knowledge, there wasn't really any free > Unix-like available when Linux was first released, so everybody jumped > on the bandwagon. When the *BSDs came along, Linux wasn't that > entrenched yet. By the time Plan 9 was released with a free license > (around 2000), the dust had settled--Linux was on top, with the BSDs > coming along behind. If we had released for free in the early 90s, > maybe everyone would be using Plan 9 (and it would be as warty and > ugly as Linux). Work started on 386BSD prior to the initial release of Linux, however, Linux was more accessible. I'm not sure when HURD was actually started, but it went for *YEARS* with nothing to show for it. Through probably '98 or so BSD was a fairly good contender. During this time Amiga OS and Atari TOS still had a sizable number of holdouts, and BeOS was gaining converts. > Fact is, if it doesn't run Firefox, vim, and gcc, a huge percentage of > the Unix userbase is automatically gone. We don't use X, we do C the > way we like it, and not a lot of people want it. If Haiku were to > repackage Ubuntu with a BeOS theme, they'd probably get far more > users--the simple fact is that if your OS wants to diverge from the > POSIX/Unix compatible world, you're not going to get a lot of users. > You'll get hundreds of emails to the mailing list asking "Why doesn't > it do XYZ exactly like Linux? Your OS sucks". You've hit the key problem. I love playing with Operating Systems, they are what interests me most in the whole "Classic Computing" area. However I have key dependencies on specific applications. For me the core apps I *MUST* have are the Adobe applications, specifically Lightroom, Photoshop, and InDesign. I also have a need for Eudora Pro, and ClarisDraw. All of these are available only on Windows and Mac. The non-Adobe apps are no longer supported (ClarisDraw hasn't been supported since about '95). Another application I have a dependency on would probably be Perl. I don't consider Firefox, vim, gcc, or much else from UNIX to be a dependancy. I do consider an editor that does context colouring to be highly desirable. I prefer to use MS Office, but I don't have to. For databases I'm all over the place, I use FileMaker Pro, Oracle RDB, MySQL, and MS SQL. Something to consider is that there are core applications that any OS needs, and that some of these applications are as large or larger than the OS itself. Then there are the non-core applications that people believe should exist. To me these would include things such as Web Servers and Database Servers. > As Rob Pike said, OS research is dead. (and we killed it) Sad but true. Zane From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Jun 11 17:22:06 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:22:06 +0100 Subject: iSCSI and friends, was Re: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4583768C-62A5-47FB-8922-68A769FFA293@neurotica.com> References: <511547.71892.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4583768C-62A5-47FB-8922-68A769FFA293@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <1244758926.5593.68.camel@elric> On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 12:51 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 12:29 PM, John Finigan wrote: > > iSCSI makes up (in a clumsy way) for a lack of a "first class citizen" > Eh. (and this is WAY OT) iSCSI is kinda interesting; I've been > working with it quite a bit lately. Have you seen ATAoE? It is, as the name implies, ATA over Ethernet. Unlike the 300-page mail-order catalogue of the iSCSI spec, the ATAoE spec is eight pages, mostly taken up with diagrams showing an ATA packet wrapped inside an Ethernet frame. I toyed briefly with the idea of writing an ATAoE target for the PDP11. Not sure if I could port it to OS/2, though, or make it talk to TK50s. Gordon. From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 17:20:23 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:20:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Eric Smith wrote: > Zane H. Healy wrote: >> I find 'sudo' to be very useful. As in 'sudo csh'. :-) > Same here, except that I use a real shell. :-) > > Eric Not to start a shell war, but because I'm curious, what is the shell? Zane From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 17:31:44 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:31:44 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A311558.3019.34B2F1F2@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A315311.6080605@gmail.com> <4A317251.6000905@gmail.com> <4A311558.3019.34B2F1F2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 5:31 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > ?Kirn Gill wrote: > > ?> There, I named four, I can't think of any others at the moment. > > In this entire discussion, no one mentioned Netware. > > Wow. ?How soon we forget... I didn't forget Netware, I blocked it from my memory. I had friends who made lots of money off of it. I stood back and let them do it and never once wanted a piece of that pie (I was doing UNIX and VMS quite happily, and for more money). -ethan From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 17:27:05 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:27:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Doc wrote: > Zane H. Healy wrote: >> >> There are things I like about AIX, but I have a hard time considering it to >> be UNIX, and *I DO NOT LIKE* IBM's attitude towards support of tape drives. > > First rule of administering AIX: > > This Is Not UNIX. Deal with it. I think that was basically my point. Zane From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 17:35:00 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:35:00 -1000 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906101910.n5AJApxY013074@floodgap.com> References: <200906101910.n5AJApxY013074@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4A318694.1070500@databasics.us> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>> _The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know >>> better is the visibility factor. _VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are >>> *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the only >>> thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. _Do these >>> people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions, >>> maintain hospital databases, or run railroads? >>> >> Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers of >> *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd are >> the worst offenders. >> > > I'll drink to that (strychnine, probably). But let's be realistic -- probably the vast majority of people using the "other" O/Ss also use either a Windows machine, a Linux machine, or a Mac, or some combination. I'm okay using quite a few different computers in quite a few O/S environments, but nothing beats having a machine for which new and useful programs are being written every day. The user base drives software development. And, for smart purchasers, software development drives hardware purchase choices. That being said, I am constantly amazed at how many IBM IMS database applications I see running in a week - more than ANY other older system. It's also amazing to see how little the system has changed since I was using it on a daily basis about 25 years ago. That was some freaky cool software for its time. Very functional and intuitive, at the application level. Warren From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 17:35:52 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:35:52 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31787A.2080703@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31787A.2080703@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: >> >> _I_ do not happen to be wearing a digital watch... >> >> http://www.ledwatchstop.com/store/watch-zerone-ltblue-p-307.html > > Well, if you're not wearing the digital watch seen at that URL, what *are* > you doing with it? Digital watch? I see no digits. -ethan From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 17:38:57 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:38:57 -1000 Subject: Transistor Substitution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A318781.10207@databasics.us> Tony Duell wrote: > There is a saying in England : > > 'Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed > him for life'. It has made it across the pond, but with some modifications: 'Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll sit in a boat all day drinking beer. Teach a fisherman to create an artificial shortage of fish, and he'll eat steak.' Warren From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 17:39:26 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:39:26 -0400 Subject: Console debugging (was Re: UNIX V7) Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 5:24 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Even today, one of my favorite diagnostic tools is the two-digit display on > the front of RS/6000s. I haven't had the pleasure, but with so much time spent on various models of Elf, I approve. One of my favorite diagnostic hacks is Morse code messages blinked out via the power LED on an Amiga. If the processor isn't totally wedged and the hardware isn't so broken as to allow I/O port access, you can get your message. Rather low bandwidth, but huge portions of the machine can be borked and it still works. -ethan From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 17:34:36 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:34:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net><511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com><200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org><575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com><575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <60413E65-5228-4EEB-9A45-46B83F7FB11F@mail.msu.edu> <4A3164FD.4050102@vaxen.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 4:14 PM, Doc wrote: >>>>>> Funny thing is Apple sells mostly laptops >>>>> >>>>> Really? What are the statistics on that? >>>>> >>>>>> and a bunch of people I know have switched from Apple laptops to >>>>>> Thinkpads recently. >>>>> >>>>> Heh. I guess they got tired of the stability. ;) >>>>> >>>> >>>> Or having their laps burn off... I had a Macbook Pro and it was painful >>>> to use as a laptop due to the heat... :) >>> Oh, that was one of the new(old) x86 machines. The ones with the modern >>> PPC processors run much cooler. ;) >> >> Jesus, Dave, put it in a .sig and give it a rest. You're starting to >> sound like the guys on bicycles - the ones with the white shirts and black >> ties. > > Thanks Doc! I haven't mentioned anything about this, anywhere, in probably > a year. The only thing I like less than x86 is x86 fanboys. The only thing Apple did wrong with the change from PPC to Intel was that they took to long. They wasted a lot of resources porting the OS from 68k/x86/SPARC/PA-RISC to PPC. They should have focused their efforts on getting it running on x86. Remember the first developer releases of Rhapsody ran on x86. Those responsible for PPC simply were not responsive enough to Apple's or its customers needs. Zane From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 17:40:09 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:40:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A311558.3019.34B2F1F2@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A315311.6080605@gmail.com>, <4A317251.6000905@gmail.com> <4A311558.3019.34B2F1F2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Kirn Gill wrote: > > > There, I named four, I can't think of any others at the moment. > > In this entire discussion, no one mentioned Netware. > > Wow. How soon we forget... Netware? What's that? I'm joking, but only just barely. Zane From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jun 11 17:46:31 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:46:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31787A.2080703@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31787A.2080703@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <20090611154401.R17940@shell.lmi.net> > > _I_ do not happen to be wearing a digital watch... I use (generally not more than one at a time) three of my four favorite watches: Scientific calculator including hex, oct, bin: http://home.earthlink.net/~kdstaller/KScasio.html Z80 based computer with RAM, ROM, a serial port, and a touch screen: http://homepage.mac.com/utdesign/watch/watches/RC-20.html Palm Pilot with a wrist strap: http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/reviews/81605/fossil-abacus-wrist-pda.html Jerri Ellsworth's watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8vyfvWFHQc -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 17:43:57 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:43:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3116D0.3764.34B8B23C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com>, <90A4BF9E-6AE1-46E1-97E8-B223052D3A2A@neurotica.com> <4A3116D0.3764.34B8B23C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 11 Jun 2009 at 17:09, Dave McGuire wrote: > >> *A console* on a server becomes useful if the server needs to be >> fixed. That console being a bit-mapped framebuffer with megabytes of >> software required to support it adds huge amounts of complexity to a >> debugging situation. Bad idea. This is why the very beefiest of >> servers still have very simple serial consoles. > > I agree with you, there. Unless I know that I'm going to need some > GUI interfaced program, I generally install *nix without X. Ditto, or if I feel a need to occasionally have a GUI, I'm likely to use Motif as the Window Manager, as somewhere in the past, it became light weight (which just boggles the mind). Zane From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 17:54:02 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:54:02 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A317ED4.9090202@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> <86151387-B120-4921-9A1E-07163B889D41@neurotica.com> <4A317ED4.9090202@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 6:01 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > > It certainly did seem to fizzle though, didn't it? I know of > *one* person who bought one, > > Anecdotal evidence aside, all indications are that it is selling > quite well. Really?? I've not looked at sales stats, but I've seen almost none of them in the wild. > While there are few models of Android phone available today, there > will be many more from many vendors before the end of this year. Neat. > > and he doesn't even use it anymore due to the bugs. I had high > hopes for it. > > Which bugs? I've been using one since the day before the public > release of the G1, and I haven't noticed any particularly horrible > bugs. I got a Google Ion running 1.5 ("Cupcake") recently, and 1.5 > seems even better. T-Mobile did finally push Cupcake for the G1 > recently. I don't know what bit him specifically; I will ask him. I wanted a G1 until I talked to him about it. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 18:01:19 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:01:19 -1000 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <028D3888-837C-40DD-8888-11BB1A818334@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <028D3888-837C-40DD-8888-11BB1A818334@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A318CBF.3050507@databasics.us> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 10, 2009, at 5:36 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> That wiki entry seems a little biased, doesn't it? > > If "showing a failure of Windows" means "biased", yes. Move along, folks, nothing to see here... Warren (whistling tunelessly, shuffling away) From dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net Thu Jun 11 18:04:15 2009 From: dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net (Daniel Seagraves) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:04:15 -0500 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <1BAC2F3D-820E-4575-AB46-A9B82FBC63FB@gmail.com> <4A3176FB.1010305@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 4:55 PM, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Philip Pemberton wrote: > >> Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:28:27 +0100 >> From: Philip Pemberton >> Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" >> >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> >> ; >> Subject: Re: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) >> Joost van de Griek wrote: >>> Every now and then, I run into one of those morons that plans to >>> "streamline" or "optimise" IT operations by standardising on a >>> single platform... >> >> Funny how square pegs don't usually fit into round holes. >> >> >>> Dog: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - they must be gods! >>> Cat: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - I must be a god! >> >> Chinchilla: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - I need to >> escape! > > Rabbit: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - I need chew through > yet another computer cable! > Ferret: HYPERHYPERHYPERHYPERHYPERHYPERALKJSDJASKLHJAKLSDJKLSALKJDAHYYYYYPER! *sleep* From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Thu Jun 11 18:06:27 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:06:27 -0700 Subject: HURD (was UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111115s2457cea3g12034d1fe7f89d66@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <21DE2830-AA78-48FC-9096-5FCF62D14E46@mail.msu.edu> On Jun 11, 2009, at 3:15 PM, "Zane H. Healy" wrote: > > > On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, John Floren wrote: > >> Linux filled a hole. To my knowledge, there wasn't really any free >> Unix-like available when Linux was first released, so everybody >> jumped >> on the bandwagon. When the *BSDs came along, Linux wasn't that >> entrenched yet. By the time Plan 9 was released with a free license >> (around 2000), the dust had settled--Linux was on top, with the BSDs >> coming along behind. If we had released for free in the early 90s, >> maybe everyone would be using Plan 9 (and it would be as warty and >> ugly as Linux). > > Work started on 386BSD prior to the initial release of Linux, > however, Linux > was more accessible. I'm not sure when HURD was actually started, > but it > went for *YEARS* with nothing to show for it. Wow, there's one OS I always wanted to try just for the hell of it, but never got around to... Does it have anything to recommend it? Anyone on the list use it? - josh > > Zane > > From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 18:10:41 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:10:41 -1000 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <1244675485.5593.41.camel@elric> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> <4A2DFC82.60800@brouhaha.com> <4A303C41.9090402@databasics.us> <1244675485.5593.41.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A318EF1.6090502@databasics.us> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > You can buy 10F 15V capacitors in car audio shops. They're about the > size of a beer can (a normal UK/EU 500ml can, not a dinky little US > 330ml can). > Thanks, Gordon, for pointing out that my computer knowledge is not the only knowledge I have that is outdated. *SIGH* I haven't gone "electronics exploring" in many years... Warren From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 18:11:33 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:11:33 -1000 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4DE5ECEE-8F4B-4966-AE7C-2B3BB5FE85FD@neurotica.com> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> <4A2DFC82.60800@brouhaha.com> <4A303C41.9090402@databasics.us> <4DE5ECEE-8F4B-4966-AE7C-2B3BB5FE85FD@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A318F25.20404@databasics.us> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 10, 2009, at 7:05 PM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >>>> I wonder how many Farads a car battery helds Nico >>> If you empty it out and fill it with capacitors, it will hold a few >>> megafarads at 2 volts. >> >> Erm... I doubt this. I saw a 2 farad cap at a surplus place in >> Lima, Ohio. It was rated at 12 volts, and looked like a sawed-off >> oil drum. I think there's some sort of square-cube thing going on >> here that makes ever-increasing values of capacitance ever huger. > > Urr? I've got a bag of 0.5F 5.5V capacitors in my parts stocks. > They're about 0.5" in diameter and 0.25" tall. Times have changed. Yeah, you, too. Get off my lawn. Warren From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 11 18:15:33 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:15:33 -1000 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A3053BF.1020601@brouhaha.com> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <613C55B1C8DC4BCE96C746F3440AF661@udvikling> <4A2DFC82.60800@brouhaha.com> <4A303C41.9090402@databasics.us> <4A3053BF.1020601@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A319015.3030309@databasics.us> Eric Smith wrote: > Warren Wolfe wrote: >> Erm... I doubt this. I saw a 2 farad cap at a surplus place in >> Lima, Ohio. It was rated at 12 volts, and looked like a sawed-off >> oil drum. > That's much older technology. As others here have observed, you can > now get a 100F capacitor that is quite compact, though they have > voltage ratings between 2V and 2.7V. Gee, I feel so.... no longer supported. >> I think there's some sort of square-cube thing going on here that >> makes ever-increasing values of capacitance ever huger. > Not really. For a given technology, the volume is roughly linearly > related to the product of the capacitance and voltage. Hmmm... Okay. I'll take your word on this. Thanks for the info. Warren From dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net Thu Jun 11 18:17:20 2009 From: dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net (Daniel Seagraves) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:17:20 -0500 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> Message-ID: <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> On Jun 11, 2009, at 5:00 PM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 11:39 -0500, Daniel Seagraves wrote: >> The next line is the important one. All my users and passwords come >> via the network. Root's mail gets sent to another account on another >> machine. The installer wants me to make a LOCAL user to sudo and etc >> but I want to use my REMOTE for that. For that I do the initial setup >> as root and then disable it. If I do things Debian's way I have to set >> up root and user passwords, log in as the user, sudo to set up the >> machine, make my remote user able to sudo, redirect root's mail, then >> remove the local user and hunt through the entire system looking for >> anywhere that username may have been referenced and remove it. (or >> leave the local user there as a time bomb to come back and kill me >> later WHEN (not IF) someone hacks it) > > If you're rolling out *that* many boxes that use some sort of common > auth system, you might be better creating a suitably tweaked installer. > That way you have a common image that you push to the box, maybe even > netbooting it, and you don't have to worry about footering around with > the config after - you can even include the packages you want that > aren't installed by default. We don't install new machines that often, nor do I have a lot of them. The central auth system is so I don't have to explain to my end users how to change their passwords on every server on the network. My environment has a group of Linux servers providing service to a set of Windows desktops. (In reality however, I am most likely giving up my password expiration policy. The users are complaining to the owner about having to change their password every 60 days, and the owner has told me if they continue to complain the policy will be abolished. The burden is on me to abolish the policy myself instead of having him force it. That makes it look like I "realized the legitimacy of the user need" instead of simply being forced to give up.) This issue is new as of the very latest Debian installer. Previously I was able to elect not to add a local user by cancelling out of the "create a local user" part of the installer and then going back through. The second time I would be asked if I wanted to do that. This option has been removed. From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 18:26:52 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:26:52 -0400 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: <4A31829F.20607@databasics.us> References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EE41A.A0AA128C@cs.ubc.ca> <7E3C6977-F936-4E54-8570-D66ACE40B0BD@neurotica.com> <4A31829F.20607@databasics.us> Message-ID: <22025B1E-52DC-48B3-A113-D60673F547FC@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 6:18 PM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >>> Search for "dielectric absorption", or look up "permittivity" in >>> Wikipedia to >>> get an idea of just how complex capacitors are (!) >> >> Yes, I'm aware of their complexity...From my childhood days I >> thought they were simple, but in recent years I've studied them >> pretty closely. I've been dabbling in metrology for a few years >> now and have become amazed at the complexity behind the "simple" >> things that are the underpinnings of all things electronic. It's >> fascinating. Anyone interested in electronics would do well to >> investigate this a bit. > > I'm a NIST certified calibration technician. Umm, whoa! Can I send you some GR standards and my Thomas one- ohm?? 8-) > The amount of dorking around that is done to get around the > effects of metal junctions, including all solder joints, and the > effects of temperature and humidity, is amazing. Getting great > accuracy is surprisingly difficult. Yes it really is. I fight with thermals, in particular, all the time. The copper vs. copper oxide thing drives me nuts; I'm about to buy stock in Caig. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 11 18:53:00 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:53:00 -0600 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <1BAC2F3D-820E-4575-AB46-A9B82FBC63FB@gmail.com> <4A3176FB.1010305@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <4A3198DC.4070603@jetnet.ab.ca> Peter C. Wallace wrote: > Rabbit: They feed me, pet me, groom me, love me - I need chew through > yet another computer cable! I tend to think ,... Rabbits == food ! > Peter Wallace > > (\__/) > (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your > (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. > Ben. From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jun 11 18:57:10 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:57:10 -0700 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: Kirn Gill > Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 11:53 AM > I referred to things like TOPS-20, ITS, etc., which, in terms of > support and development, are dead. You're wrong on at least one count. Take a look at the XKL site (http://www.xkl.com) for a look at their latest hardware offerings. Now, tell me what you think the underlying operating system is on these products. No, go on, tell me. Now, tell me that development for that OS is not ongoing. Simply because you don't hear about an OS in _Linux Journal_ does not mean that it's dead, or even ailing. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 11 19:01:49 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:01:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at "Jun 11, 9 03:20:23 pm" Message-ID: <200906120001.n5C01nkU014292@floodgap.com> > >> I find 'sudo' to be very useful. As in 'sudo csh'. :-) > > Same here, except that I use a real shell. :-) > > > > Eric > > Not to start a shell war, but because I'm curious, what is the shell? tcsh. I adore bashing bash. :-D -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- This geek BRKs for 6502s. -------------------------------------------------- From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 11 19:08:23 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:08:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: from Dave McGuire at "Jun 11, 9 04:53:02 pm" Message-ID: <200906120008.n5C08NZu013784@floodgap.com> > > > > Or having their laps burn off... I had a Macbook Pro and it was > > > > painful to use as a laptop due to the heat... :) > > > Oh, that was one of the new(old) x86 machines. The ones with > > > the modern PPC processors run much cooler. ;) > > Jesus, Dave, put it in a .sig and give it a rest. You're > > starting to sound like the guys on bicycles - the ones with the > > white shirts and black ties. > Thanks Doc! I haven't mentioned anything about this, anywhere, in > probably a year. The only thing I like less than x86 is x86 fanboys. Actually, I think Dave stole my line. *I'm* the POWER apologist around here! ;-) -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- "I am Dyslexic of Brog. Fesistence is rutile. You will be asmilsilated." --- From chris at mainecoon.com Thu Jun 11 19:12:57 2009 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Christian Kennedy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:12:57 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A317844.7030301@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> <4A317844.7030301@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2B5CAA0C-87C6-4C17-808F-519DFFF07A50@mainecoon.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 2:33 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Christian Kennedy wrote: >> On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: >>> I want to shoot the people responsible for Objective-C. >> Funny, I know more people who want to shoot the people responsible >> for C++. > > Isn't that mostly just one person? Yes, but he had enablers. -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 19:50:51 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:50:51 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31787A.2080703@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906111750u3d3a5003nc8e0394d9cfba3e@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 3:35 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Eric Smith wrote: >> Ethan Dicks wrote: >>> >>> _I_ do not happen to be wearing a digital watch... >>> >>> http://www.ledwatchstop.com/store/watch-zerone-ltblue-p-307.html >> >> Well, if you're not wearing the digital watch seen at that URL, what *are* >> you doing with it? > > Digital watch? ?I see no digits. > > -ethan > I see quite a few digits... binary digits. Also, I'd be willing to bet quite a bit of money that there are digital circuits in that watch, unless for some reason they lost their minds and used an analog circuit to keep the time. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 19:56:50 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:56:50 -0700 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 4:57 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: >> From: Kirn Gill >> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 11:53 AM > >> I referred to things like TOPS-20, ITS, etc., which, in terms of >> support and development, are dead. > > You're wrong on at least one count. > > Take a look at the XKL site (http://www.xkl.com) for a look at their > latest hardware offerings. > > Now, tell me what you think the underlying operating system is on these > products. > > No, go on, tell me. > > Now, tell me that development for that OS is not ongoing. > > Simply because you don't hear about an OS in _Linux Journal_ does not > mean that it's dead, or even ailing. > > > Rich Alderson > Vintage Computing Server Engineer > Vulcan, Inc. > 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 > Seattle, WA 98104 > > mailto:RichA at vulcan.com > (206) 342-2239 > (206) 465-2916 cell > > http://www.pdpplanet.org/ > Are you saying those fiber network boxes are running TOPS-20? Yes, I know XKL used to make TOPS-20 compatible boxes, but I see no sign of it on their current products. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From rick at rickmurphy.net Thu Jun 11 20:05:07 2009 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:05:07 -0400 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200906120105.n5C157tt018055@rickmurphy.net> At 07:57 PM 6/11/2009, Rich Alderson wrote: >Simply because you don't hear about an OS in _Linux Journal_ does not >mean that it's dead, or even ailing. But I'm not dead yet! Thanks, Rich. I know one of the people at XKL, and he's having a ball, working on what has been declared a corpse here. Dead? Not even close. -Rick From ggs at shiresoft.com Thu Jun 11 13:04:45 2009 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:04:45 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906111000t4a13dde0y341136ceefe22ee3@mail.gmail.com> References: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> <4A311095.508@gmail.com> <10AACC64-7CD1-4822-AC34-9ADBDBA9CB3D@shiresoft.com> <575131af0906111000t4a13dde0y341136ceefe22ee3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9268B8F5-039F-4012-ADBE-E6B5280CDEC2@shiresoft.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 10:00 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > 2009/6/11 Guy Sotomayor : > >> In reality, AIX is the ultimate Unix clone since it's one of the few >> Unix-like OS' that is actually be branded as Unix(tm) by X/Open. > > ISTR it uses a real licensed kernel, or at least, did Way Back When?. It depends upon which variation of AIX you're talking about. I've dealt with AIX/370, AIX PS/2, AIX RT, AIX V3.x and later. With the exception of AIX/370 & AIX PS/2, they all used completely different code bases. What I was referring to (because that's what most people consider these days) is AIX V3.x and later. Those versions only ran (runs) on RS/6000 and later Power machines. The code base for AIX V3.x and later started out as some derivative of the AT&T code but the base kernel never was (except possibly some of the subsystems). The control program itself was completely alien to the AT&T code base. The entire structure was based upon (at the time) the Power's nearly unlimited virtual address space (52 bits). The 64- bit version has an 80 bit virtual address space. So the way the kernel was organized was to assume that address space was free. Need an array, allocate the address space for it statically and let the VM fault in physical memory as it's needed (which is also alien to most Unix implementations). The AIX control program was mainly written by 2 folks from Watson Research. TTFN - Guy From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jun 11 20:19:52 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:19:52 -0700 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: John Floren > Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 5:57 PM > Are you saying those fiber network boxes are running TOPS-20? Yes. > Yes, I know XKL used to make TOPS-20 compatible boxes, but I see no > sign of it on their current products. No, you don't. You, as a network device purchaser, don't need to. Any idea where I used to work before I started the present gig? It should be obvious from postings I've made on this mailing list. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 20:25:43 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:25:43 -0700 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906111825j68bb816jf19094633475d97f@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 6:19 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: >> From: John Floren >> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 5:57 PM > >> Are you saying those fiber network boxes are running TOPS-20? > > Yes. > >> Yes, I know XKL used to make TOPS-20 compatible boxes, but I see no >> sign of it on their current products. > > No, you don't. ?You, as a network device purchaser, don't need to. > > Any idea where I used to work before I started the present gig? ?It should > be obvious from postings I've made on this mailing list. > Forgive us all for not knowing the deep dark super secret secrets of the super secret TOPS-20 society. If only I had known the unpublished unspoken truth I could have avoided asking for clarification, such an ass I am. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 20:27:58 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:27:58 -0400 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A317791.2010408@brouhaha.com> References: <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> <4A316035.7040404@gmail.com> <4A317791.2010408@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A31AF1E.1070500@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Eric Smith wrote: > Kirn Gill wrote: >> Let's stick to the realm of x86 virtualization here, because >> that's the architecture I know best. >> >> Starting off, generally, when you preform virtualization, your VM >> runs (usually) under an OS. > Some vendors extol the virtues of running a hypervisor on "bare > metal". Of course, all this really means is that they're running > it under a completely proprietary host operating system rather than > on Linux or Windows. Perhaps there is some benefit if the > off-the-shelf host operating system gets in the way of the > hypervisor, but I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that Linux > does. (I don't know enough about the details of the Windows kernel > to comment on that.) > > Eric > And that's why I say "usually". -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxrx0ACgkQF9H43UytGiZK8wCcCcXqJE7DUyg9KAjmbK+iFYqM W4IAnj7FkJHNvWYnFMPboWpVhtMQKAHT =uBbS -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From dbetz at xlisper.com Thu Jun 11 20:31:57 2009 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:31:57 -0400 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 9:19 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: >> Are you saying those fiber network boxes are running TOPS-20? > > Yes. Wow! That's very cool. Can we also assume that the processor(s) in those boxes use the PDP-10 instruction set or have they ported TOPS-20 to another processor? From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 20:38:50 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:38:50 -0400 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906111825j68bb816jf19094633475d97f@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111825j68bb816jf19094633475d97f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <58B1B8D7-DF6E-4876-B6BD-6C6436346578@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 9:25 PM, John Floren wrote: >>> Are you saying those fiber network boxes are running TOPS-20? >> >> Yes. >> >>> Yes, I know XKL used to make TOPS-20 compatible boxes, but I see no >>> sign of it on their current products. >> >> No, you don't. You, as a network device purchaser, don't need to. >> >> Any idea where I used to work before I started the present gig? >> It should >> be obvious from postings I've made on this mailing list. >> > > Forgive us all for not knowing the deep dark super secret secrets of > the super secret TOPS-20 society. If only I had known the unpublished > unspoken truth I could have avoided asking for clarification, such an > ass I am. That'll teach you. ;) I am shocked and amazed. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 20:37:46 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:37:46 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A31B16A.9090806@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Josh Dersch wrote: > Yeah, what a horrible world we live in -- affordable, powerful > hardware capable of running a wide variety of free, powerful, and > useful operating systems and software and emulating every vintage > system under the sun. A world -wide-network making the collecting > and maintainance of our hobby projects possible. Digital watches. "free, powerful and useful" does not describe any viable consumer OS at the moment. At point, the only consumer OSes really worth considering (more than 7.5% market share) are Windows and Mac OS X. If you are trying to apply "free, powerful and useful" to Windows, you need your head examined. Mac OS X... is an abomination. A design (look and feel) that sucks using a interface toolkit (Cocoa) that sucks written in a language (Objective-C) that sucks. > Yeah, we live in the worst of all possible worlds. And sadly, it seems no matter what you do, it can' t get any better, because all OSes suck, some just suck less than others. > > Christ. You guys are too cynical for me... > > - josh -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoxsWoACgkQF9H43UytGiaVHwCfQ5m3Vyc49vrUAa09q7LWWGwp ozwAoLcCC7YGGgTmN9rbU5tAqQVFYjO9 =N2dl -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jun 11 20:38:07 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:38:07 -0700 Subject: the grumpiness of old age [was RE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7]] In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906111825j68bb816jf19094633475d97f@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111825j68bb816jf19094633475d97f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: John Floren > Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 6:26 PM > Forgive us all for not knowing the deep dark super secret secrets of > the super secret TOPS-20 society. If only I had known the unpublished > unspoken truth I could have avoided asking for clarification, such an > ass I am. John, I apologize. I was a horse's arse in my previous response. Since there was a discussion of the XKL Toad-1 in the last few weeks, and I posted explicitly as a former XKL employee, I took it on faith that if I stated something about the internals of a piece of hardware developed by that company, I'd be given the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't, and it irritated me out of all proportion. Again, my apologies. Rich Alderson ex-Customer Advocacy, XKL LLC From doc at vaxen.net Thu Jun 11 20:38:29 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:38:29 -0500 (CDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A31B15F.8090003@vaxen.net> Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Doc wrote: > >> Zane H. Healy wrote: >>> >>> There are things I like about AIX, but I have a hard time considering >>> it to be UNIX, and *I DO NOT LIKE* IBM's attitude towards support of >>> tape drives. >> >> First rule of administering AIX: >> >> This Is Not UNIX. Deal with it. > > I think that was basically my point. I was agreeing. :) Seriously, after teaching introductory AIX Admin for 10 years, I'd call that the most common AIX showstopper. A LOT of UNIX people just can't handle dtterm running on Some Other System. The flipside is that with all its weirdness, AIX is the most intuitive UNIX(tm) out there. Once you wrap your head around ODM and the management tools' syntax, 2 seconds thought will get you to the man page for a tool you need and never saw before, and 2 minutes in the man page will get you running. "mk", "ch", "rm", "ls", all with consistent syntax. Pretty good for an x86 fanboy, huh? :) Doc From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jun 11 20:41:15 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:41:15 -0700 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: David Betz > Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 6:32 PM > On Jun 11, 2009, at 9:19 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: >>> Are you saying those fiber network boxes are running TOPS-20? >> Yes. > Wow! That's very cool. Can we also assume that the processor(s) in > those boxes use the PDP-10 instruction set or have they ported TOPS-20 > to another processor? The former. TOPS-20 has a number of PDP-10 assumptions built into it, mostly because it is written in PDP-10 assembler, and would be difficult to port. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 20:44:54 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:44:54 -0400 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 7:57 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > Simply because you don't hear about an OS in _Linux Journal_ does not > mean that it's dead, or even ailing. Absolutely. And the same goes for _BusinessWeek_. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 20:45:10 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:45:10 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906120008.n5C08NZu013784@floodgap.com> References: <200906120008.n5C08NZu013784@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <41634825-76A7-43CB-9633-ACD8C01A0613@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 8:08 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>>>> Or having their laps burn off... I had a Macbook Pro and it was >>>>> painful to use as a laptop due to the heat... :) > >>>> Oh, that was one of the new(old) x86 machines. The ones with >>>> the modern PPC processors run much cooler. ;) > >>> Jesus, Dave, put it in a .sig and give it a rest. You're >>> starting to sound like the guys on bicycles - the ones with the >>> white shirts and black ties. > >> Thanks Doc! I haven't mentioned anything about this, anywhere, in >> probably a year. The only thing I like less than x86 is x86 fanboys. > > Actually, I think Dave stole my line. *I'm* the POWER apologist > around here! > ;-) I'm no apologist. I just know the difference between 1978 and 1990. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 20:46:09 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:46:09 -0400 Subject: HURD (was UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <21DE2830-AA78-48FC-9096-5FCF62D14E46@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111115s2457cea3g12034d1fe7f89d66@mail.gmail.com> <21DE2830-AA78-48FC-9096-5FCF62D14E46@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <8253FF01-332E-4631-9139-2B2B469165BB@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 7:06 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: >>> Linux filled a hole. To my knowledge, there wasn't really any free >>> Unix-like available when Linux was first released, so everybody >>> jumped >>> on the bandwagon. When the *BSDs came along, Linux wasn't that >>> entrenched yet. By the time Plan 9 was released with a free license >>> (around 2000), the dust had settled--Linux was on top, with the BSDs >>> coming along behind. If we had released for free in the early 90s, >>> maybe everyone would be using Plan 9 (and it would be as warty and >>> ugly as Linux). >> >> Work started on 386BSD prior to the initial release of Linux, >> however, Linux >> was more accessible. I'm not sure when HURD was actually started, >> but it >> went for *YEARS* with nothing to show for it. > > Wow, there's one OS I always wanted to try just for the hell of > it, but never got around to... Does it have anything to recommend > it? Anyone on the list use it? I think HURD fell victim to being "too little, too late". It might've been amazing if it had hit the streets a decade earlier. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 20:54:35 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:54:35 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31B15F.8090003@vaxen.net> References: <4A31B15F.8090003@vaxen.net> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 9:38 PM, Doc wrote: >>>> There are things I like about AIX, but I have a hard time >>>> considering it to be UNIX, and *I DO NOT LIKE* IBM's attitude >>>> towards support of tape drives. >>> >>> First rule of administering AIX: >>> >>> This Is Not UNIX. Deal with it. >> I think that was basically my point. > > I was agreeing. :) > > Seriously, after teaching introductory AIX Admin for 10 years, > I'd call that the most common AIX showstopper. A LOT of UNIX > people just can't handle dtterm running on Some Other System. > > The flipside is that with all its weirdness, AIX is the most > intuitive UNIX(tm) out there. Once you wrap your head around ODM > and the management tools' syntax, 2 seconds thought will get you to > the man page for a tool you need and never saw before, and 2 > minutes in the man page will get you running. "mk", > "ch", "rm", "ls", all with consistent syntax. Nicely put! > Pretty good for an x86 fanboy, huh? :) I'm impressed. You're the most knowledgeably x86 fanboy I've ever known. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dbetz at xlisper.com Thu Jun 11 20:55:37 2009 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:55:37 -0400 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 9:41 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: >> From: David Betz >> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 6:32 PM > >> On Jun 11, 2009, at 9:19 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > >>>> Are you saying those fiber network boxes are running TOPS-20? > >>> Yes. > >> Wow! That's very cool. Can we also assume that the processor(s) in >> those boxes use the PDP-10 instruction set or have they ported >> TOPS-20 >> to another processor? > > The former. TOPS-20 has a number of PDP-10 assumptions built into > it, mostly > because it is written in PDP-10 assembler, and would be difficult to > port. Interesting. I don't suppose their PDP-10 chips are available for purchase separately? Maybe we could get Bob Armstrong of SparetimeGizmos to build a PDP-10 kit! From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 11 20:59:37 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:59:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31B15F.8090003@vaxen.net> from Doc at "Jun 11, 9 08:38:29 pm" Message-ID: <200906120159.n5C1xbe6015908@floodgap.com> > The flipside is that with all its weirdness, AIX is the most > intuitive UNIX(tm) out there. Once you wrap your head around ODM and > the management tools' syntax, 2 seconds thought will get you to the man > page for a tool you need and never saw before, and 2 minutes in the man > page will get you running. "mk", "ch", "rm", > "ls", all with consistent syntax. I find myself reflexively typing lsattr on my OS X machine now and then. I suspect it is a disease. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- if (you.canRead(this)) you.canGet(new job(!problem)); -- Seen at JavaOne --- From dgahling at hotmail.com Thu Jun 11 21:10:21 2009 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:10:21 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31B15F.8090003@vaxen.net> References: <4A31B15F.8090003@vaxen.net> Message-ID: Hey Doc, what's going on with your Vaxen BTW ? > Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:38:29 -0500 > From: doc at vaxen.net > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: UNIX V7 > > Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > > > > On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Doc wrote: > > > >> Zane H. Healy wrote: > >>> > >>> There are things I like about AIX, but I have a hard time considering > >>> it to be UNIX, and *I DO NOT LIKE* IBM's attitude towards support of > >>> tape drives. > >> > >> First rule of administering AIX: > >> > >> This Is Not UNIX. Deal with it. > > > > I think that was basically my point. > > I was agreeing. :) > > Seriously, after teaching introductory AIX Admin for 10 years, I'd > call that the most common AIX showstopper. A LOT of UNIX people just > can't handle dtterm running on Some Other System. > > The flipside is that with all its weirdness, AIX is the most > intuitive UNIX(tm) out there. Once you wrap your head around ODM and > the management tools' syntax, 2 seconds thought will get you to the man > page for a tool you need and never saw before, and 2 minutes in the man > page will get you running. "mk", "ch", "rm", > "ls", all with consistent syntax. > > Pretty good for an x86 fanboy, huh? :) > > > Doc > _________________________________________________________________ Attention all humans. We are your photos. Free us. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9666046 From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 11 21:12:44 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:12:44 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31B16A.9090806@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu>, <4A31B16A.9090806@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A31572C.17319.35B420A1@cclist.sydex.com> On 11 Jun 2009 at 21:37, Kirn Gill wrote: > "free, powerful and useful" does not describe any viable consumer OS > at the moment. At point, the only consumer OSes really worth > considering (more than 7.5% market share) are Windows and Mac OS X. Would it be too much of an exaggeration to say that the most prevalent operating system running today is "none"? Consider the controls in house thermostats, microwave ovens, washing machines, etc. All computerized; few with any operating system whatsoever. Not to mention the embedded systems in the PC or Mac you're sitting in front of. --Chuck From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 21:17:21 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:17:21 -0700 Subject: the grumpiness of old age [was RE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7]] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111825j68bb816jf19094633475d97f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906111917n36a834a0te3efa4af0ed095f6@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 6:38 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: >> From: John Floren >> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 6:26 PM > >> Forgive us all for not knowing the deep dark super secret secrets of >> the super secret TOPS-20 society. If only I had known the unpublished >> unspoken truth I could have avoided asking for clarification, such an >> ass I am. > > John, I apologize. ?I was a horse's arse in my previous response. > > Since there was a discussion of the XKL Toad-1 in the last few weeks, and > I posted explicitly as a former XKL employee, I took it on faith that if > I stated something about the internals of a piece of hardware developed by > that company, I'd be given the benefit of the doubt. > > I wasn't, and it irritated me out of all proportion. > > Again, my apologies. > > Rich Alderson > ex-Customer Advocacy, XKL LLC > No sweat... well actually I just got back from the gym so there's a lot of sweat, but you get the drift. I'm so used to the Internet that the idea of someone apologizing blows me away :) I in turn am sorry for making the kinda jerkish reply--I hadn't seen the thread about the Toad-1, so I didn't get the connection. It's pretty cool to hear that TOPS-20 is still out there. Is it the kind of thing where you can just hit the OS through a serial port, or is it all tucked away carefully behind a lot of special user interface? I like the OS, but Plan 9 keeps me busy... too bad that either way I couldn't afford one of those boxes. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 21:21:45 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:21:45 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Not to start a shell war, but because I'm curious, what is the shell? The worst thing about the UNIX Wars was the constant shelling. -ethan From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 11 21:33:21 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:33:21 -0600 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> Message-ID: <4A31BE71.1000407@jetnet.ab.ca> David Betz wrote: > > > Interesting. I don't suppose their PDP-10 chips are available for > purchase separately? Maybe we could get Bob Armstrong of SparetimeGizmos > to build a PDP-10 kit! > I shutter at the price of said chips ... I'll take a kit too. PS Mark me down for a front panel kit as well. Hey I can dream. Ben. PS: I wonder how fast Bob's terminal could emulate a PDP 10, assuming the CPU can handle the memory needed - rom & ram. I PDP 11 would be more practical how ever. It would also make a nice 'BABY' emulator too .... the VGA is now your Memory CRT's as in the original machine. From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 21:33:32 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:33:32 -0700 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 6:55 PM, David Betz wrote: > > On Jun 11, 2009, at 9:41 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > >>> From: David Betz >>> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 6:32 PM >> >>> On Jun 11, 2009, at 9:19 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: >> >>>>> Are you saying those fiber network boxes are running TOPS-20? >> >>>> Yes. >> >>> Wow! That's very cool. Can we also assume that the processor(s) in >>> those boxes use the PDP-10 instruction set or have they ported TOPS-20 >>> to another processor? >> >> The former. ?TOPS-20 has a number of PDP-10 assumptions built into it, >> mostly >> because it is written in PDP-10 assembler, and would be difficult to port. > > Interesting. I don't suppose their PDP-10 chips are available for purchase > separately? Maybe we could get Bob Armstrong of SparetimeGizmos to build a > PDP-10 kit! > That would be amazing. John Floren -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From tpeters at mixcom.com Thu Jun 11 21:33:57 2009 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:33:57 -0500 Subject: AOE was:Re: iSCSI and friends, was Re: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244758926.5593.68.camel@elric> References: <4583768C-62A5-47FB-8922-68A769FFA293@neurotica.com> <511547.71892.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4583768C-62A5-47FB-8922-68A769FFA293@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20090611212903.0b1b6968@localhost> At 11:22 PM 6/11/2009 +0100, you wrote: >On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 12:51 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: > > On Jun 11, 2009, at 12:29 PM, John Finigan wrote: > > > iSCSI makes up (in a clumsy way) for a lack of a "first class citizen" > > > Eh. (and this is WAY OT) iSCSI is kinda interesting; I've been > > working with it quite a bit lately. > >Have you seen ATAoE? It is, as the name implies, ATA over Ethernet. >Unlike the 300-page mail-order catalogue of the iSCSI spec, the ATAoE >spec is eight pages, mostly taken up with diagrams showing an ATA packet >wrapped inside an Ethernet frame. > >I toyed briefly with the idea of writing an ATAoE target for the PDP11. >Not sure if I could port it to OS/2, though, or make it talk to TK50s. Gord: We here at Milwaukee County Transit have about 59TB on AOE (ATA-over-Ethernet). We use these 15-slot boxes from Coraid that boot up a little Linux kernel- but that's largely invisible to the user. It uses all the existing wiring- cat 5, fiber, whatever. We dedicated some small ethernet switches to them, but you wouldn't necessarily have to. One of them is across the street, on a fiber link, in case the building blows up. The Coraid boxes use standard SATA drives, any size, and support all kinda array structures, RAID levels, etc. I think the AOE "initiator" is open-source, so you should be able to port it to older architecture. ----- 978. Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are called software. -- Anonymous --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jun 11 21:42:14 2009 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:42:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Christian Kennedy wrote: > > On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > >> I want to shoot the people responsible for Objective-C. > > Funny, I know more people who want to shoot the people responsible for C++. > *raises his hand* Delphi Forever! *ahem* g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 21:42:51 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:42:51 -0400 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 10:33 PM, John Floren wrote: >> Interesting. I don't suppose their PDP-10 chips are available for purchase >> separately? Maybe we could get Bob Armstrong of SparetimeGizmos to build a >> PDP-10 kit! > > That would be amazing. Agreed. I'd buy one. -ethan From dbetz at xlisper.com Thu Jun 11 21:45:52 2009 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:45:52 -0400 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 6:55 PM, David Betz wrote: >> >> On Jun 11, 2009, at 9:41 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: >> >>>> From: David Betz >>>> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 6:32 PM >>> >>>> On Jun 11, 2009, at 9:19 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: >>> >>>>>> Are you saying those fiber network boxes are running TOPS-20? >>> >>>>> Yes. >>> >>>> Wow! That's very cool. Can we also assume that the processor(s) in >>>> those boxes use the PDP-10 instruction set or have they ported >>>> TOPS-20 >>>> to another processor? >>> >>> The former. TOPS-20 has a number of PDP-10 assumptions built into >>> it, >>> mostly >>> because it is written in PDP-10 assembler, and would be difficult >>> to port. >> >> Interesting. I don't suppose their PDP-10 chips are available for >> purchase >> separately? Maybe we could get Bob Armstrong of SparetimeGizmos to >> build a >> PDP-10 kit! >> > > That would be amazing. Well, Bob's email address *is* at jfcl.com! From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 21:52:44 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:52:44 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <8BB4735E-4729-4778-BFC0-0F41D4ED69AA@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 10:21 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> Not to start a shell war, but because I'm curious, what is the shell? > > The worst thing about the UNIX Wars was the constant shelling. Ow!! -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 21:54:21 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:54:21 -0700 Subject: AOE was:Re: iSCSI and friends, was Re: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20090611212903.0b1b6968@localhost> References: <511547.71892.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4583768C-62A5-47FB-8922-68A769FFA293@neurotica.com> <1244758926.5593.68.camel@elric> <5.1.0.14.2.20090611212903.0b1b6968@localhost> Message-ID: <7d3530220906111954x4a6f2d93ta772b7ae3cd29817@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 7:33 PM, Tom Peters wrote: > At 11:22 PM 6/11/2009 +0100, you wrote: >> >> On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 12:51 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: >> > On Jun 11, 2009, at 12:29 PM, John Finigan wrote: >> > > iSCSI makes up (in a clumsy way) for a lack of a "first class citizen" >> >> > ? ?Eh. ?(and this is WAY OT) ?iSCSI is kinda interesting; I've been >> > working with it quite a bit lately. >> >> Have you seen ATAoE? ?It is, as the name implies, ATA over Ethernet. >> Unlike the 300-page mail-order catalogue of the iSCSI spec, the ATAoE >> spec is eight pages, mostly taken up with diagrams showing an ATA packet >> wrapped inside an Ethernet frame. >> >> I toyed briefly with the idea of writing an ATAoE target for the PDP11. >> Not sure if I could port it to OS/2, though, or make it talk to TK50s. > > Gord: > > We here at Milwaukee County Transit have about 59TB on AOE > (ATA-over-Ethernet). We use these 15-slot boxes from Coraid that boot up a > little Linux kernel- but that's largely invisible to the user. It uses all > the existing wiring- cat 5, fiber, whatever. We dedicated some small > ethernet switches to them, but you wouldn't necessarily have to. One of them > is across the street, on a fiber link, in case the building blows up. The > Coraid boxes use standard SATA drives, any size, and support all kinda array > structures, RAID levels, etc. I think the AOE "initiator" is open-source, so > you should be able to port it to older architecture. > > We have one of those too, at Sandia National Labs. Guess what the underlying system is? It's actually Plan 9, not Linux. We have a 16-slot Coraid box full of 1 TB drives. It works very nicely with our Plan 9 box... we use it for our archival storage system, Venti. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From doc at vaxen.net Thu Jun 11 21:54:50 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:54:50 -0500 (CDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906120159.n5C1xbe6015908@floodgap.com> References: <200906120159.n5C1xbe6015908@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4A31C34D.8080609@vaxen.net> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> The flipside is that with all its weirdness, AIX is the most >> intuitive UNIX(tm) out there. Once you wrap your head around ODM and >> the management tools' syntax, 2 seconds thought will get you to the man >> page for a tool you need and never saw before, and 2 minutes in the man >> page will get you running. "mk", "ch", "rm", >> "ls", all with consistent syntax. > > I find myself reflexively typing lsattr on my OS X machine now and then. > I suspect it is a disease. No, it's an omission on Apple's part. Doc From ggs at shiresoft.com Thu Jun 11 22:00:14 2009 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:00:14 -0700 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <22790243-9DDB-4ED7-955A-D968D6EB3E71@shiresoft.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 7:42 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 10:33 PM, John Floren > wrote: >>> Interesting. I don't suppose their PDP-10 chips are available for >>> purchase >>> separately? Maybe we could get Bob Armstrong of SparetimeGizmos to >>> build a >>> PDP-10 kit! >> >> That would be amazing. > > Agreed. I'd buy one. > Actually one of the guys I work with has done an FPGA design of a PDP-10. He's partitioned it into 3 Xilinix parts. It passes all of the DEC CPU diagnostics on a Verilog simulator. He's talked a little bit about it on alt.sys.pdp10. He figures by using Spartan 3E parts and not doing a lot of optimization he can get ~30-40MHz out of it with no problems (ie trying to go faster would take a lot of work and/ or much more expensive FPGAs). TTFN - Guy From useddec at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 22:03:25 2009 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:03:25 -0500 Subject: Interesting IBM 5150... or something In-Reply-To: <4A317D4F.4080708@databasics.us> References: <6dbe3c380906092033n3dfb48f9k6c07c7a59b7beb05@mail.gmail.com> <4A317D4F.4080708@databasics.us> Message-ID: <624966d60906112003s12bc3dbbs12fbee485c1c0302@mail.gmail.com> I believe tempest specs are still classified. Paul On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 4:55 PM, Warren Wolfe wrote: > Brian Lanning wrote: > >> I've never heard of this. Looks even more tank-like than the 5150. >> Look at the backplane where the cables go in. >> >> >> http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-IBM-Tempest-Computer-for-Classified-work_W0QQitemZ190313579086QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2c4f92c24e&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A10|66%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A4|294%3A50 >> >> > > Oh, for Pete's sake, a Tempest terminal, right when we're talking about > classified info. Just so you know, this one is compromised by the insecure > monitor (I think - it should be MUCH bigger, and not plastic, if Tempest > approved) and the non-Tempest keyboard. "Tank-like" is a very concise > description. > > I worked for a company that made (CP/M capable) Tempest terminals for the > Burroughs TD-830 emulation market. The government would not tell you what > acceptable levels of emissions were -- a company had to make a prototype, > and send it in for testing. A while (gov't time) later, thumbs up or thumbs > down. It often took many cycles to get a good one. Once it was approved, > they bought them for HUGE prices. Quite a money-maker. > > > > Warren > > From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jun 11 22:07:15 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:07:15 -0700 Subject: the grumpiness of old age [was RE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7]] In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906111917n36a834a0te3efa4af0ed095f6@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111825j68bb816jf19094633475d97f@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111917n36a834a0te3efa4af0ed095f6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: John Floren > Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 7:17 PM > It's pretty cool to hear that TOPS-20 is still out there. Is it the > kind of thing where you can just hit the OS through a serial port, or > is it all tucked away carefully behind a lot of special user > interface? I like the OS, but Plan 9 keeps me busy... too bad that > either way I couldn't afford one of those boxes. I haven't seen the new gear in person yet, but I would expect the latter. Part of my job for a year or so before XKL and I parted ways was defining the user interface, and it was clear that, for good or ill, customers of networking gear expect a command set similar if not identical to Cisco's IOS. I pushed for an entryway into the OS, but didn't have time to argue for it strongly. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 11 22:07:23 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:07:23 -0700 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: At 6:19 PM -0700 6/11/09, Rich Alderson wrote: > > From: John Floren >> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 5:57 PM > >> Are you saying those fiber network boxes are running TOPS-20? > >Yes. > >> Yes, I know XKL used to make TOPS-20 compatible boxes, but I see no >> sign of it on their current products. > >No, you don't. You, as a network device purchaser, don't need to. > >Any idea where I used to work before I started the present gig? It should >be obvious from postings I've made on this mailing list. Rich, I know who you worked for, and you've still managed to shock and amaze me! Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From doc at vaxen.net Thu Jun 11 22:18:39 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:18:39 -0500 (CDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A31C8EC.50002@vaxen.net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> Not to start a shell war, but because I'm curious, what is the shell? > > The worst thing about the UNIX Wars was the constant shelling. I'm not sure I can take this much pun-ishment. Doc From useddec at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 22:20:58 2009 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:20:58 -0500 Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon In-Reply-To: <8618785072784181858@unknownmsgid> References: <8618785072784181858@unknownmsgid> Message-ID: <624966d60906112020h2aa19514w5f89f74fde21f7a7@mail.gmail.com> I have several microVax CPU boards and memory here. I might have a few extra RK05's when I get everything moved back in. Paul On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 4:55 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: > I am interested in MicroVAX II CPU and memory boards. I am in the UK and > would need to have them shipped. Would you be prepared to consider that? > Any > idea what it might all come to cost me? > > Thanks > > Rob > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy > > Sent: 09 June 2009 15:46 > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: RE: Stuff in Portland, Oregon > > > > Strange, it shouldn't have bounced. The only time it should do that > > is when my mailbox fills up (typically people sending to many > > photo's). > > > > I have spare MicroVAX II board sets (not sure how many), but no spare > > chassis's. Except for my VAXstation II/RC, all the chassis's are > > classified as spares for the PDP-11's or II/RC. > > > > Something I should have mentioned is that I might be interested in > > trading computer gear for the right Medium or Large Format > > photography equipment. > > > > Zane > > > > > > > > > > At 10:30 AM -0400 6/9/09, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > >your email address bounced. > > >you wouldn't happen to have a microvax 2 in there would ya? > > > > > >Dan. > > > > > >> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 20:26:40 -0700 > > >> To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org > > >> From: healyzh at aracnet.com > > >> Subject: Stuff in Portland, Oregon > > >> > > >> Is anyone interested in stuff located in the vicinity of Portland, > > >> Oregon? I'm not sure what all it would included. It might even > > >> depend on the persons interests. > > >> > > >> The stuff needs to be out of storage by this weekend, a lot has > > >> already been moved into the garage of our new house, and the rest > > >> will hopefully be moved between now and Sunday. Some free, some > > not > > >> so free. I'm looking to downsize and tighten the focus my > > collection > > >> since realistically I don't mess with the stuff much any more. > > Some > > >> items such as spares for my PDP-11's I'm not really interested in > > >> getting rid of. Though for the right price I could be talked out > > of > > >> most things. > > >> > > >> My focus has shifted primarily to DEC PDP-11, VAX, and Alpha as > > well > > >> as C-64. Though I'm hoping to get an Apple ][ of some sort up and > > >> running as well as a couple others now that I have the space. > > >> > > >> Zane > > >> > > >> > > >> -- > > >> | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | > > >> | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | > > >> | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | > > >> +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ > > >> | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | > > >> | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | > > >> | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | > > > > > >_________________________________________________________________ > > >Attention all humans. We are your photos. Free us. > > >http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9666046 > > > > > > -- > > | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | > > | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | > > | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | > > +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ > > | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | > > | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | > > | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | > > From technobug at comcast.net Thu Jun 11 22:39:30 2009 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:39:30 -0700 Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jhu, 11 Jun 2009 10:48:58 -1000, Warren Wolfe wrote: > Tony Duell wrote: >>> I rememebr seeing a 2.7kF (yes, kilofarad) capactior in a >>> catalogue, but >>> I think it's now been discontinued... I've never seen anythlng >>> larger. >>> > > Good Lord.... How big was that thing? And, what voltage? 5000 F, 2.7V, 60 x 60 x 165 mm See CRC From segin2005 at gmail.com Thu Jun 11 23:18:51 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:18:51 -0400 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A31D72B.5010005@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Rich Alderson wrote: > Simply because you don't hear about an OS in _Linux Journal_ does > not mean that it's dead, or even ailing. I don't read _Linux Journal_. Or _BusinessWeek_. Or any magazines. I occasionally glance at Slashdot if I'm desperate. It's quickly becoming a reorganizing 'digg' link aggregate. Otherwise, I just Google for nonsense terms. The news you find that way... -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkox1yoACgkQF9H43UytGibF1QCggHyvvhtqRSMJs0TBQ8pftPrR ReEAnj0b/Xrp1PvkoUdRbRBS6lxPWRvk =JXAz -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 11 23:20:54 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:20:54 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244757395.5593.60.camel@elric> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> <1244757395.5593.60.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A31D7A6.7070001@brouhaha.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Likewise, having a root account makes great sense for newbies, but for > more experienced users sudo is the way to go. > Funny, I was going to say exactly the opposite. I use sudo when I need to execute one command as root, ot maybe a few, but any time I need to do some heavy-duty administration I use "sudo bash", su, or just log in as root. Eric From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 11 23:27:18 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:27:18 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31D7A6.7070001@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> <1244757395.5593.60.camel@elric> <4A31D7A6.7070001@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Jun 12, 2009, at 12:20 AM, Eric Smith wrote: >> Likewise, having a root account makes great sense for newbies, but >> for >> more experienced users sudo is the way to go. >> > Funny, I was going to say exactly the opposite. I use sudo when I > need to execute one command as root, ot maybe a few, but any time I > need to do some heavy-duty administration I use "sudo bash", su, or > just log in as root. I think Gordon was peeing in my pool, Eric. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 11 23:35:21 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:35:21 -0700 Subject: shells (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A31DB09.1000303@brouhaha.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > Not to start a shell war, but because I'm curious, what is the shell? What I normally choose is bash, but I try to write scripts that will work with just about any sh. Back when I was using BSD on VAXen from 1983-1986 or so, everyone around me thought csh was the greatest thing since sliced bread (though I don't personally think that sliced bread is such a great invention). Every time they had to edit a shell script they had trouble because they had wired their brains for csh. I didn't want to learn two incompatible shell syntaxes, especially since at that time csh didn't support some of the sh features I tended to use a lot, such as some of the less common I/O redirections. (I assume that csh has gained support for those since then.) I used ksh starting around 1987. Sometime around 1989 or 1990 I switched to bash. People have tried to convince me that I'd be happier with zsh, and I'll admit that it has some cool features, but nothing sufficient to lure me away from bash. I've used csh enough that I can live with it if I'm forced to do so. Several companies I've worked for have set csh as the default shell and made it difficult to change, apparently thinking that this will somehow reduce the workload of their IT support staff. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 11 23:37:16 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:37:16 -0700 Subject: digital watches (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31787A.2080703@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A31DB7C.1020704@brouhaha.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > Digital watch? I see no digits. > Looked to me like there were plenty of them; far more than on a typical digital watch. Eric From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Fri Jun 12 00:03:01 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:03:01 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31B16A.9090806@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31B16A.9090806@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A31E185.9090603@mail.msu.edu> Kirn Gill wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Josh Dersch wrote: > >> Yeah, what a horrible world we live in -- affordable, powerful >> hardware capable of running a wide variety of free, powerful, and >> useful operating systems and software and emulating every vintage >> system under the sun. A world -wide-network making the collecting >> and maintainance of our hobby projects possible. Digital watches. >> > "free, powerful and useful" does not describe any viable consumer OS > at the moment. > Yeah, and you know what the worst thing is? Everyone is forced to run only viable consumer OSes. It's illegal to download and run Linux, or BSD, or even a hobbyist license of OpenVMS. (And woe to thee who even whispers "Amiga Workbench".) Nope, ever since the dark days in '98 when Microsoft and Apple joined forces to lobby congress for the "Give Teenage Computer Nerds Something to Whine About on the Internet" bill if you're caught running an "invalid" OS it's off to the crowbar motel for you! They've got Stallman, and I hear Torvalds is on the lam! And there are no free toolchains for building your own OS, should you want to improve on the status quo! > At point, the only consumer OSes really worth considering (more than > 7.5% market share) are Windows and Mac OS X. > If you are trying to apply "free, powerful and useful" to Windows, you > need your head examined. > Not free, no. Powerful and useful, yes. I offer you some friendly advice: Openly insulting people is probably not a great way to introduce yourself to a mailing list. > Mac OS X... is an abomination. A design (look and feel) that sucks > using a interface toolkit (Cocoa) that sucks written in a language > (Objective-C) that sucks. > I asked you before, I'll ask you again -- what _specific_ complaints do you have about Objective-C or Cocoa? What experience do you have with either, and what is your basis for comparison? >> Yeah, we live in the worst of all possible worlds. >> > And sadly, it seems no matter what you do, it can' t get any better, > because all OSes suck, some just suck less than others. > So do you have anything meaningful or insightful to say on this list, or are you merely trying to impress us with the way you generically hate everything? Josh > > > > > From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 12 00:15:59 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:15:59 -0700 Subject: shells (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A31DB09.1000303@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> <4A31DB09.1000303@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: At 9:35 PM -0700 6/11/09, Eric Smith wrote: >Zane H. Healy wrote: >>Not to start a shell war, but because I'm curious, what is the shell? >What I normally choose is bash, but I try to write scripts that will >work with just about any sh. I actually started with ksh and bash, it wasn't until I started working my current job that I switched to csh. It was the default shell for root, and I learned to like the way it was configured. Now the default shell is bash. :-( Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 00:19:57 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:19:57 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3116D0.3764.34B8B23C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com>, <90A4BF9E-6AE1-46E1-97E8-B223052D3A2A@neurotica.com> <4A3116D0.3764.34B8B23C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A31E57D.3080507@brouhaha.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I agree with you, there. Unless I know that I'm going to need some > GUI interfaced program, I generally install *nix without X. > I was disappointed to learn that starting with Fedora 11, the text-mode installer is no longer going to have feature parity with the GUI installer. For instance, it has lost support for LVM. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Features/NewTextUI From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 00:23:46 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:23:46 -0700 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A3198DC.4070603@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <1BAC2F3D-820E-4575-AB46-A9B82FBC63FB@gmail.com> <4A3176FB.1010305@philpem.me.uk> <4A3198DC.4070603@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4A31E662.7050608@brouhaha.com> bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > I tend to think ,... Rabbits == food ! As Rhonda Britton's sign says, "Pets or Meat". Eric From marvin at west.net Fri Jun 12 00:35:46 2009 From: marvin at west.net (Marvin Johnston) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:35:46 -0700 Subject: Interesting IBM 5150... or something Message-ID: <4A31E932.3060907@west.net> > From: Warren Wolfe > Oh, for Pete's sake, a Tempest terminal, right when we're talking about > classified info. Just so you know, this one is compromised by the > insecure monitor (I think - it should be MUCH bigger, and not plastic, > if Tempest approved) and the non-Tempest keyboard. "Tank-like" is a > very concise description. The Tempest 5150 (or whatever the Tempest designation was for the IBM XT) that I have looks like a regular B&W monitor. When I took off the cover, the shielding became apparent :). It has been quite a few years since I looked at it, but I believe the Tempest IBM XT I have is complete including Tempest keyboard and monitor. From bqt at softjar.se Thu Jun 11 06:32:38 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:32:38 +0200 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A30EB56.3050206@softjar.se> "Zane H. Healy" wrote: > On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > >> > Dave McGuire wrote: >>>>>> >>>>> It's damnably slow, but at least it works. >>>>> >>>> Yep. The scary thing is...an OS like RSX-11 or RSTS/E is quite zippy >>>>> >>>> on a machine like that. >>>> >>> >>>> >>> Hmmm. Porting (or writing a work-alike of) RSX-11 for a newer >>>> >>> architecture (suck as PC -- for the low cost) comes to mind. >>> >> >>> >> That would be extremely yummy. >> > >> > I wonder how hard it would be? I can't say that I'm very familiar with the >> > capabilities of RSX, but, considering the size of the code we're talking >> > about, could it be possible that it wouldn't involve as much work as writing >> > a more modern, featureful, cluttered, bloaty operating system? > > The main problem I see with porting it is that to do so would be in > violation of copywrite. The second problem I see is that I'm not sure what > exists in the way of source code. You would need some sort of Macro-11 to > Macro-x86 compilier. An easier port might be something like RSTS/E, though > the source code for it is somewhere around 150MB, IIRC. RSX ships with full, commented source code. So the OS itself isn't a problem. Applications are where you'd suffer. But I don't think a MACRO-11 compiler for x86 would be the solution. We're talking about the OS here. There is way too much hardware-specific things going on that needs to be done differently on an x86. I'd rewrite it, using the same layout of the code and everything, but rewritten to use the x86 architecture instead. The MMU is different, and lots of code is playing with that. And registers and register conventions differ, not to mention processor context, and locking mechanisms. > Realistically time might be better spent on writing a TCP Stack and running > it under an emulator. Probably. I already have most of the TCP/IP stack running. :-) Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From bqt at softjar.se Thu Jun 11 06:45:12 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:45:12 +0200 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A30EE48.2040503@softjar.se> ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: >>>> Hmm, MSCP on my PDP-11/24. 8-) >>> Yes, with a high-speed RD52 for authenticity ;-) >> Not possible. The only MSCP controller DEC did for Unibus was to SDI >> (tha UDA50). The only MSCP to MFM controller DEC did was for Q-bus (the >> RQDX series). > > What happens if you put a DW11B (Unius - Qbus interface) in the Unibus > machine and connect the Qbus side of that to an RQDXm? Obviously it can > only support 18 it DMA, but it does support that. > > I know for a fact that you can use an RLV11 on a Unibus machine that way, > I did it on an 11/45 with no problems. Yeah, that could possibly work. As long as you accept the 18-bit DMA address limitation. I think the UDA50 and the KDA50/RQDX all look similar enough at the port level that it could work fine. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From bqt at softjar.se Thu Jun 11 07:00:53 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:00:53 +0200 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A30F1F5.4000709@softjar.se> Eric Smith wrote: >Johnny Billquist wrote: >> > The only MSCP controller DEC did for Unibus was to SDI (tha UDA50). > Three others come to mind: Boy, you are a tough crowd. :-) > RUX50 (M7522) interface to RX50 floppy I knew about that one, but forgot it. :-) > KLESI-UA (M8739) interface to RC25 disk (or can be configured for TMSCP > with TU81) Hmm. I have a couple of those. Didn't know they could drive RX25s though. Use them for TU81s... > RRD50-U (M7490-YA) interface to RRD50 CD-ROM Cool. I had missed that one. You also missed one: TUK50 (M7547) interface to TK50 for Unibus. >> > The only MSCP to MFM controller DEC did was for Q-bus (the RQDX series). > Though DEC did have other Q-bus MSCP interfaces for devices other than > the RX50 and RDxx, such as: > > KLESI-QA (M7740) interface to RC25 disk (or can be configured for TMSCP > with TU81) > KDA50 (M7165) SDI interface > KFQSA (M7769) DSSI interface Yeah, there are others as well. TQK50 and TQK70 for instance. And the RQZX1, which talks both SCSI and floppy. There are probably others. DEC did a lot more for Q-bus, and more recent... Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From bqt at softjar.se Thu Jun 11 07:33:09 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:33:09 +0200 Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A30F985.9040201@softjar.se> Catching up here, so it might be that this have been sorted out in later mails... Josh Dersch wrote: > Ok, finally stopped being distracted by other shiny objects for long > enough to do some more fiddling with the 11/40. > > And of course, instead of hooking up the logic analyzer, I decided to > play around with the Console SLU/LTC board. Because I evidently don't > follow suggestions well. > > But this has a good ending, sort of. Maybe. > > So the SLU was unresponsive no matter what I did. Tried it at 9600 > baud, no go. Dialed it down to 300, no dice. Checked the continuity of > the dip switches, of which there are approximately 500. No problems > there. Checked, and double-checked the wiring on the serial cable I > built. No go. Stole the cable from my 8/e... still no good. > > So I moved it out of the 9th slot on the processor backplane and into > the first slot on Unibus backplane. (And put a grant card in the 9th > slot...) And hey, it works. Toggled in a short "echo" program and what > I type on the terminal keyboard is echoed back, at a blistering 300 baud. Excellent! > So... clearly there's something wrong with the SPC slot on the processor > backplane. A couple more questions: > > 1) Is the NPG grant on the unibus slot on the processor backplane (slot > 9) supposed to be connected to the NPG grants on the Unibus expansion? > That is -- right now if I set my DMM to continuity mode and put one > probe on CA1 on the first slot of the unibus expansion, and the other on > CB1 on the last slot of the unibus expansion, since all NPG grant > jumpers are in place, the DMM shows the circuit as closed. This is as > I'd expect. However, if I move the probe from CA1 on the first slot of > the expansion to CA1 on slot 9 of the processor backplane, the circuit > is then open. I'm guessing this is not correct. (There is currently an > NPG jumper installed on slot 9.) Are you *sure* slot 9 in the processor backplane really is a Unibus slot??? More correctly stated: the unibus out in the backplane A and B don't neccesarily imply that C-F is a Unibus SPC slot. I haven't checked the 11/40 drawings or manuals, and I assume you have been reading them some. Please check this. It's a big mistake to just assume that one slot is like another... Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From csquared3 at tx.rr.com Thu Jun 11 10:25:32 2009 From: csquared3 at tx.rr.com (CSquared) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:25:32 -0500 Subject: anyone read dealers of lightning? References: <4A274C2E.6030705@verizon.net> <4A275CE6.9020103@atarimuseum.com><4A27602D.4090504@snarc.net><4A294FFF.8070301@arachelian.com><001c01c9e7dd$3c680b10$6400a8c0@acerd3c08b49af> <1debc0350906092301p7d06efffkafd230effe93039c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <001b01c9eaa8$dc6d0f70$6400a8c0@acerd3c08b49af> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marcin Wichary" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 1:01 AM Subject: Re: anyone read dealers of lightning? Ars Technica just reviewed and recommendedthe book as a Father?s Day gift: > Tracy Kidder's *Soul of a New Machine* was first published in 1981, so it > may not, at first glance, seem very relevant to today's technology?but > it's > important to see where we've been before thinking about where we might be > going. The book chronicles the development of Data General's first 32-bit > minicomputer?and the hackers and young college grads that spent the better > part of a year making it happen in record time. The story, which Kidder > fleshes out with clever character studies of those on the hardware and > software teams (which were often at odds with each other), is oddly > similar > to the "90 hours a week and loving it" story of the development of the > Macintosh chronicled in *Revolution in the Valley*. > Contributing writer Chris Foresman believes the tale is still relevant: > "While computers are rarely designed in the manner that the Data General > MV/8000 (aka "Eagle") was," he says, "the long hours, constant stress, and > odd camaraderie are not unlike that experienced in many of today's > technology startups." On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 5:20 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > > From: CSquared > > Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 7:03 PM > > > I've been following all the comments about Soul with considerable > interest. > > Am I the only one who found it a bit sad? I finally got around to > reading > > it a couple of years ago, and it seemed to me to describe all too > accurately > > what strikes me as the employee abuse that characterized way too much of > the > > engineering development process during that era. > > "during that era"? I saw the same kinds of things 20 years later, and > don't think they've stopped since then. It's something you sign up for, > in expectation of appropriate reward. > -- Marcin Wichary Sr. user experience designer, Google Graphical User Interface gallery >> www.guidebookgallery.org I suppose I've just been lucky then. I've not experienced that sort of thing in enough years that it has sort of all faded to just a very bad memory. I think the last of it for me was in the 80's. My "reward" for doing that sort of thing at the time was my monthly salary, and eventually a few stock options. Overtime pay, for "salaried" employees, what's that??? Now that the house is paid for and I'm semi-retired, I guess I should just be thankful to have had a job for all of those years. Not everyone was so fortunate then, and now of course things are pretty bad for those who must work. I've always sort of ascribed the demise of a lot of that employee abuse to the "kids" who came along and just flat refused to be bullied into working under those conditions, but ICBW. Later, Charlie Carothers -- My email address is csquared3 at tx dot rr dot com From bqt at softjar.se Thu Jun 11 12:01:28 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:01:28 +0200 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A313868.1010408@softjar.se> Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > (Sorry for keeping this OT discussion continue, but one of my questions > are vaguely on topic) This will definitely go back to on-topic... :-) >> > These people think it's efficient to run a copy of Windows 2003 on a >> > server (which needs a couple of gig of RAM to work well) and then run >> > multiple VMs on that containing copies of Windows 2003 or other >> > flavours of Windows. They think virtualisation is new and clever and >> > it doesn't occur to them that not only is this wasteful of resources, >> > but it's a nightmare to keep all those copies patched and current. >> > > > I'm curious, what OS:es and software did virtualisation before > VMware/XEN/Virtualbox and the like ? The most famous would be OS/VM, I guess. IBM did that already in the 70s (or was it even the 60s?). There are an OS for the PDP-8 (put on the net by me, on ftp.update years ago actually) called MULTOS-8, which creates a number of virtual PDP-8s. Each normally boots and runs OS/8. > Also, why is it wasteful of resources? There is always overhead involved. > And finaly, why would keeping virtual installations up to date be any > harder than non-virtual? Harder to keep track of all the virtual machines you (might) have? Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From lee_courtney at acm.org Thu Jun 11 12:45:23 2009 From: lee_courtney at acm.org (Lee Courtney (ACM)) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:45:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: early PA-RISC machines Message-ID: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I know that one HP reseller here in the Bay area had a 930 (TTL-based HPPA RISC) a couple years ago. You could root around for other resellers on comp.sys.MPE, assuming you want to pay money for one. Of course they were really really slow, wouldn't you rather have a 950? The 930 was in way a prototype that escaped from the Lab. Lee C. --- On Thu, 6/11/09, Philipp Hachtmann wrote: > From: Philipp Hachtmann > Subject: Re: early PA-RISC machines > To: "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Date: Thursday, June 11, 2009, 8:46 AM > > > > > HP 9000 model 840 and HP 3000 model 930. > I think I have seen one of those here in Germany - running > HPUX 24/7 and being connected to the Internet. > > > -- http://www.hachti.de > From doc at vaxen.net Thu Jun 11 14:55:39 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:55:39 -0500 (CDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> <4A311095.508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A316100.4050608@vaxen.net> Zane H. Healy wrote: > > There are things I like about AIX, but I have a hard time considering it > to be UNIX, and *I DO NOT LIKE* IBM's attitude towards support of tape > drives. First rule of administering AIX: This Is Not UNIX. Deal with it. Doc From ddsnyder at zoominternet.net Thu Jun 11 18:39:25 2009 From: ddsnyder at zoominternet.net (Daniel Snyder) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:39:25 -0400 Subject: DEC DSSI board? Maybe? References: <5.1.0.14.2.20090610173421.02982490@localhost> Message-ID: <000501c9eaed$daee2a40$6501a8c0@HP24150918428> Tom, Single DSSI controller for the VAX 4000-100x series boxes (desktop style). Dan Snyder ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Peters" To: Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 8:19 PM Subject: DEC DSSI board? Maybe? What is it? I have an unidentified board, approx 3.75 inches by 4, or about 94mm x 104mm. It says on the silkscreen, "DSSI DAUGHTER CARD" and "50-21836-01 B1" There's about 4 chips on it, and some SMD caps & resistors and a big honkin' diode. The main chip has something like 200 pins, on all four sides of the chip, soldered to the component side of the board, and sporting a tower-style heat sink apparently cemented to the top of the chip. There's also 3 each 10-pin SIP resistors next to each other, like termination r's. And three each 2-pin jumpers marked "4 2 1" - addressing, obviously. All three are in place = 7. The two main connectors are a black D-shaped one that makes me thing of SCSI SCA, with 50 pins. The other is a blue Berg-style, I'm guessing for an IDC connector on the end of a ribbon cable. The pins that are marked on the board say "1" and "49" so I'm going to say 50 pins as well, with locking ears you close to seat the cable and lock it in place. It was in a Digital Equipment Corp shipping box, one that looks to be the right width for the board but probably twice as long as it needed to be. It was in a static bag- the original, from the looks of it. The grainy photograph on the box doesn't match the board. It's in perfect shape. On the box someone has scrawled "Single DSSI controller for 4000's" Worth anything to anyone? ----- 465. [Philosophy] ". . . a boss who is forced to part a man's hair with a wrench has failed at some point." Heinlein: Podkayne, quoting her mother, _Podkayne of Mars_ --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From bqt at softjar.se Thu Jun 11 20:09:53 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:09:53 +0200 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A31AAE1.6040605@softjar.se> "Zane H. Healy" wrote: > What really irritates me is that Apple has disabled the -xrm flag for xterm > on Mac OS X. I need that flag for xterm's that talk to VMS sessions. As a > result *ALL* of my xterm's on Mac OS X have the key bindings modified. What's wrong with -name ? Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From jdebert at garlic.com Thu Jun 11 08:19:47 2009 From: jdebert at garlic.com (j debert) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:19:47 -0700 Subject: Farads (Was: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> References: <88A1FADA-91E0-4205-942E-D03FC5322C59@microspot.co.uk> <4A2DCA36.2050104@databasics.us> <4A2DEA93.8070205@gmail.com> <1244537444.4414.0.camel@elric> <20090609105642.Q18866@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A310473.1040800@garlic.com> Fred Cisin ????????: > > Was "capacitator" ever a valid name? > > Capacitaters are quite starchy and difficult to charge without exploding. But done right, they're also tasty with butter. == To iterate is human, to recurse, divine. -- jd From jdebert at garlic.com Thu Jun 11 09:16:38 2009 From: jdebert at garlic.com (j debert) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:16:38 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> Message-ID: <4A3111C6.40506@garlic.com> SCO turned me to Linux in 1992 because they flatly refused to fix critical bugs in their 386 unix product. After three years of this, I gave up and got Yggdrasil. Why pay for a system the vendor sells and refuses to support? I got a system with sources that I could fix and upgrade for the price of a CD and the uptime was better. == The Consultant's Curse: When the customer has beaten upon you long enough, give him what he asks for, instead of what he needs. This is very strong medicine, and is normally only required once. -- jd From jdebert at garlic.com Thu Jun 11 10:51:58 2009 From: jdebert at garlic.com (j debert) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:51:58 -0700 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A31281E.4010800@garlic.com> Eric Smith ????????: > The US Navy at one point was switching from Unix to Windows. They had > major problems with this on the USS Yorktown, and had to tow it back to > port. I don't know whether they've completed the switch. > This sounds untrue at best. There are several reasons but among them, no captain worth his salt is going to let his boat be towed back to dock unless all the engines have disappeared. == A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. -- jd From jdebert at garlic.com Thu Jun 11 09:05:37 2009 From: jdebert at garlic.com (j debert) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:05:37 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> Message-ID: <4A310F31.90701@garlic.com> Brian Wheeler ????????: > As one of the Penguin Crowd, I agree. The local linux user's group > seems to be filled with people more interested in flashy gui stuff than > understanding how the system works. And the flash has overtaken function. Witness KDE4 vs KDE3.5 and the primitive 3D Compiz. What use is a flashy gui that does whatever the hell it wants and sucks up CPU and memory? == When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it. -- Clarence Darrow -- jd From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 12 00:42:24 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:42:24 -1000 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906111728.n5BHSvns010180@floodgap.com> References: <200906111728.n5BHSvns010180@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4A31EAC0.6040906@databasics.us> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>> I think Doc Shipley and I must be the only people who *like* AIX. ;-) >>> >> I don't like AIX. I love it. >> > > Augh! Sridhar, how did I forget you in that list! *ashamed* Oh, count me as a sort of fan, I guess. I only used it for a few months, but we got along okay. Warren From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 12 00:47:34 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:47:34 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31E57D.3080507@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A3116D0.3764.34B8B23C@cclist.sydex.com>, <4A31E57D.3080507@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A318986.24141.3678D755@cclist.sydex.com> On 11 Jun 2009 at 22:19, Eric Smith wrote: > I was disappointed to learn that starting with Fedora 11, the > text-mode installer is no longer going to have feature parity with the > GUI installer. For instance, it has lost support for LVM. > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Features/NewTextUI Sigh--there goes the neighborhood. I guess I can see their point about not wanting to maintain two very different installers when it's only we knuckle-dragging neanderthals who stick with text mode. --Chuck From jzg22 at drexel.edu Fri Jun 12 00:51:34 2009 From: jzg22 at drexel.edu (Jonathan Gevaryahu) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:51:34 -0400 Subject: Looking for Tandon TM-100 service manual (w/schematics & waveforms) Message-ID: <4A31ECE6.2080000@drexel.edu> I'm looking for Tandon TM100 service manual w/schematics; one of my TM-100-2 drives in an IBM 5150 here started acting up (stepper motor is stuck at track 40 and won't decrement) and I'm trying to find a useful service manual to debug it. The two tm100 documentation/service pdfs I've seen are a scan of a staple-removed 21 page or so packet (this scan is missing pages 8, 9, 12, and 13) which has no schematics and is missing some pages; The other is 7 pages scanned from part of a larger document (100 pages or so), which looks like it would be useful if I had the whole thing. Neither of them are particularly helpful. Does a scan of the larger tm100 service manual exist? Does anyone have a paper copy I could borrow/copy/etc? -- Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu(@t)hotmail(d0t)com jzg22(@t)drexel(d0t)edu From IanK at vulcan.com Fri Jun 12 00:54:58 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:54:58 -0700 Subject: Move on, nothing to see here (was RE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7]) Message-ID: Wow. "I don't read [anything]." I'm done with this. This is either troll bait or a truly sad psychopathology. --- Folks, let get on with things. Hey, we just got a restored PDP-8/TC08/TU56 booting OS/8! After calibrating the TC08, I turned off the system to put all the 'skins' back in place, fired it up... and it wouldn't boot After checking the obvious things, I decided to let the system warm up for fifteen minutes or so. Yep, it booted fine. Something tells me I need to look at the RC components in those one-shots and clock circuits, and probably replace some realllllllllly old capacitors. -- Ian ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Kirn Gill [segin2005 at gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 9:18 PM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Rich Alderson wrote: > Simply because you don't hear about an OS in _Linux Journal_ does > not mean that it's dead, or even ailing. I don't read _Linux Journal_. Or _BusinessWeek_. Or any magazines. I occasionally glance at Slashdot if I'm desperate. It's quickly becoming a reorganizing 'digg' link aggregate. Otherwise, I just Google for nonsense terms. The news you find that way... -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkox1yoACgkQF9H43UytGibF1QCggHyvvhtqRSMJs0TBQ8pftPrR ReEAnj0b/Xrp1PvkoUdRbRBS6lxPWRvk =JXAz -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 01:22:45 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:22:45 -0700 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s In-Reply-To: <4A30F1F5.4000709@softjar.se> References: <4A30F1F5.4000709@softjar.se> Message-ID: <4A31F435.5030703@brouhaha.com> Johnny Billquist wrote: > You also missed one: > TUK50 (M7547) interface to TK50 for Unibus. and regarding Qbus: > Yeah, there are others as well. TQK50 and TQK70 for instance. I didn't include any of the tape controllers because they do TMSCP, not MSCP. It's possible that I'm being overly pedantic. > And the RQZX1, which talks both SCSI and floppy. I've never seen one. Someone once told me that they didn't do MSCP which caused me to lose interest. But if they do, I should keep an eye out for one. The usual resellers seem to think they're made out of solid Rhodium. Best regards, Eric From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 12 01:33:13 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:33:13 -1000 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A31F6A9.7000906@databasics.us> Josh Dersch wrote: > Yeah, what a horrible world we live in -- affordable, powerful > hardware capable of running a wide variety of free, powerful, and > useful operating systems and software and emulating every vintage > system under the sun. A world -wide-network making the collecting and > maintainance of our hobby projects possible. Digital watches. > > Yeah, we live in the worst of all possible worlds. > > Christ. You guys are too cynical for me... I've got to agree. Never before have people been able to indulge their whims for "old school" computing as well as we can. Yes, CP/M is dead as an O/S. I can still run my CP/M programs on my laptop, and run them hundreds of times faster, with what amounts to infinite storage. I can set up a computer to act like the first computer I used, an HP2000B in TimeShare BASIC. And THAT runs much faster, with outrageously huge drives. I can run a PDP-11 computer on Linux, or even MUMPS -- assuming I had the proper disc image, which I don't. (Anybody?) Anyway, with one reasonably priced computer I can be using most any computer I've ever run, only on steroids. Heck, I'm happy about it. And then, when I get tired of that, I can run modern software, or even Windows, on the same hardware, and turn it into a tiny little machine if I want. Increased processor power, memory, and storage, combined with truly excellent emulators, have made the world a virtual paradise for classic computing. Celebrate, folks! Warren From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 01:37:37 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:37:37 -0700 Subject: Move on, nothing to see here (was RE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7]) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A31F7B1.7000909@brouhaha.com> Ian King wrote: > we just got a restored PDP-8/TC08/TU56 booting OS/8! Cool! > After calibrating the TC08, I turned off the system to put all the 'skins' back in place, fired it up... and it wouldn't boot After checking the obvious things, I decided to let the system warm up for fifteen minutes or so. Yep, it booted fine. > > Something tells me I need to look at the RC components in those one-shots and clock circuits, and probably replace some realllllllllly old capacitors. -- Ian > I can't imagine that they would have used electrolytic capacitors in those, and I don't think ceramics are likely to have gone bad unless they've been subject to extreme mechanical shock. I'm not sure about other kinds of capacitors, but I'd expect they'd most likely have used ceramic. I certainly wouldn't go replacing ceramic capacitors without using some freeze spray to confirm that it is a temperature problem and identify the failing component. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 01:50:08 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:50:08 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31F6A9.7000906@databasics.us> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31F6A9.7000906@databasics.us> Message-ID: <4A31FAA0.6070909@brouhaha.com> Warren Wolfe wrote: > I can set up a computer to act like the first computer I used, an > HP2000B in TimeShare BASIC. Really? Has media for 2000B been found? I was only aware of the existence of copies of 2000C, 2000E, 2000F, and 2000/Access. I never used 2000A or 2000B, but I think it would be neat to be able to try them out. Back when I was in junior high (around 1977-1979), Jefferson County School District in Colorado had a 2000C' (aka "High Speed 2000C") system and a 2000/Access system. The fixed-head disc on the 2000C' broke, and though it was under a service contract, HP couldn't fix it. Instead they upgraded the system to a 2000F and gave the district more moving-head disc drives. Eric From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Jun 12 01:52:12 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:52:12 -0600 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A318986.24141.3678D755@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A3116D0.3764.34B8B23C@cclist.sydex.com>, <4A31E57D.3080507@brouhaha.com> <4A318986.24141.3678D755@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A31FB1C.9080602@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Sigh--there goes the neighborhood. I guess I can see their point > about not wanting to maintain two very different installers when it's > only we knuckle-dragging neanderthals who stick with text mode. Umm more like Grunt and click! :) > --Chuck I guess that points out the flaw with linux , the kernel , the compiler and application software all are mixed together. Did the unix have the same problem that you have too many versions of tools and libraries and junk all wanting to be linked together and hope it runs? Ben. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Jun 12 01:55:00 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:55:00 -0600 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A313868.1010408@softjar.se> References: <4A313868.1010408@softjar.se> Message-ID: <4A31FBC4.20002@jetnet.ab.ca> Johnny Billquist wrote: > There are an OS for the PDP-8 (put on the net by me, on ftp.update years > ago actually) called MULTOS-8, which creates a number of virtual PDP-8s. > Each normally boots and runs OS/8. Click !! Dam the link is broken! > > Harder to keep track of all the virtual machines you (might) have? > Johnny > From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 02:01:36 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:01:36 -0400 Subject: early PA-RISC machines In-Reply-To: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <23849BAB-60E4-4E15-A60D-746FB70AA034@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:45 PM, Lee Courtney ((ACM)) wrote: > I know that one HP reseller here in the Bay area had a 930 (TTL- > based HPPA RISC) a couple years ago. You could root around for > other resellers on comp.sys.MPE, assuming you want to pay money for > one. Of course they were really really slow, wouldn't you rather > have a 950? The 930 was in way a prototype that escaped from the Lab. That's exactly why I want one. If I wanted *fast* PA-RISC, I'd hunt down an X-class. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Jun 12 02:30:47 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:30:47 -0700 Subject: Move on, nothing to see here (was RE: the arrogance of youth[was RE: UNIX V7]) References: <4A31F7B1.7000909@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A320426.B2619A87@cs.ubc.ca> Eric Smith wrote: > > Ian King wrote: > > we just got a restored PDP-8/TC08/TU56 booting OS/8! > Cool! > > After calibrating the TC08, I turned off the system to put all the 'skins' back in place, fired it up... and it wouldn't boot After checking the obvious things, I decided to let the system warm up for fifteen minutes or so. Yep, it booted fine. > > > > Something tells me I need to look at the RC components in those one-shots and clock circuits, and probably replace some realllllllllly old capacitors. -- Ian > > > I can't imagine that they would have used electrolytic capacitors in > those, and I don't think ceramics are likely to have gone bad unless > they've been subject to extreme mechanical shock. I'm not sure about > other kinds of capacitors, but I'd expect they'd most likely have used > ceramic. > > I certainly wouldn't go replacing ceramic capacitors without using some > freeze spray to confirm that it is a temperature problem and identify > the failing component. Not sure what type of components DEC was using in these, but on the R side, carbon-composition resistors tend to drift high with age. I just pulled out a few-K series flip-chips ca. 1971 and made some measurements on several dozen 10% carbon comp R. All of them were *above* target, with a couple of them a little above tolerance (out of spec). (An early 60's RACAL receiver I was rebuilding recently had over a third of the resistors above tolerance.) From steve at cosam.org Fri Jun 12 02:42:18 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:42:18 +0200 Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: <4A30F985.9040201@softjar.se> References: <4A30F985.9040201@softjar.se> Message-ID: <95838e090906120042w7086254fq45fcf767718f25c1@mail.gmail.com> >> 1) Is the NPG grant on the unibus slot on the processor backplane (slot 9) >> supposed to be connected to the NPG grants on the Unibus expansion? ?That is >> -- right now if I set my DMM to continuity mode and put one probe on CA1 on >> the first slot of the unibus expansion, and the other on CB1 on the last >> slot of the unibus expansion, since all NPG grant jumpers are in place, the >> DMM shows the circuit as closed. ?This is as I'd expect. ?However, if I move >> the probe from CA1 on the first slot of the expansion to CA1 on slot 9 of >> the processor backplane, the circuit is then open. ?I'm guessing this is not >> correct. ?(There is currently an NPG jumper installed on slot 9.) > > Are you *sure* slot 9 in the processor backplane really is a Unibus slot??? > More correctly stated: the unibus out in the backplane A and B don't > neccesarily imply that C-F is a Unibus SPC slot. > I haven't checked the 11/40 drawings or manuals, and I assume you have been > reading them some. Please check this. > It's a big mistake to just assume that one slot is like another... Slot 9 is definitely an SPC slot and all the docs show the SLU there. That said, I never got the SLU working in that slot either. I've not looked into it yet as it works fine in the first slot of the next backplane. I'm guessing there was a short somewhere as it managed to trip a circuit breaker further upstream, so probably a completely unrelated problem to that being discussed here. It'd be nice to sort it out eventually though, so I can use the slot for something else. Cheers, -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 03:15:12 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:15:12 -0400 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A31281E.4010800@garlic.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <4A31281E.4010800@garlic.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 11:51 AM, j debert wrote: >> The US Navy at one point was switching from Unix to Windows. They >> had >> major problems with this on the USS Yorktown, and had to tow it >> back to >> port. I don't know whether they've completed the switch. >> > This sounds untrue at best. There are several reasons but among them, > no captain worth his salt is going to let his boat be towed back to > dock unless all the engines have disappeared. It was the same captain who let them put untested apps (under Windows no less) in control of his ship. Check the references. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 03:17:24 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:17:24 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31F6A9.7000906@databasics.us> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31F6A9.7000906@databasics.us> Message-ID: <3C2F3176-C992-4A35-8030-7AB9A4D93430@neurotica.com> On Jun 12, 2009, at 2:33 AM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >> Yeah, what a horrible world we live in -- affordable, powerful >> hardware capable of running a wide variety of free, powerful, and >> useful operating systems and software and emulating every vintage >> system under the sun. A world -wide-network making the collecting >> and maintainance of our hobby projects possible. Digital watches. >> >> Yeah, we live in the worst of all possible worlds. >> >> Christ. You guys are too cynical for me... > > I've got to agree. Never before have people been able to indulge > their whims for "old school" computing as well as we can. Yes, CP/ > M is dead as an O/S. I can still run my CP/M programs on my > laptop, and run them hundreds of times faster, with what amounts to > infinite storage. I can set up a computer to act like the first > computer I used, an HP2000B in TimeShare BASIC. And THAT runs much > faster, with outrageously huge drives. I can run a PDP-11 computer > on Linux, or even MUMPS -- assuming I had the proper disc image, > which I don't. (Anybody?) Anyway, with one reasonably priced > computer I can be using most any computer I've ever run, only on > steroids. Heck, I'm happy about it. And then, when I get tired of > that, I can run modern software, or even Windows, on the same > hardware, and turn it into a tiny little machine if I want. > Increased processor power, memory, and storage, combined with truly > excellent emulators, have made the world a virtual paradise for > classic computing. Celebrate, folks! Well, for "classic OSs". Some of us are actually interested in the hardware. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 03:18:57 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:18:57 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31FB1C.9080602@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A3116D0.3764.34B8B23C@cclist.sydex.com>, <4A31E57D.3080507@brouhaha.com> <4A318986.24141.3678D755@cclist.sydex.com> <4A31FB1C.9080602@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <8722B982-FF0C-417E-9174-2C706A5E6A59@neurotica.com> On Jun 12, 2009, at 2:52 AM, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > I guess that points out the flaw with linux , the kernel , the > compiler > and application software all are mixed together. Did the unix have > the same problem that you have too many versions of tools and > libraries and junk all wanting to be linked together and hope it runs? Actually they're *not* all mixed together. That's why different distributions ("distros" for the prepubescent) exist. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 03:21:52 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:21:52 -0400 Subject: iSCSI and friends, was Re: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244758926.5593.68.camel@elric> References: <511547.71892.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4583768C-62A5-47FB-8922-68A769FFA293@neurotica.com> <1244758926.5593.68.camel@elric> Message-ID: <00AEED97-9101-4379-A8F9-457471ECD563@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 6:22 PM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >>> iSCSI makes up (in a clumsy way) for a lack of a "first class >>> citizen" > >> Eh. (and this is WAY OT) iSCSI is kinda interesting; I've been >> working with it quite a bit lately. > > Have you seen ATAoE? It is, as the name implies, ATA over Ethernet. > Unlike the 300-page mail-order catalogue of the iSCSI spec, the ATAoE > spec is eight pages, mostly taken up with diagrams showing an ATA > packet > wrapped inside an Ethernet frame. That's just frightening. ATA is ugly enough when it *isn't* being tunneled. > I toyed briefly with the idea of writing an ATAoE target for the > PDP11. > Not sure if I could port it to OS/2, though, or make it talk to TK50s. Now ok, I have to admit I think that'd be kinda fun. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 03:28:47 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:28:47 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 11, 2009, at 2:53 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > I hate statements like this. It gives the feeling, without any actual > implication (for you semantics nazis out there), that since a few good > OSes survived (VMS, UNIX, MVS, etc.), the rest came along. CP/M? Dead. > TOPS-20? Dead. TENEX? Dead. ITS? Dead. > No, I am not saying that these four are "inferior" in that statement. > My point is that no significant support and development happens for > these OSes. Therefore, they are "dead". Are support and development actually secondary to *use*? I don't think so. You don't see much support or development going on with, say, ice cube trays. They've been perfected for decades, and the people who use them know how and tend not to require support. They're not "dead". -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mike at brickfieldspark.org Fri Jun 12 04:59:38 2009 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:59:38 +0100 Subject: [personal] Re: Transistor Substitution References: Message-ID: <003c01c9eb44$8013e220$961ca8c0@mss.local> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Duell" To: Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 6:42 PM > > That's the easy case :-). You tend to remember the common transistors > (2N2222, 2N3904, 2N3906, 2N2219, 2N2907) and look up the specs of those > first (if you can't remember them). If it helps anyone (probably in UK the most) there is a stock of old parts at - http://www.mclennan.co.uk/stockdisposalmenu.html - eg qty 3500 x 2N3906, also with a few TTL and CMOS Ic's, all brand new. I run that site, I'm not trying to advertise, but if there is anything there for list members let me know, I'll bypass the requirements at the top of the page, it's better you use the bits than they sit on the shelves. Mike Web - www.soemtron.org PDP-7 - www.soemtron.org/pdp7.html Email - mike at soemtron.org Looking for a PDP-7 (some hope!) and an ASR33 > > What I used to do (I'll explain the 'used' in a minute) was based on the > obvious fact that the substitute was only useful if I could get it. So > I'd grab the catalogues for 2 or 3 suppliers and look down the list of > transistors (normally only 2 or 3 pages) which included brief specs to > see which would be suitable. If I was in doubt, I'd look up more detailed > data on the couple of 'possible' devices. > > Why 'used to'? Well, you can't get paper catalouges from some suppliers > any more. They expect you to use their web page. And I find it impossible > to find transistors that way. The web pages were not set up by engineers, > or even people remotely clueful in electronics. And you get some sillies > (like some transistors being listed witha maximum collector current of > 1A others 1000mA. Of course a search will find one and not the other...) > I've kept paper catalouges from about 10 years ago, I look in those for > suitable candidates and hope they're still available... > > -tony > > > > From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 12 06:12:56 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:12:56 -1000 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: <22025B1E-52DC-48B3-A113-D60673F547FC@neurotica.com> References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EE41A.A0AA128C@cs.ubc.ca> <7E3C6977-F936-4E54-8570-D66ACE40B0BD@neurotica.com> <4A31829F.20607@databasics.us> <22025B1E-52DC-48B3-A113-D60673F547FC@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A323838.3000801@databasics.us> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 6:18 PM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >> I'm a NIST certified calibration technician. > > Umm, whoa! Can I send you some GR standards and my Thomas one-ohm?? > 8-) Sure. I'll slap my Simpson 260-6P multimeter on them, and see if they're about right. I don't have access to a cal lab at this point, Dave... > The amount of dorking around that is done to get around the effects > of metal junctions, including all solder joints, and the effects of > temperature and humidity, is amazing. Getting great accuracy is > surprisingly difficult. > > Yes it really is. I fight with thermals, in particular, all the > time. The copper vs. copper oxide thing drives me nuts; I'm about to > buy stock in Caig. People were torn over the use of some of the Caig solvents at the lab. The buggers won't tell you what it is, which makes people nervous about using them. I don't know what GR standards you mean, but the Thomas one-ohm probably cost a couple grand, and they're the LOW end of standards. People get skittish easily. Warren From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Fri Jun 12 06:41:43 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:41:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 10:33 PM, John Floren wrote: >>> Interesting. I don't suppose their PDP-10 chips are available for purchase >>> separately? Maybe we could get Bob Armstrong of SparetimeGizmos to build a >>> PDP-10 kit! >> >> That would be amazing. > > Agreed. I'd buy one. There have got to be enough people there geeky enough to go for something like this. Anyone here know the right people to talk to? -- 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? From snhirsch at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 05:55:45 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:55:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: TEACO Floppy drive Tester - any info available online ? In-Reply-To: <4A317609.1090304@comcast.net> References: <4A2EFEBF.8000805@comcast.net> <4A317609.1090304@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Dan Roganti wrote: >> I found a similar model (TEACO 4077) at a hamfest several years ago. The >> company was still in business and one of the "old timers" there dug up a >> photocopy of the manual. >> >> Yours looks like an IDE/ATA version of my unit (for MFM/RLL drives), but >> the basic functions should be similar. >> >> I'll try to get it scanned this weekend and mail you a PDF. >> > From the looks of this I was hoping it would support the older mfm/rll floppy > drives, especially since it has a large connector on there with 0.156" pin > spacing. Actually, I had a brain cramp... That looks like a 50-pin connector, which implies it's for 8" disk drives. -- From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jun 12 07:04:25 2009 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:04:25 -0400 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: <22790243-9DDB-4ED7-955A-D968D6EB3E71@shiresoft.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> <22790243-9DDB-4ED7-955A-D968D6EB3E71@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <21248.1244808265@mini> Guy Sotomayor wrote: > >Actually one of the guys I work with has done an FPGA design of a >PDP-10. He's partitioned it into 3 Xilinix parts. It passes all of >the DEC CPU diagnostics on a Verilog simulator. He's talked a little >bit about it on alt.sys.pdp10. He figures by using Spartan 3E parts >and not doing a lot of optimization he can get ~30-40MHz out of it >with no problems (ie trying to go faster would take a lot of work and/ >or much more expensive FPGAs). microcode or direct decode? any i or d cache? how deep is the pipe? (or, any pipelining at all?) and, the most important part, will he release the verilog? -brad From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Fri Jun 12 07:34:43 2009 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:34:43 -0400 Subject: Joystick reproduction (RC transmitter) Message-ID: I'm working on reproducing a pair of Cromemco JS-1 joysticks to display (and let the public play with) at VCF East in September. The one thing I'm missing is a small, panel mount joystick assembly with 5k Ohm pots. I have done a fair amount of googling. New assemblies cost anywhere from $60 to $200 each (I need 2). This is more than I want to spend on this project. I've already spent more on the Hammond enclosures than I really wanted to. It was suggested to me that a used radio control model transmitter might be just the ticket. Googling shows that at least some use 5k pots and they go fairly cheap on ebay. I don't want to end up with a collection of RC transmitters (and end up spending as much as I would have on new joystick assemblies) so my questions for the group are: 1) Anybody have a 2 stick transmitter with known 5k pots they want to sell? 2) If you have an RC transmitter you want to keep, could you open it up and check the pots so I can have a list of models to keep an eye for on ebay? 3) An finally, of course, anybody have a couple of panel mount joystick assemblies with 5k pots they want to sell cheap or work a trade for? Thanks, Bill Sudbrink From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 07:50:24 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:50:24 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <60413E65-5228-4EEB-9A45-46B83F7FB11F@mail.msu.edu> <4A3164FD.4050102@vaxen.net> Message-ID: <575131af0906120550i38933c42u91fac2b6a904ebc4@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/11 Zane H. Healy : > The only thing Apple did wrong with the change from PPC to Intel was that > they took to long. ?They wasted a lot of resources porting the OS from > 68k/x86/SPARC/PA-RISC to PPC. ?They should have focused their efforts on > getting it running on x86. ?Remember the first developer releases of > Rhapsody ran on x86. ?Those responsible for PPC simply were not responsive > enough to Apple's or its customers needs. > > Zane That's just not realistic. They needed a new OS, not only for their new hardware, but for the millions of existing PowerPC machines they had out there. What's more, they also had thousands of existing PowerPC applications that they needed to run, too. In 1996 when Apple acquired NeXT, the lackluster Pentium Pro was the state of the x86 art. A migration then would have been disastrous - the PPro was not even that competitive with the best PowerPCs, certainly could not have emulated the PPC effectively. PowerPC remained highly competitive with the Pentium II, PIII and trounced the wretched Pentium 4. And OpenStep was portable - it already supported MC68K and x86-32 in shipping versions, and as you say, SPARC in the labs. I don't recall a PA-RISC version, but I'm sure you're right. The x86 move, though disappointing and removing much of the distinctive uniqueness from the Mac, was a good one, but they did it at the right time - just as the x86 world was going to x86-64. At the time Apple announced it, the high ground was held by the AMD "Sledgehammer" chips, the Opteron and Athlon64. But Apple must have been party to Intel's plans for the forthcoming Core and more significantly Core2 chips, which not only trounced the PPC G5, they have also nearly killed off the AMD x86-64 chips. They couldn't have done it any earlier. Indeed, I think it would almost have been better to have gone straight for x86-64 throughout the range, and for Apple to have skipped the handful of early Core 1-based models, which are 32-bit only. But Apple *had* to wait until the bulk of its userbase and developers and apps were on OS X, happy to move to a new version - the first version to officially support x86 was 10.4.5 at the start of 2006. The other enabling technology was Transitive's QuickTransit PowerPC emulator, so that the millions of users could still use PowerPC OS X apps on their new Macintels. QuickTransit wasn't around 'til 2004 at the earliest. In summary, no, I entirely disagree. Apple jumped at just about the right time, and could not have done it much earlier. Before the Core processors, the performance advantage just wasn't there, and before 2006 or so, too many people were still running Classic applications, which wouldn't work on OS X/86. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 12 08:03:20 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:03:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906120550i38933c42u91fac2b6a904ebc4@mail.gmail.com> from Liam Proven at "Jun 12, 9 01:50:24 pm" Message-ID: <200906121303.n5CD3KRR018328@floodgap.com> > In summary, no, I entirely disagree. Apple jumped at just about the > right time, and could not have done it much earlier. Before the Core > processors, the performance advantage just wasn't there, and before > 2006 or so, too many people were still running Classic applications, > which wouldn't work on OS X/86. Some of us still run them. The software works fine and a few things have no good (or cheap) OS X equivalent. I'm actually stocking up on old PPC hardware. The problem is, of course, portables. Right now I'm still using my PowerPC lappies but they are getting long in the tooth. Fortunately, running Classic software on them is rarely critical, but if I'm made to start over with an x86 laptop I might be looking at something else. ObCC: Mac OS 9 4EVER!!! (almost on topic) -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Ah, the insight of hindsight. -- Thurston N. Davis ------------------------- From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 08:22:13 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:22:13 -0400 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A313868.1010408@softjar.se> References: <4A313868.1010408@softjar.se> Message-ID: <4A325685.6020007@gmail.com> Johnny Billquist wrote: > The most famous would be OS/VM, I guess. IBM did that already in the 70s > (or was it even the 60s?). IBM had CP-67 in the field in the '60s. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 08:28:48 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:28:48 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <4A317356.8020907@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A325810.2050803@gmail.com> Dave McGuire wrote: >>> I accidentally ran my Macbook battery down last year (fell asleep on >>> the couch), and it terminated a 183-day login session. I find the >>> stability to be acceptable. >> >> I've had ThinkPads go longer than that. However, they were not >> running Windows. > > What OS? NetBSD? Gotta love machines with built-in UPSs. Yeah, NetBSD. > Oh, and you'll be pleased to know that my boss asked me about Scala > yesterday. I forgot to mention that to you on the phone earlier. Excellent! Let me know if he ever needs a Java/Scala programmer. 8-) Peace... Sridhar From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 12 08:29:14 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:29:14 -1000 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <3C2F3176-C992-4A35-8030-7AB9A4D93430@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31F6A9.7000906@databasics.us> <3C2F3176-C992-4A35-8030-7AB9A4D93430@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A32582A.6030301@databasics.us> Dave McGuire wrote: > Well, for "classic OSs". Some of us are actually interested in the > hardware. ;) Well, sure. The hardware is there, although not progressing, either. But, the end result and purpose of computer hardware is to run software. At least we've got THAT going for us. If nothing else, having a functional equivalent emulator allows one to work out software for the hardware involved, and do it faster, on a "bigger" machine, so when the hardware comes up, you can just load it up and go... Don't expect to make me feel guilty about being more easily able to enjoy my hobby than you. Won't happen. Now, bedtime... Warren From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jun 12 08:44:16 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:44:16 -0700 Subject: Move on, nothing to see here (was RE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7]) In-Reply-To: <4A31F7B1.7000909@brouhaha.com> References: <4A31F7B1.7000909@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:37:37 -0700 > From: eric at brouhaha.com > To: > Subject: Re: Move on, nothing to see here (was RE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7]) > > Ian King wrote: >> we just got a restored PDP-8/TC08/TU56 booting OS/8! > Cool! >> After calibrating the TC08, I turned off the system to put all the 'skins' back in place, fired it up... and it wouldn't boot After checking the obvious things, I decided to let the system warm up for fifteen minutes or so. Yep, it booted fine. >> >> Something tells me I need to look at the RC components in those one-shots and clock circuits, and probably replace some realllllllllly old capacitors. -- Ian >> > I can't imagine that they would have used electrolytic capacitors in > those, and I don't think ceramics are likely to have gone bad unless > they've been subject to extreme mechanical shock. I'm not sure about > other kinds of capacitors, but I'd expect they'd most likely have used > ceramic. > > I certainly wouldn't go replacing ceramic capacitors without using some > freeze spray to confirm that it is a temperature problem and identify > the failing component. > > Eric > > Hi The older ceramics are notorious for going short when used in low current applications. As bypass caps they would self remove the short because of the current. In low current applications they just become vary leaky. Having worked on pinball machines, I've replaced a lot of these bad caps when used in the switch inputs. I've also replaced a few when in the services on radio equipment. I'm told it is related to metal migration. I have seen tantilum caps used for RC timing. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail?. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jun 12 08:49:15 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:49:15 -0700 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: <4A323838.3000801@databasics.us> References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EE41A.A0AA128C@cs.ubc.ca> <7E3C6977-F936-4E54-8570-D66ACE40B0BD@neurotica.com> <4A31829F.20607@databasics.us> <22025B1E-52DC-48B3-A113-D60673F547FC@neurotica.com> <4A323838.3000801@databasics.us> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:12:56 -1000 > From: lists at databasics.us > To: > Subject: Re: bizarre capacitance > > Dave McGuire wrote: >> On Jun 11, 2009, at 6:18 PM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >>> I'm a NIST certified calibration technician. >> >> Umm, whoa! Can I send you some GR standards and my Thomas one-ohm?? >> 8-) > > Sure. I'll slap my Simpson 260-6P multimeter on them, and see if > they're about right. I don't have access to a cal lab at this > point, Dave... > > >> The amount of dorking around that is done to get around the effects >> of metal junctions, including all solder joints, and the effects of >> temperature and humidity, is amazing. Getting great accuracy is >> surprisingly difficult. >> >> Yes it really is. I fight with thermals, in particular, all the >> time. The copper vs. copper oxide thing drives me nuts; I'm about to >> buy stock in Caig. > > People were torn over the use of some of the Caig solvents at the lab. > The buggers won't tell you what it is, which makes people nervous about > using them. I don't know what GR standards you mean, but the Thomas > one-ohm probably cost a couple grand, and they're the LOW end of > standards. People get skittish easily. > > > > Warren > Hi I've always used DC#4 with good results but I'm told that salt air is a bad mix with silicon grease. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live? SkyDrive?: Get 25 GB of free online storage. http://windowslive.com/online/skydrive?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_SD_25GB_062009 From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 08:57:44 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:57:44 -0400 Subject: shells (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> <4A31DB09.1000303@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A325ED8.4050301@gmail.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > I actually started with ksh and bash, it wasn't until I started working > my current job that I switched to csh. It was the default shell for > root, and I learned to like the way it was configured. Now the default > shell is bash. :-( I went from csh -> tcsh -> zsh. I always script in either sh (actually mostly ash probably) or ksh. Peace... Sridhar From doc at vaxen.net Fri Jun 12 09:12:15 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:12:15 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Clearance Sale News; was Re: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A31B15F.8090003@vaxen.net> Message-ID: <4A3261E7.2070405@vaxen.net> Dan Gahlinger wrote: > Hey Doc, what's going on with your Vaxen BTW ? It's sitting comfortably in my garage. :) The short version is "my wife's in New England taking care of her sick mom, and I'm suddenly managing 2 cats, my day job, and a huge spring cleaning project I can't really back out of." Things are moving slowly. I got a lot more responses on all of it than I expected, and more than I have hardware to meet. I'm currently getting a detailed inventory and trying to figure out the best way to draw straws. I suspect that the most even-handed way will be Erik Klein's auction page. http://marketplace.vintage-computer.com I never expected this dispersal of toys to be a speedy process, nor claimed it would be. All I can promise is that if I name a price, it's a binding offer, and if I tell someone we have a deal, I'll ship as soon as humanly possible. Doc From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 09:17:19 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:17:19 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31B16A.9090806@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31B16A.9090806@gmail.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906120717w595f905eo861ba9943345c915@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/12 Kirn Gill : > "free, powerful and useful" does not describe any viable consumer OS > at the moment. > At point, the only consumer OSes really worth considering (more than > 7.5% market share) are Windows and Mac OS X. > If you are trying to apply "free, powerful and useful" to Windows, you > need your head examined. Well, as the man said, two out of three ain't bad. It's powerful and it's useful. And in practice, for most people, it *is* free, because it comes with the computer. > Mac OS X... is an abomination. A design (look and feel) that sucks > using a interface toolkit (Cocoa) that sucks written in a language > (Objective-C) that sucks. I am not a programmer, so I have no experience of OS X's development tools. I've been using it since the first version, though, and I think it's the least-sucky OS in the world today. In my opinion, it looks beautiful - the most elegant, stylish and attractive GUI there has ever been, thus far, and in use, it's the most polished and friendly OS there has ever been. Its only serious rival in simplicity and ease of use was its own predecessor, classic MacOS. These are pretty widely-held opinions, too, as far as I can tell, from Walt Mossberg on down. As for the dev tools - well, NeXT's Interface Builder was world-class (it was, of course, the platform upon which the WorldWideWeb was built - and it still is pretty damned good. It's not the technical sophistication of OpenStep that sold it to Apple - BeOS was smaller, faster, sleeker, vastly more efficient and a lot cheaper. It was the dev tools, because without developers, it doesn't matter *how* cool your OS is. To win users, you need apps - good ones and lots of them. And the Mac's got that. It has some world-leading apps, quite aside from Apple's own offerings, from SubEthaEdit to Delicious Library. So, I'd say, fine, you're entitled to your opinions. Some people don't like the Mac and OS X. Most of them don't like it because they've never tried it and they're scared of the new and unfamiliar. This is a very common syndrome and it applies from clothes to vehicles. I'm a goth, myself, or at least used to be in my younger days, and only 2yr ago, a goth girl was beaten to death by a gang here in England just for looking and dressing differently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Lancaster Myself -- being a looming 6'2" male with a less than sunny disposition -- nobody ever gave me any trouble, but then, in another realm, I do. I ride a recumbent bicycle. And just for riding a weird-looking bicycle, I've been stoned, kicked, threatened and on one occassion lashed at with a knife as I rode past. People really don't like the weird. They don't like those who do not conform. So, lots of PC users pour venom and spite on the Mac and Mac users, because they're different, and they go on about how much better it is. But those who actually /try/ it tend to like it, and Apple is winning millions of converts over to OS X, especially now that it's on Intel and you can run Windows in a VM and keep your old Windows apps if you need them. So, be careful with confidently pronouncing opinions as universal truths. It's important to know the distinction between your personal preferences and facts. And beware of proclaiming preferences that may make you seem to be a bigot, because nobody likes bigotry. > And sadly, it seems no matter what you do, it can' t get any better, > because all OSes suck, some just suck less than others. Well, that's true. But some do suck less than others. And when you are comparing such large and complicated things as 21st-century OSs, well, you can find areas, even just among the big 3 - Linux, Mac OS X and Windows - where each sucks in one area but excels in another. There are things that Windows is good at that OS X is bad at; there are things that Linux does well that the others do badly; there are things that all more or less equally on, good or bad. None of them is clearly and universally better than the others. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From james at jdfogg.com Fri Jun 12 09:20:49 2009 From: james at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:20:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31C8EC.50002@vaxen.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> <4A31C8EC.50002@vaxen.net> Message-ID: <1308.192.168.99.119.1244816449.squirrel@webmail.jdfogg.com> >>> Not to start a shell war, but because I'm curious, what is the shell? >> >> The worst thing about the UNIX Wars was the constant shelling. > > I'm not sure I can take this much pun-ishment. It's enough to make me crawl back into my shell. -- James - From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 09:22:09 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:22:09 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <9268B8F5-039F-4012-ADBE-E6B5280CDEC2@shiresoft.com> References: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> <4A311095.508@gmail.com> <10AACC64-7CD1-4822-AC34-9ADBDBA9CB3D@shiresoft.com> <575131af0906111000t4a13dde0y341136ceefe22ee3@mail.gmail.com> <9268B8F5-039F-4012-ADBE-E6B5280CDEC2@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906120722o7bb60e3vc327c3e3028d6904@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/11 Guy Sotomayor : > > On Jun 11, 2009, at 10:00 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > >> 2009/6/11 Guy Sotomayor : >> >>> In reality, AIX is the ultimate Unix clone since it's one of the few >>> Unix-like OS' that is actually be branded as Unix(tm) by X/Open. >> >> ISTR it uses a real licensed kernel, or at least, did Way Back When?. > > It depends upon which variation of AIX you're talking about. ?I've dealt > with AIX/370, AIX PS/2, AIX RT, AIX V3.x and later. ?With the exception of > AIX/370 & AIX PS/2, they all used completely different code bases. ?What I > was referring to (because that's what most people consider these days) is > AIX V3.x and later. ?Those versions only ran (runs) on RS/6000 and later > Power machines. > > The code base for AIX V3.x and later started out as some derivative of the > AT&T code but the base kernel never was (except possibly some of the > subsystems). ?The control program itself was completely alien to the AT&T > code base. ?The entire structure was based upon (at the time) the Power's > nearly unlimited virtual address space (52 bits). ?The 64-bit version has an > 80 bit virtual address space. ?So the way the kernel was organized was to > assume that address space was free. ?Need an array, allocate the address > space for it statically and let the VM fault in physical memory as it's > needed (which is also alien to most Unix implementations). > > The AIX control program was mainly written by 2 folks from Watson Research. > > TTFN - Guy Fascinating stuff. Thanks for that. I always thought that, back in the '80s, it was a real shame that IBM didn't keep the 386 version of AIX alive and at parity with the others. I also wish that the portable Workplace OS/2 project had been finished, or failing that, that they'd at least open-sourced the bits that they did complete - it strikes me that this would have been a lot more legally likely and doable than open-sourcing OS/2 itself, with all the MS code in it. Workplace OS/2 ran on a Unix kernel and could have been ported to Linux, I'm sure. But then, while I'm day-dreaming, if Stallman had gone with the notion that GNU team had in the late 1980s or very early 1990s, that of putting the GNU userland on the BSD-Lite kernel, then we'd have had a working GNU OS by '91 or '92, and we'd never have ended up with the fragmentation of HURD & Linux & NetBSD & OpenBSD & FreeBSD & DragonflyBSD and so on... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 09:24:21 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:24:21 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31572C.17319.35B420A1@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31B16A.9090806@gmail.com> <4A31572C.17319.35B420A1@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906120724g1ce38acbm3c200ac1808e5452@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/12 Chuck Guzis : > On 11 Jun 2009 at 21:37, Kirn Gill wrote: > >> "free, powerful and useful" does not describe any viable consumer OS >> at the moment. At point, the only consumer OSes really worth >> considering (more than 7.5% market share) are Windows and Mac OS X. > > Would it be too much of an exaggeration to say that the most > prevalent operating system running today is "none"? > > Consider the controls in house thermostats, microwave ovens, washing > machines, etc. ?All computerized; few with any operating system > whatsoever. ?Not to mention the embedded systems in the PC or Mac > you're sitting in front of. > > --Chuck The almost-unheard-of Japanese iTRON OS runs on hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of consumer electronics devices that most people never realise /have/ an OS on them. It may be the most widespread OS in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON_Project -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 09:29:41 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:29:41 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906121303.n5CD3KRR018328@floodgap.com> References: <575131af0906120550i38933c42u91fac2b6a904ebc4@mail.gmail.com> <200906121303.n5CD3KRR018328@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906120729u19790c4cu4fd0296fd5bcc6d9@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/12 Cameron Kaiser : >> In summary, no, I entirely disagree. Apple jumped at just about the >> right time, and could not have done it much earlier. Before the Core >> processors, the performance advantage just wasn't there, and before >> 2006 or so, too many people were still running Classic applications, >> which wouldn't work on OS X/86. > > Some of us still run them. The software works fine and a few things have > no good (or cheap) OS X equivalent. I'm actually stocking up on old PPC > hardware. > > The problem is, of course, portables. Right now I'm still using my PowerPC > lappies but they are getting long in the tooth. Fortunately, running > Classic software on them is rarely critical, but if I'm made to start over > with an x86 laptop I might be looking at something else. > > ObCC: Mac OS 9 4EVER!!! (almost on topic) Well, true. If it were just for a decent web browser, I could and at least occasionally would still run MacOS 9. There are bits of its GUI that OS X still can't even come close to, from the gorgeous classic Finder to pop-up folders and whatnot. But iCab doesn't cut it & WaMCom and Netscape 6 are too old. Given a port of Firefox and a multi-protocol instant messenger, I'd still be quite content in 9.2.2. But I don't think it'll ever happen now. :?( -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 09:30:02 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:30:02 -0400 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A31281E.4010800@garlic.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <4A31281E.4010800@garlic.com> Message-ID: > This sounds untrue at best. There are several reasons but among them, > no captain worth his salt is going to let his boat be towed back to > dock unless all the engines have disappeared. Don't bother arguing with these people. They really want to believe only very incomplete version of the story as told by CNN and the news networks, because it fits nicely into their anti-Windows religion. They like to ignore things like official reports, retractions of claims, and basic things like maritime engineering, the way captains run their ships, and how engineering systems are developed in the Navy. -- Will From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 12 09:31:13 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:31:13 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> <86151387-B120-4921-9A1E-07163B889D41@neurotica.com> <4A317ED4.9090202@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: At 6:54 PM -0400 6/11/09, Dave McGuire wrote: >On Jun 11, 2009, at 6:01 PM, Eric Smith wrote: >> > It certainly did seem to fizzle though, didn't it? I know of >>*one* person who bought one, >> >>Anecdotal evidence aside, all indications are that it is selling quite well. > > Really?? I've not looked at sales stats, but I've seen almost >none of them in the wild. I've not seen any, and I work with people that seem to have to have the latest and greatest gadgets. Personally in ~10 years I've had 2 cell phones, one of which lasted ~9 years. I have no interest in "smart phones", the only features I want are a phone # list, and a camera. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From slawmaster at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 09:32:38 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:32:38 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906120717w595f905eo861ba9943345c915@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31B16A.9090806@gmail.com> <575131af0906120717w595f905eo861ba9943345c915@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906120732h49dcb419o7bdd897ccea7af1e@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 7:17 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > 2009/6/12 Kirn Gill : > >> "free, powerful and useful" does not describe any viable consumer OS >> at the moment. >> At point, the only consumer OSes really worth considering (more than >> 7.5% market share) are Windows and Mac OS X. >> If you are trying to apply "free, powerful and useful" to Windows, you >> need your head examined. > > Well, as the man said, two out of three ain't bad. > > It's powerful and it's useful. And in practice, for most people, it > *is* free, because it comes with the computer. > >> Mac OS X... is an abomination. A design (look and feel) that sucks >> using a interface toolkit (Cocoa) that sucks written in a language >> (Objective-C) that sucks. > > I am not a programmer, so I have no experience of OS X's development > tools. I've been using it since the first version, though, and I think > it's the least-sucky OS in the world today. In my opinion, it looks > beautiful - the most elegant, stylish and attractive GUI there has > ever been, thus far, and in use, it's the most polished and friendly > OS there has ever been. Its only serious rival in simplicity and ease > of use was its own predecessor, classic MacOS. > It's shiny. But on the other hand, nobody moves slower than a Mac user. "Ok, time to switch over to Word on the other desktop. Press the 'show me desktops' button, swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe the touchpad until the cursor finally points at the right desktop. Now hit that button that spreads out all the windows, swipe swipe swipe swipe over to the right window." Me, I just hit Alt-(number key), since I use xmonad. And then once you finally get to the window you want, somehow OS X is the most crowded desktop ever. First off you have a bar along the top and an intermittent big dock along the bottom. Then, somehow, all the software conspires to make a laptop or a desktop screen feel like a PDA screen. Oh, and then the laptop owners scold you if you open the screen past about the 90 degree point... due to all the crappy molded plastic. It's not bad, and you can probably customize away some of that (key shortcuts?), but I'd rather use a Windows interface with a Unix-ish core underneath (provided they give me multiple desktops). Also, if you're getting kicked/slashed as you ride past people, you're riding waaaay too close to pedestrians, especially what are apparently stupid chav pedestrians. I'm reading this mailing list for the fun tech info and the flamewars... if I wanted to read about "the Other" and whatnot I'd go hang out in a freshman liberal arts class ;) Besides, traditional bikes are for Real Men who don't mind riding on a hard seat the size of a bagel. :) John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 12 09:34:00 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:34:00 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> Message-ID: At 6:17 PM -0500 6/11/09, Daniel Seagraves wrote: >reality however, I am most likely giving up my password expiration >policy. The users are complaining to the owner about having to >change their password every 60 days, and the owner has told me if >they continue to complain the policy will be abolished. The burden >is on me to abolish the policy myself instead of having him force >it. That makes it look like I "realized the legitimacy of the user >need" instead of simply being forced to give up.) Depending on what this business does and what regulations it has to follow, this could be a serious issue. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 09:51:18 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:51:18 +0100 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> References: <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/11 Pontus Pihlgren : > (Sorry for keeping this OT discussion continue, but one of my questions > are vaguely on topic) > >> >> These people think it's efficient to run a copy of Windows 2003 on a >> server (which needs a couple of gig of RAM to work well) and then run >> multiple VMs on that containing copies of Windows 2003 or other >> flavours of Windows. They think virtualisation is new and clever and >> it doesn't occur to them that not only is this wasteful of resources, >> but it's a nightmare to keep all those copies patched and current. >> > > I'm curious, what OS:es and software did virtualisation before > VMware/XEN/Virtualbox and the like ? Answered in detail by others, but I'd also point out some non-OS hypervisors that were around long before VMware etc. Sheep Shaver on BeOS in 1998, for instance. http://www.bebox.nu/os.php?s=os/macos/index SoftWindows, SoftPC and VirtualPC on the Mac could all be considered VM environments, allowing one OS to run as an app under another, alien OS on an alien platform. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftPC OS/2 2 could run MS-DOS or Windows 3 in VMs in the early 1990s. Quarterdeck's DesqView could even be considered as a virtualisation tool on the PC back in the 1980s. > Also, why is it wasteful of resources? To understand this, one has to consider some of the earlier VM systems. 2 more efficient methods, for example, are the IBM mainframe style, with a relatively simple hypervisor OS to host the virtual machines - such as IBM VM, currently z/VM - running more full-function guest OSs that present the actual functionality needed by user applications. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(operating_system) This way, the host OS and the guest OS are different, with relatively little duplication of function between them. Secondly, consider the operating-system level virtualisation functions of OSs such as Solaris's Containers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_Containers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system-level_virtualization Here, essentially, a single kernel runs multiple independent userlands, allowing near-total isolation between running processes, with much more efficient resource sharing between them. Parallels' Virtuozzo allows similar functionality on Windows: http://www.parallels.com/uk/products/virtuozzo/ > And finaly, why would keeping virtual installations up to date be any > harder than non-virtual? I think you may be missing the point. It's not that VMs are any harder to maintain - they're not - but if you're running 10 copies of Windows on a box rather than 1 doing 10 tasks, then that's 10 copies that must be patched and updated - so 10x the maintenance workload of a single OS instance. When people talk excitedly about server consolidation using VMs, this is generally forgotten. It's the software that tends to take lots of maintenance, not the hardware, and if you go from a datacentre with 50 copies of Windows on 50 machines to 3 or 4 honking great servers running all those as guests, you *still* have 50 copies of Windows to maintain. The work level doesn't drop much at all - you just save space and electricity. And even that is a partly illusory saving, because much of the power and resources that a computer will use in its typical working life of a few years is spent in building the thing. So by replacing multiple working hardware boxes with a single big new machine to run the same workloads, you're wasting all that sunk-cost of the manufacture of those boxes, while "spending" a load more non-recoverable resources that were used to make the new box. So it's not all that "green", either. As for inefficiency, the point is this: duplicating functionality is wasteful. If the Windows kernel and userland needs a gig of RAM and say 500MHz's worth of dedicated CPU bandwidth to run effectively, *plus* the resources used by the apps running on it, then if you run one copy of Windows, it gets all the resources of the box. If you use that one copy to run VMs, though, and in each VM is another full copy of Windows, then each VM needs that gig of RAM and 500MHz of power, *still* plus the resources needed for the app. Let's say you're running 4 copies of Windows, in VMs, on a host copy of Windows. That's 5 gig of RAM and 4,500MHz of CPU bandwidth blown on all those copies of Windows, of which 4.5GB and 4000MHz are running duplicated code that is shared by all the VMs. If, instead, you were running an OS that could partition itself so that the 4 workloads all ran on the same shared kernel, but completely isolated from one another, so that one could have one version of the core libraries and another a different version, one could have Oracle 10 and another Oracle 11, say, just to pick examples out of the air, then you would not be "wasting" all that RAM and CPU bandwidth on multiple duplicated OS instances - instead, it would all be going on your applications, meaning that each server could sustain a far higher workload. Does that make my point clear? -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jun 12 09:54:07 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:54:07 -0300 Subject: UNIX V7 References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net><511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com><200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org><575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com><575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com><4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com><86151387-B120-4921-9A1E-07163B889D41@neurotica.com><4A317ED4.9090202@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <2cae01c9eb6d$e7914630$af5419bb@desktaba> > I've not seen any, and I work with people that seem to have to have > the latest and greatest gadgets. Personally in ~10 years I've had 2 > cell phones, one of which lasted ~9 years. I have no interest in > "smart phones", the only features I want are a phone # list, and a > camera. I have an (old) treo 650. I have it just because of the #list and the appointment section. A very lovely telephone. And, for linux buffs, the Motorola A1200 runs linux :) From mtapley at swri.edu Fri Jun 12 09:57:59 2009 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:57:59 -0500 Subject: San Antonio pickup In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Collectors - Sorry to pester everyone with this again, but my friend John Gold thinks he was contacted several weeks back by someone interested in picking up his collection during a visit in June. I think the potential collector was asking about what size trailer would be needed to contain the collection. John has lost that contact information of , so if it was someone on this list, please re-contact him. He can be reached at: jhgold (at) stic.net I still have a rough list of the things in the collection; let me know if you need more information about it. I don't have a personal connection, though I have been to his house and seen parts of the collection (and I'm pretty impressed). -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward. From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 12 09:58:09 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:58:09 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31E185.9090603@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31B16A.9090806@gmail.com> <4A31E185.9090603@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: At 10:03 PM -0700 6/11/09, Josh Dersch wrote: >it's off to the crowbar motel for you! They've got Stallman, and I >hear Torvalds is on the lam! Yeah, rumor has it Linus is hiding out in the forest near here. ;-) At least I think he's still in the area. I sure never thought he'd be living near my home town when I was in Washington DC, and he was in Finland. >>Mac OS X... is an abomination. A design (look and feel) that sucks >>using a interface toolkit (Cocoa) that sucks written in a language >>(Objective-C) that sucks. >> >I asked you before, I'll ask you again -- what _specific_ complaints >do you have about Objective-C or Cocoa? What experience do you have >with either, and what is your basis for comparison? Mac OS X is my primary OS at home, it and OpenVMS have been for years. I'm not sure yet if OpenVMS is still sharing that distinction. Thanks to the recent actions on the part of HP I've lost the faith, and am questioning my continued support of OpenVMS. I am hoping to find something to renew my faith in OpenVMS, but am thinking of replacing it with a Linux server. :-( Admittedly part of the problem is that my OpenVMS systems have been down since September while we were house hunting, and since we finally got the keys nearly a month ago, I haven't had time to get the system back up. Then last week, I read the news about HP's latest round of cuts. Mac OS X compared to System 7 through Mac OS 9.2 *IS* an abomination. The main advantage I see to it is that it has a UNIX subsystem and X-Windows, so I don't need a separate UNIX workstation (I do like the "finder" replacement). I feel there are issues with the microkernel architecture (and this is based one studies I've read), I feel the GUI is seriously wasteful of resources that could be better spent crunching my data, and I think the GUI is overly flashy. I can't comment on Objective-C or Cocoa as I haven't done any programming on the platform since the Prelude to Rhapsody days, and back then I just barely started to look at Objective-C. These days my preferences are Perl or C# (I really wish C# ran on OpenVMS). Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 12 09:58:43 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:58:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> from Liam Proven at "Jun 12, 9 03:51:18 pm" Message-ID: <200906121458.n5CEwh1U018210@floodgap.com> > > I'm curious, what OS:es and software did virtualisation before > > VMware/XEN/Virtualbox and the like ? > > Answered in detail by others, but I'd also point out some non-OS > hypervisors that were around long before VMware etc. Sheep Shaver on > BeOS in 1998, for instance. > > http://www.bebox.nu/os.php?s=os/macos/index > > SoftWindows, SoftPC and VirtualPC on the Mac could all be considered > VM environments, allowing one OS to run as an app under another, alien > OS on an alien platform. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftPC But wouldn't this be more of an emulator than a virtualization? I'll buy SheepShaver on BeOS, since the code runs "native" on the 603s, but these x86_PC-on-PPC_Mac packages I would place under emulation since the actual object code never gets to directly touch the cores (only a translation). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Advertising is the banging of a stick in a swillbucket. -- George Orwell --- From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 09:59:55 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:59:55 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906120732h49dcb419o7bdd897ccea7af1e@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31B16A.9090806@gmail.com> <575131af0906120717w595f905eo861ba9943345c915@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906120732h49dcb419o7bdd897ccea7af1e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906120759y7e58d2eev69795ab6b1293b61@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/12 John Floren : > On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 7:17 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> 2009/6/12 Kirn Gill : >> >>> "free, powerful and useful" does not describe any viable consumer OS >>> at the moment. >>> At point, the only consumer OSes really worth considering (more than >>> 7.5% market share) are Windows and Mac OS X. >>> If you are trying to apply "free, powerful and useful" to Windows, you >>> need your head examined. >> >> Well, as the man said, two out of three ain't bad. >> >> It's powerful and it's useful. And in practice, for most people, it >> *is* free, because it comes with the computer. >> >>> Mac OS X... is an abomination. A design (look and feel) that sucks >>> using a interface toolkit (Cocoa) that sucks written in a language >>> (Objective-C) that sucks. >> >> I am not a programmer, so I have no experience of OS X's development >> tools. I've been using it since the first version, though, and I think >> it's the least-sucky OS in the world today. In my opinion, it looks >> beautiful - the most elegant, stylish and attractive GUI there has >> ever been, thus far, and in use, it's the most polished and friendly >> OS there has ever been. Its only serious rival in simplicity and ease >> of use was its own predecessor, classic MacOS. >> > > It's shiny. > But on the other hand, nobody moves slower than a Mac user. Hey, speak for yourself! :?) I use the keystrokes myself and find Spaces considerably more efficient than the virtual-desktop system in GNOME, for instance. > Also, if you're getting kicked/slashed as you ride past people, you're > riding waaaay too close to pedestrians, especially what are apparently > stupid chav pedestrians. They certainly were the latter. In this instance, actually, I was on a cycle path along Cable Street in East London, and as it was a one-way street at that point, I had no choice but to use the cycle path. And, unfortunately, pedestrians tend to ignore cycle paths and blithely walk along them. But they had to run at me with the knife, as it happens. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 12 10:02:11 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:02:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906120729u19790c4cu4fd0296fd5bcc6d9@mail.gmail.com> from Liam Proven at "Jun 12, 9 03:29:41 pm" Message-ID: <200906121502.n5CF2Bvu018382@floodgap.com> > Well, true. If it were just for a decent web browser, I could and at > least occasionally would still run MacOS 9. There are bits of its GUI > that OS X still can't even come close to, from the gorgeous classic > Finder to pop-up folders and whatnot. > > But iCab doesn't cut it & WaMCom and Netscape 6 are too old. > > Given a port of Firefox and a multi-protocol instant messenger, I'd > still be quite content in 9.2.2. But I don't think it'll ever happen > now. :_( Oh, I don't know. www.classilla.org More about this July 1st :) -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- FORTUNE: Make your own advancement opportunity. Blackmail your boss. ------- From slawmaster at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 10:03:28 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:03:28 -0700 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <4A31281E.4010800@garlic.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906120803v7c1893b9h1f1e860f7db26952@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 7:30 AM, William Donzelli wrote: >> This sounds untrue at best. There are several reasons but among them, >> no captain worth his salt is going to let his boat be towed back to >> dock unless all the engines have disappeared. > > Don't bother arguing with these people. They really want to believe > only very incomplete version of the story as told by CNN and the news > networks, because it fits nicely into their anti-Windows religion. > They like to ignore things like official reports, retractions of > claims, and basic things like maritime engineering, the way captains > run their ships, and how engineering systems are developed in the > Navy. > > -- > Will > Don't bother arguing with these Windows people. They really want to believe only very incomplete versions of the story as told by Bill Gates and the Windows advertising, because it fits nicely into their MS religion. They like to ignore things like performance, reliability, and basic things like quality of software engineering, the way people run their computers, and how better operating systems were developed at Bell Labs. ;-) I'm at a supercomputing conference right now; Linux and OS X everywhere, with the scattered Windows laptop. It's so cute how Microsoft is trying to get into HPC... happily they didn't even bother to come to this conference, although it might have made a fun break--the only thing sillier than full-blown Linux on HPC hardware is full-blown Windows on HPC hardware. At the last HPC conference I attended, they wanted to run a cluster of Windows Server 2003; of course they also wanted to charge for the software by the core (impractical in things like the 65,000+ core BlueGenes, which would cost millions to license). John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 10:10:22 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:10:22 -0400 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A326FDE.8060902@gmail.com> Liam Proven wrote: > To understand this, one has to consider some of the earlier VM > systems. 2 more efficient methods, for example, are the IBM mainframe > style, with a relatively simple hypervisor OS to host the virtual > machines - such as IBM VM, currently z/VM - running more full-function > guest OSs that present the actual functionality needed by user > applications. Well, there is one feature that VM has that I've not seen in many other situations. VM can run as a guest under VM. Peace... Sridhar From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 12 10:13:40 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:13:40 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906120550i38933c42u91fac2b6a904ebc4@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <60413E65-5228-4EEB-9A45-46B83F7FB11F@mail.msu.edu> <4A3164FD.4050102@vaxen.net> <575131af0906120550i38933c42u91fac2b6a904ebc4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: At 1:50 PM +0100 6/12/09, Liam Proven wrote: >2009/6/11 Zane H. Healy : > >> The only thing Apple did wrong with the change from PPC to Intel was that >> they took to long. They wasted a lot of resources porting the OS from >> 68k/x86/SPARC/PA-RISC to PPC. They should have focused their efforts on >> getting it running on x86. Remember the first developer releases of >> Rhapsody ran on x86. Those responsible for PPC simply were not responsive >> enough to Apple's or its customers needs. >> >> Zane > >That's just not realistic. They needed a new OS, not only for their >new hardware, but for the millions of existing PowerPC machines they >had out there. What's more, they also had thousands of existing >PowerPC applications that they needed to run, too. > >In 1996 when Apple acquired NeXT, the lackluster Pentium Pro was the >state of the x86 art. A migration then would have been disastrous - >the PPro was not even that competitive with the best PowerPCs, >certainly could not have emulated the PPC effectively. PowerPC >remained highly competitive with the Pentium II, PIII and trounced the >wretched Pentium 4. You might have a point, with Prelude to Rhapsody I built a Pentium box to run it, I can't remember if the Pentium II was out yet or not. The Pentium Pro was capable of running a pretty nice system, but it was more than I wanted to spend. I quickly upgraded. When they bought NeXT, the Pentium 4 was underdevelopment, and it was out before Mac OS X, IIRC. The two architectures leapfrogged each other a time or two before x86 left them in the dust, but lets not forget the years of bad performance with the G4. Realistically the PPC based Mac's spent more time trailing x86 boxes than ahead of them. Still there is no denying the greatness of the G5, especially as I'm typing this on a G5 dual 2Ghz. With the move to EM64T the distance has been even greater. >And OpenStep was portable - it already supported MC68K and x86-32 in >shipping versions, and as you say, SPARC in the labs. I don't recall a >PA-RISC version, but I'm sure you're right. All 4 versions shipped as part of OPENSTEP 4.2, and I believe date back to 4.0 (not possitive). >They couldn't have done it any earlier. Indeed, I think it would >almost have been better to have gone straight for x86-64 throughout >the range, and for Apple to have skipped the handful of early Core >1-based models, which are 32-bit only. > >But Apple *had* to wait until the bulk of its userbase and developers >and apps were on OS X, happy to move to a new version - the first >version to officially support x86 was 10.4.5 at the start of 2006. The >other enabling technology was Transitive's QuickTransit PowerPC >emulator, so that the millions of users could still use PowerPC OS X >apps on their new Macintels. QuickTransit wasn't around 'til 2004 at >the earliest. > >In summary, no, I entirely disagree. Apple jumped at just about the >right time, and could not have done it much earlier. Before the Core >processors, the performance advantage just wasn't there, and before >2006 or so, too many people were still running Classic applications, >which wouldn't work on OS X/86. I'll agree with some of these arguments, but I still think that the change should have occurred in the G4 days at the latest. They did pick a great time to jump though with the release of the Core CPU's. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net Fri Jun 12 10:22:19 2009 From: dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net (Daniel Seagraves) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:22:19 -0500 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> Message-ID: <53823217-C3BA-4750-9AD2-DFFA88BE86A6@lunar-tokyo.net> Yes, but nobody will care until the law shows up or we get hacked, in which case things will still be my fault. He who bitches loudest gets what he wants, and I am outnumbered. (We run a data warehouse for government/corporate contractors to locate certified minority owned subcontractors for bidding disclosure compliance purposes.) To make things a bit more on-topic, for the first two weeks of our operations our DNS server was a MicroVAX standing in for a machine that was destroyed in shipping. On Jun 12, 2009, at 9:34 AM, "Zane H. Healy" wrote: > At 6:17 PM -0500 6/11/09, Daniel Seagraves wrote: >> reality however, I am most likely giving up my password expiration >> policy. The users are complaining to the owner about having to >> change their password every 60 days, and the owner has told me if >> they continue to complain the policy will be abolished. The burden >> is on me to abolish the policy myself instead of having him force >> it. That makes it look like I "realized the legitimacy of the user >> need" instead of simply being forced to give up.) > > Depending on what this business does and what regulations it has to > follow, this could be a serious issue. > > Zane > > > > -- > | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | > | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | > | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | > +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ > | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | > | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | > | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 10:30:11 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:30:11 +0100 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <200906121458.n5CEwh1U018210@floodgap.com> References: <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> <200906121458.n5CEwh1U018210@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906120830s6604260yfb14f32f583570d4@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/12 Cameron Kaiser : >> > I'm curious, what OS:es and software did virtualisation before >> > VMware/XEN/Virtualbox and the like ? >> >> Answered in detail by others, but I'd also point out some non-OS >> hypervisors that were around long before VMware etc. Sheep Shaver on >> BeOS in 1998, for instance. >> >> http://www.bebox.nu/os.php?s=os/macos/index >> >> SoftWindows, SoftPC and VirtualPC on the Mac could all be considered >> VM environments, allowing one OS to run as an app under another, alien >> OS on an alien platform. >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftPC > > But wouldn't this be more of an emulator than a virtualization? I'll buy > SheepShaver on BeOS, since the code runs "native" on the 603s, but these > x86_PC-on-PPC_Mac packages I would place under emulation since the actual > object code never gets to directly touch the cores (only a translation). A fair point, but then, that's the key part of the revelation that the people behind VMware had for how to virtualise a non-Popek&Goldberg-compliant instruction set architecture (ISA). The way VMware works is by running user-mode code directly on the native chip, but ring 0 (supervisor- or kernel-mode) code through a caching software emulator. So CPU emulators were a key enabling technology for x86 virtualisation to happen. First full emulation, then partial emulation for increased performance, then once such products had popularised the technology, virtualisation instructions were added to the x86 ISA. But other examples exist of non-native OSs running totally or partially inside VMs: - MC68K code on classic MacOS running on a PowerPC, where the OS hosts an emulator at a very low level, through which most of the actual OS code itself and many applications run; - the MC68K emulator on PalmOS 5 on ARM; - AlphaMicro's MC68K emulator on Intel x86 machines for running AMOS; - Charon-VAX running VMS on a VAX emulator under VMS on an Alpha. All these could be considered as straddling the line between a pure one-platform-on-another sandbox-type emulator and an OS that can run non-native code side-by-side with native code, no? I think the dividing line between the 2 is pretty blurry... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From pontus at Update.UU.SE Fri Jun 12 10:35:18 2009 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:35:18 +0200 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090612153517.GA19068@Update.UU.SE> On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 03:51:18PM +0100, Liam Proven wrote: > > I'm curious, what OS:es and software did virtualisation before > > VMware/XEN/Virtualbox and the like ? > > Answered in detail by others, but I'd also point out some non-OS > hypervisors that were around long before VMware etc. Sheep Shaver on > BeOS in 1998, for instance. Thanks everyone who shared information on this topic. I suspected there had been VM's done before, I was surprised by some of the incarnations. > > And finaly, why would keeping virtual installations up to date be any > > harder than non-virtual? > > great servers running all those as guests, you *still* have 50 copies > of Windows to maintain. The work level doesn't drop much at all - you > just save space and electricity. This was my point, the work level doesn't drop, but it certainly does not increase! > And even that is a partly illusory saving, because much of the power > and resources that a computer will use in its typical working life of > a few years is spent in building the thing. So by replacing multiple > working hardware boxes with a single big new machine to run the same > workloads, you're wasting all that sunk-cost of the manufacture of > those boxes, while "spending" a load more non-recoverable resources > that were used to make the new box. Well that all depends on the load. Recently we moved two low-load machines into a virtual environment, perhaps we didn't cut the power/cooling costs in half, but it's certainly an improvement. > > Let's say you're running 4 copies of Windows, in VMs, on a host copy > of Windows. That's 5 gig of RAM and 4,500MHz of CPU bandwidth blown on > all those copies of Windows, of which 4.5GB and 4000MHz are running > duplicated code that is shared by all the VMs. In this case I agree that virtualization is probably a bad idea. But if the client OS needs 250MB worth of memory and a few percent of the CPU. You could easily squeeze three of them into 1GB (asuming the host OS needs only 250 MB, which might be optimistic). Also think of the case where the client systems doesn't need the CPU all the time. > > If, instead, you were running an OS that could partition itself so > that the 4 workloads all ran on the same shared kernel, but completely > isolated from one another, so that one could have one version of the > core libraries and another a different version, This would be awsome, is there any such system? My guess is that it is very hard to get right. However you totally miss the case where you need different operating systems. > Does that make my point clear? Yes, I see that there are cases where virtualization is really stupid. But I hope that my argumentation for the cases where it is smart make sense :) Cheers, Pontus. From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 12 10:35:34 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:35:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at "Jun 12, 9 08:13:40 am" Message-ID: <200906121535.n5CFZYK4014262@floodgap.com> > before Mac OS X, IIRC. The two architectures leapfrogged each other > a time or two before x86 left them in the dust, but lets not forget > the years of bad performance with the G4. Oh, I dispute this. I'm not going to claim that the G4 spanked the P3 or P4, but this sounds like the clockspeed myth. I much preferred the wide pipelines of the G4 (particular the G4e) over the deep, bubble prone pipeline in Netburst chips. Notice that Intel gave "clock speed ueber alles" up with Core, recognizing it wasn't the future. For my money the G4 was certainly competitive. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- To err is human -- to forgive is not company policy. ----------------------- From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Jun 12 10:28:57 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:28:57 -0500 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <4A316FE3.4020400@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090612102325.048f8c00@mail.threedee.com> At 04:37 PM 6/11/2009, Dave McGuire wrote: >On Jun 11, 2009, at 5:16 PM, Christian Kennedy wrote: >>>I want to shoot the people responsible for Objective-C. >> >>Funny, I know more people who want to shoot the people responsible >>for C++. > > I fall into that camp, though admittedly I've not looked at >Objective-C. The more I look at [what I perceive to be] really >*clean* languages (I'm thinking of Scheme right now), the more I >abhor C++. And here I thought you were putting stuff in square brackets just to make fun of Objective C. It had been about a decade since I'd looked at Mac development environments. Like others, I thought writing iPhone apps might be fun and profitable. Looking at sample code made my head hurt in the same way that looking at C++ code a decade ago made my head hurt. ("You think the computer will always give you more memory when you want it, and you're not coding for the exception?") I guess I'd need to read a few books before it would start to make sense. - John From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 12 10:40:19 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:40:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <575131af0906120830s6604260yfb14f32f583570d4@mail.gmail.com> from Liam Proven at "Jun 12, 9 04:30:11 pm" Message-ID: <200906121540.n5CFeJUb018364@floodgap.com> > But other examples exist of non-native OSs running totally or > partially inside VMs: > > - MC68K code on classic MacOS running on a PowerPC, where the OS > hosts an emulator at a very low level, through which most of the > actual OS code itself and many applications run; > - the MC68K emulator on PalmOS 5 on ARM; > - AlphaMicro's MC68K emulator on Intel x86 machines for running AMOS; > - Charon-VAX running VMS on a VAX emulator under VMS on an Alpha. > > All these could be considered as straddling the line between a pure > one-platform-on-another sandbox-type emulator and an OS that can run > non-native code side-by-side with native code, no? > > I think the dividing line between the 2 is pretty blurry... I agree, but then there's also the dividing line between a VM and virtualization. Actually, I'm not surprised to hear that some emulation had to be done for x86 originally -- the ISA certainly doesn't lend itself well to virtualizing out of the box ;-) FWIW, a small correction: Alpha Micro's 68K emulator actually runs at a somewhat higher level than the others. While it is analogous to the Power Mac 68K emulator in what it does, it runs more at the AMOS equivalent of userland, in implementation thus more like Apple Rosetta/QuickTransit. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The only abnormality is the inability to love. -- Anais Nin ---------------- From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jun 12 10:40:06 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:40:06 -0300 Subject: UNIX V7 References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com><7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com><4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com><511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com><20090611093321.GA20949@sam.angband.thangorodrim.de> Message-ID: <2e0201c9eb74$dfb3b540$af5419bb@desktaba> > Even worse than hospital databases is the critical monitoring > equipment running on Windows. When our first child was born the > fetal monitor crashed. It was running Windows NT, and guess who had > to get it back up and running when none of the Hospital staff could. > I was not amused. I was even less amused by how ancient of a version > of the OS they had running on a very modern Dell box. O.o Zane, as far as I know, there are no provisions for life support equipment in the license of Windows NT. If they are doing it, they are doing with no permissions, and DESERVE to be sued. Alexandre, PU1BZZ From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jun 12 10:40:46 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:40:46 -0300 Subject: UNIX V7 References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net><7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com><4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com><511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com><73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com><05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com><575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com><4A3125D8.4010201@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <2e0501c9eb74$e17d78c0$af5419bb@desktaba> > Lucky B******! :-) Even more lucky since that indicates they've never > used > cassette tapes as a storage medium for computer data! What is the problem? It was FUN :) From ggs at shiresoft.com Fri Jun 12 10:47:27 2009 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:47:27 -0700 Subject: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7] In-Reply-To: <21248.1244808265@mini> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> <22790243-9DDB-4ED7-955A-D968D6EB3E71@shiresoft.com> <21248.1244808265@mini> Message-ID: On Jun 12, 2009, at 5:04 AM, Brad Parker wrote: > > Guy Sotomayor wrote: >> >> Actually one of the guys I work with has done an FPGA design of a >> PDP-10. He's partitioned it into 3 Xilinix parts. It passes all of >> the DEC CPU diagnostics on a Verilog simulator. He's talked a little >> bit about it on alt.sys.pdp10. He figures by using Spartan 3E parts >> and not doing a lot of optimization he can get ~30-40MHz out of it >> with no problems (ie trying to go faster would take a lot of work >> and/ >> or much more expensive FPGAs). > > microcode or direct decode? > any i or d cache? > how deep is the pipe? (or, any pipelining at all?) There is *no* micro-code (unless you want to count Verilog) - it's all logic. I don't know much about his design other than what I've mentioned above. > > and, the most important part, will he release the verilog? Probably at some point. But we're all insanely busy. Which is why *my* projects in this area haven't been making any progress. :-/ TTFN - Guy From ggs at shiresoft.com Fri Jun 12 10:56:02 2009 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:56:02 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906120722o7bb60e3vc327c3e3028d6904@mail.gmail.com> References: <200906111244.n5BCiTGw016274@floodgap.com> <4A311095.508@gmail.com> <10AACC64-7CD1-4822-AC34-9ADBDBA9CB3D@shiresoft.com> <575131af0906111000t4a13dde0y341136ceefe22ee3@mail.gmail.com> <9268B8F5-039F-4012-ADBE-E6B5280CDEC2@shiresoft.com> <575131af0906120722o7bb60e3vc327c3e3028d6904@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 12, 2009, at 7:22 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > 2009/6/11 Guy Sotomayor : >> >> On Jun 11, 2009, at 10:00 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> >>> 2009/6/11 Guy Sotomayor : >>> >>>> In reality, AIX is the ultimate Unix clone since it's one of the >>>> few >>>> Unix-like OS' that is actually be branded as Unix(tm) by X/Open. >>> >>> ISTR it uses a real licensed kernel, or at least, did Way Back >>> When?. >> >> It depends upon which variation of AIX you're talking about. I've >> dealt >> with AIX/370, AIX PS/2, AIX RT, AIX V3.x and later. With the >> exception of >> AIX/370 & AIX PS/2, they all used completely different code bases. >> What I >> was referring to (because that's what most people consider these >> days) is >> AIX V3.x and later. Those versions only ran (runs) on RS/6000 and >> later >> Power machines. >> >> The code base for AIX V3.x and later started out as some derivative >> of the >> AT&T code but the base kernel never was (except possibly some of the >> subsystems). The control program itself was completely alien to >> the AT&T >> code base. The entire structure was based upon (at the time) the >> Power's >> nearly unlimited virtual address space (52 bits). The 64-bit >> version has an >> 80 bit virtual address space. So the way the kernel was organized >> was to >> assume that address space was free. Need an array, allocate the >> address >> space for it statically and let the VM fault in physical memory as >> it's >> needed (which is also alien to most Unix implementations). >> >> The AIX control program was mainly written by 2 folks from Watson >> Research. >> >> TTFN - Guy > > Fascinating stuff. Thanks for that. > > I always thought that, back in the '80s, it was a real shame that IBM > didn't keep the 386 version of AIX alive and at parity with the > others. I also wish that the portable Workplace OS/2 project had been > finished, or failing that, that they'd at least open-sourced the bits > that they did complete - it strikes me that this would have been a lot > more legally likely and doable than open-sourcing OS/2 itself, with > all the MS code in it. Workplace OS/2 ran on a Unix kernel and could > have been ported to Linux, I'm sure. Yea, I wish they'd kept AIX PS/2 going too. I had a lot of time and effort invested in it (I did all of the SCSI support for it). As far as Workplace went, that was a damn shame. I was one of the original 6 people on the project. It was killed off for political reasons. Some of the concepts (and people but sadly no code) are in OS X. TTFN - Guy From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 10:58:18 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:58:18 +0100 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <20090612153517.GA19068@Update.UU.SE> References: <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> <20090612153517.GA19068@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <575131af0906120858r543ad1b7yd4ad5035bddfb582@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/12 Pontus Pihlgren : > On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 03:51:18PM +0100, Liam Proven wrote: > >> great servers running all those as guests, you *still* have 50 copies >> of Windows to maintain. The work level doesn't drop much at all - you >> just save space and electricity. > > > This was my point, the work level doesn't drop, but it certainly does > not increase! True. >> And even that is a partly illusory saving, because much of the power >> and resources that a computer will use in its typical working life of >> a few years is spent in building the thing. So by replacing multiple >> working hardware boxes with a single big new machine to run the same >> workloads, you're wasting all that sunk-cost of the manufacture of >> those boxes, while "spending" a load more non-recoverable resources >> that were used to make the new box. > > Well that all depends on the load. Recently we moved two low-load > machines into a virtual environment, perhaps we didn't cut the > power/cooling costs in half, but it's certainly an improvement. Good point! >> Let's say you're running 4 copies of Windows, in VMs, on a host copy >> of Windows. That's 5 gig of RAM and 4,500MHz of CPU bandwidth blown on >> all those copies of Windows, of which 4.5GB and 4000MHz are running >> duplicated code that is shared by all the VMs. > > In this case I agree that virtualization is probably a bad idea. But if > the client OS needs 250MB worth of memory and a few percent of the CPU. > You could easily squeeze three of them into 1GB (asuming the host OS > needs only 250 MB, which might be optimistic). Also think of the case > where the client systems doesn't need the CPU all the time. Even so, it's more efficient with OS-level virtualisation. The only case I can see for full-function OSs running on top of other full-function OSs is, for example, if you want 1 host to run several different OSs - e.g., a VM with NT4 Server, a VM with Linux and a VM with Solaris, or some random combination such as that. However, I fear that the most common reason will be that all the techies know is Windows Server, so they just run lots of instances of that and waste masses of resources. Even if you have the resources to burn, waste is bad. Waste is always bad, I feel. >> If, instead, you were running an OS that could partition itself so >> that the 4 workloads all ran on the same shared kernel, but completely >> isolated from one another, so that one could have one version of the >> core libraries and another a different version, > > This would be awsome, is there any such system? Several. Solaris with Containers and Zones & FreeBSD with Jails are the 2 best-known. AIX has WPARs, which I believe are similar. Linux doesn't have anything built into the kernel, but there are a number of 3rd party additions: FreeVPS, Linux VServers & OpenVZ. Virtuozzo is a commercial product for doing much the same and is available on Linux and Windows. > My guess is that it is > very hard to get right. I think it's easier when it's built into the OS than to add it on later. > However you totally miss the case where you need > different operating systems. I hadn't read this when I wrote the earlier part of my message, honest! :?) >> Does that make my point clear? > > Yes, I see that there are cases where virtualization is really stupid. > But I hope that my argumentation for the cases where it is smart make > sense :) Oh, it certainly has its uses, and on VMware's ESX server, tools like VMotion and VirtualCentre are a massive boon for manageability, albeit at a small but significant price in terms of performance. But performance is rarely a problem these days. It just bothers my sense of systems elegance to see big full-function OSs running on top of other big full-function OSs. I really deeply dislike that sort of kludge, and my suspicion tends to be that an inelegant solution is a flawed solution and that those flaws will eventually come back to bite you. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From pontus at Update.UU.SE Fri Jun 12 11:00:53 2009 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:00:53 +0200 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <200906121540.n5CFeJUb018364@floodgap.com> References: <575131af0906120830s6604260yfb14f32f583570d4@mail.gmail.com> <200906121540.n5CFeJUb018364@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <20090612160052.GA28969@Update.UU.SE> On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 08:40:19AM -0700, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > I agree, but then there's also the dividing line between a VM and > virtualization. Actually, I'm not surprised to hear that some emulation > had to be done for x86 originally -- the ISA certainly doesn't lend itself > well to virtualizing out of the box ;-) Someone told me that VMware still emulates some of the instructions that could be virtualized either because they are buggy or slow. Don't take my word for it though. /P From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Jun 12 11:03:32 2009 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:03:32 +0200 Subject: early PA-RISC machines In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090612180332.56a1df45.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:18:08 -0400 Dave McGuire wrote: > Was there in fact a production PA-RISC > machine whose CPU was implemented with standard TTL chips? http://www.openpa.net/pa-risc_processors.html#ts-1 http://www.openpa.net/systems/hp_early-systems.html#ts-1 -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From drbob at pacbell.net Fri Jun 12 10:08:30 2009 From: drbob at pacbell.net (Robert Burrell) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:08:30 -0700 Subject: Pertec tape drive in CA Message-ID: Hello, Could you possibly tell me a little more about the Pertec tape drive...Model #. etc. A photo would be very helpful. I maintain old equipment. Thanks Bob Burrell From bqt at softjar.se Fri Jun 12 07:24:42 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:24:42 +0200 Subject: UNIX on PDP-11s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A32490A.7080908@softjar.se> Eric Smith wrote: > Johnny Billquist wrote: > I didn't include any of the tape controllers because they do TMSCP, not > MSCP. It's possible that I'm being overly pedantic. True. About pendantic, I don't know... TMSCP and MSCP are very similar, but there are few differences as well. The device drivers usually share the port code part, and just have a different "upper" end. >> > And the RQZX1, which talks both SCSI and floppy. > I've never seen one. Someone once told me that they didn't do MSCP > which caused me to lose interest. But if they do, I should keep an eye > out for one. The usual resellers seem to think they're made out of > solid Rhodium. I have one. They talk MSCP and TMSCP. They have SCSI and a floppy interface to connect disks. It's a quad card, so bigger than most other SCSI controllers out there for Q-bus, but it's nice. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From bqt at softjar.se Fri Jun 12 07:29:03 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:29:03 +0200 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A324A0F.8010805@softjar.se> bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca" wrote: > Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> > There are an OS for the PDP-8 (put on the net by me, on ftp.update years >> > ago actually) called MULTOS-8, which creates a number of virtual PDP-8s. >> > Each normally boots and runs OS/8. > > Click !! Dam the link is broken! Oh! Sorry. That was just me assuming that everyone should know about our ftp archive. I guess not, since so many other places seldom mention it, even though you have lots of really nice and important stuff lying around there. A full url for MULTOS-8 is: ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp8/multos8 My main interest and concerns are on the RSX area, but I'm also responsible for the PDP-8 stuff. I just haven't had time to do much about it for years... Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 11:08:27 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:08:27 +0100 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <20090612160052.GA28969@Update.UU.SE> References: <575131af0906120830s6604260yfb14f32f583570d4@mail.gmail.com> <200906121540.n5CFeJUb018364@floodgap.com> <20090612160052.GA28969@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <575131af0906120908k3bc1223fob8285996dabca477@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/12 Pontus Pihlgren : > On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 08:40:19AM -0700, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> I agree, but then there's also the dividing line between a VM and >> virtualization. Actually, I'm not surprised to hear that some emulation >> had to be done for x86 originally -- the ISA certainly doesn't lend itself >> well to virtualizing out of the box ;-) > > Someone told me that VMware still emulates some of the instructions that > could be virtualized either because they are buggy or slow. Don't take > my word for it though. As far as I know, VMware still doesn't use the hardware emulation in modern Intel & AMD chips. They firmly believe that their own approach is more powerful and offers better performance. I believe VirtualBox also has its own, different approach to x86 virtualisation, involving forcing Ring 0 code in guests into the seldom-used-on-x86 Ring 1, whereas user code normally runs in Ring 3 or something. I am not an expert in the minutiae of this stuff, I'm afraid. (Although when I interrogated Connectix about VirtualPC about 10y back (with my journalist hat on) they were so thrown by my deep-tech questions that they flew Jon Garber, the Connectix founder and chief scientist, over the Britain to talk to me. That was fun and very interesting indeed.) -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 12 11:09:20 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:09:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: UNIX V7 Message-ID: <607275.73691.qm@web23404.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Did they drop the crate it was in from a great height? Or was the vehicle it was being transported in involved in a road accident? Or was it something else? How much power would it require of the MicroVAX (I'm an Amiga/Speccy person, so have no clue about VAXen or PDP's etc.) too be a DNS server and why replace it if it worked? Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Fri, 12/6/09, Daniel Seagraves wrote: From: Daniel Seagraves Subject: Re: UNIX V7 To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Date: Friday, 12 June, 2009, 4:22 PM Yes, but nobody will care until the law shows up or we get hacked, in which case things will still be my fault. He who bitches loudest gets what he wants, and I am outnumbered. (We run a data warehouse for government/corporate contractors to locate certified minority owned subcontractors for bidding disclosure compliance purposes.) To make things a bit more on-topic, for the first two weeks of our operations our DNS server was a MicroVAX standing in for a machine that was destroyed in shipping. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 12 11:12:53 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:12:53 -0700 Subject: Fast EPROM eraser? Message-ID: <4A321C15.9436.38B53FE4@cclist.sydex.com> I was perusing DN's "Sherlock Ohms" series when I came across this article: http://www.designnews.com/blog/Sherlock_Ohms/15423- The_Adventure_of_the_Camera_Shy_Computer.php?nid=4785&rid=1504665 Has anyone tried a camera flash as a way of very quickly erasing EPROMs? --Chuck From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 11:13:10 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:13:10 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org> <575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906120913v531a0881n90cad60ef2d78698@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/11 Kirn Gill : > Liam Proven wrote: >> Meanwhile, if Haiku keeps it together, in a few years' time, it has >> ?the potential to be a really fast, smooth, POSIX-compatible GUI >> desktop OS that could stomp all over desktop Linux in performance. >> >> But probably, something like Google Android will get there first, >> sadly. > Android? Performance? What kind of performance do you expect to get > out of something mostly written in Java? Well, actually, I see no particular reason it shouldn't be perfectly good. Java does pretty well these days in any case, but Android doesn't use a normal JVM, it has its own, more efficient system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_virtual_machine -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 11:38:52 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:38:52 -0400 Subject: DNS by MicroVAX (was Re: UNIX V7) Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 12:09 PM, Andrew Burton wrote: >> To make things a bit more on-topic, for the first two weeks of our operations our >> DNS server was a MicroVAX standing in for a machine that was destroyed in shipping. > > How much power would it require of the MicroVAX (I'm an Amiga/Speccy person, so > have no clue about VAXen or PDP's etc.) too be a DNS server and why replace it if it worked? We ran primary and secondary DNS from a pair of Microvaxen at McMurdo in the 1990s with no load issues. They served up mcmurdo.gov for all comers, on and off the Ice (McMurdo has a 24/7 connection to the 'net via a relay station on Black Island). I think they retired those servers as part of the Y2K effort, not because they weren't going to work, but because they had a pile of money to modernize everything (like replacing the aged 64MB 486-based Novell servers that fed hundreds of 386SX/16s, etc). It was fun going down the Ice in the mid-1990s as a PC technician and finding out that there were VAXen at McMurdo and the Pole. I even got to help out with the occasional issue (like making a 'phone patch' (HF radio<->land-based PBX) to talk the Computer Technician at Pole through a SCSI disk replacement. I can't give you exact numbers, but I don't see a performance issue with using MicroVAXen as DNS servers in a moderately busy environment. If you only had a T1 or smaller to the outside world, there's only so many requests per second that can fit along with the data going to previous questors. I don't know if I could make the same endorsement if you had an OC3 and the traffic to fill it - that would end up being a lot of DNS requests. As for "why replace it", I'd say power consumption, possibly skillset (if I were the only one in the company who could keep it running), and maybe hardware maintenance concerns (especially if it was an RQDX3+RD-drive system, not a SCSI system). -ethan From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jun 12 11:39:28 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:39:28 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A32582A.6030301@databasics.us> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31F6A9.7000906@databasics.us> <3C2F3176-C992-4A35-8030-7AB9A4D93430@neurotica.com> <4A32582A.6030301@databasics.us> Message-ID: <4A3284C0.30203@bitsavers.org> Warren Wolfe wrote: > Dave McGuire wrote: > >> Well, for "classic OSs". Some of us are actually interested in the >> hardware. ;) > > Well, sure. The hardware is there, although not progressing, either. > But, the end result and purpose of computer hardware is to run > software. At least we've got THAT going for us. If nothing else, > having a functional equivalent emulator allows one to work out software > for the hardware involved, and do it faster, on a "bigger" machine, so > when the hardware comes up, you can just load it up and go... Don't > expect to make me feel guilty about being more easily able to enjoy my > hobby than you. Won't happen. Now, bedtime... > Simulation also drives the interest in searching for old software. Bob Supnik's efforts on finding 18 bit DEC software is an example. There is an incentive for people trying to chase down stuff in retired field engineer's garages if they can actually do something with what they find, even though there is no hardware any more. This is the real reason that I gave up on collecting hardware. You just get in wars with other collectors about who is going to end up with the artifact, while the hunt for old software and documentation turns out to be as difficult and has the advantage of having the possibility of being made generally available to everyone with an interest in the history of computing all over the world. From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jun 12 11:41:15 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:41:15 -0700 Subject: Fast EPROM eraser? In-Reply-To: <4A321C15.9436.38B53FE4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A321C15.9436.38B53FE4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A32852B.8060803@bitsavers.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I was perusing DN's "Sherlock Ohms" series when I came across this > article: > > http://www.designnews.com/blog/Sherlock_Ohms/15423- > The_Adventure_of_the_Camera_Shy_Computer.php?nid=4785&rid=1504665 > > Has anyone tried a camera flash as a way of very quickly erasing > EPROMs? > I remember there was an eprom eraser that used a flash tube, but I haven't seen or heard about it in many, many years. From dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net Fri Jun 12 11:52:01 2009 From: dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net (Daniel Seagraves) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:52:01 -0500 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <607275.73691.qm@web23404.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <607275.73691.qm@web23404.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <64B51654-6730-436D-A476-98C3F5989325@lunar-tokyo.net> Dropped the machine (no crate, it was a local move from another building) off the back of the truck and destroyed it. The person unloading it slipped and fell, the machine was thrown about eight feet. The case was broken, drives had failure warnings, and rather than take chances we parted the machine out. It was replaced because I am not interested in providing free hardware to the company on a long term basis. On Jun 12, 2009, at 11:09 AM, Andrew Burton wrote: > > Did they drop the crate it was in from a great height? Or was the > vehicle it was being transported in involved in a road accident? Or > was it something else? > > How much power would it require of the MicroVAX (I'm an Amiga/Speccy > person, so have no clue about VAXen or PDP's etc.) too be a DNS > server and why replace it if it worked? > > > Regards, > Andrew B > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk > > > --- On Fri, 12/6/09, Daniel Seagraves > wrote: > > From: Daniel Seagraves > Subject: Re: UNIX V7 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Date: Friday, 12 June, 2009, 4:22 PM > > Yes, but nobody will care until the law shows up or we get hacked, > in which case things will still be my fault. He who bitches loudest > gets what he wants, and I am outnumbered. (We run a data warehouse > for government/corporate contractors to locate certified minority > owned subcontractors for bidding disclosure compliance purposes.) > > To make things a bit more on-topic, for the first two weeks of our > operations our DNS server was a MicroVAX standing in for a machine > that was destroyed in shipping. > From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 12:07:34 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:07:34 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906120759y7e58d2eev69795ab6b1293b61@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31B16A.9090806@gmail.com> <575131af0906120717w595f905eo861ba9943345c915@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906120732h49dcb419o7bdd897ccea7af1e@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0906120759y7e58d2eev69795ab6b1293b61@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <3F23B07D-7CA7-4F61-BD2F-F0138B1D4D1C@neurotica.com> On Jun 12, 2009, at 10:59 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> But on the other hand, nobody moves slower than a Mac user. > > Hey, speak for yourself! :?) I use the keystrokes myself and find > Spaces considerably more efficient than the virtual-desktop system in > GNOME, for instance. Yeah I move around like lightning myself, too. :) If I couldn't, I'd just ditch this machine and use a Sun Ray as my main desktop. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 12:09:47 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:09:47 -0400 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A326FDE.8060902@gmail.com> References: <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> <4A326FDE.8060902@gmail.com> Message-ID: <83D7A836-18A6-43D3-9EE5-92826CD785EA@neurotica.com> On Jun 12, 2009, at 11:10 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> To understand this, one has to consider some of the earlier VM >> systems. 2 more efficient methods, for example, are the IBM mainframe >> style, with a relatively simple hypervisor OS to host the virtual >> machines - such as IBM VM, currently z/VM - running more full- >> function >> guest OSs that present the actual functionality needed by user >> applications. > > Well, there is one feature that VM has that I've not seen in many > other situations. VM can run as a guest under VM. You know...I am finding VM (/ESA in this case, as you know) somewhat difficult to learn, but I have to say, the more I see of it, the more impressed I am. That is a damn fine piece of engineering. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jun 12 12:12:36 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:12:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <4A31281E.4010800@garlic.com> Message-ID: <20090612100629.M52214@shell.lmi.net> > > This sounds untrue at best. There are several reasons but among them, > > no captain worth his salt is going to let his boat be towed back to > > dock unless all the engines have disappeared. > Don't bother arguing with these people. They really want to believe > only very incomplete version of the story as told by CNN and the news > networks, because it fits nicely into their anti-Windows religion. > They like to ignore things like official reports, retractions of > claims, and basic things like maritime engineering, the way captains > run their ships, and how engineering systems are developed in the > Navy. Surely nobody who knows enough to install a system as described could possibly be willing to do so! OK, so it didn't happen? But the false news reports were as well done as the moon landing! NT4 claimed fully pre-emptive multi-tasking, but there were still some things that an application program could do that would crash the OS. BTW, what would a Navy captain do if he were ORDERED to do something that he knows is wrong? From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Fri Jun 12 12:39:36 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (christian_liendo at yahoo.com) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:39:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Zealots vs. Naval ships Re: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) Message-ID: <155175.28723.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I'm sorry I have to add to this, this is WAY WAY WAY OT but because this has been taken to all new levels. The argument about the USS Yorktown has nothing to do with Microsoft or windows. This has to do with boats. The people who are commenting on the fact that they do not completely believe the story that the ship needed to be towed. These people are not Microsoft kool aid drinkers, they are people that do not believe that the naval ship needed to be towed back, because the ships are built to be run manually if needed. Why? Ship propulsion systems do have manual controls, because even the best systems fail. So, if the systems fail, the engineers on board get them running manually and you get the ship back. This has nothing to do with windows, this has to do with how Naval ships are built. The Yorktown was commissioned in 1984, the incident happened in 1997. So this is not a brand new ship and they 99.9999% chance had ways of manually bringing the ship back to port. I mean seriously, do you in your right mind think they removed all the manual controls and just stuck a bunch of Windows NT machines? Again this has nothing to do with Windows, this has to do with naval personal being able to run the ship manually back to port. Anthony DiGiorgio who wrote the scathing report and was the person who stated NT was not up to the job, stated that the GCN misquoted him. So it is not a kool aid drinker that stated this. The person WHO stated that NT was the problem stated that it didn't need to be towed back. As for the news reports, it seems it all stems from one comment in the issue of Government Computer News. All the links seem to quote off that article. Some people are so blind with hatred against something (Microsoft, Apple, Linux, add your own) that they can seem to see what other people are saying. So if you don't believe the story, then YOU MUST be a Microsoft Kool-Aid drinker. If you are not for us, you are against us attitude. You know, there are different flavors of cool aid out there and over the last day or so I can see who has been drinking what.. I am going to make a nice glass of vintage CP/M kool aid myself and try and get my Northstar running and maybe find documents for my Wameco. If anyone would like to join in, I would be happy to pour. From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 12 12:45:08 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:45:08 +0000 (GMT) Subject: UNIX V7 Message-ID: <95449.67492.qm@web23401.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Was the person injured? I understand about the hardware thing, I had assumed that the company had aqcuired it on your recommendation. It didn't occur to me that you would loan them your own hardware. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Fri, 12/6/09, Daniel Seagraves wrote: From: Daniel Seagraves Subject: Re: UNIX V7 To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Date: Friday, 12 June, 2009, 5:52 PM Dropped the machine (no crate, it was a local move from another building) off the back of the truck and destroyed it. The person unloading it slipped and fell, the machine was thrown about eight feet. The case was broken, drives had failure warnings, and rather than take chances we parted the machine out. It was replaced because I am not interested in providing free hardware to the company on a long term basis. On Jun 12, 2009, at 11:09 AM, Andrew Burton wrote: > > Did they drop the crate it was in from a great height? Or was the vehicle it was being transported in involved in a road accident? Or was it something else? > > How much power would it require of the MicroVAX (I'm an Amiga/Speccy person, so have no clue about VAXen or PDP's etc.) too be a DNS server and why replace it if it worked? > > > Regards, > Andrew B > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk > > > --- On Fri, 12/6/09, Daniel Seagraves wrote: > > From: Daniel Seagraves > Subject: Re: UNIX V7 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Date: Friday, 12 June, 2009, 4:22 PM > > Yes, but nobody will care until the law shows up or we get hacked, in which case things will still be my fault. He who bitches loudest gets what he wants, and I am outnumbered. (We run a data warehouse for government/corporate contractors to locate certified minority owned subcontractors for bidding disclosure compliance purposes.) > > To make things a bit more on-topic, for the first two weeks of our operations our DNS server was a MicroVAX standing in for a machine that was destroyed in shipping. > From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Jun 12 12:50:02 2009 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:50:02 -0400 Subject: Looking for Tandon TM-100 service manual (w/schematics & waveforms) Message-ID: <01C9EB64.B0FE90E0@MSE_D03> Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:51:34 -0400 From: Jonathan Gevaryahu Subject: Looking for Tandon TM-100 service manual (w/schematics & waveforms) I'm looking for Tandon TM100 service manual w/schematics; Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu(@t)hotmail(d0t)com jzg22(@t)drexel(d0t)edu --------------- I have a paper version of the technical manual here, but I can't believe that there isn't a scanned one out there somewhere; if no one comes up with one and you really can't find one, PM me off-list. mike From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 12:59:02 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:59:02 -0400 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <4A31281E.4010800@garlic.com> Message-ID: <3FC7AF87-5A5B-4FBE-A954-B8DB6F4230DE@neurotica.com> On Jun 12, 2009, at 10:30 AM, William Donzelli wrote: >> This sounds untrue at best. There are several reasons but among them, >> no captain worth his salt is going to let his boat be towed back to >> dock unless all the engines have disappeared. > > Don't bother arguing with these people. They really want to believe > only very incomplete version of the story as told by CNN and the news > networks, because it fits nicely into their anti-Windows religion. > They like to ignore things like official reports, retractions of > claims, and basic things like maritime engineering, the way captains > run their ships, and how engineering systems are developed in the > Navy. Yeah, you'd better listen to Will. After all, he's the only professional computer guy here, and he knows best. This became obvious when he asserted that anything that isn't Windows is dead or dying...that REALLY established credibility. But if that didn't do it...dismissing anything he doesn't want to hear as "religion", even when it isn't, certainly did. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 13:04:32 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:04:32 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906120550i38933c42u91fac2b6a904ebc4@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com> <60413E65-5228-4EEB-9A45-46B83F7FB11F@mail.msu.edu> <4A3164FD.4050102@vaxen.net> <575131af0906120550i38933c42u91fac2b6a904ebc4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 12, 2009, at 8:50 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > And OpenStep was portable - it already supported MC68K and x86-32 in > shipping versions, and as you say, SPARC in the labs. I don't recall a > PA-RISC version, but I'm sure you're right. There was indeed a PA-RISC version, but I've never seen it. The SPARC version wasn't just in the labs; it got around quite a bit. Several people ran it on their deskop machines (SPARCstation-5s and Axil 245s) where I used to work. It was quite good on that hardware. -Dave > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 13:06:03 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:06:03 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A32582A.6030301@databasics.us> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31F6A9.7000906@databasics.us> <3C2F3176-C992-4A35-8030-7AB9A4D93430@neurotica.com> <4A32582A.6030301@databasics.us> Message-ID: <5CEE9C60-718F-4296-A336-4B22083D647D@neurotica.com> On Jun 12, 2009, at 9:29 AM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >> Well, for "classic OSs". Some of us are actually interested in >> the hardware. ;) > > Well, sure. The hardware is there, although not progressing, > either. But, the end result and purpose of computer hardware is to > run software. At least we've got THAT going for us. If nothing > else, having a functional equivalent emulator allows one to work > out software for the hardware involved, and do it faster, on a > "bigger" machine, so when the hardware comes up, you can just load > it up and go... Don't expect to make me feel guilty about being > more easily able to enjoy my hobby than you. Won't happen. > Now, bedtime... Well don't get me wrong, I'm not poo-pooing emulators. I use them all the time. I just don't find them to be a replacement for real hardware. :) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 13:04:44 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:04:44 -0500 Subject: I thought these were worth $10,000 Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906121104j44bbfd1epcb2c28bbc398178c@mail.gmail.com> ;-) http://cgi.ebay.com/KayPro-II-Vintage-Computer-System_W0QQitemZ220428904215QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_2?hash=item3352962717&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A1|66%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50 From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Fri Jun 12 13:19:00 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:19:00 -0700 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <3FC7AF87-5A5B-4FBE-A954-B8DB6F4230DE@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <4A31281E.4010800@garlic.com> <3FC7AF87-5A5B-4FBE-A954-B8DB6F4230DE@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A329C14.6080009@mail.msu.edu> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 12, 2009, at 10:30 AM, William Donzelli wrote: >>> This sounds untrue at best. There are several reasons but among them, >>> no captain worth his salt is going to let his boat be towed back to >>> dock unless all the engines have disappeared. >> >> Don't bother arguing with these people. They really want to believe >> only very incomplete version of the story as told by CNN and the news >> networks, because it fits nicely into their anti-Windows religion. >> They like to ignore things like official reports, retractions of >> claims, and basic things like maritime engineering, the way captains >> run their ships, and how engineering systems are developed in the >> Navy. > > Yeah, you'd better listen to Will. After all, he's the only > professional computer guy here, and he knows best. This became > obvious when he asserted that anything that isn't Windows is dead or > dying...that REALLY established credibility. > > But if that didn't do it...dismissing anything he doesn't want to > hear as "religion", even when it isn't, certainly did. I think there's only one way to resolve this dispute: Pistols at dawn. Or at least argue this somewhere else. Josh > > -Dave > From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jun 12 13:21:27 2009 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:21:27 -0400 Subject: fpga pdp's; [was Re: ...arrogance [was RE: UNIX V7] ] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> <22790243-9DDB-4ED7-955A-D968D6EB3E71@shiresoft.com> <21248.1244808265@mini> Message-ID: On Jun 12, 2009, at 11:47 AM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > > On Jun 12, 2009, at 5:04 AM, Brad Parker wrote: > >> >> Guy Sotomayor wrote: >>> >>> Actually one of the guys I work with has done an FPGA design of a >>> PDP-10. He's partitioned it into 3 Xilinix parts. It passes all of > > There is *no* micro-code (unless you want to count Verilog) - it's > all logic. I don't know much about his design other than what I've > mentioned above. Very Cool. I did a "direct decode" pdp-11 in verilog recently just to see how big it would be (and because I was frustrated with the pop-11 project). It fits nicely & boots RT11 at 50mhz. Passes diags except for the 11/34 diag which assumes (r)+ doesn't happen if there is a trap. One thing I did (following pop-11) was to make a "rk11" register set which actually talks to a IDE disk. I love microcode but these days fpga's are so big direct decode is an option. http://www.heeltoe.com/software/pdp11/ -brad From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 13:24:01 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:24:01 -0400 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <3FC7AF87-5A5B-4FBE-A954-B8DB6F4230DE@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <4A31281E.4010800@garlic.com> <3FC7AF87-5A5B-4FBE-A954-B8DB6F4230DE@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > ?Yeah, you'd better listen to Will. ?After all, he's the only professional > computer guy here, and he knows best. And obviously you have done a LOT of maritime engineering. You REALLY know how ships function. You must have been a Chief! > This became obvious when he asserted > that anything that isn't Windows is dead or dying...that REALLY established > credibility. Listen, asshole - don't generalize what I say to twist my meaning. -- Will, plonkity plonk plonk plonk From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Fri Jun 12 13:25:17 2009 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:25:17 +0200 (CEST) Subject: early PA-RISC machines In-Reply-To: <23849BAB-60E4-4E15-A60D-746FB70AA034@neurotica.com> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <23849BAB-60E4-4E15-A60D-746FB70AA034@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 12 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 1:45 PM, Lee Courtney ((ACM)) wrote: >> comp.sys.MPE, assuming you want to pay money for one. Of course they were >> really really slow, wouldn't you rather have a 950? The 930 was in way a >> prototype that escaped from the Lab. > That's exactly why I want one. If I wanted *fast* PA-RISC, I'd hunt down > an X-class. They weren't slow at all... I'd say the 9000/840 is a bit faster than a SUN 4/260 (also running 24/7 here). Christian From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 13:43:54 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:43:54 -0400 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <4A31281E.4010800@garlic.com> <3FC7AF87-5A5B-4FBE-A954-B8DB6F4230DE@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <73E0C5F2-46FB-459A-A5E3-92298EE6596E@neurotica.com> On Jun 12, 2009, at 2:24 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> Yeah, you'd better listen to Will. After all, he's the only >> professional >> computer guy here, and he knows best. > > And obviously you have done a LOT of maritime engineering. You REALLY > know how ships function. You must have been a Chief! Hardly. And I do (believe it or not) defer to your expertise there, as I've gotten the impression that you do have some specific experience in that area, although I don't know the specifics of that experience. >> This became obvious when he asserted >> that anything that isn't Windows is dead or dying...that REALLY >> established >> credibility. > > Listen, asshole - don't generalize what I say to twist my meaning. ...after all, you're the only one who should be doing that here, being that anything you don't like is "religion". Plonk, indeed. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 13:44:34 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:44:34 -0400 Subject: early PA-RISC machines In-Reply-To: References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <23849BAB-60E4-4E15-A60D-746FB70AA034@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jun 12, 2009, at 2:25 PM, Christian Corti wrote: >>> comp.sys.MPE, assuming you want to pay money for one. Of course >>> they were really really slow, wouldn't you rather have a 950? The >>> 930 was in way a prototype that escaped from the Lab. >> That's exactly why I want one. If I wanted *fast* PA-RISC, I'd >> hunt down an X-class. > > They weren't slow at all... I'd say the 9000/840 is a bit faster > than a SUN 4/260 (also running 24/7 here). Wow, really? That's pretty impressive for an all-TTL design. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 12 13:46:27 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:46:27 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <575131af0906120724g1ce38acbm3c200ac1808e5452@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A31572C.17319.35B420A1@cclist.sydex.com>, <575131af0906120724g1ce38acbm3c200ac1808e5452@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A324013.24405.3941DFF4@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jun 2009 at 15:24, Liam Proven wrote: > The almost-unheard-of Japanese iTRON OS runs on hundreds of millions, > maybe billions, of consumer electronics devices that most people never > realise /have/ an OS on them. It may be the most widespread OS in the > world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON_Project I remember when the TRON project was announced. At the time I was most interested in the CTRON variant, but didn't give it a snowball's chance in Hades of survivng, given the "NIH" tendency in the software world then. It's good to see that some aspects of TRON have survived. It was a very ambitious undertaking. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 14:00:13 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:00:13 -0400 Subject: Zealots vs. Naval ships Re: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <155175.28723.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <155175.28723.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jun 12, 2009, at 1:39 PM, christian_liendo at yahoo.com wrote: > I am going to make a nice glass of vintage CP/M kool aid myself and > try and get my Northstar running and maybe find documents for my > Wameco. If anyone would like to join in, I would be happy to pour. Pour me a glass! I'm going to see if the hard drive in my Kaypro 10 is still functional. I hope it is, as those MFM drives are getting kinda tough to find, at least around here. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net Fri Jun 12 14:05:06 2009 From: dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net (Daniel Seagraves) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:05:06 -0500 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <95449.67492.qm@web23401.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <95449.67492.qm@web23401.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <76DF0512-1467-4353-A0FC-AE5A1D9F1EF3@lunar-tokyo.net> No. The person in question was not injured, and since he is the owner's son was not held responsible. We found other machines to take over the jobs the damaged machine was supposed to be doing, but I was still short a machine so I went home and brought in an idle 3100. I already had netbsd installed so it was the easiest solution at the time. On Jun 12, 2009, at 12:45 PM, Andrew Burton wrote: > > Was the person injured? > > I understand about the hardware thing, I had assumed that the > company had aqcuired it on your recommendation. It didn't occur to > me that you would loan them your own hardware. > > > Regards, > Andrew B > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk > > > --- On Fri, 12/6/09, Daniel Seagraves > wrote: > > From: Daniel Seagraves > Subject: Re: UNIX V7 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Date: Friday, 12 June, 2009, 5:52 PM > > Dropped the machine (no crate, it was a local move from another > building) off the back of the truck and destroyed it. The person > unloading it slipped and fell, the machine was thrown about eight > feet. The case was broken, drives had failure warnings, and rather > than take chances we parted the machine out. > > It was replaced because I am not interested in providing free > hardware to the company on a long term basis. > > On Jun 12, 2009, at 11:09 AM, Andrew Burton > wrote: > >> >> Did they drop the crate it was in from a great height? Or was the >> vehicle it was being transported in involved in a road accident? Or >> was it something else? >> >> How much power would it require of the MicroVAX (I'm an Amiga/ >> Speccy person, so have no clue about VAXen or PDP's etc.) too be a >> DNS server and why replace it if it worked? >> >> >> Regards, >> Andrew B >> aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk >> >> >> --- On Fri, 12/6/09, Daniel Seagraves >> wrote: >> >> From: Daniel Seagraves >> Subject: Re: UNIX V7 >> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > >> Date: Friday, 12 June, 2009, 4:22 PM >> >> Yes, but nobody will care until the law shows up or we get hacked, >> in which case things will still be my fault. He who bitches loudest >> gets what he wants, and I am outnumbered. (We run a data warehouse >> for government/corporate contractors to locate certified minority >> owned subcontractors for bidding disclosure compliance purposes.) >> >> To make things a bit more on-topic, for the first two weeks of our >> operations our DNS server was a MicroVAX standing in for a machine >> that was destroyed in shipping. >> From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 14:20:48 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:20:48 -0400 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: <4A30EB56.3050206@softjar.se> References: <4A30EB56.3050206@softjar.se> Message-ID: <1727E4CF-072C-432E-A05B-E2C2E0917D4B@neurotica.com> On Jun 11, 2009, at 7:32 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > Probably. I already have most of the TCP/IP stack running. :-) Under RSX? Really?? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From IanK at vulcan.com Fri Jun 12 14:28:48 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:28:48 -0700 Subject: Zealots vs. Naval ships Re: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <155175.28723.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire > Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 12:00 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Zealots vs. Naval ships Re: Windows for critical > infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) > > On Jun 12, 2009, at 1:39 PM, christian_liendo at yahoo.com wrote: > > I am going to make a nice glass of vintage CP/M kool aid myself and > > try and get my Northstar running and maybe find documents for my > > Wameco. If anyone would like to join in, I would be happy to pour. > > Pour me a glass! I'm going to see if the hard drive in my Kaypro > 10 is still functional. I hope it is, as those MFM drives are getting > kinda tough to find, at least around here. > > -Dave > Got any OS/8 kool-aid? I just dropped a KL8-JA in our PDP-8/e and cranked up the terminal emulator to a blistering 1200 baud! -- Ian From RichA at vulcan.com Fri Jun 12 14:32:01 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:32:01 -0700 Subject: shells (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A325ED8.4050301@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <61D5C005-0C27-4C04-B379-B9C3F6C65039@neurotica.com> <4A315DF1.7060307@brouhaha.com> <4A31DB09.1000303@brouhaha.com> <4A325ED8.4050301@gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: Sridhar Ayengar > Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 6:58 AM > Zane H. Healy wrote: >> I actually started with ksh and bash, it wasn't until I started working >> my current job that I switched to csh. It was the default shell for >> root, and I learned to like the way it was configured. Now the default >> shell is bash. :-( > I went from csh -> tcsh -> zsh. I always script in either sh (actually > mostly ash probably) or ksh. I went from csh (briefly) to tcsh (last time I looked, my name was still in the man page) for years. I learned ksh when I was managing HP-UX systems at Cisco in the early 90s, and went on to bash when I got my first ISP shell account at Netcom following the move to Redmond. I use bash for just about everything, but occasionally fire up tcsh to do filename parsing in foreach loops--I just have trouble wrapping my head around the bash syntax, even though I can see that it's more general. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Jun 12 14:37:21 2009 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:37:21 -0500 Subject: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <73E0C5F2-46FB-459A-A5E3-92298EE6596E@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A3020BF.6010201@brouhaha.com> <4A31281E.4010800@garlic.com> <3FC7AF87-5A5B-4FBE-A954-B8DB6F4230DE@neurotica.com> <73E0C5F2-46FB-459A-A5E3-92298EE6596E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A32AE71.4060804@oldskool.org> >> Listen, asshole - don't generalize what I say to twist my meaning. > > ...after all, you're the only one who should be doing that here, being > that anything you don't like is "religion". Plonk, indeed. I don't care how old you guys are or how much you've accomplished -- your credibility hits the floor when you act like children. Behave like mature adults, please. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 14:42:46 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:42:46 -0400 Subject: bizarre capacitance In-Reply-To: <4A323838.3000801@databasics.us> References: , <2A03BC5B-A98D-49A0-B25D-BF4E47B4BD4F@neurotica.com> <4A2E46CC.29774.29BBEF57@cclist.sydex.com> <4A2EE41A.A0AA128C@cs.ubc.ca> <7E3C6977-F936-4E54-8570-D66ACE40B0BD@neurotica.com> <4A31829F.20607@databasics.us> <22025B1E-52DC-48B3-A113-D60673F547FC@neurotica.com> <4A323838.3000801@databasics.us> Message-ID: On Jun 12, 2009, at 7:12 AM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >>> I'm a NIST certified calibration technician. >> >> Umm, whoa! Can I send you some GR standards and my Thomas one- >> ohm?? 8-) > > Sure. I'll slap my Simpson 260-6P multimeter on them, and see if > they're about right. I don't have access to a cal lab at > this point, Dave... Hmm, I apparently missed the word "certified" above, and thought you worked for NIST. Oh well. :) >> The amount of dorking around that is done to get around the >> effects of metal junctions, including all solder joints, and the >> effects of temperature and humidity, is amazing. Getting great >> accuracy is surprisingly difficult. >> >> Yes it really is. I fight with thermals, in particular, all the >> time. The copper vs. copper oxide thing drives me nuts; I'm about >> to buy stock in Caig. > > People were torn over the use of some of the Caig solvents at the > lab. The buggers won't tell you what it is, which makes people > nervous about using them. I don't know what GR standards you mean, > but the Thomas one-ohm probably cost a couple grand, and they're > the LOW end of standards. People get skittish easily. I was thinking "Fluke" and typed "GR". My DC standard is a Fluke 732A. I'll have a Josephson standard eventually, but not anytime soon. ;) The Caig stuff is pretty well regarded by the (few) people I've talked to, and in the papers I've read. I have had good results with it here. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 12 14:46:32 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:46:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: shells (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: from Rich Alderson at "Jun 12, 9 12:32:01 pm" Message-ID: <200906121946.n5CJkWrc015500@floodgap.com> > I went from csh (briefly) to tcsh (last time I looked, my name was still in > the man page) for years. % man tcsh | grep Alderson Richard M. Alderson III, for writing the `T in tcsh' section -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Marry me and I'll never look at another horse! -- Groucho Marx ------------- From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 15:16:21 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:16:21 -0700 Subject: old ceramic capacitors (was Re: Move on, nothing to see here (was RE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7])) In-Reply-To: References: <4A31F7B1.7000909@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A32B795.5020106@brouhaha.com> I wrote: > I don't think ceramics are likely to have gone bad unless > they've been subject to extreme mechanical shock. dwight elvey wrote: > The older ceramics are notorious for going short when used > in low current applications. As bypass caps they would self > remove the short because of the current. In low current > applications they just become vary leaky. > Having worked on pinball machines, I've replaced a lot > of these bad caps when used in the switch inputs. > I've also replaced a few when in the services on radio > equipment. > I'm told it is related to metal migration. > I stand corrected! I've never observed that problem previously, but now I know another thing to watch out for when restoring old machines. I'll have to mention this to the other guys on the PDP-1 team. Maybe this might be one of the problems with the notoriously unreliable pulse amplifier modules. On the other hand, they were notoriously unreliable even when new. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 15:26:46 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:26:46 -0700 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> Message-ID: <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> Daniel Seagraves wrote: > (In reality however, I am most likely giving up my password expiration > policy. The users are complaining to the owner about having to change > their password every 60 days, and the owner has told me if they > continue to complain the policy will be abolished In my opinion, having a password expiration policy with such a short period is counterproductive. It will cause the users to be more sloppy with their passwords in various ways, including leaving the passwords written down in places they can easily be found. It will also make users favor weaker, more easily guessed passwords, even if the system sets minimum requirements; users are more willing to memorize a stronger password if they're going to use it for a fairly long time. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 15:32:48 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:32:48 -0700 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A326FDE.8060902@gmail.com> References: <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> <4A326FDE.8060902@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A32BB70.8080307@brouhaha.com> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Well, there is one feature that VM has that I've not seen in many > other situations. VM can run as a guest under VM. I asked engineers at VMware why their products won't do this, expecting that it would be due to some limitation in their virtualization technology. I was dumbfounded when they explained that they deliberately prevent it in order to avoid confusing their users. :-( If that's the real reason, they should have a way for a sophisticated user to set something in a .vmx file to enable it. Eric From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 15:37:33 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:37:33 -0400 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A32BB70.8080307@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> <4A326FDE.8060902@gmail.com> <4A32BB70.8080307@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A32BC8D.2020503@gmail.com> Eric Smith wrote: >> Well, there is one feature that VM has that I've not seen in many >> other situations. VM can run as a guest under VM. > I asked engineers at VMware why their products won't do this, expecting > that it would be due to some limitation in their virtualization > technology. I was dumbfounded when they explained that they > deliberately prevent it in order to avoid confusing their users. :-( > > If that's the real reason, they should have a way for a sophisticated > user to set something in a .vmx file to enable it. That's incredibly shortsighted of them to ignore such a powerful feature. Traditionally, that was the way that operating systems would be developed and tested for compatibility with newer machines at IBM. The hardware wouldn't be ready yet, so the OS people wouldn't have a machine to use for their development work. It's a chicken-and-egg problem. It was solved by developing a version of VM that emulates the new machine, and running it as a guest under VM on an *older* machine. Peace... Sridhar From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 15:38:04 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:38:04 -0700 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <20090612160052.GA28969@Update.UU.SE> References: <575131af0906120830s6604260yfb14f32f583570d4@mail.gmail.com> <200906121540.n5CFeJUb018364@floodgap.com> <20090612160052.GA28969@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <4A32BCAC.3040009@brouhaha.com> Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > Someone told me that VMware still emulates some of the instructions that > could be virtualized either because they are buggy or slow. Don't take > my word for it though. > > At one point, VMware added support for the hardware virtualization features from AMD and Intel, but by default it was disabled, because it was often slower than their existing software approach. In AMD's recent processors (Barcelona and newer), they've added enhancements to AMD-V such as nested page tables and the IOMMU, which are supposed to improve the performance of hypervisors, but I don't know whether VMware currently takes advantage of them. From slawmaster at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 15:39:31 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:39:31 -0700 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906121339r3feca29araa7186b5a6510ca9@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 1:26 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > Daniel Seagraves wrote: >> >> (In reality however, I am most likely giving up my password expiration >> policy. The users are complaining to the owner about having to change their >> password every 60 days, and the owner has told me if they continue to >> complain the policy will be abolished > > In my opinion, having a password expiration policy with such a short period > is counterproductive. ?It will cause the users to be more sloppy with their > passwords in various ways, including leaving the passwords written down in > places they can easily be found. ?It will also make users favor weaker, more > easily guessed passwords, even if the system sets minimum requirements; > users are more willing to memorize a stronger password if they're going to > use it for a fairly long time. > > Eric I have a number of passwords I use, but some of the systems at my school have both very restrictive password requirements and a short password expiration; as a result, many students have taken to just sticking a number on the end of their passwords and incrementing it by one each change. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 15:41:40 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:41:40 -0700 Subject: Fast EPROM eraser? In-Reply-To: <4A321C15.9436.38B53FE4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A321C15.9436.38B53FE4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A32BD84.10705@brouhaha.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Has anyone tried a camera flash as a way of very quickly erasing > EPROMs? > A regular camera flash is probably the wrong thing to use, as by design they don't emit a large amount of short-wave UV. In the early 1990s, Parallax sold a programmer for the EPROM-based PIC microcontrollers that had an optional flash tube for quick erase. Eric From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Jun 12 15:46:08 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:46:08 -0700 Subject: old ceramic capacitors (was Re: Move on, nothing to see here (wasRE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7])) References: <4A31F7B1.7000909@brouhaha.com> <4A32B795.5020106@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A32BE90.193F6761@cs.ubc.ca> Eric Smith wrote: > > I wrote: > > > I don't think ceramics are likely to have gone bad unless > > they've been subject to extreme mechanical shock. > dwight elvey wrote: > > The older ceramics are notorious for going short when used > > in low current applications. As bypass caps they would self > > remove the short because of the current. In low current > > applications they just become vary leaky. > > Having worked on pinball machines, I've replaced a lot > > of these bad caps when used in the switch inputs. > > I've also replaced a few when in the services on radio > > equipment. > > I'm told it is related to metal migration. > > > I stand corrected! I've never observed that problem previously, but now > I know another thing to watch out for when restoring old machines. I'll > have to mention this to the other guys on the PDP-1 team. Maybe this > might be one of the problems with the notoriously unreliable pulse > amplifier modules. On the other hand, they were notoriously unreliable > even when new. Just to note, micas can suffer from metal migration as well. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 15:45:21 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:45:21 -0700 Subject: fpga pdp's; [was Re: ...arrogance [was RE: UNIX V7] ] In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> <22790243-9DDB-4ED7-955A-D968D6EB3E71@shiresoft.com> <21248.1244808265@mini> Message-ID: <4A32BE61.4050602@brouhaha.com> Brad Parker wrote: > I did a "direct decode" pdp-11 in verilog recently just to see how big > it would be (and because I was frustrated with the pop-11 project). > It fits nicely & boots RT11 at 50mhz. At that speed, surely it hasn't finished booting RT11 yet! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 12 13:42:07 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:42:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: early PA-RISC machines In-Reply-To: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> from "Lee Courtney \" at Jun 11, 9 10:45:23 am Message-ID: > > > I know that one HP reseller here in the Bay area had a 930 (TTL-based > HPPA RISC) a couple years ago. You could root around for other resellers I think this is one machine I would have to be able to collect in person.... > on comp.sys.MPE, assuming you want to pay money for one. Of course they Hmmm, therein lies a problem..... > were really really slow, wouldn't you rather have a 950? The 930 was in No. If I wanted a fast machine, I'd not be on classiccmp :-) My love of processors built from TTL (and similar 'simple chips') is well-known here. That's why I'd like said machine. Same reason I'd rather haave a VAX 11/730 to a VAXstation 3800. > way a prototype that escaped from the Lab. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 12 13:52:46 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:52:46 +0100 (BST) Subject: Nearly there with IBM 029 KeyPunch In-Reply-To: <4A316CD5.D305D3CA@cs.ubc.ca> from "Brent Hilpert" at Jun 11, 9 01:45:10 pm Message-ID: > The other thing that changes with f is the inductive impedance of all the > (other) windings of the transformer. Ferro-resonance transformers do not rely > only on the resonance principle, magnetic/inductive issues are also very > involved. I'm not at all convinced that simply changing the C is adapting the > supply for the new frequency (50 Hz). That you are having to go so far off the > theoretical new C would tend to support this. > Possibly. However, I have a ferroresonant supply (for a pair of Diablo Model 30 hard disks) which has tappings on the 'resonant' winding for 50 or 60 Hz operation. There's a table inside saying how to strap it for different input voltages and t h2 frequencies. The capacitor, IIRC is not changed, just the tappings. This would seem to indicate it's possible to design a ferroresonant transformer with the 'main' windings are OK for either frequency. Of course this doesn't mean all such transformers are designed that way. And as others have pointed out, changing the value of the capacitor is not quite the same thing ans changing the tappiongs on the inductor. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 12 13:54:29 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:54:29 +0100 (BST) Subject: IBM 029 progress In-Reply-To: <4A316DBA.1040500@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 11, 9 10:48:58 am Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > >> I rememebr seeing a 2.7kF (yes, kilofarad) capactior in a catalogue, but > >> I think it's now been discontinued... I've never seen anythlng larger. > >> > > Good Lord.... How big was that thing? And, what voltage? It was something like 2.5V (I know it wasn't 3.3V or 5V, alas). It wasn't that large, IIRC it was smaller than a car battery, say. It also wasn't cheap (over \pounds 150.00), which is why I never bought one. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 12 14:15:36 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:15:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: Console debugging (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 11, 9 06:39:26 pm Message-ID: > > One of my favorite diagnostic hacks is Morse code messages blinked out > via the power LED on an Amiga. If the processor isn't totally wedged > and the hardware isn't so broken as to allow I/O port access, you can > get your message. Not Morse code, but the Whitechapel MG1 blinks out an error code using long ans short flashes (0 and 1, I can't remember which way round they are) on a frontpanel LED. This would be great if the error codes were correcly described in the technical manual (hint : a 'multi-bit DRAM failure' can simply mean there's not enough RAM installed for the boot ROM you're using. That one let me a merry dance...) HP9000/200 machines have 8 LEDs connected to an output port on the processor bus. Reset turns them all on, they are then turned off one after another if the CPU is running by the self-test code. The diagnostics may the put up an error code if something has failed. And the error code is 'beeped out' (high and low beeps for 0 and 1) through the internal speaker. Apparently if you 'phoned HP service they would sometimes ask you to run the self-test and listen to the beeps over the 'phone so they knew what board had failed. Again, be careful, the error code (and on-screen messages) don't always accurately describe the fault (as I found when restoring a 9836CU...) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 12 14:23:09 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:23:09 +0100 (BST) Subject: Watches, digital and analogue In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906111750u3d3a5003nc8e0394d9cfba3e@mail.gmail.com> from "John Floren" at Jun 11, 9 05:50:51 pm Message-ID: > > Digital watch? =C2=A0I see no digits. > > > > -ethan > I see quite a few digits... binary digits. > > Also, I'd be willing to bet quite a bit of money that there are > digital circuits in that watch, unless for some reason they lost their > minds and used an analog circuit to keep the time. As Vonada said 'Digital circuits are made from analog parts'. And as Professor Wilkes once told me 'A digital circuit is like a tame animal. An analogue circuit is a wild aninmal. Every so often the digital circuit goes back to the wild and behaves linearly'. :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 12 15:51:47 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:51:47 +0100 (BST) Subject: Joystick reproduction (RC transmitter) In-Reply-To: from "Bill Sudbrink" at Jun 12, 9 08:34:43 am Message-ID: > > I'm working on reproducing a pair of Cromemco JS-1 > joysticks to display (and let the public play with) at > VCF East in September. The one thing I'm missing is a > small, panel mount joystick assembly with 5k Ohm pots. Not being a Cromemcop person, I don't have scheamtics.. How are the pots used? As potential dividers (one end to ground, other end to a power line, slider to an analogue input). Or as variable resistors (only 2 wires brought back from each pot, a commen way to use them like that was to use them in an RC timing network possibly round a 555 or similar (c.f. Apple ][, IBM PC, etc). If the former, then the value of the pot doesn't matter too much (I would think 10k would be fine, for example). If the latter, you might be able to use other values of pot by changing the timing capacitor or whatever. If it is used as a potential divider, I have a circuit to use a normal PC jouystick on such an input ('normal PC joystick meaning one of the old analouge ones that plugs into a DA15 socket on a games controller card). I can dig it out if you think it would be useful. IIRC it's just a multiple op-amp chip, a couple of transistors, and some R's and C's. I designed it to use PC joysticks on a Vectrex. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 12 15:40:35 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:40:35 +0100 (BST) Subject: Looking for Tandon TM-100 service manual (w/schematics & waveforms) In-Reply-To: <4A31ECE6.2080000@drexel.edu> from "Jonathan Gevaryahu" at Jun 12, 9 01:51:34 am Message-ID: > > I'm looking for Tandon TM100 service manual w/schematics; one of my > TM-100-2 drives in an IBM 5150 here started acting up (stepper motor is > stuck at track 40 and won't decrement) and I'm trying to find a useful > service manual to debug it. The two tm100 documentation/service pdfs > I've seen are a scan of a staple-removed 21 page or so packet (this scan > is missing pages 8, 9, 12, and 13) which has no schematics and is > missing some pages; The other is 7 pages scanned from part of a larger > document (100 pages or so), which looks like it would be useful if I had > the whole thing. Neither of them are particularly helpful. > Does a scan of the larger tm100 service manual exist? > Does anyone have a paper copy I could borrow/copy/etc? At last! After far too many OS-advocacy messages, we have something related to classic computers. Can we have more of these please? I don't have a full service manual, but I do have scheamtics (in front of me). The stepper control circuit is pretty simple, and I would have thought you could sort it out from schematics alone. A disk drive exerciser [1] is very useful for doing tests on this circuit, but you can probably use your host system with suitable programming. What uou need to be able to do is send step pulses with the direction line in both states. [1] Those who know me will realise this is just about the only sort of exerciser I am ever likely to use :-) There are 2 inputs to the stepper corciot from the disk controller, the step pulse and the direction signal. These are buffered by U2Ee ('14) and U3Dc ('04) respectively). The inverted step pulse (output of U2Ee) is on TP12. The stepper motor control counter is built from the 2 sections of U4C ('74) along with hte XOR gates U5Da and U5Db ('86), which control the count sequence depending on the state of the direction line. Now look at the clock input to this counter. It comes from U4Ba ('20), which gates the step pulse (TP12, as above). The counter can only count if the drive is selected and it's not writing. And if one other signal (output of U4Fc, '38) is high. This gate prevents the drive stepping outwards if the track 0 signal is asserted. And I wonder if that's where your problem is. If track 0 is stuck asserted, then you won't be able to step outwards. The track 0 signal is based round U4Bb ('20), whioch combines the output of the track 0 sensor circuit (in a minute...) with the outptus of the counter flip-flops (thus making the exact trigger postiion of the sensor less critical). The output of U4Bb is inverted by U3Da, and fed both to the interface connector (via U1Fd, '38) and into the step clock gating circuit. Start by looking at the output of U4Bb (also on TP8). If that's low, then the drive thinks it's at track 0, and won't allow outward stepping. The track 0 zensor it a microswitch (!) connected to P11. It's debounced by U4Fd and U4Fa ('38), cross-coupled to make an SR flip-flop. Now, I've had problems with the microswitches in these drives (not suprising given their age). I had to replace one in my HP9836A. It worked _some of the time_. Other times the track 0 signal would latch on (i.e. the switch made on one contact, flipped the SR one way, but didn't make on the other contact when the heads moved off cylinder 0, so the SR was never flopped back). You can still get a suitable microswitch. It's a normal V3 package but with a low (15g?) operating force. I found a suitable one from RS components (IIRC, may have been Farnell). Fitting it is not too hard, but you should do a track 0 alignment afterwards. I found that if you mark the position of the bracket on the chassis before removing it, and if you mark the position of the swtich on the bracket, and put everything back in the same place, it'll be near enough to work. I have a 'Microtest' alignment system so doing it properly was easy. Let me know how you get on, I'l suggest further things to check/try. -tony From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Fri Jun 12 16:16:14 2009 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:16:14 -0400 Subject: Fast EPROM eraser? Message-ID: <200906122116.n5CLGH1E068773@keith.ezwind.net> On Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:41:40 -0700, Eric Smith wrote: >A regular camera flash is probably the wrong thing to use, as by design >they don't emit a large amount of short-wave UV. usually the UV filter is in the lens / cover not the cheep glass tube. The other Bob From slawmaster at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 16:24:40 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:24:40 -0700 Subject: Watches, digital and analogue In-Reply-To: References: <7d3530220906111750u3d3a5003nc8e0394d9cfba3e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906121424v347d4647g15bb4691b3c70185@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 12:23 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> > Digital watch? =C2=A0I see no digits. >> > >> > -ethan > >> I see quite a few digits... binary digits. >> >> Also, I'd be willing to bet quite a bit of money that there are >> digital circuits in that watch, unless for some reason they lost their >> minds and used an analog circuit to keep the time. > > As Vonada said 'Digital circuits are made from analog parts'. > > And as Professor Wilkes once told me 'A digital circuit is like a tame > animal. An analogue circuit is a wild aninmal. Every so often the digital > circuit goes back to the wild and behaves linearly'. > > :-) > > -tony > As a computer engineer, I'm quite happy that while digital circuits are made from analog parts, those analog parts can be reliably abstracted as digital components. After that, it's all ones and zeros :-) Having designed individual transistors on silicon, the best part is when you get some NAND/NOR/AND/OR/XOR/etc. parts built and can just go from there ;) John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 12 16:40:42 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:40:42 -0700 Subject: Looking for Tandon TM-100 service manual (w/schematics & waveforms) In-Reply-To: <01C9EB64.B0FE90E0@MSE_D03> References: <01C9EB64.B0FE90E0@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <4A3268EA.28104.39E166A3@cclist.sydex.com> I've got the Sam's manual for the TM=100 in glorious living color. If that would help, drop me a line off-list. --Chuck From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Jun 12 16:31:43 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:31:43 +0100 Subject: Further 11/40 unibus questions... In-Reply-To: <4A30F985.9040201@softjar.se> References: <4A30F985.9040201@softjar.se> Message-ID: <4A32C93F.8030902@dunnington.plus.com> On 11/06/2009 13:33, Johnny Billquist wrote: > Josh Dersch wrote: >> So I moved it out of the 9th slot on the processor backplane and into >> the first slot on Unibus backplane. (And put a grant card in the 9th >> slot...) And hey, it works. Toggled in a short "echo" program and >> what I type on the terminal keyboard is echoed back, at a blistering >> 300 baud. > > Excellent! > >> So... clearly there's something wrong with the SPC slot on the >> processor backplane. A couple more questions: > Are you *sure* slot 9 in the processor backplane really is a Unibus > slot??? More correctly stated: the unibus out in the backplane A and B > don't neccesarily imply that C-F is a Unibus SPC slot. > I haven't checked the 11/40 drawings or manuals, and I assume you have > been reading them some. Please check this. > It's a big mistake to just assume that one slot is like another... It is, and it's the normal place for the console. My current PDP-11/40 has an M7800-YA (DL-11) in there, as did the 11/40 I used to have. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 16:45:14 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:45:14 -0400 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) Message-ID: So to turn a bit more on-topic, my big thrift store find of the week is a 400MHz Ruby iMac. It looks loaded with OS 10.4.2 on a 10GB Quantum drive, a Matsushita CD-ROM, 576MB of RAM (the original 64MB plus an add-on 512MB PC-133 DIMM), and no Airport/WiFi interface. I found the spot for it - a pair of mounting brackets and an antenna cable, but no interface. :-( I don't have a lot of PowerMac hardware, so this is an interesting find. I do have the guts of a Blue&White tower stuffed into a beige box, but this little guy is much easier to move around and store on a shelf when I'm not using it. Somewhere, I have Starcraft for the PPC Mac. I should try to fire that up. Oh... I forgot to mention. This working machine was priced at $20, about 2% of what it cost new (but it had a keyboard and mouse back then). After some poking around, it looks like the former owner upgraded it from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal data out. I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is as high as it goes for PPC) -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 16:52:01 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:52:01 -0400 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jun 12, 2009, at 5:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > After some poking around, it looks like the former owner upgraded it > from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal > data out. I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh > install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is as > high as it goes for PPC) 10.5 supports PPC. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ray at arachelian.com Fri Jun 12 16:51:32 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:51:32 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <589BFBC3-AC4A-4954-A7D9-733AECF7EF71@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, , <3F0247A5-314E-4920-BF8D-F7EADA6B2E4E@neurotica.com> <4A30E9D2.11583.3408DCAF@cclist.sydex.com> <589BFBC3-AC4A-4954-A7D9-733AECF7EF71@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A32CDE4.20000@arachelian.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 2:26 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> I just use "su". >> >> I login as "root". :) > > Well there you go. :) > > -Dave > In Soviet Russia, root logs in (that should be su's) as you. :-) Sorry, couldn't resist. From mdavidson1963 at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 16:51:36 2009 From: mdavidson1963 at gmail.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:51:36 -0700 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 2:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > So to turn a bit more on-topic, my big thrift store find of the week > is a 400MHz Ruby iMac. ?It looks loaded with OS 10.4.2 on a 10GB > Quantum drive, a Matsushita CD-ROM, 576MB of RAM (the original 64MB > plus an add-on 512MB PC-133 DIMM), and no Airport/WiFi interface. ?I > found the spot for it - a pair of mounting brackets and an antenna > cable, but no interface. :-( > > I don't have a lot of PowerMac hardware, so this is an interesting > find. ?I do have the guts of a Blue&White tower stuffed into a beige > box, but this little guy is much easier to move around and store on a > shelf when I'm not using it. ?Somewhere, I have Starcraft for the PPC > Mac. ?I should try to fire that up. > > Oh... I forgot to mention. ?This working machine was priced at $20, > about 2% of what it cost new (but it had a keyboard and mouse back > then). > > After some poking around, it looks like the former owner upgraded it > from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal > data out. ?I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh > install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is as > high as it goes for PPC) Ethan--- Awesome find! Mark Davidson From dgahling at hotmail.com Fri Jun 12 16:52:28 2009 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:52:28 -0400 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906121339r3feca29araa7186b5a6510ca9@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <7d3530220906121339r3feca29araa7186b5a6510ca9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: or cycling through a list of completely insecure passwords if its 10, go through the same 10 over and over, or 5 like you said, add a number to the end any expiry policy will cause this. if you use hardened passwords that are easy to type (but not remember) those work the best, so far that I've found. I even wrote a program to generate these (probably a number of them around). they are not based on keyboard patterns my latest one is designed around how people type left hand, then right, then left, a certain number each, they can type them, but never remember what they are. Dan. > Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:39:31 -0700 > Subject: Re: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) > From: slawmaster at gmail.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 1:26 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > > Daniel Seagraves wrote: > >> > >> (In reality however, I am most likely giving up my password expiration > >> policy. The users are complaining to the owner about having to change their > >> password every 60 days, and the owner has told me if they continue to > >> complain the policy will be abolished > > > > In my opinion, having a password expiration policy with such a short period > > is counterproductive. It will cause the users to be more sloppy with their > > passwords in various ways, including leaving the passwords written down in > > places they can easily be found. It will also make users favor weaker, more > > easily guessed passwords, even if the system sets minimum requirements; > > users are more willing to memorize a stronger password if they're going to > > use it for a fairly long time. > > > > Eric > > I have a number of passwords I use, but some of the systems at my > school have both very restrictive password requirements and a short > password expiration; as a result, many students have taken to just > sticking a number on the end of their passwords and incrementing it by > one each change. > > > John > -- > "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS > reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, > Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba _________________________________________________________________ Create a cool, new character for your Windows Live? Messenger. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9656621 From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 17:01:35 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:01:35 -0400 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > ?10.5 supports PPC. _Really_?!? I thought they dropped it. Maybe it's only G5? (I have, now, more than one G3, but nothing as new as a G4). *rummaging* Got it... it's 10.6 that they drop all PPC support. Ah, well... and I just got a line on an old Mac G4 Cube in town. I guess I could go get it and run 10.5 on it. That would be current for a few more months. -ethan From ragooman at comcast.net Fri Jun 12 17:02:34 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:02:34 -0400 Subject: Zealots vs. Naval ships Re: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <155175.28723.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A32D07A.8090505@comcast.net> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 12, 2009, at 1:39 PM, christian_liendo at yahoo.com wrote: >> I am going to make a nice glass of vintage CP/M kool aid myself and >> try and get my Northstar running and maybe find documents for my >> Wameco. If anyone would like to join in, I would be happy to pour. > > Pour me a glass! I'm going to see if the hard drive in my Kaypro 10 > is still functional. I hope it is, as those MFM drives are getting > kinda tough to find, at least around here. > gettin' mine too, IMSAI + Z80 + CP/M =Dan -- [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 17:09:34 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:09:34 -0400 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3C89E6-E1DD-4B70-A791-F0EF53C605D7@neurotica.com> On Jun 12, 2009, at 6:01 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> 10.5 supports PPC. > > _Really_?!? I thought they dropped it. Maybe it's only G5? (I have, > now, more than one G3, but nothing as new as a G4). > > *rummaging* > > Got it... it's 10.6 that they drop all PPC support. > > Ah, well... and I just got a line on an old Mac G4 Cube in town. I > guess I could go get it and run 10.5 on it. That would be current > for a few more months. My two machines are running 10.4...no compelling reason to move to 10.5, and the horror stories from the early 10.5.x releases were pretty scary. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 12 17:16:08 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:16:08 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <4A3C89E6-E1DD-4B70-A791-F0EF53C605D7@neurotica.com> from Dave McGuire at "Jun 12, 9 06:09:34 pm" Message-ID: <200906122216.n5CMG8QO015612@floodgap.com> > My two machines are running 10.4...no compelling reason to move to > 10.5, and the horror stories from the early 10.5.x releases were > pretty scary. I have no plans to put any of my PPC machines on 10.5. I do have a token Intel box running 10.5, but as I say, it runs so little of my routine software that it essentially functions as a test system only. I'm thinking of rolling my own future security updates for 10.4 based on the 10.5 advisories and what I can hack. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm. -- Winston Churchill --- From ragooman at comcast.net Fri Jun 12 17:43:03 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:43:03 -0400 Subject: Looking for Tandon TM-100 service manual (w/schematics & waveforms) In-Reply-To: <4A31ECE6.2080000@drexel.edu> References: <4A31ECE6.2080000@drexel.edu> Message-ID: <4A32D9F7.5090009@comcast.net> Jonathan Gevaryahu wrote: > I'm looking for Tandon TM100 service manual w/schematics; one of my > TM-100-2 drives in an IBM 5150 here started acting up (stepper motor > is stuck at track 40 and won't decrement) and I'm trying to find a > useful service manual to debug it. The two tm100 documentation/service > pdfs I've seen are a scan of a staple-removed 21 page or so packet > (this scan is missing pages 8, 9, 12, and 13) which has no schematics > and is missing some pages; The other is 7 pages scanned from part of a > larger document (100 pages or so), which looks like it would be useful > if I had the whole thing. Neither of them are particularly helpful. > Does a scan of the larger tm100 service manual exist? > Does anyone have a paper copy I could borrow/copy/etc? > I can't remember which website I found these so I uploaded them. http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/files/vintage/manuals/ hope this helps =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jun 12 18:39:11 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:39:11 -0700 Subject: Looking for Tandon TM-100 service manual (w/schematics & waveforms) In-Reply-To: <4A32D9F7.5090009@comcast.net> References: <4A31ECE6.2080000@drexel.edu> <4A32D9F7.5090009@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A32E71F.6020407@bitsavers.org> Dan Roganti wrote: > I can't remember which website I found these so I uploaded them. the html page has last updated: 26-Aug-97 Ian Harries at the bottom From ggs at shiresoft.com Fri Jun 12 17:01:21 2009 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:01:21 -0700 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6CFD54C3-DA13-4EAB-A5FC-C8BCF0376F98@shiresoft.com> On Jun 12, 2009, at 2:52 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 12, 2009, at 5:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> After some poking around, it looks like the former owner upgraded it >> from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal >> data out. I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh >> install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is >> as >> high as it goes for PPC) > > 10.5 supports PPC. Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine that old. TTFN - Guy From ggs at shiresoft.com Fri Jun 12 19:02:30 2009 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:02:30 -0700 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <6CFD54C3-DA13-4EAB-A5FC-C8BCF0376F98@shiresoft.com> References: <6CFD54C3-DA13-4EAB-A5FC-C8BCF0376F98@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <460AD5B7-F1E2-42E7-A1CB-9F0967FF1619@shiresoft.com> On Jun 12, 2009, at 3:01 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > > On Jun 12, 2009, at 2:52 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > >> On Jun 12, 2009, at 5:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >>> After some poking around, it looks like the former owner upgraded it >>> from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal >>> data out. I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh >>> install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 >>> is as >>> high as it goes for PPC) >> >> 10.5 supports PPC. > > Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine that old. To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. I believe the cutoff was 867MHz. And as was announced at WWDC on Monday, Snow Leopard doesn't support any of the PPC machines. TTFN - Guy From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 12 19:06:38 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:06:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <460AD5B7-F1E2-42E7-A1CB-9F0967FF1619@shiresoft.com> from Guy Sotomayor at "Jun 12, 9 05:02:30 pm" Message-ID: <200906130006.n5D06cnj011354@floodgap.com> > > Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine that old. > > To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. I > believe the cutoff was 867MHz. And as was announced at WWDC on > Monday, Snow Leopard doesn't support any of the PPC machines. 867MHz is indeed the cutoff. I kind of found it artificial myself, but as I say, I don't use Leopard on PPC anyway. It's a cold, windy, x86 Mac world now. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Los Angeles 2001: "Ohmigosh, it's full of *cars!*" ------------------------- From mdavidson1963 at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 19:15:58 2009 From: mdavidson1963 at gmail.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:15:58 -0700 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <200906130006.n5D06cnj011354@floodgap.com> References: <460AD5B7-F1E2-42E7-A1CB-9F0967FF1619@shiresoft.com> <200906130006.n5D06cnj011354@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 5:06 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> > Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine that old. >> >> To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. ?I >> believe the cutoff was 867MHz. ?And as was announced at WWDC on >> Monday, Snow Leopard doesn't support any of the PPC machines. > > 867MHz is indeed the cutoff. I kind of found it artificial myself, but > as I say, I don't use Leopard on PPC anyway. > > It's a cold, windy, x86 Mac world now. Unless I'm mistaken, Leopard doesn't run on G3 macs at all, no matter how slow they are. I thought it only supported G4 and G5. :D Am I correct in my thinking? Mark Davidson From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 19:17:48 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:17:48 -0700 Subject: Fast EPROM eraser? In-Reply-To: <200906122116.n5CLGH1E068773@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200906122116.n5CLGH1E068773@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4A32F02C.1060408@brouhaha.com> Bob Bradlee wrote: > usually the UV filter is in the lens / cover not the cheep glass tube. > Yes, and presumably people don't want to break their expensive camera flash to use to erase EPROMs. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 19:19:28 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:19:28 -0700 Subject: Fast EPROM eraser? In-Reply-To: <200906122116.n5CLGH1E068773@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200906122116.n5CLGH1E068773@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4A32F090.1030000@brouhaha.com> Bob Bradlee wrote: > usually the UV filter is in the lens / cover not the cheep glass tube. > Though even if you remove the filter or lens, you still won't get that much shortwave UV, because the bulb in those is usually in a glass envelope, and glass blocks a lot of the shortwave UV. That's why tubes made for shortwave UV, and the windows on EPROMs, are made of quartz rather than normal glass. Eric From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 19:24:24 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:24:24 -0400 Subject: Fast EPROM eraser? In-Reply-To: <4A32F02C.1060408@brouhaha.com> References: <200906122116.n5CLGH1E068773@keith.ezwind.net> <4A32F02C.1060408@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Jun 12, 2009, at 8:17 PM, Eric Smith wrote: >> usually the UV filter is in the lens / cover not the cheep glass >> tube. >> > Yes, and presumably people don't want to break their expensive > camera flash to use to erase EPROMs. I'm seeing camera flash units at thrift stores (both good ones and crappy ones) usually for less than five bucks. If it is indeed a viable erasure method, it's damn cheap to do. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 12 19:35:02 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:35:02 -0400 Subject: Zealots vs. Naval ships Re: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <155175.28723.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jun 12, 2009, at 3:28 PM, Ian King wrote: > Got any OS/8 kool-aid? I just dropped a KL8-JA in our PDP-8/e and > cranked up the terminal emulator to a blistering 1200 baud! -- Ian Mmmmm, that's TASTY kool-aid! I'm cleaning off an 8/e (well, it's actually an 8/m) right now, in fact, to test some boards. I hope to spend most of tomorrow hacking tasty 8-ness, which will surely improve the sour mood I've had of late. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jun 12 19:36:20 2009 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:36:20 -0400 Subject: fpga pdp's; [was Re: ...arrogance [was RE: UNIX V7] ] In-Reply-To: <4A32BE61.4050602@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> <22790243-9DDB-4ED7-955A-D968D6EB3E71@shiresoft.com> <21248.1244808265@mini> <4A32BE61.4050602@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A32F484.10900@heeltoe.com> Eric Smith wrote: > Brad Parker wrote: >> I did a "direct decode" pdp-11 in verilog recently just to see how >> big it would be (and because I was frustrated with the pop-11 >> project). It fits nicely & boots RT11 at 50mhz. > At that speed, surely it hasn't finished booting RT11 yet! sorry, I don't get the joke. clock is 50mhz, or 20ns; each state is one clock and on average an instruction is 3 states. I calculated 10mips. it seems to boot much faster than my 11/44 :-) what did I miss? -brad From ggs at shiresoft.com Fri Jun 12 19:39:09 2009 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:39:09 -0700 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: References: <460AD5B7-F1E2-42E7-A1CB-9F0967FF1619@shiresoft.com> <200906130006.n5D06cnj011354@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Jun 12, 2009, at 5:15 PM, Mark Davidson wrote: > On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 5:06 PM, Cameron > Kaiser wrote: >>>> Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine that old. >>> >>> To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. I >>> believe the cutoff was 867MHz. And as was announced at WWDC on >>> Monday, Snow Leopard doesn't support any of the PPC machines. >> >> 867MHz is indeed the cutoff. I kind of found it artificial myself, >> but >> as I say, I don't use Leopard on PPC anyway. >> >> It's a cold, windy, x86 Mac world now. > > Unless I'm mistaken, Leopard doesn't run on G3 macs at all, no matter > how slow they are. I thought it only supported G4 and G5. :D > > Am I correct in my thinking? I don't remember. I was busy doing x86 stuff and didn't pay much attention to the PPC machines. :-) TTFN - Guy From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Fri Jun 12 19:41:24 2009 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:41:24 -0400 Subject: Joystick reproduction (RC transmitter) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: > Not being a Cromemcop person, I don't have scheamtics.. There's a PDF on Harte's S-100 site. > How are the pots used? +12V on one end, -12V on the other and the center tap goes back to the A to D card. The test procedure specifies +2V and -2V at the full deflection of the stick. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 19:58:56 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:58:56 -0700 Subject: fpga pdp's; [was Re: ...arrogance [was RE: UNIX V7] ] In-Reply-To: <4A32F484.10900@heeltoe.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> <22790243-9DDB-4ED7-955A-D968D6EB3E71@shiresoft.com> <21248.1244808265@mini> <4A32BE61.4050602@brouhaha.com> <4A32F484.10900@heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <4A32F9D0.8000800@brouhaha.com> Brad Parker wrote: > Eric Smith wrote: >> Brad Parker wrote: >>> I did a "direct decode" pdp-11 in verilog recently just to see how >>> big it would be (and because I was frustrated with the pop-11 >>> project). It fits nicely & boots RT11 at 50mhz. >> At that speed, surely it hasn't finished booting RT11 yet! > sorry, I don't get the joke. clock is 50mhz, or 20ns; each state is > one clock and on average > an instruction is 3 states. I calculated 10mips. it seems to boot > much faster than my 11/44 :-) > > what did I miss? I'm not sure what 50 mhz is, but 50 mHz would have a cycle time of 20 seconds. Sorry, once again I'm being overly pedantic, as it was obvious that you really meant 50 MHz. Anyhow, I'm quite impressed with your project. I happen to have the same Digilent board with the 3S1000, so I plan to hook up an IDE drive and try it out. Thanks for making it available! Best regards, Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 20:04:41 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:04:41 -0700 Subject: Joystick reproduction (RC transmitter) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A32FB29.5090305@brouhaha.com> Bill Sudbrink wrote: > +12V on one end, -12V on the other and the center tap goes > back to the A to D card. The test procedure specifies +2V > and -2V at the full deflection of the stick. > > Wired like that, the exact value of the potentiometers doesn't matter. If it's easier to find joysticks with 10K potentiometers, they should work. Too low a resistance will draw too much current (possibly exceeding current or power ratings of the potentiometer), and too high a resistance (relative to input impedance of the ADC) things won't work properly, though no damage will result. Eric From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 12 20:14:37 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:14:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: from Mark Davidson at "Jun 12, 9 05:15:58 pm" Message-ID: <200906130114.n5D1Eb9G007822@floodgap.com> > > > To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. _I > > > believe the cutoff was 867MHz. _And as was announced at WWDC on > > > Monday, Snow Leopard doesn't support any of the PPC machines. > > > > 867MHz is indeed the cutoff. I kind of found it artificial myself, but > > as I say, I don't use Leopard on PPC anyway. > > > > It's a cold, windy, x86 Mac world now. > > Unless I'm mistaken, Leopard doesn't run on G3 macs at all, no matter > how slow they are. I thought it only supported G4 and G5. :D > Am I correct in my thinking? Effectively, yes, because I don't believe Apple has ever released a G3 of that speed, part of the reason I believe the 867 number to be arbitrary (it gives them a convenient way to exclude G3s from Leopard's constituency without having to ban them by name). However, I am fairly certain that there's nothing in Leopard that demands AltiVec, so if you fool the Installer with OpenFirmware it will probably work. This thread http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=4be4aa41116f02bf359983d40387ab09&t=222654&page=3 claims that swapping out the hard disks from a successful install lets it run on a G3, but it crashes a lot. However, I wonder if that is more due to unexpected hardware being present/absent than a processor limitation. Nevertheless, I'm sure its performance on a G3 would be charitably called pedestrian. For the record, I believe Apple's fastest G3 was ~700MHz. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I don't care who you are, stop walking on the water when I'm fishing! <>< -- From ragooman at comcast.net Fri Jun 12 20:22:56 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:22:56 -0400 Subject: Joystick reproduction (RC transmitter) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A32FF70.20801@comcast.net> Bill Sudbrink wrote: > +12V on one end, -12V on the other and the center tap goes > back to the A to D card. The test procedure specifies +2V > and -2V at the full deflection of the stick. > > Bill, After looking at my copy of the D+7A schematic, you probably could get away with using joysticks pots which are higher in value, say 10Kohms. Looking at the 4051 mux datasheet, the input current required is minuscule, measured in the microamps, which should make it still possible to use joysticks with a little more resistance. =Dan From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Fri Jun 12 20:31:03 2009 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:31:03 -0400 Subject: Joystick reproduction (RC transmitter) In-Reply-To: <4A32FB29.5090305@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: Eric Smith wrote: > Wired like that, the exact value of the potentiometers doesn't matter. > If it's easier to find joysticks with 10K potentiometers, they should > work. Too low a resistance will draw too much current (possibly > exceeding current or power ratings of the potentiometer), and too high a > resistance (relative to input impedance of the ADC) things won't work > properly, though no damage will result. Well, PC and Apple joysticks (easy to find) are between 100k and 150k Ohms... 20 to 30 times the desired values. Some RC transmitters may have 10k pots. My only knowledge of RC transmitter pot values is a couple of web pages about retro- fitting a board with a PIC on it into old analog transmitters to get digital control of the model. The pages say things like "If you have 5k pots, install this resistor and cap. If you have 10k pots, install this other resistor and cap." etc... From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 12 20:41:14 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:41:14 -0700 Subject: Joystick reproduction (RC transmitter) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3303BA.1040309@brouhaha.com> Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Well, PC and Apple joysticks (easy to find) are between 100k > and 150k Ohms... 20 to 30 times the desired values. Some RC > transmitters may have 10k pots. My only knowledge of RC > transmitter pot values is a couple of web pages about retro- > fitting a board with a PIC on it into old analog transmitters > to get digital control of the model. The pages say things > like "If you have 5k pots, install this resistor and cap. > If you have 10k pots, install this other resistor and cap." > etc... > I'm not certain, but I think 100K or 150K will probably work OK, and it won't damage the ADC to try it. I'm not completely certain about PC joysticks, but joysticks made for the Apple II are wired with electrical connections to the wiper and one end only. The other end may be open, or connected to the wiper. Eric From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 12 20:43:38 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:43:38 -0700 Subject: Fast EPROM eraser? In-Reply-To: References: <200906122116.n5CLGH1E068773@keith.ezwind.net>, <4A32F02C.1060408@brouhaha.com>, Message-ID: <4A32A1DA.8454.3ABFB74C@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jun 2009 at 20:24, Dave McGuire wrote: > crappy ones) usually for less than five bucks. If it is indeed a > viable erasure method, it's damn cheap to do. Well, the story says the light disrupted the EPROMs. Consider the distance between the flash and the unit in the story and the flash would have to be bright beyond OSHA standards to effect erasure.. And the story refers to "rebooting" as a recovery method--impossible if the EPROMs were truly being erased. I suspect that what the story describes is more of a photoelectric effect, like shining a bright light on a decapped DRAM. On the other hand, how bright can an eraser get? If I were to remove the innards of a 250W mercury-vapor bulb (leaving just the quartz arc tube) and install that in an EPROM eraser (with suitable ventilation), how long would it take to erase UV EPROMs? Would the EPROMs survive? --Chuck From segin2005 at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 21:33:10 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:33:10 -0400 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A330FE6.1020309@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Ethan Dicks wrote: > I don't have a lot of PowerMac hardware, so this is an interesting > find. I do have the guts of a Blue&White tower stuffed into a beige > box, but this little guy is much easier to move around and store on a > shelf when I'm not using it. Somewhere, I have Starcraft for the PPC > Mac. I should try to fire that up. Uhh, the PPC binary on the StarCraft CD is for Classic; and Blizzard recommends AGAINST using it on OS X. They have a native PowerPC Mac OS X installer and binary. You need the OS X installer from their site to install the game. There's two installers; one is a CD-based install, and one is a full Internet download (read below) Also, if you want to run the game without the CD (and never have to worry about needing the CD for anything whatsoever, ever again), register a Battle.net (website, not in-game) account, register your CD-Key, and then download the game from there (Note that when you enter your CD-Key into the site, it'll register that key to you, and generate a new-style CD-Key that is 26 alphanumeric characters long, not the original 13 numeric digits. If you download the game from there, you use the new 26-character key. If you install from the CD, use the classic 13-digit CD-Key on your case) Email me off-list if you need some clarification, or get stuck, or something. If you get some time, and feel like setting up a VPN, I'm up for a game. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkozD+YACgkQF9H43UytGibf7wCaA/v+fL/zzELuXEeh3/oVoLVB RGsAn3PH+LWbA9umZGunUiz/q0I5PkWP =vPkQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From segin2005 at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 21:38:15 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:38:15 -0400 Subject: Smartphones (was: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <2cae01c9eb6d$e7914630$af5419bb@desktaba> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net><511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com><200906101516.23814.pat@computer-refuge.org><575131af0906110806g35f12649m5539caeb882d145d@mail.gmail.com><575131af0906111020u716b0426g6e45b58a0ac4ab8@mail.gmail.com><4A3172AF.2070407@gmail.com><86151387-B120-4921-9A1E-07163B889D41@neurotica.com><4A317ED4.9090202@brouhaha.com> <2cae01c9eb6d$e7914630$af5419bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <4A331117.9040706@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Alexandre Souza wrote: >> I've not seen any, and I work with people that seem to have to >> have the latest and greatest gadgets. Personally in ~10 years >> I've had 2 cell phones, one of which lasted ~9 years. I have no >> interest in "smart phones", the only features I want are a phone >> # list, and a camera. > > I have an (old) treo 650. I have it just because of the #list and > the appointment section. A very lovely telephone. > > And, for linux buffs, the Motorola A1200 runs linux :) > The only smartphone I want is a Nokia 6600 or 6620. I also want a 512MB MMC (*not* SD) card to go with it. I had one a long time ago and it was nice. I even had the Nokia S60 Python 2.2.4 package installed. If I got bored on the go, I could develop software directly on it. It also served as my TV remote, thanks to a program called "Total IR Remote", with all the "buttons" found on the original remote. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkozERcACgkQF9H43UytGiacXgCfYNgcyrykvXTQUVn06jGKVQp8 JIcAn0fuxk7lRcmmizhJCzNTJElFjQqv =sVzt -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From segin2005 at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 22:20:50 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:20:50 -0400 Subject: the grumpiness of old age [was RE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7]] In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906111917n36a834a0te3efa4af0ed095f6@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111825j68bb816jf19094633475d97f@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111917n36a834a0te3efa4af0ed095f6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A331B12.4050709@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 John Floren wrote: > On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 6:38 PM, Rich Alderson > wrote: >>> From: John Floren Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 6:26 PM Forgive >>> us all for not knowing the deep dark super secret secrets of >>> the super secret TOPS-20 society. If only I had known the >>> unpublished unspoken truth I could have avoided asking for >>> clarification, such an ass I am. >> John, I apologize. I was a horse's arse in my previous response. >> >> >> >> Since there was a discussion of the XKL Toad-1 in the last few >> weeks, and I posted explicitly as a former XKL employee, I took >> it on faith that if I stated something about the internals of a >> piece of hardware developed by that company, I'd be given the >> benefit of the doubt. >> >> I wasn't, and it irritated me out of all proportion. >> >> Again, my apologies. >> >> Rich Alderson ex-Customer Advocacy, XKL LLC >> > > No sweat... well actually I just got back from the gym so there's a > lot of sweat, but you get the drift. I'm so used to the Internet > that the idea of someone apologizing blows me away :) I in turn am > sorry for making the kinda jerkish reply--I hadn't seen the thread > about the Toad-1, so I didn't get the connection. > > It's pretty cool to hear that TOPS-20 is still out there. Is it the > kind of thing where you can just hit the OS through a serial port, > or is it all tucked away carefully behind a lot of special user > interface? I like the OS, but Plan 9 keeps me busy... too bad that > either way I couldn't afford one of those boxes. > > > John twenex.org has TOPS-20 shells, I think I still have my account. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkozGxEACgkQF9H43UytGiYZJwCgu8yicsyuGa5vllYpjePi4L9h g7MAmgN1HcAg3+gUijB5GAJltv+GQ/UB =UzZE -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From slawmaster at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 23:05:26 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:05:26 -0700 Subject: the grumpiness of old age [was RE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7]] In-Reply-To: <4A331B12.4050709@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111825j68bb816jf19094633475d97f@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111917n36a834a0te3efa4af0ed095f6@mail.gmail.com> <4A331B12.4050709@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906122105o415eaa4evfc5015e4e991b42b@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 8:20 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > John Floren wrote: >> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 6:38 PM, Rich Alderson >> wrote: >>>> From: John Floren Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 6:26 PM Forgive >>>> ?us all for not knowing the deep dark super secret secrets of >>>> the super secret TOPS-20 society. If only I had known the >>>> unpublished unspoken truth I could have avoided asking for >>>> clarification, such an ass I am. >>> John, I apologize. ?I was a horse's arse in my previous response. >>> >>> >>> >>> Since there was a discussion of the XKL Toad-1 in the last few >>> weeks, and I posted explicitly as a former XKL employee, I took >>> it on faith that if I stated something about the internals of a >>> piece of hardware developed by that company, I'd be given the >>> benefit of the doubt. >>> >>> I wasn't, and it irritated me out of all proportion. >>> >>> Again, my apologies. >>> >>> Rich Alderson ex-Customer Advocacy, XKL LLC >>> >> >> No sweat... well actually I just got back from the gym so there's a >> ?lot of sweat, but you get the drift. I'm so used to the Internet >> that the idea of someone apologizing blows me away :) I in turn am >> sorry for making the kinda jerkish reply--I hadn't seen the thread >> about the Toad-1, so I didn't get the connection. >> >> It's pretty cool to hear that TOPS-20 is still out there. Is it the >> ?kind of thing where you can just hit the OS through a serial port, >> ?or is it all tucked away carefully behind a lot of special user >> interface? I like the OS, but Plan 9 keeps me busy... too bad that >> ?either way I couldn't afford one of those boxes. >> >> >> John > twenex.org has TOPS-20 shells, I think I still have my account. I have/had an account, but it's just not the same if you don't have real hardware on your desk/in the closet/in the garage. ;) John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From tosteve at yahoo.com Fri Jun 12 23:33:04 2009 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven stengel) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:33:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Available: 5.25 inch disk duplicator (1987), ACM/IEEE magazines ('70s+) Message-ID: <524436.97050.qm@web110604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Please email Anneliese if interested: ------------------------------------- > My 5.25 inch floppy duplicating machine - > The Ventuno V5 - diskette autoloader.? > The documentation has a date of 9/24/1987.? > > It is in the original box from Ventuno and has never been > out of the box. > > I also have LOTS of old computer journals (ACM and > IEEE) and magazines - some going back to the 70s. > > Thanks, > Anneliese Gimpel > From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jun 13 00:17:59 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:17:59 -0700 Subject: The "Joys" of moving! Message-ID: It's been a long hard day of moving stuff today, but we made great progress. We *should* finish tomorrow, I sure hope so. Basically we have two 19" racks left, a cart, BA123, and a couple little items, and a bunch of empty boxes. There have been some nice "finds" as a result of this move. I learned today I still have my DECstation 5000/133 that I bought to run NetBSD, that was definitely a highlight of the day since I've been regretting getting rid of it! :-) I found I still have my DECserver 200/MC as well, which I also thought was long gone. I've also learned I have even more DEC spares than I thought I had, including 1-2 more BA23's than I realized. The really shocking thing is that it appears I might actually have good access to a majority of my collection when I'm done with this move. If things work as planned in setting up the garage, I hope to have a corner with several different systems I've not had room for in years setup. The real question will be, when will I ever find the time. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jun 13 00:42:49 2009 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 01:42:49 -0400 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) References: <200906130114.n5D1Eb9G007822@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <8C2DB3F055B241F2B410989313B474CE@dell8300> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cameron Kaiser" To: Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 9:14 PM Subject: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) > > Effectively, yes, because I don't believe Apple has ever released a G3 > of that speed, part of the reason I believe the 867 number to be arbitrary > (it gives them a convenient way to exclude G3s from Leopard's constituency > without having to ban them by name). However, I am fairly certain that > there's nothing in Leopard that demands AltiVec, so if you fool the > Installer with OpenFirmware it will probably work. This thread > > http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=4be4aa41116f02bf359983d40387ab09&t=222654&page=3 > > claims that swapping out the hard disks from a successful install lets it > run on a G3, but it crashes a lot. However, I wonder if that is more due > to > unexpected hardware being present/absent than a processor limitation. > > Nevertheless, I'm sure its performance on a G3 would be charitably called > pedestrian. For the record, I believe Apple's fastest G3 was ~700MHz. > I think one of the reasons Apple didn't want users to run that version on G3s is because Apple started using the GPU for fancy GUI stuff and didn't want anybody to run the OS on PCI or early AGP graphics cards that did not support it. Some companies list minimum specs that will barely run the software, Apple releases minimum specs to be able to run the software and be somewhat usable at the same time (plus they like the money they get when people have to upgrade). From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jun 13 01:40:04 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:40:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <8C2DB3F055B241F2B410989313B474CE@dell8300> from Teo Zenios at "Jun 13, 9 01:42:49 am" Message-ID: <200906130640.n5D6e4b7017426@floodgap.com> > I think one of the reasons Apple didn't want users to run that version on > G3s is because Apple started using the GPU for fancy GUI stuff and didn't > want anybody to run the OS on PCI or early AGP graphics cards that did not > support it. Well, if that were true, it would have been a simple couple lines of code to block starting up if certain graphics hardware (I presume you mean Quartz Extreme et al) weren't present. Apple hasn't really enforced QX on PPC hardware, and I guess at this point they never will. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- 1-GHz Pentium-III + Java + XSLT == 1-MHz 6502. -- Craig Bruce -------------- From spedraja at ono.com Sat Jun 13 01:49:39 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 08:49:39 +0200 Subject: the grumpiness of old age [was RE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7]] In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906122105o415eaa4evfc5015e4e991b42b@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111825j68bb816jf19094633475d97f@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220906111917n36a834a0te3efa4af0ed095f6@mail.gmail.com> <4A331B12.4050709@gmail.com> <7d3530220906122105o415eaa4evfc5015e4e991b42b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Hello. > I have/had an account, but it's just not the same if you don't have > real hardware on your desk/in the closet/in the garage. ;) > > John > -- > Sure... I have one too in Twenex. An excuse to use a system like this as any other. But a little monster of four or five cabinets heating my basement in the crude winter, drying all the electric power of my building, and making me feel as if I would be entering in a cave would be more attractive, this is clear. > "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS > reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, > Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba > Ha, ha. The Ruby comment is Word of God, brother. I dismiss about the absinthe depending of the context. Regards Sergio From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Jun 13 02:59:29 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:59:29 -0700 Subject: Nearly there with IBM 029 KeyPunch References: Message-ID: <4A335C62.AA279989@cs.ubc.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > > > The other thing that changes with f is the inductive impedance of all the > > (other) windings of the transformer. Ferro-resonance transformers do not rely > > only on the resonance principle, magnetic/inductive issues are also very > > involved. I'm not at all convinced that simply changing the C is adapting the > > supply for the new frequency (50 Hz). That you are having to go so far off the > > theoretical new C would tend to support this. > > Possibly. However, I have a ferroresonant supply (for a pair of Diablo > Model 30 hard disks) which has tappings on the 'resonant' winding for 50 > or 60 Hz operation. There's a table inside saying how to strap it for > different input voltages and t h2 frequencies. The capacitor, IIRC is not > changed, just the tappings. > > This would seem to indicate it's possible to design a ferroresonant > transformer with the 'main' windings are OK for either frequency. Of > course this doesn't mean all such transformers are designed that way. I wouldn't dispute that, but neither does it detract from my point. There are many parameters that go into the design of such a transformer. I'd figure one can hold some of them constant and vary others. Those taps may not be at simple 'proportionate' locations for the different frequencies. ((other) was in parentheses so as not to exclude the resonance winding in the discussion.) > And as others have pointed out, changing the value of the capacitor is > not quite the same thing ans changing the tappiongs on the inductor. Funny, I thought that was one of the points I was making. Changing the C in accordance with the standard resonance equation was a reasonable experiment but I'm not surprised it doesn't seem to have worked out. The transformer works around core saturation, on the knee (non-linear portion) of the flux/I curve, consequently L of the windings is not constant over a cycle and it's not a simple resonance situation. From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 13 03:12:44 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:12:44 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A31E57D.3080507@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com> , <90A4BF9E-6AE1-46E1-97E8-B223052D3A2A@neurotica.com> <4A3116D0.3764.34B8B23C@cclist.sydex.com> <4A31E57D.3080507@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <1244880764.4797.21.camel@elric> On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 22:19 -0700, Eric Smith wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > I agree with you, there. Unless I know that I'm going to need some > > GUI interfaced program, I generally install *nix without X. > > > I was disappointed to learn that starting with Fedora 11, the text-mode > installer is no longer going to have feature parity with the GUI > installer. For instance, it has lost support for LVM. > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Features/NewTextUI > Suits me fine. I'd rather not have to pick my way through the installer's brain-dead interface to set up things like LVM when I can just get a minimal install up and configure LVM myself later. Since I only ever use LVM for /home/ then not having it before the packages are installed is no great loss... Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 13 03:20:47 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:20:47 +0100 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> On Fri, 2009-06-12 at 13:26 -0700, Eric Smith wrote: > Daniel Seagraves wrote: > > (In reality however, I am most likely giving up my password expiration > > policy. The users are complaining to the owner about having to change > > their password every 60 days, and the owner has told me if they > > continue to complain the policy will be abolished > In my opinion, having a password expiration policy with such a short > period is counterproductive. It will cause the users to be more sloppy > with their passwords in various ways, including leaving the passwords > written down in places they can easily be found. It will also make > users favor weaker, more easily guessed passwords, even if the system > sets minimum requirements; users are more willing to memorize a stronger > password if they're going to use it for a fairly long time. When I worked at IBM a couple of years ago (doing rather dull tech support stuff) I worked out that the password rules (something like "eight to ten characters, two to four upper-case letters and two to four digits not in the first, second, second-to-last or last position") yielded about 1000 valid passwords... Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 13 03:22:12 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:22:12 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1244881332.4797.24.camel@elric> On Fri, 2009-06-12 at 04:28 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 2:53 PM, Kirn Gill wrote: > > I hate statements like this. It gives the feeling, without any actual > > implication (for you semantics nazis out there), that since a few good > > OSes survived (VMS, UNIX, MVS, etc.), the rest came along. CP/M? Dead. > > TOPS-20? Dead. TENEX? Dead. ITS? Dead. > > No, I am not saying that these four are "inferior" in that statement. > > My point is that no significant support and development happens for > > these OSes. Therefore, they are "dead". > > Are support and development actually secondary to *use*? I don't > think so. You don't see much support or development going on with, > say, ice cube trays. They've been perfected for decades, and the > people who use them know how and tend not to require support. > They're not "dead". There's always something you can do to an icecube tray. Making them out of silicone for example, so you can flex them to get the ice out more easily. Gordon From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jun 13 03:30:13 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 01:30:13 -0700 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <1244880764.4797.21.camel@elric> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com> , <90A4BF9E-6AE1-46E1-97E8-B223052D3A2A@neurotica.com> <4A3116D0.3764.34B8B23C@cclist.sydex.com> <4A31E57D.3080507@brouhaha.com> <1244880764.4797.21.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A336395.3000705@brouhaha.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Suits me fine. I'd rather not have to pick my way through the > installer's brain-dead interface to set up things like LVM when I can > just get a minimal install up and configure LVM myself later. Since I > only ever use LVM for /home/ then not having it before the packages are > installed is no great loss... > Some of us have more complicated configurations, and it's significantly more difficult to get them set up without the installer having support for them. But LVM is only one of many things they're dropping installer support for. In general, text-mode install looks like it is on the way out, and I'm complaining much more about that than about specific support for LVM. From gyorpb at gmail.com Sat Jun 13 04:14:54 2009 From: gyorpb at gmail.com (Joost van de Griek) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:14:54 +0200 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906121339r3feca29araa7186b5a6510ca9@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <7d3530220906121339r3feca29araa7186b5a6510ca9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <766444380906130214m5ac9b3d4p9ae5589ab4ed1e5@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/12 John Floren : > I have a number of passwords I use, but some of the systems at my > school have both very restrictive password requirements and a short > password expiration; as a result, many students have taken to just > sticking a number on the end of their passwords and incrementing it by > one each change. $work-1 had a password policy like that. One day, a co-worker phoned to ask me to log her out of her workstation, so she could log in at a different location. "Sure, what's your password? I'll have to unlock it, first." "It's 'Welcome34'." .tsooJ From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 13 06:00:46 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:00:46 +0100 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <4A336395.3000705@brouhaha.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net>, <4A316E89.2010103@gmail.com> , <90A4BF9E-6AE1-46E1-97E8-B223052D3A2A@neurotica.com> <4A3116D0.3764.34B8B23C@cclist.sydex.com> <4A31E57D.3080507@brouhaha.com> <1244880764.4797.21.camel@elric> <4A336395.3000705@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <1244890846.4797.26.camel@elric> On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 01:30 -0700, Eric Smith wrote: > Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > > Suits me fine. I'd rather not have to pick my way through the > > installer's brain-dead interface to set up things like LVM when I can > > just get a minimal install up and configure LVM myself later. Since I > > only ever use LVM for /home/ then not having it before the packages are > > installed is no great loss... > > > Some of us have more complicated configurations, and it's significantly > more difficult to get them set up without the installer having support > for them. But LVM is only one of many things they're dropping installer > support for. In general, text-mode install looks like it is on the way > out, and I'm complaining much more about that than about specific > support for LVM. Okay, but my point is more that if I'm doing anything more complex than setting up a desktop I don't actually *want* the installer to try and figure out what I want - I just want a very bare machine working with vi, ssh and a network connection and the rest can go hang. If I *am* setting up a desktop I use the Ubuntu livecd and rattle through the graphical installer in two minutes, then spend the ten minutes it takes actually installing poking about on the 'net. Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 13 06:11:02 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:11:02 +0100 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1244891462.4797.28.camel@elric> On Fri, 2009-06-12 at 17:45 -0400, Ethan Dicks wrote: > So to turn a bit more on-topic, my big thrift store find of the week > is a 400MHz Ruby iMac. It looks loaded with OS 10.4.2 on a 10GB > Quantum drive, a Matsushita CD-ROM, 576MB of RAM (the original 64MB > plus an add-on 512MB PC-133 DIMM), and no Airport/WiFi interface. I > found the spot for it - a pair of mounting brackets and an antenna > cable, but no interface. :-( > IIRC it's just a Prism II card. You can still buy them *new* from Proxim as the ORiNOCO Classic Gold. Why? Because a shitload of stuff out there still uses Prism II cards and WEP as part of embedded systems. Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 13 06:18:34 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:18:34 +0100 Subject: Joystick reproduction (RC transmitter) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1244891914.4797.31.camel@elric> On Fri, 2009-06-12 at 21:31 -0400, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Eric Smith wrote: > > Wired like that, the exact value of the potentiometers doesn't matter. > > If it's easier to find joysticks with 10K potentiometers, they should > > work. Too low a resistance will draw too much current (possibly > > exceeding current or power ratings of the potentiometer), and too high a > > resistance (relative to input impedance of the ADC) things won't work > > properly, though no damage will result. > > Well, PC and Apple joysticks (easy to find) are between 100k > and 150k Ohms... 20 to 30 times the desired values. Some RC Close enough, for this. It's just a potential divider. Have you tried it? > transmitters may have 10k pots. My only knowledge of RC > transmitter pot values is a couple of web pages about retro- > fitting a board with a PIC on it into old analog transmitters > to get digital control of the model. The pages say things > like "If you have 5k pots, install this resistor and cap. > If you have 10k pots, install this other resistor and cap." > etc.. That's because it uses the RC time constant to measure the value of the pot. It doesn't care about the voltage. You set the pin to output low so you discharge the cap and then set it to be an input and time how long it takes to go high again. The higher the pot value, the longer the time. Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 13 06:21:05 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:21:05 +0100 Subject: Move on, nothing to see here (was RE: the arrogance of youth [was RE: UNIX V7]) In-Reply-To: <4A31F7B1.7000909@brouhaha.com> References: <4A31F7B1.7000909@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <1244892065.4797.33.camel@elric> On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 23:37 -0700, Eric Smith wrote: > those, and I don't think ceramics are likely to have gone bad unless hahaha haha hahahahaha hahaha hahahahahaha hahaha haha You've never worked on 1980s TVs and video recorders, have you? Excuse me, I need to take my pills now. These little brown flat ones... AARGH! Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 13 06:32:18 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:32:18 +0100 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... Message-ID: <1244892738.4797.37.camel@elric> ... has given me an itch to do some bare-metal work on a classic, maybe a standalone Forth or something. Trouble is, I now have no "simple" classics. I don't fancy starting off doing this on an Amiga ;-) Has anyone in the UK (preferably the North, to make collection easier) got a smallish CP/M machine, or a BA23-cased PDP11? Drop me an email offlist and let me know what you want for it. I miss having a PDP11 about the place... Gordon From ragooman at comcast.net Sat Jun 13 06:36:46 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:36:46 -0400 Subject: Joystick reproduction (RC transmitter) In-Reply-To: <1244891914.4797.31.camel@elric> References: <1244891914.4797.31.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A338F4E.2070209@comcast.net> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > That's because it uses the RC time constant to measure the value of the > pot. It doesn't care about the voltage. You set the pin to output low > so you discharge the cap and then set it to be an input and time how > long it takes to go high again. The higher the pot value, the longer > the time. > The Cromemco D+7A card does use a ADC circuit composed of a DAC(1408), SAR, and Opamp Comparator. It does care about the voltage. I have one of the Cromemco JS-1 joysticks ( http://tinyurl.com/nqcbkm ) and plan on duplicating this circuit too to make it compatible with existing software. That method you described had been used on other micro's, such as the Apple II and TRS80 mod.I to keep parts cost low. =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From lproven at gmail.com Sat Jun 13 07:16:37 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:16:37 +0100 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A32BC8D.2020503@gmail.com> References: <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> <4A326FDE.8060902@gmail.com> <4A32BB70.8080307@brouhaha.com> <4A32BC8D.2020503@gmail.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906130516q7d20352aqf50a7632bcfbba22@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/12 Sridhar Ayengar : > Eric Smith wrote: >>> >>> Well, there is one feature that VM has that I've not seen in many other >>> situations. ?VM can run as a guest under VM. >> >> I asked engineers at VMware why their products won't do this, expecting >> that it would be due to some limitation in their virtualization technology. >> ?I was dumbfounded when they explained that they deliberately prevent it in >> order to avoid confusing their users. ?:-( >> >> If that's the real reason, they should have a way for a sophisticated user >> to set something in a .vmx file to enable it. > > That's incredibly shortsighted of them to ignore such a powerful feature. > > Traditionally, that was the way that operating systems would be developed > and tested for compatibility with newer machines at IBM. ?The hardware > wouldn't be ready yet, so the OS people wouldn't have a machine to use for > their development work. ?It's a chicken-and-egg problem. ?It was solved by > developing a version of VM that emulates the new machine, and running it as > a guest under VM on an *older* machine. My guess would be that this is a little protective colouring of the truth. A VMware guest only delivers about 80% of the performance of the raw hardware, because all the kernel code - all the core OS itself, all device drivers etc. - are running in a software emulator. And on a PC, this is a lot more critical than on a mainframe, because PC software is far more CPU (and graphics) intensive. Run a VM under a VM, this would be even slower - you'd only get about 64% of the performance and my guess is that if it worked at all, VMware feel it would make their product look bad. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From lynchaj at yahoo.com Sat Jun 13 08:52:06 2009 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:52:06 -0400 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... Message-ID: ________________________________ ... has given me an itch to do some bare-metal work on a classic, maybe a standalone Forth or something. Trouble is, I now have no "simple" classics. I don't fancy starting off doing this on an Amiga ;-) Has anyone in the UK (preferably the North, to make collection easier) got a smallish CP/M machine, or a BA23-cased PDP11? Drop me an email offlist and let me know what you want for it. I miss having a PDP11 about the place... Gordon -----REPLY----- Hi! You could build your own N8VEM system. CP/M is easy to get running. Better yet, get one of the new N8VEM 6809 host processor PCBs and port FLEX or CUBIX. Certainly that would provide untold hours of joyful hacking. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Sat Jun 13 09:11:00 2009 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:11:00 -0400 Subject: Cromemco Dazzler Kaleidoscope Message-ID: I wanted to exercise my Dazzler and since I don't have joysticks yet, I wanted a non-interactive program. I looked around on the net and, while I found lots of references to it, I had a very hard time finding the kaleidoscope program itself. I finally found a paper tape image of it in a zip file on Dave Dunfield's web pages. There is a warning that there may be errors in these images so I disassembled the program to see where it should go in memory and whether it looked OK in general. The result is here: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/kscope_dis.txt I don't claim to exactly understand how it works, but it looked OK so I loaded it up and it works. So that I could easily load it up under Cromemco RDOS, I relocated it to 0x3000 and made a file that you can push straight into RDOS with a terminal program that supports "transfer text to host". That file is here: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/kscope_rdos.txt If you want to see the display that Stan Veit says stopped traffic in Manhattan, you can load it up under Richard Cini's Altair emulator with Dazzler support. Bill Sudbrink From spedraja at ono.com Sat Jun 13 10:18:24 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:18:24 +0200 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive Message-ID: I am searching one controller to use a couple of RX33 in one PDP11-23/PLUS. Someone knows what could I use ? Regards Sergio From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Jun 13 10:23:08 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:23:08 -0400 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200906131123.08181.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Saturday 13 June 2009, SPC wrote: > I am searching one controller to use a couple of RX33 in one > PDP11-23/PLUS. Someone knows what could I use ? RQDX3 Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 13 11:24:54 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:24:54 -0400 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <1244891462.4797.28.camel@elric> References: <1244891462.4797.28.camel@elric> Message-ID: On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > On Fri, 2009-06-12 at 17:45 -0400, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> no Airport/WiFi interface. ?I >> found the spot for it - a pair of mounting brackets and an antenna >> cable, but no interface. :-( > > IIRC it's just a Prism II card. ?You can still buy them *new* from > Proxim as the ORiNOCO Classic Gold. ?Why? ?Because a shitload of stuff > out there still uses Prism II cards and WEP as part of embedded systems. There must be a mounting frame I'm missing, then. The place for the card to plug in is a small laptopish rectangular socket, about 4mm x 20mm. There's card rails that would align a PCMCIA-sized card to mate with the motherboard along its long edge, but unlike an Apple Airport base station, no PCMCIA socket or anything close to resembling it. I do have ORiNOCO cards - most are Dell 1150s, but I have one or two others. Ah, well... it's still a cool machine for tethered use. -ethan From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jun 13 11:50:20 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:50:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jun 13, 9 12:24:54 pm" Message-ID: <200906131650.n5DGoKss012958@floodgap.com> > There must be a mounting frame I'm missing, then. The place for the > card to plug in is a small laptopish rectangular socket, about 4mm x > 20mm. There's card rails that would align a PCMCIA-sized card to mate > with the motherboard along its long edge, but unlike an Apple Airport > base station, no PCMCIA socket or anything close to resembling it. I suspect this is what's biting you: "The AirPort Card Adapter is required to install an AirPort Card into any AirPort-ready, G3-based, slot-load iMac. This adapter was included with AirPort cards made during the same period as these computers." http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2367 -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. ------- From blstuart at bellsouth.net Sat Jun 13 11:56:13 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:56:13 -0500 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... In-Reply-To: <1244892738.4797.37.camel@elric> Message-ID: <8ae7ec0eb669dd1f674fa38c918dfd23@bellsouth.net> > ... has given me an itch to do some bare-metal work on a classic, maybe > a standalone Forth or something. > > Trouble is, I now have no "simple" classics. I don't fancy starting off > doing this on an Amiga ;-) Assuming you have at least 1M of memory in the Amiga, a native Inferno port could be fun. If your Amiga is re-68020 (I can't remember how far Amigas went in the family), you'll have to do a little work on the compiler to keep it from assuming a 680x0, x>=2. BLS From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jun 13 12:22:56 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:22:56 +0000 (GMT) Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... Message-ID: <612620.9670.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> To my knowledge Amiga's went all the way! I think the CD32 had one of the embedded chip CPU's (eg. 68ECxxxx), but I know Amiga's definately went to the 68040. Some did use the 68050 and 68060, but I don't know whether they were added later by users or whether they were added at the factory. Of course Natima is going to run the 68070, but don't quote me on that as I haven't been following the project that closely. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Sat, 13/6/09, blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: From: blstuart at bellsouth.net Subject: Re: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Date: Saturday, 13 June, 2009, 5:56 PM > ... has given me an itch to do some bare-metal work on a classic, maybe > a standalone Forth or something. > > Trouble is, I now have no "simple" classics.? I don't fancy starting off > doing this on an Amiga ;-) Assuming you have at least 1M of memory in the Amiga, a native Inferno port could be fun.? If your Amiga is re-68020 (I can't remember how far Amigas went in the family), you'll have to do a little work on the compiler to keep it from assuming a 680x0, x>=2. BLS From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 13 12:30:05 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:30:05 +0100 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <200906131650.n5DGoKss012958@floodgap.com> References: <200906131650.n5DGoKss012958@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <1244914205.4797.38.camel@elric> On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 09:50 -0700, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > There must be a mounting frame I'm missing, then. The place for the > > card to plug in is a small laptopish rectangular socket, about 4mm x > > 20mm. There's card rails that would align a PCMCIA-sized card to mate > > with the motherboard along its long edge, but unlike an Apple Airport > > base station, no PCMCIA socket or anything close to resembling it. > > I suspect this is what's biting you: > > "The AirPort Card Adapter is required to install an AirPort Card into any > AirPort-ready, G3-based, slot-load iMac. This adapter was included with > AirPort cards made during the same period as these computers." > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2367 > Wonder if that's like the PCI cards that accept PCMCIA wifi cards? Gordon From blstuart at bellsouth.net Sat Jun 13 12:41:41 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:41:41 -0500 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... In-Reply-To: <612620.9670.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <965d397ca549896c051b156ec0a105d7@bellsouth.net> > To my knowledge Amiga's went all the way! > > I think the CD32 had one of the embedded chip CPU's (eg. 68ECxxxx), but I know Amiga's definately went to the 68040. Cool. In that case, the Inferno 68020 compiler should work in principle. However, it has received much less attention and exercise in recent years. It was originally used in building Plan9 on the NeXT and some other machines (including, I think, the Gnot), and was used in an attempt to port Inferno to the dragonball on some Palms. So it may still need some attention, but should basically be there. BLS From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jun 13 13:32:42 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:32:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <8C2DB3F055B241F2B410989313B474CE@dell8300> References: <200906130114.n5D1Eb9G007822@floodgap.com> <8C2DB3F055B241F2B410989313B474CE@dell8300> Message-ID: <20090613113001.Y95940@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 13 Jun 2009, Teo Zenios wrote: > Some companies list minimum specs that will barely run the software, Apple > releases minimum specs to be able to run the software and be somewhat usable > at the same time (plus they like the money they get when people have to > upgrade). Some comapanies don't understand the difference between MINIMUM specs and RECOMMENDED specs. From locutus at puscii.nl Sat Jun 13 13:52:50 2009 From: locutus at puscii.nl (locutus at puscii.nl) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:52:50 +0200 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... In-Reply-To: <612620.9670.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <612620.9670.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <87my8cc6f1.wl%locutus@puscii.nl> > I think the CD32 had one of the embedded chip CPU's (eg. 68ECxxxx), but I know Amiga's definately went to the 68040. > Some did use the 68050 and 68060, but I don't know whether they were added later by users or whether they were added at the factory. > Of course Natima is going to run the 68070, but don't quote me on that as I haven't been following the project that closely. There was no such thing as a 68050 :) And Commodore only ever sold Amiga's with maximum 68040s (on a plugin board, as a sortoff 'upgrade directly from the factory'), 68060's are entirely aftermarket, some very late A4000T's where sold with 68060's but this was on a 3rd party Accelerator board. Ofcourse, porting Inferno to Amiga would require quite a bit more effort to also support graphics etc, the Amiga doesnt have character modes, so you will have to implement a whole framebuffer and run a console on top of that (linux fb originates from the m68k port for exactly this reason). Also, Natami will not use the '68070' (which was a 68000 based SOC), but their own rather wonky idea of a improved 060. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Jun 13 14:04:47 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:04:47 -0600 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <20090613113001.Y95940@shell.lmi.net> References: <200906130114.n5D1Eb9G007822@floodgap.com> <8C2DB3F055B241F2B410989313B474CE@dell8300> <20090613113001.Y95940@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A33F84F.5070802@jetnet.ab.ca> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Sat, 13 Jun 2009, Teo Zenios wrote: >> Some companies list minimum specs that will barely run the software, Apple >> releases minimum specs to be able to run the software and be somewhat usable >> at the same time (plus they like the money they get when people have to >> upgrade). > > Some comapanies don't understand the difference between MINIMUM specs and > RECOMMENDED specs. For all the games I have seen ... recomended specs is two years down the road. From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jun 13 14:09:57 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:09:57 -0700 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... In-Reply-To: <612620.9670.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <612620.9670.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A33F985.3000302@brouhaha.com> Andrew Burton wrote: > To my knowledge Amiga's went all the way! > > I think the CD32 had one of the embedded chip CPU's (eg. 68ECxxxx), but I know Amiga's definately went to the 68040. > Some did use the 68050 and 68060, Using a 68050 in an Amiga would be a neat trick. > but I don't know whether they were added later by users or whether they were added at the factory. > Of course Natima is going to run the 68070, but don't quote me on that as I haven't been following the project that closely. > The 68070 is basically a slightly improved 68000 core (does not have 68020 or later instructions) with a bunch of on-chip I/O. From ray at arachelian.com Sat Jun 13 14:19:05 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:19:05 -0400 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <575131af0906130516q7d20352aqf50a7632bcfbba22@mail.gmail.com> References: <73BD4C0E-7861-47EE-987B-4B2AAF45C72A@neurotica.com> <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> <4A326FDE.8060902@gmail.com> <4A32BB70.8080307@brouhaha.com> <4A32BC8D.2020503@gmail.com> <575131af0906130516q7d20352aqf50a7632bcfbba22@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A33FBA9.3050303@arachelian.com> Liam Proven wrote: > My guess would be that this is a little protective colouring of the truth. > > A VMware guest only delivers about 80% of the performance of the raw > hardware, because all the kernel code - all the core OS itself, all > device drivers etc. - are running in a software emulator. And on a PC, > this is a lot more critical than on a mainframe, because PC software > is far more CPU (and graphics) intensive. > > Run a VM under a VM, this would be even slower - you'd only get about > 64% of the performance and my guess is that if it worked at all, > VMware feel it would make their product look bad. > There is VMWare ESXi which is also freely available for download, that runs on the raw hardware. So while there'll still be some overhead, you remove most of the overhead of the host OS - but of course you're replacing the host OS with a lighter weight one that's designed just for running guest OSs. Either way, using VMWare tools on the guest is an important part of running VMWare - if you want performance. Otherwise, VMWare has to emulate actual hardware devices, which is much more work than simply transferring the I/O requests to the hypervisor. There was some controversy over the Intel VT stuff - it turns out it does run slower than doing it in just software. Most of what VMWare does is trap & emulate supervisor level instructions, but there are a few opcodes that it can't do this with - don't remember the exact ones, so what it does there is to scan the binary for those opcodes and replaces them. The biggest limitation I find to VMWare and stuff like it is memory. You really do need a lot of RAM to get usability. Not surprising. If you want to run 2 or more Operating Systems at the same time, you need enough memory to make each OS and whatever Apps you plan to run under them not page. If you can't do that, don't run things virtually. Typically there's enough CPU cycles, but not enough memory. For most situations, but not all. As with everything, there's always a price to pay, but there are benefits too. From ray at arachelian.com Sat Jun 13 14:30:00 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:30:00 -0400 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <460AD5B7-F1E2-42E7-A1CB-9F0967FF1619@shiresoft.com> References: <6CFD54C3-DA13-4EAB-A5FC-C8BCF0376F98@shiresoft.com> <460AD5B7-F1E2-42E7-A1CB-9F0967FF1619@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <4A33FE38.5030105@arachelian.com> Guy Sotomayor wrote: >> >> Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine that old. > > To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. I > believe the cutoff was 867MHz. And as was announced at WWDC on > Monday, Snow Leopard doesn't support any of the PPC machines. > To be even more accurate, it does run on machines with clocks under 867MHz, but it refuses to install. To get around that you can change the Open Firmware settings to lie about the CPU speed an fool the installer - at least during the install: http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/openfirmware.html Not sure if that will run on a G3 or not, but it will certainly work on G4's under 867, but you can always try and see if it works. Well, maybe "run" isn't the proper word... maybe walk, or crawl would be more accurate, although on G4's of that speed, I understand that Leopard is actually faster than Tiger (provided you've got enough RAM.) From blstuart at bellsouth.net Sat Jun 13 14:35:34 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:35:34 -0500 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... In-Reply-To: <87my8cc6f1.wl%locutus@puscii.nl> Message-ID: > Ofcourse, porting Inferno to Amiga would require quite a bit more > effort to also support graphics etc, the Amiga doesnt have character > modes, so you will have to implement a whole framebuffer and run a > console on top of that (linux fb originates from the m68k port for > exactly this reason). That does complicate things a bit. However, if there's an RS-232 port on the machine, then you could use that for a console at least during initial development. And in principle, osinit.dis could initialize the graphics hardware and fire off the window manager, and you wouldn't need to write the emulation of a character mode. BLS From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jun 13 14:31:36 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:31:36 -0700 Subject: The "Joys" of moving! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A33FE98.7060305@bitsavers.org> Zane H. Healy wrote: > It's been a long hard day of moving stuff today, but we made great > progress. Would it be possible to borrow the GCOS manuals to get them scanned? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 13 14:24:38 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:24:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: Joystick reproduction (RC transmitter) In-Reply-To: from "Bill Sudbrink" at Jun 12, 9 08:41:24 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > Not being a Cromemcop person, I don't have scheamtics.. > > There's a PDF on Harte's S-100 site. > > > How are the pots used? > > +12V on one end, -12V on the other and the center tap goes > back to the A to D card. The test procedure specifies +2V > and -2V at the full deflection of the stick. Assuming there are no typos there, this sounds like one of those joystick mechanisms that only uses the middle bit of the rotation of a normal potentiomete (hence the swing to +/-2V, not +/-12V). A lot of joysticks I've seen have special pots with a shortend resistive track so you get an output swing essentially the same as the supply voltage -- this is not what you want here. Howeer, assuming the input inmpedance of the ADC card is fairly high, the actual value of the potentiometer resistance is not likely to be critical. If you have _any_ analogue joystick, you can probably convert it to work. If it's a 3-terminal potentiometer type, fiddle the voltages applied to the ends of the track to get the right swing on the slider (e.g. if the slider goes from one end of the track to the other, you could supply it from +/-2V, and have a +/-2V output). If necessary (if the potentiometer resistance is too high), you can buffer the output from the wiper using an op-amp wired as a unity gain buffer. If you have a 2-terminal joystick (a variable resistor), like most old PC joysticks, it's a bit more work. WHat I did wa make a current sink (op-amp + transistor + R's) and connect the variable resistor between the top of that and +5V (I kept it going to +5V, as in a PC, so that any autofire circuits in the joystick would still work). Then the voltage drop across the variable reisstance is proportional to the resistance (constant current, remember). I tapped that off, and used an op-amp or two to get the right output swing and offset. -tony From alec at sensi.org Sat Jun 13 15:08:10 2009 From: alec at sensi.org (Alexander Voropay) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:08:10 +0400 Subject: VT52 emulator (was: Fw: Still Falling for Tetris, 25 Years After Its Birth ) In-Reply-To: <347d9b1b0906040524n137e8778sf23b4d0c45b07e96@mail.gmail.com> References: <347d9b1b0906030131o2c2460d6qef0369629e5b40ef@mail.gmail.com> <347d9b1b0906031450i6ae1d2dl97507cc911e59d24@mail.gmail.com> <347d9b1b0906040524n137e8778sf23b4d0c45b07e96@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <347d9b1b0906131308o76e45b15vb39f50a108ead92e@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/4 Alexander Voropay : >>> The 0177 character was a 6x8 block. >> >> The VT52 ignored 0177 on receipt, so this game won't work on any decent >> VT52 emulator. You'd have to guess where the pieces were. :-) Sergei Frolov made a video playing this TETRIS game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0gAgQQHFcQ Rather bad VTY/CAM interference, nice keyboard "clicks" :) Look at 2:25, the russian DVK (a PDP-11 clone) boots. -- -=AV=- From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 13 15:44:20 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:44:20 -0400 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <1244914205.4797.38.camel@elric> References: <200906131650.n5DGoKss012958@floodgap.com> <1244914205.4797.38.camel@elric> Message-ID: On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 1:30 PM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 09:50 -0700, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> > There must be a mounting frame I'm missing, then... >> >> I suspect this is what's biting you: >> >> ? "The AirPort Card Adapter is required to install an AirPort Card into any >> ? ?AirPort-ready, G3-based, slot-load iMac. This adapter was included with >> ? ?AirPort cards made during the same period as these computers." >> http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2367 Yeah. I found that page, too. > Wonder if that's like the PCI cards that accept PCMCIA wifi cards? Perhaps, but there's enough pins on that SMT connector that it could be a passive frame. It clearly easily slides in a card from the top, so I suspect it exists because of how little clearance there is in the bottom of an iMac and how small that service opening is. -ethan From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jun 13 15:49:41 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:49:41 -0700 Subject: The "Joys" of moving! In-Reply-To: <4A33FE98.7060305@bitsavers.org> References: <4A33FE98.7060305@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: At 12:31 PM -0700 6/13/09, Al Kossow wrote: >Zane H. Healy wrote: >>It's been a long hard day of moving stuff today, but we made great progress. > >Would it be possible to borrow the GCOS manuals to get them scanned? I've planned on that for years. :-) Sadly it looks like some might have been gotten rid of while I was in the Navy as I have less than expected. I know I have the TSS (Time-Sharing System), JCL, FMS? (File Management System), and one or two others. I also have Cobol and Fortran manuals. Right now the problem is I have no idea where in the garage they are. We just finished emptying out storage and getting stuff into the garage, and until my wife gets some more of hers and the kids stuff unpacked it is jam packed. Once I get them dug out I'll let you now. I also have some DECnet/E manuals you might want to borrow. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From keithvz at verizon.net Sat Jun 13 15:55:49 2009 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:55:49 -0400 Subject: cleaning momentary push button switches Message-ID: <4A341255.1050509@verizon.net> Hi, I've got an old piece of test equipment that has momentary push button switches which are the primary "input" or control. While most of them seem to work, many of them are sticky, mushy, and just don't have a positive click. I'm not totally adverse to simply replacing them --- assuming I could find an exact match. Is there a way to effectively bring these back to life? Can I lube them? What should I use? How should I apply it? Thanks Keith From lists at databasics.us Sat Jun 13 16:04:04 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:04:04 -1000 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <5CEE9C60-718F-4296-A336-4B22083D647D@neurotica.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31F6A9.7000906@databasics.us> <3C2F3176-C992-4A35-8030-7AB9A4D93430@neurotica.com> <4A32582A.6030301@databasics.us> <5CEE9C60-718F-4296-A336-4B22083D647D@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A341444.1000702@databasics.us> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 12, 2009, at 9:29 AM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >>> Well, for "classic OSs". Some of us are actually interested in >>> the hardware. ;) >> >> Well, sure. The hardware is there, although not progressing, >> either. But, the end result and purpose of computer hardware is to >> run software. At least we've got THAT going for us. If nothing >> else, having a functional equivalent emulator allows one to work out >> software for the hardware involved, and do it faster, on a "bigger" >> machine, so when the hardware comes up, you can just load it up and >> go... Don't expect to make me feel guilty about being more easily >> able to enjoy my hobby than you. Won't happen. Now, bedtime... > > Well don't get me wrong, I'm not poo-pooing emulators. I use them > all the time. I just don't find them to be a replacement for real > hardware. :) True enough. They certainly don't WEIGH as much, for instance... Seriously, though, for me, the majority of "the computer experience" was obtained over a serial line of some sort, except for my VDM-1 card in the IMSAI 8080. So, an emulator, if it is a good one, does well for me. That being said, I do collect old hardware, also. It's just much "harder" for me. Also, Al had some good points, ESPECIALLY when it comes to mainframish computers. If you are a lover of, just to pick one, a PDP 11/45 machine, if you pass on your love for the machine to a young person, that person becomes a serious competitor for EVERY bit of kit you need, from now on. In other words, non-frustrated hardware hobbyists are strictly limited by the number, and cost, of working or repairable hardware platforms. But, if there is an emulator for the PDP 11/45, everybody on the planet could become a fan of running the software on an emulator, one that runs on mass-produced (hence CHEAP and available) hardware. Software can be copied and shared. Hardware, not so much. I also note that classic computer buffs who go the software route can have "machines" with plenty of memory and disk space, and can avoid all the ongoing expenses, and declining supplies of disk drives which work. Face it, storage media has a limited lifespan, and eventually every single bit of classic media will fail. So, long story short, while I certainly share the fun inherent in the hardware, it simply MUST be a hobby that dies out, unless one is a museum curator. Software classic computing could be a steadily growing field, only needing interest from new people to expand. Do I need to enumerate the benefits? Shipping a copy of your disk pack to someone in an e-mail, instead of calling Craters and Freighters, is a huge advantage, in both time and money. There are lots of similar benefits. I'm just lucky I am *more* interested in the process of running the software as I used to do, rather than in climbing into the machines. I cannot afford much of the latter, in time, money, or space. Warren From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 13 16:15:29 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:15:29 -0700 Subject: cleaning momentary push button switches In-Reply-To: <4A341255.1050509@verizon.net> References: <4A341255.1050509@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4A33B481.20598.377321@cclist.sydex.com> On 13 Jun 2009 at 16:55, Keith wrote: > I've got an old piece of test equipment that has momentary push button > switches which are the primary "input" or control. While most of them > seem to work, many of them are sticky, mushy, and just don't have a > positive click. > > I'm not totally adverse to simply replacing them --- assuming I could > find an exact match. Back in the day, we'd just rinse them in freon TF or carbon tet Good luck in finding any... I wonder if tetrachloroethylene (percholorethylene, or "perc" to your local dry cleaner) would work just as well? --Chuck From lists at databasics.us Sat Jun 13 16:31:40 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:31:40 -1000 Subject: Zealots vs. Naval ships Re: Windows for critical infrastructure (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <155175.28723.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A341ABC.2050802@databasics.us> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 12, 2009, at 1:39 PM, christian_liendo at yahoo.com wrote: >> I am going to make a nice glass of vintage CP/M kool aid myself and >> try and get my Northstar running and maybe find documents for my >> Wameco. If anyone would like to join in, I would be happy to pour. > > Pour me a glass! I'm going to see if the hard drive in my Kaypro 10 > is still functional. I hope it is, as those MFM drives are getting > kinda tough to find, at least around here. Relating to the previous post of mine, a Kaypro 10 is one of my "kickable" computers. (One definition of the diff. between hardware and software is that you can kick hardware). But, it has had an overseas move since I last used it. It was fine when I left, but it's now about a year and a half later. I suppose I might have to chisel it loose to get it to spin up. So... has anybody made any progress on making a modern drive work in an MFM harness? Warren From pontus at update.uu.se Sat Jun 13 16:51:05 2009 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:51:05 +0200 Subject: VMS/RSX manuals Message-ID: <4A341F49.90708@update.uu.se> Hi. I just got a mixed bag of VMS and MicroVMS manuals. Its programming guides and users guides, unfortunately not complete. I also have RSX manuals for version 2, these are complete I think. I'm not throwing anything away, but I'm wondering if there is any value in preserving these and if I should make an effort and scan them? (I can get more specific about what manuals I have if someone cares) Cheers, Pontus From lists at databasics.us Sat Jun 13 17:06:04 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:06:04 -1000 Subject: Fast EPROM eraser? In-Reply-To: <200906122116.n5CLGH1E068773@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200906122116.n5CLGH1E068773@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4A3422CC.1000409@databasics.us> Bob Bradlee wrote: > On Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:41:40 -0700, Eric Smith wrote: > >> A regular camera flash is probably the wrong thing to use, as by design >> they don't emit a large amount of short-wave UV. >> > > usually the UV filter is in the lens / cover not the cheep glass tube. > > That's kind of a problem, as regular glass absorbs most of the UV. If you WANT the UV, you need a quartz bulb. Warren From brianlanning at gmail.com Sat Jun 13 17:31:01 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:31:01 -0500 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906131531h407a17a8u1cde5d743f34a108@mail.gmail.com> You made me stop by my goodwill store on the way home today. I found a practically new USB zip drive with a disk in it for $5. Should work great on the amiga. That's it. I'm addicted. I'll have to stop at every one I see now. brian On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > So to turn a bit more on-topic, my big thrift store find of the week > is a 400MHz Ruby iMac. ?It looks loaded with OS 10.4.2 on a 10GB > Quantum drive, a Matsushita CD-ROM, 576MB of RAM (the original 64MB > plus an add-on 512MB PC-133 DIMM), and no Airport/WiFi interface. ?I > found the spot for it - a pair of mounting brackets and an antenna > cable, but no interface. :-( > > I don't have a lot of PowerMac hardware, so this is an interesting > find. ?I do have the guts of a Blue&White tower stuffed into a beige > box, but this little guy is much easier to move around and store on a > shelf when I'm not using it. ?Somewhere, I have Starcraft for the PPC > Mac. ?I should try to fire that up. > > Oh... I forgot to mention. ?This working machine was priced at $20, > about 2% of what it cost new (but it had a keyboard and mouse back > then). > > After some poking around, it looks like the former owner upgraded it > from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal > data out. ?I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh > install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is as > high as it goes for PPC) > > -ethan > From spedraja at ono.com Sat Jun 13 17:31:29 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:31:29 +0200 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: <200906131123.08181.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200906131123.08181.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: Mmm... this needs of one BA23, isn't so ? Regards Sergio 2009/6/13 Patrick Finnegan > On Saturday 13 June 2009, SPC wrote: > > I am searching one controller to use a couple of RX33 in one > > PDP11-23/PLUS. Someone knows what could I use ? > > RQDX3 > > Pat > -- > Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ > The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org > From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 13 17:52:12 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:52:12 -0400 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906131531h407a17a8u1cde5d743f34a108@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906131531h407a17a8u1cde5d743f34a108@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 13, 2009, at 6:31 PM, Brian Lanning wrote: > You made me stop by my goodwill store on the way home today. I found > a practically new USB zip drive with a disk in it for $5. Should work > great on the amiga. > > That's it. I'm addicted. I'll have to stop at every one I see now. Thrift stores rock. I scored a NEC PC-8201 a few years ago, and I've gotten a few nice HP calculators, and countless good technical books. That might sound pretty thin, but classic computers are quite rare in Florida...I still make regular rounds of the thrift stores. :) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Jun 13 17:57:44 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:57:44 -0400 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: References: <200906131123.08181.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200906131857.44992.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Saturday 13 June 2009, SPC wrote: > Mmm... this needs of one BA23, isn't so ? > > Regards > Sergio No. There's a DEC QBUS board that splits it out, or you can make your own cable to do it. Google is your friend for that. Pat > 2009/6/13 Patrick Finnegan > > > On Saturday 13 June 2009, SPC wrote: > > > I am searching one controller to use a couple of RX33 in one > > > PDP11-23/PLUS. Someone knows what could I use ? > > > > RQDX3 > > > > Pat > > -- > > Purdue University Research Computing --- > > http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge > > --- http://computer-refuge.org -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 13 17:58:41 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:58:41 +0100 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1244933922.4797.39.camel@elric> On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 14:35 -0500, blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: > > Ofcourse, porting Inferno to Amiga would require quite a bit more > > effort to also support graphics etc, the Amiga doesnt have character > > modes, so you will have to implement a whole framebuffer and run a > > console on top of that (linux fb originates from the m68k port for > > exactly this reason). > > That does complicate things a bit. However, if there's > an RS-232 port on the machine, then you could use > that for a console at least during initial development. > And in principle, osinit.dis could initialize the graphics > hardware and fire off the window manager, and you > wouldn't need to write the emulation of a character > mode. Window manager? It handles windows in hardware? Because that doesn't sound like something available on bare metal to me... Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 13 18:02:03 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:02:03 +0100 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1244934123.4797.41.camel@elric> On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 09:52 -0400, Andrew Lynch wrote: > > Hi! You could build your own N8VEM system. CP/M is easy to get running. > > Better yet, get one of the new N8VEM 6809 host processor PCBs and port FLEX > or CUBIX. I've got various Z80 machines that I could graft a disk and a mappable lower 16K (or however large the ROM is) into, but I prefer the "aesthetics" of doing it on a classic ;-) Gordon From lists at databasics.us Sat Jun 13 18:02:57 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:02:57 -1000 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion In-Reply-To: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A343021.5030402@databasics.us> Hello, All this talk of emulators has gotten me a bit interested again, so I went searching for an emulator for another old computer for which I have a great deal of software I have written, The Control Data CDC-6500, or thereabouts. Much to my delight, an emulator which will function as several different CDC mainframes exists! However, upon further investigation, this software costs US $12,500.00 for single CPU copy. CRIPES! The university I attended GAVE AWAY the 6500 I used to use. So, anyway, in more general terms, just what is out there in the low-volume CPU emulator world? Yes, I'm interested in CDC specifically, too. Warren From locutus at puscii.nl Sat Jun 13 18:27:31 2009 From: locutus at puscii.nl (locutus at puscii.nl) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:27:31 +0200 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... In-Reply-To: <1244933922.4797.39.camel@elric> References: <1244933922.4797.39.camel@elric> Message-ID: <87ljnvd89o.wl%locutus@puscii.nl> > Window manager? It handles windows in hardware? Because that doesn't > sound like something available on bare metal to me... > > Gordon > No ofcourse it does not :) And the Amiga doesnt have chunky graphics (ie, bitmap, '1 byte is a pixel') so you will still need to implement a framebuffer on top of the planar graphics, not that hard, but fairly serious work. And yeah, there is serial which is driven by the CIA chips. Another thing to mind is that most Amiga's came with CPU's with no PMMU, many 68030 boards came with EC030's as a MMU was not used by AmigaOS (only some 3rd party software used it for debugging purposes). From spedraja at ono.com Sat Jun 13 18:33:13 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:33:13 +0200 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: <200906131857.44992.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200906131123.08181.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200906131857.44992.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: Ok, thanks, I'll try it. but I confess my absolute ignorance about this matter. Regards Sergio 2009/6/14 Patrick Finnegan > On Saturday 13 June 2009, SPC wrote: > > Mmm... this needs of one BA23, isn't so ? > > > > Regards > > Sergio > > No. There's a DEC QBUS board that splits it out, or you can make your > own cable to do it. Google is your friend for that. > > Pat > > > > 2009/6/13 Patrick Finnegan > > > > > On Saturday 13 June 2009, SPC wrote: > > > > I am searching one controller to use a couple of RX33 in one > > > > PDP11-23/PLUS. Someone knows what could I use ? > > > > > > RQDX3 > > > > > > Pat > > > -- > > > Purdue University Research Computing --- > > > http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge > > > --- http://computer-refuge.org > > > > -- > Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ > The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org > From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jun 13 18:33:22 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:33:22 -0700 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion In-Reply-To: <4A343021.5030402@databasics.us> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4A343021.5030402@databasics.us> Message-ID: <4A343742.9000905@brouhaha.com> Warren Wolfe wrote: > Much to my delight, an emulator which will function as several > different CDC mainframes exists! However, upon further investigation, > this software costs US $12,500.00 for single CPU copy. CRIPES! The > university I attended GAVE AWAY the 6500 I used to use. When I saw that, I started writing a CDC 6x00 simulator in Java, and got to the point of running simple test programs on the PPUs and the CPU, but not to the point of booting an OS. Then I found out that the earlier releases of that commercial simulator were published under an open source license, and are still available, though relatively hard to locate. Eric From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jun 13 18:43:44 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:43:44 -0700 Subject: VMS/RSX manuals In-Reply-To: <4A341F49.90708@update.uu.se> References: <4A341F49.90708@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <4A3439B0.8080503@bitsavers.org> Pontus wrote: > Hi. > > I just got a mixed bag of VMS and MicroVMS manuals. Its programming > guides and users guides, unfortunately not complete. I also have RSX > manuals for version 2, these are complete I think. > > I'm not throwing anything away, but I'm wondering if there is any value > in preserving these and if I should make an effort and scan them? > > (I can get more specific about what manuals I have if someone cares) > More specific would be good. Many have already been scanned, though they are not on line. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 13 19:29:37 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:29:37 -0700 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion In-Reply-To: <4A343742.9000905@brouhaha.com> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, <4A343021.5030402@databasics.us>, <4A343742.9000905@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A33E201.19297.E92C71@cclist.sydex.com> Warren Wolfe wrote: > Much to my delight, an emulator which will function as several > different CDC mainframes exists! However, upon further > investigation, this software costs US $12,500.00 for single CPU > copy. CRIPES! The university I attended GAVE AWAY the 6500 I used > to use. A very common sense decision on their part. Big, unreliable, power- hungry (MG set, chilled water) and a pain to move (think about all of that coax running under the floor). Not to mention the peripherals... A lot of people were devastated when the one and only STAR-65 came back from Canada and was sold to a St. Paul area scrapper for so many cents per pound--and that was when the project was still very much alive. But a 6000-series emulator wouldn't do it for me. The constant 80- some decibel level of the tape drive vacuum pumps, the screaming of the line printers, the clackety-clack and jamming of the card reader, the devastation to my social life because of dedicated block time in the middle of the night, surviving out of vending machines by eating cottage cheese and potato chips, Miinnesota in January, management complaining of being behind schedule--it just wouldn't be the same. Running an emulator would be like watching a silent black-and-white film of the experience. I've never wanted to even try it. Besides, how many deadstart tapes of SCOPE 3.1.6 still exist? --Chuck From lists at databasics.us Sat Jun 13 19:34:21 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:34:21 -1000 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion In-Reply-To: <4A343742.9000905@brouhaha.com> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4A343021.5030402@databasics.us> <4A343742.9000905@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A34458D.9040203@databasics.us> Eric Smith wrote: > Warren Wolfe wrote: >> Much to my delight, an emulator which will function as several >> different CDC mainframes exists! However, upon further >> investigation, this software costs US $12,500.00 for single CPU >> copy. CRIPES! The university I attended GAVE AWAY the 6500 I used >> to use. > When I saw that, I started writing a CDC 6x00 simulator in Java, and > got to the point of running simple test programs on the PPUs and the > CPU, but not to the point of booting an OS. > > Then I found out that the earlier releases of that commercial > simulator were published under an open source license, and are still > available, though relatively hard to locate. Do tell, Eric... Do you have a URL to share? Or, perhaps, a copy? Very cool! Warren From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 13 19:58:24 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:58:24 -0400 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion In-Reply-To: <4A343742.9000905@brouhaha.com> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4A343021.5030402@databasics.us> <4A343742.9000905@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Jun 13, 2009, at 7:33 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > Then I found out that the earlier releases of that commercial > simulator were published under an open source license, and are > still available, though relatively hard to locate. If you did in fact locate them, perhaps you could make them...ahem...easier to locate. =) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From brianlanning at gmail.com Sat Jun 13 20:43:42 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:43:42 -0500 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: References: <6dbe3c380906131531h407a17a8u1cde5d743f34a108@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906131843m3de654b7h31f6570e67f4fafe@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > ?Thrift stores rock. ?I scored a NEC PC-8201 a few years ago, and I've > gotten a few nice HP calculators, and countless good technical books. ?That > might sound pretty thin, but classic computers are quite rare in Florida...I > still make regular rounds of the thrift stores. :) I forgot about technical books. They had a huge book selection there. I'll have to peruse that next time I go. I can't remember where Port Charlotte is. But the next time you're in Orlando, you have to go to SkyCraft. It's on Fairbanks next to I-4. It's the building with the UFO on the roof. I haven't been to Orlando in years, so I hope it's still there. But I wish I had a similar store close to me in chicago. For those of you not familiar, it's a surplus electronics store. Most of us would spend hours there. They buy up large surplus stocks of various electronic components and test equipment. LED displays, ICs, transistors, capacitors, stepper motors... everything. They had complete boards you could cannibalize, and also working controller boards of all kids. They also had a large selection of oscilloscopes there, and a collection of 19" racks outside. I haven't been there in 15 years. Next time I visit family, I'll have to stop there. brian From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Jun 13 21:59:28 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:59:28 -0700 Subject: cleaning momentary push button switches References: <4A341255.1050509@verizon.net> <4A33B481.20598.377321@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A34678F.143E679E@cs.ubc.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 13 Jun 2009 at 16:55, Keith wrote: > > > I've got an old piece of test equipment that has momentary push button > > switches which are the primary "input" or control. While most of them > > seem to work, many of them are sticky, mushy, and just don't have a > > positive click. > > > > I'm not totally adverse to simply replacing them --- assuming I could > > find an exact match. > > Back in the day, we'd just rinse them in freon TF or carbon tet Good > luck in finding any... You can have some of mine. No please, take all of it. I have two of those old brass hand-pump-style fire extinguishers still filled with the stuff. For the seized switches, sometimes simply alcohol will free up switches in that situation. Another possibility would be contact cleaner, types with or without oil in it. From blstuart at bellsouth.net Sat Jun 13 22:20:14 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:20:14 -0500 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... In-Reply-To: <1244933922.4797.39.camel@elric> Message-ID: >> And in principle, osinit.dis could initialize the graphics >> hardware and fire off the window manager, and you >> wouldn't need to write the emulation of a character >> mode. > > Window manager? It handles windows in hardware? Because that doesn't > sound like something available on bare metal to me... No, not in hardware. When I say fire it off, I mean that osinit.dis (the binary executed when the system comes up) will start running the window manager program. BLS From blstuart at bellsouth.net Sat Jun 13 22:23:05 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:23:05 -0500 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... In-Reply-To: <87ljnvd89o.wl%locutus@puscii.nl> Message-ID: <51b124dd9b77c9fd1e88cc9dc562875c@bellsouth.net> > Another thing to mind is that most Amiga's came with CPU's with no > PMMU, many 68030 boards came with EC030's as a MMU was not used by > AmigaOS (only some 3rd party software used it for debugging > purposes). That wouldn't be a problem. Inferno doesn't use an MMU. All applications execute on the Dis virtual machine (or are JIT compiled). Seperation among processes and the kernel are maintained there, rather than in hardware. BLS From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jun 13 22:21:40 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:21:40 -0700 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion In-Reply-To: <4A343742.9000905@brouhaha.com> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4A343021.5030402@databasics.us> <4A343742.9000905@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A346CC4.5020905@bitsavers.org> Eric Smith wrote: > Then I found out that the earlier releases of that commercial simulator > were published under an open source license, and are still available, > though relatively hard to locate. > http://frend2.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/frend2/ I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out exactly which version it is, though. From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 13 22:21:52 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:21:52 -0400 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906131843m3de654b7h31f6570e67f4fafe@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906131531h407a17a8u1cde5d743f34a108@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906131843m3de654b7h31f6570e67f4fafe@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 13, 2009, at 9:43 PM, Brian Lanning wrote: >> Thrift stores rock. I scored a NEC PC-8201 a few years ago, and >> I've >> gotten a few nice HP calculators, and countless good technical >> books. That >> might sound pretty thin, but classic computers are quite rare in >> Florida...I >> still make regular rounds of the thrift stores. :) > > I forgot about technical books. They had a huge book selection there. > I'll have to peruse that next time I go. Yes. I've found some wonderful antique books at thrift stores, and a few modern ones. > I can't remember where Port Charlotte is. But the next time you're in > Orlando, you have to go to SkyCraft. It's on Fairbanks next to I-4. > It's the building with the UFO on the roof. I haven't been to Orlando > in years, so I hope it's still there. But I wish I had a similar > store close to me in chicago. Oh yes, I was there about a month ago, it's definitely still there. :) It's about 2.5hrs from me. Port Charlotte is just south of Sarasota, on the Gulf coast. Figure two hours south of Tampa. > For those of you not familiar, it's a surplus electronics store. Most > of us would spend hours there. They buy up large surplus stocks of > various electronic components and test equipment. LED displays, ICs, > transistors, capacitors, stepper motors... everything. They had > complete boards you could cannibalize, and also working controller > boards of all kids. They also had a large selection of oscilloscopes > there, and a collection of 19" racks outside. I haven't been there in > 15 years. Next time I visit family, I'll have to stop there. It's a fun place, but their prices are up in the stratosphere. They do have, however, just about the best selection of LEDs that I have ever seen. It is a must-visit for anyone heading to the Orlando area. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jun 13 22:31:49 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:31:49 -0700 Subject: Natima (was: All this talk of Unix and other OSes...) In-Reply-To: <612620.9670.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <612620.9670.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 5:22 PM +0000 6/13/09, Andrew Burton wrote: >Of course Natima is going to run the 68070, but don't quote me on >that as I haven't been following the project that closely. Natima? Google didn't pull up anything useful. What is this? Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 13 23:00:17 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:00:17 -0400 Subject: Fast EPROM eraser? In-Reply-To: <4A32A1DA.8454.3ABFB74C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200906122116.n5CLGH1E068773@keith.ezwind.net>, <4A32F02C.1060408@brouhaha.com>, <4A32A1DA.8454.3ABFB74C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <8A4794C8-8573-427E-A173-11192EF2F19A@neurotica.com> On Jun 12, 2009, at 9:43 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> crappy ones) usually for less than five bucks. If it is indeed a >> viable erasure method, it's damn cheap to do. > > Well, the story says the light disrupted the EPROMs. Consider the > distance between the flash and the unit in the story and the flash > would have to be bright beyond OSHA standards to effect erasure.. > And the story refers to "rebooting" as a recovery method--impossible > if the EPROMs were truly being erased. > > I suspect that what the story describes is more of a photoelectric > effect, like shining a bright light on a decapped DRAM. Ahh ok, I hadn't read the story. I think this has been discussed before. I built a Nixie clock as a gift for my then-girlfriend, using a quartz-windowed 8751 microcontroller. She once tried to take a picture of it, and it promptly crashed. :) Here are some pics; note the exposed microcontroller: http://www.neurotica.com/wiki/Nixie_Clock_2 > On the other hand, how bright can an eraser get? If I were to > remove the innards of a 250W mercury-vapor bulb (leaving just the > quartz arc tube) and install that in an EPROM eraser (with suitable > ventilation), how long would it take to erase UV EPROMs? Would the > EPROMs survive? I wonder if heat would become a problem before UV intensity. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Sat Jun 13 23:51:05 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:51:05 -0700 Subject: Thrift Store Finds (was: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3)) In-Reply-To: References: <6dbe3c380906131531h407a17a8u1cde5d743f34a108@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906131843m3de654b7h31f6570e67f4fafe@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3481B9.6030103@mail.msu.edu> I love thrift stores :). Not _exactly_ vintage (but contains vintage tech) -- recently picked up two TI-83+ calculators for a grand total of $2 from the Salvation Army. Considering that TI _still sells_ this model for about $80 (TI's profit margins on these must be HUGE), not a bad haul. I gave them to my dad who teaches math at a community college -- he has lots of students who will be able to make use of them. (And for those who don't know, these contain a Z80 CPU.) For those of you in the Seattle area, RE-PC (in both Seattle and Tukwila) are fun to browse from time to time, and they generally hold onto "vintage" computer stuff rather than just scrapping it. Since I started browsing their stores about two years ago, I've picked up a number of cool old machines (nothing too rare, but a lot of good 8-bit stuff, old dumb terminals, and a few things useful on my larger machines like 9-track drives.) If you're in the area, drop by and you might find something... My favorite find, though, was at Boeing surplus just before they shut down -- found a working HP-67 calculator w/AC adapter for $5. I don't usually get that lucky :). The card reader even works after all these years... - Josh Dave McGuire wrote: > > Yes. I've found some wonderful antique books at thrift stores, and > a few modern ones. I found an interesting book at RE-PC -- it's a copy of Microsoft Press's first book, which was almost immediately recalled. It's the "MS-DOS Encyclopedia," which was a compendium of history (up to DOS 3.2!) and MS-DOS documentation. Unfortunately, the book wasn't properly reviewed before release and as a result actually contained information that wasn't meant to be made public. So it was pulled from the shelves. A good writeup is here: http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2004/06/14/155341.aspx. An interesting find for a buck :). And as far as computer-related books go, if you're in Portland, OR and have a few bucks to spend, Powell's Technical Bookstore is wonderful, if a bit pricey for some of their stuff... they have an interesting selection of books for many engineering professions, and they tend to keep interesting old books in stock as well. Picked up a copy of "IBM 1620 Programming For Science and Mathematics" from 1963 the last time I was there... - Josh From lists at databasics.us Sun Jun 14 01:15:55 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:15:55 -1000 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion In-Reply-To: <4A33E201.19297.E92C71@cclist.sydex.com> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, <4A343021.5030402@databasics.us>, <4A343742.9000905@brouhaha.com> <4A33E201.19297.E92C71@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A34959B.6030409@databasics.us> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Warren Wolfe wrote: > > Much to my delight, an emulator which will function as several > > different CDC mainframes exists! However, upon further > > investigation, this software costs US $12,500.00 for single CPU > > copy. CRIPES! The university I attended GAVE AWAY the 6500 I > > used to use. > > A very common sense decision on their part. Big, unreliable, power- > hungry (MG set, chilled water) and a pain to move (think about all of > that coax running under the floor). Not to mention the > peripherals... > Oh, I know that... But, it just seems stupid that one could have the computer for nothing, but the emulator costs over ten thousand dollars. (They had no takers on the CDC 6500, by the way, and cut it up with chainsaws and dragged it away to be scrapped. Sheesh. > But a 6000-series emulator wouldn't do it for me. The constant 80- > some decibel level of the tape drive vacuum pumps, the screaming of > the line printers, the clackety-clack and jamming of the card reader, > the devastation to my social life because of dedicated block time in > the middle of the night, surviving out of vending machines by eating > cottage cheese and potato chips, Miinnesota in January, management > complaining of being behind schedule--it just wouldn't be the same. > For me, the vending machines dispensed punch cards. And, lots of times, I got to use a TTY machine. > Running an emulator would be like watching a silent black-and-white > film of the experience. I've never wanted to even try it. Besides, > how many deadstart tapes of SCOPE 3.1.6 still exist > I don't have a clue... but, to me, running the programs was it, not the belches of the midnight operator (I heard he later went pro with it) and jovial laughter of Dr. Eulenberg.... And, as I found out later, NSA spooks all over the place. Funny... I never noticed them at the time. Warren From lproven at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 07:31:23 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:31:23 +0100 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <460AD5B7-F1E2-42E7-A1CB-9F0967FF1619@shiresoft.com> References: <6CFD54C3-DA13-4EAB-A5FC-C8BCF0376F98@shiresoft.com> <460AD5B7-F1E2-42E7-A1CB-9F0967FF1619@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906140531y7e726cbfq38dbb7009d90f401@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/13 Guy Sotomayor : > > On Jun 12, 2009, at 3:01 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > >> >> On Jun 12, 2009, at 2:52 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: >> >>> On Jun 12, 2009, at 5:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >>>> >>>> After some poking around, it looks like the former owner upgraded it >>>> from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal >>>> data out. ?I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh >>>> install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is as >>>> high as it goes for PPC) >>> >>> 10.5 supports PPC. >> >> Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine that old. > > To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. ?I believe > the cutoff was 867MHz. ?And as was announced at WWDC on Monday, Snow Leopard > doesn't support any of the PPC machines. You're close, but no cigar. Leopard (10.5) requires a /G4/ of at least 867MHz. The kernel is compiled against a G4 and will not boot on a G3. The check can be bypassed with an app called LeopardAssist or an OpenFirmware hack. Tiger (10.4) will run fine, if a little slowly, on a G3; my own B&W runs it. Officially, though, it required a machine with a bootable (i.e., not external USB or Firewire) DVD-ROM drive & built-in Firewire. These requirements can be bypassed with an app called XPostFacto. Panther (10.3) requires a G3 or above and built-in USB. The USB requirement can be bypassed with XPostFacto. Jaguar requires any G3 or better. This requirement can be bypassed with XPostFacto and it can be run on PPC604 machines, although it is Not Quick. I've tried it. It is the last version of OS X to run on pre-G3 Macs. Sadly it does not support SMP on pre-G3s, because a lot of us would *love* to see it running on one of the late-model pre-G3 Macs, like a dual-processor PowerMac 9600 or a Daystar Genesis, one of the licenced clones which could take quadruple PPC604 CPUs. Jaguar was the first version of OS X I found polished and smooth enough to be usable as the machine's primary OS, myself - and many other would agree, I think. 10.1, 10.0 and the Public Beta could be coaxed onto many of the late-generation, fast, fully-32-bit PCI-based PowerMacs, although sometimes this required tweaks, such as making a 640MB partition, copying the install CD onto it, then editing some of the installation config files. BTDTGTTS. However, they were really rather crude and clunky, if absolutely beautiful to look at for their time. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From lproven at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 08:38:49 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:38:49 +0100 Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... In-Reply-To: <1244892738.4797.37.camel@elric> References: <1244892738.4797.37.camel@elric> Message-ID: <575131af0906140638l6b74f7fiaa3b0543617f698@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/13 Gordon JC Pearce : > ... has given me an itch to do some bare-metal work on a classic, maybe > a standalone Forth or something. > > Trouble is, I now have no "simple" classics. ?I don't fancy starting off > doing this on an Amiga ;-) > > Has anyone in the UK (preferably the North, to make collection easier) > got a smallish CP/M machine, or a BA23-cased PDP11? ?Drop me an email > offlist and let me know what you want for it. > > I miss having a PDP11 about the place... > > Gordon If it's not already gone to the council tip, that Amstrad PCW I was punting a few weeks ago is a good one... Fairly fast Z80, 256K of RAM. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From lproven at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 08:39:53 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:39:53 +0100 Subject: Natima (was: All this talk of Unix and other OSes...) In-Reply-To: References: <612620.9670.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906140639s35ab063cgb8452a7f1ba5e0ec@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/14 Zane H. Healy : > At 5:22 PM +0000 6/13/09, Andrew Burton wrote: >> >> Of course Natima is going to run the 68070, but don't quote me on that as >> I haven't been following the project that closely. > > Natima? ?Google didn't pull up anything useful. ?What is this? > > Zane WHS! -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From lproven at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 08:51:29 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:51:29 +0100 Subject: [OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A33FBA9.3050303@arachelian.com> References: <05F556B0-4D94-4CC3-BAA4-9455A2767B0B@neurotica.com> <575131af0906110814x264f4cb8jadb6279b4e1b5730@mail.gmail.com> <20090611153648.GA26857@Update.UU.SE> <575131af0906120751k4ec76b20v4c300cbe461f563d@mail.gmail.com> <4A326FDE.8060902@gmail.com> <4A32BB70.8080307@brouhaha.com> <4A32BC8D.2020503@gmail.com> <575131af0906130516q7d20352aqf50a7632bcfbba22@mail.gmail.com> <4A33FBA9.3050303@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906140651l5427e723o6bbaed6e236cd484@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/13 Ray Arachelian : > Liam Proven wrote: >> My guess would be that this is a little protective colouring of the truth. >> >> A VMware guest only delivers about 80% of the performance of the raw >> hardware, because all the kernel code - all the core OS itself, all >> device drivers etc. - are running in a software emulator. And on a PC, >> this is a lot more critical than on a mainframe, because PC software >> is far more CPU (and graphics) intensive. >> >> Run a VM under a VM, this would be even slower - you'd only get about >> 64% of the performance and my guess is that if it worked at all, >> VMware feel it would make their product look bad. >> > > There is VMWare ESXi which is also freely available for download, that > runs on the raw hardware. It does, but it's something of a con. It's not a bare-metal hypervisor, it's a very-cut-down copy of Linux with some proprietary VMware kernel modules that do the virtualising. There is an ongoing argument with WMware that this means they're linking to GPL code and must release the source to the actual hypervisor, which of course they won't do. The company adamantly maintains that Linux is used as nothing more than a bootstap loader, like MS-DOS was for Netware 3, but they can't prove it without publishing code and they won't do that. > So while there'll still be some overhead, you remove most of the > overhead of the host OS - but of course you're replacing the host OS > with a lighter weight one that's designed just for running guest OSs. That's not a very significant part of the overhead - it's the actual software emulation that saps 20% of the performance. > Either way, using VMWare tools on the guest is an important part of > running VMWare - if you want performance. > Otherwise, VMWare has to emulate actual hardware devices, which is much > more work than simply transferring the I/O requests to the hypervisor. It still does that. The VMware tools provide cut & paste, filesystem access, a free-tracking mouse pointer and so on, but the ring-0 CPU, motherboard chipset, NIC, graphics card etc. are all still emulated. The big-iron server editions of VMware do allow things like actual physical hardware NICs and SCSI adaptors to be dedicated to VMs, and then you'll get near-native performance on I/O, but the 80%-of-native-performance figure is a best-case /with/ all the tools and extensions installed. > There was some controversy over the Intel VT stuff - it turns out it > does run slower than doing it in just software. Swings and roundabouts. Some things are faster, some slower. The AMD "Pacifica" virtualisation extensions are more capable than Intel's, and include hardware remapping of page tables for virtual memory, but there's still some stuff that VMware's decade-old, highly-optimised code does better. Myself, I prefer the architectural elegance of the hardware solution, which also means much smaller, simpler hypervisors. The KV hypervisor is a small Linux kernel module that does everything in one small binary, for instance. Built by using bits of QEMU for VM setup and config and so on, it's pretty simple. > Most of what VMWare does is trap & emulate supervisor level > instructions, but there are a few opcodes that it can't do this with - > don't remember the exact ones, so what it does there is to scan the > binary for those opcodes and replaces them. > > The biggest limitation I find to VMWare and stuff like it is memory. > You really do need a lot of RAM to get usability. Not surprising. ?If > you want to run 2 or more Operating Systems at the same time, you need > enough memory to make each OS and whatever Apps you plan to run under > them not page. ?If you can't do that, don't run things virtually. > Typically there's enough CPU cycles, but not enough memory. ?For most > situations, but not all. > > As with everything, there's always a price to pay, but there are > benefits too. Oh, yes, indeed. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Jun 14 09:09:28 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 15:09:28 +0100 Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect - was Re: Thrift Store Finds (was: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3)) In-Reply-To: <4A3481B9.6030103@mail.msu.edu> References: <6dbe3c380906131531h407a17a8u1cde5d743f34a108@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906131843m3de654b7h31f6570e67f4fafe@mail.gmail.com> <4A3481B9.6030103@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <1244988568.4797.69.camel@elric> On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 21:51 -0700, Josh Dersch wrote: > Not _exactly_ vintage (but contains vintage tech) -- recently picked up > two TI-83+ calculators for a grand total of $2 from the Salvation Army. I spotted what looked like an odd rubber-cased HP41 on a stall at a car boot sale. The guy also runs a small army surplus shop so although I didn't get it there I might ask him about it if I go in during the week. It had four openings at the back about the size of a matchbox end-on, with brown flexiprint circuit stuff folded over plastic tabs in the middle of each one. I'm a bit annoyed I didn't get it there and then, but I was carrying a huge (and heavy) bag of books. Gordon From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 14 09:13:49 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:13:49 -0400 Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect - was Re: Thrift Store Finds (was: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3)) In-Reply-To: <1244988568.4797.69.camel@elric> References: <6dbe3c380906131531h407a17a8u1cde5d743f34a108@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906131843m3de654b7h31f6570e67f4fafe@mail.gmail.com> <4A3481B9.6030103@mail.msu.edu> <1244988568.4797.69.camel@elric> Message-ID: On Jun 14, 2009, at 10:09 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > I spotted what looked like an odd rubber-cased HP41 on a stall at a > car > boot sale. The guy also runs a small army surplus shop so although I > didn't get it there I might ask him about it if I go in during the > week. > > It had four openings at the back about the size of a matchbox end-on, > with brown flexiprint circuit stuff folded over plastic tabs in the > middle of each one. This description matches the expansion slots on a standard HP-41. What's with the rubber case, I wonder? Some sort of protective cover like the ones available for most mobile phones? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jun 14 09:39:43 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 07:39:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <575131af0906140531y7e726cbfq38dbb7009d90f401@mail.gmail.com> from Liam Proven at "Jun 14, 9 01:31:23 pm" Message-ID: <200906141439.n5EEdhtY014508@floodgap.com> > Leopard (10.5) requires a /G4/ of at least 867MHz. The kernel is > compiled against a G4 and will not boot on a G3. The check can be > bypassed with an app called LeopardAssist or an OpenFirmware hack. Compiling against a G4 implies there is AltiVec (without a non-AltiVec option) code in the kernel. To my knowledge the Leopard kernel does not have such a dependency; where did you see this? Not that I advise bothering with Leopard on a G3, mind you :) -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- People are weird. -- Law & Order SVU --------------------------------------- From pontus at update.uu.se Sun Jun 14 10:02:44 2009 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:02:44 +0200 Subject: VMS/RSX manuals In-Reply-To: <4A3439B0.8080503@bitsavers.org> References: <4A341F49.90708@update.uu.se> <4A3439B0.8080503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4A351114.8020904@update.uu.se> Al Kossow wrote: > > More specific would be good. Many have already been scanned, though they > are not on line. > Here is an inventory I just made, I hope it is legible: Volume Software version Title - 5.0 VMS Master Index 2A-B 5.0 VMS General User 6A-B 5.0 VMS General User 3 5.0 VMS Programming 4A-B 5.0 VMS Programming - System Services 5B 5.0 VMS Programming - RTL Library (LIB$) 5C 5.0 VMS Programming - RTL Screen Management (SMG$) 6A-B 5.0 VMS Programming - File System - 5.0 VMS Workstation software - 5.0 VMS Workstation software Graphics programmin Guide 2 5.4 VMS Release Notes 8B 5.4 VMS Programming - Device Support 9 5.4 VMS Programming - Vax Macro 10B 5.4 VMS Programming - Vax TPU - 5.4 VMS System Management Master Ingex 8B-D 4.4 VAX/VMS - RTL - 4.4 MicroVMS Users Manual - 4.4 MicroVMS Users Manual(Continued) - 4.4 MicroVMS Programmers Manual 1 2.1 RSX-11M-PLUS Introduction 2A-B 2.1 RSX-11M-PLUS Operation 3A-B 2.1 RSX-11M-PLUS Utilities 4A-B 2.1 RSX-11M-PLUS Program development 5 2.1 RSX-11M-PLUS I/O Drivers Development and ref. 6A-B 2.1 RSX-11M-PLUS System Management and Maint. 7A-B 2.1 RSX-11M-PLUS PDP-11 Record Management Services - RT-11 Fortran IV 1A-C RT-11 Version 5 2A,C-D RT-11 Version 5 3A-B RT-11 Version 5 /Pontus. From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Jun 14 12:13:44 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:13:44 +0100 Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect - was Re: Thrift Store Finds (was: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3)) In-Reply-To: References: <6dbe3c380906131531h407a17a8u1cde5d743f34a108@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906131843m3de654b7h31f6570e67f4fafe@mail.gmail.com> <4A3481B9.6030103@mail.msu.edu> <1244988568.4797.69.camel@elric> Message-ID: <1244999624.4797.71.camel@elric> On Sun, 2009-06-14 at 10:13 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 14, 2009, at 10:09 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > > I spotted what looked like an odd rubber-cased HP41 on a stall at a > > car > > boot sale. The guy also runs a small army surplus shop so although I > > didn't get it there I might ask him about it if I go in during the > > week. > > > > It had four openings at the back about the size of a matchbox end-on, > > with brown flexiprint circuit stuff folded over plastic tabs in the > > middle of each one. > > This description matches the expansion slots on a standard HP-41. > What's with the rubber case, I wonder? Some sort of protective cover > like the ones available for most mobile phones? It's possible that the functions on the buttons are "non-standard" - I should at least have taken a photo :-/ It looked like it was very much part of the device, not something that would come off easily, and it had "proper" HP labelling on the back. Gordon From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 14 12:38:36 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:38:36 -0400 Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect - was Re: Thrift Store Finds (was: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3)) In-Reply-To: <1244999624.4797.71.camel@elric> References: <6dbe3c380906131531h407a17a8u1cde5d743f34a108@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906131843m3de654b7h31f6570e67f4fafe@mail.gmail.com> <4A3481B9.6030103@mail.msu.edu> <1244988568.4797.69.camel@elric> <1244999624.4797.71.camel@elric> Message-ID: <268B3830-4E6C-45AB-8186-78CA22F34145@neurotica.com> On Jun 14, 2009, at 1:13 PM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >>> I spotted what looked like an odd rubber-cased HP41 on a stall at a >>> car >>> boot sale. The guy also runs a small army surplus shop so >>> although I >>> didn't get it there I might ask him about it if I go in during the >>> week. >>> >>> It had four openings at the back about the size of a matchbox end- >>> on, >>> with brown flexiprint circuit stuff folded over plastic tabs in the >>> middle of each one. >> >> This description matches the expansion slots on a standard HP-41. >> What's with the rubber case, I wonder? Some sort of protective cover >> like the ones available for most mobile phones? > > It's possible that the functions on the buttons are "non-standard" - I > should at least have taken a photo :-/ It looked like it was very > much > part of the device, not something that would come off easily, and > it had > "proper" HP labelling on the back. Hmm, very interesting indeed. I wonder what that was. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Jun 14 12:44:16 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:44:16 -0700 Subject: Natima (was: All this talk of Unix and other OSes...) In-Reply-To: <575131af0906140639s35ab063cgb8452a7f1ba5e0ec@mail.gmail.com> References: <612620.9670.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <575131af0906140639s35ab063cgb8452a7f1ba5e0ec@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >2009/6/14 Zane H. Healy : >> At 5:22 PM +0000 6/13/09, Andrew Burton wrote: >>> >>> Of course Natima is going to run the 68070, but don't quote me on that as >>> I haven't been following the project that closely. >> >> Natima? Google didn't pull up anything useful. What is this? >> >> Zane > >WHS! How about something a little less crypitc? I'm pretty sure you don't mean "Windows Home Server" which seems to be the main thing Google brings up. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 12:47:13 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:47:13 -0400 Subject: Intersil EPROM Message-ID: I have a friend that is repairing some video equipment and he needs some *odd* EPROMs. They are Intersil IM6654 (I think) - but they are the obscure 10 Volt variant. He has the chips, but he has not been able to find a programmer that can handle these. Anyone? -- Will From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 14 12:51:22 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:51:22 -0400 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jun 14, 2009, at 1:47 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > I have a friend that is repairing some video equipment and he needs > some *odd* EPROMs. They are Intersil IM6654 (I think) - but they are > the obscure 10 Volt variant. > > He has the chips, but he has not been able to find a programmer that > can handle these. Anyone? I was quite shocked to find that my Data I/O cannot. I think that's the first chip I've heard of that it can't program. Seeing that, I think he's gonna be hard-pressed to find one that will. Are programming specs available for possible homebrewing? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From doc at vaxen.net Sun Jun 14 12:52:00 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:52:00 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Natima In-Reply-To: References: <612620.9670.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <575131af0906140639s35ab063cgb8452a7f1ba5e0ec@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3537F1.8090002@vaxen.net> Zane H. Healy wrote: >> 2009/6/14 Zane H. Healy : >>> At 5:22 PM +0000 6/13/09, Andrew Burton wrote: >>>> >>>> Of course Natima is going to run the 68070, but don't quote me on >>>> that as >>>> I haven't been following the project that closely. >>> >>> Natima? Google didn't pull up anything useful. What is this? >>> >>> Zane >> >> WHS! > > How about something a little less crypitc? I'm pretty sure you don't > mean "Windows Home Server" which seems to be the main thing Google > brings up. AOL-speak for "What He Said" I think the project in question is Natami Doc From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 14 12:52:25 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:52:25 +0100 (BST) Subject: cleaning momentary push button switches In-Reply-To: <4A341255.1050509@verizon.net> from "Keith" at Jun 13, 9 04:55:49 pm Message-ID: > > Hi, > > I've got an old piece of test equipment that has momentary push button > switches which are the primary "input" or control. While most of them > seem to work, many of them are sticky, mushy, and just don't have a > positive click. You haven't given us much to go on :-). There must me thousands of different types of pushbutton switches used on test equipment. A make/model of the equipnet and any markings on the switches could be a help. A description of the swtich would be useful... Some swithces can be dismantled non-desturctively. If so, take them apart, you can then clean the contacts. Where you can restore the 'click' is another matter, sometimes bending some part will do it. FWIW, the meral from a coke can (or similar) can sometimes be used for make the 'click washer'. Clean the parts with something lijke propan-2-ol (isopropanol). It doesn't attack most plastics, and it doesn't leave anythibng behind. I would not apply lubricants. > > I'm not totally adverse to simply replacing them --- assuming I could > find an exact match. That's what I would do, if I could get soemthing that would fit without modifications. Again, we'd need to know a bit more about the switches... -tony From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jun 14 13:04:39 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:04:39 -0700 Subject: TC08 documentation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A353BB7.1000405@bitsavers.org> Ian King wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm troubleshooting a TC08 DECtape controller, and one thing I'm missing is the module 'utilization' (placement) guide that exists in other documentation (e.g. TC01, TU56). It appears from sequence numbers that the online copy of the TC08 Maintenance Manual might be missing that page. Does anyone have a copy that they would be willing to scan? I want to know which G888 is which, i.e. which one serves the mark track, which the diagnostics tell me is not happy. > > Also, the maintenance guide states that there are values for various settings on the engineering diagrams; no such values appear on the drawings in the appendix to the maintenance guide. Does anyone have the engineering drawings for the TC08? Thanks -- Ian > It took a bit of digging, but a scan of the TC08 drawings are up now under http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/dectape DW08-B and KL8-A drawings were also uploaded From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 14 13:21:15 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:21:15 +0100 (BST) Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect - was Re: Thrift In-Reply-To: <1244988568.4797.69.camel@elric> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Jun 14, 9 03:09:28 pm Message-ID: > > On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 21:51 -0700, Josh Dersch wrote: > > > Not _exactly_ vintage (but contains vintage tech) -- recently picked up > > two TI-83+ calculators for a grand total of $2 from the Salvation Army. > > I spotted what looked like an odd rubber-cased HP41 on a stall at a car > boot sale. The guy also runs a small army surplus shop so although I > didn't get it there I might ask him about it if I go in during the week. > > It had four openings at the back about the size of a matchbox end-on, > with brown flexiprint circuit stuff folded over plastic tabs in the > middle of each one. Those are standard HP41 module connectors, for ROMs, peripherals, etc. Was there a module with it? Was there somethign that looked like the HP41 card reader that fitted o nthe top end and plugged into one of the ports? The combination of 'rubber encased 41' and 'army surplus' makes be think of something called a Zencrypt. This was, I am told, a simple encryption system that ran on an HP41 (ruggedised, hence the rubber) that was considered by the militaty at one point. The software, IIRC, was developed by Znegrange (as in ZenROM, ZEPROM, etc) and may have only existed as EPROMs in an EPROM box (the card-reader like thing I mentioned). AFAIK, apart from the casing, it's a normal 41. Maybe with a key overlay. No, I don't have one, and have never seen one. Wlodek might well know more... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 14 13:03:43 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:03:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A341444.1000702@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 13, 9 11:04:04 am Message-ID: > > Dave McGuire wrote: > > On Jun 12, 2009, at 9:29 AM, Warren Wolfe wrote: > >>> Well, for "classic OSs". Some of us are actually interested in > >>> the hardware. ;) > >> > >> Well, sure. The hardware is there, although not progressing, > >> either. But, the end result and purpose of computer hardware is to > >> run software. At least we've got THAT going for us. If nothing > >> else, having a functional equivalent emulator allows one to work out > >> software for the hardware involved, and do it faster, on a "bigger" > >> machine, so when the hardware comes up, you can just load it up and > >> go... Don't expect to make me feel guilty about being more easily > >> able to enjoy my hobby than you. Won't happen. Now, bedtime... > > > > Well don't get me wrong, I'm not poo-pooing emulators. I use them > > all the time. I just don't find them to be a replacement for real > > hardware. :) > > True enough. They certainly don't WEIGH as much, for instance... I am a hardware hacker, pure and simple. I regard classic computers as being interesting, complicated, but still understandable bits of electronics. The fact they run programs is _not_ why I am primarily interested in them. This is why I prefer machines with CPUs built from lots of small chips. You can't do much with a big ASIC containing much of the logic. But a couple of boartds of TTL and 2900 series can be investigated. It's also why I can find as much interest in, say, the analog computer (and I don't think that's exagerating) in the servo system of an RK07 drive as in the PDP11 that's linked to it. They're both interesting (to me) bits of electronics. It's one reason I have little interest in emulators _myself_ . Another reason is that emulators here would run slower than the real hardware for just about any classic computer. Don;t get me wrong, I have no problem with people who write emulators or with people who enjoy using them. It's just not what _I_ want to do. > > Seriously, though, for me, the majority of "the computer experience" was > obtained over a serial line of some sort, except for my VDM-1 card in Ah, but wouldn';t you like to own whatever was at the end of that serial line? Not an emulator of it, but the real machine? And discover just what it was like to keep it running, etc.. > the IMSAI 8080. So, an emulator, if it is a good one, does well for > me. That being said, I do collect old hardware, also. It's just much > "harder" for me. > > Also, Al had some good points, ESPECIALLY when it comes to mainframish > computers. If you are a lover of, just to pick one, a PDP 11/45 > machine, if you pass on your love for the machine to a young person, > that person becomes a serious competitor for EVERY bit of kit you need, That seems like a very selfish attidude. I assume you're not saying that we shouldn't encourage new people into the hobby since they'll compete with us for nice machine. Certainly I don't feel that way at all. > from now on. In other words, non-frustrated hardware hobbyists are > strictly limited by the number, and cost, of working or repairable > hardware platforms. But, if there is an emulator for the PDP 11/45, > everybody on the planet could become a fan of running the software on an Yes, but the emulator won't allow you to stick in a KM11, put one of the CPU boards on an extender and probe arround will single-stepping at the clock cycle level. You won't have the fun of replacing a disk head and doing the alingment. You won't have to chase grants up and down the backplane. > emulator, one that runs on mass-produced (hence CHEAP and available) > hardware. Software can be copied and shared. Hardware, not so much. I > also note that classic computer buffs who go the software route can have > "machines" with plenty of memory and disk space, and can avoid all the If I wantede a machine with plenty of memoery, disk space and only problems I hadn't a hope of fixing, I'd buy a PC, and run PC software on it.... -tony From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Jun 14 13:45:27 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:45:27 +0100 Subject: cleaning momentary push button switches In-Reply-To: <4A341255.1050509@verizon.net> References: <4A341255.1050509@verizon.net> Message-ID: <1245005127.4797.74.camel@elric> On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 16:55 -0400, Keith wrote: > Hi, > > I've got an old piece of test equipment that has momentary push button > switches which are the primary "input" or control. While most of them > seem to work, many of them are sticky, mushy, and just don't have a > positive click. > > I'm not totally adverse to simply replacing them --- assuming I could > find an exact match. > > Is there a way to effectively bring these back to life? Can I lube > them? What should I use? How should I apply it? Have a look on eBay for suitable switches, then buy a huge bag of them for a couple of quid from a guy in China. That's what I do, and I've got loads of spares for every clicky-switch panel... Gordon From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Jun 14 14:09:44 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:09:44 -0700 Subject: Natima In-Reply-To: <4A3537F1.8090002@vaxen.net> References: <612620.9670.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <575131af0906140639s35ab063cgb8452a7f1ba5e0ec@mail.gmail.com> <4A3537F1.8090002@vaxen.net> Message-ID: At 12:52 PM -0500 6/14/09, Doc wrote: >Zane H. Healy wrote: >>>2009/6/14 Zane H. Healy : >>>> At 5:22 PM +0000 6/13/09, Andrew Burton wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Of course Natima is going to run the 68070, but don't quote me on that as >>>>> I haven't been following the project that closely. >>>> >>>> Natima? Google didn't pull up anything useful. What is this? >>>> >>>> Zane >>> >>>WHS! >> >>How about something a little less crypitc? I'm pretty sure you >>don't mean "Windows Home Server" which seems to be the main thing >>Google brings up. > > AOL-speak for "What He Said" > > I think the project in question is Natami I hate TLA's! OMG! I just googled that. How could I have missed hearing about Natami? I've not been that far out of the Amiga world! Thanks for clearing that up Doc, I have some reading to do. This looks *INTERESTING*. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jun 14 15:03:56 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:03:56 -0700 Subject: Any PACE users out there? Message-ID: <4A3557AC.7000901@brouhaha.com> The PACE was National Semiconductor's first single-chip 16-bit microprocessor. Its architecture was similar to National's earlier IMP-16 multichip processor, which in turn was inspired by the Data General Nova architecture. Godbout designed and advertised a PACE system, and built a prototype, but never put it into production. PACE never caught on with hobbyists, possibly because it was slower than the more common 8-bit processors. PACE, and the later INS8900 NMOS version, did get used in some embedded systems. In May I wrote an assembler and simulator for the PACE, and typed in the published source code for PACE FIG-Forth. I found and corrected a bug in the U/ word. In case anyone actually has a PACE system, I've put the sources online: http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/national/pace/figforth/ I'm not quite ready to publish my assembler and simulator, though if anyone feels an urgent need for such things, let me know. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jun 14 15:09:12 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:09:12 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3558E8.1020005@brouhaha.com> On Jun 14, 2009, at 1:47 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > I have a friend that is repairing some video equipment and he needs > some *odd* EPROMs. They are Intersil IM6654 (I think) - but they are > the obscure 10 Volt variant. Dave McGuire wrote: > I was quite shocked to find that my Data I/O cannot. I think that's > the first chip I've heard of that it can't program. Which model Data I/O? Will it program the Intel 1702 (without A suffix) or National Semiconductor 5203? From rborsuk at colourfull.com Sun Jun 14 15:29:32 2009 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:29:32 -0400 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8C7B952E-7B15-4C55-BFFE-F1CDFA44EDAE@colourfull.com> Check out Logical Devices. http://www.logicaldevices.com Rob On Jun 14, 2009, at 1:47 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > I have a friend that is repairing some video equipment and he needs > some *odd* EPROMs. They are Intersil IM6654 (I think) - but they are > the obscure 10 Volt variant. > > He has the chips, but he has not been able to find a programmer that > can handle these. Anyone? > > -- > Will Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com From coredump at gifford.co.uk Sun Jun 14 16:05:16 2009 From: coredump at gifford.co.uk (John Honniball) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:05:16 +0100 Subject: Fast EPROM eraser? In-Reply-To: <4A32F090.1030000@brouhaha.com> References: <200906122116.n5CLGH1E068773@keith.ezwind.net> <4A32F090.1030000@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A35660C.4000302@gifford.co.uk> Eric Smith wrote: > Though even if you remove the filter or lens, you still won't get that > much shortwave UV, because the bulb in those is usually in a glass > envelope, and glass blocks a lot of the shortwave UV. That's why tubes > made for shortwave UV, and the windows on EPROMs, are made of quartz > rather than normal glass. I have a gadget which erases EPROMs using a flash tube. It is the Dataman Strobe Eraser, and has a mains-powered flash tube that's similar to a camera flash. You place the tube over the EPROM window, pull the trigger and presumably test that the EPROM has been erased. If not, give it another burst. -- John Honniball coredump at gifford.co.uk From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jun 14 16:04:30 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:04:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Natima (was: All this talk of Unix and other OSes...) Message-ID: <818688.84225.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> That was a typo on my part, I meant Natami. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Sun, 14/6/09, Zane H. Healy wrote: From: Zane H. Healy Subject: Natima (was: All this talk of Unix and other OSes...) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Date: Sunday, 14 June, 2009, 4:31 AM At 5:22 PM +0000 6/13/09, Andrew Burton wrote: > Of course Natima is going to run the 68070, but don't quote me on that as I haven't been following the project that closely. Natima?? Google didn't pull up anything useful.? What is this? Zane -- | Zane H. Healy? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)? ? | OpenVMS Enthusiast? ? ? ???| | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)? ? ? ? ???| Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ |? ???Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,? ? | |? ? ? ? ? PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.? ? ? ???| |? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/? ? ? ? ? ? ???| From mjkerpan at kerpan.com Sun Jun 14 16:49:24 2009 From: mjkerpan at kerpan.com (Michael Kerpan) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:49:24 -0400 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion (Warren Wolfe) Message-ID: <8dd2d95c0906141449x2e4425abxee512473d7f5b5dc@mail.gmail.com> About that very high price: I think that may be a joke. DtCyber certainly always used free and open source. And it still lives in the FreeBSD ports tree. It's at least possible that this was done as a move of protest against BT Consulting's move to stop granting free (or even reasonably priced) hobbyist licenses for antique CDC software... It really is a shame that the only company that treated the hobbyist use of its old platforms as a good thing, was DEC. It's just a miracle that HP is still allowing things like the VMS hobby license and the 36-bit hobby license to continue. If that ended, we'd be stuck the IBM PD-era stuff as the only legally emulatable big iron :( From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 14 16:49:29 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:49:29 -0700 Subject: Any PACE users out there? In-Reply-To: <4A3557AC.7000901@brouhaha.com> References: <4A3557AC.7000901@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A350DF9.23602.57CEAC0@cclist.sydex.com> On 14 Jun 2009 at 13:03, Eric Smith wrote: > Godbout designed and advertised a PACE system, and built a prototype, > but never put it into production. PACE never caught on with > hobbyists, possibly because it was slower than the more common 8-bit > processors. PACE, and the later INS8900 NMOS version, did get used in > some embedded systems. At a Wescon (can't recall which one) in the 70's, NSC was giving away samples of the PACE, along with documentation. Well, I can't resist anything *free* at trade shows, even if it's a dead i386 die encased in resin and promoted as a keychain fob, so I grabbed a sample package. I eventually wired up an S100 board for it, complete with 8-to-16-bit bus conversion circuitry. If you thought that a PACE was slow in native mode, try double-cycling the bus to support it! I also recall that the PACE requiired a substantial number of support chips. At some point, I scrapped the board as being unworkable. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what market NSC was shooting for. A 16-bit micro that was glacially slow with a small register file and a stack that needed interrupt servicing to make it really usable. A Z80A or 8085 would run rings around it. It seems to me that NSC has always had a problem with maintaining focus on its own microprocessor products. The SC/MP, PACE, NSC800, 32xxx series of CPUs all seemed to be handled with a big marketiing splash and then ignored. Some of these, such as the 32xxx MPUs were technical tours-de-force (and very late). Something like corporate attention-deficit disorder. I think National probably did best second-sourcing other people's MPUs, letting the primary source handle promotion and marketing. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 14 16:55:02 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:55:02 -0700 Subject: cleaning momentary push button switches In-Reply-To: <4A34678F.143E679E@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A341255.1050509@verizon.net>, <4A34678F.143E679E@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A350F46.1836.581FD08@cclist.sydex.com> On 13 Jun 2009 at 19:59, Brent Hilpert wrote: > You can have some of mine. No please, take all of it. > I have two of those old brass hand-pump-style fire extinguishers still > filled with the stuff. I'd probably take you up on the offer, except that I suspect that it's probably illegal to transport the stuff across state boundaries now... It used to be popular as a spot remover--apparently, that's what caused it to get banned--the fumes are pretty toxic when it's used in unventilated environments. it was the solvent of choice for cleaning up noisy volume controls. There used to be (and may still be) a chemistry 101 demonstration where a mixture of carbon tet and carbon disulfide is ignited and the teacher calmly dips his hand in the flaming liquid without getting burned. --Chuck From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sun Jun 14 17:01:32 2009 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:01:32 +0100 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A35733C.70503@philpem.me.uk> Dave McGuire wrote: > Seeing that, I think he's gonna be hard-pressed to find one that > will. Are programming specs available for possible homebrewing? The IM6654 datasheet is on DatasheetArchive (www.datasheetarchive.com), first result in a search for "IM6654". All the relevant specs are on the second page of the PDF. They start off pretty normal: - After manufacture or erasure (UV light, 2537 Angstroms, same as just about all UV-erasable chips) all bits are set high. Programming sets bits low. - Vcc and Vdd are tied to +5V. This applies to both the "A" (10V) and "non-A" variants. - A HIGH logic level is Vcc - 2V minimum; a LOW is Vss + 0.8V maximum. - Set the address and data lines to the required values (i.e. set the address for the location you want to program, and put the data byte on the data bus). Keep the PROGRAM and Chip Select (/S) pins high. - The address is latched by a falling edge on /E1. There is, of course, an "odd part": - After latching the address, pulse PROGRAM to -40V (that's NEGATIVE 40V) for 20 milliseconds. - Rise and fall times MUST NOT be faster than 5 microseconds. 10us is the recommended figure. Probably not the easiest thing to homebrew, but not difficult either. There's a "Recommended Algorithm Flowchart" on the third page of the PDF -- what I've described above is just the 'core' of the algorithm. If you have a PDF aversion, here's the rest of it: 1. Read every address in the EPROM (with Vcc=5V). If any bit reads low (programmed), power down, erase the EPROM and start over. 2. Select location to be programmed. 3. Set levels on "Q" data lines. 4. Program, 20ms. 5. Reapply address. 6. Read/Verify. 7. If programmed correctly: 7a. Program same location 4 more times 7b. Read/Verify. OK? 7ba. If OK, repeat from (2) until all addresses programmed. 7bb. If not OK, reject device (FAIL). 8. If not programmed correctly: 8a. Program, 20ms. 8b. Read/Verify. OK? 8ba. If OK, program same address 6 more times, verify, and GOTO (7b) 8bb. If not OK, reject device (FAIL). I'd class this as a small weekend project -- if you had a source of 40V (+/- 2V), 5V, a couple of transistors and a small micro (a PIC or 8051 for instance), you could probably breadboard a programmer in a couple of hours and have the code running by noon Sunday (assuming you started on the Friday night). I'd be very careful to check all the input/output waveforms before putting a chip in, though. Nothing worse than blowing up a rare EPROM, especially if it's your last working chip... -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From lists at databasics.us Sun Jun 14 17:34:41 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:34:41 -1000 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A357B01.3020809@databasics.us> Tony Duell wrote: >> Dave McGuire wrote: >> >>> On Jun 12, 2009, at 9:29 AM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >>> >>>>> Well, for "classic OSs". Some of us are actually interested in >>>>> the hardware. ;) >>>>> >>>> Well, sure. The hardware is there, although not progressing, >>>> either. But, the end result and purpose of computer hardware is to >>>> run software. At least we've got THAT going for us. If nothing >>>> else, having a functional equivalent emulator allows one to work out >>>> software for the hardware involved, and do it faster, on a "bigger" >>>> machine, so when the hardware comes up, you can just load it up and >>>> go... Don't expect to make me feel guilty about being more easily >>>> able to enjoy my hobby than you. Won't happen. Now, bedtime... >>>> >>> Well don't get me wrong, I'm not poo-pooing emulators. I use them >>> all the time. I just don't find them to be a replacement for real >>> hardware. :) >>> >> True enough. They certainly don't WEIGH as much, for instance... >> > > I am a hardware hacker, pure and simple. I regard classic computers as > being interesting, complicated, but still understandable bits of > electronics. The fact they run programs is _not_ why I am primarily > interested in them. > And that's fine for you, Tony. I admit I share your enthusiasm. However, I *ALSO* enjoy RUNNING the computers, and using the software written long ago, too. > This is why I prefer machines with CPUs built from lots of small chips. > You can't do much with a big ASIC containing much of the logic. But a > couple of boartds of TTL and 2900 series can be investigated. > > It's also why I can find as much interest in, say, the analog computer > (and I don't think that's exagerating) in the servo system of an RK07 > drive as in the PDP11 that's linked to it. They're both interesting (to > me) bits of electronics. > Indeed. Personally, I've always been fond of the analog computers used to aim guns on battleships. Very fine control, huge output. Those gun barrels are not at all light. When all is said and done, they can loft a shell that weighs as much as a Buick 30 miles, and hit within 30 feet of the target. > It's one reason I have little interest in emulators _myself_ . Another > reason is that emulators here would run slower than the real hardware for > just about any classic computer. Don;t get me wrong, I have no problem > with people who write emulators or with people who enjoy using them. It's > just not what _I_ want to do. > Of course -- each to his own. I have always been odd in this; my whole career, I have been back and forth between hardware and software, and truly love both. >> Seriously, though, for me, the majority of "the computer experience" was >> obtained over a serial line of some sort, except for my VDM-1 card in >> > > Ah, but wouldn';t you like to own whatever was at the end of that serial > line? Not an emulator of it, but the real machine? And discover just what > it was like to keep it running, etc.. > Yes, yes, I would love to own real computers. Realistically speaking, though, I would need living space very many times what I have. Also, I live in the spot on Earth with just about the highest electricity rates of anywhere that has regular service. I seriously shudder to think what it would cost to run some of these monsters from the past. >> the IMSAI 8080. So, an emulator, if it is a good one, does well for >> me. That being said, I do collect old hardware, also. It's just much >> "harder" for me. >> >> Also, Al had some good points, ESPECIALLY when it comes to mainframish >> computers. If you are a lover of, just to pick one, a PDP 11/45 >> machine, if you pass on your love for the machine to a young person, >> that person becomes a serious competitor for EVERY bit of kit you need, >> > > That seems like a very selfish attidude. I assume you're not saying that > we shouldn't encourage new people into the hobby since they'll compete > with us for nice machine. Certainly I don't feel that way at all. > No, it's not selfish, it's realistic. Since nobody is adding to the pool of classic hardware, it can only get smaller over time. And, sure, I would encourage others to take up the hobby. On the other hand, such activities DO make it harder for everyone collecting the hardware. Very little hardware collecting fits in my budget of money, time, or space. It's a fact of life. I will not be able to indulge myself as I would like with this hobby. But, encouraging others to explore classic SOFTWARE on emulators takes away nothing from anyone, and in point of fact, will often INCREASE the number of "toys" for everyone. If someone creates a new emulator, or scrounges around and finds a boot tape for an O/S that had gone "missing," EVERYONE can have a copy of it, generally for free. With this branch of the hobby, I have the money and space to take it as far as I want. I like that. I was first exposed to computers in high school, and found that the TimeShare BASIC was interesting, but limited. I went hacking around and found many other computers to use, so, having a computer contact consist of a serial connection only is pretty much what the computer experience WAS for me. Emulation also allows, since the hardware is virtual, a "machine" to be beefed up almost beyond recognition. So limitations imposed upon one by the budget of those purchasing the hardware simply do not apply. For example, I first used an HP 2000B TimeShare BASIC computer. While I can't get exactly that in emulation, I can get an emulator running Access -- which was years in the future when I was introduced, but along the same HP path. That's cool... Like what I used, only bigger and better, with some cool new features. I'm just trying to get copies of the old software I wrote for that system.... >> from now on. In other words, non-frustrated hardware hobbyists are >> strictly limited by the number, and cost, of working or repairable >> hardware platforms. But, if there is an emulator for the PDP 11/45, >> everybody on the planet could become a fan of running the software on an >> > > Yes, but the emulator won't allow you to stick in a KM11, put one of the > CPU boards on an extender and probe arround will single-stepping at the > clock cycle level. You won't have the fun of replacing a disk head and > doing the alingment. You won't have to chase grants up and down the > backplane. > I thought I was up on Brit tech-speak, but "grants" is one I don't know. What are "grants?" True enough, Tony, but with the right emulator, I CAN single step, and examine register contents, and so on. And I don't HAVE to repair the hardware to keep it going. I used to maintain a mailing list on a program I wrote in CBASIC under CP/M on an IMSAI 8080. The guy who collected the changes to the list came by one month a bit early, and I wasn't ready for him. "Updates?" I asked, "Hang on, I'll go get my soldering iron." Repairing memory (2102s) was a daily matter back then, and interfered with the use of the machine. Heck, I wrote a memory test routine which ran when console status was checked - not because it was cool, but because I NEEDED it. >> emulator, one that runs on mass-produced (hence CHEAP and available) >> hardware. Software can be copied and shared. Hardware, not so much. I >> also note that classic computer buffs who go the software route can have >> "machines" with plenty of memory and disk space, and can avoid all the >> > > If I wantede a machine with plenty of memoery, disk space and only > problems I hadn't a hope of fixing, I'd buy a PC, and run PC software on > it.... > Yeah, like emulators. Hey, each to their own. I don't have the resources to do much with my classic hardware hobby, but I can take my classic software hobby to the limit. That's lots better than nothing. I'm glad you get to indulge, too. And, don't think I wouldn't have a warehouse full of old computers if I could pull it off somehow... and all sorts of electronics. My personal quirk on hardware is that I like to collect things that were, at one time, the very pinnacle of technology... Like, for example, a Processor Technology Sol computer, for old personal computers. That's what gives me the biggest thrills. Warren From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jun 14 18:19:12 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:19:12 -0700 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion (Warren Wolfe) In-Reply-To: <8dd2d95c0906141449x2e4425abxee512473d7f5b5dc@mail.gmail.com> References: <8dd2d95c0906141449x2e4425abxee512473d7f5b5dc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A358570.3090601@bitsavers.org> Michael Kerpan wrote: > About that very high price: I think that may be a joke. DtCyber > certainly always used free and open source. And it still lives in the > FreeBSD ports tree. The version there is VERY old. Tom decided to not make later versions available. Sadly, this has resulted in many forks of the last available source base. I wonder if the Cray/Cyber group would have any luck with BT granting use of cyber 70 class software for non-commercial use. Right now there is no generally available software other than Chippewa to run on it. > It really is a shame that the only company that treated the hobbyist > use of its old platforms as a good thing, was DEC. It's just a miracle > that HP is still allowing things like the VMS hobby license and the > 36-bit hobby license to continue. With VMS support going offshore, I wonder how long that will last. Thank Bob Supnik for the DEC hobby licensing. HP has been very supportive of CHM's efforts to preserve their product's software. There are several other agreements similar to the one we negotiated for the HP211x/2100 software in the works. From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Sun Jun 14 18:27:25 2009 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:27:25 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM References: <4A3558E8.1020005@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <001701c9ed47$ace52890$0201a8c0@hal9000> William, What is the end result ? Is it to fix the equipment or to program those parts ? What is the source for the EPROM data ? If it is to fix the equipment, I would suggest using a 27C16 and make the necessary pin adjustments in a homemade carrier ( two 24 pin sockets plugged into each other with the necessary pinout adjustments, i.e. unnecessary address pins tied to ground, etc... ). Looks like a standard JEDEC pinout. Best regards, Steven ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Smith" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 1:09 PM Subject: Re: Intersil EPROM > On Jun 14, 2009, at 1:47 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > > I have a friend that is repairing some video equipment and he needs > > some *odd* EPROMs. They are Intersil IM6654 (I think) - but they are > > the obscure 10 Volt variant. > Dave McGuire wrote: > > I was quite shocked to find that my Data I/O cannot. I think that's > > the first chip I've heard of that it can't program. > Which model Data I/O? Will it program the Intel 1702 (without A suffix) > or National Semiconductor 5203? From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 14 18:43:54 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:43:54 -0700 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion (Warren Wolfe) In-Reply-To: <4A358570.3090601@bitsavers.org> References: <8dd2d95c0906141449x2e4425abxee512473d7f5b5dc@mail.gmail.com>, <4A358570.3090601@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4A3528CA.29071.5E5AC90@cclist.sydex.com> On 14 Jun 2009 at 16:19, Al Kossow wrote: > The version there is VERY old. Tom decided to not make later versions > available. Sadly, this has resulted in many forks of the last > available source base. I wonder if the Cray/Cyber group would have any > luck with BT granting use of cyber 70 class software for > non-commercial use. Right now there is no generally available software > other than Chippewa to run on it. Golly, COS was old when I was fooling with the things. It mostly survived in relics like EDITSYM for COSY source libraries. Purdue had their own version of MACE for the 6500; I wonder if it exists anywhere? If so, it might make an adequate substitute for SCOPE/KRONOS/NOSBE/NOS as something to run that's later than COS. I wonder if LRL still has the 6000 code for Octopus. Or if it's still classified. But then, that's nothing like anything that ever came out of Arden Hills. --Chuck From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 18:46:11 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:46:11 -0400 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <001701c9ed47$ace52890$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <4A3558E8.1020005@brouhaha.com> <001701c9ed47$ace52890$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: > What is the end result ? Is it to fix the equipment or to program those > parts ? What is the source for the EPROM data ? Fix the equipment. I do not know where he has the data from. > If ?it is to fix the equipment, I would suggest using a 27C16 and make the > necessary pin adjustments in a homemade carrier ( two 24 pin sockets plugged > into each other with the necessary pinout adjustments, i.e. unnecessary > address pins tied to ground, etc... ). Looks like a standard JEDEC pinout. I understand it is quite a tight fit, and having a carrier with the level converters would be asking too much. -- Will From madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 18:48:41 2009 From: madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com (Michael Kerpan) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:48:41 -0400 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion Message-ID: <8dd2d95c0906141648q124771ebnc24b2ee6150c1518@mail.gmail.com> Al Kossow wrote: > The version there is VERY old. Tom decided to not make later versions > available. Sadly, this has resulted in many forks of the last available > source base. I wonder if the Cray/Cyber group would have any luck with > BT granting use of cyber 70 class software for non-commercial use. Right > now there is no generally available software other than Chippewa to run > on it. I wonder what happened that made him decide that? Maybe the above mentioned lack of software to run on it had something to do with the decision. > With VMS support going offshore, I wonder how long that will last. > Thank Bob Supnik for the DEC hobby licensing. > HP has been very supportive of CHM's efforts to preserve their product's > software. There are several other agreements similar to the one we negotiated > for the HP211x/2100 software in the works. Given that a core of old DECUS folks inside Connect seem to do all the work involved with the VMS hobbyist license, I wonder if the higher-ups at HP even know that it exists. The HP 21xx deal is news to me, though. I guess it firmly puts HP into the "supportive" camp vis a vis classic computing hobbyism and research, especially if they're thinking of donating more stuff to the museum (which I really need to visit one of these days, by the way) Mike From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 14 18:50:55 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:50:55 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <001701c9ed47$ace52890$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: , <001701c9ed47$ace52890$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <4A352A6F.7308.5EC1B3A@cclist.sydex.com> On 14 Jun 2009 at 16:27, Scanning wrote: > If it is to fix the equipment, I would suggest using a 27C16 and make > the necessary pin adjustments in a homemade carrier ( two 24 pin > sockets plugged into each other with the necessary pinout adjustments, > i.e. unnecessary address pins tied to ground, etc... ). Looks like a > standard JEDEC pinout. Can one operate a 2716 with +10 volts for Vcc? The datasheet seems to say that the limit for Vcc on the Inmos part is +11v/(10v nominal). This is really odd as I was cleaning out some stuff the other day and I came across three big 3-ring binders from about 1990 titled "The Modern IC Databook" from WEKA. It was a subscription service where updates would be sent out monthly and you'd go through the hell of "Remove page A-324 and substitute pages A-324 and A324a..." Included was a service for reseraching unknown ICs--just give them a call and get a FAX a few days later. At any rate, I was leafing through the "Memory" section and came across the aforementioned CMOS EPROMs. My reaction was "Why, in 1991, would anyone even care about such antiquated parts?" I guess Will answered that one. --Chuck From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Sun Jun 14 19:09:09 2009 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:09:09 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM References: <4A3558E8.1020005@brouhaha.com> <001701c9ed47$ace52890$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <000901c9ed4d$81843640$0201a8c0@hal9000> Will, If space is tight, you can just bend the appropriate IC pins up over the top and solder wires to ground / Vcc as necessary... and skip the sockets. If space is REALLY tight, I've cut the necessary pins off and run wires along the sides to the stubs. Gotta do this AFTER it is programmed of course ! Good luck. Best regards, Steven ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Donzelli" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 4:46 PM Subject: Re: Intersil EPROM > What is the end result ? Is it to fix the equipment or to program those > parts ? What is the source for the EPROM data ? Fix the equipment. I do not know where he has the data from. > If it is to fix the equipment, I would suggest using a 27C16 and make the > necessary pin adjustments in a homemade carrier ( two 24 pin sockets plugged > into each other with the necessary pinout adjustments, i.e. unnecessary > address pins tied to ground, etc... ). Looks like a standard JEDEC pinout. I understand it is quite a tight fit, and having a carrier with the level converters would be asking too much. -- Will From brianlanning at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 19:25:00 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:25:00 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906141725x4e215016vc39c129c6f8f0f3b@mail.gmail.com> I received the 600e cdrom drive and a MacOS 8 cdrom. I removed the other scsi tower I had been using and installed the 600e in its place. The 600e seems to power on and the tray opens and closes. The light flickers from green to yellow as it first spins up the disk. I'm using the same cable and terminator as I did with the tower. One of two things happens, either the quadra 700 ignores the cdrom and gets stuck at the happy face like the drive isn't there at all. Or sometimes, I get the Frowny face with the four tones. The error numbers are 0000000F and 00000001. Any ideas what's happening? brian From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jun 14 19:33:16 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:33:16 -0700 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion In-Reply-To: <8dd2d95c0906141648q124771ebnc24b2ee6150c1518@mail.gmail.com> References: <8dd2d95c0906141648q124771ebnc24b2ee6150c1518@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3596CC.2070002@bitsavers.org> Michael Kerpan wrote: > The HP 21xx deal is news to > me, though. I guess it firmly puts HP into the "supportive" camp vis a > vis classic computing hobbyism and research, especially if they're > thinking of donating more stuff to the museum I haven't said much about it recently since we have no infrastructure to release anything yet. The tapes we received from them have been read, and a first pass at determining exactly what we have was done, which some verification. This was helped along by the person doing the work on adding RTE support to SIMH. We have the tapes and disks at CHM for what survived of Apollo when it was sent to Colorado Springs. I spent a few weeks working on the manuals that came in with it, and am putting together some machines to do recovery of over 100 Apollo ESDI disks. Also in the same shipment was everything they still had for the Pascal workstation, along with two pallets of HPIB and SCSI disks for the 300 series. We are hoping to get a non-commercial agreement for this software worked out soon along with one for the Classic 3000, although they were unable to find any software for it inside HP. I'm hoping people on the outside will offer to have it archived once we get the agreement in place. From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jun 14 19:35:19 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:35:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906141725x4e215016vc39c129c6f8f0f3b@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 14, 9 07:25:00 pm" Message-ID: <200906150035.n5F0ZJKD017520@floodgap.com> > I received the 600e cdrom drive and a MacOS 8 cdrom. I removed the > other scsi tower I had been using and installed the 600e in its place. > The 600e seems to power on and the tray opens and closes. The light > flickers from green to yellow as it first spins up the disk. I'm > using the same cable and terminator as I did with the tower. > > One of two things happens, either the quadra 700 ignores the cdrom and > gets stuck at the happy face like the drive isn't there at all. Or > sometimes, I get the Frowny face with the four tones. The error > numbers are 0000000F and 00000001. F 1 is a bus error. I'd start looking at RAM now. You might have a bad stick. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- require "std_disclaimer.pl"; ----------------------------------------------- From evan at snarc.net Sun Jun 14 19:37:37 2009 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:37:37 -0400 Subject: Vintage computer music concert @ VCF East In-Reply-To: <4A1D9DFD.4080701@snarc.net> References: <4A1D9DFD.4080701@snarc.net> Message-ID: <4A3597D1.2080702@snarc.net> This is a first for ANY edition of the vcf .... this year we're hosting a vintage computer / vintage chip live concert, thanks to our friends at 8static and the Philadelphia Hacktory. Those groups are sending four audio/visual artists, who'll also be joined by MARCH's Bill Degnan playing his TTL theremin. Bill will also perform the warm-up act of "Fool on the Hill" via an Altair 8800 and radio (a la the Homebrew Computer Club performance in 1975, which was duplicated by Erik Klein at VCF California in 2005.) The 8static guys also signed up for an exhibit booth, where they'll teach people all the musical tricks! Details of VCF still being posted at http://www.vintage.org/2009/east/index.php. > Hi all, > > Go here:http://www.vintage.org/2009/east/exhibit.php to register for > VCF East 6.0 exhibits. > > It's okay if you only have a general idea of your exhibit right now. > You can always fill in some more details later. However for the VCF's > advertising / marketing purposes, it is MUCH better to sign up sooner > rather than later! People who sign up sooner will also have dibs on the > best booth locations. > > The event is Sept. 12-13 at the InfoAge Science Center in Wall, New > Jersey. > > We're still in the process of arranging lecturers and special events. > > Please contact me off-list (evan at snarc.net) with any questions, notes > about mistakes in the web site, etc. > > - Evan (& Sellam) > > From brianlanning at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 19:43:36 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:43:36 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906141725x4e215016vc39c129c6f8f0f3b@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906141725x4e215016vc39c129c6f8f0f3b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906141743q7ed9148ch57ab6245c5dbdea7@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 7:25 PM, Brian Lanning wrote: > I received the 600e cdrom drive and a MacOS 8 cdrom. ?I removed the > other scsi tower I had been using and installed the 600e in its place. > ?The 600e seems to power on and the tray opens and closes. ?The light > flickers from green to yellow as it first spins up the disk. ?I'm > using the same cable and terminator as I did with the tower. > > One of two things happens, either the quadra 700 ignores the cdrom and > gets stuck at the happy face like the drive isn't there at all. ?Or > sometimes, I get the Frowny face with the four tones. ?The error > numbers are 0000000F and 00000001. > > Any ideas what's happening? Here's the memory info by the way: 4 30 pin simms, 8 chip. Siemens HYB514100AJ-80 So the 4100 makes me think they're 4 meg simms. That would make 16 plus whatever is on the motherboard, right? brian From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jun 14 19:49:16 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:49:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906141743q7ed9148ch57ab6245c5dbdea7@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 14, 9 07:43:36 pm" Message-ID: <200906150049.n5F0nG2Y014042@floodgap.com> > > One of two things happens, either the quadra 700 ignores the cdrom and > > gets stuck at the happy face like the drive isn't there at all. _Or > > sometimes, I get the Frowny face with the four tones. _The error > > numbers are 0000000F and 00000001. > > > > Any ideas what's happening? > > Here's the memory info by the way: > > 4 30 pin simms, 8 chip. > > Siemens HYB514100AJ-80 > > So the 4100 makes me think they're 4 meg simms. That would make 16 > plus whatever is on the motherboard, right? http://www.chipmunk.nl/DRAM/Siemens.htm 51 = 5 volt 410 = 4Meg x 1 0 = FPM -80 = 80ns So you are correct. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Life isn't fair. But having the root password helps. ----------------------- From brianlanning at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 19:44:28 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:44:28 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <200906150035.n5F0ZJKD017520@floodgap.com> References: <6dbe3c380906141725x4e215016vc39c129c6f8f0f3b@mail.gmail.com> <200906150035.n5F0ZJKD017520@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906141744h42ffb4d2h306c9b4bdf7f4e2@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 7:35 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > F 1 is a bus error. I'd start looking at RAM now. You might have a bad stick. It only happens when the cd-rom drive is attached though. brian From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jun 14 19:53:14 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:53:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906141744h42ffb4d2h306c9b4bdf7f4e2@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 14, 9 07:44:28 pm" Message-ID: <200906150053.n5F0rENg011394@floodgap.com> > > F 1 is a bus error. I'd start looking at RAM now. You might have a bad > > stick. > > It only happens when the cd-rom drive is attached though. Ugh. Are you sure the CD is good? Things that also occur to me is a problem with the controller. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Dihydrogen monoxide -- the leading environmental pollutant! www.dhmo.org --- From brianlanning at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 20:19:09 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:19:09 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <200906150053.n5F0rENg011394@floodgap.com> References: <6dbe3c380906141744h42ffb4d2h306c9b4bdf7f4e2@mail.gmail.com> <200906150053.n5F0rENg011394@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906141819x2f247d3y9918dcb3396f4541@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 7:53 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > Ugh. Are you sure the CD is good? Things that also occur to me is a problem > with the controller. I got it from ebay. It's not perfect, but I don't see why it shouldn't work. What should be happening here? Should the machine detect and just boot off the cd-rom? Or do I have to do anything different than just turn it on? From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jun 14 20:24:32 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:24:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906141819x2f247d3y9918dcb3396f4541@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 14, 9 08:19:09 pm" Message-ID: <200906150124.n5F1OWn2017214@floodgap.com> > > Ugh. Are you sure the CD is good? Things that also occur to me is a problem > > with the controller. > > I got it from ebay. It's not perfect, but I don't see why it shouldn't work. > > What should be happening here? Should the machine detect and just > boot off the cd-rom? Or do I have to do anything different than just > turn it on? It should 'just boot' into the Installer. The Happy Mac you briefly get indicates that the Mac can see the disc, and the System Folder on it, so the CD-ROM is undoubtedly working. I'm still thinking about RAM being a problem, mind you, but your unit may just be plain broken if it's throwing bus errors. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- And then we wonder why the UFO's won't stop by and say hello. -George Carlin From tosteve at yahoo.com Sun Jun 14 20:24:52 2009 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven stengel) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:24:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM 5100 cartridges Message-ID: <628559.12369.qm@web110607.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I have the original Diagnostics cartridge for the IBM 5100, but it's the only cart I have. I'd like to make some copies of it, etc. What kind of carts are these, and is there a good source for any? I have both APL and BASIC 5100 systems, so it must be possible to copy it? Thanks- Steven From teoz at neo.rr.com Sun Jun 14 20:28:19 2009 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:28:19 -0400 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) References: <200906150124.n5F1OWn2017214@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6A54A704AE814DD2B9F9FDB533A4B656@dell8300> You can get that is the RAM is mixed up by mistake (3 4MB and 1 1MB). Also if the socket clips are broken and the ram is not inserted correctly. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cameron Kaiser" To: Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 9:24 PM Subject: Re: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) >> > Ugh. Are you sure the CD is good? Things that also occur to me is a >> > problem >> > with the controller. >> >> I got it from ebay. It's not perfect, but I don't see why it shouldn't >> work. >> >> What should be happening here? Should the machine detect and just >> boot off the cd-rom? Or do I have to do anything different than just >> turn it on? > > It should 'just boot' into the Installer. The Happy Mac you briefly get > indicates that the Mac can see the disc, and the System Folder on it, so > the CD-ROM is undoubtedly working. I'm still thinking about RAM being a > problem, mind you, but your unit may just be plain broken if it's throwing > bus errors. > > -- > ------------------------------------ personal: > http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- > Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * > ckaiser at floodgap.com > -- And then we wonder why the UFO's won't stop by and say hello. -George > Carlin From brianlanning at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 20:36:26 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:36:26 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <200906150124.n5F1OWn2017214@floodgap.com> References: <6dbe3c380906141819x2f247d3y9918dcb3396f4541@mail.gmail.com> <200906150124.n5F1OWn2017214@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906141836y11316896vd84737189e112f16@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 8:24 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > It should 'just boot' into the Installer. The Happy Mac you briefly get > indicates that the Mac can see the disc, and the System Folder on it, so > the CD-ROM is undoubtedly working. I'm still thinking about RAM being a > problem, mind you, but your unit may just be plain broken if it's throwing > bus errors. After playing with it a bit more, I'm thinking the cd-rom is bad. I can see a slight aberration or discoloration on the disk. It's really slight though so I could be wrong. When I get the happy face, I think it's really deciding that the cd-rom is bad and trying to boot to the hard drive instead. It's the same behavior as just turning the machine on with the cd-rom drive off. I noticed that when I get the frowny face, right before, the cdrom looks like it's starting to read. Then it dies. So I think maybe the disk is bad. 70% of the time, it refuses to read, and the other 30%, it starts to read and fails. From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jun 14 20:46:42 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:46:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906141836y11316896vd84737189e112f16@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 14, 9 08:36:26 pm" Message-ID: <200906150146.n5F1kgQX018846@floodgap.com> > > It should 'just boot' into the Installer. The Happy Mac you briefly get > > indicates that the Mac can see the disc, and the System Folder on it, so > > the CD-ROM is undoubtedly working. I'm still thinking about RAM being a > > problem, mind you, but your unit may just be plain broken if it's throwing > > bus errors. > > After playing with it a bit more, I'm thinking the cd-rom is bad. I > can see a slight aberration or discoloration on the disk. It's really > slight though so I could be wrong. When I get the happy face, I think > it's really deciding that the cd-rom is bad and trying to boot to the > hard drive instead. It's the same behavior as just turning the > machine on with the cd-rom drive off. I noticed that when I get the > frowny face, right before, the cdrom looks like it's starting to read. > Then it dies. So I think maybe the disk is bad. 70% of the time, it > refuses to read, and the other 30%, it starts to read and fails. There are PC tools that can read an HFS volume (I don't have a PC, so I can't make a recommendation, but they are out there). That might be worth checking into to verify if a sane System Folder is present. Also, I'm assuming the SCSI ID on the CD-ROM is something sane. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- lp0 reported invalid error status (on fire, eh?) -- Linux 1.1.62 ----------- From doc at vaxen.net Sun Jun 14 21:21:45 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:21:45 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <200906150124.n5F1OWn2017214@floodgap.com> References: <200906150124.n5F1OWn2017214@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4A35B011.7020507@vaxen.net> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>> Ugh. Are you sure the CD is good? Things that also occur to me is a problem >>> with the controller. >> I got it from ebay. It's not perfect, but I don't see why it shouldn't work. >> >> What should be happening here? Should the machine detect and just >> boot off the cd-rom? Or do I have to do anything different than just >> turn it on? > > It should 'just boot' into the Installer. The Happy Mac you briefly get > indicates that the Mac can see the disc, and the System Folder on it, so > the CD-ROM is undoubtedly working. I'm still thinking about RAM being a > problem, mind you, but your unit may just be plain broken if it's throwing > bus errors. Or the terminator is bad, or if it's external, he's using an Iomega 25->50-pin "SCSI" cable.... Doc From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 14 21:35:10 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:35:10 -0400 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <4A3558E8.1020005@brouhaha.com> References: <4A3558E8.1020005@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Jun 14, 2009, at 4:09 PM, Eric Smith wrote: >> I was quite shocked to find that my Data I/O cannot. I think >> that's the first chip I've heard of that it can't program. > > Which model Data I/O? Will it program the Intel 1702 (without A > suffix) or National Semiconductor 5203? No, I don't see them in the list. I've never even heard of the NS 5203...What is it? I have a separate programmer for 1702As. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 14 21:35:37 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:35:37 -0400 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <8C7B952E-7B15-4C55-BFFE-F1CDFA44EDAE@colourfull.com> References: <8C7B952E-7B15-4C55-BFFE-F1CDFA44EDAE@colourfull.com> Message-ID: On Jun 14, 2009, at 4:29 PM, Robert Borsuk wrote: > Check out Logical Devices. > > http://www.logicaldevices.com That company is an *absolute nightmare* to work with. -Dave > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jun 14 21:40:49 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:40:49 -0700 Subject: IBM 5100 cartridges In-Reply-To: <628559.12369.qm@web110607.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <628559.12369.qm@web110607.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A35B4B1.2080202@brouhaha.com> steven stengel wrote: > I have the original Diagnostics cartridge for the IBM 5100, but it's the only cart I have. I'd like to make some copies of it, etc. > Most of the contents of the diagnostic tape can be copied, but if memory serves there are some special areas on the tape used for the tape diagnostic which can't be copied because they aren't actually files. > What kind of carts are these, and is there a good source for any? > I think it's a DC300. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jun 14 21:42:29 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:42:29 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: References: <4A3558E8.1020005@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A35B515.9090102@brouhaha.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > No, I don't see them in the list. I've never even heard of the NS > 5203...What is it? The MM5203 and MM5204 were National's first EPROMs. Same capacity as the 1702, but not pin- or electrically-compatible. From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jun 14 21:45:43 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:45:43 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <4A352A6F.7308.5EC1B3A@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <001701c9ed47$ace52890$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A352A6F.7308.5EC1B3A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A35B5D7.3000701@brouhaha.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Can one operate a 2716 with +10 volts for Vcc? The datasheet seems > to say that the limit for Vcc on the Inmos part is +11v/(10v > nominal). > No. Ratings of 2716 parts may vary somewhat by vendor, but generally all pins other than Vpp have an absolute maximum rating of 6V, and Vpp has an absolute maximum rating of 28V. If the Intersil part is actually being used at 10V, and you wanted to replace it with a 2716, you'd need to add level shifters. Eric From brianlanning at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 21:53:34 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:53:34 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <200906150146.n5F1kgQX018846@floodgap.com> References: <6dbe3c380906141836y11316896vd84737189e112f16@mail.gmail.com> <200906150146.n5F1kgQX018846@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906141953q7818bc26j5449385ddaa4ab99@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 8:46 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > There are PC tools that can read an HFS volume (I don't have a PC, so I > can't make a recommendation, but they are out there). That might be worth > checking into to verify if a sane System Folder is present. I'll try that. > Also, I'm assuming the SCSI ID on the CD-ROM is something sane. I tried 2, 3, and 5. It has the normal push-button id selector. brian From brianlanning at gmail.com Sun Jun 14 21:55:13 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:55:13 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <4A35B011.7020507@vaxen.net> References: <200906150124.n5F1OWn2017214@floodgap.com> <4A35B011.7020507@vaxen.net> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906141955x209928a4nf9f8d23cae8ecdd9@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 9:21 PM, Doc wrote: > ? Or the terminator is bad, I think I have another one. When the machine was working, it seemed to correctly scan the scsi bus. >or if it's external, he's using an Iomega > 25->50-pin "SCSI" cable.... It's a generic db-25 to centronics scsi cable. brian From dan at ekoan.com Sun Jun 14 22:16:57 2009 From: dan at ekoan.com (Dan Veeneman) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:16:57 -0400 Subject: Intersil programmer, was Re: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A35BD29.20707@ekoan.com> Speaking of Intersil programming, does anyone have any documentation for an Intersil model 5601-C device, identified as a "constant current programmer"? The Intersil calibration (!) sticker shows a date in 1975. Photos at http://www.decodesystems.com/help-wanted/index.html#intersil-5601 Thanks! --Dan William Donzelli wrote: > I have a friend that is repairing some video equipment and he needs > some *odd* EPROMs. They are Intersil IM6654 (I think) - but they are > the obscure 10 Volt variant. > > He has the chips, but he has not been able to find a programmer that > can handle these. Anyone? > > -- > Will > From tiggerlasv at aim.com Sun Jun 14 23:23:48 2009 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:23:48 -0400 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive Message-ID: <8CBBB8836CDC0C8-17E8-32C0@webmail-dd15.sysops.aol.com> A while back, I posted instructions for making a cable to go directly from an RQDX controller to RX33's an RX50's. While I didn't test it with more than 2 drives, I don't see why it wouldn't support 4 drives. For some reason (possibly my mail editor), the archive copy had ?'s in place of _spaces_ so I am reposting it below. ----------------------------------------------- If anyone is interested, here are the pinouts, and instructions for constructing such a cable. The instructions were created with the lay-person in mind. Copying this text into Windows Notepad should restore proper formatting. This cable was constructed using a BA23 distribution panel as a guide, and has been tested with both RX50's and RX33's, attached to an RQDX3. Cable diagram: Floppy RQDX Description --------------------------------- 1 21 Gnd 2 22 Density Select --------------------------------- 3 NC (Cut) 4 NC (Cut) 5 NC (Cut) --------------------------------- 6 24 Drive Select 4 7 25 Gnd 8 26 Index 9 NC 10 28 Drive Select 1 --------------------------------- 11 NC (Cut) 12 29 Drive Select 2 13 NC (Cut) --------------------------------- 14 30 Drive Select 3 15 NC 16 32 Floppy Motor 17 33 Gnd 18 34 Direction 19 35 Gnd 20 36 Step 21 37 Gnd 22 38 Floppy Write Data 23 39 Gnd 24 40 Write Gate 25 41 Gnd 26 42 Track 0 --------------------------------- 27 NC (Cut) 28 8 Write Fault --------------------------------- 29 45 Gnd 30 46 Floppy Read Data 31 47 Gnd 32 48 Head Select 0 33 49 Gnd 34 50 Ready Stuff you'll need: 1.) A suitable length of 34-conductor ribbon cable. Make sure you have enough wire to reach the controller, and enough slack on the other end to allow the drives to slide out of the bay. Add 6" onto this measurement. 2.) A 50-pin IDC-style "Berg" connector for the RQDXn. 3.) A 34-pin IDC-style "Berg" connector for an RX50. 4.) One or two 34-pin IDC-style card-edge connectors for RX33's. What to do: 1.) Split one end of the ribbon cable as follows. DON'T separate ALL of the wires individually; keep them paired! Peel each grouping of conductors back about 4 or 5 inches. 1,2 ------------- 3,4,5 ------------- 6 through 10 ------------- 11,12,13 ------------- 14 through 26 ------------- 27,28 ------------- 29 through 34 2.) Cut conductors 3, 4, 5, 11, 13, and 27. They won't be used, and there won't be a convenient place to terminate them on the connector. These wires will need to be insulated at some point. If you have wide plastic sleeving, then put a section of it onto the cable. Heat shrink will NOT work well. A simple loop of electrical tape should suffice. 3.) Conductor 28 needs to be fairly long, since it lands on the opposite side of the 50-pin connector. Trim about 3 inches off ALL of the OTHER wires. 4.) Using a pair of needle-nose pliers, REMOVE the following contacts from the 50-pin IDC connector: 7, 9, 19, 20, 23, 27, 31, 43, and 44. This will prevent certain RQDXn signal lines from being inadvertently grounded, and will help properly identify your landing positions for some of the connections. 5.) Line up the ribbon cable with the connector, and check to make sure that conductor 28 is long enough to reach across the cable, without placing it under any strain. 6.) Press the ribbon cable onto the 50-pin IDC connector. Refer to the chart at the top of this text; You'll see that they are grouped exactly as they should sit on the actual connector, with the exception of conductor 28. Note that SOME groupings start on ODD connector numbers, and some start on EVEN numbers. 7.) If you haven't done so already, refer back to step 2, and insulate the wires that were cut, to prevent them from shorting-out against the chassis. 8.) Determine where you need your floppy connectors, and press the connectors onto the 34-pin cable. Make sure that you observe the position of Pin 1. I made a "Universal cable" for my BA123. It has a 34-pin berg, and TWO card-edge connectors near the end (spaced about 4" apart), and then a THIRD card-edge connector about 10" down. This will allow double-stacked RX33's in a single bay, individual RX33's in separate bays, or a single RX50. 9.) Test, and enjoy ! From hachti at hachti.de Sun Jun 14 23:33:11 2009 From: hachti at hachti.de (Philipp Hachtmann) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:33:11 +0200 Subject: PDP-8/L on eBay In-Reply-To: <4A3155C7.6080105@update.uu.se> References: <4A3127E1.1000904@hachti.de> <4A3155C7.6080105@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <4A35CF07.6090402@hachti.de> > I wonder if posting about it on this list is a good idea :) Maybe people > will be nice cause they know you need the spares (as you do). Or it will > alert a lot other interrested buyers. Don't think so... See the "canned eBay search" thing below. So I was not afraid. > Good luck though! Thanks! From hachti at hachti.de Sun Jun 14 23:36:30 2009 From: hachti at hachti.de (Philipp Hachtmann) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:36:30 +0200 Subject: PDP-8/L on eBay In-Reply-To: References: <4A3127E1.1000904@hachti.de> Message-ID: <4A35CFCE.2070904@hachti.de> > At least the core stack is there. That and certain components of the > G-series modules are somewhat difficult to obtain as spares. Exactly. And I have those three machines... But... > It looked interesting to me just because I have a pile of M-series > logic and a spare PSU from a broken and gutted -8/L I got when I was > 16 (it was missing the plexi, the core stack, the front steel > backplane support member was detached from one side of the chassis, > and a few of the backplane pins were broken off due to rough handling > before I got it). Hm, but without front panel? > I probably have everything on hand (including M220 > modules) to get the one in the auction working, but I'd have to dig > deep into my pile of M-series modules awaiting diagnosis and repair > (including those M220 modules). Given what I've seen over the years > on these particular machines, testing for defective 7440s and 7474s > will identify 80% or more of the bad components. Yes, The 7440s are highly suspect, as a short series of tests immediately revealed... :-) > I'm mildly interested in the one in the auction, but not so interested > as to run the price sky-high. Hm, where begins the sky? For me, as I'm overseas, the sky begins already at $1,- :-( So I will see how far it goes. From spedraja at ono.com Mon Jun 15 01:42:03 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:42:03 +0200 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: <8CBBB8836CDC0C8-17E8-32C0@webmail-dd15.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CBBB8836CDC0C8-17E8-32C0@webmail-dd15.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: Thanks ! But I have one question in addition... Are we speaking about a DIRECT connection of the RX33 to the RQDX3, or we should need to use the BA23 distribution board (or other) ? Regards Sergio 2009/6/15 > > A while back, I posted instructions for making a cable > to go directly from an RQDX controller to RX33's an RX50's. > > While I didn't test it with more than 2 drives, > I don't see why it wouldn't support 4 drives. > > For some reason (possibly my mail editor), > the archive copy had ?'s in place of _spaces_ > so I am reposting it below. > From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Mon Jun 15 05:31:25 2009 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:31:25 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM References: , <001701c9ed47$ace52890$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A352A6F.7308.5EC1B3A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> I think it is highly unlikely that the Vcc in his circuit is anything but 5 VDC. The designer would have to be a real dumbass to do otherwise.... Besides, it's easy enough to measure and remove all doubt... I recommended a 27C16 not a 2716 ( and yes I know the Vcc is the same ). Best regards, Steven ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 4:50 PM Subject: Re: Intersil EPROM > On 14 Jun 2009 at 16:27, Scanning wrote: > > > If it is to fix the equipment, I would suggest using a 27C16 and make > > the necessary pin adjustments in a homemade carrier ( two 24 pin > > sockets plugged into each other with the necessary pinout adjustments, > > i.e. unnecessary address pins tied to ground, etc... ). Looks like a > > standard JEDEC pinout. > > Can one operate a 2716 with +10 volts for Vcc? The datasheet seems > to say that the limit for Vcc on the Inmos part is +11v/(10v > nominal). > > This is really odd as I was cleaning out some stuff the other day and > I came across three big 3-ring binders from about 1990 titled "The > Modern IC Databook" from WEKA. It was a subscription service where > updates would be sent out monthly and you'd go through the hell of > "Remove page A-324 and substitute pages A-324 and A324a..." > Included was a service for reseraching unknown ICs--just give them a > call and get a FAX a few days later. > > At any rate, I was leafing through the "Memory" section and came > across the aforementioned CMOS EPROMs. My reaction was "Why, in > 1991, would anyone even care about such antiquated parts?" I guess > Will answered that one. > > > --Chuck From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 07:57:32 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:57:32 +0100 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <200906141439.n5EEdhtY014508@floodgap.com> References: <575131af0906140531y7e726cbfq38dbb7009d90f401@mail.gmail.com> <200906141439.n5EEdhtY014508@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906150557r7b2c17f7r5e3ad6ee28d9d9f5@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/14 Cameron Kaiser : >> Leopard (10.5) requires a /G4/ of at least 867MHz. The kernel is >> compiled against a G4 and will not boot on a G3. The check can be >> bypassed with an app called LeopardAssist or an OpenFirmware hack. > > Compiling against a G4 implies there is AltiVec (without a non-AltiVec > option) code in the kernel. To my knowledge the Leopard kernel does > not have such a dependency; where did you see this? > > Not that I advise bothering with Leopard on a G3, mind you :) This has been discussed at very considerable length on the LEM UnsupportedOSX list and it appears to be quite definite; for more info, I'd suggest asking there.. It does not necessarily imply that the kernel uses AltiVec, although I don't find that massively implausible; for instance, the Linux kernel uses MMX and SSE to accelerate software RAID functions. All it implies, AFAICS, is that as it loads the kernel checks that it's on a G4-class or better CPU and aborts if it's not. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jun 15 08:15:03 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:15:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <575131af0906150557r7b2c17f7r5e3ad6ee28d9d9f5@mail.gmail.com> from Liam Proven at "Jun 15, 9 01:57:32 pm" Message-ID: <200906151315.n5FDF39Q016642@floodgap.com> > > > Leopard (10.5) requires a /G4/ of at least 867MHz. The kernel is > > > compiled against a G4 and will not boot on a G3. The check can be > > > bypassed with an app called LeopardAssist or an OpenFirmware hack. > > > > Compiling against a G4 implies there is AltiVec (without a non-AltiVec > > option) code in the kernel. To my knowledge the Leopard kernel does > > not have such a dependency; where did you see this? > > > > Not that I advise bothering with Leopard on a G3, mind you :) > > This has been discussed at very considerable length on the LEM > UnsupportedOSX list and it appears to be quite definite; for more > info, I'd suggest asking there.. It does not necessarily imply that > the kernel uses AltiVec, although I don't find that massively > implausible; for instance, the Linux kernel uses MMX and SSE to > accelerate software RAID functions. All it implies, AFAICS, is that as > it loads the kernel checks that it's on a G4-class or better CPU and > aborts if it's not. I think we're talking two different things here. I have it on reasonably good authority that Leopard will boot on a G3, *if* you install it on a supported machine and swap drives, *or* you fudge OpenFirmware and fool the Installer. I read your post to say that even that configuration won't boot on a G3. Did I misunderstand? If there is an AltiVec dependency in the kernel, then I would imagine that the kernel either would crash outright on a G3, or certain things would break. OTOH, certain things do break under Leopard on a G3, so maybe there's some AltiVec code there after all, just not in the bootstrap. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Perl scripting: the ultimate open source software. ------------------------- From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 08:33:58 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:33:58 -0400 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <001701c9ed47$ace52890$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A352A6F.7308.5EC1B3A@cclist.sydex.com> <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: > I think it is highly unlikely that the Vcc in his circuit is anything but 5 > VDC. It is 10 Volts, apparently. -- Will From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 08:39:43 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:39:43 -0400 Subject: fpga pdp's; [was Re: ...arrogance [was RE: UNIX V7] ] In-Reply-To: <4A32F484.10900@heeltoe.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <4A31528C.7050008@gmail.com> <7d3530220906111756s7ec0de08se7754752b00fdd58@mail.gmail.com> <2E99B362-A56D-463A-8D67-FDA1468E3886@xlisper.com> <7d3530220906111933u78ae151em2d3e209f7dc77116@mail.gmail.com> <22790243-9DDB-4ED7-955A-D968D6EB3E71@shiresoft.com> <21248.1244808265@mini> <4A32BE61.4050602@brouhaha.com> <4A32F484.10900@heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <4A364F1F.3030009@gmail.com> Brad Parker wrote: > Eric Smith wrote: >> Brad Parker wrote: >>> I did a "direct decode" pdp-11 in verilog recently just to see how >>> big it would be (and because I was frustrated with the pop-11 >>> project). It fits nicely & boots RT11 at 50mhz. >> At that speed, surely it hasn't finished booting RT11 yet! > sorry, I don't get the joke. clock is 50mhz, or 20ns; each state is one > clock and on average > an instruction is 3 states. I calculated 10mips. it seems to boot much > faster than my 11/44 :-) > > what did I miss? MHz vs mHz. Peace... Sridhar From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 08:59:22 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:59:22 +0100 Subject: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3) In-Reply-To: <200906151315.n5FDF39Q016642@floodgap.com> References: <575131af0906150557r7b2c17f7r5e3ad6ee28d9d9f5@mail.gmail.com> <200906151315.n5FDF39Q016642@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <575131af0906150659k25ab7b8eqbda879a709e9b5f0@mail.gmail.com> 2009/6/15 Cameron Kaiser : >> > > Leopard (10.5) requires a /G4/ of at least 867MHz. The kernel is >> > > compiled against a G4 and will not boot on a G3. The check can be >> > > bypassed with an app called LeopardAssist or an OpenFirmware hack. >> > >> > Compiling against a G4 implies there is AltiVec (without a non-AltiVec >> > option) code in the kernel. To my knowledge the Leopard kernel does >> > not have such a dependency; where did you see this? >> > >> > Not that I advise bothering with Leopard on a G3, mind you :) >> >> This has been discussed at very considerable length on the LEM >> UnsupportedOSX list and it appears to be quite definite; for more >> info, I'd suggest asking there.. It does not necessarily imply that >> the kernel uses AltiVec, although I don't find that massively >> implausible; for instance, the Linux kernel uses MMX and SSE to >> accelerate software RAID functions. All it implies, AFAICS, is that as >> it loads the kernel checks that it's on a G4-class or better CPU and >> aborts if it's not. > > I think we're talking two different things here. I have it on reasonably > good authority that Leopard will boot on a G3, *if* you install it > on a supported machine and swap drives, *or* you fudge OpenFirmware and > fool the Installer. I read your post to say that even that configuration > won't boot on a G3. Did I misunderstand? > > If there is an AltiVec dependency in the kernel, then I would imagine that > the kernel either would crash outright on a G3, or certain things would > break. OTOH, certain things do break under Leopard on a G3, so maybe there's > some AltiVec code there after all, just not in the bootstrap. Well, I might be wrong, but I've not heard of this. I've certainly not even tried with either of my G3s. I have heard people managing to coax it into life on G3s *with a G4 upgrade chip* but that is rather different. (Indeed, I've just bought such an upgrade chip to try to turn my old B&W into a Tiger Server.) http://www.lowendmac.com/mail/0807mb/0711.html#43 And then again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su8zWpFOkAM >From the comments to that vid: (note that if you want to to this with your own Beige G3 you will need a G4 upgrade CPU for it, as Leopard was compiled by Apple without G3 support to try and cut off these awesome old machines and make Leopard an impossibility on them) I only have hearsay & circumstantial evidence, but all I've read and got from Googling is that you need a G4 chip. AGP graphics and things can be worked around using extra drivers and things - which is /far/ too much work for me - but that the G4 spec. can't be. I'd be quite happy to be proved wrong on this one, though. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 10:11:32 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:11:32 -0400 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > When I worked at IBM a couple of years ago (doing rather dull tech > support stuff) I worked out that the password rules (something like > "eight to ten characters, two to four upper-case letters and two to four > digits not in the first, second, second-to-last or last position") > yielded about 1000 valid passwords... IBM *never* had password rules like that. It's "eight or more, at least one alphabetic, at least one non-alphabetic". It used to be "eight or more, at least one non-alphabetic, can't begin or end with a non-alphabetic". Of course, GSD331 had its own weird requirements, but those are, by no means, IBM's official rules for internal passwords. Peace... Sridhar From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jun 15 10:27:24 2009 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:27:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 15 Jun 2009, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> When I worked at IBM a couple of years ago (doing rather dull tech >> support stuff) I worked out that the password rules (something like >> "eight to ten characters, two to four upper-case letters and two to four >> digits not in the first, second, second-to-last or last position") >> yielded about 1000 valid passwords... > > IBM *never* had password rules like that. > > It's "eight or more, at least one alphabetic, at least one non-alphabetic". > It used to be "eight or more, at least one non-alphabetic, can't begin or end > with a non-alphabetic". > > Of course, GSD331 had its own weird requirements, but those are, by no means, > IBM's official rules for internal passwords. > For the systems that don't have short password fields, would'nt pass phrases be more secure? g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 10:36:02 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:36:02 -0400 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> Gene Buckle wrote: >>> When I worked at IBM a couple of years ago (doing rather dull tech >>> support stuff) I worked out that the password rules (something like >>> "eight to ten characters, two to four upper-case letters and two to four >>> digits not in the first, second, second-to-last or last position") >>> yielded about 1000 valid passwords... >> >> IBM *never* had password rules like that. >> >> It's "eight or more, at least one alphabetic, at least one >> non-alphabetic". It used to be "eight or more, at least one >> non-alphabetic, can't begin or end with a non-alphabetic". >> >> Of course, GSD331 had its own weird requirements, but those are, by no >> means, IBM's official rules for internal passwords. > > For the systems that don't have short password fields, would'nt pass > phrases be more secure? Yes, but spaces count as "non-alphabetic characters". So, they would meet the rules anyway. Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 15 10:59:02 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:59:02 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: , <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <4A360D56.17882.9626BC6@cclist.sydex.com> On 15 Jun 2009 at 3:31, Scanning wrote: > I think it is highly unlikely that the Vcc in his circuit is anything > but 5 VDC. The designer would have to be a real dumbass to do > otherwise.... Besides, it's easy enough to measure and remove all > doubt... I recommended a 27C16 not a 2716 ( and yes I know the Vcc is > the same ). Consider the age of this piece of gear. If it uses old-style (4000 series) CMOS for other things, the use of a 10 volt Vdd/Vcc has advantages--increased speed and noise immunitity being the chiefest. Would this piece of equipment be too new to use HTL? --Chuck From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jun 15 11:04:38 2009 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:04:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 15 Jun 2009, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Gene Buckle wrote: >>> means, IBM's official rules for internal passwords. >> >> For the systems that don't have short password fields, would'nt pass >> phrases be more secure? > > Yes, but spaces count as "non-alphabetic characters". So, they would meet > the rules anyway. > I wonder why more people don't advocate for that. Remembering something like "Molly slings the booze." would be a damn sight easier than "1dGhs!z2". g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 11:34:22 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:34:22 -0400 Subject: Unusual semi-modern DEC terminal - "MT 505"? Message-ID: Hi, All, I'm going through piles of stuff at FreeGeek Columbus, identifying odd stuff (since most of the volunteers are really only trained on commodity PC hardware). We have a pile of DEC terminals and X Terms from a local car dealer. The VT220s are, of course, easy to plug in and test. There is another terminal, though, that's clearly of DEC origin, but I can't find how to get into 'setup' mode. The terminals are marked on the front "505 MT", and on the back, the DEC label says something like "VT-42 - 505 MT". Physically, they look newer than a VT220 and sort-of resemble a Wyse 50. When powering them on, they appear to have some sort of graphic video memory test on startup. The same LK-series keyboard (not an LK-201, but something in the LK-4xx line) that works find with the VT220s does not give me the setup menu on the 505 MT from pressing F3. >From interpreting the 2-3 labels on the top, back and sometimes sides, it wouldn't surprise me that these are VT-420s with some sort of custom firmware for an ADP system of some kind. I've done some googling, but haven't turned up much except for replacement prices. All of these terminals are dirty and the plastic yellowed with age/UV exposure, but once I get them all checked out, FreeGeek Columbus is interested in selling them for a nominal amount (under $50). There are no keyboards or power cords, and they will all need to be cleaned, but I can say that each one sold will be tested (by me) to work with an LK-series keyboard and have stable video (VT220s have a common fault that takes out horizontal hold) and working serial line drivers (tested with a loopback plug). If anyone recognizes a "505 MT" variant of a VT420 and especially knows how to get into setup, I'd love to hear from you. If anyone is interested in one of these terminals (sans keyboard), I'd love to hear from you on that, too. FreeGeek Columbus would like to place these terminals into loving homes and not have to scrap them. Thanks, -ethan From dgahling at hotmail.com Mon Jun 15 12:13:37 2009 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:13:37 -0400 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> Message-ID: because it doesn't work. most systems don't accept spaces. and if we're talking windows, a password like that might only take a few minutes to crack. run a regular alpha-only pass with 0phcrack, it'll show the characters as it's cracking, so the words will show up, the spaces and punctuation would show as "?" but easy to guess. once you have the encrypted password, cracking it is easy. actually i'm not even sure if windows allows spaces in passwords either. > Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:04:38 -0700 > From: geneb at deltasoft.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) > > On Mon, 15 Jun 2009, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > > Gene Buckle wrote: > >>> means, IBM's official rules for internal passwords. > >> > >> For the systems that don't have short password fields, would'nt pass > >> phrases be more secure? > > > > Yes, but spaces count as "non-alphabetic characters". So, they would meet > > the rules anyway. > > > > I wonder why more people don't advocate for that. Remembering something > like "Molly slings the booze." would be a damn sight easier than > "1dGhs!z2". > > g. > > > -- > Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 > http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. > > ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment > A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. > http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! _________________________________________________________________ Attention all humans. We are your photos. Free us. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9666046 From brianlanning at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 12:25:15 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:25:15 -0500 Subject: cool article Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906151025u40956e43hba9499713868fa97@mail.gmail.com> I'm particularly impressed with the TI-99/4A in problem #13 http://technologizer.com/2009/06/14/fifteen-classic-pc-design-mistakes/ From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 12:50:45 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:50:45 -0400 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <4A360D56.17882.9626BC6@cclist.sydex.com> References: <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A360D56.17882.9626BC6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > Consider the age of this piece of gear. ?If it uses old-style (4000 > series) CMOS for other things, the use of a 10 volt Vdd/Vcc has > advantages--increased speed and noise immunitity being the chiefest. > > Would this piece of equipment be too new to use HTL? I understand this is a piece of RCA video equipment from the late 1970s, with custom LSI. Perhaps it was designed by one of the guys that was pushing higher voltage CMOS designs of the era. -- Will From spedraja at ono.com Mon Jun 15 13:05:31 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:05:31 +0200 Subject: cool article In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906151025u40956e43hba9499713868fa97@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906151025u40956e43hba9499713868fa97@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: He, he, he... I can't stop... he, he, he... but the #15 is a great candidate to the gold medal... 2009/6/15 Brian Lanning > I'm particularly impressed with the TI-99/4A in problem #13 > > http://technologizer.com/2009/06/14/fifteen-classic-pc-design-mistakes/ > From pontus at update.uu.se Mon Jun 15 13:34:39 2009 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:34:39 +0200 Subject: Unusual semi-modern DEC terminal - "MT 505"? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A36943F.8020003@update.uu.se> I'm sorry for hi-jacking this topic but, > (VT220s have a common fault that takes out horizontal hold) I think my VT220 has this problem, is there any documentation regarding diagnosing and fixing this problem? I have search to no avail. cheers, Pontus From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 15 13:35:09 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:35:09 -0700 Subject: cool article In-Reply-To: References: <6dbe3c380906151025u40956e43hba9499713868fa97@mail.gmail.com>, Message-ID: <4A3631ED.11961.9F15A4A@cclist.sydex.com> Brian Lanning wrote: > I'm particularly impressed with the TI-99/4A in problem #13 > > http://technologizer.com/2009/06/14/fifteen-classic-pc-design-mistakes I didn't follow the TI 99/4 home computer and don't remember much from it (other than it was sold at the TI retail stores. Was the reason for the design perhaps an intentional crippling of the consumer device because of perceived sales threat to the TI 990/4 (and later) minis that used the same TMS9900 chip? --Chuck From rodsmallwood at btconnect.com Mon Jun 15 13:37:17 2009 From: rodsmallwood at btconnect.com (Rod Smallwood) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:37:17 +0100 Subject: Unusual semi-modern DEC terminal - "MT 505"? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It would not have been unusual for DEC to have sold terminals to OEM's who then modified them for their own systems. I did just that whilst working for DEC. We even sold LA36 print mechanisms to a company who added their own electronics and tape reader/punches. Regards Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: 15 June 2009 17:34 To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org Subject: Unusual semi-modern DEC terminal - "MT 505"? Hi, All, I'm going through piles of stuff at FreeGeek Columbus, identifying odd stuff (since most of the volunteers are really only trained on commodity PC hardware). We have a pile of DEC terminals and X Terms from a local car dealer. The VT220s are, of course, easy to plug in and test. There is another terminal, though, that's clearly of DEC origin, but I can't find how to get into 'setup' mode. The terminals are marked on the front "505 MT", and on the back, the DEC label says something like "VT-42 - 505 MT". Physically, they look newer than a VT220 and sort-of resemble a Wyse 50. When powering them on, they appear to have some sort of graphic video memory test on startup. The same LK-series keyboard (not an LK-201, but something in the LK-4xx line) that works find with the VT220s does not give me the setup menu on the 505 MT from pressing F3. >From interpreting the 2-3 labels on the top, back and sometimes sides, it wouldn't surprise me that these are VT-420s with some sort of custom firmware for an ADP system of some kind. I've done some googling, but haven't turned up much except for replacement prices. All of these terminals are dirty and the plastic yellowed with age/UV exposure, but once I get them all checked out, FreeGeek Columbus is interested in selling them for a nominal amount (under $50). There are no keyboards or power cords, and they will all need to be cleaned, but I can say that each one sold will be tested (by me) to work with an LK-series keyboard and have stable video (VT220s have a common fault that takes out horizontal hold) and working serial line drivers (tested with a loopback plug). If anyone recognizes a "505 MT" variant of a VT420 and especially knows how to get into setup, I'd love to hear from you. If anyone is interested in one of these terminals (sans keyboard), I'd love to hear from you on that, too. FreeGeek Columbus would like to place these terminals into loving homes and not have to scrap them. Thanks, -ethan From chris at mainecoon.com Mon Jun 15 13:42:12 2009 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Christian Kennedy) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:42:12 -0700 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 15, 2009, at 10:13 AM, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > because it doesn't work. > most systems don't accept spaces. Which, of course, is why you omit the spaces and run the words together, making dictionary attacks even more difficult. Let's see how a dictionary attack does with "mytestesare2infestedwithflamingspriochetes4you", shall we? > and if we're talking windows, a password like that might only take a > few minutes to crack. Gene's original posting was restricted to systems that don't have short password fields; in such systems long passphrases of vaguely (or patently) offensive words are both easier to remember and harder to crack than shorter passwords of random characters. Even with its restriction of what? 128 characters? Windows would allow for the use of such constructs. -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jun 15 13:44:41 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:44:41 -0700 Subject: cool article In-Reply-To: <4A3631ED.11961.9F15A4A@cclist.sydex.com> References: <6dbe3c380906151025u40956e43hba9499713868fa97@mail.gmail.com>, <4A3631ED.11961.9F15A4A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A369699.9040909@bitsavers.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Was the reason for the design perhaps an intentional crippling of the > consumer device yup. The memory interface was seriously broken. From brianlanning at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 13:46:46 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:46:46 -0500 Subject: cool article In-Reply-To: <4A3631ED.11961.9F15A4A@cclist.sydex.com> References: <6dbe3c380906151025u40956e43hba9499713868fa97@mail.gmail.com> <4A3631ED.11961.9F15A4A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906151146l4bdfe80dnc61ebdc423c0d48d@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I didn't follow the TI 99/4 home computer and don't remember much > from it (other than it was sold at the TI retail stores. > > Was the reason for the design perhaps an intentional crippling of the > consumer device because of perceived sales threat to the TI 990/4 > (and later) minis that used the same TMS9900 chip? Not sure about the TI, but that line of thinking was definitely behind some of the other machines, the PCjr for example. How many times, even recently, have we heard that a certain CPU or computer design was only for servers? From dgahling at hotmail.com Mon Jun 15 14:09:40 2009 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:09:40 -0400 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> Message-ID: yeah that doesn't work either. a hard password of lesser length is harder to crack. windows doesn't have 128 character passwords AFAIK (I could be wrong), but it also has a well-known algorithm, check out 0phcrack or the new version of L0phtCrack, they will show portions of the password as they crack, allowing you to more easily "guess" passwords as it's running. I remember a password that was "AAAA####" and the program showed the alphabetic part, was working on the numeric showing "????" but because the alpha part shown was "Indy", I guessed the #s was a year, therefore I had the password in less than 30 seconds. so that long password, the program will show portions of the text as it's running, allowing you to "guess" the password before it completes. Dan. > From: chris at mainecoon.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) > Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:42:12 -0700 > > > On Jun 15, 2009, at 10:13 AM, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > > > > because it doesn't work. > > most systems don't accept spaces. > > Which, of course, is why you omit the spaces and run the words > together, making dictionary attacks even more difficult. Let's see how > a dictionary attack does with > "mytestesare2infestedwithflamingspriochetes4you", shall we? > > > and if we're talking windows, a password like that might only take a > > few minutes to crack. > > Gene's original posting was restricted to systems that don't have > short password fields; in such systems long passphrases of vaguely (or > patently) offensive words are both easier to remember and harder to > crack than shorter passwords of random characters. Even with its > restriction of what? 128 characters? Windows would allow for the use > of such constructs. > > -- > Chris Kennedy > chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP > http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 > PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 > "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ Internet explorer 8 lets you browse the web faster. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9655582 From chris at mainecoon.com Mon Jun 15 14:48:33 2009 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Christian Kennedy) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:48:33 -0700 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 15, 2009, at 12:09 PM, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > yeah that doesn't work either. > a hard password of lesser length is harder to crack. The definition of "hard password" is generally one that is resistant to dictionary or social attack. By that definition you've failed to demonstrate that the passphrase I supplied in my previous example is any more vulnerable that "C0pp3rB0tt0m" or "i013ac$Z". In the absence of the ability to conduct a successful dictionary attack the difficulty of brute-forcing a passsphrase is a direct function of the length of the passphrase and the character space from which the passphrase is chosen. In such a context passphrases have a clear advantage, as it's easier for humans to remember sequences of words as opposed to semi-random collections of characters, thus encouraging a much longer length while discouraging the tendency to write down passwords that are difficult to remember. > windows doesn't have 128 character passwords AFAIK (I could be wrong), > but it also has a well-known algorithm, FWIW, you're the one who introduced Windows into this discussion; Gene's original comment had precisely nothing to do with Windows and while your comments are valid relative to Windows that's not the context for the conversation. > check out 0phcrack or the new version of L0phtCrack, > they will show portions of the password as they crack, > allowing you to more easily "guess" passwords as it's running. You seem to be confusing a bad implementation of the translation of plaintext to cryptotext and the poor storage of said cryptotext with the relative security of passphrases vs. passwords. The two are utterly distinct. > I remember a password that was > "AAAA####" and the program showed the alphabetic part, > was working on the numeric showing "????" > but because the alpha part shown was "Indy", I guessed the #s was a > year, > therefore I had the password in less than 30 seconds. In order to produce a partial password the program in question must either have access to the resulting cryptotext for the password in question or have the Great Karnack module installed which allows it to know things without having any way to know them. For the purposes of the point that Gene raised getting hung up on Windows (or, for that matter, Unix v7 or anything else that makes encrypted authentication information visible) as a counterexample is useless. Any authentication system designed in the past decade by anyone with intelligence exceeding that of a pine martin is going to employ a relatively sophisticated transform (i.e., not crypt() and not an MD5sum) and isn't going to allow you to see the stored cryptotext, meaning that you're actually going to have to submit each password to the system for authentication rather than have some program magically spew it out to you. -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From RichA at vulcan.com Mon Jun 15 14:59:34 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:59:34 -0700 Subject: Thrift Store Finds (was: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3)) In-Reply-To: <4A3481B9.6030103@mail.msu.edu> References: <6dbe3c380906131531h407a17a8u1cde5d743f34a108@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906131843m3de654b7h31f6570e67f4fafe@mail.gmail.com> <4A3481B9.6030103@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: > From: Josh Dersch > Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 9:51 PM > I love thrift stores :). [snip] > For those of you in the Seattle area, RE-PC (in both Seattle and > Tukwila) are fun to browse from time to time, and they generally hold > onto "vintage" computer stuff rather than just scrapping it. Since I > started browsing their stores about two years ago, I've picked up a > number of cool old machines (nothing too rare, but a lot of good 8-bit > stuff, old dumb terminals, and a few things useful on my larger machines > like 9-track drives.) > If you're in the area, drop by and you might find something... The Seattle store is about 6 blocks from the PDPplanet collection. We've used them as a resource over the years for things like KVMs, odd cables, etc. However, the last time I was over there (about 6 weeks ago), all of the interesting stuff was gone, and there was only old PC ordure on the tables. It used to be that you could find interesting Macs for sale, but there was nary a one in the store. > My favorite find, though, was at Boeing surplus just before they shut > down -- found a working HP-67 calculator w/AC adapter for $5. I don't > usually get that lucky :). The card reader even works after all these > years... I wish I'd had the room in my car for, and the guts to explain to my wife about, the HP 9000/8xx server (roughly an 870, but one of the later models with an designation) that had disks, Ethernet, tape drives, etc. etc. usw. ktl., for only $75. A $50K+ machine (as I know from spec'ing them for Cisco in another life) for $75. Damn. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 15 14:54:36 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:54:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: Fast EPROM eraser? In-Reply-To: <4A35660C.4000302@gifford.co.uk> from "John Honniball" at Jun 14, 9 10:05:16 pm Message-ID: > > Eric Smith wrote: > > Though even if you remove the filter or lens, you still won't get that > > much shortwave UV, because the bulb in those is usually in a glass > > envelope, and glass blocks a lot of the shortwave UV. That's why tubes > > made for shortwave UV, and the windows on EPROMs, are made of quartz > > rather than normal glass. > > I have a gadget which erases EPROMs using a flash tube. It is > the Dataman Strobe Eraser, and has a mains-powered flash tube I rememebr seeing adverts for that (and drooling over the S3 and S4 programmers, neither of which I could afford...) > that's similar to a camera flash. You place the tube over the You say it's _similar_ to a camera flash. Do you know of the discharge tube is glass, or is it quartz, which would transmit more UV. > EPROM window, pull the trigger and presumably test that the EPROM > has been erased. If not, give it another burst. The electronics is presumanly pretty simple (even a battery-powered version could, I think, be made with no more than 1 transistor). But if the tube is special (as I suspect it is), making a similar device is a non-starter. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 15 15:22:07 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:22:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: Unusual semi-modern DEC terminal - "MT 505"? In-Reply-To: <4A36943F.8020003@update.uu.se> from "Pontus" at Jun 15, 9 08:34:39 pm Message-ID: > > I'm sorry for hi-jacking this topic but, > > (VT220s have a common fault that takes out horizontal hold) > > I think my VT220 has this problem, is there any documentation regarding > diagnosing and fixing this problem? I have search to no avail. Most of the time it's just a bad contact at the wiper of the horizontal hold preset inside. Take off the terminal cover (extend the 'leg' all the way down, put the terminal on it's screen, take off the 3 (?) plastic caps and undo the screws under them). The horizontal hold preset is marked on the paper cover on the video PCB. Note its position, then turn it several times from one end to the other. Put it back to the original position. Plug the terminal into the mains and power up (you don't need a keyboard). If the picture locks, power down amd put the cover on. If not, turn the horizotnal hold preset until it does, and set it to the middle of the range where the picture is locked. Power down, wait a bit, power up nd check it locks. Then power down again and put the cover on. If you can't get the picture to lock by adjusting the preset, then you have a more tricky fault to find :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 15 15:09:50 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:09:50 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A357B01.3020809@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 14, 9 12:34:41 pm Message-ID: > >> Also, Al had some good points, ESPECIALLY when it comes to mainframish > >> computers. If you are a lover of, just to pick one, a PDP 11/45 > >> machine, if you pass on your love for the machine to a young person, > >> that person becomes a serious competitor for EVERY bit of kit you need, > >> > > > > That seems like a very selfish attidude. I assume you're not saying that > > we shouldn't encourage new people into the hobby since they'll compete > > with us for nice machine. Certainly I don't feel that way at all. > > > No, it's not selfish, it's realistic. Since nobody is adding to the > pool of classic hardware, it can only get smaller over time. And, sure, I am also interested in old clocks and old (valve) radios, and none of the magazies devoted to collecting/restoring those seem to think there's much a problem. The 'pool' of both of those items is surely finite too. I guess if you want a particular model of classic computer you are going to have problems finding it, but there seem to be plenty of classics out there at the momnet if you'll work on just about anything. [...] > But, encouraging others to explore classic SOFTWARE on emulators takes > away nothing from anyone, and in point of fact, will often INCREASE the > number of "toys" for everyone. If someone creates a new emulator, or > scrounges around and finds a boot tape for an O/S that had gone > "missing," EVERYONE can have a copy of it, generally for free. With No it's not free. Even if the emulator software is free, the machine to run it on is not. Period. You have, alas, touched a nerve here, I object to this attitude that 'everybody' has a PC/cellphone/MP3 player/digital camera. I don't, nor do many people I know. In fact for me to be able to run any of the emulators at a sensible speed it would cost me more than I've spent on any one of my classic computers. OK, I was lucky and got many of them before they became collectable, but I've bought interesting machines (to me) in the last year or so for a lot less than I'd spend on a machine to run an emulator. > this branch of the hobby, I have the money and space to take it as far > as I want. I like that. If you enjoy running old software on emulators, great. I am not going to say you're wrong to do so (because you're not) .But I'd rather grab 'scope and soldering iron and dive into a 1970's TTL-built CPU... [...] > > Yes, but the emulator won't allow you to stick in a KM11, put one of the > > CPU boards on an extender and probe arround will single-stepping at the > > clock cycle level. You won't have the fun of replacing a disk head and > > doing the alingment. You won't have to chase grants up and down the > > backplane. > > > > I thought I was up on Brit tech-speak, but "grants" is one I don't > know. What are "grants?" This isn't a specifically Brit term. I am refering to the 'bus grant' and 'non processor grant' signals on a DEC Unibus (or Q-bus) backplane. The former are used for interrupts, the latter for DMA transfers. These signals are not bussed to all the cards in the machine, rather they are passed on from on card to the next. If a slot is empty, you have to put a 'grant continuity card' in that slot to connect the grant-in to grant-out lines on that slot so that grant is passed on to the next card in the machine/ And as people who run the real hardware will (I think) confirm,, an 'open grant chain' (where the signal is not passed on correctly, either because you've forgotten the grant continuity card, or on a Unibus machine forgetten a little wire-wrapped jumper on the backplane) is a prime cause of problems. > True enough, Tony, but with the right emulator, I CAN single step, and Aingle-step instructiosn, possibly. But single-step the CPU microcode? And at a clock cycle level (even lower than microcode)? I've not seen an emulator thart does that (it's possible, of course). > examine register contents, and so on. And I don't HAVE to repair the > hardware to keep it going. I used to maintain a mailing list on a Crazy as it sounds, I like finding hardware faults. It's like solving puzzles... -tony From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jun 15 15:59:19 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:59:19 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <83F4D93C-A3BC-4323-B4CF-EB558DCF5853@neurotica.com> On Jun 15, 2009, at 4:09 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> examine register contents, and so on. And I don't HAVE to repair the >> hardware to keep it going. I used to maintain a mailing list on a > > Crazy as it sounds, I like finding hardware faults. It's like solving > puzzles... I'm right there with you. I use emulators all the time, but they are not the end-all/be-all of classic computing. I think a lot of people don't realize that there is value (historic value, fun, personal satisfaction, etc) in the hardware as well. For me, and probably you as well, it's more about the hardware than anything else. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jun 15 16:06:15 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:06:15 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A341444.1000702@databasics.us> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20090610212840.04550c38@mail.threedee.com> <4A316375.7000209@gmail.com> <2425F5F1-5C08-43CE-989D-0E2240ECA2BE@mail.msu.edu> <4A31F6A9.7000906@databasics.us> <3C2F3176-C992-4A35-8030-7AB9A4D93430@neurotica.com> <4A32582A.6030301@databasics.us> <5CEE9C60-718F-4296-A336-4B22083D647D@neurotica.com> <4A341444.1000702@databasics.us> Message-ID: On Jun 13, 2009, at 5:04 PM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >> Well don't get me wrong, I'm not poo-pooing emulators. I use >> them all the time. I just don't find them to be a replacement for >> real hardware. :) > > True enough. They certainly don't WEIGH as much, for instance... > That all depends on what you run them on. Muahhahaa! B-) (I will run simh on my employer's E10K, just because I can!) > So, long story short, while I certainly share the fun inherent in > the hardware, it simply MUST be a hobby that dies out, unless one > is a museum curator. Or a preservationist, like many of us here. But I do see, and agree with, your point. > Software classic computing could be a steadily growing field, only > needing interest from new people to expand. Do I need to enumerate > the benefits? Shipping a copy of your disk pack to someone in an e- > mail, instead of calling Craters and Freighters, is a huge > advantage, in both time and money. Well I dunno...Can something truly be called an advantageous approach when it doesn't accomplish the same goal? You are assuming that the only point of classic computing is software. That just isn't so. It boils down to what one is interested in. > There are lots of similar benefits. I'm just lucky I am *more* > interested in the process of running the software as I used to do, > rather than in climbing into the machines. I cannot afford much of > the latter, in time, money, or space. Yes, you are lucky that your interests coincide with your lifestyle's ability to support them. I bought a bigger house, three times in a row, because I love PDP-11s. (well, that wasn't the ONLY reason, but it was a big part of each decision) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 15 16:11:41 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:11:41 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <83F4D93C-A3BC-4323-B4CF-EB558DCF5853@neurotica.com> References: , <83F4D93C-A3BC-4323-B4CF-EB558DCF5853@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A36569D.32223.A80A98B@cclist.sydex.com> On 15 Jun 2009 at 16:59, Dave McGuire wrote: > I'm right there with you. I use emulators all the time, but they > are not the end-all/be-all of classic computing. I think a lot of > people don't realize that there is value (historic value, fun, > personal satisfaction, etc) in the hardware as well. For me, and > probably you as well, it's more about the hardware than anything else. For me, it was the peripherals more than the CPU. Fewer people collect ancient mainframe peripherals, I think. --Chuck From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 15 16:12:37 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:12:37 +0000 (GMT) Subject: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... Message-ID: <810170.64654.qm@web23401.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Yeah, but from what I have heard it will run alot faster :) Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Sat, 13/6/09, Eric Smith wrote: From: Eric Smith Subject: Re: All this talk of Unix and other OSes... To: "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Date: Saturday, 13 June, 2009, 8:09 PM ? ? The 68070 is basically a slightly improved 68000 core (does not have 68020 or later instructions) with a bunch of on-chip I/O. From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jun 15 16:14:38 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:14:38 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A36569D.32223.A80A98B@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <83F4D93C-A3BC-4323-B4CF-EB558DCF5853@neurotica.com> <4A36569D.32223.A80A98B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <48904223-9309-496C-A119-8D61A4256F5E@neurotica.com> On Jun 15, 2009, at 5:11 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I'm right there with you. I use emulators all the time, but they >> are not the end-all/be-all of classic computing. I think a lot of >> people don't realize that there is value (historic value, fun, >> personal satisfaction, etc) in the hardware as well. For me, and >> probably you as well, it's more about the hardware than anything >> else. > > For me, it was the peripherals more than the CPU. Fewer people > collect ancient mainframe peripherals, I think. VERY few, from what I've seen! Someone recently challenged me to design a USB interface for an IBM 3420. If I ever actually find one, I will attempt it. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From IanK at vulcan.com Mon Jun 15 16:27:31 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:27:31 -0700 Subject: TC08 documentation In-Reply-To: <4A2D4808.2070004@bitsavers.org> References: <4A2D4808.2070004@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow > Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 10:19 AM > To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: TC08 documentation > > Ian King wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > It appears from sequence numbers that the online copy of the TC08 > Maintenance Manual might be missing that page. > > It looks like the even numbered schematic pages may all be missing. > I'm checking to see if I forgot to scan them. > As we were working the past couple of days on cataloguing of a bunch of manuals we acquired, we found we have the original TC08 maintenance manual - and the schematics are numbered with *only odd page numbers*. So your scan is complete, Al. :-) -- Ian From lists at databasics.us Mon Jun 15 16:39:31 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:39:31 -1000 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A36BF93.2050406@databasics.us> Tony Duell wrote: > I am also interested in old clocks and old (valve) radios, and none of > the magazies devoted to collecting/restoring those seem to think there's > much a problem. The 'pool' of both of those items is surely finite too. It's just a matter of degree. I suspect there were very many more valve radios produced than classic computers, probably a couple orders of magnitude. However, even those will be, for all practical purposes, gone in time. While it won't have any effect on you or me, run the clock ahead a hundred years... and very little of either will remain. > I guess if you want a particular model of classic computer you are going > to have problems finding it, but there seem to be plenty of classics out > there at the momnet if you'll work on just about anything. > True... but, even WAY old classic computers are less than 50 years old. I mean, is there even someone out there with an IBM 360? > No it's not free. Even if the emulator software is free, the machine to > run it on is not. Period. You have, alas, touched a nerve here, I object > to this attitude that 'everybody' has a PC/cellphone/MP3 player/digital > camera. I don't, nor do many people I know. You've got to look at the numbers... When the IBM PC was first released, fewer than 5% of homes in the U.S. had computers. The number went over 50% in 2000, and has not looked back. Do the math. 10 times as many people have computers now, as did then. If everybody wanted a classic computer, even a personal classic, there aren't enough to go around. More than half of current households have a PC. What percentage have o'scopes? Quite small, I'm sure. The chances of a person being able to run an emulator are significantly better than their chances of being able to work on old hardware and fix it. And, for those who do not have the requisites, what is the cost? What's the cost of an old PC machine? I see them all the time for less than $100. What's the cost of an electronics shop? I spent thousands, and was still lacking many items. It's clearly true that not EVERYBODY has any of the items you list. However, most people have access to most of them, and the percentages keep rising. > In fact for me to be able to run any of the emulators at a sensible speed > it would cost me more than I've spent on any one of my classic computers. > OK, I was lucky and got many of them before they became collectable, but > I've bought interesting machines (to me) in the last year or so for a lot > less than I'd spend on a machine to run an emulator. > I think you're assuming you need a new machine to run an emulator.... Not true! A five-year-old PC is quite cheap. Not useful in the "speed demon" sense, and not yet "classic," they sit at the nadir of their value. Fish THERE for cost effectiveness. >> this branch of the hobby, I have the money and space to take it as far >> as I want. I like that. >> > > If you enjoy running old software on emulators, great. I am not going to > say you're wrong to do so (because you're not) .But I'd rather grab > 'scope and soldering iron and dive into a 1970's TTL-built CPU... > [...] > And that's fine, Tony. I agree, and I share your affinity for this. But I don't have the resources to indulge my hobbyist desires in this field. I've recently been rudely uprooted, and lost my entire electronics shop. >>> Yes, but the emulator won't allow you to stick in a KM11, put one of the >>> CPU boards on an extender and probe arround will single-stepping at the >>> clock cycle level. You won't have the fun of replacing a disk head and >>> doing the alingment. You won't have to chase grants up and down the >>> backplane. >>> >> I thought I was up on Brit tech-speak, but "grants" is one I don't >> know. What are "grants?" >> > > This isn't a specifically Brit term. I am refering to the 'bus grant' and > 'non processor grant' signals on a DEC Unibus (or Q-bus) backplane. The > former are used for interrupts, the latter for DMA transfers. > Oh. Okay. Thanks. I've not heard it expressed that way. >> True enough, Tony, but with the right emulator, I CAN single step, and >> > > Aingle-step instructiosn, possibly. But single-step the CPU microcode? > And at a clock cycle level (even lower than microcode)? I've not seen an > emulator thart does that (it's possible, of course). > Yes, it's possible. No, I've not seen it. Hey, there might be something you'd enjoy doing in software.... >> examine register contents, and so on. And I don't HAVE to repair the >> hardware to keep it going. I used to maintain a mailing list on a >> > > Crazy as it sounds, I like finding hardware faults. It's like solving > puzzles... > Oh, no, that doesn't sound crazy. I share your interest. I just don't always want to HAVE TO solve problems before I can accomplish something. My current set-up is much more reliable than the IMSAI hardware, mostly because of the 2102 memory. Long ago, I got rid of that, and replaced it with 6116-based memory, and life got much easier in the CP/M world. All I'm saying is that it is much easier to expand the hobby of the software side of classic computing. Also, about half the people don't have to spend ANYTHING to start it. Warren From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jun 15 16:58:33 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:58:33 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <48904223-9309-496C-A119-8D61A4256F5E@neurotica.com> References: , <83F4D93C-A3BC-4323-B4CF-EB558DCF5853@neurotica.com> <4A36569D.32223.A80A98B@cclist.sydex.com> <48904223-9309-496C-A119-8D61A4256F5E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A36C409.4050403@brouhaha.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > Someone recently challenged me to design a USB interface for an IBM > 3420. If I ever actually find one, I will attempt it. Arguably a USB interface to OEMI (bus & tag channel) would be more versatile, but then you'd need a 3803 tape control in addition to the 3420 transport. From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jun 15 17:47:48 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:47:48 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A36BF93.2050406@databasics.us> References: <4A36BF93.2050406@databasics.us> Message-ID: <1134CE6A-E23B-4FF1-8472-E7D02041B4D9@neurotica.com> On Jun 15, 2009, at 5:39 PM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >>> examine register contents, and so on. And I don't HAVE to repair >>> the hardware to keep it going. I used to maintain a mailing list >>> on a >> >> Crazy as it sounds, I like finding hardware faults. It's like >> solving puzzles... >> > > Oh, no, that doesn't sound crazy. I share your interest. I just > don't always want to HAVE TO solve problems before I can accomplish > something. I know you were talking to Tony, but I must interject. Solving problems, and making the machine work, also counts as accomplishing something. For me, and I suspect Tony as well, that's *more* of an accomplishment than, say, firing up WordStar or EDT. Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to explain a point. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jun 15 17:48:13 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:48:13 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A36C409.4050403@brouhaha.com> References: , <83F4D93C-A3BC-4323-B4CF-EB558DCF5853@neurotica.com> <4A36569D.32223.A80A98B@cclist.sydex.com> <48904223-9309-496C-A119-8D61A4256F5E@neurotica.com> <4A36C409.4050403@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <061DC719-E060-4A16-B5FB-FED051E5034A@neurotica.com> On Jun 15, 2009, at 5:58 PM, Eric Smith wrote: >> Someone recently challenged me to design a USB interface for an >> IBM 3420. If I ever actually find one, I will attempt it. > > Arguably a USB interface to OEMI (bus & tag channel) would be more > versatile, but then you'd need a 3803 tape control in addition to > the 3420 transport. I would love to do that. Perhaps I will eventually. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mjkerpan at kerpan.com Mon Jun 15 18:04:43 2009 From: mjkerpan at kerpan.com (Michael Kerpan) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:04:43 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) Message-ID: <8dd2d95c0906151604g374ed6f1ydc12ecacb3c5a856@mail.gmail.com> Frankly I don't get what this whole fuss is about from either side of the argument. On the one hand, yes, classic hardware is finite and the more people who want it, the higher prices get. But that's the same for ANY vintage item. From baseball cards to Corvettes to classic computers, scaricty is the main driver of pricing for anything that can be collected. But there's also another advantage to people being into classic hardware: greater interest creates more preservation. Unlike, say baseball cards or classic cars, the perceived value of older computers is quite low, except among the dedicated enthusiast community. By expanding the number of people interested in old hardware, the number of old computers picked from the curb at trash day or successfully sold at a yard sale goes up. While this obviously does little to save mainframes and minis, whose owners are usually large corportae and educational institutions that, by and large, have been moving to a common policy where selling hardware for scrap if possible and destroying it before disposal if not are preferable to giving stuff away or even SELLING it to hobbyists, increased interest and awareness in classic hardware can, and probably does, save classic 8 and 16-bit micros from the scrappers all the time. Part two of my rant, about why emulation is also good will have to wait as my shift is over and I need to get home :) Mike From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 18:07:36 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:07:36 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A36569D.32223.A80A98B@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <83F4D93C-A3BC-4323-B4CF-EB558DCF5853@neurotica.com> <4A36569D.32223.A80A98B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A36D438.8060504@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I'm right there with you. I use emulators all the time, but they >> are not the end-all/be-all of classic computing. I think a lot of >> people don't realize that there is value (historic value, fun, >> personal satisfaction, etc) in the hardware as well. For me, and >> probably you as well, it's more about the hardware than anything else. > > For me, it was the peripherals more than the CPU. Fewer people > collect ancient mainframe peripherals, I think. I do. I prefer complete systems. I tend to only have one example of each device though. I can't afford to keep entire tape strings. 8-( Peace... Sridhar From RichA at vulcan.com Mon Jun 15 18:20:33 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:20:33 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A36BF93.2050406@databasics.us> References: <4A36BF93.2050406@databasics.us> Message-ID: > From: Warren Wolfe > Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 2:40 PM > Tony Duell wrote: >>> True enough, Tony, but with the right emulator, I CAN single step, and >> Aingle-step instructiosn, possibly. But single-step the CPU microcode? >> And at a clock cycle level (even lower than microcode)? I've not seen >> an emulator thart does that (it's possible, of course). > Yes, it's possible. No, I've not seen it. Hey, there might be > something you'd enjoy doing in software.... As a matter of fact, this is one of the things that makes VHDL so useful in FPGA-based designs: You have the ability to simulate the entire object down to the clock cycle level, if you think you need to. (The same may be true for Verilog, but we were a VHDL shop.) And a lot of the tools were available for free, so match the typical hobbyist's budget. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From tpeters at mixcom.com Mon Jun 15 19:03:49 2009 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:03:49 -0500 Subject: New communication method, old-school Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20090615190209.027d5f00@localhost> Twitter from your C-64 http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/06/14/0218212/A-Twitter-Client-For-the-Commodore-64 ----- 859. Help you I can! --Yoda --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jun 15 19:14:02 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:14:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20090615190209.027d5f00@localhost> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20090615190209.027d5f00@localhost> Message-ID: On Mon, 15 Jun 2009, Tom Peters wrote: > Twitter from your C-64 > > http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/06/14/0218212/A-Twitter-Client-For-the-Commodore-64 Finally a reason to get a Twitter account! I really need to figure out where I'm going to setup my C-64, there doesn't seem to be any room in my home office at my desk. :-( Zane From keithvz at verizon.net Mon Jun 15 21:48:18 2009 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith Monahan) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:48:18 -0400 Subject: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer Message-ID: <4A3707F2.40400@verizon.net> So in my hunt to find more information on switches I want to clean/replace(that was mentioned in another thread), I took this Brian Instruments Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer apart. I've taken my share of equipment apart, but I can't believe the size of the components inside. Can someone help me make sense of this design? I find no fewer than 4 HUGE transformers: (2) Pacific 0288 DP100-16 (1) Pacific 0288 DP100-28 (1) Pacific 0388 DP30-36 There appear to be (7) terminals on each transformer. Maybe +,-,GND on the primary AC side, and then (4) terminals on the secondary DC side?? I guess all (4) terminals would be the same voltage? I've emailed Pacific for the datasheets --- I doubt they are current products. Then, there are these huge capacitors, (8) Frako 3300uf ones. There are about 20 leds and 20 switches on the front panel, which are not easily accessible from the back side. The front panel has a half dozen 7-segment LEDs. One of the more prominent socketed chips is a Burr-Brown DAC80-CBI-V. (http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheet/BurrBrown/mXrvxzt.pdf) There are a few daughter cards with a bunch of 74LS logic chips. There are other ICs that I can't get to without going deeper into the teardown. There's a decent size fan on the back of the unit for cooling. I guess I'm at a loss for the transformers. Why 4? So that you have separate stable sources of DC power so that the pull from one doesn't affect the others? Can I replace the power circuits with something smaller and newer? The transformers and caps make up easily 1/2 the total size inside the chassis and easily 75% of the weight. Thanks Keith From lists at databasics.us Tue Jun 16 00:36:54 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:36:54 -1000 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <1134CE6A-E23B-4FF1-8472-E7D02041B4D9@neurotica.com> References: <4A36BF93.2050406@databasics.us> <1134CE6A-E23B-4FF1-8472-E7D02041B4D9@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A372F76.1060707@databasics.us> Dave McGuire wrote: > I know you were talking to Tony, but I must interject. Solving > problems, and making the machine work, also counts as accomplishing > something. For me, and I suspect Tony as well, that's *more* of an > accomplishment than, say, firing up WordStar or EDT. > > Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to explain a point. And, honestly, I understand. I will fix hardware for the fun of it myself. But, I'm not so happy if I want to program some 8080 assembly language on, say, my Kaypro, and I can't because the drive has gone down. Then, the problem is a roadblock, not a puzzle. Warren From doc at vaxen.net Tue Jun 16 01:07:15 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:07:15 -0500 (CDT) Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.2.20090615190209.027d5f00@localhost> Message-ID: <4A373659.6090002@vaxen.net> Zane H. Healy wrote: > > I really need to figure out where I'm going to setup my C-64, there doesn't > seem to be any room in my home office at my desk. :-( Right next to your C-128D? Doc From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Tue Jun 16 02:42:04 2009 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:42:04 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM References: , <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A360D56.17882.9626BC6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> Chuck, You are correct sir. I had forgotten about the dark ages of 4000 Series 10 Volt Bulk CMOS. It's all coming back to me now, the night sweats and the flashbacks.... I think I even have a 10 Volt CDP1802 lurking in a drawer somewhere... I've been looking for another 10 Volt CMOS EPROM without any luck. Looks like building a programmer for the parts he has might be the best approach. If we knew the source for the EPROM data we might be able to kludge up a Willem ( sp? ) programmer to program a part.... Best regards, Steven ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 8:59 AM Subject: Re: Intersil EPROM > On 15 Jun 2009 at 3:31, Scanning wrote: > > > I think it is highly unlikely that the Vcc in his circuit is anything > > but 5 VDC. The designer would have to be a real dumbass to do > > otherwise.... Besides, it's easy enough to measure and remove all > > doubt... I recommended a 27C16 not a 2716 ( and yes I know the Vcc is > > the same ). > > Consider the age of this piece of gear. If it uses old-style (4000 > series) CMOS for other things, the use of a 10 volt Vdd/Vcc has > advantages--increased speed and noise immunitity being the chiefest. > > Would this piece of equipment be too new to use HTL? > > --Chuck From emu at e-bbes.com Tue Jun 16 04:09:40 2009 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emu at e-bbes.com) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:09:40 +0200 Subject: am29c111 Message-ID: <20090616110940.kdzn17jqmwccwko0@webmail.opentransfer.com> Anybody out here has a datasheet, manual or application notes ? Thanks From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Tue Jun 16 04:17:58 2009 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:17:58 +0100 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Warren Wolfe On 15 Jun 2009, at 22:58, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > It's just a matter of degree. I suspect there were very many more > valve > radios produced than classic computers, probably a couple orders of > magnitude. Yes, there were only around 150 to 200 of my classic computer made. Imagine the labour in manufacturing 4000+ PCBs with getting on for a hundred hand soldered joints on each. Then wire them all together, add a dozen heavy machines driven by 3/4 horsepower motors, a few hundred power supplies, a few hundred light bulbs, a few hundred cold cathode indicator displays, a dozen control panels, three phase fuse boxes and power filters, a hundred thousand ferrite washers hand threaded with six enamelled wires and the battleship grade frames holding it all and then add on about 60 jacks to support it and over a hundred castors to allow it to be installed or moved. No wonder they cost about a quarter of a million new in 1962. > However, even those will be, for all practical purposes, > gone in time. While it won't have any effect on you or me, run the > clock ahead a hundred years... and very little of either will remain. > > >> I guess if you want a particular model of classic computer you are >> going >> to have problems finding it, but there seem to be plenty of >> classics out >> there at the momnet if you'll work on just about anything. >> > > True... but, even WAY old classic computers are less than 50 years > old. I mean, is there even someone out there with an IBM 360? My machine was killed off by the introduction of the 360, i.e. its older. The ICT1301 was announced 1959 and my one (the first to leave the factory) was shipped in 1962. The IBM 360 was I understand announced in 1965, probably shipped quite soon after. From lists at databasics.us Tue Jun 16 05:48:50 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:48:50 -1000 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A377892.80204@databasics.us> Roger Holmes wrote: > My machine was killed off by the introduction of the 360, i.e. its older. > The ICT1301 was announced 1959 and my one (the first to leave the > factory) was shipped in 1962. > The IBM 360 was I understand announced in 1965, probably shipped quite > soon after. You have the FIRST computer of a type manufactured and shipped in 1962? That is a truly major score. That's freaking HISTORIC. Good lord, do you store it in your house? How much power does it use? Warren From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 16 08:54:25 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:54:25 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A372F76.1060707@databasics.us> References: <4A36BF93.2050406@databasics.us> <1134CE6A-E23B-4FF1-8472-E7D02041B4D9@neurotica.com> <4A372F76.1060707@databasics.us> Message-ID: On Jun 16, 2009, at 1:36 AM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >> I know you were talking to Tony, but I must interject. Solving >> problems, and making the machine work, also counts as >> accomplishing something. For me, and I suspect Tony as well, >> that's *more* of an accomplishment than, say, firing up WordStar >> or EDT. >> >> Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to explain a point. > > And, honestly, I understand. I will fix hardware for the fun of it > myself. But, I'm not so happy if I want to program some 8080 > assembly language on, say, my Kaypro, and I can't because the drive > has gone down. Then, the problem is a roadblock, not a puzzle. Well yes...if it gets in the way of what you want to do at a particular time, absolutely. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jun 16 09:10:39 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:10:39 -0400 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A360D56.17882.9626BC6@cclist.sydex.com> <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 3:42 AM, Scanning wrote: > Chuck, > > You are correct sir. I had forgotten about the dark ages of 4000 Series 10 > Volt Bulk CMOS. It's all coming back to me now, the night sweats and the > flashbacks.... ?I think I even have a 10 Volt CDP1802 lurking in a drawer > somewhere... I have one 1802D in a ceramic package. ISTR it will push to 10V (which is required to take it much above 1MHz). > I've been looking for another 10 Volt CMOS EPROM without any luck. Looks > like building a programmer for the parts he has might be the best approach. > If we knew the source for the EPROM data we might be able to kludge up a > Willem ( sp? ) programmer to program a part.... You don't have to program a CMOS EPROM at 10V Vcc to use it at 10V Vcc. It's not 10V *only*, it should take any voltage in a wide range (the exact min and max Vcc depends on exactly what family the part is from, but 3V-15V is common). Why wouldn't a 27C64 work? (admittedly, I don't have the data sheet in front of me). You'd have to make a pin swabber for the destination machine, but electrically, it's a "C" part, not an "HCT", so I'd expect it to work at 10V, but the datasheet will say for sure. -ethan From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Tue Jun 16 09:29:41 2009 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:29:41 +0100 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: References: <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A360D56.17882.9626BC6@cclist.sydex.com> <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <4A37AC55.1030605@philpem.me.uk> Ethan Dicks wrote: > I have one 1802D in a ceramic package. ISTR it will push to 10V > (which is required to take it much above 1MHz). It's been a while since I powered it up, but I've got a COSMAC Elf somewhere. CDP1802 CPU, CDP1864 "Pixie" graphics chip, 256 bytes of RAM, and a core clock of 1.789773MHz (3.579545MHz divided by 2). The whole board is running on 5V, and works fine. I don't think I ever did anything remotely interesting with it, but it's still a neat toy. -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jun 16 10:49:09 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:49:09 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A37BEF5.9060209@brouhaha.com> Roger Holmes wrote: > The IBM 360 was I understand announced in 1965, probably shipped quite > soon after. IBM announced the series including six models on April 7, 1964, with deliveries of small configurations predicted for third quarter of 1965, and large configurations for the first quarter of 1966. Eric From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jun 16 10:51:09 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:51:09 -0400 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <4A37AC55.1030605@philpem.me.uk> References: <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A360D56.17882.9626BC6@cclist.sydex.com> <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A37AC55.1030605@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Philip Pemberton wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: >> >> I have one 1802D in a ceramic package. ?ISTR it will push to 10V >> (which is required to take it much above 1MHz). > > It's been a while since I powered it up, but I've got a COSMAC Elf > somewhere. CDP1802 CPU, CDP1864 "Pixie" graphics chip, 256 bytes of RAM, and > a core clock of 1.789773MHz (3.579545MHz divided by 2). The whole board is > running on 5V, and works fine. There are newer versions of the 1802 that work fine at NTSC colorburst/2, but back in the late 1970s, ISTR the inexpensive CPUs would only work at like 3V-6V and definitely would not work at 3.57...MHz (I know because I tried using just a colorburst crystal and it didn't go), but OTOH, one of the variants (D? E?) was the fastest available, if you pushed it to +10VDC Vcc. Now, I have plenty of 1802 gear running at 1.789MHz and running fine, but with recently made (1990s) CPU chips. > I don't think I ever did anything remotely interesting with it, but it's > still a neat toy. It's a great toy. I still have my design/programming notebooks from when I was 11-12 years old, learning assembler on a friend's Elf. His was the Quest Elf board (my first one was, too), but with the TIL311s and the switches offboard, via a 24-pin cable. My Elf (which appears on the Yahoo Groups photo page for 'cosmacelf') is in a 2-piece Radio Shack metal project box, with a compatible connector wired in - I used to use my CPU with his external front panel, and I've never rewired my board for local control. The soldering is bad enough (I was just a kid) that I've long contemplated removing all the parts and the crappy sockets and starting fresh (and installing local switches since I no longer have the external front panel). Of course I could just make an external front panel - I did just find some nice C&K paddle switches from some discarded Vaisala gear which will be *perfect* for an Elf... Mostly for me, the 1802 was a learning bed - a place to hack stuff at the gate level and to program in machine code in an environment I could single-step through things. I'm happy to have built a "full-blown" Elf2000 and to have helped debug the Z-machine for ElfOS, but that first Quest Elf, way back, was instrumental in learning to understand how microprocessors work. Besides simple counting programs and switch-flipping programs, I never really did much with the 256-byte Elf, but it was still a great machine. -ethan From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jun 16 10:54:37 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:54:37 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: References: <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A360D56.17882.9626BC6@cclist.sydex.com> <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <4A37C03D.8060202@brouhaha.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > Why wouldn't a 27C64 work? (admittedly, I don't have the data sheet > in front of me). You'd have to make a pin swabber for the destination > machine, but electrically, it's a "C" part, not an "HCT", so I'd > expect it to work at 10V, but the datasheet will say for sure. > The fact that there is a "C" in the part number does mean that it's implemented using *a* CMOS process, but it does not mean that it is a CD4000B-compatible CMOS process. The electrical specifications are in fact more similar to 74HCT than CD4000B. None of the common EPROMs, EEPROMs, or flash memory parts are rated for operation above 6V (and most not above 5.5V, and the most recent ones not above 3.6V), even if they have a "C" in the part number. Eric From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jun 16 11:14:55 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:14:55 -0400 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <4A37C03D.8060202@brouhaha.com> References: <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A360D56.17882.9626BC6@cclist.sydex.com> <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A37C03D.8060202@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 11:54 AM, Eric Smith wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: >> >> Why wouldn't a 27C64 work? ?(admittedly, I don't have the data sheet >> in front of me)... > > The fact that there is a "C" in the part number does mean that it's > implemented using *a* CMOS process, but it does not mean that it is a > CD4000B-compatible CMOS process. ?The electrical specifications are in fact > more similar to 74HCT than CD4000B. Fair enough. As I said, I wasn't staring at the datasheet (I have since checked the Natl Semi 27C16 and agree with you), but I thought it might have been possible. Apparently not. They seem to only be good for low power consumption, not wide-voltage use. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 16 11:42:52 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:42:52 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: , <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <4A37691C.23312.EB0F0A8@cclist.sydex.com> On 16 Jun 2009 at 0:42, Scanning wrote: > You are correct sir. I had forgotten about the dark ages of 4000 > Series 10 Volt Bulk CMOS. It's all coming back to me now, the night > sweats and the flashbacks.... I think I even have a 10 Volt CDP1802 > lurking in a drawer somewhere... I still have my "Solid State Scientific" reference manual for 4000 series CMOS--a slim booklet. Data for each device is displayed in 3 rows--for Vdd of +5, +10 and +15 volts. Performance at +5 was ridiculous; propogation delays in excess of a microsecond for some parts. Performance at +10 and +15 was *much* better. I conculded at the time that, aside from the analogue switches, the family was probably not ready for prime-time deployment at +5v. Considering the speed and very low voltages that modern CMOS enjoys, the evolution has been nothing less than remarkable. > I've been looking for another 10 Volt CMOS EPROM without any luck. > Looks like building a programmer for the parts he has might be the > best approach. If we knew the source for the EPROM data we might be > able to kludge up a Willem ( sp? ) programmer to program a part.... It's probably possible, but it's prudent to count on ruining at least one part in the process of getting the programming algorithm right. Without a supply of sacrificial animals, I don't think I'd want to take this one on. Perhaps there are some fuse-link programmable CMOS ROMs that could be adapted, but most "modern" CMOS memories are rated for +7 volts, tops. --Chuck From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jun 16 12:12:59 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:12:59 -0700 Subject: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer References: <4A3707F2.40400@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4A37D29B.A16C72@cs.ubc.ca> Keith Monahan wrote: > > So in my hunt to find more information on switches I want to > clean/replace(that was mentioned in another thread), I took this Brian > Instruments Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer apart. > > I've taken my share of equipment apart, but I can't believe the size of > the components inside. Can someone help me make sense of this design? > > I find no fewer than 4 HUGE transformers: > > (2) Pacific 0288 DP100-16 > (1) Pacific 0288 DP100-28 > (1) Pacific 0388 DP30-36 > > There appear to be (7) terminals on each transformer. Maybe +,-,GND on > the primary AC side, and then (4) terminals on the secondary DC side?? I > guess all (4) terminals would be the same voltage? > > I've emailed Pacific for the datasheets --- I doubt they are current > products. > > Then, there are these huge capacitors, (8) Frako 3300uf ones. > > There are about 20 leds and 20 switches on the front panel, which are > not easily accessible from the back side. The front panel has a half > dozen 7-segment LEDs. > > One of the more prominent socketed chips is a Burr-Brown DAC80-CBI-V. > (http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheet/BurrBrown/mXrvxzt.pdf) > > There are a few daughter cards with a bunch of 74LS logic chips. There > are other ICs that I can't get to without going deeper into the teardown. > > There's a decent size fan on the back of the unit for cooling. > > I guess I'm at a loss for the transformers. Why 4? So that you have > separate stable sources of DC power so that the pull from one doesn't > affect the others? Can I replace the power circuits with something > smaller and newer? > > The transformers and caps make up easily 1/2 the total size inside the > chassis and easily 75% of the weight. (Pictures are always nice for making such assessments. ("HUGE" may be quite relative to one's experience.)) The number of transformers may have been simply a manufacturing economics issue. A floppy drive analyser is going to be produced in relatively small numbers, and they may have chosen to use 4 off-the-shelf types rather than having one special transformer specced and manufactured. Maximum physical dimensions might even have been an issue. If it's an early analyser targetting 8-inch drives as well as 5-inch, one of the transformers is probably to supply the 24V that some 8-inch drives required. The -16, -28, -36 are probably the secondary voltages. A guess might be: one -16 split-phase rectified for the 5VDC logic, one -16 for 12VDC to the floppies, the -28 for 24VDC to 8-inch floppies, the -36 is weird but it could even be dual-half-wave rectified for +/-12VDC for the logic if such is required internally. 8 3300uF caps doesn't sound excessive for several linear supplies, some of them are probably parrelled. Regarding the 7 terminals, one possibility is they have dual primaries for 120/240 VAC operation. That would eat up 4 terminals, leaving 3 for center-tapped secondary or 2+earth(shield). From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Tue Jun 16 11:24:04 2009 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:24:04 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM References: <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A360D56.17882.9626BC6@cclist.sydex.com> <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <002001c9ee9e$ddbdb290$0201a8c0@hal9000> Ethan, The problem with the original EPROM ( Intersil IM6654 ) is not the Vcc ( 10 Volts, 5 Volts to program ) but that it needs a - 40 VDC to program it. Best regards, Steven ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ethan Dicks" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 7:10 AM Subject: Re: Intersil EPROM On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 3:42 AM, Scanning wrote: > Chuck, > > You are correct sir. I had forgotten about the dark ages of 4000 Series 10 > Volt Bulk CMOS. It's all coming back to me now, the night sweats and the > flashbacks.... I think I even have a 10 Volt CDP1802 lurking in a drawer > somewhere... I have one 1802D in a ceramic package. ISTR it will push to 10V (which is required to take it much above 1MHz). > I've been looking for another 10 Volt CMOS EPROM without any luck. Looks > like building a programmer for the parts he has might be the best approach. > If we knew the source for the EPROM data we might be able to kludge up a > Willem ( sp? ) programmer to program a part.... You don't have to program a CMOS EPROM at 10V Vcc to use it at 10V Vcc. It's not 10V *only*, it should take any voltage in a wide range (the exact min and max Vcc depends on exactly what family the part is from, but 3V-15V is common). Why wouldn't a 27C64 work? (admittedly, I don't have the data sheet in front of me). You'd have to make a pin swabber for the destination machine, but electrically, it's a "C" part, not an "HCT", so I'd expect it to work at 10V, but the datasheet will say for sure. -ethan From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jun 16 12:26:58 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:26:58 -0700 Subject: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer References: <4A3707F2.40400@verizon.net> <4A37D29B.A16C72@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A37D5E1.6B36981@cs.ubc.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > 8 3300uF caps doesn't sound excessive for several linear supplies, some of them > are probably parrelled. ^^^^^^^^^ paralleled Somehow in the morning haze it looked like there were enough consonants in there the first time. From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 16 12:40:41 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:40:41 -0600 Subject: Computer Graphics History Museum Release 0.1: Visible Storage Message-ID: Opening of The Computer Graphics History Museum Release 0.1: Visible Storage When: Friday, June 19th, 2009 9pm - 10:30pm Where: BFS Warehouse 555 South 400 West Salt Lake City, UT 84101 I am pleased to announce the first public opening of the Computer Graphics History Museum in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. The collection of artifacts has moved to a location large enough to permit public viewing. The collection has been accumulated over the past 5 years, with a focus on graphics hardware. Please join us for an opening reception and walk through of the collection in visible storage. Refreshments will be served. Some highlights of the collection: - a wide range of SGI workstations and servers from the Personal Iris 4D/25 through a 4 rack SGI Reality Monster - Tektronix graphics terminals from storage scope terminals like the 4010 and 4014 to raster terminals like the 4105 and 4205. - Evans & Sutherland products: ESV workstations with CDRS 6.0 and Advanced Rendering System, Freedom series graphics accelerators Digistar II Picture System PS/390 ESIG image generator - Aesthedes graphic design system - Control Data Corporation CC545 Console - Megatek graphics terminal with the coolest keyboard you've ever seen -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Tue Jun 16 12:43:27 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:43:27 +0100 Subject: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer In-Reply-To: <4A37D5E1.6B36981@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A3707F2.40400@verizon.net> <4A37D29B.A16C72@cs.ubc.ca> <4A37D5E1.6B36981@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <1245174207.23637.47.camel@elric> On Tue, 2009-06-16 at 10:26 -0700, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > 8 3300uF caps doesn't sound excessive for several linear supplies, some of them > > are probably parrelled. > ^^^^^^^^^ > paralleled > > Somehow in the morning haze it looked like there were enough consonants in > there the first time. > There were, there just weren't enough vowels and one of the consonants was the wrong one. Gordon From ajp166 at verizon.net Tue Jun 16 10:52:17 2009 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (Allison) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:52:17 -0400 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: References: <001901c9eda4$6fe38150$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A360D56.17882.9626BC6@cclist.sydex.com> <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <4A37BFB1.5040901@verizon.net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 3:42 AM, > Scanning wrote: > >> Chuck, >> >> You are correct sir. I had forgotten about the dark ages of 4000 Series 10 >> Volt Bulk CMOS. It's all coming back to me now, the night sweats and the >> flashbacks.... I think I even have a 10 Volt CDP1802 lurking in a drawer >> somewhere... >> > > I have one 1802D in a ceramic package. ISTR it will push to 10V > (which is required to take it much above 1MHz). > That is in error. The 1802D early versions ran to 3.2mhz accoring to the data sheet at 5V. In practice it was more like 3mhz. I have an elf built back when using the 1802D running at 2mhz which was the commonly used frequency. It still works! Allison > >> I've been looking for another 10 Volt CMOS EPROM without any luck. Looks >> like building a programmer for the parts he has might be the best approach. >> If we knew the source for the EPROM data we might be able to kludge up a >> Willem ( sp? ) programmer to program a part.... >> > > You don't have to program a CMOS EPROM at 10V Vcc to use it at 10V > Vcc. It's not 10V *only*, it should take any voltage in a wide range > (the exact min and max Vcc depends on exactly what family the part is > from, but 3V-15V is common). > > Why wouldn't a 27C64 work? (admittedly, I don't have the data sheet > in front of me). You'd have to make a pin swabber for the destination > machine, but electrically, it's a "C" part, not an "HCT", so I'd > expect it to work at 10V, but the datasheet will say for sure. > > -ethan > > From jdr_use at bluewin.ch Tue Jun 16 12:49:19 2009 From: jdr_use at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:49:19 +0200 Subject: Computer Graphics History Museum Release 0.1: Visible Storage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A37DB1F.1020002@bluewin.ch> Richard wrote: > Some highlights of the collection: > (List of interesting hardware snipped.... ) But you missed the Eve's ! Jos From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jun 16 12:56:29 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:56:29 -0700 Subject: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer References: <4A3707F2.40400@verizon.net> <4A37D29B.A16C72@cs.ubc.ca> <4A37D5E1.6B36981@cs.ubc.ca> <1245174207.23637.47.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A37DCCC.3751D215@cs.ubc.ca> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > > On Tue, 2009-06-16 at 10:26 -0700, Brent Hilpert wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > > 8 3300uF caps doesn't sound excessive for several linear supplies, some of them > > > are probably parrelled. > > ^^^^^^^^^ > > paralleled > > > > Somehow in the morning haze it looked like there were enough consonants in > > there the first time. > > > There were, there just weren't enough vowels and one of the consonants > was the wrong one. .. the morning haze still hadn't cleared completely when I stated the correction. From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Tue Jun 16 13:09:40 2009 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:09:40 +0100 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 Jun 2009, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > From: Warren Wolfe > > Roger Holmes wrote: >> My machine was killed off by the introduction of the 360, i.e. its >> older. >> The ICT1301 was announced 1959 and my one (the first to leave the >> factory) was shipped in 1962. >> The IBM 360 was I understand announced in 1965, probably shipped >> quite >> soon after. > > You have the FIRST computer of a type manufactured and shipped in > 1962? Yes that's right. The University of London twisted ICT's arm by saying if they did not fulfil the order, there would not be any undergraduate intake in 1962 and they would make sure everybody knew who was to blame. ICT made an extra prototype machine and shipped it. Every few weeks a group of engineers would come out and spend a day fitting the latest modifications to the prototype to bring it up to date. Students were not allowed anywhere near the machine, it was used purely for administrative purposes, plus putting examination results into grades and printing the pass slips and certificates. On de-commissioning it was offered to some engineering students who ran it as a bureaux come commune (this was the 1960s) on a what customers could afford basis. For instance it handled the membership list of the legalise cannabis movement which could not afford much but did not want their data got at by the authorities. That generated a few problems with the powers that be for the then owners. I bought it from them around 1977. > > That is a truly major score. That's freaking HISTORIC. Good lord, do > you store it in your house? It would not fit in my house. It is in a barn that used to be used for breeding rabbits (there's a job you'd think was easy) until they were wiped out by myxomatosis and the owners went bust. > How much power does it use? 13kVA three phase. It weighs about five tons and occupies 700 square feet. Roger Holmes. > > > > Warren From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 16 13:00:34 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:00:34 -0600 Subject: Computer Graphics History Museum Release 0.1: Visible Storage In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:49:19 +0200. <4A37DB1F.1020002@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: In article <4A37DB1F.1020002 at bluewin.ch>, Jos Dreesen writes: > Richard wrote: > > Some highlights of the collection: > > > (List of interesting hardware snipped.... ) > > But you missed the Eve's ! They'll be there, but hardly anyone will know WTF they are :-) Visible storage isn't too interesting unless you're an uber geek. When things get more restored and refurbished and interactive, then it will be fun to the average person. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 16 13:04:18 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:04:18 -0600 Subject: Unusual semi-modern DEC terminal - "MT 505"? In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:34:22 -0400. Message-ID: In article , Ethan Dicks writes: > The terminals are marked on the front "505 MT", and on the back, the > DEC label says something like "VT-42 - 505 MT". Never heard of either a 505 MT or a VT-42. Sounds like an OEM job as someone else suggested. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Tue Jun 16 13:48:34 2009 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:48:34 +0100 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5A26D3E4-A781-4021-9776-E35AD603FF56@microspot.co.uk> On 16 Jun 2009, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > From: Eric Smith > > Roger Holmes wrote: >> The IBM 360 was I understand announced in 1965, probably shipped >> quite >> soon after. > > IBM announced the series including six models on April 7, 1964, with > deliveries of small configurations predicted for third quarter of > 1965, > and large configurations for the first quarter of 1966. > > Eric > Thanks for the clarification. So 1964-1959 = 5, 1965.75-1962 = 3.75 and 1966-1962 = 4 so the 360 was around 4 years later that the 1301. Wiped the floor with it though. The only thing 1300 had going for it was sterling arithmetic in hardware. In case anyone's interested the programmer could set a register to the ten shillings position. Digits to the left were normal decimal, the digit itself carried at two, the (shilling) digit to the right carried at 10 as normal, and the next digit (pence) to the right carried at 12, digits further to the right carried at 10, so if you wanted to calculate in farthings (quarters of a penny) you could set it up to have two digits to the right of pence. In all this gave the machine a range of plus or minus 4,999,999pounds 19shillings and 11.99pence, or if you didn't want farthings, plus or minus 499,999,999pounds 19shillings and 11pence, which in 1962 was a LOT of money! The Bank of England had a pair of 1301s. Roger Holmes. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 16 12:57:46 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:57:46 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <83F4D93C-A3BC-4323-B4CF-EB558DCF5853@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jun 15, 9 04:59:19 pm Message-ID: > I'm right there with you. I use emulators all the time, but they > are not the end-all/be-all of classic computing. I think a lot of > people don't realize that there is value (historic value, fun, > personal satisfaction, etc) in the hardware as well. For me, and > probably you as well, it's more about the hardware than anything else. Certainly for me. As I've said many times I am _not_ primarily interested in computers or programming. I am interested in electronics (and mechancial engineering). Classic computers are of interest to me becuase they are interesting complicated-but-still-understandable electronic systems, often with some interesting mechanical bits (disk drives, printers, etc). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 16 13:13:49 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:13:49 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A36BF93.2050406@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 15, 9 11:39:31 am Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > I am also interested in old clocks and old (valve) radios, and none of > > the magazies devoted to collecting/restoring those seem to think there's > > much a problem. The 'pool' of both of those items is surely finite too. > It's just a matter of degree. I suspect there were very many more valve > radios produced than classic computers, probably a couple orders of > magnitude. However, even those will be, for all practical purposes, Ture, but I wonder what the relative rates of survival are for valve radios and classic computers. Certainly computers are a lot newer (which counts in their favour), and they were more expensive to start with which means they may have been kept. > gone in time. While it won't have any effect on you or me, run the > clock ahead a hundred years... and very little of either will remain. While that is almost certainly true, it's hardly a reason for not obtaining such machines now while you can, and enjoying them -- if you wnt to run such a machine. If you don't, well fine... > > No it's not free. Even if the emulator software is free, the machine to > > run it on is not. Period. You have, alas, touched a nerve here, I object > > to this attitude that 'everybody' has a PC/cellphone/MP3 player/digital > > camera. I don't, nor do many people I know. > > You've got to look at the numbers... When the IBM PC was first > released, fewer than 5% of homes in the U.S. had computers. The number > went over 50% in 2000, and has not looked back. Do the math. 10 times > as many people have computers now, as did then. If everybody wanted a > classic computer, even a personal classic, there aren't enough to go around. Ture. And I douvt there are enough valve radios or antique clocks around for _everybody_ to owen one. But there are probably enough for those who want one to own one if they can afford it. > > More than half of current households have a PC. What percentage have > o'scopes? Quite small, I'm sure. The chances of a person being able to So? 'socpes are not hard to find, if you wsnt one. Ditto for all the other tools and equipment you might need. > run an emulator are significantly better than their chances of being > able to work on old hardware and fix it. And, for those who do not have I've always had the attidude that if I can't do something but need to do it, it's time for me to learn how to do it. Not give up. That's why I learnt (and am still learning) how to fix SMPSUs, how to understand microcode, how to use machine tools, and so on. Put it this way, I'd rather learn how to do something like that than run an emulator on an undocumented (to the sort of level I call 'documented') machine under an OS that I don't have the source for. If I have problems with that I can't solve them logically. If I am using tools/equipment that I am capable of understnading and things go wrong, I can use a logical procedure to sort it out. And I much prerfe that. > the requisites, what is the cost? What's the cost of an old PC > machine? I see them all the time for less than $100. What's the cost > of an electronics shop? I spent thousands, and was still lacking many > items. So have I. But I expect all my tools and mcuh of my test gear to outlive me. I wouldn't expect a PC to do that. I suspect the total cost of owenership over my lifetime is cheaper for the electroncis stuff than PCs. > > It's clearly true that not EVERYBODY has any of the items you list. > However, most people have access to most of them, and the percentages > keep rising. It doesn't stop me getting annoyed when it's assumed I have them. The next time somebody tells me to 'upload my photos', I am liable to use my monorail camwera as a substitue clue-by-four :-) > > > > In fact for me to be able to run any of the emulators at a sensible speed > > it would cost me more than I've spent on any one of my classic computers. > > OK, I was lucky and got many of them before they became collectable, but > > I've bought interesting machines (to me) in the last year or so for a lot > > less than I'd spend on a machine to run an emulator. > > > I think you're assuming you need a new machine to run an emulator.... It would be new for me. > Not true! A five-year-old PC is quite cheap. Not useful in the "speed > demon" sense, and not yet "classic," they sit at the nadir of their > value. Fish THERE for cost effectiveness. That's not the total cost of ownership as well you know. Do I have to poitn out that to keep such a machine running I would have to significantly upgrade some of my test gear _and_ spend a lot of time working out how it should work so I can fix it when it doesn't. Personally I'd rather keep classics working. > Oh, no, that doesn't sound crazy. I share your interest. I just don't > always want to HAVE TO solve problems before I can accomplish > something. My current set-up is much more reliable than the IMSAI Nor do I. I expect my tools to work properly, if they don't, I fix them. But I don't class my clasisc computers as tools. For example, one machine I've been working on recently is an HP120 -- a Z80A-based CP/M box. I assume it could run something like Wordstar. But I am not going to use it as a word processor, I'll stick to LaTeX on this machine for that. The HP120 is an interesting machine to investigate and get running, it's not a machine I am going to do real work on. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 16 14:06:23 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:06:23 +0100 (BST) Subject: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer In-Reply-To: <4A3707F2.40400@verizon.net> from "Keith Monahan" at Jun 15, 9 10:48:18 pm Message-ID: > There appear to be (7) terminals on each transformer. Maybe +,-,GND on > the primary AC side, and then (4) terminals on the secondary DC side?? I > guess all (4) terminals would be the same voltage? It would be more common to have 4 primary (mains) side terminals and 3 secondary terminals. There would be 2 115V primary windings which can be connected in parallel for 115V mains or series for 230V mains and a centre-tapped secondary that can be used witha couple of diodes as a full-wave rectifier. If there are 3 terminals on the mains side, it's possible one is an inter-winding screen (sheild) and is connected to ground. 4 secondary terminals would suggest 2 separate windings (which may or may not be the same voltage). -tony From RichA at vulcan.com Tue Jun 16 14:22:09 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:22:09 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Roger Holmes > Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 2:18 AM > My machine was killed off by the introduction of the 360, i.e. its > older. > The ICT1301 was announced 1959 and my one (the first to leave the > factory) was shipped in 1962. > The IBM 360 was I understand announced in 1965, probably shipped quite > soon after. The System/360 was announced in April, 1964, but first ship was not until 1965. In contrast, the DEC PDP-6 was announced in March, 1964, first ship in June, 1964.[1] On the other hand, the last PDP-6 in existence was destroyed by the Computer Museum in Boston about 20 years ago, so you're one up there. [1] Only 23 were built, but there were thousands of the follow-on PDP-10 in various models. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Jun 16 14:21:21 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:21:21 -0500 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion In-Reply-To: <4A33E201.19297.E92C71@cclist.sydex.com> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, <4A343021.5030402@databasics.us>, <4A343742.9000905@brouhaha.com> <4A33E201.19297.E92C71@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A37F0B1.3060905@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > But a 6000-series emulator wouldn't do it for me. The constant 80- > some decibel level of the tape drive vacuum pumps, the screaming of > the line printers, the clackety-clack and jamming of the card reader, > the devastation to my social life because of dedicated block time in > the middle of the night, surviving out of vending machines by eating > cottage cheese and potato chips, Miinnesota in January, management > complaining of being behind schedule--it just wouldn't be the same. > > Running an emulator would be like watching a silent black-and-white > film of the experience. I've never wanted to even try it. I'm sure a recording of line printers etc. can be found and played back at many decibels. I can set you up in our barn in the middle of MN with a supply of potato chips and laptop running the emulator if you want - how does next Jan sound? I'll even show up periodically and yell at you about being behind schedule. :-) From pontus at update.uu.se Tue Jun 16 15:14:33 2009 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:14:33 +0200 Subject: Unusual semi-modern DEC terminal - "MT 505"? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A37FD29.1080801@update.uu.se> Tony Duell wrote: >> I'm sorry for hi-jacking this topic but, >> >>> (VT220s have a common fault that takes out horizontal hold) >>> >> I think my VT220 has this problem, is there any documentation regarding >> diagnosing and fixing this problem? I have search to no avail. >> > > Most of the time it's just a bad contact at the wiper of the horizontal > hold preset inside. > > Take off the terminal cover (extend the 'leg' all the way down, put the > terminal on it's screen, take off the 3 (?) plastic caps and undo the > screws under them). > (yes, its three of them) > The horizontal hold preset is marked on the paper cover on the video PCB. > Note its position, then turn it several times from one end to the other. > Put it back to the original position. > I could not find a paper cover, but it is printed on the PCB. > Plug the terminal into the mains and power up (you don't need a > keyboard). If the picture locks, power down amd put the cover on. If not, > turn the horizotnal hold preset until it does, and set it to the middle > of the range where the picture is locked. Power down, wait a bit, power > up nd check it locks. Then power down again and put the cover on. > > If you can't get the picture to lock by adjusting the preset, then you > have a more tricky fault to find :-) > > -tony > > My memory served me wrong, or I read the post to fast. Is the symptoms of a "lost" horizontal hold that the picture will scroll, looping around? This vt220 in front of me has no picture at all. I was using it and between the blink of my eyes the picture disappeared, no bang, no smoke, just gone. I think the logic still works, judging by the led indicators on the keyboard and the satisfying beep it "boots" just fine. Any ideas where I should start looking? Kind regards, Pontus. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jun 16 15:30:36 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:30:36 -0400 Subject: Unusual semi-modern DEC terminal - "MT 505"? In-Reply-To: <4A37FD29.1080801@update.uu.se> References: <4A37FD29.1080801@update.uu.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 4:14 PM, Pontus wrote: > Tony Duell wrote: >>> I'm sorry for hi-jacking this topic but, >>> >>>> (VT220s have a common fault that takes out horizontal hold) >> >> Most of the time it's just a bad contact at the wiper of the horizontal >> hold preset inside. >> Plug the terminal into the mains and power up (you don't need a >> keyboard). If the picture locks, power down amd put the cover on.... >> >> If you can't get the picture to lock by adjusting the preset, then you >> have a more tricky fault to find :-) > > My memory served me wrong, or I read the post to fast. Is the symptoms > of a "lost" horizontal hold that the picture will scroll, looping around? Vertical hold problems are what I would describe as scrolling and looping. Horizontal hold problems are where the picture breaks from left to right and tears diagonally. > This vt220 in front of me has no picture at all. I was using it and > between the blink of my eyes the picture disappeared, no bang, no smoke, > just gone. I think the logic still works, judging by the led indicators > on the keyboard and the satisfying beep it "boots" just fine. > > Any ideas where I should start looking? Me? Besides checking for reasonable voltages at the digital board? Not really. I'm just fine with diagnosing digital logic, but not so good with video. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 16 15:39:06 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:39:06 -0700 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion In-Reply-To: <4A37F0B1.3060905@gmail.com> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, <4A33E201.19297.E92C71@cclist.sydex.com>, <4A37F0B1.3060905@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A37A07A.7618.F893F4B@cclist.sydex.com> On 16 Jun 2009 at 14:21, Jules Richardson wrote: > I'm sure a recording of line printers etc. can be found and played > back at many decibels. I can set you up in our barn in the middle of > MN with a supply of potato chips and laptop running the emulator if > you want - how does next Jan sound? I'll even show up periodically and > yell at you about being behind schedule. Bring a bunch of roaches, mice and crickets too, just to complete the sense of "atmosphere". Not to mention psycopathic co-workers... --Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jun 16 16:13:46 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:13:46 -0400 Subject: Unusual semi-modern DEC terminal - "MT 505"? In-Reply-To: References: <4A37FD29.1080801@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <200906161713.46217.pat@computer-refuge.org> > On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 4:14 PM, Pontus wrote: > > This vt220 in front of me has no picture at all. I was using it and > > between the blink of my eyes the picture disappeared, no bang, no > > smoke, just gone. I think the logic still works, judging by the led > > indicators on the keyboard and the satisfying beep it "boots" just > > fine. > > > > Any ideas where I should start looking? Yeah, probably start with the horizontal output transistor (HOT), and flyback. I'm sure Tony will be helpful in pointing you in the right direction. I haven't run across a broken VT220 (nor needed one badly enough to consider fixing it). Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Tue Jun 16 16:22:20 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:22:20 +0100 Subject: Unusual semi-modern DEC terminal - "MT 505"? In-Reply-To: <4A37FD29.1080801@update.uu.se> References: <4A37FD29.1080801@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <1245187340.5196.0.camel@elric> On Tue, 2009-06-16 at 22:14 +0200, Pontus wrote: > This vt220 in front of me has no picture at all. I was using it and > between the blink of my eyes the picture disappeared, no bang, no smoke, > just gone. I think the logic still works, judging by the led indicators > on the keyboard and the satisfying beep it "boots" just fine. > > Any ideas where I should start looking? Hang a TV off the BNC video connector on the back, with a suitable set of adaptors. If you get that far, you've got some sort of video happening. Gordon From doug at stillhq.com Tue Jun 16 16:56:12 2009 From: doug at stillhq.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:56:12 +1000 Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: <4A373659.6090002@vaxen.net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20090615190209.027d5f00@localhost> <4A373659.6090002@vaxen.net> Message-ID: <4A3814FC.8020208@stillhq.com> Doc wrote: > Zane H. Healy wrote: >> >> I really need to figure out where I'm going to setup my C-64, there >> doesn't >> seem to be any room in my home office at my desk. :-( > > Right next to your C-128D? > > > Doc > I would soooo love to run my C128D, but I can not find a power supply for it - The use of the proprietary plug has been a pain, and I have more than once been 'just about to' put a commonly available power socket on to the box. Does anybody have any ideas? Doug From doug at stillhq.com Tue Jun 16 17:04:33 2009 From: doug at stillhq.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:04:33 +1000 Subject: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer In-Reply-To: <4A37DCCC.3751D215@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A3707F2.40400@verizon.net> <4A37D29B.A16C72@cs.ubc.ca> <4A37D5E1.6B36981@cs.ubc.ca> <1245174207.23637.47.camel@elric> <4A37DCCC.3751D215@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A3816F1.8070400@stillhq.com> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > >> On Tue, 2009-06-16 at 10:26 -0700, Brent Hilpert wrote: >> >>> Brent Hilpert wrote: >>> >>>> 8 3300uF caps doesn't sound excessive for several linear supplies, some of them >>>> are probably parrelled. >>>> >>> ^^^^^^^^^ >>> paralleled >>> >>> Somehow in the morning haze it looked like there were enough consonants in >>> there the first time. >>> >>> >> There were, there just weren't enough vowels and one of the consonants >> was the wrong one. >> > > .. the morning haze still hadn't cleared completely when I stated the correction. > My wonderful, patient wife is an English teacher, and an easy way to rev her up is to remind her that English is a living language, subject to constant change, and that the only language that has truly static spelling is Latin! Remember - "I before E, unless after C (and then only sometimes)" From g-wright at att.net Tue Jun 16 18:17:23 2009 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:17:23 +0000 Subject: repairing VT220 DEC terminal - In-Reply-To: <4A37FD29.1080801@update.uu.se> References: <4A37FD29.1080801@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <061620092317.24560.4A382802000F1F9700005FF022230682329B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message from Pontus : -------------- > > My memory served me wrong, or I read the post to fast. Is the symptoms > of a "lost" horizontal hold that the picture will scroll, looping around? > > This vt220 in front of me has no picture at all. I was using it and > between the blink of my eyes the picture disappeared, no bang, no smoke, > just gone. I think the logic still works, judging by the led indicators > on the keyboard and the satisfying beep it "boots" just fine. I believe I did 2 of these last year and they had a fuse on the mother board ??? both of them where blown and replacing them only blew another fuse. Turned out to be a capacitor on both that was shorted. I'm at work and can't check my notes. Do remember it was a non polarized cap. - jerry > > Any ideas where I should start looking? > > Kind regards, > Pontus. From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 16 22:09:35 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:09:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer In-Reply-To: <4A3816F1.8070400@stillhq.com> References: <4A3707F2.40400@verizon.net> <4A37D29B.A16C72@cs.ubc.ca> <4A37D5E1.6B36981@cs.ubc.ca> <1245174207.23637.47.camel@elric> <4A37DCCC.3751D215@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3816F1.8070400@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <20090616200926.F66640@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Doug Jackson wrote: > >>> > >>> > >> There were, there just weren't enough vowels and one of the consonants > >> was the wrong one. > >> > > > > .. the morning haze still hadn't cleared completely when I stated the correction. > > > My wonderful, patient wife is an English teacher, and an easy way to rev > her up is to remind her that English is a living language, subject to > constant change, and that the only language that has truly static > spelling is Latin! Remember - "I before E, unless after C (and then > only sometimes)" > -- Fred Cisin cisin at xenosoft.com XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com PO Box 1236 (510) 558-9366 Berkeley, CA 94701-1236 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jun 16 23:09:10 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:09:10 -0700 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <4A37691C.23312.EB0F0A8@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A37691C.23312.EB0F0A8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > From: cclist at sydex.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:42:52 -0700 > Subject: Re: Intersil EPROM > > On 16 Jun 2009 at 0:42, Scanning wrote: > >> You are correct sir. I had forgotten about the dark ages of 4000 >> Series 10 Volt Bulk CMOS. It's all coming back to me now, the night >> sweats and the flashbacks.... I think I even have a 10 Volt CDP1802 >> lurking in a drawer somewhere... > > I still have my "Solid State Scientific" reference manual for 4000 > series CMOS--a slim booklet. Data for each device is displayed in 3 > rows--for Vdd of +5, +10 and +15 volts. Performance at +5 was > ridiculous; propogation delays in excess of a microsecond for some > parts. Performance at +10 and +15 was *much* better. I conculded at > the time that, aside from the analogue switches, the family was > probably not ready for prime-time deployment at +5v. Considering the > speed and very low voltages that modern CMOS enjoys, the evolution > has been nothing less than remarkable. > Hi I believe the critical step was self aligning source and drain contacts. Until then, one needed a large gate voltage to get the fields close to the contact diffusion areas. From then on, it has been mostly magic. I work for AMD and help design these things and I know it must be magic. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Microsoft brings you a new way to search the web. Try Bing? now http://www.bing.com?form=MFEHPG&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MFEHPG_Core_tagline_try bing_1x1 From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jun 16 23:14:06 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:14:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: <4A3814FC.8020208@stillhq.com> from Doug Jackson at "Jun 17, 9 07:56:12 am" Message-ID: <200906170414.n5H4E6Av017264@floodgap.com> > I would soooo love to run my C128D, but I can not find a power supply > for it - The use of the proprietary plug has been a pain, and I have > more than once been 'just about to' put a commonly available power > socket on to the box. Huh? The 128D(CR) has an integrated power supply. Perhaps you mean a flat 128? -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- When in doubt, take a pawn. -- Mission: Impossible ("Crack-Up") ------------ From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jun 16 23:16:32 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:16:32 -0600 Subject: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: References: , <000b01c9ee55$f195d890$0201a8c0@hal9000> <4A37691C.23312.EB0F0A8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A386E20.7030504@jetnet.ab.ca> dwight elvey wrote: > Hi > I believe the critical step was self aligning source > and drain contacts. Until then, one needed a large > gate voltage to get the fields close to the contact > diffusion areas. From then on, it has been mostly magic. > I work for AMD and help design these things and I know it must be magic. We all know you are little DWARF and you really work for DISNEY :) > Dwight > > _________________________________________________________________ > Microsoft brings you a new way to search the web. Try Bing? now > http://www.bing.com?form=MFEHPG&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MFEHPG_Core_tagline_try bing_1x1 From doug at stillhq.com Tue Jun 16 23:21:03 2009 From: doug at stillhq.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:21:03 +1000 Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: <200906170414.n5H4E6Av017264@floodgap.com> References: <200906170414.n5H4E6Av017264@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4A386F2F.9000509@stillhq.com> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> I would soooo love to run my C128D, but I can not find a power supply >> for it - The use of the proprietary plug has been a pain, and I have >> more than once been 'just about to' put a commonly available power >> socket on to the box. >> > > Huh? The 128D(CR) has an integrated power supply. > > Perhaps you mean a flat 128? > > Ahhhh - Yep - it is a flat 128. From brain at jbrain.com Tue Jun 16 23:24:57 2009 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:24:57 -0500 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> Just because I'm curious: How do folks feel about those who are interested in extending the life of vintage machines by integrating them with newer technologies? That's my interest, allowing both existing and a new class of users to enjoy a vintage platform by making it easy to utilize the vintage platform with contemporary ones. Jim From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jun 16 23:53:57 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:53:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> from Jim Brain at "Jun 16, 9 11:24:57 pm" Message-ID: <200906170453.n5H4rviH011178@floodgap.com> > How do folks feel about those who are interested in extending the life > of vintage machines by integrating them with newer technologies? That's > my interest, allowing both existing and a new class of users to enjoy a > vintage platform by making it easy to utilize the vintage platform with > contemporary ones. I can't stand it. Like that SD2IEC thing, that's the kind of heresy that will destroy Commodores forever. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- There are few problems that the liberal usage of high explosives can't cure. and, um, ;-) From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jun 16 23:55:40 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:55:40 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) References: Message-ID: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> Rich Alderson wrote: > On the other hand, the last PDP-6 in existence was destroyed by the Computer > Museum in Boston about 20 years ago, so you're one up there. OK, I don't think I've heard this story. Someone contributing to Wikipedia seems to want to tangentially counter it, without explaining the background story. I heard some mention of strange management decisions near the end of the BCM, but 1989 was somewhat early, no? >From wikipedia: "Stanford's PDP-6 was shown at DECUS in 1984. The machine was transferred to a DEC warehouse after that event. There are no records of this machine being given to the Computer Museum, which was not part of DEC in 1984. In the late 90's Compaq donated the contents of the DEC internal archives to The Computer Museum History Center. The Fast Memory cabinet from the Stanford PDP-6 was part of that donation. There is no evidence that the modules sold at the Boston computer museum gift shop were from the Stanford PDP-6, nor is there any evidence that the museum had ever had this machine in its possession." From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jun 17 00:09:32 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:09:32 -0600 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:24:57 -0500. <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> Message-ID: In article <4A387019.40706 at jbrain.com>, Jim Brain writes: > Just because I'm curious: > > How do folks feel about those who are interested in extending the life > of vintage machines by integrating them with newer technologies? I think its great if you can do it by a means that doesn't violate the historical integrity of the equipment. For instance, at PDPPlanet, they've created efficient switching power supplies for some of their older machines that shipped with linear power supplies. The new power supplies attach by the same connectors and cabling as the vintage supplies and the vintage supplies were kept so that the machine could be restored to historical condition if desired. With the new power supplies, the machine can be made available for public use at a reasonable cost. I particularly like the idea of extending behavior of existing machines by using their existing circuit connectors (busses, plugs, sockets, etc.), even if they were not originally intended to be expanded from those connections. The Tektronix 4010 has an internal bus into which low density SSI cards are inserted to implement the terminal logic and I/O. This was originally intended as a way to provide custom interfaces to the terminal if RS-232 or 20mA current loop was insufficient. I want to hook up a mini ITX motherboard up to that bus and see how many dynamic vectors I can get going on the thing :-). That capacity is mostly limited by the transmission rate supported by the interface card currently. By talking directly to the bus, you should be able to do much more interesting things with it. The canonical example seems to be emulating storage interfaces to provide storage that is larger, more reliable, has no moving parts and is more power efficient. I'd love to run my PDP-11/03 more often, but I am afraid every time I spin up the ancient RL01 drives on it. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 17 03:39:54 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:39:54 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> Message-ID: On Jun 17, 2009, at 12:24 AM, Jim Brain wrote: > Just because I'm curious: > > How do folks feel about those who are interested in extending the > life of vintage machines by integrating them with newer > technologies? That's my interest, allowing both existing and a new > class of users to enjoy a vintage platform by making it easy to > utilize the vintage platform with contemporary ones. Are you talking about things like interfaces for modern disk drives and such? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From wmaddox at pacbell.net Wed Jun 17 03:52:41 2009 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:52:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM 3420 tape drive on eBay Message-ID: <770316.32698.qm@web82603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> The seller has listed just a front panel, but it looks like they have the entire drive. Also, a 3803 controller. The drive looks to be in good shape cosmetically, but are headed for scrap. Item # 250445866736 --Bill From snhirsch at gmail.com Fri Jun 12 21:00:11 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:00:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Looking for IMI 5018 MFM drive In-Reply-To: <01C9EA8A.6F08BD80@MSE_D03> References: <01C9EA8A.6F08BD80@MSE_D03> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, M H Stein wrote: >> Title says it. Need to replace the drive mechanism in one of my Corvus >> flat-cable drives. Firmware expects 6-heads and 306 cylinders and gets >> boggled by anything larger, unfortunately. >> Could also probably work with Seagate ST419 or Rodime RO203, which are the >> only other drives I've found with the same geometry. > > There were a few more "15 meg" drives with that structure. > > Sure that you can't fool it into ignoring a few heads or cylinders with a > 8 x 306 or 6 x 600? 20 and 30 Meg are a little easier to find. > > -----------Reply; > > The 5018 was available with both the 34 pin IMI interface as well as ST-506; > I assume you're looking for ST-506. If you *really* can't use anything else I > have a few with the IMI interface; the only difference is the top board, so if > yours is OK then no problem. Mike, I dropped you a note, but suspect it went into the bit bucket. Can you contact me off-list so we can discuss this? Steve -- From bqt at softjar.se Sat Jun 13 04:48:34 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:48:34 +0200 Subject: PDP 11/73 on the Internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3375F2.4090001@softjar.se> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 11, 2009, at 7:32 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> > Probably. I already have most of the TCP/IP stack running. :-) > > Under RSX? Really?? Yes. -------8<------ >set /host Host=MIM RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6 BL87mP >time 11:44:33 13-JUN-09 >ifc sho all Intf State Address Broadcast MTU ACP Line IF0: Run Madame.Update.UU.SE/24 130.238.19.255 1500 ETHACP UNA-0 IF1: Run Localhost/8 127.255.255.255 8128 >ifc sho arp Host MAC TTL Flg IF r1.n.it.UU.SE (130.238.19.254) 00-0B-BE-E8-A9-3F 1799 2 IF0: Tempo.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.17) 00-80-C8-76-E5-3E 1783 2 IF0: UP.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.210) 00-B0-D0-65-39-BE 1693 2 IF0: Wasabi.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.170) 00-06-5B-FE-4D-3E 1686 2 IF0: Boomerang.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.1) 00-06-5B-F2-44-1D 1543 2 IF0: Psilocybe.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.25) 00-07-E9-40-02-76 1493 2 IF0: Prus.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.50) 00-03-BA-06-37-7B 1452 2 IF0: Hygrocybe.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.76) 00-80-C8-77-0C-76 1427 2 IF0: Mim.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.211) 00-80-AD-41-CB-EB 1285 2 IF0: Amanita.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.70) 00-90-27-5D-10-2D 937 2 IF0: Peppar.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.172) 00-06-5B-6D-D7-19 854 2 IF0: Anis.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.174) 00-06-5B-6D-D7-B3 840 2 IF0: Kanel.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.171) 00-06-5B-68-92-78 838 2 IF0: Kummin.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.173) 00-06-5B-6D-D8-79 823 2 IF0: Saffran.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.176) 00-06-5B-68-92-58 819 2 IF0: Kardemumma.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.177) 00-06-5B-6D-D8-2C 805 2 IF0: Humle.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.179) 00-06-5B-6D-D7-B6 804 2 IF0: Basilika.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.169) 00-06-5B-6D-D7-26 782 2 IF0: Oregano.Update.UU.SE (130.238.19.175) 00-06-5B-6D-D8-C5 774 2 IF0: >trt 74.125.77.99 Tracing route to 74.125.77.99, max 30 hops 1 r1.n.it.UU.SE (130.238.19.254) 0ms. 0ms. 20ms. 2 ? (130.238.6.237) 0ms. 0ms. 0ms. 3 ? (193.11.0.233) 0ms. 0ms. 0ms. 4 ? (130.242.82.197) 0ms. 0ms. 0ms. 5 ? (193.10.252.161) 0ms. 0ms. 20ms. 6 ? (193.10.252.86) 0ms. 0ms. 20ms. 7 ? (193.10.252.94) 0ms. 0ms. 20ms. 8 ? (193.10.68.42) 0ms. 0ms. 0ms. 9 ? (209.85.252.186) 20ms. 0ms. 0ms. 10 ? (209.85.254.153) 40ms. 20ms. 40ms. 11 ? (216.239.48.10) 20ms. 20ms. 40ms. 12 ? (209.85.248.182) 160ms. 40ms. 40ms. 13 ? (64.233.175.246) 20ms. 40ms. 40ms. 14 ? (72.14.239.197) 40ms. ? (72.14.239.199) 40ms. 20ms. 15 ? (209.85.255.106) 60ms. 40ms. ? (209.85.255.102) 40ms. 16 ? (74.125.77.99) 40ms. 40ms. 40ms. > -------8<------- Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From bqt at softjar.se Sat Jun 13 05:02:31 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:02:31 +0200 Subject: fpga pdp's In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A337937.9040108@softjar.se> Brad Parker wrote: > Eric Smith wrote: >> > Brad Parker wrote: >>> >> I did a "direct decode" pdp-11 in verilog recently just to see how >>> >> big it would be (and because I was frustrated with the pop-11 >>> >> project). It fits nicely & boots RT11 at 50mhz. >> > At that speed, surely it hasn't finished booting RT11 yet! > sorry, I don't get the joke. clock is 50mhz, or 20ns; each state is one > clock and on average > an instruction is 3 states. I calculated 10mips. it seems to boot much > faster than my 11/44 :-) > > what did I miss? That case matters. :-) m = milli M = Mega Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 13 13:09:16 2009 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:09:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: sorry no manual but... was Re: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual Message-ID: <138107.43508.qm@web65502.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Sorry Andrew, I wish I had it myself (just so I could sleep w/it under my pillow and brag). I do have several boards that use the 7220. If you want digital photos of any or all, I'd be happy (but something less then joyous) to provide them. They might provide the clues you need in the absence of a bona fide manual. Included in that list would be the NEC APC vid board, the NEC APC III, and probably a few others. --- On Wed, 6/10/09, Andrew Lynch wrote: > From: Andrew Lynch > Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 8:45 PM > Hi! Does anyone have the NEC > uPD7220/GDC Design Manual? > > > > I am looking for one as part of research on building a home > brew NEC 7220 > video board. > > > > On a related but different subject if anyone is interested, > I just got the > N8VEM VDU board working (SY6545 based) and there are photos > in the N8VEM > wiki. > > > > http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=VDU > > > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Andrew Lynch > > From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 13 13:31:10 2009 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:31:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Interesting IBM 5150... or something Message-ID: <560029.42476.qm@web65506.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> it doesn't look all that muc like a 5150 probably because it isn't one. Durn looks just like a 5170 to me. I have the 5150 version. Don't know if it's tempest tested or not. Figured it was simply a loosely mil-spec, ruggedized, industrialized version for certain environments. There was a "compatible" CGA monitor (Terry Yager used to have one). Mine doesn't have a keyboard, so surely utilizing a vanilla k/b will render it "powerless". Or what have you. AAMOF, if anyone wants the thing, w/the rust that has accumulated due to being stored in a something less then sealed outdoor shed, it's their's for shipping. The power switch is also missing. I think the p/s is there though. You could strip it down and repaint it I guess :) --- On Thu, 6/11/09, Warren Wolfe wrote: > From: Warren Wolfe > Subject: Re: Interesting IBM 5150... or something > To: "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Date: Thursday, June 11, 2009, 5:55 PM > Brian Lanning wrote: > > I've never heard of this. Looks even more > tank-like than the 5150. > > Look at the backplane where the cables go in. > > > > http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-IBM-Tempest-Computer-for-Classified-work_W0QQitemZ190313579086QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2c4f92c24e&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A10|66%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A4|294%3A50 > > > > Oh, for Pete's sake, a Tempest terminal, right when we're > talking about classified info. Just so you know, this > one is compromised by the insecure monitor (I think - it > should be MUCH bigger, and not plastic, if Tempest approved) > and the non-Tempest keyboard. "Tank-like" is a very > concise description. > > I worked for a company that made (CP/M capable) Tempest > terminals for the Burroughs TD-830 emulation market. > The government would not tell you what acceptable levels of > emissions were -- a company had to make a prototype, and > send it in for testing. A while (gov't time) later, > thumbs up or thumbs down. It often took many cycles to > get a good one. Once it was approved, they bought them > for HUGE prices. Quite a money-maker. > > > > Warren > > From bqt at softjar.se Sun Jun 14 03:14:57 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:14:57 +0200 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A34B181.7070503@softjar.se> SPC wrote: > Mmm... this needs of one BA23, isn't so ? Not neccesarily. The BA23 backplane is also a distribution board for the RQDX controllers. But for the RQDX3 you also have a separate board, called RQDXE (if I remember right) which do the same thing, and makes it possible to use the RQDX3 without a BA23. If you have a BA123 you always need the RQDXE, and if you wanted to use more than one hard drive on the RQDX3 you also need the RQDXE, since the BA23 distribution board is buggy, and can't actually connect two hard drives, even though you have two connections. I think it's worth pointing out that people should never even try connecting two hard drives in a BA23. You'll definitely wreck whatever contents you have on the disks if you try. Another option to use a RX33 would be to get a RQZX1, but that is probably harder to fine, and more expensive. Johnny > > Regards > Sergio > > 2009/6/13 Patrick Finnegan > >> > On Saturday 13 June 2009, SPC wrote: >>> > > I am searching one controller to use a couple of RX33 in one >>> > > PDP11-23/PLUS. Someone knows what could I use ? >> > >> > RQDX3 >> > >> > Pat >> > -- >> > Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ >> > The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org >> > > -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From bqt at softjar.se Sun Jun 14 13:15:47 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:15:47 +0200 Subject: VMS/RSX manuals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A353E53.4050201@softjar.se> Al Kossow wrote: > Pontus wrote: >> Hi. >> >> I just got a mixed bag of VMS and MicroVMS manuals. Its programming >> guides and users guides, unfortunately not complete. I also have RSX >> manuals for version 2, these are complete I think. >> >> I'm not throwing anything away, but I'm wondering if there is any value >> in preserving these and if I should make an effort and scan them? >> >> (I can get more specific about what manuals I have if someone cares) >> > > More specific would be good. Many have already been scanned, though they > are not on line. Speaking of which - have the RSX manuals been scanned in color? For many volumes that is rather relevant, since DEC used colors to give additional information in the manuals. (User input is usually in red, sections with a pink background are RSX-11M only, while sections with grey backgorund are RSX-11M-PLUS only, and sections with blue text are multiprocessor systems only). Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From bqt at softjar.se Sun Jun 14 13:22:22 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:22:22 +0200 Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A353FDE.2020205@softjar.se> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 14, 2009, at 10:09 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> > I spotted what looked like an odd rubber-cased HP41 on a stall at a >> > car >> > boot sale. The guy also runs a small army surplus shop so although I >> > didn't get it there I might ask him about it if I go in during the >> > week. >> > >> > It had four openings at the back about the size of a matchbox end-on, >> > with brown flexiprint circuit stuff folded over plastic tabs in the >> > middle of each one. > > This description matches the expansion slots on a standard HP-41. > What's with the rubber case, I wonder? Some sort of protective cover > like the ones available for most mobile phones? I couldn't have described the ports any better myself. :-) The rubber case might just be one of the third party industrial cases for the HP-41 for it to better survive hostile environments. I don't think HP every did one, but I remember seeing other companies making them. No names pops up in my head right now, though. This was a long time ago. (Still have my 41CX around.) Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From WVerish at aol.com Sun Jun 14 15:58:24 2009 From: WVerish at aol.com (WVerish at aol.com) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:58:24 EDT Subject: Need assistance in restoring to working order a MicroVAX 3800 Message-ID: Hi: I have a MicroVAX 3800 computer that went overnight from being able to boot from the hard drive to not seeing the hard drives at all. The computer will look at the TK70, but I do not have a bootable tape. I purchased a KFQSA board from the net, but that did not seem to help. A scan of then QBUS shows only UQSSP Tape controller MUA0 and the ethernet adapter XQB0. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Please keep in mind that I am a "newbie", but I am learning as fast as I can. I am 60 years old, and serious about getting this system up and running again. I would also be happy to be able to find someone with an Open VMS VAX version that can build me a bootable tape using the STABACKIT.Com tool provided with Open VMS VAX...............or...................use a tape-bases distribution that would come with a TK50 tape kit, which is supposed to be read-compatible with the TK70. Thanks for listening, Wayne Verish (440) 885-0803 **************Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004) From WVerish at aol.com Sun Jun 14 16:06:38 2009 From: WVerish at aol.com (WVerish at aol.com) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:06:38 EDT Subject: Fwd: Need assistance in restoring to working order a MicroVAX 3800 Message-ID: ____________________________________ From: WVerish To: cctech at classiccmp.org Sent: 6/14/2009 12:58:24 P.M. Pacific Standard Time Subj: Need assistance in restoring to working order a MicroVAX 3800 Hi: I have a MicroVAX 3800 computer that went overnight from being able to boot from the hard drive to not seeing the hard drives at all. The computer will look at the TK70, but I do not have a bootable tape. I purchased a KFQSA board from the net, but that did not seem to help. A scan of then QBUS shows only UQSSP Tape controller MUA0 and the ethernet adapter XQB0. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Please keep in mind that I am a "newbie", but I am learning as fast as I can. I am 60 years old, and serious about getting this system up and running again. I would also be happy to be able to find someone with an Open VMS VAX version that can build me a bootable tape using the STABACKIT.Com tool provided with Open VMS VAX...............or...................use a tape-bases distribution that would come with a TK50 tape kit, which is supposed to be read-compatible with the TK70. Thanks for listening, Wayne Verish (440) 885-0803 ____________________________________ Download the _AOL Classifieds Toolbar_ (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004) for local deals at your fingertips. **************Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004) From snhirsch at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 17:08:39 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:08:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Looking for IMI 5018 MFM drive In-Reply-To: <01C9EA8A.6F08BD80@MSE_D03> References: <01C9EA8A.6F08BD80@MSE_D03> Message-ID: > The 5018 was available with both the 34 pin IMI interface as well as ST-506; > I assume you're looking for ST-506. If you *really* can't use anything else I > have a few with the IMI interface; the only difference is the top board, so if > yours is OK then no problem. > > There is also a 5021 which, *AFAIK* is the same geometry. > > mike Mike, Would you please contact me offlist to discuss this? I sent e-mail, but suspect it never reached you. Similarly, the first response I sent to the list also failed to appear. Steve -- From snhirsch at gmail.com Tue Jun 16 06:30:59 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:30:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Looking for IMI 5018 MFM drive In-Reply-To: <01C9EA8A.6F08BD80@MSE_D03> References: <01C9EA8A.6F08BD80@MSE_D03> Message-ID: > The 5018 was available with both the 34 pin IMI interface as well as ST-506; > I assume you're looking for ST-506. If you *really* can't use anything else I > have a few with the IMI interface; the only difference is the top board, so if > yours is OK then no problem. > > There is also a 5021 which, *AFAIK* is the same geometry. For reasons unclear, none of my followups to this have appeared on the list. Mike, Cannot seem to get to you via e-mail. Will you please contact me offlist on the subject? Steve -- From jonas at otter.se Wed Jun 17 04:01:19 2009 From: jonas at otter.se (Jonas Otter) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:01:19 +0000 Subject: CDP1802, was Re: Intersil EPROM Message-ID: <2vGQhtXN.1245229279.4463470.jotter@howe.textdrive.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: >> I don't think I ever did anything remotely interesting with it, but it's >> still a neat toy. > >It's a great toy. ...etc... In the 1980s, Chrysler made an electronic ignition system which used an 1802. It was fitted to all Volvos with mechanical fuel injection and catalytic converters sold in the US. Also the early versions of the Bosch Motronic fuel injection/electronic ignition system used 1802s. I believe the reason for using the 1802 was that it was more immune to interference than NMOS parts. Around 1982-1983 Bosch switched to the 8049. /Jonas From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Wed Jun 17 07:48:11 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:48:11 +0100 Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect In-Reply-To: <4A353FDE.2020205@softjar.se> References: <4A353FDE.2020205@softjar.se> Message-ID: <1245242891.27700.5.camel@elric> On Sun, 2009-06-14 at 20:22 +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote: > The rubber case might just be one of the third party industrial cases > for the HP-41 for it to better survive hostile environments. > I don't think HP every did one, but I remember seeing other companies > making them. No names pops up in my head right now, though. This was a > long time ago. (Still have my 41CX around.) Annoyingly I realised I picked up an HP41C manual in a charity shop a few months back, too. If I'd remembered that I had a manual for it at home I'd have picked it up straight away... Gordon From brain at jbrain.com Wed Jun 17 09:01:18 2009 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:01:18 -0500 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <4A38F72E.9080207@jbrain.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 17, 2009, at 12:24 AM, Jim Brain wrote: >> Just because I'm curious: >> >> How do folks feel about those who are interested in extending the >> life of vintage machines by integrating them with newer >> technologies? That's my interest, allowing both existing and a new >> class of users to enjoy a vintage platform by making it easy to >> utilize the vintage platform with contemporary ones. > > Are you talking about things like interfaces for modern disk drives > and such? > > -Dave > Modern disk drives (www.jbrain.com/vicug/gallery/uIEC ), Ethernet cards (http://www.jbrain.com/vicug/gallery/nic ), stuff like that. Jimtime. -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X) brain at jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! Home: http://www.jbrain.com From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Wed Jun 17 09:08:01 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:08:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Vintage Computers w New Tech. was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys Message-ID: <680989.31321.qm@web112212.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I am a fan when it doesn't ruin the end user experience. For one thing, I like when old computers can be used with new technologies. Like twitter for the C64. I think that is awesome. I also like when I still see old computers working in real settings, there are people still using old systems and not replacing them. I also like when we can adapt new technologies for vintage computers such as ethernet & flash storage. I think it's great.. I also like flash storage because it reduces the wear and tear on drives. I mean if you like to play with your computer on a regular basis, why wear down the mechanisms when you can dump it all on flash? The technology has to be built in a way so that you don't have to harm the old computer so that if you want to run it the old way, you can. I mean sometimes you want the experience of listening to the grinding of a 1541 drive. --- On Wed, 6/17/09, Jim Brain wrote: > From: Jim Brain > Subject: Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys > To: "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Date: Wednesday, June 17, 2009, 12:24 AM > Just because I'm curious: > > How do folks feel about those who are interested in > extending the life of vintage machines by integrating them > with newer technologies?? That's my interest, allowing > both existing and a new class of users to enjoy a vintage > platform by making it easy to utilize the vintage platform > with contemporary ones. > > Jim > > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 09:17:10 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:17:10 -0400 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: <4A34B181.7070503@softjar.se> References: <4A34B181.7070503@softjar.se> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 4:14 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > > SPC wrote: >> Mmm... this needs of one BA23, isn't so ? > > Not neccesarily. The BA23 backplane is also a distribution board for the RQDX controllers. Yep. Really handy if you want to use "standard" devices. > But for the RQDX3 you also have a separate board, called RQDXE (if I remember right) which > do the same thing, and makes it possible to use the RQDX3 without a BA23. If you have > a BA123 you always need the RQDXE Yep. Every BA123 I've seen had an RQDXE in it. > ...and if you wanted to use more than one hard drive > on the RQDX3 you also need the RQDXE, since the BA23 distribution board is buggy, and > can't actually connect two hard drives, even though you have two connections. > I think it's worth pointing out that people should never even try connecting two hard drives in a BA23. > You'll definitely wreck whatever contents you have on the disks if you try. I thought there was a way to do it, but you had to start moving drive select jumpers around and it was still easy to get a double-select and trash your contents. I remember trying to put a pair of RD52s or an RD53 and an RD52 on one machine 20+ years ago. I also remember not succeeding. Clearly an RQDXE would have made the job simpler (possible?), but we didn't have one handy. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 10:00:25 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:00:25 -0400 Subject: Need assistance in restoring to working order a MicroVAX 3800 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 4:58 PM, wrote: > > Hi: > > ? ?I have a MicroVAX 3800 computer that went ?overnight from being able to > boot from the hard drive to not seeing the ?hard drives at all. What changed? Did you lose power/do a hard shutdown? Did a drive die? Did you reconfigure the Qbus? > The computer will look at the TK70, but I do not have a ?bootable tape. OK. > I purchased a KFQSA board from the net, but that did not seem to ?help. Help with what? Do you mean that you had a KFQSA board in the machine and swapped in a new one? If so, did you check the jumpers first? (I don't know anything about the KFQSA itself, but most DEC controllers had jumpers so that if nothing else, you could assign them a new CSR address to allow more than one of that type of controller on a bus). > A scan of then QBUS shows only UQSSP Tape controller MUA0 and the ethernet ?adapter XQB0. OK... so your disk controller isn't showing up it seems. Barring defective hardware (which is rather uncommon in my experience), the biggest issue with the Qbus is making sure that you don't have CSR conflicts and you don't have an open bus grant chain. Either of those can be an issue if you are reconfiguring your machine. I know lots about the arrangement of older Qbus machines, but not the 3800. From what I remember, it's a straight-across bus, not serpentine, but I'm not positive what's under those Sbox cover plates. If you have any "gaps" - places where there are no boards between the CPU and other boards, that will cause a bus grant problem. There are bus grant jumper cards for Qbus (M9047) - it's a mostly blank card with some pin-to-pin jumpers by the edge. Since you say you are a 'newbie', let me say that the Qbus and Unibus are not like PCs in that you can't have an empty slot in the middle of the pack. You either have to move all cards up (and "up" is defined by your backplane geometry, not just simply first slot, second slot, etc) or you have to bridge the interrupt and DMA signals with either grant cards or (for Unibus) wire wrap wires. I don't know how you've moved things around, so I just have to guess at that, but it's a common issue with folks new to DEC machines. You might find this illuminating - - but keep in mind that your backplane geometry (the order and arrangement of "slots" in the Qbus) compared to the older BA23 and BA123 boxes. I don't have any install media new enough for your machine (my stuff goes up to the MicroVAX II/MicroVAX 2000 era), so I can't help you there. If you are still having problems, I happen to live in Columbus, but get up to Fairview Park about once a month it seems (I was just up there two weekends ago), so perhaps I could provide some in-person advice at some point in the future. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 10:03:13 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:03:13 -0400 Subject: CDP1802, was Re: Intersil EPROM In-Reply-To: <2vGQhtXN.1245229279.4463470.jotter@howe.textdrive.com> References: <2vGQhtXN.1245229279.4463470.jotter@howe.textdrive.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 5:01 AM, Jonas Otter wrote: > In the 1980s, Chrysler made an electronic ignition system which used an > 1802. It was fitted to all Volvos with mechanical fuel injection and > catalytic converters sold in the US. Also the early versions of the > Bosch Motronic fuel injection/electronic ignition system used 1802s. I > believe the reason for using the 1802 was that it was more immune to > interference than NMOS parts. Nice. I had no idea that the 1802 appeared in automobiles. I was formerly only aware of satellites and space probes. My involvement with automobiles at the fuel-injection level has been limited to air-cooled Volkswagens, so I doubt I'll ever encounter an 1802 under the hood of anything I'm likely to be repairing. -ethan From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jun 17 10:27:36 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:27:36 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Rich Alderson wrote: >> On the other hand, the last PDP-6 in existence was destroyed by the Computer >> Museum in Boston about 20 years ago, so you're one up there. > > OK, I don't think I've heard this story. > Someone contributing to Wikipedia seems to want to tangentially counter it, > without explaining the background story. That would be me, a CHM employee, that has access to all of the Boston museum collection records. I have spoken to several of the staff members who were there at the time. I have been trying to find ANY evidence this occurred, and have not been able to. CHM has the fast memory box from Stanford's PDP-6. It came from the Compaq donation to CHM of what they had in >> DEC's << internal collection, and was NOT donated to the Boston Museum. As best as I've been able to determine, the 6 was sent to a DEC warehouse after the anniversary at DECUS, and sat there until what was there was sent to CHM. Since there is no record of this machine going to the Boston museum, nor does anyone there that I have talked to remember it coming there, it would have been difficult for them to have dismantled it. Every major donation to the Computer Museum was cataloged. I cannot find anything for Stanford's PDP-6 in their records or in the Museum Report, which at the time listed every donation they received. I would like to find someone INSIDE of DEC that saw it in while it was in the warehouse, but I haven't been able to locate anyone yet. The rumor of the Museum destroying the system started because their gift shop was selling modules, including the ALU modules from the PDP-6. I have been told these were from a collection of DEC module spares that DEC donated. I haven't been able to determine the earliest that they were being sold. If it was before the anniversary, they obviously could not have been from Stanford's machine. Because of this controversy, CHM has a policy that no artifacts will ever be offered for sale to the public. Items that are deacessioned are offered only to other non-profit institutions. From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jun 17 10:32:07 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:32:07 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys) In-Reply-To: <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> I'm resending this with a revised title so someone has a chance of finding this again in the future. I sent a similar message to alt.sys.pdp10 when the subject came up last time. Al Kossow wrote: > Brent Hilpert wrote: >> Rich Alderson wrote: >>> On the other hand, the last PDP-6 in existence was destroyed by the >>> Computer >>> Museum in Boston about 20 years ago, so you're one up there. >> >> OK, I don't think I've heard this story. >> Someone contributing to Wikipedia seems to want to tangentially >> counter it, >> without explaining the background story. > > That would be me, a CHM employee, that has access to all of the Boston > museum > collection records. I have spoken to several of the staff members who > were there > at the time. I have been trying to find ANY evidence this occurred, and > have not > been able to. > > CHM has the fast memory box from Stanford's PDP-6. It came from the > Compaq donation > to CHM of what they had in >> DEC's << internal collection, and was NOT > donated to > the Boston Museum. As best as I've been able to determine, the 6 was > sent to a DEC > warehouse after the anniversary at DECUS, and sat there until what was > there was > sent to CHM. Since there is no record of this machine going to the > Boston museum, > nor does anyone there that I have talked to remember it coming there, it > would have > been difficult for them to have dismantled it. Every major donation to > the Computer > Museum was cataloged. I cannot find anything for Stanford's PDP-6 in > their records > or in the Museum Report, which at the time listed every donation they > received. > > I would like to find someone INSIDE of DEC that saw it in while > it was in the warehouse, but I haven't been able to locate anyone yet. > > The rumor of the Museum destroying the system started because their gift > shop was selling > modules, including the ALU modules from the PDP-6. I have been told > these were from a > collection of DEC module spares that DEC donated. I haven't been able to > determine > the earliest that they were being sold. If it was before the > anniversary, they obviously > could not have been from Stanford's machine. > > Because of this controversy, CHM has a policy that no artifacts will > ever be offered for > sale to the public. Items that are deacessioned are offered only to > other non-profit > institutions. > > From tiggerlasv at aim.com Wed Jun 17 12:19:20 2009 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:19:20 -0400 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive Message-ID: <8CBBD86E2C9E9F7-870-6F6@mblk-d18.sysops.aol.com> On Mon Jun 15 01:42:03 CDT 2009, spedraja at ono.com wrote: > But I have one question in addition... Are we speaking about a DIRECT > connection of the RX33 to the RQDX3, or we should need to use the BA23 > distribution board (or other) ? The home-brew cable I described goes DIRECTLY from the RQDXn controller to the floppy drives, and does NOT stop at any of the normal distribution boards / paddle cards. Controller <-----> cable <----- > drives This precludes using the RQDXn for any hard drives. On Sun Jun 14 03:14:57 CDT 2009, bqt at softjar.se wrote: > I think it's worth pointing out that people should never even try > connecting two hard drives in a BA23. You'll definitely wreck whatever > contents you have on the disks if you try. It is my understanding that this was true for older BA23 chassis, with only 4-button control panels. Ultimately, the problem was that the Ready and Write Protect lines were floating for the 2nd drive. Patching a pair of 10K resistors onto the 4-button control panel was all that was required to make the 2nd drive function normally, although admittedly, I can't recall if they needed to be pulled high, or low. Power supply loading may come into play, depending on how many drives & boards you have. From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Jun 17 12:48:30 2009 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:48:30 -0400 Subject: Looking for IMI 5018 MFM drive Message-ID: <01C9EF52.81FBF660@MSE_D03> Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:30:59 -0400 (EDT) From: Steven Hirsch >For reasons unclear, none of my followups to this have appeared on the >list. >Mike, Cannot seem to get to you via e-mail. Will you please contact me >offlist on the subject? >Steve --------------- Boy, take a weekend off and look what happens; relax, everyone, I'm alive and well, and we're talking off-list; I know you were worried... ;-) mike From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Jun 17 12:49:32 2009 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:49:32 -0400 Subject: Vintage Computers w New Tech. was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys Message-ID: <01C9EF52.833ADF00@MSE_D03> Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:08:01 -0700 (PDT) From: Christian Liendo >I am a fan when it doesn't ruin the end user experience. >The technology has to be built in a way so that you don't have to harm the old computer so that if you want to run it the old way, >you can. I mean sometimes you want the experience of listening to the grinding of a 1541 drive. ----------------- One of the not-much-larger-than-a-postage-stamp SD card disk drive emulators for the C64 does exactly that; it makes the same comfortingly familiar nasty sounds that a 'real' 15xx CBM drive would make. From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jun 17 12:37:55 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:37:55 +0100 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: <8CBBD86E2C9E9F7-870-6F6@mblk-d18.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CBBD86E2C9E9F7-870-6F6@mblk-d18.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <4A3929F3.6020501@dunnington.plus.com> On 17/06/2009 18:19, tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > On Sun Jun 14 03:14:57 CDT 2009, bqt at softjar.se wrote: > >> I think it's worth pointing out that people should never even try >> connecting two hard drives in a BA23. You'll definitely wreck whatever >> contents you have on the disks if you try. > > It is my understanding that this was true for older BA23 chassis, > with only 4-button control panels. Ultimately, the problem was that > the Ready and Write Protect lines were floating for the 2nd drive. I'm fairly sure that's correct. I certainly have a BA23 with two drives, and it's perfectly happy. > Patching a pair of 10K resistors onto the 4-button control panel > was all that was required to make the 2nd drive function normally, > although admittedly, I can't recall if they needed to be pulled > high, or low. IIRC it was one of each. > Power supply loading may come into play, > depending on how many drives & boards you have. That too is true, but with drives that are less power-hungry than some of DECs, less of a problem. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 17 12:57:57 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:57:57 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A38F72E.9080207@jbrain.com> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> <4A38F72E.9080207@jbrain.com> Message-ID: On Jun 17, 2009, at 10:01 AM, Jim Brain wrote: >>> Just because I'm curious: >>> >>> How do folks feel about those who are interested in extending the >>> life of vintage machines by integrating them with newer >>> technologies? That's my interest, allowing both existing and a >>> new class of users to enjoy a vintage platform by making it easy >>> to utilize the vintage platform with contemporary ones. >> >> Are you talking about things like interfaces for modern disk >> drives and such? > > Modern disk drives (www.jbrain.com/vicug/gallery/uIEC ), Ethernet > cards (http://www.jbrain.com/vicug/gallery/nic ), stuff like that. Well...my opinion is that it's great. I am a purist in some ways, but not in others. I think that vintage systems shouldn't be modified (at least not heavily so) to accept these types of things, but if they would make a vintage machine usable (or "more usable"), then so much the better. Anything that gets a machine powered up and doing something is a good thing, IMO. Some things like this, like Chuck Dickman's brilliant RX drive emulator and the several excellent TU58 emulators that are out there, make it FAR easier to bring up vintage systems and get them running. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jun 17 12:52:25 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:52:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Vintage Computers w New Tech. was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <01C9EF52.833ADF00@MSE_D03> References: <01C9EF52.833ADF00@MSE_D03> Message-ID: On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, M H Stein wrote: > Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:08:01 -0700 (PDT) > From: Christian Liendo > >> I am a fan when it doesn't ruin the end user experience. > > > >> The technology has to be built in a way so that you don't have to harm the old computer so that if you want to run it the old way, >you can. I mean sometimes you want the experience of listening to the grinding of a 1541 drive. > ----------------- > One of the not-much-larger-than-a-postage-stamp SD card disk drive > emulators for the C64 does exactly that; it makes the same comfortingly > familiar nasty sounds that a 'real' 15xx CBM drive would make. I take a different view, at least with my Commodore 64 and Amiga 3000. Over the years, I've souped both up quite a bit. I just wish I could afford CPU accelerators for them! Zane From bob at theadamsons.co.uk Wed Jun 17 13:03:13 2009 From: bob at theadamsons.co.uk (Bob Adamson) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:03:13 +0100 Subject: fpga pdp's; [was Re: ...arrogance [was RE: UNIX V7] ] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Eric Smith wrote: >> Brad Parker wrote: >>> I did a "direct decode" pdp-11 in verilog recently just to see how >>> big it would be (and because I was frustrated with the pop-11 >>> project). It fits nicely & boots RT11 at 50mhz. >> At that speed, surely it hasn't finished booting RT11 yet! > sorry, I don't get the joke. clock is 50mhz, or 20ns; each state is one > clock and on average > an instruction is 3 states. I calculated 10mips. it seems to boot much > faster than my 11/44 :-) > > what did I miss? Possibly a pedant distinguishing (correctly) between mega and milli? ;o) Bob From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 17 13:07:38 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:07:38 -0400 Subject: Vintage Computers w New Tech. was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: <01C9EF52.833ADF00@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <0C1ADE11-F89B-461B-A32F-E80F3F1A905F@neurotica.com> On Jun 17, 2009, at 1:52 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > I take a different view, at least with my Commodore 64 and Amiga > 3000. Over > the years, I've souped both up quite a bit. I just wish I could > afford CPU > accelerators for them! Are there in fact CPU accelerators for the C64? I was never much of a Commie, though I do have a C64 and a 1541 in the closet that I've not yet done anything with. Back when it seemed someone was either an "Atari person" or a "Commodore person", in the early 1980s, I was in the Atari camp with an '800. My best friend had a C64 though, and was always happy to show off its capabilities. Good stuff. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jun 17 13:10:53 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:10:53 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys) References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> Al Kossow wrote: > > I'm resending this with a revised title so someone has a chance of finding > this again in the future. I sent a similar message to alt.sys.pdp10 when > the subject came up last time. > > Al Kossow wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > >> Rich Alderson wrote: > >>> On the other hand, the last PDP-6 in existence was destroyed by the > >>> Computer > >>> Museum in Boston about 20 years ago, so you're one up there. > >> > >> OK, I don't think I've heard this story. > >> Someone contributing to Wikipedia seems to want to tangentially > >> counter it, > >> without explaining the background story. > > > > That would be me, a CHM employee, that has access to all of the Boston > > museum > > collection records. I have spoken to several of the staff members who > > were there > > at the time. I have been trying to find ANY evidence this occurred, and > > have not > > been able to. > > > > CHM has the fast memory box from Stanford's PDP-6. It came from the > > Compaq donation > > to CHM of what they had in >> DEC's << internal collection, and was NOT > > donated to > > the Boston Museum. As best as I've been able to determine, the 6 was > > sent to a DEC > > warehouse after the anniversary at DECUS, and sat there until what was > > there was > > sent to CHM. Since there is no record of this machine going to the > > Boston museum, > > nor does anyone there that I have talked to remember it coming there, it > > would have > > been difficult for them to have dismantled it. Every major donation to > > the Computer > > Museum was cataloged. I cannot find anything for Stanford's PDP-6 in > > their records > > or in the Museum Report, which at the time listed every donation they > > received. > > > > I would like to find someone INSIDE of DEC that saw it in while > > it was in the warehouse, but I haven't been able to locate anyone yet. > > > > The rumor of the Museum destroying the system started because their gift > > shop was selling > > modules, including the ALU modules from the PDP-6. I have been told > > these were from a > > collection of DEC module spares that DEC donated. I haven't been able to > > determine > > the earliest that they were being sold. If it was before the > > anniversary, they obviously > > could not have been from Stanford's machine. > > > > Because of this controversy, CHM has a policy that no artifacts will > > ever be offered for > > sale to the public. Items that are deacessioned are offered only to > > other non-profit > > institutions. Thanks for the explanation; so 'there is no story', so to speak. From rogpugh at mac.com Wed Jun 17 13:16:35 2009 From: rogpugh at mac.com (Roger Pugh) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:16:35 +0100 Subject: Vintage Computers w New Tech. was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <01C9EF52.833ADF00@MSE_D03> References: <01C9EF52.833ADF00@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <4ce6d91300ef3a65d70f57418e27aec5@mac.com> > > One of the not-much-larger-than-a-postage-stamp SD card disk drive > emulators for the C64 does exactly that; it makes the same comfortingly > familiar nasty sounds that a 'real' 15xx CBM drive would make. > The 1541 Ultimate has audio out jack for that authentic drive head banging experience! I have one, but yet to investigate its capabilities. www.1541ultimate.net Roger From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jun 17 13:25:35 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:25:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Vintage Computers w New Tech. was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <0C1ADE11-F89B-461B-A32F-E80F3F1A905F@neurotica.com> References: <01C9EF52.833ADF00@MSE_D03> <0C1ADE11-F89B-461B-A32F-E80F3F1A905F@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 17, 2009, at 1:52 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> I take a different view, at least with my Commodore 64 and Amiga 3000. >> Over >> the years, I've souped both up quite a bit. I just wish I could afford CPU >> accelerators for them! > > Are there in fact CPU accelerators for the C64? > > I was never much of a Commie, though I do have a C64 and a 1541 in the > closet that I've not yet done anything with. Back when it seemed someone was > either an "Atari person" or a "Commodore person", in the early 1980s, I was > in the Atari camp with an '800. My best friend had a C64 though, and was > always happy to show off its capabilities. Good stuff. There is the "SuperCPU". I was a "Commodore person", but gave that up in '86 when I first used a Kaypro PC. When someone showed me an Amiga 500 around '92 I thought it was a joke compared to my 486DX/33. I now know better. :-) Zane From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jun 17 13:36:12 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:36:12 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys) In-Reply-To: <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A39379C.3050504@bitsavers.org> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Thanks for the explanation; so 'there is no story', so to speak. > As far as I have been able to determine. All I've been trying to do is find evidence to either prove or disprove the rumor. From ray at arachelian.com Wed Jun 17 13:38:42 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:38:42 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A393832.60000@arachelian.com> I'm a bit loathe to respond to this thread as it seems to have devolved into a religious war of sorts. While those can be fun, it usually pisses everyone off and no progress is made anyway. What bothers me is the derogatory "Emulator Jokeys" as the subject of the original thread - I think there's enough room in this hobby of ours for both those who appreciate real hardware and those who appreciate emulators. I happen to be in both camps - yes, such a thing is possible. Luckily I do have enough physical space to be able to own a few dozen old machines, though nothing very large, but certainly, I can experience far many more machines than I can house by emulating them. While there may be groups of raving rabid ravenous emulator fanboys out there, I've not met many myself, most of these don't do much more than trade lists of ROM sites to download from and aren't interesting in much more than collecting as many bits as possible without necessarily touching the majority of them, but it does seem to me that none of those have shown up here. (I could imagine the existence of a class of hardware fanboys whose goal in life is to do nothing more than collect hardware and never touch it again, but I don't think that resembles anyone in real life.) By and large, the people I've dealt with in regards to emulation have been civil and friendly and appreciative. Some of these have never seen the systems they want emulators or, some of them have and wish to relive the nostalgia, some couldn't afford the real thing, or couldn't repair it and so forth. In other words, they're hobbyists, just like the type of folks you'll find here on this list. And in fact, some were from this list. I will say this, a computer is nothing more than a bunch of parts that don't do interesting things without software. Whether that software is a specific set of applications, an operating system, or a ROM with some sort of interpreter or debugger in it, or some code you yourself have to type in, there's not much a computer can do without code. All it will do is sit there and take up space and, if turned on, consume electricity and produce heat. I'll assume that we're not in this hobby for the sole purpose of using classic computers as space heaters. Now, of course, there is a lot of fun in the physical aspects of it, repairing and reconfiguring systems, for example is a very good thing, that's what allows us to keep our machines in running order, and there's certainly a huge sense of accomplishment in fixing a machine, and therefore saving it from the scrap heap. Ultimately, I believe that's the key here (at least it is for myself - and I don't presume to speak for others, except in the sense that they might feel the same way) if you can't actually run the machine, it's not very useful. It might be something nice to look at in a museum, but you won't be able to interact with it, you won't be able to *run programs on it*. So, to me, a non working machine isn't very much more interesting than a statue, in fact, quite a lot less due to the lost potential of what it could be. Walking by a cordoned off exhibit that shows a non-functioning machine, without the ability to see it run or interact with it, well that's just not very interesting to me. Watching the blinking lights of a powered on machine might be fun for only about 3 seconds (unless perhaps you're one of those that tends to partake in mind-shrinking substances). The experience of actually running code, and even better, coding for an old machine is probably the largest part of the fun of this hobby. Sure, when you take a machine apart and repair it and put it back together again, that's interacting with it, but if that's all you do, it's a very one dimensional experience, and for all the complexity, you might as well get your kicks repairing a toaster or dish washer. If you're not going to enjoy the end product of your work - a working machine that runs some software, by actually running that software, what good is all that work and effort beyond a fleeting sense of accomplishment? If that's the only joy you get, you might as well break it again, so you'll have something to fix. So that brings us from hardware to software. In software we can do something nearly magical. Humans, as far as we can tell, have for tens of thousands of years sought some path towards immortality. You'll find this theme in a lot of areas, we see it when we talk about art - how this or that artist has achieved immortality through their great works; you'll find it in almost every religion and cult - the idea of living past the limits of our bodies. And yet, we can't get there today. Sure, there are a few who are working on it today. But there is one area where we are actually able to create and provide immortality: software. Computers are relatively new things, and yet, their evolution and obsolescence has been as far faster and more interesting than as that of living things. Sure, we're the cause of that evolution, we're the ones inventing new improvements for them daily, we're the ones building and designing them. But they are indeed evolving. You can look at a timeline and see that first there were large machines which didn't do very much, then smaller ones which did almost as much: minis, then micros, then more recently portable machines. The features and capabilities from the larger make their way down to the small ultra portable ones (such as PDA's and phones). There is a trend here. Large machines got bigger, they went multi-processor, they went 64 bit, they've had MMUs, multitasking, I/O processors, and so forth. Smaller ones started out without those a lot of capabilities, but over time acquired them. Technology from the big iron made its way to the smaller, and all across the spectrum, everything evolved and grew and changed. A lot of the very interesting machines became extinct, and here's our hobby, the dull ones survived and we don't discuss them here as they're off topic. There are many reasons for these trends, mostly economic. To run a very large system, you need lots of space, lots of cooling, and lots and lots of energy. Whether you do this for a hobby or to gain some use in a corporate environment, it's expensive to maintain and run a very large system. But as those features made their way to minis and workstations and off the shelf consumer machines, the neat capabilities were made available to everyone. Thanks to Moore's Law, the smaller ones gain abilities exponentially, much, the same way as their larger brethren. One of the more interesting discoveries is the idea of a universal machine. While Turing came up with the idea, calling an invention is somewhat incorrect as it's more of a law in and of itself. The idea that one machine can run the very same code of another machine is an amazing thing. And it's also a very old one (in our hobby's time frame). When actors in ancient times put on a mask, for a few hours, they became that persona and the audience believed them, and some of those personae were of things that didn't exist, but were imagined, others were of historical figures and somewhat inaccurately portrayed due to the time limits of the show. Similarly, one machine can mimic another at the surface levels (such as DOS being similar to CP/M or Xenix being similar to Unix), but it can go much, much deeper than that. One machine can completely become another and can run the other's software, and in a lot of cases very accurately. While this may not satisfy a few vocal people on this list, the fact that there are large communities who are centered around emulation indicates a lot of interest and appreciation. For many people, emulation is perfectly acceptable. (Like any other software (or hardware) implementation, it can be very good or very poor, crying about the poor examples as a means to put down the whole spectrum is merely crying sour grapes. For shame!) But it can also open the door to other things, not previously possible. You can modify the running software - as it runs, something that's very hard to do on real machines unless facilities for this are provided (or created). You can run the software slower, or faster. You can defeat various forms of DRM. You can provide portability. You can provide the ability to save a running emulator's state to disk, transfer that to another machine and restart it there. You can clone one system into many at will. Something you cannot do with the original hardware. I think the major complaint (or rather phobia) is that emulation can allow one to run the same software WITHOUT the original hardware. Oh, the excuses will come up from the back of the mind, dripping in terror "But! But! But! If they can run it in software, they might throw out the hardware!" Well, yes, they might, and when /they/ discard that old hardware, it will likely make its way to our hands. Sure, some will wind up being scrapped by those who don't know any better, but a lot of folks realize our hobby exists. Some have various misunderstandings about our ability to pay insane amounts for nostalgia (i.e. the rabid ebay complaints that surface every few months), but others aren't looking for a quick score, so they'll ask around or post on Craig's List or Goodwill and do the right thing. It precisely because a somewhat unique machine is no longer produced, and therefore on the verge of extinction that we value it in this hobby. And exactly because of this we treasure that machine. We don't talk about (current) PC's much here, precisely because they are common. The drivers for this hobby are nostalgia, and preservation. They're not being made anymore, but they do continue to break down (yes, entropy is evil, we know) so their availability can only shrink over deep time, no matter what we do. Nostalgia (or curiosity for the past) is why people wish to play with the older machines. Wishing to bestow immortality on them is why some repair, others create replicas, and yet others write emulators for them. (Some write emulators for the challenge, for being the first to do so, etc. I admit all of those sentiments in my own experiences, but preservation was the main one.) So the goals of those who repair, those who create replicas, and those who write emulators are very much the same. The goals of those who buy and collect older machines, and of those who run emulators are also similar. There are also many reasons why emulation is a good thing. The ability to liberate the soul of the machine from the hardware (whether broken beyond repair, fixable, or working) is a good thing. It provides us with the chance to collect unwanted hardware, it provides anyone who is interested the ability to experience older software, and to some degree get an idea of what the older hardware could do. Sure, it's not the same, but it can be if the guys who write emulators care to make it a close experience. If we ask for them to be as close to the real thing as possible, the guys that write emulators will make it so. What can you use emulators for? You can run older operating systems on modern commodity systems, and if you care about portability and space, on a laptop. You can run multiple emulators at the same time on a single machine and possibly network them together. You can preserve old programs, and make them available even when the last piece of media, or drive is gone and no longer readable. You can recover personal data you had on systems (before they break irreparably), and bring that with you on modern systems. If you're short on space, you can run hundreds or thousands of systems on a single machine at will and experience machines you never saw in your life and have no hope of being able to house. Same as the above due to money or electricity. You can run them at many times their normal speed (hey life is short, why wait for hours when you don't have to?) You can even invent new systems and write emulators for them before they are built - for example the P-System, the Java JVM, and so forth. There's also a whole spectrum from actual original hardware to virtualization in the form of hypervisors to partial emulators full emulators to whole system simulators (down to the transistor level). And yes, you can actually emulate systems that require far more resources than a modern commodity machine (so long as you have enough storage available) but they'll run very slowly - and these are quite useful for situations where the actual guest system is too expensive or doesn't yet exist. You can use them to analyze malware in safe sandbox (for example, self encrypting, self-modifying ones) Those are all things you cannot do with the original hardware (or at least not in their original forms.) A couple more: When the very last Commodore 64 refuses to run and is beyond repair is no longer working, (yes, that day will someday come), the multitude of commodore 64 emulators will still be around (and so will the various on FPGA replicas and the like.) While there may have been only a few Colossus machines, all of which had been destroyed after WWII, if someone can get their hands on the emulator for it, they can run one whenever the mood strikes. Not as many can build their own replica, however, and none will have an original. (Speaking of which anyone know where you could get a Colossus emulator from? - there was mention of one here: http://designresearchgroup.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/a-post-modern-colossus/ ) :-) Maybe emulators aren't for everyone, then again, neither is collecting a lot of classic machines, or building replicas of such. To each their own. Each have advantages the others can't meet. And of course there is a huge spectrum between pristine sealed in box to damaged beyond repair. (Of course, ideally, every classic machine should be in pristine condition, with unyellowed cases, and completely working. But that's a pipe dream.) That spectrum also includes modern peripherals or upgrades. Some would scream bloody murder at the thought of replacing a non-working hard drive for a classic system with a modern hard drive (or CF card) and interface, others would gladly welcome it as it means the difference between an unusable machine and one that works. This can go all the way to replacing the actual internals of a machine with a modern one running an emulator (I recall someone installed a Mac Mini inside a Mac Plus case and then ran mini vMac on it as an example), or of course, just a plain emulator running on a normal consumer machine. I don't think we should be bickering and fighting over where our preferences lie on the spectrum. To each their own, and no matter where your preferences lie, the end result is that more classic machines are saved from scrap. From brianlanning at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 13:45:30 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:45:30 -0500 Subject: what are these? Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906171145t4e73f020g1d43e4007f07d4a0@mail.gmail.com> http://cgi.ebay.com/2-VINTAGE-EXTERNAL-5-25-FLOPPY-DRIVES_W0QQitemZ200353772286QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2ea603f2fe&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A10|66%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A1|294%3A50 One looks like the single sided floppy drives that came with the 5150. The other looks like it's from another planet. I originally though it was a QIC tape drive, but the shot inside the drive opening shows the slots along the side to hold the floppy disks. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jun 17 13:49:55 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:49:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: what are these? In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906171145t4e73f020g1d43e4007f07d4a0@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906171145t4e73f020g1d43e4007f07d4a0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Brian Lanning wrote: > http://cgi.ebay.com/2-VINTAGE-EXTERNAL-5-25-FLOPPY-DRIVES_W0QQitemZ200353772286QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2ea603f2fe&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A10|66%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A1|294%3A50 > > One looks like the single sided floppy drives that came with the 5150. > The other looks like it's from another planet. I originally though > it was a QIC tape drive, but the shot inside the drive opening shows > the slots along the side to hold the floppy disks. I sold one of these back in April. Here's the old auction page: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330321345663 -- 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? From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Wed Jun 17 13:53:13 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:53:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Vintage Computers w New Tech. was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys Message-ID: <696424.7416.qm@web112203.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> That is REALLY nice.. Hmmmmm, I need to save $$ as I am trying to buy parts for my S100 machines. I want this though. http://www.cpm80.com/superio.html --- On Wed, 6/17/09, Roger Pugh wrote: > From: Roger Pugh > > > The 1541 Ultimate has audio out jack for that authentic > drive head > banging experience! > > I have one, but yet to investigate its capabilities. > > www.1541ultimate.net > > Roger > > From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 17 14:17:31 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:17:31 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A393832.60000@arachelian.com> References: , , <4A393832.60000@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <4A38DEDB.10608.1465059A@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jun 2009 at 14:38, Ray Arachelian wrote: > I will say this, a computer is nothing more than a bunch of parts that > don't do interesting things without software. Whether that software > is a specific set of applications, an operating system, or a ROM with > some sort of interpreter or debugger in it, or some code you yourself > have to type in, there's not much a computer can do without code. All > it will do is sit there and take up space and, if turned on, consume > electricity and produce heat. Thank you for clearly stating whence my own conflict arises. Emulation doesn't reproduce the physical experience of the machine (unless one goes to great lengths to supplement a display on a screen). And I'm not sure I'd want to repeat the physical experience. On the other hand, much vintage software is only interesting from a historical standpoint. Given modern machines and tools, it's possible to create far more complex software than was ever possible on a "classic" mainframe. While some of the non-traditional architectures would be fun to play around with, I don't know that I'd ever want to own and maintain such a system. I admire those who are willing to dedicate their time and money to keep an old dinosaur ticking. Most old computer software is fairly pedestrian by modern standards. Stuff that took years to implement in the 1960s would probably require weeks to replicate today. Machine speed and memory is cheap and the graphics available to the average consumer would leave a 1960's graphics engineer agog. Every once in awhile, I remind myself that in the dark ages, if I could get three or four assembler runs done in a working day, it was a very productive day. Now I can do that between sips of coffee. That's real power--I wish my mind could keep up with the machine! At the same time, I think that there's plenty of tribal memory left to be accessed. Many times over the years, I've found myself saying "What's so great about that? We had that decades ago--and it didn't work." The latest episode of this was an EDN article that discussed pairing FPGAs with Pentium-class CPUs to do computations in decimal for the financial industry. A decimal computer--who would have guessed? --Chuck From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jun 17 14:22:46 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:22:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: logic probe happy-sad Message-ID: I needed a new logic probe, so I found one on Ebay. Whoops, no audio output. Found plans for a "super probe" based on a PIC16 (http://members.cox.net/berniekm/super.html). Still need a case for this thing. Found that kelvin.com has logic probe cases. Whee! -- 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? From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Wed Jun 17 14:34:47 2009 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:34:47 +0200 Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual In-Reply-To: <138107.43508.qm@web65502.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <138107.43508.qm@web65502.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: --- On Wed, 6/10/09, Andrew Lynch wrote: > > From: Andrew Lynch > Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 8:45 PM > > Hi! Does anyone have the NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual? > > I am looking for one as part of research on building a home > brew NEC 7220 video board. > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Andrew Lynch I waited with a response, assuming that somebody has the manual you are looking for. I am not 100% sure, but I might have that manual. I am sure that I do have _a_ NEC 7220 GDC manual, and I remember (15+ years ago) that I used that manual to write a BASIC program to calculate register values based on the timing parameters for the VDU. I don't remember if the manual contained hardware info, it might. Next time I am in the old house, I will search for the manual in the attic. Perhaps this weekend ... - Henk. From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 17 14:36:55 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:36:55 -0400 Subject: Vintage Computers w New Tech. was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: <01C9EF52.833ADF00@MSE_D03> <0C1ADE11-F89B-461B-A32F-E80F3F1A905F@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <9066CBE3-F446-4AB4-8F4D-26140ED3312D@neurotica.com> On Jun 17, 2009, at 2:25 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>> I take a different view, at least with my Commodore 64 and Amiga >>> 3000. Over >>> the years, I've souped both up quite a bit. I just wish I could >>> afford CPU >>> accelerators for them! >> >> Are there in fact CPU accelerators for the C64? >> >> I was never much of a Commie, though I do have a C64 and a 1541 in >> the closet that I've not yet done anything with. Back when it >> seemed someone was either an "Atari person" or a "Commodore >> person", in the early 1980s, I was in the Atari camp with an >> '800. My best friend had a C64 though, and was always happy to >> show off its capabilities. Good stuff. > > There is the "SuperCPU". How is it implemented? > I was a "Commodore person", but gave that up in > '86 when I first used a Kaypro PC. When someone showed me an Amiga > 500 > around '92 I thought it was a joke compared to my 486DX/33. I now > know > better. :-) Yes. :-) I had an Amiga 1000 back in 1992 or so, and while it wasn't my primary system (of use or interest) as I was all UNIX by then, I always thought it was an amazing system. I sold it, and as with most everything I've gotten rid of, I regret that decision. My boss has a few 1000s and he has promised to put together a nice one for me, and I'm looking forward to giving it a home. What amazingly powerful systems! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 14:38:33 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:38:33 -0500 Subject: what are these? In-Reply-To: References: <6dbe3c380906171145t4e73f020g1d43e4007f07d4a0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A394639.5070404@gmail.com> David Griffith wrote: > On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Brian Lanning wrote: > >> http://cgi.ebay.com/2-VINTAGE-EXTERNAL-5-25-FLOPPY-DRIVES_W0QQitemZ200353772286QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2ea603f2fe&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A10|66%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A1|294%3A50 >> >> >> One looks like the single sided floppy drives that came with the 5150. >> The other looks like it's from another planet. I originally though >> it was a QIC tape drive, but the shot inside the drive opening shows >> the slots along the side to hold the floppy disks. > > I sold one of these back in April. Here's the old auction page: > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330321345663 I've seen 8" drives like that; I'm not sure if there was any reasoning behind it (possibly other than the original designer either being in a hurry or fresh out of college), but it looks like they simply took the 8" variant and washed it until it shrunk enough to take 5.25" media ;) From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 14:41:06 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:41:06 -0500 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion In-Reply-To: <4A37A07A.7618.F893F4B@cclist.sydex.com> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, <4A33E201.19297.E92C71@cclist.sydex.com>, <4A37F0B1.3060905@gmail.com> <4A37A07A.7618.F893F4B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A3946D2.4040702@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 16 Jun 2009 at 14:21, Jules Richardson wrote: > >> I'm sure a recording of line printers etc. can be found and played >> back at many decibels. I can set you up in our barn in the middle of >> MN with a supply of potato chips and laptop running the emulator if >> you want - how does next Jan sound? I'll even show up periodically and >> yell at you about being behind schedule. > > Bring a bunch of roaches, mice and crickets too, just to complete the > sense of "atmosphere". Mice and crickets I can do - not sure about roaches, but maybe the vast number of ticks in the woods can act as stand-ins? > Not to mention psycopathic co-workers... Those are in short supply here, thankfully - I think you'll have to pack your own... :-) From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jun 17 14:47:53 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:47:53 -0500 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys) In-Reply-To: <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090617144739.04657988@mail.threedee.com> At 11:55 PM 6/16/2009, Brent Hilpert wrote: >Rich Alderson wrote: >> On the other hand, the last PDP-6 in existence was destroyed by the Computer >> Museum in Boston about 20 years ago, so you're one up there. I have one of his signed PDP-6 gift-shop cards and an email from Gordon Bell saying these "To my knowledge, the museum has never engaged in gutting machines for components, although I would happily agree that this is a good idea when we have duplicates and crippled or partial artifacts." - John From blstuart at bellsouth.net Wed Jun 17 15:17:00 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:17:00 -0500 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A38DEDB.10608.1465059A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <3fa23733716d24eb1046a48172293bd0@bellsouth.net> > I will say this, a computer is nothing more than a bunch of parts that > don't do interesting things without software. Whether that software > is a specific set of applications, an operating system, or a ROM with > some sort of interpreter or debugger in it, or some code you yourself > have to type in, there's not much a computer can do without code. All > it will do is sit there and take up space and, if turned on, consume > electricity and produce heat. I've been trying to stay out of this, but I've just had an epiphany regarding what the hobby/calling is for me. I've heard this kind of statement a number of times, and I can't really argue with the point that a computer doesn't *do* much without software. But it's never really had the "ring of truth" for me, and I finally figured out why. It's the implication that if the computer isn't *doing* something interesting it *isn't* interesting, and that's where I differ from some. If one comes at the computer from the perspective of it being something to use, then it probably wouldn't be very interesting without running software. But if one comes at the computer as an object of study, then both the hardware and the software can be interesting in the absence of the other. And I have to say that coming at it as an engineer and programmer, I do see them as objects of study more than as tools to use, or at least as both. But the utility has never outweighed the intrinsic intellectual interest in these artifacts. That's probably part of why the cultural and business aspects of computing are of less interest to me than to some other folk. Just my 10 milli-dollars worth. (Even my opinion has been devalued by the economy.) BLS From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jun 17 15:17:28 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:17:28 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys) In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20090617144739.04657988@mail.threedee.com> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <6.2.3.4.2.20090617144739.04657988@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: <4A394F58.2080409@bitsavers.org> John Foust wrote: > At 11:55 PM 6/16/2009, Brent Hilpert wrote: >> Rich Alderson wrote: >>> On the other hand, the last PDP-6 in existence was destroyed by the Computer >>> Museum in Boston about 20 years ago, so you're one up there. > > I have one of his signed PDP-6 gift-shop cards and an email from Gordon Bell > saying these "To my knowledge, the museum has never engaged in gutting > machines for components" There is also the Usenet posting which you forwarded: > From: amartin at denton.zko.dec.com (Alan H. Martin) > >Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10 > >Subject: Re: Working for PDP-10 En > >Date: 21 Feb 1996 13:12:21 GMT > >Organization: DEC > >Lines: 27 > >Message-ID: <4gf5nl$kun at zk2nws.zko.dec.com> > >References: <1996Feb14.164932.1 at eisner.decus.org> > >NNTP-Posting-Host: denton.zko.dec.com > > > >In article alderson at netcom.com writes: >> >>In article <1996Feb14.164932.1 at eisner.decus.org> stevens_j at eisner.decus.org >> >>(Jack H. Stevens) writes: > >... >>> >>>How about trying The Computer Museum, in Boston? (also at http://www.tcm.org) >> >> >> >>Bad idea. The Computer Museum has buried any interesting (read "36-bit") >> >>hardware. They were given, for example, the Stanford Artificial Intelligence >> >>Laboratory PDP-6 in 1984, after it was shown at the Fall DECUS Symposia (for >> >>the 20th Anniversary of 36-Bit Computing). >> >> >> >>It has never been made available for public view; as far as anyone can tell, >> >>it has disappeared from the face of the earth. > > > >I'm hazy on dates, but if the 6 in question was donated before the museum's > >move from MR2 to Boston, you ain't likely to see it in one piece ever again. > >They had a garage sale of unwanted items in the MR1 cafeteria one Saturday > >before the move, and were selling a PDP-6 module-by-module. An S6205K > >"Arithmetic Registers" module (1-bit slice of AR/MQ/MB/) went > >for $7, autographed by Gordon Bell. > > > >I asked him whether read-in mode was implemented as a diode array encoding > >instructions. He said no, and kindly recommended the 6205 as a particularly > >central module to have, instead. > > /AHM > >-- > >Alan Howard Martin AMartin at TLE.ENet.DEC.Com > > The 'garage sale' is documented in one of the Museum's reports http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/TheCompMusRep/TCMR-V07.html At first I thought this was the smoking gun, except it happened in the fall of 1983 (the 6 was shown at DECUS in June, 1984). They did disassemble more than one PDP-6 at that time according to the article. So, the short answer is they had PDP-6 modules, but not from Stanford's machine. From pontus at update.uu.se Wed Jun 17 15:22:04 2009 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:22:04 +0200 Subject: repairing VT220 DEC terminal - In-Reply-To: <1245187340.5196.0.camel@elric> References: <4A37FD29.1080801@update.uu.se> <1245187340.5196.0.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A39506C.1040801@update.uu.se> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Hang a TV off the BNC video connector on the back, with a suitable set > of adaptors. > > If you get that far, you've got some sort of video happening. > > Gordon > This got me going :) I search high an low for a "suitable set of adaptors" when I noticed that my vt125 has a video in and I hooked them up. It showed me this: http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/vt220-125.jpg The video signal is obviously not syncing up, but you can clearly read "VT220 OK". So the logic board is fine. I guess I should start looking for the HOT, the flyback looks ok, not like the broken ones I've seen in a vt320. I could not find any fuses on the video board as mentioned by Jerry. But I believe there was at least two revisions of the vt220 video board. Cheers, Pontus. From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jun 17 15:33:32 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:33:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: what are these? In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906171145t4e73f020g1d43e4007f07d4a0@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906171145t4e73f020g1d43e4007f07d4a0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090617133115.Y12159@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Brian Lanning wrote: > http://cgi.ebay.com/2-VINTAGE-EXTERNAL-5-25-FLOPPY-DRIVES_W0QQitemZ200353772286QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2ea603f2fe&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A10|66%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A1|294%3A50 http://cgi.ebay.com/2-VINTAGE-EXTERNAL-5-25-FLOPPY-DRIVES_W0QQitemZ200353772286 is enough > One looks like the single sided floppy drives that came with the 5150. > The other looks like it's from another planet. I originally though > it was a QIC tape drive, but the shot inside the drive opening shows > the slots along the side to hold the floppy disks. It looks to me like an MPI B51 or B52 -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From wmaddox at pacbell.net Wed Jun 17 15:48:32 2009 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:48:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM 3420 tape drive and 3803 controller available (with pictures) Message-ID: <733577.83618.qm@web82606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> The seller for eBay item # 250445866736 has a complete 3420 tape drive and 3803 controller available. Located in Ladysmithc, Wisconsin. They are due to be parted out if no one speaks up for them. I inquired about these, and the seller sent me some photos. They are posted on my website at http://www.harlie.org/ibm_tape . I do not collect IBM big iron myself, but the 3420 is iconic, and folks look for them from time to time. I have no connection with the seller. --Bill From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 15:48:57 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:48:57 -0400 Subject: what are these? In-Reply-To: <20090617133115.Y12159@shell.lmi.net> References: <6dbe3c380906171145t4e73f020g1d43e4007f07d4a0@mail.gmail.com> <20090617133115.Y12159@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A3956B9.1000300@gmail.com> Fred Cisin wrote: >> http://cgi.ebay.com/2-VINTAGE-EXTERNAL-5-25-FLOPPY-DRIVES_W0QQitemZ200353772286QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2ea603f2fe&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A10|66%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A1|294%3A50 > > http://cgi.ebay.com/2-VINTAGE-EXTERNAL-5-25-FLOPPY-DRIVES_W0QQitemZ200353772286 > is enough http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200353772286 is even better. Peace... Sridhar From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 17 13:12:12 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:12:12 +0100 (BST) Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect In-Reply-To: <4A353FDE.2020205@softjar.se> from "Johnny Billquist" at Jun 14, 9 08:22:22 pm Message-ID: [HP41] > I couldn't have described the ports any better myself. :-) I reckon I could :-) 12 connections -- 3 power : Vbatt (battery +ve), Vcc (logic supply), ground 3 timing/sync : Phi_1, Phi_2 (2 phase clock), sync (bus cycle synchonisation) ISA (Instruction and address -- 16 bit serial machine code address and 10 bit serial machine code instruction) Data (56 bit serial data line) 2 slot selects (B3, B4, either floating or tied to a power line (I forget which one) in the 4 possible combinations, so a module can tell which slot it's plugged into) PWO (Power off, turns off devices to save battery power) FI (Serial flag input line) A bus cycle is 56 clocks, corresponding to the 56 bits of a machine register. Data (user program code, numbers, etc) is transfered serially over the data line. Early on in a bus cycle, a 16 bit machine code address is output on the ISA late, later on, a 10 bit instruction is read back from the ROM [1] over the same line. Sync is asserted during those 10 clocks _unless it's fetching the second word of a 2 word instruction_ [2]. Note there's no read/write line, etc. The RAM chips have to decode the instruction on the ISA line and start accepting data from the Data line if it's a write instruction. [1] Note that a machine code instruction can't be read from normal HP41 RAM, which can only output data onto the data line. If you want to do machine code programming, you need some non-HP add-ons such as a special RAM box that emulates a ROM [2] this is actually a sensible idea. It means that a RAM chip, etc, only decodes instructions when the sync line is asserted (to determine if it should start reading or writing) and can't be fooled by the second word of a 2-byte instruction (IIRC those are jumps, they never involve any device other than the CPU). Modules use the B3 and B4 lines to determine which port they are plugged into. RAM modules (HP41C only, the maximum user RAM is built into CV and CX machines) must be plugged in starting at port 1 unless you are doing something _very_ strange. ROM modules are mapped to addresses 8xxx/9xxx (port 1), Axxx/Bxxx (port 2), Cxxx/Dxxx (port 3) and Exxx/Fxxx (Port 4). Most 4K ROM modules use the lower of the 2 pages assinged to a port, but there's no reason why this has to be the case. Note that the card reader ignores these lines, it can only really be plugged into port 4, and the ROM always appears in page Exxx. Extended memory modules (-CX and others with an extended functions ROM plugged in) use on of these lines so you can have 2 such modules plugged in at the same time. Can you tell I still use an HP41, I have been known to program it in machine code :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 17 13:21:34 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:21:34 +0100 (BST) Subject: Unusual semi-modern DEC terminal - "MT 505"? In-Reply-To: <4A37FD29.1080801@update.uu.se> from "Pontus" at Jun 16, 9 10:14:33 pm Message-ID: > My memory served me wrong, or I read the post to fast. Is the symptoms > of a "lost" horizontal hold that the picture will scroll, looping around? No, that's loss of _vertical_ hold. Loss of horizontal hold wil lcause the picture to break up into sloping lines across the screen. > > This vt220 in front of me has no picture at all. I was using it and > between the blink of my eyes the picture disappeared, no bang, no smoke, > just gone. I think the logic still works, judging by the led indicators > on the keyboard and the satisfying beep it "boots" just fine. > > Any ideas where I should start looking? Do you have a composite video monitor around? If so, connect it to the BNC socket on the back of the VT220. If you get a display on that monitor, the VT220 logic is working. An old book on TV servicing (so old that it doesn't mention transistors, and even disccussed mains-derrived rather than flyback EHT...) points out that there are 7 signals applied to a CRT (this applies to monitors and terminals too) 1) Heater supply 2) Video drive 3) Grid bias 4) First anode voltage and/or focus voltage 5) Horizontal deflection 6) Vertical drfleciton 7) Final anode voltage (EHT) Problems with any of them can result in a blank screen, although problems with _just_ the deflection [1] would have to involve steady DC currents through the coils to deflect the beam off-screen, which is a very uncommon fault. [1] Note that in just about every monitor/terminal (and certainly the VT220), the EHT and other CRT supplies come from the horizontal output stage. A faut in the horizontal deflection circuit may well remove these voltages and cause the screen to go blank. So it's basically a process of finding out which input is wrong and correcting it. I'd start by checking the CRT heater is glowing (it's easy to do -- just look at it), and then, assuming you have a suitable EHT meter, measure the final anode voltage. Expect about 10kV here. Alas without schematics it's difficult to go much further -- is the VT220 printset on a web site? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 17 14:13:53 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:13:53 +0100 (BST) Subject: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer In-Reply-To: <4A3816F1.8070400@stillhq.com> from "Doug Jackson" at Jun 17, 9 08:04:33 am Message-ID: > spelling is Latin! Remember - "I before E, unless after C (and then > only sometimes)" I forget who first said this, but... 'I before E except after C We sure live in a weird society' -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 17 14:16:38 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:16:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: <4A3814FC.8020208@stillhq.com> from "Doug Jackson" at Jun 17, 9 07:56:12 am Message-ID: > I would soooo love to run my C128D, but I can not find a power supply > for it - The use of the proprietary plug has been a pain, and I have > more than once been 'just about to' put a commonly available power > socket on to the box. > > Does anybody have any ideas? I don't know about the -D model, but the plain C128 uses the same power connector _although not the same PSU_ as some Amiga models. Possibly you could get a dead PSU from one of those and raid the plug from it. The plain C128 needs +5V and an isolated 9V AC input IIRC on a DIN like plug with a square outer shell and 5 pins in a quincuncial arrangement. Alternatively solder wiees to the right points on the PCB inside the C128D and run them out to a normal connector. You can easily reverse that (desolder the wires) if you get the right PSU. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 17 15:40:14 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:40:14 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> from "Jim Brain" at Jun 16, 9 11:24:57 pm Message-ID: > > Just because I'm curious: > > How do folks feel about those who are interested in extending the life > of vintage machines by integrating them with newer technologies? That's Personally I have no problems with doing this provided no (or at worst reverasble) changes are made to the classic machine. For example, I think the unit that lets you use flash memory as a Commodore disk drive is a great idea. If something like that was designed for HP SS/80, etc, drives, I'd build one... While I like to use a real DEC VT55 as the console of my 11/45, I have no problem plugging computers into the other serial ports and using them as terminals. It doesn't damage the PDP11. But I don't lioke changing the classic machine. Not even replacing PSUs with switchers. The original PSU is part of the design, and I want to keep it that way. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 17 15:43:51 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:43:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect In-Reply-To: <1245242891.27700.5.camel@elric> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Jun 17, 9 01:48:11 pm Message-ID: > Annoyingly I realised I picked up an HP41C manual in a charity shop a > few months back, too. If I'd remembered that I had a manual for it at > home I'd have picked it up straight away... The HP41 is one of the best docuemtned calculators _ever_ (the HP71B and HP75C are similarly well-documented -- documetiation including not just excellent user manuals and applicaiton manuals, but also schematics, bus information and ROM sources..). And much of the documetation is available on the web. Darn it, there's even an active user group for HP calculators in the UK, and yes, the HP41 is still discussed at meetings. Lack of documentation is never a reason not to buy an HP41 :-) BTW, the HP41C is 30 years old this year.... -tony From RichA at vulcan.com Wed Jun 17 15:56:09 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:56:09 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 In-Reply-To: <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > From: Al Kossow > Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 8:32 AM > I'm resending this with a revised title so someone has a chance of finding > this again in the future. I sent a similar message to alt.sys.pdp10 when > the subject came up last time. Hmm. I don't recall seeing your contribution on this in alt.sex.pdp10, or we'd have discussed it there. My comments below are not intended as any kind of rebuttal, but as an exploration of how controversies such as this can arise. Please bear with me. Rich Al Kossow wrote: > Brent Hilpert wrote: >> Rich Alderson wrote: >>> On the other hand, the last PDP-6 in existence was destroyed by the >>> Computer Museum in Boston about 20 years ago, so you're one up there. >> OK, I don't think I've heard this story. >> Someone contributing to Wikipedia seems to want to tangentially >> counter it, without explaining the background story. > That would be me, a CHM employee, that has access to all of the Boston > museum collection records. I have spoken to several of the staff > members who were there at the time. I have been trying to find ANY > evidence this occurred, and have not been able to. > CHM has the fast memory box from Stanford's PDP-6. It came from the > Compaq donation to CHM of what they had in >> DEC's << internal > collection, and was NOT donated to the Boston Museum. As best as I've > been able to determine, the 6 was sent to a DEC warehouse after the > anniversary at DECUS, and sat there until what was there was sent to > CHM. Since there is no record of this machine going to the Boston > museum, nor does anyone there that I have talked to remember it coming > there, it would have been difficult for them to have dismantled > it. Every major donation to the Computer Museum was cataloged. I cannot > find anything for Stanford's PDP-6 in their records or in the Museum > Report, which at the time listed every donation they received. > I would like to find someone INSIDE of DEC that saw it in while > it was in the warehouse, but I haven't been able to locate anyone yet. > The rumor of the Museum destroying the system started because their > gift shop was selling modules, including the ALU modules from the > PDP-6. I have been told these were from a collection of DEC module > spares that DEC donated. I haven't been able to determine the earliest > that they were being sold. If it was before the anniversary, they > obviously could not have been from Stanford's machine. I can address part of the controversy, but in a court it would be ruled hearsay testimony. The Stanford AI Lab PDP-6 was dismantled and shipped to Anaheim for the 20th anniversary of 36-bit computing at Digital. I was offered the opportunity to visit the system at the D. C. Power Laboratory by the Director of the LOTS Computing Facility, who was a grad student at SAIL at one time, on the day of the dismantlement. We met the Director of the Computer Science Dept. computer facility, and they entered a display hack for the console lights into the ACs, discovering that one AC was not working in the process and working around it. This program was used at DECUS so that it wasn't just a hunk of metal and sand standing there. Several years later, a well-known member of the 36-bit community was in Boston, and visited the Computer Museum, which had been given (as the entire DECUS community, not just 36-bitters, understood it) the entirety of the DEC corporate museum's collection, including the PDP-6. The -6 was not on display, and modules recognizably of a -6 were on sale in the museum shop. Queries were made, and a reasonable conclusion was drawn based on the Computer Museum's de-emphasis of anything earlier than the IBM PC in their exhibits in conjunction with the disappearance of the SAIL PDP-6 from all human ken. Perhaps we all jumped to an erroneous conclusion, but the fact that no one at Digital (and there was still a Digital at that point) knew where the PDP-6 was, if not at the Computer Museum, made it a very very short leap. As I said above, I have never, in the past 20 years, had anyone step forward to correct, or to dispute, or even to augment, the story as I heard it first hand from the shocked lips of the museum visitor, until now. Given the data Al has set forth about collection records for the Computer Museum, the DEC corporate museum, etc., I will no longer state as probable fact the story of the disappearance of the SAIL PDP-6, but I will return a verdict of "Not Proven" rather than "Not Guilty" with respect to the Computer Museum. > Because of this controversy, CHM has a policy that no artifacts will > ever be offered for sale to the public. Items that are deacessioned are > offered only to other non-profit institutions. That is best practice in the museum world at large, of course. Look at the controversy surrounding the Brandeis University decision to sell the Rose Art Museum collection: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/27/brandeis Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 17 16:03:40 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:03:40 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <3fa23733716d24eb1046a48172293bd0@bellsouth.net> from "blstuart@bellsouth.net" at Jun 17, 9 03:17:00 pm Message-ID: > > > I will say this, a computer is nothing more than a bunch of parts that > > don't do interesting things without software. Whether that software > > is a specific set of applications, an operating system, or a ROM with > > some sort of interpreter or debugger in it, or some code you yourself > > have to type in, there's not much a computer can do without code. All > > it will do is sit there and take up space and, if turned on, consume > > electricity and produce heat. > > I've been trying to stay out of this, but I've just had an > epiphany regarding what the hobby/calling is for me. > I've heard this kind of statement a number of times, > and I can't really argue with the point that a computer > doesn't *do* much without software. But it's never > really had the "ring of truth" for me, and I finally figured > out why. It's the implication that if the computer isn't > *doing* something interesting it *isn't* interesting, and > that's where I differ from some. If one comes at the I'm with you on this. Of course I like to obtain at least the boot disk for a classic computer. If I'm repairing it, I like to be able to boot it afterwards :-). But in general I am not too interested in all the application software (languages and utilites probably, but other stuff is not of much interest _to me_). But I find beauty (seriously) in the design of some of these classics. For example, I find the PERQ CPU beautiful. It's beautiful even if I don't haev POS boot disk. The Philips P850 us an interesting machine to me, even if all I ever run is programs I've toggled in on the panel switches. Ditto for the PDP8 and PDP11 actually. [...] > part of why the cultural and business aspects of computing > are of less interest to me than to some other folk. Such aspects are of almost no interest to me either. If the machine came from another planet, I'd still find it interesting and beautiful (no more an no less interesting or beautiful...) I'm not saying it's wrong to be interesting in the cultural aspect of classic computing, just that _I_ am not interested in it. -tony From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 17 16:11:43 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:11:43 -0400 Subject: repairing VT220 DEC terminal - In-Reply-To: <4A39506C.1040801@update.uu.se> References: <4A37FD29.1080801@update.uu.se> <1245187340.5196.0.camel@elric> <4A39506C.1040801@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <10CF3765-879E-424D-AE34-7916CA00E1FF@neurotica.com> On Jun 17, 2009, at 4:22 PM, Pontus wrote: > This got me going :) I search high an low for a "suitable set of > adaptors" when I noticed that my vt125 has a video in and I hooked > them > up. It showed me this: > > http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/vt220-125.jpg Wow, that's an image straight out of The Twilight Zone. ;) > The video signal is obviously not syncing up, but you can clearly read > "VT220 OK". So the logic board is fine. I guess I should start looking > for the HOT, the flyback looks ok, not like the broken ones I've > seen in > a vt320. Yup, sure sounds like "an analog failure" (not that there's any other kind) in the monitor section. The monitor circuits in the VT220 are fairly simple, aren't they? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 17 16:16:14 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:16:14 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5378593D-E61F-409B-B668-75F7C29BD8DC@neurotica.com> On Jun 17, 2009, at 4:40 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > But I don't lioke changing the classic machine. Not even replacing > PSUs > with switchers. The original PSU is part of the design, and I want to > keep it that way. While I agree with you here, I have to admit that, if my PDP-11/70 had switching power supplies, I'd probably run it a lot more often. I'd *never* make it an irreversible modification, though. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 16:18:01 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:18:01 -0400 Subject: Unusual semi-modern DEC terminal - "MT 505"? In-Reply-To: References: <4A37FD29.1080801@update.uu.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > Alas without schematics it's difficult to go much further -- That is sort of where I'm stuck. I can follow schematics and trace along just fine, but my knowledge of video is somewhat spotty - some problems I can probably find and correct quite easily, others leave me scratching my head. > is the VT220 printset on a web site? I have never seen one, but hopefully it's because I'm just not looking in the right place. If anyone knows where, I'd love to get a pointer. -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 17 16:18:43 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:18:43 -0400 Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0BD3602D-18B4-4F18-B1F3-8AB3DE231B07@neurotica.com> On Jun 17, 2009, at 4:43 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> Annoyingly I realised I picked up an HP41C manual in a charity shop a >> few months back, too. If I'd remembered that I had a manual for >> it at >> home I'd have picked it up straight away... > > The HP41 is one of the best docuemtned calculators _ever_ (the > HP71B and > HP75C are similarly well-documented -- documetiation including not > just > excellent user manuals and applicaiton manuals, but also > schematics, bus > information and ROM sources..). And much of the documetation is > available > on the web. > > Darn it, there's even an active user group for HP calculators in > the UK, > and yes, the HP41 is still discussed at meetings. > > Lack of documentation is never a reason not to buy an HP41 :-) Yet another reason why my 41CX will never leave my desk. :-) I have a big collection of HP calculators, but the 41 has always impressed me more than any other model. I think it was because it was advertised alongside all the 8-bitters of the early 1980s in the magazines, as if it were a full-fledged computer...which, by all definitions I'm aware of, it certainly is. > BTW, the HP41C is 30 years old this year.... Very cool! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com Wed Jun 17 16:19:14 2009 From: jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:19:14 -0500 (CDT) Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Tony Duell wrote: > > I would soooo love to run my C128D, but I can not find a power supply > > for it - The use of the proprietary plug has been a pain, and I have > > more than once been 'just about to' put a commonly available power > > socket on to the box. > > > > Does anybody have any ideas? > > I don't know about the -D model, but the plain C128 uses the same power > connector _although not the same PSU_ as some Amiga models. Possibly you > could get a dead PSU from one of those and raid the plug from it. > > The plain C128 needs +5V and an isolated 9V AC input IIRC on a DIN like > plug with a square outer shell and 5 pins in a quincuncial arrangement. > > Alternatively solder wiees to the right points on the PCB inside the > C128D and run them out to a normal connector. You can easily reverse that > (desolder the wires) if you get the right PSU. I know we went through all of this several months ago ("Do the Commodores really need the 9VAC?"), but my 128D has an AT power supply in it, therefore is not feeding the system with 9VAC, and is functioning perfectly well. I've even pulled the PSU out of a 1571 and use an external Molex from the AT PSU in 128D to power the 1571. In my mind I say it is more efficient. No empirical proof of this, however. :) - JP From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Wed Jun 17 15:01:04 2009 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:01:04 -0400 Subject: what are these? In-Reply-To: <4A394639.5070404@gmail.com> Message-ID: Jules Richardson wrote: > David Griffith wrote: > > On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Brian Lanning wrote: > http://cgi.ebay.com/2-VINTAGE-EXTERNAL-5-25-FLOPPY-DRIVES_W0QQitemZ200353772286QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash= item2ea603f2fe&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A10|66%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A1|294%> 3A50 > >> > >> > >> One looks like the single sided floppy drives > >> that came with the 5150. The other looks like > >> it's from another planet. I originally though > >> it was a QIC tape drive, but the shot inside > >> the drive opening shows the slots along the side > >> to hold the floppy disks. > > > > I sold one of these back in April. Here's the > > old auction page: > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330321345663 > > I've seen 8" drives like that; I'm not sure if there > was any reasoning behind it (possibly other than the > original designer either being in a hurry or fresh > out of college), but it looks like they simply took > the 8" variant and washed it until it shrunk enough > to take 5.25" media ;) That's it exactly. It is the 8 inch mechanism reduced to 5 1/4 inch. Only ever made by MPI as far as I can tell. Ohio Scientific used MPI 5 1/4 inch drives with that mechanism for most of their time in business. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 16:29:57 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:29:57 -0400 Subject: logic probe happy-sad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 3:22 PM, David Griffith wrote: > I needed a new logic probe, so I found one on Ebay. ?Whoops, no audio output. Bummer. > ?Found plans for a "super probe" based on a PIC16 (http://members.cox.net/berniekm/super.html). ?Still need a case for this thing. Very nice. I may have to make one of those. I don't have any PIC16F870s lying about, but I know they aren't expensive. I especially like the hack to only light one LED segment at a time to simplify the circuit. > ?Found that kelvin.com has logic probe cases. ?Whee! I'll have to wander on over for one of those, too. Thanks for sharing this. -ethan From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jun 17 16:30:18 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:30:18 -0600 Subject: repairing VT220 DEC terminal - In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:22:04 +0200. <4A39506C.1040801@update.uu.se> Message-ID: In article <4A39506C.1040801 at update.uu.se>, Pontus writes: > This got me going :) I search high an low for a "suitable set of > adaptors" when I noticed that my vt125 has a video in and I hooked them > up. It showed me this: > > http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/vt220-125.jpg shell 41> wget http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/vt220-125.jpg --15:29:57-- http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/vt220-125.jpg => `vt220-125.jpg' Resolving www.update.uu.se... 130.238.19.25 Connecting to www.update.uu.se|130.238.19.25|:80... failed: Connection refused. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ray at arachelian.com Wed Jun 17 16:34:01 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:34:01 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A396149.8020200@arachelian.com> Tony Duell wrote: >> >> I've been trying to stay out of this, but I've just had an >> epiphany regarding what the hobby/calling is for me. >> I've heard this kind of statement a number of times, >> and I can't really argue with the point that a computer >> doesn't *do* much without software. But it's never >> really had the "ring of truth" for me, and I finally figured >> out why. It's the implication that if the computer isn't >> *doing* something interesting it *isn't* interesting, and >> that's where I differ from some. If one comes at the >> > > I'm with you on this. > > Of course I like to obtain at least the boot disk for a classic computer. > If I'm repairing it, I like to be able to boot it afterwards :-). But in > general I am not too interested in all the application software > (languages and utilites probably, but other stuff is not of much interest > _to me_). > > But I find beauty (seriously) in the design of some of these classics. > For example, I find the PERQ CPU beautiful. It's beautiful even if I > don't haev POS boot disk. The Philips P850 us an interesting machine to > me, even if all I ever run is programs I've toggled in on the panel > switches. Ditto for the PDP8 and PDP11 actually. > They're beautiful in the same sense as a statue is beautiful, but you can't really interact with them without any software other than take them apart and put them back together again. It's the difference between driving a classic race car and just looking at one which is cordoned off in a museum exhibit. Sure it's pretty and quite neat, but the only excitement will be in our imagination. It's a completely different experience. And okay, granted, to stretch the analogy further, an emulator is like driving a video game version of a race car instead of the actual one. From RichA at vulcan.com Wed Jun 17 16:36:15 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:36:15 -0700 Subject: [OT] English spelling [was RE: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer] In-Reply-To: <4A3816F1.8070400@stillhq.com> References: <4A3707F2.40400@verizon.net> <4A37D29B.A16C72@cs.ubc.ca> <4A37D5E1.6B36981@cs.ubc.ca> <1245174207.23637.47.camel@elric> <4A37DCCC.3751D215@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3816F1.8070400@stillhq.com> Message-ID: > From: Doug Jackson > Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 3:05 PM > My wonderful, patient wife is an English teacher, and an easy way to > rev her up is to remind her that English is a living language, subject > to constant change, and that the only language that has truly static > spelling is Latin! Remember - "I before E, unless after C (and then > only sometimes)" Not even Latin spelling is entirely static--ecclesiastical Latin spellings often differ from the classical language. And it's i before e except after c, if the sound of the word is 'long e' which, as someone with multiple degrees in linguistics, irritates me a bit (there being no such thing as "long" vowels in modern English--it's a holdover from Graeco-Latin grammars). Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 17 16:36:39 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:36:39 -0700 Subject: Further Emulator Discussion In-Reply-To: <4A3946D2.4040702@gmail.com> References: <901195.24665.qm@web35301.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, <4A37A07A.7618.F893F4B@cclist.sydex.com>, <4A3946D2.4040702@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A38FF77.3423.14E46804@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jun 2009 at 14:41, Jules Richardson wrote: > Mice and crickets I can do - not sure about roaches, but maybe the > vast number of ticks in the woods can act as stand-ins? Back when it wasn't "Silicon Valley", the Santa Clara valley was a big agricultural producer. Santa Clara was known for its Italian prunes, there were orchards along North First Street, and cherry blossoms would form small mounds in the roadway during spring in Sunnyvale. This time of year, the valley would be full of the scent of marinara sauce as the canneries swung into tomato-canning action. CDC Sunnyvale ops was situatied in the middle of onion fields along Moffett Park Drive. When the weather turned cool around November, hordes of crickets would invade the facility and could be found everywhere--even in second floor offices, in desk drawers, in coffee cups... Just one more aspect that I don't miss. --Chuck From RichA at vulcan.com Wed Jun 17 16:46:02 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:46:02 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <5378593D-E61F-409B-B668-75F7C29BD8DC@neurotica.com> References: <5378593D-E61F-409B-B668-75F7C29BD8DC@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > From: Dave McGuire > Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 2:16 PM > On Jun 17, 2009, at 4:40 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> But I don't lioke changing the classic machine. Not even replacing PSUs >> with switchers. The original PSU is part of the design, and I want to >> keep it that way. > While I agree with you here, I have to admit that, if my PDP-11/70 > had switching power supplies, I'd probably run it a lot more often. > I'd *never* make it an irreversible modification, though. Tony's comment was presumably brought on by Richard's passing mention of the power supply work we have done to the 1090 and 2065 at PDPplanet. We did this work in the spirit of those DEC customers such as CompuServe who replaced the power supplies in their KL-10 systems beginning in the 1970s, although we have been very careful to document every change and to make them all completely reversible. Here's why: The linear supplies used on the KL-10 are there because the ECL circuitry is much more sensitive to noise in the power than TTL, and the early switchers were extremely noisy. Modern switchers are very much better on that count. Since the linears waste ~2/3 of their input power as heat, replacing them means that instead of a 12.4KVA draw, we're down to less 6KVA, which means it costs less than half what it otherwise would to power these machines. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 17 16:53:14 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:53:14 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A396149.8020200@arachelian.com> References: <4A396149.8020200@arachelian.com> Message-ID: On Jun 17, 2009, at 5:34 PM, Ray Arachelian wrote: > They're beautiful in the same sense as a statue is beautiful, but you > can't really interact with them without any software other than take > them apart and put them back together again. Nah. One can still study, maintain, and dick with classic machines even without software, even just following stuff around with an oscilloscope and a logic probe. It is just a *different kind* of enjoyment. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jun 17 17:26:23 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:26:23 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <5378593D-E61F-409B-B668-75F7C29BD8DC@neurotica.com> References: <5378593D-E61F-409B-B668-75F7C29BD8DC@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A396D8F.9000904@brouhaha.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > While I agree with you here, I have to admit that, if my PDP-11/70 > had switching power supplies, I'd probably run it a lot more often. > I'd *never* make it an irreversible modification, though. Unless you've already replaced them with something else, your PDP-11/70 *DOES* have switching power supplies! Eric From slawmaster at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 17:28:00 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:28:00 -0700 Subject: [OT] English spelling [was RE: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer] In-Reply-To: References: <4A3707F2.40400@verizon.net> <4A37D29B.A16C72@cs.ubc.ca> <4A37D5E1.6B36981@cs.ubc.ca> <1245174207.23637.47.camel@elric> <4A37DCCC.3751D215@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3816F1.8070400@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906171528r352c5d10h4ba4e092c23eb569@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > > From: Doug Jackson > > Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 3:05 PM > > > My wonderful, patient wife is an English teacher, and an easy way to > > rev her up is to remind her that English is a living language, subject > > to constant change, and that the only language that has truly static > > spelling is Latin! Remember - "I before E, unless after C (and then > > only sometimes)" > > Not even Latin spelling is entirely static--ecclesiastical Latin > spellings often differ from the classical language. > > And it's > > i before e except after c, > if the sound of the word is 'long e' > > which, as someone with multiple degrees in linguistics, irritates me a > bit (there being no such thing as "long" vowels in modern English--it's > a holdover from Graeco-Latin grammars). > > I'm not sure about you, but for me the "long" qualifier was taught as denoting vowels that 'sound like their names', i.e. the A in 'plate' as opposed to the A in 'flat'. Now, being in the process of trying to teach myself Latin, I understand what you're saying, but I guess you must decide if you want to accept modern usage as the new "correct" use or not. Also, we learned it as: i before e except after c, or when sounded as 'a' like in neighbor and weigh. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From blstuart at bellsouth.net Wed Jun 17 17:46:57 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:46:57 -0500 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A396149.8020200@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <9f2ad4b6ddecc0145bfe26ac029ff4e4@bellsouth.net> > Tony Duell wrote: >>> >>> I've been trying to stay out of this, but I've just had an >>> epiphany regarding what the hobby/calling is for me. >>> I've heard this kind of statement a number of times, >>> and I can't really argue with the point that a computer >>> doesn't *do* much without software. But it's never >>> really had the "ring of truth" for me, and I finally figured >>> out why. It's the implication that if the computer isn't >>> *doing* something interesting it *isn't* interesting, and >>> that's where I differ from some. If one comes at the >>> >> But I find beauty (seriously) in the design of some of these classics. >> For example, I find the PERQ CPU beautiful. It's beautiful even if I >> don't haev POS boot disk. The Philips P850 us an interesting machine to >> me, even if all I ever run is programs I've toggled in on the panel >> switches. Ditto for the PDP8 and PDP11 actually. >> > > They're beautiful in the same sense as a statue is beautiful, but you > can't really interact with them without any software other than take > them apart and put them back together again. > It's the difference between driving a classic race car and just looking > at one which is cordoned off in a museum exhibit. Sure it's pretty and > quite neat, but the only excitement will be in our imagination. It's a > completely different experience. Point take. But there's a third type of experience that doesn't involve using the car in it's intended role. If I have the car in my collection, even if I never drive it, I can still study it, taking it apart, testing different pieces, learning from the design. A building is another good example. If you're one who appreciates Frank Lloyd Wright's designs, you don't have to live in one to experience the mind of the house's creator. A virtual walk-through is better than nothing, but it doesn't recreate the experience of physically walking through with a set of the blue prints studying how the design was created in the environment and how the design was realized in stone and wood. For me, both the car and the house have intrinsic intellectual value that exists independent of experiencing the utility. Of course, I'd like to experience both, but taking away the utility doesn't make it less interesting for me. On the other hand, take away the sense of connection to the mind of the designer, and it becomes very much less interesting to me, no matter how useful it is. That's why there are relatively few pieces of software (written by other people that is) that interest me. As software becomes more popular and more useful (for a suitable definition of useful), even if initially I can see through to the mind of one or two very intelligent people, that soon gets lost and I see through to a collective of mediocrity. BLS From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 17 17:47:28 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:47:28 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A396D8F.9000904@brouhaha.com> References: <5378593D-E61F-409B-B668-75F7C29BD8DC@neurotica.com> <4A396D8F.9000904@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Jun 17, 2009, at 6:26 PM, Eric Smith wrote: >> While I agree with you here, I have to admit that, if my >> PDP-11/70 had switching power supplies, I'd probably run it a lot >> more often. I'd *never* make it an irreversible modification, >> though. > > Unless you've already replaced them with something else, your > PDP-11/70 *DOES* have switching power supplies! I'm looking at the schematic for the H744, and I see an LM723 with a big fat 2N5302 (Ic=30A) wrapped around it. Now, I'm aware that the LM723 can be used in a switching regulator topology, but at first glance that's not what it looks like to me. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that, because I've repaired probably a dozen H744/H7441 regulators, including one just a few weeks ago in my newly-acquired PDP-11/50. So...are you certain? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jun 17 17:47:46 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:47:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [OT] English spelling [was RE: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer] In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906171528r352c5d10h4ba4e092c23eb569@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A3707F2.40400@verizon.net> <4A37D29B.A16C72@cs.ubc.ca> <4A37D5E1.6B36981@cs.ubc.ca> <1245174207.23637.47.camel@elric> <4A37DCCC.3751D215@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3816F1.8070400@stillhq.com> <7d3530220906171528r352c5d10h4ba4e092c23eb569@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090617154520.M31050@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, John Floren wrote: > Also, we learned it as: > i before e except after c, > or when sounded as 'a' > like in neighbor and weigh. But, it is still W E I R D ^ ^ From brain at jbrain.com Wed Jun 17 18:34:46 2009 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:34:46 -0500 Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: <4A386F2F.9000509@stillhq.com> References: <200906170414.n5H4E6Av017264@floodgap.com> <4A386F2F.9000509@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <4A397D96.1040204@jbrain.com> Doug Jackson wrote: > Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>> I would soooo love to run my C128D, but I can not find a power >>> supply for it - The use of the proprietary plug has been a pain, and >>> I have more than once been 'just about to' put a commonly available >>> power socket on to the box. >>> >> >> Huh? The 128D(CR) has an integrated power supply. >> >> Perhaps you mean a flat 128? >> >> > Ahhhh - Yep - it is a flat 128. Keep me in mind. I'm a bit busy at the moment, but I think I have C128 PSU or two around here with no C128 to use them on, and I can ship. But, you'll have to be patient. I just grabbed a big stash from Minneapolis, St. Paul last weekend (100-150 cu ft of CBM stuff), and I'm in the thick of it. Jim -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X) brain at jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! Home: http://www.jbrain.com From brain at jbrain.com Wed Jun 17 18:41:39 2009 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:41:39 -0500 Subject: Vintage Computers w New Tech. was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <9066CBE3-F446-4AB4-8F4D-26140ED3312D@neurotica.com> References: <01C9EF52.833ADF00@MSE_D03> <0C1ADE11-F89B-461B-A32F-E80F3F1A905F@neurotica.com> <9066CBE3-F446-4AB4-8F4D-26140ED3312D@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A397F33.4000509@jbrain.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 17, 2009, at 2:25 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> >> There is the "SuperCPU". There is also the TurboMaster (4MHz), and the TurboProcess (4MHz) as well as the Flash8 (8MHz) > > How is it implemented? All run on the same principle. Use the BA signal on the cartridge port to tristate the internal CPU (6510/8502). Implement an entire 65C816S or 65C02 SBC on the cartridge, minus any IO. Run the internal SBC at 4,8,20MHz, with some buffering between the SBC bus and the C64 bus. Implement either clock stretching or wait states to slow down the external CPU when it needs to communicate with internal RAM or IO. Tada. Jim From ragooman at comcast.net Wed Jun 17 18:44:36 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:44:36 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> Jim Brain wrote: > Just because I'm curious: > > How do folks feel about those who are interested in extending the life > of vintage machines by integrating them with newer technologies? > That's my interest, allowing both existing and a new class of users to > enjoy a vintage platform by making it easy to utilize the vintage > platform with contemporary ones. > I don't see why new users can't enjoy the same original hardware as those of use who grew up on this. I disagree with using newer technologies up to a certain point. Whether you want to restore some files with a modern disk drive because you might be without enough equipment or build a new cpu design by mixing in modern components. I think you get to experience the thoughts and nuances when using original parts in a computer design created 30/40 yrs ago - as in, how to test,program,debug,etc the original hardware. What's the point in restoring vintage equipment of you like to 'circumvent' the original design by using something which didn't exist for that particular era. As in the case of using a replacement modern drive to sustain an existing system, is reasonable, but it's more fun to find something original afterwards. It might be expensive for some to buy 8" floppy drives now, but you can still get 5-1/4" floppy drives inexpensively. The alternative drive systems using faster drives and GB of storage , I think, just loses appeal with the aspect of restoring vintage hardware - I think it shows you have less patience for old hardware. It's so easy to mix in modern components in an IC design - heaven forbid if people want to gut their transistors machines and install a cards replaced with 7474 dual FF chips. Using modern technology is the easy way out - try learning how it was done then. I do think some people like to wonder at work involved with the vintage technology still. =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From ragooman at comcast.net Wed Jun 17 18:45:07 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:45:07 -0400 Subject: Vintage Computers w New Tech. was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <696424.7416.qm@web112203.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <696424.7416.qm@web112203.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A398003.8010308@comcast.net> I remember you just bought a Northstar, wouldn't you instead like to learn how that hardware designed back then operates while you restore that machine ? =Dan Christian Liendo wrote: > That is REALLY nice.. > Hmmmmm, I need to save $$ as I am trying to buy parts for my S100 machines. > > I want this though. > > http://www.cpm80.com/superio.html > > > > > --- On Wed, 6/17/09, Roger Pugh wrote: > > >> From: Roger Pugh >> >> >> The 1541 Ultimate has audio out jack for that authentic >> drive head >> banging experience! >> >> I have one, but yet to investigate its capabilities. >> >> www.1541ultimate.net >> >> Roger >> >> >> > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 8.5.339 / Virus Database: 270.12.77/2184 - Release Date: 06/17/09 17:55:00 > > From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jun 17 18:57:49 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:57:49 -0700 Subject: H744 switching power supplies in PDP-11/70 (was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys) In-Reply-To: References: <5378593D-E61F-409B-B668-75F7C29BD8DC@neurotica.com> <4A396D8F.9000904@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A3982FD.9010001@brouhaha.com> Dave wrote: >>> While I agree with you here, I have to admit that, if my PDP-11/70 >>> had switching power supplies, I'd probably run it a lot more often. >>> I'd *never* make it an irreversible modification, though. I wrote: >> Unless you've already replaced them with something else, your >> PDP-11/70 *DOES* have switching power supplies! Dave wrote: > I'm looking at the schematic for the H744, and I see an LM723 with a > big fat 2N5302 (Ic=30A) wrapped around it. Now, I'm aware that the > LM723 can be used in a switching regulator topology, but at first > glance that's not what it looks like to me. > > I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that, because I've repaired > probably a dozen H744/H7441 regulators, including one just a few weeks > ago in my newly-acquired PDP-11/50. Yes, it's a switcher. The switching transistor has a 30A rating because the rated output of the supply is 25A. The theory of operation is covered in section 4.4.6.2 of the maintenance manual, EK-11070-MM-002 (May 1979), page 4-59 et seq., and a sample switching waveform is given in figure 4-39 on page 4-61. For the KL10, I'd like to upgrade to switchers but I don't want to replace the entire ECL power supply as is done in the Compuserve mode. I'd rather keep the front end, which consists of the H760A raw supply (basically just a three-phase transformer and rectifier), and the capacitor box (13 ea. 0.3F 15V electrolytics), and replace just the individual -5.2V 35A and -2.0V 35A regulator modules in the H761 regulator assembly, since those modules can be easily removed and reinstalled. I've got a design for replacement regulators using the LTC3731, and it looks good in simulation, but I haven't yet built any. I wasn't quite sure how to use the LTC3731 as a negative buck regulator, but one of the apps engineers at Linear Technology showed me how to do it. Eric From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jun 17 19:08:03 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:08:03 -0300 Subject: Any PACE users out there? References: <4A3557AC.7000901@brouhaha.com> <4A350DF9.23602.57CEAC0@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <15ec01c9efa9$dc36cc20$ee0619bb@desktaba> > At a Wescon (can't recall which one) in the 70's, NSC was giving away > samples of the PACE, along with documentation. Well, I can't resist > anything *free* at trade shows, even if it's a dead i386 die encased > in resin and promoted as a keychain fob, so I grabbed a sample > package. I'd **love** to have one of these, principally FREE :o) I'll try to do that with encapsulated chips, with the bottom open :oD From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jun 17 19:21:41 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:21:41 -0700 Subject: Any PACE users out there? In-Reply-To: <15ec01c9efa9$dc36cc20$ee0619bb@desktaba> References: <4A3557AC.7000901@brouhaha.com> <4A350DF9.23602.57CEAC0@cclist.sydex.com> <15ec01c9efa9$dc36cc20$ee0619bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <4A398895.8060007@brouhaha.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > At a Wescon (can't recall which one) in the 70's, NSC was giving away > samples of the PACE, along with documentation. Well, I can't resist > anything *free* at trade shows, even if it's a dead i386 die encased > in resin and promoted as a keychain fob, so I grabbed a sample package. Alexandre Souza wrote: > I'd **love** to have one of these, principally FREE :o) One problem with taking advantage of a PACE chip (free or otherwise) is that the I/O pads aren't compatible with TTL, or with much of anything else either. The specs are very strange. National made some buffer and transceiver chips designed to work with it, but of course they are even more like unobtanium these days than the PACE itself. I suspect that the easiest thing to interface to it nowdays would be CD4000B series CMOS logic, which is extremely slow, but then so is the PACE. The later INS8900, which was basically an NMOS version of the PACE, had more conventional I/O pads so it was easier to interface. Eric From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 17 19:32:12 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:32:12 -0600 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A398B0C.3090209@jetnet.ab.ca> Dan Roganti wrote: > It's so easy to mix in modern components in an IC design - heaven forbid > if people want to gut their transistors machines and install a cards > replaced with 7474 dual FF chips. Using modern technology is the easy > way out - try learning how it was done then. I do think some people like > to wonder at work involved with the vintage technology still. > I consider vintage hardware is from the tube era. And before we start on "how tough it was back then", it did have the advantage of hand on experience. Right now I am trying to figure the warm of time for a vacuum tube amp, I am trying to use some VR tubes for my next project, and I am trying to figure out if I will have ample starting voltage. The gotya is I have two VR tubes in series and I can't figure the starting voltage from the data sheets. This is check with the real hardware stuff. > =Dan I plan to do a computer in CPLD's but I plan to start with just a front panel and some CPLD's , a clock and some memory ... then later I can add a second board with I/O. This way I can start small and progress in stages. Ben. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 17 19:35:21 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:35:21 -0600 Subject: Any PACE users out there? In-Reply-To: <15ec01c9efa9$dc36cc20$ee0619bb@desktaba> References: <4A3557AC.7000901@brouhaha.com> <4A350DF9.23602.57CEAC0@cclist.sydex.com> <15ec01c9efa9$dc36cc20$ee0619bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <4A398BC9.1060000@jetnet.ab.ca> Alexandre Souza wrote: >> At a Wescon (can't recall which one) in the 70's, NSC was giving away >> samples of the PACE, along with documentation. Well, I can't resist >> anything *free* at trade shows, even if it's a dead i386 die encased >> in resin and promoted as a keychain fob, so I grabbed a sample package. > > I'd **love** to have one of these, principally FREE :o) > > I'll try to do that with encapsulated chips, with the bottom open :oD Hey for fun I was thinking of taking some transistors, octal coil holders and plastic covers to make a 'solid state tube'. The heat sinks would look like Seleium recitfiers fins... :) Ben From brain at jbrain.com Wed Jun 17 20:01:45 2009 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:01:45 -0500 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A3991F9.2060707@jbrain.com> Dan Roganti wrote: > > > I don't see why new users can't enjoy the same original hardware as > those of use who grew up on this. I disagree with using newer > technologies up to a certain point. Whether you want to restore some > files with a modern disk drive because you might be without enough > equipment or build a new cpu design by mixing in modern components. > > I think you get to experience the thoughts and nuances when using > original parts in a computer design created 30/40 yrs ago - as in, how > to test,program,debug,etc the original hardware. What's the point in > restoring vintage equipment of you like to 'circumvent' the original > design by using something which didn't exist for that particular era. > As in the case of using a replacement modern drive to sustain an > existing system, is reasonable, but it's more fun to find something > original afterwards. It might be expensive for some to buy 8" floppy > drives now, but you can still get 5-1/4" floppy drives inexpensively. > The alternative drive systems using faster drives and GB of storage , > I think, just loses appeal with the aspect of restoring vintage > hardware - I think it shows you have less patience for old hardware. > > It's so easy to mix in modern components in an IC design - heaven > forbid if people want to gut their transistors machines and install a > cards replaced with 7474 dual FF chips. Using modern technology is the > easy way out - try learning how it was done then. I do think some > people like to wonder at work involved with the vintage technology still. I can't argue the value of experiencing the actual vintage hardware I worry about taking an "elitist" position when it comes to vintage hardware, though. For every person who wants to experience the slow speed of the 1541, there are 10-100 people who find the C64 valuable but have no time for the 1541. Specifically, the latter group includes the folks design SW for the platform, software that users (who might enjoy the 1541) use. So, by withholding newer technologies, it effectively discourages those that the community wishes to interest in the platform. As well, the C64 never offered Ethernet, and the "use only era-appropriate technologies" mentality would preclude such a technology. However, the CBM 8-bit line has enjoyed quite a bit of publicity over innovative Ethernet software solutions (like the recently noted Twitter client). Such publicity generates lots of value (additional new users, developers who turn to the platform for the community aspects of the challenge of such development, etc.) for the platform. Maybe the recent vintage machines (like the home computer of the 80s) are unique in that they still have a relatively large user community and are being utilized in contemporary settings due to unique aspects that have never been duplicated (The SID IC, for example) In fact, the term "restoration" is seldom heard in the CBM community (it's usually reserved for some extremely rare variant of the line, like an early PET or some unreleased machine), but "use" is often heard. Quite possibly, I'm the odd man out in this community. I am interested in preserving the CBM 8 bit line, but that's not the end of my interest. I do agree that my position begs the question "At what point have you 'enhanced' a machine beyond recognition?" I don't have an answer for that question, but I have some ideas. Jim From ragooman at comcast.net Wed Jun 17 20:35:12 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:35:12 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A398B0C.3090209@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> <4A398B0C.3090209@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4A3999D0.4070406@comcast.net> bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > > I plan to do a computer in CPLD's but I plan to start with just a > front panel > and some CPLD's , a clock and some memory ... then later I can add > a second board with I/O. This way I can start small and progress in > stages. > It maybe because I'm mostly a hardware grunt/gearhead. See, I think a good example of experiencing vintage hardware design is using some of the first PAL's from MMI that came out near the end of the 70's. The programmers that we had weren't that smart as they are today - no synthesis, fitters, or floorplanners then. After you designed the logic, you had to chart the fuses that you had to pop on a diagram resembling the component. All there was on the screen of the programmer was the same logic diagram and you individually configure the fuses you needed to pop, and then your PAL was programmed. Now try and see if that will test your patience after a dozen PALs :) I would like to find one of those programmers someday. =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From lynchaj at yahoo.com Wed Jun 17 20:37:04 2009 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:37:04 -0400 Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual Message-ID: <359F5F8564394FAA850DB9389FCE9C4B@andrewdesktop> --- On Wed, 6/10/09, Andrew Lynch wrote: > > From: Andrew Lynch > Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 8:45 PM > > Hi! Does anyone have the NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual? > > I am looking for one as part of research on building a home > brew NEC 7220 video board. > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Andrew Lynch I waited with a response, assuming that somebody has the manual you are looking for. I am not 100% sure, but I might have that manual. I am sure that I do have _a_ NEC 7220 GDC manual, and I remember (15+ years ago) that I used that manual to write a BASIC program to calculate register values based on the timing parameters for the VDU. I don't remember if the manual contained hardware info, it might. Next time I am in the old house, I will search for the manual in the attic. Perhaps this weekend ... - Henk. -----REPLY----- Hi Henk! Thanks! Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. I am interested and researching the possibility of a NEC uPD7220 home brew video board. The SY6545 video board I made for the N8VEM project is working out really well but it is just a simple character only display. Ideally, you could scan the book if that is possible but if not would you be interested in selling it? I contacted NEC and they didn't know anything about it. Apparently very few people still have the manual and bitsavers doesn't have it either. I did some library searches but no luck although it is cited as a reference in a couple of college papers like masters thesis, etc. What I really need to know is if I can implement a simple circuit using few enough 74LS TTL ICs to fit on a Eurocard ECB board. That means it can't be more than about 30 maximum. Using high capacity SRAMs should help but I think it requires some funky latching mechanisms to share the video address and data lines. I looked at the NEC APC video board and it is just huge. I hope that is not an indication of the complexity needed! Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch From pcw at mesanet.com Wed Jun 17 20:45:36 2009 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:45:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual In-Reply-To: <359F5F8564394FAA850DB9389FCE9C4B@andrewdesktop> References: <359F5F8564394FAA850DB9389FCE9C4B@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Andrew Lynch wrote: > Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:37:04 -0400 > From: Andrew Lynch > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: RE:NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual > > --- On Wed, 6/10/09, Andrew Lynch wrote: > interested in selling it? I contacted NEC and they didn't know anything > about it. Apparently very few people still have the manual and bitsavers > doesn't have it either. I did some library searches but no luck although it > is cited as a reference in a couple of college papers like masters thesis, > etc. > > What I really need to know is if I can implement a simple circuit using few > enough 74LS TTL ICs to fit on a Eurocard ECB board. That means it can't be > more than about 30 maximum. Using high capacity SRAMs should help but I > think it requires some funky latching mechanisms to share the video address > and data lines. > > I looked at the NEC APC video board and it is just huge. I hope that is not > an indication of the complexity needed! > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Andrew Lynch > Probably 30 would do, I have in front of me a S100 card with a 7220. 128KB of 64 Kb DRAM and 31 TTL ICs... Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 17 21:12:45 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:12:45 -0700 Subject: Any PACE users out there? In-Reply-To: <4A398895.8060007@brouhaha.com> References: <4A3557AC.7000901@brouhaha.com>, <15ec01c9efa9$dc36cc20$ee0619bb@desktaba>, <4A398895.8060007@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4A39402D.3526.15E10340@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jun 2009 at 17:21, Eric Smith wrote: > One problem with taking advantage of a PACE chip (free or otherwise) > is that the I/O pads aren't compatible with TTL, or with much of > anything else either. The specs are very strange. National made some > buffer and transceiver chips designed to work with it, but of course > they are even more like unobtanium these days than the PACE itself. I > suspect that the easiest thing to interface to it nowdays would be > CD4000B series CMOS logic, which is extremely slow, but then so is the > PACE. That's exactly what I did. The various PACE interface chips (STE,MILE, etc) were expensive and not easy to findt, so I made do. That was also my first exposure to 4000 series CMOS logic. The whole thing pretty much filled up an S100 prototype card. Lotsa wires. --Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 21:19:03 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:19:03 -0400 Subject: [OT] English spelling [was RE: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer] In-Reply-To: References: <4A3707F2.40400@verizon.net> <4A37D29B.A16C72@cs.ubc.ca> <4A37D5E1.6B36981@cs.ubc.ca> <1245174207.23637.47.camel@elric> <4A37DCCC.3751D215@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3816F1.8070400@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <4A39A417.50406@gmail.com> Rich Alderson wrote: > Not even Latin spelling is entirely static--ecclesiastical Latin > spellings often differ from the classical language. > > And it's > > i before e except after c, > if the sound of the word is 'long e' I always learned it as: I before E except after C Except when sounding like A As in "neighbor" and "weigh" Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 17 21:23:48 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:23:48 -0700 Subject: Any PACE users out there? In-Reply-To: <4A398BC9.1060000@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4A3557AC.7000901@brouhaha.com>, <15ec01c9efa9$dc36cc20$ee0619bb@desktaba>, <4A398BC9.1060000@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4A3942C4.13658.15EB19B6@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jun 2009 at 18:35, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > Hey for fun I was thinking of taking some transistors, octal coil > holders and plastic covers to make a 'solid state tube'. The heat > sinks would look like Seleium recitfiers fins... :) Ben I don't know if it was ever done for active circuits, but solid-state "tubes" for the old 0Z4 cold-cathode gas recitifer found in auto radios (with vibrator supply) were very popular as you didn't get any RF "hash" in the sound. Same sort of fixture for other common rectifier types, such as 5Y4. I recall when the early silicon recifiers came in little ceramic cartridges, held in fixtures that looked like fuse holders. IR used to advertise kits to replace various selenium rectifiers. At least silicon didn't stink when it went bad. --Chuck From len at shustek.com Wed Jun 17 21:53:24 2009 From: len at shustek.com (Len Shustek) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:53:24 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 Message-ID: <20090618025420.F34D027DD@orpheus.cnchost.com> > From: Al Kossow > Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 8:32 AM > I'm resending this with a revised title so someone has a chance of finding > this again in the future. I sent a similar message to alt.sys.pdp10 when > the subject came up last time. This issue resurfaces every few years. My first post related to it was to alt.sys.pdp10 on 2/28/1996 2:54 PM. The last time I saw it discussed was February of 2006. I have various messages on the subject in my email archive, including those between Gordon Bell and Rich Alderson in 1999. This supposed dismantling of the Stanford PDP-6 predates even my tenure on the board of The Computer Museum, which started in 1995, so I can't make a personal testimonial. But like Al, I've searched the files and spoken to people who were there. I have no evidence that it is true, and I have gotten multiple declarations that it is false. See, for example, the email below from Gwen Bell to me in 1999. I don't know what else we can do. I'm sure this is not the last time it will be discussed. In my 1996 posting I said, > It pains me to read some of the recent comments about TCM's collection > policy. I can't answer any of the complaints about specific items, > because I wasn't involved. I do know, and this comes mostly from > getting to know the Bells, that preserving computers in the context of a > financially sound organization that can survive our lifetimes is their > main priority. And it is ours still today. Len Shustek Chairman, Computer History Museum >Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 19:09:13 -0800 >To: Len Shustek >From: Gwen Bell >Subject: Re: [Fwd: The Computer Museum did WHAT???? >Cc: gbell at Microsoft.com ... >The story of the "sale" of the PDP-6 boards is pretty simple. The >original Museum was in the MR-1 and MR-2 facilities of DEC. These >were the engineering/manufacturing locations for the PDP-6. The >Museum had access to the "trash", the boards that were discarded >for use in the computers to be sold. We held them and sold them >at a single yard sale. I can get the VPs and Engineers in Marlboro >at the time to attest to this version. The Museum did not "strip" >any workable PDP-6 machines, these boards were already "surplussed", >whatever that meant ... but they were not used. And, like the Apple I >boards that we not sold, they would have been shredded and recycled. >This can be attested to by Alan Kotok (part of the 6 project now at >MIT), Ulf Fagerquist, who was engineering head of large computers, >Bob Glorioso, as well as Gordon who was their boss at the time. >The Museum folks essentially scavenged the bays of boards that were to >recycled or just discarded in the dump to sell to "collectors." This >was clearly a market or purpose that the company did not see. But was approved for the purpose of history .. and building a body of >other collectors and establishing collectables, something that happens >for all kinds of technology museums. From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Wed Jun 17 21:56:29 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:56:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Vintage Computers w New Tech. was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys Message-ID: <965681.60755.qm@web112203.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Yes, but I also have a Wameco QM-1A S-100 board that if I find a CPU card, I would like to get this and get that running as well. The Northstar I will keep original since it is complete with boards. The Wameco is a empty board --- On Wed, 6/17/09, Dan Roganti wrote: > From: Dan Roganti > Subject: Re: Vintage Computers w New Tech. was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys > To: "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Date: Wednesday, June 17, 2009, 7:45 PM > > I remember you just bought a Northstar, wouldn't you > instead like to > learn how that hardware designed back then operates while > you restore > that machine ? > > =Dan > > > Christian Liendo wrote: > > That is REALLY nice.. > > Hmmmmm, I need to save $$ as I am trying to buy parts > for my S100 machines. > > > > I want this though. > > > > http://www.cpm80.com/superio.html > > > > > > > > > > --- On Wed, 6/17/09, Roger Pugh > wrote: > > > >??? > >> From: Roger Pugh > >> > >> > >> The 1541 Ultimate has audio out jack for that > authentic > >> drive head > >> banging experience! > >> > >> I have one, but yet to investigate its > capabilities. > >> > >> www.1541ultimate.net > >> > >> Roger > >> > >> > >>? ??? > > > > > >? ? ??? > >??? > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > > Version: 8.5.339 / Virus Database: 270.12.77/2184 - > Release Date: 06/17/09 17:55:00 > > > >??? > From ragooman at comcast.net Wed Jun 17 22:30:26 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:30:26 -0400 Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual In-Reply-To: <359F5F8564394FAA850DB9389FCE9C4B@andrewdesktop> References: <359F5F8564394FAA850DB9389FCE9C4B@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: <4A39B4D2.2000502@comcast.net> Andrew Lynch wrote: > What I really need to know is if I can implement a simple circuit using few > enough 74LS TTL ICs to fit on a Eurocard ECB board. That means it can't be > more than about 30 maximum. Using high capacity SRAMs should help but I > think it requires some funky latching mechanisms to share the video address > and data lines. > > Andrew, Did you get the one copy at this link ? http://electrickery.xs4all.nl/comp/virtlibrary.html It doesn't have schematics per say, but there's plenty of info in that pdf. =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jun 17 22:52:48 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:52:48 -0300 Subject: New communication method, old-school References: <5.1.0.14.2.20090615190209.027d5f00@localhost> <4A373659.6090002@vaxen.net> <4A3814FC.8020208@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <186e01c9efc8$b812d770$ee0619bb@desktaba> > I would soooo love to run my C128D, but I can not find a power supply > for it - The use of the proprietary plug has been a pain, and I have > more than once been 'just about to' put a commonly available power > socket on to the box. > Does anybody have any ideas? Sure, take a look at this: http://pinouts.ru/Power/c128power_pinout.shtml - C128 pinout http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/Amiga/amiga_hacks/Amiga_Power_supplies/body_amiga_power_supplies.html#ATXAdaptor Amiga pinout, with photos Just build a proper psu and use an amiga cable :o) From brianlanning at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 22:58:04 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:58:04 -0500 Subject: Printer rant Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906172058n5ee51eabtad10adb50679048d@mail.gmail.com> So I buy this lightly used "working" HP 4100n from ebay. They only allow pickups during the day, so my wife heads over to get it. I get home... the back cover is missing. Luckily they find it. She heads back over and picks it up. I put it on, plug it in... no toner cartridge. The guy hopes I'll understand. So I order a toner cartridge from ebay. I get it today, put paper in it... it jams every time. So I start taking things apart and notice that the fuser is hosed, chunks are coming out of it. So I ordered a new fuser from ebay tonight. My money is on the fuser not fixing the paper jam problem. I would never do this to someone. Am I weird? From dgahling at hotmail.com Wed Jun 17 23:00:50 2009 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:50 -0400 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> Message-ID: > The definition of "hard password" is generally one that is resistant > to dictionary or social attack. By that definition you've failed to > demonstrate that the passphrase I supplied in my previous example is > any more vulnerable that "C0pp3rB0tt0m" or "i013ac$Z". In the absence > of the ability to conduct a successful dictionary attack the > difficulty of brute-forcing a passsphrase is a direct function of the > length of the passphrase and the character space from which the > passphrase is chosen. In such a context passphrases have a clear > advantage, as it's easier for humans to remember sequences of words as > opposed to semi-random collections of characters, thus encouraging a > much longer length while discouraging the tendency to write down > passwords that are difficult to remember. I disagree and would say that's not correct either. the definition of "hard password" generally includes things that are not easily cracked by brute-force, eg "1234567890" while long, wouldn't be hard. brute-forcing a passphrase is not necessarily a function of the length especially where windows is concerned, or if another system, where there are weaknesses in the cryptographic functions themselves. one portion of windows password stores saves the password as an 8 character uppercase string, that's hardly very secure and can easily provide clues as to the true password. and you just reinforced my suggestion, the methods I've been using. the password generators I've written produce not only hardened passwords, and also passwords which are next to impossible to remember, BUT are incredibly easy for the user to type in. this does several things it means the user never has to write them down, they can never give out their password however, the user has no issues logging in. they're based on the natural flow of the users hands as they type. not keyboard patterns, but a function of how words are formed across the hands and fingers, combinations of left and right hand typing. > FWIW, you're the one who introduced Windows into this discussion; > Gene's original comment had precisely nothing to do with Windows and > while your comments are valid relative to Windows that's not the > context for the conversation. windows was an example, but it's not to say there are not other systems with equally or similarly weak cryptographic functions and FWIW, you started out (I believe) making the comparison of linux vs windows and saying they were equally strong (which is not correct). but that's water under the bridge now, it's purely for point of providing an example everyone is familiar with. > You seem to be confusing a bad implementation of the translation of > plaintext to cryptotext and the poor storage of said cryptotext with > the relative security of passphrases vs. passwords. The two are > utterly distinct. no, I'm not, and they are not necessarily distinct, dependent on the system. any good security person has to take the system as a whole, there are many "paths" to finding ways through the system, flaws in implementation, weaknesses in cryptography, the human element, and of course, others. You cannot truly understand a system unless you look at it holistically. > In order to produce a partial password the program in question must > either have access to the resulting cryptotext for the password in > question or have the Great Karnack module installed which allows it to > know things without having any way to know them. For the purposes of > the point that Gene raised getting hung up on Windows (or, for that > matter, Unix v7 or anything else that makes encrypted authentication > information visible) as a counterexample is useless. Any > authentication system designed in the past decade by anyone with > intelligence exceeding that of a pine martin is going to employ a > relatively sophisticated transform (i.e., not crypt() and not an > MD5sum) and isn't going to allow you to see the stored cryptotext, > meaning that you're actually going to have to submit each password to > the system for authentication rather than have some program magically > spew it out to you. This doesn't apply, at least in the case of windows (and perhaps others). On windows systems I've seen it decrypt the first (or second) half of a password, or the first 8 characters, I've seen it do portions in sections. all this with no access to cleartext. I'd have to double-check if this has any similarity for md5 passwords, I don't recall, though I doubt it. windows is a good example because it is (still) the most used OS in the world, and a large percentage of people have a false sense of security in using it. The above includes Vista. Users should never be lured into a false sense of security, having a good password is only one piece of the whole security policy that should be in place. Dan. _________________________________________________________________ Create a cool, new character for your Windows Live? Messenger. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9656621 From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jun 17 23:04:39 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:04:39 -0300 Subject: Any PACE users out there? References: <4A3557AC.7000901@brouhaha.com> <4A350DF9.23602.57CEAC0@cclist.sydex.com><15ec01c9efa9$dc36cc20$ee0619bb@desktaba> <4A398895.8060007@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <195201c9efca$07f48f30$ee0619bb@desktaba> > Alexandre Souza wrote: >> I'd **love** to have one of these, principally FREE :o) > One problem with taking advantage of a PACE chip (free or otherwise) is > that the I/O pads aren't compatible with TTL, or with much of anything > else either. The specs are very strange. National made some buffer and > transceiver chips designed to work with it, but of course they are even > more like unobtanium these days than the PACE itself. I suspect that > the easiest thing to interface to it nowdays would be CD4000B series > CMOS logic, which is extremely slow, but then so is the PACE. No, I'm not talking about the PACE chip, but the keyfob with the 386 die encased in plastic :o) I never got to encase in resin a chip and make it crystal clear. I tried many many times with no success :( From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jun 17 23:05:17 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:05:17 -0300 Subject: Any PACE users out there? References: <4A3557AC.7000901@brouhaha.com> <4A350DF9.23602.57CEAC0@cclist.sydex.com><15ec01c9efa9$dc36cc20$ee0619bb@desktaba> <4A398BC9.1060000@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <195301c9efca$0b80ea40$ee0619bb@desktaba> > Hey for fun I was thinking of taking some transistors, octal coil holders > and plastic covers to make a 'solid state tube'. The heat sinks would > look like Seleium recitfiers fins... :) I've seen that as replacement for rectifiers and RF Power tubes... From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 00:04:21 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:04:21 -0400 Subject: Printer rant In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906172058n5ee51eabtad10adb50679048d@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906172058n5ee51eabtad10adb50679048d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A39CAD5.5040706@gmail.com> Brian Lanning wrote: > So I buy this lightly used "working" HP 4100n from ebay. They only > allow pickups during the day, so my wife heads over to get it. I get > home... the back cover is missing. Luckily they find it. She heads > back over and picks it up. I put it on, plug it in... no toner > cartridge. The guy hopes I'll understand. So I order a toner > cartridge from ebay. I get it today, put paper in it... it jams every > time. So I start taking things apart and notice that the fuser is > hosed, chunks are coming out of it. So I ordered a new fuser from > ebay tonight. My money is on the fuser not fixing the paper jam > problem. > > I would never do this to someone. Am I weird? Get your money back. Ebay has a policy that should help. If you paid with Paypal, so much the better. Peace... Sridhar From bqt at softjar.se Wed Jun 17 10:34:36 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:34:36 +0200 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A390D0C.6000605@softjar.se> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 4:14 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> > >> > ...and if you wanted to use more than one hard drive >> > on the RQDX3 you also need the RQDXE, since the BA23 distribution board is buggy, and >> > can't actually connect two hard drives, even though you have two connections. >> > I think it's worth pointing out that people should never even try connecting two hard drives in a BA23. >> > You'll definitely wreck whatever contents you have on the disks if you try. > > I thought there was a way to do it, but you had to start moving drive > select jumpers around and it was still easy to get a double-select and > trash your contents. It's actually worse. The write enable signal apparently always gets to both drives no matter what else you are doing. So when you write to one drive, the other will also start writing, even if the head is moving right at that time. I've had to recover an RD53 which was destroyed that way. (Salvage as much data as I could, and then reformat the drive.) The funny thing is that DEC actually do write in the documentation that it is not permissible to have two hard drives in a BA23, but that note is not so easy to find, and if you don't have the documentation, it even easier to assume that you can, since you do have connectors for two drives. I believe it's a hardware "bug", which can't be fixed without cutting wires, and adding new ones. But maybe someone knows better here? > I remember trying to put a pair of RD52s or an RD53 and an RD52 on one > machine 20+ years ago. I also remember not succeeding. Clearly an > RQDXE would have made the job simpler (possible?), but we didn't have > one handy. The RQDXE will definitely do the trick. If your "not succeeding" just went as far as you didn't get it to work, without trashing the conents of a drive, you were lucky. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From scd.calgary at shaw.ca Wed Jun 17 12:10:43 2009 From: scd.calgary at shaw.ca (Shane Dorosh) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:10:43 -0600 Subject: Tandy 1000 to a good home, CIB, Calgary area pick-up preferred Message-ID: Hi all, I've got a much loved old Tandy 1000 I've decided to part with. It's still working, and it's been well cared-for. It has 640KB of memory and a 20MB HD. It comes with the original boxes, disks, and manuals, including the original BASIC manual! The monitor is monochrome, not color. I'm looking for collectors of Radio Shack gear in the Calgary area who would like this computer and who can come pick it up. Failing that, I will ship the Tandy out to someone if you pay the shipping. This is a great collector's item, so I hope someone will reply! I still need the Tandy for another week or two... I'm putting up videos of my programming experiences on Youtube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEwkd2Lk7Vs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWdsWmL_YFo ... but I should be done with it by the end of the month. Please let me know if you're interested! S. D. Calgary, Alberta P.S. Last but not least, there's a DMP 430 dot matrix printer with the Tandy as well. If you come to pick it up, I'll ask you to take it as well. (I don't have a car, so I can't recycle it very easily myself.) If you need me to ship the Tandy, though, I'm quite sure you will NOT want the printer, as it's huge and heavy and will probably double the shipping costs. From snhirsch at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 17:20:15 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:20:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Looking for IMI 5018 MFM drive In-Reply-To: <01C9EF52.81FBF660@MSE_D03> References: <01C9EF52.81FBF660@MSE_D03> Message-ID: On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, M H Stein wrote: > Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:30:59 -0400 (EDT) > From: Steven Hirsch > > >> For reasons unclear, none of my followups to this have appeared on the >> list. > >> Mike, Cannot seem to get to you via e-mail. Will you please contact me >> offlist on the subject? > >> Steve > --------------- > Boy, take a weekend off and look what happens; relax, everyone, I'm > alive and well, and we're talking off-list; I know you were worried... > ;-) > Aggggh. It figures that they'd all appear at once after three days... Sorry for the noise. I kept sending mail to the list and it simply was not showing up. No panic. Again sorry! Steve -- From snhirsch at gmail.com Wed Jun 17 17:25:28 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:25:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Corvus software support for Mac Message-ID: Just unearthed a Corvus Omninet interface box for Macintosh. It plugs into the older-style 9-pin Localtalk connector. Does anyone own or have a lead on the client software and admin tools that go along with it? Steve -- From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jun 18 00:37:30 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:37:30 -0700 Subject: Printer rant In-Reply-To: <4A39CAD5.5040706@gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906172058n5ee51eabtad10adb50679048d@mail.gmail.com> <4A39CAD5.5040706@gmail.com> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:04:21 -0400 > From: ploopster at gmail.com > To: > Subject: Re: Printer rant > > Brian Lanning wrote: >> So I buy this lightly used "working" HP 4100n from ebay. They only >> allow pickups during the day, so my wife heads over to get it. I get >> home... the back cover is missing. Luckily they find it. She heads >> back over and picks it up. I put it on, plug it in... no toner >> cartridge. The guy hopes I'll understand. So I order a toner >> cartridge from ebay. I get it today, put paper in it... it jams every >> time. So I start taking things apart and notice that the fuser is >> hosed, chunks are coming out of it. So I ordered a new fuser from >> ebay tonight. My money is on the fuser not fixing the paper jam >> problem. >> >> I would never do this to someone. Am I weird? > > Get your money back. Ebay has a policy that should help. If you paid > with Paypal, so much the better. > > Peace... Sridhar Hi Laterly, working means it lights up and doesn't blow a fuse. It should say, " pilot light works " to be correct. For the printer it may need a roller kit as well. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail?. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009 From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jun 18 00:39:40 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:39:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: logic probe happy-sad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> ?Found that kelvin.com has logic probe cases. ?Whee! > > I'll have to wander on over for one of those, too. > > Thanks for sharing this. It turns out that kelvin.com has a US$30 minimum order. Anyone interested in participating in a group buy? -- 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? From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 18 01:06:59 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:06:59 -0400 Subject: logic probe happy-sad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jun 18, 2009, at 1:39 AM, David Griffith wrote: >>> Found that kelvin.com has logic probe cases. Whee! >> >> I'll have to wander on over for one of those, too. >> >> Thanks for sharing this. > > It turns out that kelvin.com has a US$30 minimum order. Anyone > interested in participating in a group buy? If you're talking about their part number 430068, please put me down for three. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jun 18 01:08:35 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:08:35 -0300 Subject: New communication method, old-school References: Message-ID: <1a8c01c9efdb$6a560b70$ee0619bb@desktaba> > I know we went through all of this several months ago ("Do the Commodores > really need the 9VAC?"), but my 128D has an AT power supply in it, > therefore is not feeding the system with 9VAC, and is functioning > perfectly well. > I've even pulled the PSU out of a 1571 and use an external Molex from the > AT PSU in 128D to power the 1571. In my mind I say it is more efficient. > No empirical proof of this, however. :) I downloaded the schematics of 128D and took a fast look. The 9VAC generates three tensions: +12V, +9V and 9V unregulated. 9VU goes to the cassete. +9 goes to the expansion port and +12 to the rest of the computer. I'd bypass everything and connect 12V inside, after the 7812 regulator. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jun 18 01:27:44 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:27:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: logic probe happy-sad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 18, 2009, at 1:39 AM, David Griffith wrote: >>>> Found that kelvin.com has logic probe cases. Whee! >>> >>> I'll have to wander on over for one of those, too. >>> >>> Thanks for sharing this. >> >> It turns out that kelvin.com has a US$30 minimum order. Anyone interested >> in participating in a group buy? > > If you're talking about their part number 430068, please put me down for > three. That's the one. Here's an URL for anyone who wants it: http://www.kelvin.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv? Screen=PROD&Store_Code=K&Product_Code=430068& Product_Count=&Category_Code= -- 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? From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 18 01:29:47 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:29:47 -1000 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A39DEDB.20407@databasics.us> Roger Holmes wrote: > > On 16 Jun 2009, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: Ladies and Gentlemen, now HERE is a man who knows how to collect classic computers. > From: Warren Wolfe >> Roger Holmes wrote: >>> My machine was killed off by the introduction of the 360, i.e. its >>> older. >>> The ICT1301 was announced 1959 and my one (the first to leave the >>> factory) was shipped in 1962. >>> The IBM 360 was I understand announced in 1965, probably shipped quite >>> soon after. >> >> You have the FIRST computer of a type manufactured and shipped in 1962? > > Yes that's right. The University of London twisted ICT's arm by saying > if they did not fulfil the order, there would not be any undergraduate > intake in 1962 and they would make sure everybody knew who was to > blame. ICT made an extra prototype machine and shipped it. Every few > weeks a group of engineers would come out and spend a day fitting the > latest modifications to the prototype to bring it up to date. Students > were not allowed anywhere near the machine, it was used purely for > administrative purposes, plus putting examination results into grades > and printing the pass slips and certificates. On de-commissioning it > was offered to some engineering students who ran it as a bureaux come > commune (this was the 1960s) on a what customers could afford basis. > For instance it handled the membership list of the legalise cannabis > movement which could not afford much but did not want their data got > at by the authorities. That generated a few problems with the powers > that be for the then owners. I bought it from them around 1977. > >> That is a truly major score. That's freaking HISTORIC. Good lord, do >> you store it in your house? > > It would not fit in my house. It is in a barn that used to be used for > breeding rabbits (there's a job you'd think was easy) until they were > wiped out by myxomatosis and the owners went bust. > >> How much power does it use? > > 13kVA three phase. It weighs about five tons and occupies 700 square > feet. Oh, my, that would be.... about $15/hr. here. Ouch. But, again, this is EPIC collecting. Truly. I'm so impressed, and more than a little jealous... Wow, a prototype that has been upgraded. Simply mind-boggling. Warren From pontus at Update.UU.SE Thu Jun 18 01:41:48 2009 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:41:48 +0200 Subject: repairing VT220 DEC terminal - In-Reply-To: References: <4A39506C.1040801@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <20090618064148.GA7967@Update.UU.SE> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 03:30:18PM -0600, Richard wrote: > > http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/vt220-125.jpg > > shell 41> wget http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/vt220-125.jpg > --15:29:57-- http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/vt220-125.jpg > => `vt220-125.jpg' > Resolving www.update.uu.se... 130.238.19.25 > Connecting to www.update.uu.se|130.238.19.25|:80... failed: Connection refused. Quite typical, that server has had a lot of problems with a disk controller, about ten minutes after I uploaded the image it took a nose dive. Try again, it should be fine :) /P From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 18 02:08:45 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:08:45 -1000 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A39E7FD.4090201@databasics.us> Tony Duell wrote: >> Tony Duell wrote: >> >>> I am also interested in old clocks and old (valve) radios, and none of >>> the magazies devoted to collecting/restoring those seem to think there's >>> much a problem. The 'pool' of both of those items is surely finite too. >>> >> It's just a matter of degree. I suspect there were very many more valve >> radios produced than classic computers, probably a couple orders of >> magnitude. However, even those will be, for all practical purposes, >> > > Ture, but I wonder what the relative rates of survival are for valve > radios and classic computers. Certainly computers are a lot newer (which > counts in their favour), and they were more expensive to start with which > means they may have been kept. > Good points. Anything I'd say would be sheer speculation, so I'll keep quiet on the subject... >> gone in time. While it won't have any effect on you or me, run the >> clock ahead a hundred years... and very little of either will remain. >> > > While that is almost certainly true, it's hardly a reason for not > obtaining such machines now while you can, and enjoying them -- if you > wnt to run such a machine. If you don't, well fine... > Oh, I'd like to. And, in point of fact, I did collect quite a few. I was most interested in personal computers, and had an extensive collection of CP/M machines (10 or 12), maybe 8 Macs of various vintage, two or three C64 systems, 4 C-128s, half a dozen Apple IIs, of differing vintage, 2 or three Atari systems, depending on how you divided up the peripherals, a dozen or so Tandy 100s, 5 or 6 XT clones, a pretty complete set of Casio handhelds, a Juno, an IBM AT, an HP 9830, an HP-125, an HP-150, and, for a while, an HP-2100 series minicomputer. Okay, hardly an epic collection, but it kept MY interest, hardware verification and repair included. I also had a shop with the standard array of 'scopes, signal generators, EPROM burners, DVMs, etc. I also wanted an HP-64000 logic analyzer, but never found one. Now, sadly, I have my IMSAI 8080, a couple Kaypro IIs, my workhorse Kaypro 10, an Osborne 1, a Timex Sinclair, maybe 2 Tandy 100s, and a couple of Tandy Color Computers. (And my Windows XP & Linux laptop, and my Linux box, Darth.) My entire shop is gone. So, I feel naked. If I were to get into it again, it would be a major expense to get back to where I started, unless my timing is exquisite and I can provide a home for an ongoing collection being dispersed by the current collector. >>> No it's not free. Even if the emulator software is free, the machine to >>> run it on is not. Period. You have, alas, touched a nerve here, I object >>> to this attitude that 'everybody' has a PC/cellphone/MP3 player/digital >>> camera. I don't, nor do many people I know. >>> >> You've got to look at the numbers... When the IBM PC was first >> released, fewer than 5% of homes in the U.S. had computers. The number >> went over 50% in 2000, and has not looked back. Do the math. 10 times >> as many people have computers now, as did then. If everybody wanted a >> classic computer, even a personal classic, there aren't enough to go around. >> > > Ture. And I douvt there are enough valve radios or antique clocks around > for _everybody_ to owen one. But there are probably enough for those who > want one to own one if they can afford it. > > >> More than half of current households have a PC. What percentage have >> o'scopes? Quite small, I'm sure. The chances of a person being able to >> > > So? 'socpes are not hard to find, if you wsnt one. Ditto for all the > other tools and equipment you might need. > Okay, Tony, be fair. 'Scopes and other equipment are no more free than PCs are. More people are likely to have the PC, however, making taking up emulator jockeying a significantly cheaper proposition for most people. > > >> run an emulator are significantly better than their chances of being >> able to work on old hardware and fix it. And, for those who do not have >> > > I've always had the attidude that if I can't do something but need to do > it, it's time for me to learn how to do it. Not give up. That's why I > learnt (and am still learning) how to fix SMPSUs, how to understand > microcode, how to use machine tools, and so on. > Agreed. I was starting work on the microcode myself (HP-2100 series) when something clogged the ventilator.. > Put it this way, I'd rather learn how to do something like that than run > an emulator on an undocumented (to the sort of level I call 'documented') > machine under an OS that I don't have the source for. If I have problems > with that I can't solve them logically. If I am using tools/equipment > that I am capable of understnading and things go wrong, I can use a > logical procedure to sort it out. And I much prerfe that. > Understood. Sounds like you'd be a candidate for an older PC running Linux.... >> the requisites, what is the cost? What's the cost of an old PC >> machine? I see them all the time for less than $100. What's the cost >> of an electronics shop? I spent thousands, and was still lacking many >> items. >> > > So have I. But I expect all my tools and mcuh of my test gear to outlive > me. I wouldn't expect a PC to do that. I suspect the total cost of > owenership over my lifetime is cheaper for the electroncis stuff than PCs. > Probably true. PCs have a nasty tendency to be frightfully expensive when new, and lose value immediately, and rapidly, after purchase. My old Tekronix scopes all seemed to get more valuable each year. >> It's clearly true that not EVERYBODY has any of the items you list. >> However, most people have access to most of them, and the percentages >> keep rising. >> > > It doesn't stop me getting annoyed when it's assumed I have them. The > next time somebody tells me to 'upload my photos', I am liable to use my > monorail camwera as a substitue clue-by-four :-) > That's no way to treat vintage gear! >> In fact for me to be able to run any of the emulators at a sensible speed >> it would cost me more than I've spent on any one of my classic computers. >> OK, I was lucky and got many of them before they became collectable, but >> I've bought interesting machines (to me) in the last year or so for a lot >> less than I'd spend on a machine to run an emulator. >> >> >> I think you're assuming you need a new machine to run an emulator.... >> > > It would be new for me. > HA! Well, consider an older PC as an investment, like a test instrument. >> Not true! A five-year-old PC is quite cheap. Not useful in the "speed >> demon" sense, and not yet "classic," they sit at the nadir of their >> value. Fish THERE for cost effectiveness. >> > > That's not the total cost of ownership as well you know. Do I have to > poitn out that to keep such a machine running I would have to > significantly upgrade some of my test gear _and_ spend a lot of time > working out how it should work so I can fix it when it doesn't. > Personally I'd rather keep classics working. > Again, each to his own. >> Oh, no, that doesn't sound crazy. I share your interest. I just don't >> always want to HAVE TO solve problems before I can accomplish >> something. My current set-up is much more reliable than the IMSAI >> > > Nor do I. I expect my tools to work properly, if they don't, I fix them. > But I don't class my clasisc computers as tools. > > For example, one machine I've been working on recently is an HP120 -- a > Z80A-based CP/M box. I assume it could run something like Wordstar. But I > am not going to use it as a word processor, I'll stick to LaTeX on this > machine for that. The HP120 is an interesting machine to investigate and > get running, it's not a machine I am going to do real work on. > Yes. Been there, done that. Like you, my favorite machines are the older HP gear. I love fine engineering, and it was easier to find in HP than in any other manufacturer I've known. Warren From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jun 18 02:05:13 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:05:13 +0100 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: <4A390D0C.6000605@softjar.se> References: <4A390D0C.6000605@softjar.se> Message-ID: <4A39E729.60808@dunnington.plus.com> On 17/06/2009 16:34, Johnny Billquist wrote: > It's actually worse. The write enable signal apparently always gets to > both drives no matter what else you are doing. So when you write to one > drive, the other will also start writing, even if the head is moving > right at that time. I've had to recover an RD53 which was destroyed that > way. (Salvage as much data as I could, and then reformat the drive.) That won't happen unless both drives are also selected. Having the write enable signal go to both drives at the same time is normal in ST412 systems, and indeed all the signals go to all the drives at the same time in such systems. > The funny thing is that DEC actually do write in the documentation that > it is not permissible to have two hard drives in a BA23, but that note > is not so easy to find, and if you don't have the documentation, it even > easier to assume that you can, since you do have connectors for two drives. The DEC information actually says that it's because of the power requirements. > I believe it's a hardware "bug", which can't be fixed without cutting > wires, and adding new ones. But maybe someone knows better here? Mine works, and I've not cut any wires. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 18 02:14:59 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:14:59 -0400 Subject: Any PACE users out there? In-Reply-To: <195201c9efca$07f48f30$ee0619bb@desktaba> References: <4A3557AC.7000901@brouhaha.com> <4A350DF9.23602.57CEAC0@cclist.sydex.com><15ec01c9efa9$dc36cc20$ee0619bb@desktaba> <4A398895.8060007@brouhaha.com> <195201c9efca$07f48f30$ee0619bb@desktaba> Message-ID: On Jun 18, 2009, at 12:04 AM, Alexandre Souza wrote: >> One problem with taking advantage of a PACE chip (free or >> otherwise) is >> that the I/O pads aren't compatible with TTL, or with much of >> anything >> else either. The specs are very strange. National made some >> buffer and >> transceiver chips designed to work with it, but of course they are >> even >> more like unobtanium these days than the PACE itself. I suspect that >> the easiest thing to interface to it nowdays would be CD4000B series >> CMOS logic, which is extremely slow, but then so is the PACE. > > No, I'm not talking about the PACE chip, but the keyfob with the > 386 die encased in plastic :o) > > I never got to encase in resin a chip and make it crystal clear. > I tried many many times with no success :( Did you have problems with air bubbles, or something else? The way to solve air bubble problems is to place it under vacuum before it cures. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From steve at cosam.org Thu Jun 18 03:02:15 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:02:15 +0200 Subject: logic probe happy-sad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A39F487.40807@cosam.org> >>> It turns out that kelvin.com has a US$30 minimum order. Anyone >>> interested in participating in a group buy? >> >> If you're talking about their part number 430068, please put me down >> for three. > > That's the one. Here's an URL for anyone who wants it: > http://www.kelvin.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv? > Screen=PROD&Store_Code=K&Product_Code=430068& > Product_Count=&Category_Code= I'd like one if you're prepared to ship it to Europe. If any other Europeans want in on the deal, I'd be happy to redistribute a bulk shipment at this end. Cheers, -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ From tiggerlasv at aim.com Thu Jun 18 03:44:18 2009 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:44:18 -0400 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive Message-ID: <8CBBE081A2E78F8-142C-D31@FWM-D18.sysops.aol.com> I'm not certain of the mechanics involved, but, you shouldn't be able to trash the format of either drive, unless the Drive Select jumpers are set incorrectly. The only thing that might have an impact on this would be if you try it in a BA23 with an un-modified 4-button front panel. *Maybe* the fact that the Ready/Write Protect lines for the 2nd drive are left floating, is somehow confusing the RQDXn controller, but that seems doubtful. Those lines merely report status of the 2nd drive. The Drive Select and Head Select lines don't go anywhere near the front panel, and there are separate signal lines for drives 0, 1, 2, and 3. >From a modification standpoint, there are NO CHANGES required to the disk drive distribution panel; all of the signal lines are there, and ready to use for 2 drives. DEC sold the "upgrade" kit for 2 hard drives; it's called the BA23-UC. It consists only of a 6-button panel. This is the same 6-button panel that was shipped with later models of the MicroVax, which clearly supported 2 internal RD-series disk drives. All the 6-button panels did was to add the extra ready/write protect buttons. There is no extra logic involved. The Write Protect LIGHTS for the RX50's were deleted, as the newer RQDX3 controller doesn't provide any outputs for the floppy write protect lights. Most of this information is documented on-line, in the document "third-party disks.txt". All that need be done to the 4-button panels is to solder 2 resistors onto the boards, to pull the 2 signal lines to their appropriate logic levels. The RQDX3 only uses these signals to establish that the drive is on-line, and write-enabled. It has nothing to do which drive is selected when it goes to write. Have I trashed the format of a drive in a 2-drive BA23 configuration? Yes, I have. But only because I wasn't paying attention, and didn't set the Drive Select jumpers to "3" on both drives. Remember: The distribution panel shifts the signal lines around, and all hard drives need to be set to "3". This could easily trip you up if you weren't paying attention, as some of the drives had DS markings of 0 - 3, and some were marked 1 - 4 . . . Thus, depending on what DS settings you have, you could in theory have 2 drives responding to the same drive select signal, which could trash your format. T From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jun 18 03:49:40 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:49:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: logic probe happy-sad In-Reply-To: <4A39F487.40807@cosam.org> References: <4A39F487.40807@cosam.org> Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Steve Maddison wrote: >>>> It turns out that kelvin.com has a US$30 minimum order. Anyone >>>> interested in participating in a group buy? >>> >>> If you're talking about their part number 430068, please put me down for >>> three. >> >> That's the one. Here's an URL for anyone who wants it: >> http://www.kelvin.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv? >> Screen=PROD&Store_Code=K&Product_Code=430068& >> Product_Count=&Category_Code= > > I'd like one if you're prepared to ship it to Europe. If any other Europeans > want in on the deal, I'd be happy to redistribute a bulk shipment at this > end. Well, I guess we've got a group buy going. I'll let it run until the last day of June, then I'll collect funds and order the cases. Tomorrow (when I'm more awake) I'll have a figure on shipping. I doubt it'll be much more than a dollar or two for US shipping. Email me to make sure I get and individually acknowledge you. -- 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? From ajp166 at verizon.net Wed Jun 17 10:18:01 2009 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (Allison) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:18:01 -0400 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A390929.5050305@verizon.net> For RX33 use you need RQDX3 with late firmware. Allison SPC wrote: > I am searching one controller to use a couple of RX33 in one PDP11-23/PLUS. > Someone knows what could I use ? > > Regards > Sergio > > From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Jun 18 05:57:46 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:57:46 +0100 Subject: Any PACE users out there? In-Reply-To: <195201c9efca$07f48f30$ee0619bb@desktaba> References: <4A3557AC.7000901@brouhaha.com> <4A350DF9.23602.57CEAC0@cclist.sydex.com> <15ec01c9efa9$dc36cc20$ee0619bb@desktaba> <4A398895.8060007@brouhaha.com> <195201c9efca$07f48f30$ee0619bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <1245322666.27700.24.camel@elric> On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 01:04 -0300, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > Alexandre Souza wrote: > >> I'd **love** to have one of these, principally FREE :o) > > One problem with taking advantage of a PACE chip (free or otherwise) is > > that the I/O pads aren't compatible with TTL, or with much of anything > > else either. The specs are very strange. National made some buffer and > > transceiver chips designed to work with it, but of course they are even > > more like unobtanium these days than the PACE itself. I suspect that > > the easiest thing to interface to it nowdays would be CD4000B series > > CMOS logic, which is extremely slow, but then so is the PACE. > > No, I'm not talking about the PACE chip, but the keyfob with the 386 die > encased in plastic :o) > > I never got to encase in resin a chip and make it crystal clear. I tried > many many times with no success :( My fiancee has done that, with a couple of resistors, an SSM2044 analogue filter IC (dead) and the knackered ceramic resonator from the memory board on my old PDP-11. The answer seems to be to use a clear-coat lacquer with the same refractive index as the resin to smooth over the bumpy surfaces. Pics and further instructions from when she gets back from the crafts store ;-) Gordon From brianlanning at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 06:47:05 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:47:05 -0500 Subject: Printer rant In-Reply-To: References: <6dbe3c380906172058n5ee51eabtad10adb50679048d@mail.gmail.com> <4A39CAD5.5040706@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906180447w64c0d765o61cad4ee81e3f1e2@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 12:37 AM, dwight elvey wrote: > ?Laterly, working means it lights up and doesn't > blow a fuse. It should say, " pilot light works " > to be correct. > ?For the printer it may need a roller kit as > well. I agree. I should just order one now. I was hoping to get a lot of mileage out of the printer anyway. From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jun 18 06:47:51 2009 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:47:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > I know we went through all of this several months ago ("Do the Commodores > really need the 9VAC?"), but my 128D has an AT power supply in it, > therefore is not feeding the system with 9VAC, and is functioning > perfectly well. > Isn't the AC used by the SID chip? g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jun 18 07:20:56 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:20:56 +0100 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive Message-ID: <4A3A3128.5090505@dunnington.plus.com> On 18/06/2009 08:05, Pete Turnbull wrote: > {re two hard drives in a BA23] Mine works, and I've not cut any wires. Let's dispel a few inaccuracies that have been presented about this. First of all, it *is* possible to have two hard drives in a BA23. However, it was not supported by DEC, partly because the particular drives they supported at the time drew too much power in a fully-populated system, and partly because the chassis would not then accomodate an RX50 or TK50 and would therefore not be field-maintainable (no way to load diagnostics from floppy or tape). Secondly, the RQDXE and RQDX1-E extenders are intended to provide additional connections for external drives, and are not used in a BA23 or BA123 for internal drives. I don't have one of either right now to check but I remember they're both purely passive devices. The RQDXE is M7512 and is used for an RQDX1; the RQDXE is M7513 and used for an RQDX2 or RQDX3. The card in a BA123 for internal distribution is an M9058, and is a buffered device. It's called a Signal Distribution Board, not an extender. The two systems (BA23/BA123) treat the drive selects in somewhat different ways, which is why you can't always simply take a drive configured for a BA123 and move it (successfully) into a BA23. An RQDXn controller provides four drive selects for hard drives. In a BA123 with M9058, each drive select is taken to one (and only one) of the 34-way connectors (J1 to J4) for the drives, but it's connected (unless you change jumpers) to all 4 drive select lines on that connector. However, as is usual, all the other signals are bussed to all connectors in parallel (though some are buffered separately to different connectors to reduce loading effects). This means you can (and normally do) set the drive select on each drive the same way - normally to DS3. This is analogous to the way you would set all drives to the same ID in a PC system, only there you use a twist in the cable to re-route the drive selects. Although all the signals are bussed, many (including Write Gate) are gated /in the drive/ with the drive select. Because each connector is connected to a different drive select, no two drives can be selected at the same time. However, this is not done in a BA23 distribution board, where all the bus signals are simply bussed. Normally in a BA23 you set the first hard drive to DS3, as that's the first drive select the RQDXn tries when it looks for drives. That's why the convention for the BA123 also became to set every drive to DS3. If you use an expander to connect an expansion box, again you set the first drive in the expansion box to DS3 but you set the second drive to DS4. If you add a second internal drive to a BA23, you must do the same thing: set the drive select to DS4. This is actually stated in the microPDP-11 Maintenance Manual, in more than one place. If you set two drives with the same drive select jumpering, they will both be enabled at the same time, regardless of position. Actually, you could set the second drive to any select except DS3, at least for RQDX2 and RQDX3, but you need to be aware that the RQDXn controllers use the same drive select signals for RX drives as for RD drives. In other words, it has only 4 drive select lines for all the drives connected to it, and it tests them in order DS3, DS4, DS1, DS2. You're supposed to reserve DS1 and DS2 for an RX50 if using an RQDX1. I've never tried this in a BA23 with its own distribution board, so I don't know if it actually connects all 4 drive selects. My 11/83 in a BA23 is set up exactly like this -- DU0: uses DS3 and DU1: uses DS4. It's always been this way, and has always worked. Nothing else has been modified. For the record, it has a pair of RD54 drives in it, and has been running 2.11 BSD for years. There is another gotcha, though. The RD console board on some BA23 boxes -- that's the small card just behind the front panel -- only has connections for one drive. That card has two pushbutton switches, for Write Protect and Ready, along with some very simple electronics including pullup resistors and LEDs. When the switches are open, the drive is enabled (able to go Ready) and write enabled (not Write Protected). Usually the same thing happens when the board is absent because the two signals tend to float high (though not always reliably). Each switch is arranged to short the corresponding signal to ground when pushed in. The LED on the Write Protect is connected between +5V (via a 150R resistor) and the WP switch, and lights up when the switch is pushed in (Write Protected). The LED on the Ready is fed via a transistor to invert it, so it lights up when the switch is /not/ pushed in (drive is enabled) but goes out when the signal from the RQDXn pulls the line low (as it does when it accesses the drive), or when the switch /is/ pushed in (not enabled). There are PostScript files showing the schematics of the M9058 and console boards, and the layouts and pinouts of related boards, at http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/RQDX/ I've just added PDF copies for the challenged. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jun 18 07:26:00 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:26:00 +0100 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: <8CBBE081A2E78F8-142C-D31@FWM-D18.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CBBE081A2E78F8-142C-D31@FWM-D18.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <4A3A3258.90007@dunnington.plus.com> On 18/06/2009 09:44, tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > Have I trashed the format of a drive in a 2-drive BA23 configuration? > Yes, I have. But only because I wasn't paying attention, > and didn't set the Drive Select jumpers to "3" on both drives. > Remember: The distribution panel shifts the signal lines around, > and all hard drives need to be set to "3". That's correct for a BA123 and an M9058, but I believe it's wrong for a BA23. In a BA23, you do need to set the drives to different drive selects, normal the first to DS3 and the second to DS4 (or DS2 and DS3 if your drive's jumpers are 0...3 rather than 1...4). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jun 18 07:42:22 2009 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:42:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Printer rant Message-ID: <738896.70251.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 6/18/09, Brian Lanning wrote: > I agree. I should just order one now. I was > hoping to get a lot of > mileage out of the printer anyway. > You should. Those are workhorse printers. And, for reference, the "fuser flaking into bits" is a very common failure in these, but more especially the 4200/4300 series. HP hadn't quite worked out all the kinks in their film-style fusers. Something about the way the film wore over the guides causes them to fail prematurely. At least with the 4100 you shouldn't have to worry about the swing plate gear failing, that was a big problem on early 4200/4300's. Fixing that one is fun, you have to strip the whole machine down pracically. (I do a fair amount of printer repair for my job...) But, let me know if you need a part and can't find it, I should be able to get it through my parts supplier. -Ian From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jun 18 08:08:45 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:08:45 -0700 Subject: Printer rant In-Reply-To: <738896.70251.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <738896.70251.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:42:22 -0700 > From: ian_primus at yahoo.com > Subject: Re: Printer rant > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > > --- On Thu, 6/18/09, Brian Lanning wrote: > >> I agree. I should just order one now. I was >> hoping to get a lot of >> mileage out of the printer anyway. >> > > You should. Those are workhorse printers. And, for reference, the "fuser flaking into bits" is a very common failure in these, but more especially the 4200/4300 series. HP hadn't quite worked out all the kinks in their film-style fusers. Something about the way the film wore over the guides causes them to fail prematurely. At least with the 4100 you shouldn't have to worry about the swing plate gear failing, that was a big problem on early 4200/4300's. Fixing that one is fun, you have to strip the whole machine down pracically. > > (I do a fair amount of printer repair for my job...) > > But, let me know if you need a part and can't find it, I should be able to get it through my parts supplier. > > -Ian Hi Ian There are two things I find are hard to get for my printer( 4si with the NX toner ). I don't use mine enough to prperly use up the toner. I find that the wiper blades and the PCR ( especially the PCR ) are hard to find. The toner itself seems to be OK. If the blade isn't folded over, I clean or replace the PCR it works fine for the next batch of printing. I was thinking, it might be better to get a large baggy and remove the toner cartridge after each use and put it in the sealed baggy. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Bing? brings you maps, menus, and reviews organized in one place. Try it now. http://www.bing.com/search?q=restaurants&form=MLOGEN&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MLOGEN_Core_tagline_local_1x1 From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 18 08:54:32 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:54:32 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A39DEDB.20407@databasics.us> References: <4A39DEDB.20407@databasics.us> Message-ID: <200906180954.32287.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 18 June 2009, Warren Wolfe wrote: > > 13kVA three phase. It weighs about five tons and occupies 700 > > square feet. > > Oh, my, that would be.... about $15/hr. here. Ouch. But, again, > this is EPIC collecting. Truly. I'm so impressed, and more than a > little jealous... Wow, a prototype that has been upgraded. Simply > mind-boggling. $1 per kWh? I know that power is relatively cheap here, but that sounds fairly expensive. Commercial rates here are around $0.07-$0.10 per kWh. (or less if you have a 'high voltage' feed to your place, eg 12kV or 138kV. Purdue averages around 4 to 5 cents per kWh. :) Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From brianlanning at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 09:28:36 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:28:36 -0500 Subject: Printer rant In-Reply-To: <738896.70251.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <738896.70251.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906180728o11729e51v5b7cc8350bb4533a@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 7:42 AM, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > You should. Those are workhorse printers. And, for reference, the "fuser flaking into bits" is a very common failure in these, but more especially the 4200/4300 series. HP hadn't quite worked out all the kinks in their film-style fusers. Something about the way the film wore over the guides causes them to fail prematurely. At least with the 4100 you shouldn't have to worry about the swing plate gear failing, that was a big problem on early 4200/4300's. Fixing that one is fun, you have to strip the whole machine down pracically. > > (I do a fair amount of printer repair for my job...) > > But, let me know if you need a part and can't find it, I should be able to get it through my parts supplier. Thanks for the help. I was hoping there was a printer repair guru on the group. I haven't done laser printer repair since the laserjet 2 and 3. I was pleased to see how serviceable the fuser assembly was. Initially I thought they had run a transparency through and melted it to the fuser. But it's just as you're describing. Pieces are coming off of the fuser film. The main problem I'm having is that every page jams right before it enters the fuser. Does this sound like the fuser or some of the rollers? From rodsmallwood at btconnect.com Thu Jun 18 09:39:32 2009 From: rodsmallwood at btconnect.com (Rod Smallwood) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:39:32 +0100 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org><4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> Everybody saying 'not I' does not alter the fact that a priceless piece of computer history is at best missing and at worst destroyed. The real point is that the computer museum people knew of its existence and yet failed in their duty to recover and save it after the DECUS event. Shame on you all!! Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Brent Hilpert Sent: 17 June 2009 19:11 To: General at invalid.domain; Discussion at invalid.domain :On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) Al Kossow wrote: > > I'm resending this with a revised title so someone has a chance of finding > this again in the future. I sent a similar message to alt.sys.pdp10 when > the subject came up last time. > > Al Kossow wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > >> Rich Alderson wrote: > >>> On the other hand, the last PDP-6 in existence was destroyed by the > >>> Computer > >>> Museum in Boston about 20 years ago, so you're one up there. > >> > >> OK, I don't think I've heard this story. > >> Someone contributing to Wikipedia seems to want to tangentially > >> counter it, > >> without explaining the background story. > > > > That would be me, a CHM employee, that has access to all of the Boston > > museum > > collection records. I have spoken to several of the staff members who > > were there > > at the time. I have been trying to find ANY evidence this occurred, and > > have not > > been able to. > > > > CHM has the fast memory box from Stanford's PDP-6. It came from the > > Compaq donation > > to CHM of what they had in >> DEC's << internal collection, and was NOT > > donated to > > the Boston Museum. As best as I've been able to determine, the 6 was > > sent to a DEC > > warehouse after the anniversary at DECUS, and sat there until what was > > there was > > sent to CHM. Since there is no record of this machine going to the > > Boston museum, > > nor does anyone there that I have talked to remember it coming there, it > > would have > > been difficult for them to have dismantled it. Every major donation to > > the Computer > > Museum was cataloged. I cannot find anything for Stanford's PDP-6 in > > their records > > or in the Museum Report, which at the time listed every donation they > > received. > > > > I would like to find someone INSIDE of DEC that saw it in while > > it was in the warehouse, but I haven't been able to locate anyone yet. > > > > The rumor of the Museum destroying the system started because their gift > > shop was selling > > modules, including the ALU modules from the PDP-6. I have been told > > these were from a > > collection of DEC module spares that DEC donated. I haven't been able to > > determine > > the earliest that they were being sold. If it was before the > > anniversary, they obviously > > could not have been from Stanford's machine. > > > > Because of this controversy, CHM has a policy that no artifacts will > > ever be offered for > > sale to the public. Items that are deacessioned are offered only to > > other non-profit > > institutions. Thanks for the explanation; so 'there is no story', so to speak. From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Thu Jun 18 07:04:02 2009 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:04:02 +0100 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <67A99C50-0382-494D-B68B-A42135AFF47C@microspot.co.uk> > From: Ray Arachelian An excellent, almost definitive summary of the subject. I would just like to add a little of my own experiences. > I happen to be in both camps - yes, such a thing is possible. > Luckily I > do have enough physical space to be able to own a few dozen old > machines, though nothing very large, but certainly, I can experience > far > many more machines than I can house by emulating them. I have the real thing too (1962 mainframe) but also have an emulator for it. I initially wrote it so I could write software for it in the comfort of my house in the cold winter months without having to (a) risk damaging Germanium transistors which have a minimum official temperature rating of 50F, 10C. (b) having to warm up a whole barn to be comfortable to work in (c) having to hand start an old 3 phase 3.5 litre diesel generator with cold thick oil in it (d) having to pay for lots of diesel fuel or after I had 3 phase installed, to pay for 13 kWh electricity per hour. I now plan to publish my emulator on the web, along with original software which non programmers can run on it. I am very unsure of how many people will be interested in such a thing. I need to get the physical machine running to retrieve said software from unique ten track mag tapes and from standard 80 column cards, though I could probably get the latter read elsewhere, I don't want to have to transport about 150,000 card somewhere to have them read, probably at great cost. I am also into classic cars and hold an annual car show at my home attended by about 4000 people. The opportunity to try opening the door and show visitors the mainframe was too hard to resist, so we did and were very surprised by the results. No negative comments, even by children who were amazed that computers were ever so much bigger than their familiar home machines. It was surprising how many adults people had experienced mainframes and who loved being reminded of just what it had been like, and having the opportunity for their children to experience what words alone cannot really describe. The smell of hot electronics by the ton, the heat, the noise, and of course the sights of the whole thing and the main console with its flashing lights, the scale of a machine big enough that you can stand INSIDE it and being told it weighs five tons. In the early years I had to simulate some of what the machine should have done, by using diagnostic facilities and one or three instructions entered directly into the control registers when the machine had failed. If the machine ever completely failed and had to be shut down I certainly would be very disappointed and I feel the visitors would be too, I'm sure a static museum exhibit just does not have the same impact. I once visited Manchester museum and they had a couple of old mainframe. No explanation, nobody to ask, I could have been very interested and spent hours there but without any information I passed on to the next room in about two minutes. I have to say the temptation to try the on switch was hard to resist, there wasn't even anything saying not to do so. > By and large, the people I've dealt with in regards to emulation have > been civil and friendly and appreciative. Some of these have never > seen > the systems they want emulators or, some of them have and wish to > relive > the nostalgia, some couldn't afford the real thing, or couldn't repair > it and so forth. In other words, they're hobbyists, just like the > type > of folks you'll find here on this list. And in fact, some were from > this list. The same thing in the classic car scene. There are people who spend years building replicas of E Type Jaguars (called XKE in the US), D Type Jaguars, AC Cobras, 1930s roadsters etc, often with better performance/handling than the originals. Very nice people, and I'd rather they did that than modify a working original. Like many others, I take an original car which should really be scrapped and spend much time and money to bring it back to how it left the factory, often to a better build quality. A few people then sell them at a huge loss because it is the restoration process itself that they enjoy. I keep mine (I have never ever sold a car - scrapped a few though) and enjoy driving it. I have seven cars - six are roadworthy, one under restoration, postponed due to the amount of work on my classic computer. > I will say this, a computer is nothing more than a bunch of parts that > don't do interesting things without software. Whether that > software is > a specific set of applications, an operating system, or a ROM with > some > sort of interpreter or debugger in it, or some code you yourself > have to > type in, there's not much a computer can do without code. All it will > do is sit there and take up space and, if turned on, consume > electricity > and produce heat. For micro computers I agree, not quite sure this applies to mainframes. I guess it depends on how you define software. If a single instruction is software then I suppose so. At the lowest level debugging I can set an instruction into control register one, set the machine to single cycle and watch the lights on the console as I send single clock pulses through the hardware every time I press a button. > I'll assume that we're not in this hobby for the sole purpose of using > classic computers as space heaters. Not solely no. Just a useful side effect. > Now, of course, there is a lot of fun in the physical aspects of it, > repairing and reconfiguring systems, for example is a very good thing, > that's what allows us to keep our machines in running order, and > there's > certainly a huge sense of accomplishment in fixing a machine, and > therefore saving it from the scrap heap. Yes. > Ultimately, I believe that's the key here (at least it is for > myself - > and I don't presume to speak for others, except in the sense that they > might feel the same way) if you can't actually run the machine, it's > not very useful. It might be something nice to look at in a museum, > but > you won't be able to interact with it, you won't be able to *run > programs on it*. So, to me, a non working machine isn't very much > more > interesting than a statue, in fact, quite a lot less due to the lost > potential of what it could be. Couldn't agree more. > Walking by a cordoned off exhibit that shows a non-functioning > machine, > without the ability to see it run or interact with it, well that's > just > not very interesting to me. Watching the blinking lights of a powered > on machine might be fun for only about 3 seconds (unless perhaps > you're > one of those that tends to partake in mind-shrinking substances). > > The experience of actually running code, and even better, coding for > an > old machine is probably the largest part of the fun of this hobby. Yes but how can you give this experience to several hundred visitors in a day. With a multi-programmed machine this might be possible but with an older machine, specially ones without terminals (my one does not even have an operators terminal) you cannot do much without affecting the experience of the bulk of less technical visitors. I suppose it would be possible to provide an emulated machine to the minority but would they be interested in that? > ...... > > But there is one area where we are actually able to create and provide > immortality: software. So that's why I'm a programmer? I don't really expect my programs to be around in 20 years time let alone a hundred. One member here did express approval for a program I wrote in the 1980s but that is exceptional. The program drove a particular colour dot matrix printer, very few of which survive, and is of no use whatever without that hardware, which in time will become extinct. Applications I've worked on could fare better but why would anyone want to run a 2D drafting program or a 3D modelling program on an emulated Mac in a hundred years time? For me I think its pleasing people NOW which matters, and of course the money to spend on cars, old computers, food etc > ..... > > > I think the major complaint (or rather phobia) is that emulation can > allow one to run the same software WITHOUT the original hardware. Oh, > the excuses will come up from the back of the mind, dripping in terror > "But! But! But! If they can run it in software, they might throw out > the > hardware!" Well, yes, they might, and when /they/ discard that old > hardware, it will likely make its way to our hands. Sure, some will > wind up being scrapped by those who don't know any better, but a lot > of > folks realize our hobby exists. Some have various misunderstandings > about our ability to pay insane amounts for nostalgia (i.e. the rabid > ebay complaints that surface every few months), but others aren't > looking for a quick score, so they'll ask around or post on Craig's > List > or Goodwill and do the right thing. As I am not going to live for ever I want my old computer to go to a museum. I've already tried with one which eventually went to a privately run museum as I could not GIVE it to a publicly run one. I would like this to happen to my remaining one whilst I am young enough to tell them how to move it, reassemble it and help get it running, I don't want to be doing it in my eighties, but I MIGHT still be interested in running an emulator which does not develop faults and need a resident engineer to fix them. > (Some write emulators for the > challenge, for being the first to do so, etc. I admit all of those > sentiments in my own experiences, but preservation was the main one.) One aspect of emulators I have not yet explored is, well hold on a second and I'll explain. When looking through the 1301's documentation, circuit diagrams and instruction set, I am very tempted to add improvement which could have been done by the designer, but for some reason, either budgetary or lack of knowledge (some software techniques had not been invented yet). In an emulator I could add indexing or indirect addressing, or immediate mode data, or relative mode, or branch on NOT some condition without having to modify the actual hardware. I could then try programming the machine in that configuration and see how it affected the program size and ease of programming. It would be even more fun if the emulator was done at logic gate level and even more so if mated to an interactive 3D model of the hardware where you could open the cover, insert emulated scope probes and look at the signals. You could even emulate random logic failures for educational reasons, though to do so as a game would probably be a step too far for me, though programming the emulator to do it WOULD be fun. > So the goals of those who repair, those who create replicas, and those > who write emulators are very much the same. > The goals of those who buy and collect older machines, and of those > who > run emulators are also similar. Yes. > There are also many reasons why emulation is a good thing. The > ability > to liberate the soul of the machine from the hardware (whether broken > beyond repair, fixable, or working) is a good thing. It provides us > with the chance to collect unwanted hardware, it provides anyone who > is > interested the ability to experience older software, and to some > degree > get an idea of what the older hardware could do. Sure, it's not the > same, but it can be if the guys who write emulators care to make it a > close experience. If we ask for them to be as close to the real thing > as possible, the guys that write emulators will make it so. Yes. > ... > > > While there may have been only a few Colossus machines, all of which > had > been destroyed after WWII, if someone can get their hands on the > emulator for it, they can run one whenever the mood strikes. Not as > many can build their own replica, however, and none will have an > original. > > (Speaking of which anyone know where you could get a Colossus emulator > from? - there was mention of one here: > http://designresearchgroup.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/a-post-modern-colossus/ > ) :-) The emulation page of the CCS web site seems to have disappeared so I can't check. As Colossus, like early US machines was not a stored program computer, I'm not sure at what level you want the emulation to run. I think there was an emulator for Baby, the first stored program computer on the web site. > Maybe emulators aren't for everyone, then again, neither is > collecting a > lot of classic machines, or building replicas of such. To each their > own. Each have advantages the others can't meet. > > And of course there is a huge spectrum between pristine sealed in > box to > damaged beyond repair. (Of course, ideally, every classic machine > should be in pristine condition, with unyellowed cases, and completely > working. But that's a pipe dream.) Never had a sealed in box machine which was beyond economic repair? :-) > That spectrum also includes modern peripherals or upgrades. Some > would > scream bloody murder at the thought of replacing a non-working hard > drive for a classic system with a modern hard drive (or CF card) and > interface, others would gladly welcome it as it means the difference > between an unusable machine and one that works. > > This can go all the way to replacing the actual internals of a machine > with a modern one running an emulator (I recall someone installed a > Mac > Mini inside a Mac Plus case and then ran mini vMac on it as an > example), > or of course, just a plain emulator running on a normal consumer > machine. > > I don't think we should be bickering and fighting over where our > preferences lie on the spectrum. To each their own, and no matter > where > your preferences lie, the end result is that more classic machines are > saved from scrap. Absolutely. From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jun 18 09:57:56 2009 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:57:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Printer rant Message-ID: <557332.73327.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 6/18/09, Brian Lanning wrote: > Thanks for the help. I was hoping there was a printer > repair guru on > the group. I haven't done laser printer repair since > the laserjet 2 > and 3. I was pleased to see how serviceable the fuser > assembly was. Yeah, it's definitely much nicer to swap than the older machines. The fuser, transfer roller and all the rubber rollers are all contained in a "maintainance kit", which is recommended at varying intervals depending on model. The test page should tell you the pages since last mainainence, as well as give you an overall page count, so you can get a feeling for how much use the machine has had. > Initially I thought they had run a transparency through and > melted it > to the fuser. But it's just as you're > describing. Pieces are coming > off of the fuser film. Yup. They switched from solid rollers to a flexible plastic film roller that goes over a ceramic heating element. It'll start to fail along one edge first, and sometimes a narrow strip gets torn off one edge, then you'll get weird printouts that look fine, save for an unfused band along one edge. Soon, the film just tears apart and starts jamming. The paper also gets caught on the fuser film, and jams. > The main problem I'm having is that every page jams right > before it > enters the fuser. Does this sound like the fuser or > some of the > rollers? Have you replaced the fuser yet, or is it still the flaking one? Is the paper actually jamming, or is it just stopping, and the printer reports a jam? There are various sensors in the paper path, and if the paper takes too long to get from one point to another (or if there's toner in the sensor optos), the printer simply assumes that it's jammed and stops trying. Another thing that really confuses the heck out if the printer is if the paper size is set wrong, or if one of the flags on the tray has broken off. The paper tray contains little levers that change flags on the side or back of the tray (depending on model). When you set the guides in the tray, it changes the flags on the side - this tells the printer what size paper is loaded. If one or more of the flags is broken, or the switches are faulty, the the printer thinks the tray contains another size of paper than it really does. This can also lead to "paper isn't where I think it should be, giving up" problems. The test page should tell you what size paper the machine _thinks_ it has. I'll look up the 4100 service manual and see how it's set up, it's been a while since I've worked on one (most of my customers are on different models), so my memory is a little rusty. In the status log, the paper jams will come with an error code number that can help determine the cause of the problem as well. -Ian From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 10:01:17 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:01:17 -0400 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> Message-ID: > Everybody saying 'not I' does not alter the fact that a priceless piece of > computer history is at best missing and at worst destroyed. > > The real point is that the computer museum people knew of its existence and > yet failed in their duty to recover and save it after the DECUS event. Let's get this in perspective - this was a LONG time ago, and 20 year old computers were thought of as scrap. There was almost no community of people interested in seriously saving older computer technology. PDP-6? Get in line, machine. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of other important machines from that era that also were scrapped. -- Will From brianlanning at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 10:10:42 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:10:42 -0500 Subject: Printer rant In-Reply-To: <557332.73327.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <557332.73327.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906180810h215534b6l51833bfc07678878@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 9:57 AM, Mr Ian Primus wrote: >> The main problem I'm having is that every page jams right >> before it >> enters the fuser. ?Does this sound like the fuser or >> some of the >> rollers? > > Have you replaced the fuser yet, or is it still the flaking one? It's still the flaking one. But It's bad. It's missing chunks from both sides. I have a bid on a complete assembly at ebay. If I don't get that today, I'll just order one. >Is the paper actually jamming, or is it just stopping, and the printer reports a jam? When I open the printer, the page is slightly mangled, so I think it's a jam. I can also hear the paper crinkling right before it reports the jam. It's also pinched on a roller at the top of the page before the fuser. But only maybe 1/4" is under the roller. It gives me a little resistance when I pull the page out. The error is 13.5 and it tells me to check the back paper tray. >There are various sensors in the paper path, and if the paper takes too long to get from one point to another (or if there's toner in the sensor optos), the printer simply assumes that it's jammed and stops trying. Another thing that really confuses the heck out if the printer is if the paper size is set wrong, or if one of the flags on the tray has broken off. The paper tray contains little levers that change flags on the side or back of the tray (depending on model). When you set the guides in the tray, it changes the flags on the side - this tells the printer what size paper is loaded. If one or more of the flags is broken, or the switches are faulty, the the printer thinks the tray contains another size of paper than it really does. This can also lead to "paper isn't where I think it should be, giving > ?up" problems. The test page should tell you what size paper the machine _thinks_ it has. I can't print a test page yet. ;-) Well, sort of. I can read the jammed page that I pull out. > I'll look up the 4100 service manual and see how it's set up, it's been a while since I've worked on one (most of my customers are on different models), so my memory is a little rusty. > > In the status log, the paper jams will come with an error code number that can help determine the cause of the problem as well. Is that the 13.5 that appears on the display or is it something else? From trag at io.com Thu Jun 18 10:36:14 2009 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:36:14 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> > > Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:21:45 -0500 (CDT) > From: Doc > Subject: Re: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) > Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> It should 'just boot' into the Installer. The Happy Mac you briefly get >> indicates that the Mac can see the disc, and the System Folder on it, so >> the CD-ROM is undoubtedly working. I'm still thinking about RAM being a >> problem, mind you, but your unit may just be plain broken if it's >> throwing >> bus errors. > > Or the terminator is bad, or if it's external, he's using an Iomega > 25->50-pin "SCSI" cable.... I would check along the lines that Doc suggested. Some times Apple's "bus failure" means a SCSI bus failure. Make sure that the SCSI chain is properly terminated. If you're using internal and external devices, confirm that both ends are terminated properly and neither end is double terminated. Check the SCSI IDs being used by all devices on the chain. Go ahead and just pull the SIMMs on the motherboard. There's 4 MB on the logic board and that should be enough to boot from, or if it gets that far, you'll get a message about lack of memory, which is further than you're getting now. If that happens, hold down the shift key during boot to not load extensions. That will often save enough memory to allow booting in 4 MB. I don't remember the beginning of this thread, but isn't there a suspicion that the internal hard drive is malfunctioning? Disconnect the internal hard drive completely, and only connect the CD-ROM drive. That will simplify your SCSI chain, and eliminate electronic babbling from the hard drive as a possibility. So, basically, pull the RAM and all SCSI devices other than the CDROM, make sure the CD-ROM drive is terminated and set to some ID other than 7 (SCSI ID 3 is traditional for CD-ROMs in a Mac) and try that. Also double check the cable you're using and try a different one if the first does not work. Once you get a successful boot, you can try adding things back in. Jeff Walther From brianlanning at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 10:46:58 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:46:58 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> References: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Jeff Walther wrote: > I would check along the lines that Doc suggested. ?Some times Apple's "bus > failure" means a SCSI bus failure. > > Make sure that the SCSI chain is properly terminated. ?If you're using > internal and external devices, confirm that both ends are terminated > properly and neither end is double terminated. ? Check the SCSI IDs being > used by all devices on the chain. > > Go ahead and just pull the SIMMs on the motherboard. ?There's 4 MB on the > logic board and that should be enough to boot from, or if it gets that > far, you'll get a message about lack of memory, which is further than > you're getting now. ?If that happens, hold down the shift key during boot > to not load extensions. ?That will often save enough memory to allow > booting in 4 MB. > > I don't remember the beginning of this thread, but isn't there a suspicion > that the internal hard drive is malfunctioning? ? Disconnect the internal > hard drive completely, and only connect the CD-ROM drive. ?That will > simplify your SCSI chain, and eliminate electronic babbling from the hard > drive as a possibility. > > So, basically, pull the RAM and all SCSI devices other than the CDROM, > make sure the CD-ROM drive is terminated and set to some ID other than 7 > (SCSI ID 3 is traditional for CD-ROMs in a Mac) and try that. ? Also > double check the cable you're using and try a different one if the first > does not work. > > Once you get a successful boot, you can try adding things back in. Thanks, I'll give it a shot. I'm not sure about the internal termination situation. This is just a jumper on the hard drive, right? I think the 3.5" half height drives didn't use resistor packs. I know there's no separate terminator on the ribbon cable inside. I'll swap out the cable and terminator. As far as I know, the hard drive is ok. I ordered another OS cd which should be here shortly. This one is a new one so it shouldn't be suspect. I supposed it's possible that the cdrom drive could be bad. I ordered it used from ebay. It's been behaving exactly as expected though so I believe it's ok. brian From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jun 18 10:58:49 2009 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:58:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Printer rant Message-ID: <490169.38019.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 6/18/09, Brian Lanning wrote: > When I open the printer, the page is slightly mangled, so I > think it's > a jam. I can also hear the paper crinkling right > before it reports > the jam. It's also pinched on a roller at the top of > the page before > the fuser. But only maybe 1/4" is under the > roller. It gives me a > little resistance when I pull the page out. The error > is 13.5 and it > tells me to check the back paper tray. Check the whole paper path for bits of paper, paper clips, shredded fuser bits, junk, etc. That kind of an error is usally an obstruction or something. Take out the toner cartridge, fuser, transfer roller, etc, and blow all the dust and crud out of the paper path. Check that the transfer roller bushings are good and that it turns freely. Check that there's not a bit of paper stuck in the registration assembly. There are also two sensor flags in the fuser (an entry and an exit). Check to be sure that a bit of fuser hasn't gotten stuck in them... Also, if I remember correctly, there's a little conveyor belt looking thing in there too - make sure nothing is preventing it from moving freely. Honestly, with some of these printers, I wind up taking out the paper tray, the fuser, toner, everything you can easily remove, and turn them upside down and shake. It's amazing the crud that falls into a printer. I fixed a nagging jam problem in one machine by just cleaing out the paper clips. But, if your fuser is that torn up, I can just about garuntee you'll get a ton of jams in the fuser. But the paper should at least make it there. Manually turn through the fuser by turning the gear, and make sure that the ragged edges are "smooth" and won't catch easily on the paper. > Is that the 13.5 that appears on the display or is it > something else? Yeah, that's all - but the status log give a history of jams, in case you can't reproduce the problem, or if you want to see all the other places the paper is getting stuck. I generally have to resort to that, since intermittent jams always seem to behave themselves when I'm present. :) -Ian From ray at arachelian.com Thu Jun 18 11:10:14 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:10:14 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A3A66E6.1060704@arachelian.com> Dan Roganti wrote: > I don't see why new users can't enjoy the same original hardware as > those of use who grew up on this. I disagree with using newer > technologies up to a certain point. Whether you want to restore some > files with a modern disk drive because you might be without enough > equipment or build a new cpu design by mixing in modern components. Access is one reason. As in lack of. If you can't find a working machine, or restore a broken one to working state, either because they're difficult to find, expensive, you might not have room or power enough to run one, etc. > > I think you get to experience the thoughts and nuances when using > original parts in a computer design created 30/40 yrs ago - as in, how > to test,program,debug,etc the original hardware. What's the point in > restoring vintage equipment of you like to 'circumvent' the original > design by using something which didn't exist for that particular era. Simple. Those of us who use modern machines like to upgrade them. Something that is no longer made, no longer supported is hard to upgrade. So that builds a new market for those that wish to provide upgrades for those that wish to use them. It's anachronistic, sure, but go take a look at the Newton Planet mailing list. Yes, there are *MANY* who still use Newtons to this day and have upgraded to them in various ways. There are still many Apple ][ and Commodore fans. Upgrades such as ethernet cards and new storage devices are very welcomed in those circles. > As in the case of using a replacement modern drive to sustain an > existing system, is reasonable, but it's more fun to find something > original afterwards. It might be expensive for some to buy 8" floppy > drives now, but you can still get 5-1/4" floppy drives inexpensively. > The alternative drive systems using faster drives and GB of storage , > I think, just loses appeal with the aspect of restoring vintage > hardware - I think it shows you have less patience for old hardware. There you go. Now take the next logical step - wouldn't it be nice to have some sort of networking? Ok, let's assume you've said yes, maybe you didn't, but for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume so. What about wireless networking? Maybe you don't want to run wires all over the house. Some of these older machines had serial ports for RS232 or RS422. Well those are rare, so maybe you have to use USB to Serial cables. Okay, what about going the other way, what if you built a serial port for the older machine? What could you do then? What if the keyboard breaks, or you have a machine without one? Would you object to building an interface to a modern keyboard? Of course having the original keyboard, and one that actually works is the desired thing, but say they're unobtainium. Rather than have a machine that you can't do much with, isn't it better to have an interface available? Sure it's not the same, but is it better than doing without? Some would say no, my personal feeling is go for it until you find an original keyboard and manage to restore it. > > It's so easy to mix in modern components in an IC design - heaven > forbid if people want to gut their transistors machines and install a > cards replaced with 7474 dual FF chips. Using modern technology is the > easy way out - try learning how it was done then. I do think some > people like to wonder at work involved with the vintage technology still. Yup. Now it doesn't mean that the machine is now an accurate description of one of that era. It's been modified and adapted. That's not necessarily a bad thing, for some it absolutely is. I don't mind either way, but that doesn't mean I'd apply destructive/irreversible changes to my classic machines. But this last point is just my own personal preference and doesn't reflect everyone's. (There are those that have re-purposed classic computer cases as fishtanks or lamps, or to house newer computers for example.) Now let's take it further out, say you have a very old machine with rare parts that you just couldn't repair or replace. And you wanted to play around with that machine's software for many hours and , in doing so, you might risk causing damage to the mechanical components (say floppy drive or hard drive, and you had no spares). Now let's also add: say there was an accurate emulator for it, would you fire up the original hardware, or fire up the emulator? Sure you might fire up the actual hardware once a year or two, to be sure that it's still working. But would you risk using it for hours and days on end when an emulator was available, knowing you couldn't replace or repair the hardware? What if you didn't own the machine at all and had no chance to obtain one (or they were very expensive, and you aren't rich and couldn't justify spending over $5000), and didn't know anyone who had one that would be willing to let you play with, but you wanted to know more about it and experience it, would you object to using an emulator? Or would just save yourself that experience until some undetermined amount of time later to play with one? Even though the chances of finding one would get smaller and smaller over time? From ray at arachelian.com Thu Jun 18 11:14:24 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:14:24 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3991F9.2060707@jbrain.com> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> <4A3991F9.2060707@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <4A3A67E0.4090408@arachelian.com> Jim Brain wrote: > For every person who wants to experience the slow speed of the 1541, > there are 10-100 people who find the C64 valuable but have no time for > the 1541. Specifically, the latter group includes the folks design SW > for the platform, software that users (who might enjoy the 1541) use. > So, by withholding newer technologies, it effectively discourages > those that the community wishes to interest in the platform. And to drive the point home, even back in the day, almost everyone wanted to use a fast loader whenever possible as it accelerated the bandwidth of the 1541 several times. Infact the GEOS operating system for the C64 had a built in fast loader, and in the C128, when hooked up to a 1571, it would use the faster method that the fast loaders used. So yes, you might want to wait 5 minutes to load Jungle Hunt or Spy Hunter, or something else once or twice to see what it was like, but after that, you'll quickly give up on repeating that experience. :-) From brianlanning at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 11:14:47 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:14:47 -0500 Subject: Printer rant In-Reply-To: <490169.38019.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <490169.38019.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906180914v5457e6fcp9d28445251026dce@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 10:58 AM, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > Check the whole paper path for bits of paper, paper clips, shredded fuser bits, junk, etc. That kind of an error is usally an obstruction or something. Take out the toner cartridge, fuser, transfer roller, etc, and blow all the dust and crud out of the paper path. Check that the transfer roller bushings are good and that it turns freely. Check that there's not a bit of paper stuck in the registration assembly. There are also two sensor flags in the fuser (an entry and an exit). Check to be sure that a bit of fuser hasn't gotten stuck in them... Also, if I remember correctly, there's a little conveyor belt looking thing in there too - make sure nothing is preventing it from moving freely. Honestly, with some of these printers, I wind up taking out the paper tray, the fuser, toner, everything you can easily remove, and turn them upside down and shake. It's amazing the crud that falls into a printer. I fixed a nagging jam problem in one machine by just > ?cleaing out the paper clips. > > But, if your fuser is that torn up, I can just about garuntee you'll get a ton of jams in the fuser. But the paper should at least make it there. Manually turn through the fuser by turning the gear, and make sure that the ragged edges are "smooth" and won't catch easily on the paper. > >> Is that the 13.5 that appears on the display or is it >> something else? > > Yeah, that's all - but the status log give a history of jams, in case you can't reproduce the problem, or if you want to see all the other places the ?paper is getting stuck. I generally have to resort to that, since intermittent jams always seem to behave themselves when I'm present. :) Thanks for the info. I'll have another look at it tonight. I remember the shake-the-printer-upsidedown trick from laserjet 2s and 3s. Those printers would literally unscrew themselves. Screws would work their way out and fall into the mechanism. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 18 11:19:59 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:19:59 -0600 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> Message-ID: <4A3A692F.1040400@jetnet.ab.ca> William Donzelli wrote: > PDP-6? Get in line, machine. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of other > important machines from that era that also were scrapped. The keyword here is *museum*. As for scrapping that I agree was common, and the major way this bunch of collectors could even get a *real* computer for personal use.[1] As for myself, I have had no luck with that method. > -- > Will Ben. [1] The minor way is watiing for Spare Time Gizmos to bring out hardware. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 18 11:25:47 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:25:47 -0700 Subject: logic probe happy-sad In-Reply-To: <4A39F487.40807@cosam.org> References: , , <4A39F487.40807@cosam.org> Message-ID: <4A3A081B.25087.18EE321A@cclist.sydex.com> I'll take 3, if you're still taking orders. --Chuck From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 11:27:43 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:27:43 -0400 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <4A3A692F.1040400@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <4A3A692F.1040400@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > The keyword here is *museum*. Reread what Al is saying. -- Will From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Jun 18 11:38:26 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:38:26 +0100 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> Message-ID: <1245343106.27700.27.camel@elric> On Wed, 2009-06-17 at 19:44 -0400, Dan Roganti wrote: > What's the point in > restoring vintage equipment of you like to 'circumvent' the original > design by using something which didn't exist for that particular era. Because that way you get to build the computer you *wanted* when you were 11, rather than the computer you *had*. You know, the ZX Spectrum with the 32-channel sound, 512kBytes of memory and several MBytes - GBytes even - of disk space. Wow, imagine having a computer like that. Imagine not having to wait six minutes for Jet Set Willy to load, you could just have it in battery-backed RAM. How many people who own classic cars *now* had posters of them on their bedroom wall when they were kids? Gordon From pontus at Update.UU.SE Thu Jun 18 11:40:25 2009 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:40:25 +0200 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> References: <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> Message-ID: <20090618164025.GA11803@Update.UU.SE> > > Shame on you all!! Harsch words, think about what they _have_ saved and what they do for this community. /P From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jun 18 11:40:54 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:40:54 -0700 Subject: Printer rant In-Reply-To: <490169.38019.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <490169.38019.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:58:49 -0700 > From: ian_primus at yahoo.com > Subject: Re: Printer rant > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > > --- On Thu, 6/18/09, Brian Lanning wrote: > >> When I open the printer, the page is slightly mangled, so I >> think it's >> a jam. I can also hear the paper crinkling right >> before it reports >> the jam. It's also pinched on a roller at the top of >> the page before >> the fuser. But only maybe 1/4" is under the >> roller. It gives me a >> little resistance when I pull the page out. The error >> is 13.5 and it >> tells me to check the back paper tray. > > Check the whole paper path for bits of paper, paper clips, shredded fuser bits, junk, etc. That kind of an error is usally an obstruction or something. Take out the toner cartridge, fuser, transfer roller, etc, and blow all the dust and crud out of the paper path. Check that the transfer roller bushings are good and that it turns freely. HI Don't touch the transfer roller with your finger the finger oil will make it not work. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail?. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009 From alexandre.laguejacques at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 11:41:07 2009 From: alexandre.laguejacques at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Alexandre_Lag=FCe=2DJacques?=) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:41:07 -0400 Subject: Montreal: free Sun Ultra 30 barebones, Digital VRT-19 monitor Message-ID: <8336542f0906180941y1da8303x2a6fb06c7271e6ed@mail.gmail.com> Hello all, I'm in Montreal and am giving away: (1) Sun Ultra 30 tower (no RAM, no HDD but working and in good condition) (1) Digital (DEC) VRT-19 monitor (working, good image, cabinet in fair to good condition) For pick-up only and hopefully in the next few days as I'm moving! Thanks, - Alex From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 18 11:53:53 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:53:53 -0600 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <1245343106.27700.27.camel@elric> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> <1245343106.27700.27.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A3A7121.8020408@jetnet.ab.ca> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Because that way you get to build the computer you *wanted* when you > were 11, rather than the computer you *had*. You know, the ZX Spectrum > with the 32-channel sound, 512kBytes of memory and several MBytes - > GBytes even - of disk space. Wow, imagine having a computer like that. > Imagine not having to wait six minutes for Jet Set Willy to load, you > could just have it in battery-backed RAM. My gripe with British Computers of that era, No floppy drive of any kind. > How many people who own classic cars *now* had posters of them on their > bedroom wall when they were kids? Lets keep on topic here. :) > Gordon Emulators are needed and useful, but work best for real hardware is my view. CPLD and FPGA hardware could in my view point bring back old logic needed for older machines as repair of a old PCB or NEW design of a old machine. The problem is at least with PDP-11's and PDP-10's people seem demanding in that they want the fastest or biggest design made. I am talking here, a good 10 years before that for designs to be new built or repaired since this not a commercial hobby. Ben. From blstuart at bellsouth.net Thu Jun 18 11:56:27 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:56:27 -0500 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3A66E6.1060704@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <2e4294977c335f32b8fa99b8d18f1bac@bellsouth.net> > There are still many Apple ][ and Commodore fans. Upgrades such as > ethernet cards and new storage devices are very welcomed in those circles. I must admit to some mixed feelings about this question of upgrading classic machines. But I would suggest that there's a significant difference between modifications to an Apple 2 and a Bendix G-15. In the case of high-volume commodity machines, modifying one specimen doesn't hinder the historian in studying the machine. For that matter, if many of those systems were modified when current, the types of modifications that evolved over the years would be an interesting study in itself. But if someone makes an irreversible modification to a machine of which only a handful still exist, then that substantially increases the chances that at some point, no examples will exist in their original condition. Then significant historical information will be lost. There's also a big difference in where that machine exists. If it's purely a hobby machine that won't likely survive its owner, I'm not as concerned as I would be for a machine that is part of a museum collection. When a researcher visits a museum to study an artifact, it is assumed that the artifact has been preserved as carefully and as accurately as possible. I'll stop now before I get long winded going into the 3 or 4 tangents that come to mind. BLS From ray at arachelian.com Thu Jun 18 12:01:21 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:01:21 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <67A99C50-0382-494D-B68B-A42135AFF47C@microspot.co.uk> References: <67A99C50-0382-494D-B68B-A42135AFF47C@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <4A3A72E1.4080205@arachelian.com> Roger Holmes wrote: >> From: Ray Arachelian > > An excellent, almost definitive summary of the subject. Thank you. > > I would just like to add a little of my own experiences. > > > I have the real thing too (1962 mainframe) but also have an emulator > for it. I initially wrote it so I could write software for it in the > comfort of my house in the cold winter months without having to (a) > risk damaging Germanium transistors which have a minimum official > temperature rating of 50F, 10C. (b) having to warm up a whole barn to > be comfortable to work in (c) having to hand start an old 3 phase 3.5 > litre diesel generator with cold thick oil in it (d) having to pay for > lots of diesel fuel or after I had 3 phase installed, to pay for 13 > kWh electricity per hour. Yes, exactly! There are reasons to sometimes NOT run older hardware. (As an aside, I wrote most of LisaEm without actually using a real Lisa as much as possible. I wound up using my NeXStation slab to do the CPU opcode tests, and mostly referring to schematics and documentation instead. There were a few things I had to just give up on and fire up the Lisa, but for most of the development time, I avoided it, both as a challenge to see if it could be done, and as a way to preserve the older hardware from possible damage.) > > I now plan to publish my emulator on the web, along with original > software which non programmers can run on it. I am very unsure of how > many people will be interested in such a thing. I need to get the > physical machine running to retrieve said software from unique ten > track mag tapes and from standard 80 column cards, though I could > probably get the latter read elsewhere, I don't want to have to > transport about 150,000 card somewhere to have them read, probably at > great cost. Hey, I'd happily play with it. I probably won't get very deep into it, but I would like to interact with it and see what it was like. (Which mainframe btw?) Hopefully you'll add various things to make the experience more authentic, such as sounds and pictures/animation of actual tapes, punch cards, etc. (As much as possible.) > > I am also into classic cars and hold an annual car show at my home > attended by about 4000 people. The opportunity to try opening the door > and show visitors the mainframe was too hard to resist, so we did and > were very surprised by the results. No negative comments, even by > children who were amazed that computers were ever so much bigger than > their familiar home machines. It was surprising how many adults people > had experienced mainframes and who loved being reminded of just what > it had been like, and having the opportunity for their children to > experience what words alone cannot really describe. The smell of hot > electronics by the ton, the heat, the noise, and of course the sights > of the whole thing and the main console with its flashing lights, the > scale of a machine big enough that you can stand INSIDE it and being > told it weighs five tons. > > In the early years I had to simulate some of what the machine should > have done, by using diagnostic facilities and one or three > instructions entered directly into the control registers when the > machine had failed. If the machine ever completely failed and had to > be shut down I certainly would be very disappointed and I feel the > visitors would be too, I'm sure a static museum exhibit just does not > have the same impact. I once visited Manchester museum and they had a > couple of old mainframe. No explanation, nobody to ask, I could have > been very interested and spent hours there but without any information > I passed on to the next room in about two minutes. I have to say the > temptation to try the on switch was hard to resist, there wasn't even > anything saying not to do so. > Exactly! I remember visiting the Boston Computer Museum many years ago (well, when it was in Boston) and seeing the large exhibits - the one that strikes me the most was one showing a disk drive with small flipable magnets and a very large drive head hovering over it making the bits flip around. That one attracted a lot of people. The ones behind velvet rope that showed actual machines that were powered off and you couldn't interact with gained about 10-15 seconds at most of attention. You've done a wonderful thing by letting people look inside a large machine. Hopefully you'll get the chance to do it again and get to see lots of smiles on the little kiddies faces. .. > > The same thing in the classic car scene. There are people who spend > years building replicas of E Type Jaguars (called XKE in the US), D > Type Jaguars, AC Cobras, 1930s roadsters etc, often with better > performance/handling than the originals. Very nice people, and I'd > rather they did that than modify a working original. Wish I knew more about cars. :-) Sadly that's one area of technology I've not delved too deeply into. Though a lot of the sentiments are the same. > > For micro computers I agree, not quite sure this applies to > mainframes. I guess it depends on how you define software. If a single > instruction is software then I suppose so. At the lowest level > debugging I can set an instruction into control register one, set the > machine to single cycle and watch the lights on the console as I send > single clock pulses through the hardware every time I press a button. Sorry, that's still running software. Microcode is still software (though some have tried to define it as firmware at times.) But yes, I'm sure walking inside a large mainframe while it's on and feeling the heat and hearing the sounds is a totally different experience from powering on a somewhat quiet machine. > >> I'll assume that we're not in this hobby for the sole purpose of using >> classic computers as space heaters. > > Not solely no. Just a useful side effect. Right, depends on the weather I suppose. > >> Walking by a cordoned off exhibit that shows a non-functioning machine, >> without the ability to see it run or interact with it, well that's just >> not very interesting to me. Watching the blinking lights of a powered >> on machine might be fun for only about 3 seconds (unless perhaps you're >> one of those that tends to partake in mind-shrinking substances). >> >> The experience of actually running code, and even better, coding for an >> old machine is probably the largest part of the fun of this hobby. > > Yes but how can you give this experience to several hundred visitors > in a day. With a multi-programmed machine this might be possible but > with an older machine, specially ones without terminals (my one does > not even have an operators terminal) you cannot do much without > affecting the experience of the bulk of less technical visitors. I > suppose it would be possible to provide an emulated machine to the > minority but would they be interested in that? You can hold a programming class. Maybe provide actual documentation ahead of time so they know what to expect and can have an idea of what sort of programs that they can execute, maybe provide some samples for them to start with and tweak as they go along. If you can get actual terminals to the mainframe, once they're done using the emulator, you could fire up the real thing and let them play with that for a short time. Maybe if you're worried about the cost of the electricity, you could charge a bit of cash for that purpose and let them know what the cost is for. I don't think several hundred visitors a day would write code, they might just want to see it in action, but maybe a few dozen would like to get deeper. >> >> But there is one area where we are actually able to create and provide >> immortality: software. > > So that's why I'm a programmer? I don't really expect my programs to > be around in 20 years time let alone a hundred. One member here did > express approval for a program I wrote in the 1980s but that is > exceptional. The program drove a particular colour dot matrix printer, > very few of which survive, and is of no use whatever without that > hardware, which in time will become extinct. Applications I've worked > on could fare better but why would anyone want to run a 2D drafting > program or a 3D modelling program on an emulated Mac in a hundred > years time? For me I think its pleasing people NOW which matters, and > of course the money to spend on cars, old computers, food etc Sure, there will be much better 3D modeling software out there by that time, but I imagine many would want to go back and see what it was like in the day and experience that for themselves. Driver software for a very specific printer would likely not be part of that. Sorry, you're right on that. > As I am not going to live for ever I want my old computer to go to a > museum. I've already tried with one which eventually went to a > privately run museum as I could not GIVE it to a publicly run one. I > would like this to happen to my remaining one whilst I am young enough > to tell them how to move it, reassemble it and help get it running, I > don't want to be doing it in my eighties, but I MIGHT still be > interested in running an emulator which does not develop faults and > need a resident engineer to fix them. Sure, and if you can find people of the same mindset, those that would like to demonstrate the running thing to visitors rather than just cordon it off, so much the better. Myself, I have two little ones, they're not quite old enough to understand computers yet, though I've given them one to play with - right now they just use it to watch videos or listen to kids' audiobooks on. Rarely they play games on them. But when they're about 9 or so I imagine I can show them a lot more and let them play with the machines I've collected over the years and maybe they can play with the ROM BASIC and code a bit. :-) Something I'm looking forward to. > > One aspect of emulators I have not yet explored is, well hold on a > second and I'll explain. When looking through the 1301's > documentation, circuit diagrams and instruction set, I am very tempted > to add improvement which could have been done by the designer, but for > some reason, either budgetary or lack of knowledge (some software > techniques had not been invented yet). In an emulator I could add > indexing or indirect addressing, or immediate mode data, or relative > mode, or branch on NOT some condition without having to modify the > actual hardware. I could then try programming the machine in that > configuration and see how it affected the program size and ease of > programming. > > It would be even more fun if the emulator was done at logic gate level > and even more so if mated to an interactive 3D model of the hardware > where you could open the cover, insert emulated scope probes and look > at the signals. You could even emulate random logic failures for > educational reasons, though to do so as a game would probably be a > step too far for me, though programming the emulator to do it WOULD be > fun. Right, a logic simulator could be used to model this, and later you could change the emulator around to match the proposed change. Gate level emulation is very difficult. Not so much difficult to write, but its going to require a lot of processing power, and the timing aspects will be very hard to get right. It has been done in the past, mainly to help designers test out their designs, but they typically run several thousand times slower than the actual machine. > > The emulation page of the CCS web site seems to have disappeared so I > can't check. As Colossus, like early US machines was not a stored > program computer, I'm not sure at what level you want the emulation to > run. I think there was an emulator for Baby, the first stored program > computer on the web site. I remember there was something, possibly Java or such on that page, but it's long gone now. Unfortunately it wasn't something one could download. That's one of the things that utterly sucks about the web. You can archive it, but things that depend on a back end server can't be replicated without having what runs there (or a simulation thereof.) It's sad that it wasn't released publicly. Most of Colossus was just circuitry, not much to program there, but you could code simulations of those circuits and provide code that does similar enough things. (At least what little I know if it comes from the book.) > Never had a sealed in box machine which was beyond economic repair? :-) > Never had a sealed-in-box machine. :-) I've used every machine I have to some extent or other. I do have a sealed copy of Sun OS 4.x - will never open it as I have an opened copy of the same elsewhere. Rest of the stuff I have has been throughly played with. :-) From alhartman at yahoo.com Thu Jun 18 12:16:42 2009 From: alhartman at yahoo.com (Al Hartman) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:16:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Corvus software support for Mac In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <218584.80787.qm@web55301.mail.re4.yahoo.com> I have some Corvus Mac floppies here. If they are still good, and I can image them... You are welcome to them. Al ----- Original Message ---- Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:25:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Steven Hirsch Just unearthed a Corvus Omninet interface box for Macintosh. It plugs into the older-style 9-pin Localtalk connector. Does anyone own or have a lead on the client software and admin tools that go along with it? Steve From alhartman at yahoo.com Thu Jun 18 12:21:44 2009 From: alhartman at yahoo.com (Al Hartman) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:21:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> I bought a thinkpad 600e for a friend several years ago on eBay. She put it in storage for a year, and when she pulled it out the backup battery has died. I replaced it, but now the unit is asking for a password. We never set a CMOS password, the eBay seller's email no longer works and I need to get to her data on the HDD which is also locked. Everything I searched tells how to wipe the HDD, but not how to recover the data without shipping the drive to someone who will do it for much more than the laptop and drive is worth. Anyone have a way I can get into the unit and unlock it? I can buy another unit cheap, but that doesn't get me into the HD. Al From ray at arachelian.com Thu Jun 18 12:40:20 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:40:20 -0400 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A3A7C04.8020605@arachelian.com> Al Hartman wrote: > I bought a thinkpad 600e for a friend several years ago on eBay. She put it in storage for a year, and when she pulled it out the backup battery has died. I replaced it, but now the unit is asking for a password. > You could get an external 2.5" USB<->ATA enclosure, move the drive to that and get at the data that way. From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 12:40:30 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:40:30 -0500 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A3A7C0E.30503@gmail.com> Al Hartman wrote: > I can buy another unit cheap, but that doesn't get me into the HD. Hmm, the hdd's locked and she never set a password for that? Might be worth contacting IBM about it - I'd suggest perhaps trying a BIOS upgrade, but doing that is risky if the hdd really is protected and the protection is tied to a particular BIOS release. The maintenance manual just says that a system board replacement's the only official way around a forgotten supervisor password, and a hdd replacement's the only way around a forgotten hdd password :-( The CMOS battery died on my 600E a few months ago, and it never did this (in fact I ran it with no CMOS battery at all for quite a while and just bashed in new time/date info every time I cold-booted it) so it sounds like a bug / hardware failure / corruption issue. You could try a CMOS reset, I suppose (maintenance manual's here if you don't have it already: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/09n1033.pdf ) as I really doubt that'd make things any worse. cheers Jules From jpero at sympatico.ca Thu Jun 18 12:57:58 2009 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero at sympatico.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:57:58 +0000 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:21:44 -0700 > From: alhartman at yahoo.com > Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > > I bought a thinkpad 600e for a friend several years ago on eBay. She put it in storage for a year, and when she pulled it out the backup battery has died. I replaced it, but now the unit is asking for a password. > > We never set a CMOS password, the eBay seller's email no longer works and I need to get to her data on the HDD which is also locked. > > Everything I searched tells how to wipe the HDD, but not how to recover the data without shipping the drive to someone who will do it for much more than the laptop and drive is worth. > > Anyone have a way I can get into the unit and unlock it? > > I can buy another unit cheap, but that doesn't get me into the HD. > > Al I also have a thinkpad that is locked and planning to crack it when I have time and interest. Have a look: http://www.security-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=23102 Cheers, Wizard _________________________________________________________________ Create a cool, new character for your Windows Live? Messenger. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9656621 From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 12:58:17 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:58:17 -0500 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3A7C04.8020605@arachelian.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A7C04.8020605@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <4A3A8039.9050201@gmail.com> Ray Arachelian wrote: > Al Hartman wrote: >> I bought a thinkpad 600e for a friend several years ago on eBay. She put it in storage for a year, and when she pulled it out the backup battery has died. I replaced it, but now the unit is asking for a password. >> > You could get an external 2.5" USB<->ATA enclosure, move the drive to > that and get at the data that way. It's weird how the manual states 'hdd replacement' for forgotten password, rather than just saying it needs to be reformatted. I assume that was just an error in IBM's terminology (and they really don't do something like screwing around with the drive firmware :) You're probably onto something, though - I bet they just goof around with the MBR or something to stop the drive booting (so with a bit of effort a new MBR could be written via another box, or the filesystem read out 'raw' and accessed as a loopback device under Linux / *BSD) (I don't have an suitable 2.5" adapter with me here, or I'd do some tests with my 600E - I've not got anything on its drive that I want to keep right now anyway) cheers Jules From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 18 12:57:12 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:57:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3A7C0E.30503@gmail.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A7C0E.30503@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Jules Richardson wrote: > Al Hartman wrote: >> I can buy another unit cheap, but that doesn't get me into the HD. > > Hmm, the hdd's locked and she never set a password for that? > > Might be worth contacting IBM about it - I'd suggest perhaps trying a BIOS > upgrade, but doing that is risky if the hdd really is protected and the > protection is tied to a particular BIOS release. > > The maintenance manual just says that a system board replacement's the only > official way around a forgotten supervisor password, and a hdd replacement's > the only way around a forgotten hdd password :-( > > The CMOS battery died on my 600E a few months ago, and it never did this (in > fact I ran it with no CMOS battery at all for quite a while and just bashed > in new time/date info every time I cold-booted it) so it sounds like a bug / > hardware failure / corruption issue. > > You could try a CMOS reset, I suppose (maintenance manual's here if you don't > have it already: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/09n1033.pdf ) > as I really doubt that'd make things any worse. The *ONLY* possitive thing I can say is that I'm pretty sure it isn't the HD password that is set. When that is set you have to type it in to boot, so that is a pretty good indication it is the Supervisor password. Hardware passwords on Thinkpads are *BAD* news. Zane From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 18 13:06:45 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:06:45 -0600 Subject: Bad keyboards- repair In-Reply-To: <4A3A7C0E.30503@gmail.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A7C0E.30503@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3A8235.3010000@jetnet.ab.ca> Quote from "Antique Electronic Supply". CAIG, CAIKOTE 44 KIT - S-CK-CK44-G Conductive Carbon Coating for most surfaces (rubber, epoxy, glass, plastic). It is ideal for repairing membrane buttons, keyboard buttons, and other carbon based surfaces. It may also be used as a coating for shielding (EMI) of electronics. $8.95 http://www.tubesandmore.com/ Ben. From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 18 13:00:55 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:00:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3A8039.9050201@gmail.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A7C04.8020605@arachelian.com> <4A3A8039.9050201@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Jules Richardson wrote: > It's weird how the manual states 'hdd replacement' for forgotten password, > rather than just saying it needs to be reformatted. I assume that was just an > error in IBM's terminology (and they really don't do something like screwing > around with the drive firmware :) It isn't an error. It is a "security feature". :-( Zane From dgahling at hotmail.com Thu Jun 18 13:06:48 2009 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (dgahling@hotmail.com ) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:06:48 +0000 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... Message-ID: can u boot from floppy? if its enabled its easy to wipe the cmos password. also check ibm website for a recovery disk but that still requires either floppy or cd boot ---------- Sent via Telus My Email 2.0 -----Original Message----- From: Al Hartman Sent: 6/18/2009 5:21:44 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... I bought a thinkpad 600e for a friend several years ago on eBay. She put it in storage for a year, and when she pulled it out the backup battery has died. I replaced it, but now the unit is asking for a password. We never set a CMOS password, the eBay seller's email no longer works and I need to get to her data on the HDD which is also locked. Everything I searched tells how to wipe the HDD, but not how to recover the data without shipping the drive to someone who will do it for much more than the laptop and drive is worth. Anyone have a way I can get into the unit and unlock it? I can buy another unit cheap, but that doesn't get me into the HD. Al From blstuart at bellsouth.net Thu Jun 18 13:16:48 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:16:48 -0500 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Jules Richardson wrote: > >> It's weird how the manual states 'hdd replacement' for forgotten password, >> rather than just saying it needs to be reformatted. I assume that was just an >> error in IBM's terminology (and they really don't do something like screwing >> around with the drive firmware :) > > It isn't an error. It is a "security feature". :-( Reminds me of the story, quite likely apocrophal about the poster with a cockroach dressed in a tuxedo. Under the creature was the label "Feature." BLS From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jun 18 13:18:04 2009 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:18:04 -0400 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com><4A3A7C04.8020605@arachelian.com> <4A3A8039.9050201@gmail.com> Message-ID: <22B23F0D28294683800A4B2D39E3F3C5@dell8300> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jules Richardson" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 1:58 PM Subject: Re: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... > Ray Arachelian wrote: >> Al Hartman wrote: >>> I bought a thinkpad 600e for a friend several years ago on eBay. She put >>> it in storage for a year, and when she pulled it out the backup battery >>> has died. I replaced it, but now the unit is asking for a password. >>> >> You could get an external 2.5" USB<->ATA enclosure, move the drive to >> that and get at the data that way. > > It's weird how the manual states 'hdd replacement' for forgotten password, > rather than just saying it needs to be reformatted. I assume that was just > an error in IBM's terminology (and they really don't do something like > screwing around with the drive firmware :) > > You're probably onto something, though - I bet they just goof around with > the MBR or something to stop the drive booting (so with a bit of effort a > new MBR could be written via another box, or the filesystem read out 'raw' > and accessed as a loopback device under Linux / *BSD) > > (I don't have an suitable 2.5" adapter with me here, or I'd do some tests > with my 600E - I've not got anything on its drive that I want to keep > right now anyway) > > cheers > > Jules > Seems like the drive itself is locked so moving the HD to another machine will not help. There are auctions on ebay that will unlock the machine itself (solder in an unlocked security chip) but that will not let you get into the HD that is locked. Places like this: http://www.pwcrack.com/harddisk.shtml can unlock the drive if you like paying $100 and letting somebody else get into your data. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 18 13:21:18 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:21:18 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <2e4294977c335f32b8fa99b8d18f1bac@bellsouth.net> References: <4A3A66E6.1060704@arachelian.com>, <2e4294977c335f32b8fa99b8d18f1bac@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <4A3A232E.9670.1957DA13@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jun 2009 at 11:56, blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: > But if someone makes an irreversible modification to a > machine of which only a handful still exist, then that > substantially increases the chances that at some point, > no examples will exist in their original condition. Then > significant historical information will be lost. For the really classic machines, the issue may be one of "how do we get this thing to operate at all?" versus "well, it's a nice museum piece--too bad it won't ever work again". Replacing an antique memory device (Williams tube, thin-film, delay line or even core) with modern memory may be the limit of what can be done at reasonable expense. If it gets the system running, one can always leave the old device in place for show. I think bitsavers' archiving tdocumentation is probably more, or at least as important as preserving the actual iron. I've learned more about some old machines by perusing the archives than I ever would have playing with the real thing. One aspect that the documentation can convey that the hardware doesn't is "why we did it this way". i.e. the thought process behind the implementation--and to me, that's far more important. Playing with old hardware without documentation is sometimes like looking at object code without source. It's a grand puzzle and you can figure out the logic, but you lose the sense of the human behind the design. A well-commented piece of source code is worth its weight in gold for getting the big picture and the mindset of the programmer. The same goes for hardware technical manuals. --Chuck From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jun 18 13:27:00 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:27:00 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org><4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> Message-ID: <4A3A86F4.1010208@brouhaha.com> Rod Smallwood wrote: > Everybody saying 'not I' does not alter the fact that a priceless piece of > computer history is at best missing and at worst destroyed. > > The real point is that the computer museum people knew of its existence and > yet failed in their duty to recover and save it after the DECUS event. > > Shame on you all!! > Museums can't save everything that is of historical interest, because there are simply too many things that are of interest, and museums have very limited budgets, staff, and space. It is also often not completely clear which items are of historical interest until many years later. It should be noted that although the Computer History Museum in Mountain View is a spinoff of The Computer Museum in Boston, CHM is *entirely* focused on the preservation of computer history, while TCM had multiple objectives and preservation of computer history was not necessarily their highest priority at all times. That is one of the factors that led to the creation of CHM (originally The Computer Museum History Center). All indications to date are that CHM has exercised the utmost diligence in the stewardship of historical artifacts, and that this can be expected to continue in the future. Eric From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 13:28:35 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:28:35 -0400 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com> Al Hartman wrote: > I bought a thinkpad 600e for a friend several years ago on eBay. She put it in storage for a year, and when she pulled it out the backup battery has died. I replaced it, but now the unit is asking for a password. > > We never set a CMOS password, the eBay seller's email no longer works and I need to get to her data on the HDD which is also locked. > > Everything I searched tells how to wipe the HDD, but not how to recover the data without shipping the drive to someone who will do it for much more than the laptop and drive is worth. > > Anyone have a way I can get into the unit and unlock it? > > I can buy another unit cheap, but that doesn't get me into the HD. I don't believe that it is possible. When a hard drive password for a ThinkPad gets lost, it usually means buy a new hard drive and send the old for recovery. Peace... Sridhar From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 13:36:48 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:36:48 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators References: <67A99C50-0382-494D-B68B-A42135AFF47C@microspot.co.uk> <4A3A72E1.4080205@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <4A3A893F.756816EA@cs.ubc.ca> Ray Arachelian wrote: > > Roger Holmes wrote: > > > > It would be even more fun if the emulator was done at logic gate level > > and even more so if mated to an interactive 3D model of the hardware > > where you could open the cover, insert emulated scope probes and look > > at the signals. You could even emulate random logic failures for > > educational reasons, though to do so as a game would probably be a > > step too far for me, though programming the emulator to do it WOULD be > > fun. > Right, a logic simulator could be used to model this, and later you > could change the emulator around to match the proposed change. Gate > level emulation is very difficult. Not so much difficult to write, but > its going to require a lot of processing power, and the timing aspects > will be very hard to get right. > > It has been done in the past, mainly to help designers test out their > designs, but they typically run several thousand times slower than the > actual machine. I found a very practical reason to create gate-level logic simulations of some old hardware (discrete and SSI calculators from the 60's, although similar motivations could apply to early computers), in support of the preservation of the hardware. Tracking down subtle faults in these machines can be difficult due to limited accessibility, the nature of the circuitry, limited real-time control, etc. Unsoldering components or tack-soldering probe wires is a recipe for creating more problems (heat-cycling early circuit boards, etc.) and making a mess of the original. (Can't say I've never done it but I don't like doing it.) With a gate-level logic simulation one can do the hacking on the simulation ('breaking connections', forcing gates to some state, etc.). The hypothesize-a-fault,test-it-in-the-real-world cycle becomes hypothesize-a-fault,test-it-in-the-simulator, until the simulation exhibits the same problem behaviour as the original. It has been very useful in a few instances, and an interesting exercise, although a lot of work to get the simulation going. > > The emulation page of the CCS web site seems to have disappeared so I > > can't check. As Colossus, like early US machines was not a stored > > program computer, I'm not sure at what level you want the emulation to > > run. I think there was an emulator for Baby, the first stored program > > computer on the web site. > > I remember there was something, possibly Java or such on that page, but > it's long gone now. Unfortunately it wasn't something one could > download. That's one of the things that utterly sucks about the web. > You can archive it, but things that depend on a back end server can't be > replicated without having what runs there (or a simulation thereof.) > It's sad that it wasn't released publicly. > > Most of Colossus was just circuitry, not much to program there, but you > could code simulations of those circuits and provide code that does > similar enough things. (At least what little I know if it comes from > the book.) I'd like to create simulations of Colussus and the Bombes, along with sims for the Lorenz and Enigma, to show the code-breaking processes involved. The encoders are relatively easy, I haven't researched or seen an in-depth explanation of the code-breaking machines though. From blstuart at bellsouth.net Thu Jun 18 13:50:24 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:50:24 -0500 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3A232E.9670.1957DA13@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > On 18 Jun 2009 at 11:56, blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: > >> But if someone makes an irreversible modification to a >> machine of which only a handful still exist, then that >> substantially increases the chances that at some point, >> no examples will exist in their original condition. Then >> significant historical information will be lost. > > For the really classic machines, the issue may be one of "how do we > get this thing to operate at all?" versus "well, it's a nice museum > piece--too bad it won't ever work again". > > Replacing an antique memory device (Williams tube, thin-film, delay > line or even core) with modern memory may be the limit of what can be > done at reasonable expense. If it gets the system running, one can > always leave the old device in place for show. For me the question is whether the change is irreversible. I'm actually not very concerned with what is shown to the tourist. I want to make sure that when a question arises that can only be answer by access to the artifact itself, we haven't thrown away the possibility of finding the answer. If the choice is that it never runs again but we preserve the possbility of historical research versus we get to see it running but we permanently lose historical information, I'll generally prefer the former. I'm certainly no archeologist, but one of the things that I've noticed in documentaries is that something has changed in the practice of archeology when compared to say 100 years ago. Now if something cannot be done without some degree of assurance that the change will not be harmful (e.g. cleaning, repairing, etc), then it's just not done. Instead the piece is kept until some future time when the techniques and technology allow it to be cleaned or repaired without any damage to the history. If an old drum can be replace by a flash device as a module that connects to the same connectors and matches the drum electrically, then I don't have much of a problem as long as a) the change is documented in such a way that it is clear how to restore the machine to its original condition, and b) none of what is removed is discarded. > I think bitsavers' archiving tdocumentation is probably more, or at > least as important as preserving the actual iron. I absolutely agree with that. > I've learned more > about some old machines by perusing the archives than I ever would > have playing with the real thing. One aspect that the documentation > can convey that the hardware doesn't is "why we did it this way". > i.e. the thought process behind the implementation--and to me, that's > far more important. I agree that the intellect behind the design is more interesting than the realization of the design. But all of us who are engineers and programmers know all too well how documentation and artifact often don't match. If a part of the documented design doesn't make sense and doesn't appear that it would work, then referring to an actual machine that was once known to work (though may not be operational now) will provide information you can only guess at otherwise. > Playing with old hardware without documentation is sometimes like > looking at object code without source. It's a grand puzzle and you > can figure out the logic, but you lose the sense of the human behind > the design. A well-commented piece of source code is worth its > weight in gold for getting the big picture and the mindset of the > programmer. The same goes for hardware technical manuals. I agree to some extent, but I'll also say that neither the comments nor the technical manual is required to get into the mindset of the designer. Sometimes just looking at what chips were chosen and how they are laid out on the board can give some insight into how the designer thought. Most of the code to come out of the Bell Labs systems group is particularly sparse in comments. But reading that code, looking at the variable names chosen, looking at how functionality was divided among files, etc gives a better picture of how someone like Ken Thompson thinks than looking a the commented code from a commercial software house. BLS From rodsmallwood at btconnect.com Thu Jun 18 13:51:13 2009 From: rodsmallwood at btconnect.com (Rod Smallwood) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:51:13 +0100 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <4A3A86F4.1010208@brouhaha.com> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org><4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca><3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <4A3A86F4.1010208@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <502F6EE906394A10AA025EEE3BF1306D@EDIConsultingLtd.local> That's a fine defence, however the facts still stand. The list I have seen shows no more than a dozen PDP-6 being made and shipped. The Stanford Six was exihibited at the Decus twenty year bash. When I was at DEC we were No2 to IBM. So we have a machine made early in the history of a big player. Its exhibited at a large convention, goes back to a DEC warehouse and some years later a small part of it is handed over. There is one small chance of finding out the truth. DEC had a group called the Traditional Product Line. Their remit was to supply parts for obsolete systems. If anyone knew what happend to it then would have been them. Rod Smallwood I collect and restore old DEC computer equipment -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Eric Smith Sent: 18 June 2009 19:27 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) Rod Smallwood wrote: > Everybody saying 'not I' does not alter the fact that a priceless piece of > computer history is at best missing and at worst destroyed. > > The real point is that the computer museum people knew of its existence and > yet failed in their duty to recover and save it after the DECUS event. > > Shame on you all!! > Museums can't save everything that is of historical interest, because there are simply too many things that are of interest, and museums have very limited budgets, staff, and space. It is also often not completely clear which items are of historical interest until many years later. It should be noted that although the Computer History Museum in Mountain View is a spinoff of The Computer Museum in Boston, CHM is *entirely* focused on the preservation of computer history, while TCM had multiple objectives and preservation of computer history was not necessarily their highest priority at all times. That is one of the factors that led to the creation of CHM (originally The Computer Museum History Center). All indications to date are that CHM has exercised the utmost diligence in the stewardship of historical artifacts, and that this can be expected to continue in the future. Eric From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jun 18 13:54:52 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:54:52 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 In-Reply-To: <20090618025420.F34D027DD@orpheus.cnchost.com> References: <20090618025420.F34D027DD@orpheus.cnchost.com> Message-ID: > From: Len Shustek > Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 7:53 PM > This issue resurfaces every few years. My first post related to it > was to alt.sys.pdp10 on 2/28/1996 2:54 PM. The last time I saw it > discussed was February of 2006. I have various messages on the > subject in my email archive, including those between Gordon Bell and > Rich Alderson in 1999. Len, I do not recall ever exchanging e-mail with Gordon Bell, but it's possible that I have forgotten in the 10 years that apparently have passed since I did so. (I can't believe that I'd have forgotten such a correspondence, particularly on this topic, but anything is possible.) I do not have access to e-mail from that particular time in my career and cannot check. Here's the problem with the assertions that this did not happen: The sale of scrap boards was apparently prior to the 1984 move of the SAIL PDP-6 to Anaheim, and thence to a location somewhere in the greater Boston area from which it in essence disappeared. (The Computer History Museum apparently has the Fast Memory cabinet, from what Al has said, but none of the rest of the machine; I went through the storage area at Moffett following DECworld 2001, in company with another attendee and some CHM folks, I believe including Al, looking for it, and have since gone through the "back rooms" at CHM prior to the storage move to Milpitas while looking for a KA-10, but never saw a sign of the PDP-6.) Several years after the 20th Anniversary, there was a report that pieces of a PDP-6 were being sold at TCM, no one could account for the whereabouts of the one from SAIL, and a possibly erroneous conclusion was drawn. But nothing said to refute this conclusion has been particularly convincing to me, since no one can say what did happen to the PDP-6. I don't want to believe that this ever happened. I believe fully in the integrity of those who say that it did not, and that they have investigated as best they could something that (may have) happened two decades ago, but I also believe fully in the integrity of the TCM visitor who first drew the conclusion that the SAIL PDP-6 was dismantled. I myself will no longer tell the story, but as a courtesy to people I respect rather than from a change in my own beliefs. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Thu Jun 18 13:57:35 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:57:35 -0700 Subject: Optimem 2400 Message-ID: Saw one of these on eBay (item 150352695537) and I'm intrigued. Seems to be a WORM drive that uses cartridges with 12" platters. (Kinda reminds me of the old RCA videodiscs :)) Anyone know anything about these? Not much info on the 'net. Josh From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 14:00:35 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:00:35 -0500 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A7C0E.30503@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3A8ED3.8010503@gmail.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > The *ONLY* possitive thing I can say is that I'm pretty sure it isn't the > HD password that is set. When that is set you have to type it in to boot, > so that is a pretty good indication it is the Supervisor password. Well, that's hopeful then, as at least a replacement system board should get in... From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jun 18 14:05:32 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:05:32 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <4A3A86F4.1010208@brouhaha.com> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org><4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <4A3A86F4.1010208@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: > From: Eric Smith > Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:27 AM > All indications to date are that CHM has exercised the utmost diligence > in the stewardship of historical artifacts, and that this can be > expected to continue in the future. Hear, hear! We work with the fine folks at CHM, and admire their dedication to the preservation of computing history. I hope that no one thinks otherwise about the relationship between our organizations, or my relationship with individuals working there. Thanks, Rich Alderson From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 14:07:33 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:07:33 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org><4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> Message-ID: <4A3A9074.10858DAA@cs.ubc.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Thanks for the explanation; so 'there is no story', so to speak. Rod Smallwood wrote: > Everybody saying 'not I' does not alter the fact that a priceless piece of > computer history is at best missing and at worst destroyed. > > The real point is that the computer museum people knew of its existence and > yet failed in their duty to recover and save it after the DECUS event. > > Shame on you all!! Perhaps I overstate it in saying 'there is no story'; if this 1960's machine was seen in substantially complete form (is that accurate?) at a DECUS event 20 years later in the 80's and hasn't been seen since, then certainly there is the disconcerting question of what happened to it. But at this distance in time, people, institutions and events, I'm not about to cast aspersions or point fingers as to who was responsible. From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 18 14:10:38 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:10:38 -0400 Subject: Optimem 2400 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <495AB48D-25FC-4DE3-9BA0-843E3BD314DA@neurotica.com> On Jun 18, 2009, at 2:57 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: > Saw one of these on eBay (item 150352695537) and I'm intrigued. > Seems to be a WORM drive that uses cartridges with 12" platters. > (Kinda reminds me of the old RCA videodiscs :)) > > Anyone know anything about these? Not much info on the 'net. I had a pair of them in the mid-1990s. I think I still have some documentation for them. Garden-variety WORM, decent drives. I have two cartridges sitting right here, I was thinking of putting them up on eBay. If you score that drive, let me know and I'll send you the cartridges. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 14:08:02 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:08:02 -0500 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3A9092.8030502@gmail.com> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > I don't believe that it is possible. When a hard drive password for a > ThinkPad gets lost, it usually means buy a new hard drive and send the > old for recovery. So why's it 'new drive' - what does it do to it that means it at least can't be reformatted by the user? I didn't think there was anything in the ATA spec along the lines of 'hose this drive' - or does it try and keep track of drives it's 'seen' before? cheers Jules From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jun 18 14:15:55 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:15:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: noise scolding circuit Message-ID: A couple months ago someone mentioned an URL leading to a circuit that makes a horrible noise when someone is talking too loudly. I can't remember the correct keywords to find it in my archives. Would someone please post it again? -- 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? From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 18 14:27:28 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:27:28 -0400 Subject: noise scolding circuit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <432309A8-BA5A-4393-996A-C9D896D1BC10@neurotica.com> On Jun 18, 2009, at 3:15 PM, David Griffith wrote: > A couple months ago someone mentioned an URL leading to a circuit > that makes a horrible noise when someone is talking too loudly. I > can't remember the correct keywords to find it in my archives. > Would someone please post it again? That's the Hassler, by Bob Widlar. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 14:30:29 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:30:29 -0400 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <4A3A9074.10858DAA@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <4A3A9074.10858DAA@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: > Perhaps I overstate it in saying 'there is no story'; if this 1960's machine > was seen in substantially complete form (is that accurate?) at a DECUS event 20 > years later in the 80's and hasn't been seen since, then certainly there is the > disconcerting question of what happened to it. The 1980s were a bloodbath for these machines. 20-25 year old computers were pretty much just looked at as metal, especially in a corporate museum (remember, corporate museums play under different rules, often dictated by the marketing and accounting departments). We can lament the loss of this PDP-6, but we must remember that many other very important machines (probably) reached extinction in the 1980s as well. Where are the members of the IBM 7000 line? The big Burroughs machines? The Univac 1100 line? While I do not like the idea of that PDP-6 getting scrapped, I can certainly believe that it did, and really can not damn the people that sent it to the junkyard. Times were different back then. -- Will From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 14:35:37 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:35:37 -0400 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3A9092.8030502@gmail.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com> <4A3A9092.8030502@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> I don't believe that it is possible. When a hard drive password for a >> ThinkPad gets lost, it usually means buy a new hard drive and send the >> old for recovery. > > So why's it 'new drive' - what does it do to it that means it at least > can't be reformatted by the user? I didn't think there was anything in > the ATA spec along the lines of 'hose this drive' - or does it try and > keep track of drives it's 'seen' before? It could probably be reformatted by the user, but that precludes retrieval of any of the data. I'm not completely sure, but I would guess that the method it uses is to encrypt the partition table. It sure seems that way. Peace... Sridhar From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jun 18 14:41:48 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:41:48 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <4A3A9074.10858DAA@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org><4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <4A3A9074.10858DAA@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: > From: Brent Hilpert > Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 12:08 PM > Brent Hilpert wrote: >>> Thanks for the explanation; so 'there is no story', so to speak. [snip] > Perhaps I overstate it in saying 'there is no story'; if this 1960's > machine was seen in substantially complete form (is that accurate?) at > a DECUS event 20 years later in the 80's and hasn't been seen since, > then certainly there is the disconcerting question of what happened to it. 1. The PDP-6 in question was the original Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory system, later joined into a multi-processor configuration with a KA-10. Subsequently, it was disconnected and the KA-10 joined to a KL-10. 2. In the autumn of 1984, the 20th Anniversary of 36-Bit Computing at DEC was celebrated at the DECUS Fall Symposium in Anaheim. As part of this celebration, the SAIL PDP-6 was moved to Anaheim, and given to DEC to display at DECUS. 3. It left Anaheim for Massachusetts. Thanks, Rich Alderson From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 14:45:43 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:45:43 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys References: Message-ID: <4A3A9967.E8E848B4@cs.ubc.ca> blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: > I'm certainly no archeologist, but one of the things that > I've noticed in documentaries is that something has changed > in the practice of archeology when compared to say 100 > years ago. Now if something cannot be done without > some degree of assurance that the change will not be > harmful (e.g. cleaning, repairing, etc), then it's just not > done. Instead the piece is kept until some future time > when the techniques and technology allow it to be > cleaned or repaired without any damage to the history. The Antikythera mechanism would seem a pertinent example of that. If people had attempted to dismantle it back when it was discovered, rather than leaving it alone, I think it unlikely we would have learned what we have since, through the modern nuclear-imaging techniques that have been applied to it. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 18 14:50:00 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:50:00 -0600 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3A9967.E8E848B4@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A3A9967.E8E848B4@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A3A9A68.3050802@jetnet.ab.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > The Antikythera mechanism would seem a pertinent example of that. If people had > attempted to dismantle it back when it was discovered, rather than leaving it > alone, I think it unlikely we would have learned what we have since, through > the modern nuclear-imaging techniques that have been applied to it. I beg to differ, in that I suspect the corrosion could have been reversed using electric methods. Ben. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 18 12:57:12 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:57:12 +0100 (BST) Subject: repairing VT220 DEC terminal - In-Reply-To: <10CF3765-879E-424D-AE34-7916CA00E1FF@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jun 17, 9 05:11:43 pm Message-ID: > > This got me going :) I search high an low for a "suitable set of > > adaptors" when I noticed that my vt125 has a video in and I hooked > > them > > up. It showed me this: > > > > http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/vt220-125.jpg > > Wow, that's an image straight out of The Twilight Zone. ;) Not relevant to fxing the VT220, but IIRC, most DEC terminals with video inputs do not accept sync on said input. Instead, you haev to take the video _output_ signal from the terminal, extract the sync from that, and then lock your video source to that sync signal. Needless to say this makes such terminals not a particularly useful substitute for a monitor. It also probably explains what's going on here. > > > The video signal is obviously not syncing up, but you can clearly read > > "VT220 OK". So the logic board is fine. I guess I should start looking > > for the HOT, the flyback looks ok, not like the broken ones I've > > seen in > > a vt320. > > Yup, sure sounds like "an analog failure" (not that there's any > other kind) in the monitor section. The monitor circuits in the > VT220 are fairly simple, aren't they? They should be pretty simple. Monochrome raster monitors are all pretty similar, the differences are in the video drive circuitry (between the video input(s) and the CRT cathode). I would start y measurign the CRT electrode voltages It's difficult to state what they should bem but at least you'll see if any are missing, if the gun is biased way beyond cut-off (if the cathode is more than about 20V positive wrt the control grid), and so on, -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 18 12:58:31 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:58:31 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <5378593D-E61F-409B-B668-75F7C29BD8DC@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jun 17, 9 05:16:14 pm Message-ID: > > On Jun 17, 2009, at 4:40 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > But I don't lioke changing the classic machine. Not even replacing > > PSUs > > with switchers. The original PSU is part of the design, and I want to > > keep it that way. > > While I agree with you here, I have to admit that, if my PDP-11/70 > had switching power supplies, I'd probably run it a lot more often. Whatever have you done to it? AFAIK the 11/70 has switching regulators as standard (my 11/45 certainly does). Not the normal design of SMPSU (in that there's a big mains-frequency trasnformer on the input), but it's a switcher none-the-less. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 18 13:01:32 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:01:32 +0100 (BST) Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect In-Reply-To: <0BD3602D-18B4-4F18-B1F3-8AB3DE231B07@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jun 17, 9 05:18:43 pm Message-ID: > Yet another reason why my 41CX will never leave my desk. :-) I > have a big collection of HP calculators, but the 41 has always I hae rather more desktop HP calculators than handhelds, but I still use the latter a lot. I've got several 41's and many of the peripherals and modules. > impressed me more than any other model. I think it was because it > was advertised alongside all the 8-bitters of the early 1980s in the > magazines, as if it were a full-fledged computer...which, by all > definitions I'm aware of, it certainly is. It is a computer, both in terms of the intenral architecture and the facilities it provides to the user, IMHO. Or at least I can't think of a sane defintion of 'computer' that would exclude it. > > > BTW, the HP41C is 30 years old this year.... > > Very cool! And some of the original versions, with the original ROMs (complete with 'interesting' bugs) are still going.. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 18 13:05:28 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:05:28 +0100 (BST) Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: from "JP Hindin" at Jun 17, 9 04:19:14 pm Message-ID: > I know we went through all of this several months ago ("Do the Commodores > really need the 9VAC?"), but my 128D has an AT power supply in it, > therefore is not feeding the system with 9VAC, and is functioning > perfectly well. IIRC the 9V AC is fed to the expansion connector and used by some add-ons, and is also used by the cassette motor circuit. And not a lot else. The machine may well work without it, but I don't think you'll be able to use cassettes. > > I've even pulled the PSU out of a 1571 and use an external Molex from the > AT PSU in 128D to power the 1571. In my mind I say it is more efficient. > No empirical proof of this, however. :) IIRC, the regualtor for the 5V rail (inside the original Commodore PSU) is a switcher, running off the output of a mains-frequency transformer. It's more efficient than a linear regulator. The Amiga zupply that looks similar (A500, etc) is a normal mains-input SMPSU thing. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 18 13:10:40 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:10:40 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A396149.8020200@arachelian.com> from "Ray Arachelian" at Jun 17, 9 05:34:01 pm Message-ID: > > But I find beauty (seriously) in the design of some of these classics. > > For example, I find the PERQ CPU beautiful. It's beautiful even if I > > don't haev POS boot disk. The Philips P850 us an interesting machine to > > me, even if all I ever run is programs I've toggled in on the panel > > switches. Ditto for the PDP8 and PDP11 actually. > > > > They're beautiful in the same sense as a statue is beautiful, but you > can't really interact with them without any software other than take > them apart and put them back together again. Sure you can. They;ll do something at power-up even if you don't have a boot disk (if only becuase they have a way of booting said disk). And you can certainly monitor signals with a 'scope or logic analyser at that stage. For the machines I mentioned, the PDP8s, PDP11s, and Philips P800s have a hardware front panel that works even without any boot disks. You can toggle in short programs and run them -- certainly programs to cause various bits of the machine to spring to life for investigation with the 'scope. It's also popssible to load microcode into a PERQ without a boot disk if you have the PERQLink board, but it's easier to find a boot disk :-) > It's the difference between driving a classic race car and just looking > at one which is cordoned off in a museum exhibit. Sure it's pretty and I disagree. It's more like the difference between driving said car, and running the engine/transmission on a test bed. The former is obviously more interesting (as I said, I do try to get boot disks for my classics), but the latter is a lot better than nothing. > quite neat, but the only excitement will be in our imagination. It's a > completely different experience. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 18 13:19:31 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:19:31 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: from "Dave McGuire" at Jun 17, 9 06:47:28 pm Message-ID: > > On Jun 17, 2009, at 6:26 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > >> While I agree with you here, I have to admit that, if my > >> PDP-11/70 had switching power supplies, I'd probably run it a lot > >> more often. I'd *never* make it an irreversible modification, > >> though. > > > > Unless you've already replaced them with something else, your > > PDP-11/70 *DOES* have switching power supplies! > > I'm looking at the schematic for the H744, and I see an LM723 with > a big fat 2N5302 (Ic=30A) wrapped around it. Now, I'm aware that the > LM723 can be used in a switching regulator topology, but at first > glance that's not what it looks like to me. I'm darn sure it is a switcher. Look at that darn great inductor in the circuit. That's not a smoothing choke, it's the inductor of a switching regulator. Sitck a 'scope on one. You'll see switching waveforms... Another clue... The input is 20-30V AC> So the voltage at the output of the bridge recifier could be over 40V. The output is 5V, so 35V is dropped in the regulator. The maximum output curret, IIRC is 25A. If it was a linear, then 875W could be going out as heat -- from _every_ H744 in the system. Does the heatsink really look big enough for that? I know it's a room-heater, but not that much of one... Incidentally, the 723, as I am sure you know, is a 'regulator building kit' consisting of a reference voltage source and an op-amp in one package (OK, that's a slight simplification...) It can be wired as either a linear regulators (op-amp as the error amplifier, possibly driving an external pass transistor) or a switcher. I've heard a rumour that early 723 data sheets only show it as a linear regulator, the designers didn't realise it could be used as a switcher. After it started getting used in the latter configuration, example circuits were added to the data sheet. Does anyone have an early 723 data sheet which doesn't show a swtiching regulator circuit? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 18 13:27:42 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:27:42 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> from "Dan Roganti" at Jun 17, 9 07:44:36 pm Message-ID: > > > > Jim Brain wrote: > > Just because I'm curious: > > > > How do folks feel about those who are interested in extending the life > > of vintage machines by integrating them with newer technologies? > > That's my interest, allowing both existing and a new class of users to > > enjoy a vintage platform by making it easy to utilize the vintage > > platform with contemporary ones. > > > > I don't see why new users can't enjoy the same original hardware as > those of use who grew up on this. I disagree with using newer > technologies up to a certain point. Whether you want to restore some > files with a modern disk drive because you might be without enough > equipment or build a new cpu design by mixing in modern components. I agree with you to a point (this is going to be something we all have different views on, I think). As I've said earlier in this thread, I regard peripherals as being as interesting as the CPUs in many cases, and I really don't like people who preserve the CPU but none of the peripherals. And as you point out, running the peripherals is part of the 'experince', and I'll not disgaree with that. On the other hamd, I see nothing wrong with, say, adding an IDE disk to a PDP8/e. Not as a replacement for the RK05, TU56, etc, but as an extra. Keep the classic drives running, but there's no reason not to add a modern trive too. Yes, I'd use a TU58 emulator to get stuff from the internet onto one of my '11s, but I'll restore the real TU58 too. > > I think you get to experience the thoughts and nuances when using > original parts in a computer design created 30/40 yrs ago - as in, how > to test,program,debug,etc the original hardware. What's the point in > restoring vintage equipment of you like to 'circumvent' the original > design by using something which didn't exist for that particular era. As That's another point. When I make add-ons for my classics, I try to use components that were arround at thr time. Not necesarily the right data codes, but I am much more likely to use TTL than an CPLD in making an add-on for a PDP11. > in the case of using a replacement modern drive to sustain an existing > system, is reasonable, but it's more fun to find something original > afterwards. It might be expensive for some to buy 8" floppy drives now, > but you can still get 5-1/4" floppy drives inexpensively. The > alternative drive systems using faster drives and GB of storage , I > think, just loses appeal with the aspect of restoring vintage hardware - > I think it shows you have less patience for old hardware. Agreed. If you want a fast, modern, computer, then buy one :-). > > It's so easy to mix in modern components in an IC design - heaven forbid > if people want to gut their transistors machines and install a cards > replaced with 7474 dual FF chips. Using modern technology is the easy On the other hand, I might well use a 74F74 to replace a 74S74 in a classic (and document the change, of course). The latter is quite hard to find nwo, and using the F version will get the machine running. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 18 14:10:17 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:10:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: Any PACE users out there? In-Reply-To: <195301c9efca$0b80ea40$ee0619bb@desktaba> from "Alexandre Souza" at Jun 18, 9 01:05:17 am Message-ID: > > > Hey for fun I was thinking of taking some transistors, octal coil holders It's probably simpler if you use FETs. > > and plastic covers to make a 'solid state tube'. The heat sinks would > > look like Seleium recitfiers fins... :) > > I've seen that as replacement for rectifiers and RF Power tubes... I seem to rememebr seeing references to little PCBs you could fit over the pis nf defective 01As (between the valve and the holder) that contained an FET and a few other bits and let you keep 1920's radios in operation. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 18 14:31:50 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:31:50 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A39E7FD.4090201@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 17, 9 09:08:45 pm Message-ID: > a pretty complete set of Casio handhelds, a Juno, an IBM AT, an HP 9830, As an aside, the HP9830 is one of my favourites. It's got a claim to being the first personal computer (I think it was the first all-in-one machine you could just put on a desk, plug into the mains and start typing BASIC). It's also one of the few bit-serial machines you're likely to come across. Repairing them is interesting, Most parts, the exceptions being the HP custom ROMa and the Intel 1103 DRAMs are easy to find. But being a bit-serial machine, tracing the fault is hard without a logic analyser (I speak from experience having repaired several 9810s, a 9820 and a 9830). > my Linux box, Darth.) My entire shop is gone. So, I feel naked. How on earth did that happen? > >> More than half of current households have a PC. What percentage have > >> o'scopes? Quite small, I'm sure. The chances of a person being able to > >> > > > > So? 'socpes are not hard to find, if you wsnt one. Ditto for all the > > other tools and equipment you might need. > > > > Okay, Tony, be fair. 'Scopes and other equipment are no more free than > PCs are. More people are likely to have the PC, however, making taking Not normally, alas. Although I was given my first 'scope. Of course it didn't work, but it came with a schematic, and used nice simple components like valves,, so finding the open-circuit resistor in the timebase unit was not too hard (even though I'd never done much electronic repair before). I suspect it would be a lot harder to fix a broken PC... > up emulator jockeying a significantly cheaper proposition for most people. I won't argue with that. But then hobbies don't hae to be cheap. Certainly my other hobbies involve quite expensive equipment (if bought new). > > Put it this way, I'd rather learn how to do something like that than run > > an emulator on an undocumented (to the sort of level I call 'documented') > > machine under an OS that I don't have the source for. If I have problems > > with that I can't solve them logically. If I am using tools/equipment > > that I am capable of understnading and things go wrong, I can use a > > logical procedure to sort it out. And I much prerfe that. > > > Understood. Sounds like you'd be a candidate for an older PC running > Linux.... And just what do you think I am typing this on? It's a real IBM5170 (albeit the 8MHz version) with a 486 kludgeboard in the 80286 CPU socket running an ancient version of linux. I've done all sorts of hardware mods to it, piggybacked chips, kludgwires eerywhere. Apart from the hard drive, I have scheamtics for everything in that box... > > It doesn't stop me getting annoyed when it's assumed I have them. The > > next time somebody tells me to 'upload my photos', I am liable to use my > > monorail camwera as a substitue clue-by-four :-) > > > > That's no way to treat vintage gear! No, but it probably wouldn't mind :-) > HA! Well, consider an older PC as an investment, like a test > instrument. Except it's not. It's not going to last as long as the sort of tools and instruments I normally buy. > Yes. Been there, done that. Like you, my favorite machines are the > older HP gear. I love fine engineering, and it was easier to find in HP Yes, older HPs are well-built and often well designed (although I am not convinced the HP120 is a particularly good design for a CP/M box). I feel the peiod from about 1965 to 9185 was the 'glory days of HP' when they had some wonderful products. If I can get stuff from that period, I do.. > than in any other manufacturer I've known. Well, there are some HP machines that are hard to find...... I know, I'm looking for them. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 18 14:34:10 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:34:10 +0100 (BST) Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual In-Reply-To: <4A39B4D2.2000502@comcast.net> from "Dan Roganti" at Jun 17, 9 11:30:26 pm Message-ID: > > > > > Andrew Lynch wrote: > > What I really need to know is if I can implement a simple circuit using few > > enough 74LS TTL ICs to fit on a Eurocard ECB board. That means it can't be > > more than about 30 maximum. Using high capacity SRAMs should help but I > > think it requires some funky latching mechanisms to share the video address > > and data lines. > > > > > > Andrew, > > Did you get the one copy at this link ? > http://electrickery.xs4all.nl/comp/virtlibrary.html > It doesn't have schematics per say, but there's plenty of info in that pdf. I thought hte Epson QX10 used a 7220, and I've just checked the technical manual and it does.. The video circuitry is on a daughterboard, the newer one used an ASIC so the schemaitcs aren't a lot of use to you, but the older one was the 7220 + DRAM + TTL + a chracter generator EPROM. It doens't look _that_ complicated... I think the QX10 technical manual is on a web site somewhere, and includes said schematics. May be of interest... -tony From ray at arachelian.com Thu Jun 18 14:57:16 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:57:16 -0400 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com> <4A3A9092.8030502@gmail.com> <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3A9C1C.1090100@arachelian.com> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > It could probably be reformatted by the user, but that precludes > retrieval of any of the data. I'm not completely sure, but I would > guess that the method it uses is to encrypt the partition table. It > sure seems that way. Hang on, if it's just the partition table, then you should be able to read past that point and find the file system on there, and guess what should go in the partition table based on the size of the file system (assuming there's only one, and if there is more than one, you could read past the end of that file system, read the next file system, guess what type it is and so forth.) From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 18 15:03:27 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:03:27 -0400 Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <38CC65DB-6D46-443D-813E-1D060447025F@neurotica.com> On Jun 18, 2009, at 2:01 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> impressed me more than any other model. I think it was because it >> was advertised alongside all the 8-bitters of the early 1980s in the >> magazines, as if it were a full-fledged computer...which, by all >> definitions I'm aware of, it certainly is. > > It is a computer, both in terms of the intenral architecture and the > facilities it provides to the user, IMHO. Or at least I can't think > of a > sane defintion of 'computer' that would exclude it. You said "sane definition"...that's the key. Most of the unwashed masses today will say "It's a calculator!" "Where's the mouse?" "Where's the 'start' button?" -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 15:00:33 2009 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:00:33 -0500 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com> <4A3A9092.8030502@gmail.com> <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3A9CE1.6040406@gmail.com> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: >> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> I don't believe that it is possible. When a hard drive password for >>> a ThinkPad gets lost, it usually means buy a new hard drive and send >>> the old for recovery. >> >> So why's it 'new drive' - what does it do to it that means it at least >> can't be reformatted by the user? I didn't think there was anything in >> the ATA spec along the lines of 'hose this drive' - or does it try and >> keep track of drives it's 'seen' before? > > It could probably be reformatted by the user, but that precludes > retrieval of any of the data. indeed - I'm just curious about IBM's statement that it would need replacing with another drive, as though the machine somehow 'breaks' the old drive (implying it won't even work in a different machine, or can't just be reformatted and restored from backups). > I'm not completely sure, but I would > guess that the method it uses is to encrypt the partition table. If that's all it is though, it should be possible to put the drive in another system, figure out where the start and end blocks of the filesystem(s) is/are, grab the raw data and mount it so that the individual files can be copied. That or restore the MBR to something sensible. I doubt it makes any attempt to encrypt the whole drive - too time-consuming. But I'm just not aware of anything it could do to 'break' the drive, either. From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jun 18 15:04:25 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:04:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> Message-ID: <20090618130145.W50025@shell.lmi.net> > The real point is that the computer museum people knew of its existence and > yet failed in their duty to recover and save it after the DECUS event. What SHOULD they do when they know of existence of a machine, and the OWNER of the machine intends to scrap it rather than give it to the museum? What do you do? From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jun 18 15:03:15 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:03:15 -0300 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com><4A3A7C04.8020605@arachelian.com> <4A3A8039.9050201@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1efc01c9f050$291a01f0$ee0619bb@desktaba> >> It's weird how the manual states 'hdd replacement' for forgotten >> password, >> rather than just saying it needs to be reformatted. I assume that was >> just an >> error in IBM's terminology (and they really don't do something like >> screwing >> around with the drive firmware :) And it is true. Thinkpad has two levels of password - system password and hard disk password. The system password is stored in an EEPROM inside the computer, I have the programs to read and decode this password here. But the HDD password is **impossible** to crack with ease, there are specialist programs/hardware to decode them, but they are expensive as hell. I have one of these 600e (pentium 233 MMX, et al). Good notebook, but too much problems (passwords, battery recharging circuit, passive matrix screen, et al) in just one notebook. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jun 18 15:03:49 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:03:49 -0300 Subject: Bad keyboards- repair References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com><4A3A7C0E.30503@gmail.com> <4A3A8235.3010000@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <1eff01c9f050$2aaf47f0$ee0619bb@desktaba> > Conductive Carbon Coating for most surfaces (rubber, epoxy, glass, > plastic). It Nothing that transparent nail polish and powdered graphite can't do for you ;o) From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 15:15:49 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:15:49 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <4A3A9074.10858DAA@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A3AA075.25CCB91B@cs.ubc.ca> William Donzelli wrote: > > > Perhaps I overstate it in saying 'there is no story'; if this 1960's machine > > was seen in substantially complete form (is that accurate?) at a DECUS event 20 > > years later in the 80's and hasn't been seen since, then certainly there is the > > disconcerting question of what happened to it. > > The 1980s were a bloodbath for these machines. 20-25 year old > computers were pretty much just looked at as metal, especially in a > corporate museum (remember, corporate museums play under different > rules, often dictated by the marketing and accounting departments). We > can lament the loss of this PDP-6, but we must remember that many > other very important machines (probably) reached extinction in the > 1980s as well. Where are the members of the IBM 7000 line? The big > Burroughs machines? The Univac 1100 line? Yes, most of the big machines from the 50's and 60's, like the 7000 series, saw a few years of life, were decommissioned and promptly scrapped. It was a brand-new, fast-changing industry and significant portions of a warehouse would be needed to hold onto them. However, for a machine like the PDP-6 to have survived 20 years was remarkable by the 80's. It would seem from the discussion that in the case of the SAIL machine there was recognition and interest in it's historicity even then, it was known to and around people who might appreciate it, so it is more perplexing that it cannot now be found. From ray at arachelian.com Thu Jun 18 15:15:21 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:15:21 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> Hi Tony, Tony Duell wrote: > For the machines I mentioned, the PDP8s, PDP11s, and Philips P800s have a > hardware front panel that works even without any boot disks. You can > toggle in short programs and run them -- certainly programs to cause > As soon as you do that, you're running software - even if your intention of interacting with it is only to cause output on a scope, even if it's one opcode at a time. :-) Completely different from just powering up and admiring it (or using it as a space heater, or listening to the fans.) > various bits of the machine to spring to life for investigation with the > 'scope. It's also popssible to load microcode into a PERQ without a boot > disk if you have the PERQLink board, but it's easier to find a boot disk :-) > Point wasn't about specifcally booting off a disk, but running software, any software, whether from ROM, disk, over a network, or toggled in by switch at a panel. > >> It's the difference between driving a classic race car and just looking >> at one which is cordoned off in a museum exhibit. Sure it's pretty and >> > > I disagree. It's more like the difference between driving said car, and > running the engine/transmission on a test bed. Ok, conceded on that point. :-) > The former is obviously more > interesting (as I said, I do try to get boot disks for my classics), but > the latter is a lot better than nothing. > In the same way, running an emulator is a lot better than nothing, if you don't have the actual machine. :-) (That statement assumes one already has hardware capable of running the emulator and makes no statement about individual preferences towards owning such host machines.) From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 18 15:10:45 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:10:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com> <4A3A9092.8030502@gmail.com> <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: >> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> I don't believe that it is possible. When a hard drive password for a >>> ThinkPad gets lost, it usually means buy a new hard drive and send the old >>> for recovery. >> >> So why's it 'new drive' - what does it do to it that means it at least >> can't be reformatted by the user? I didn't think there was anything in the >> ATA spec along the lines of 'hose this drive' - or does it try and keep >> track of drives it's 'seen' before? > > It could probably be reformatted by the user, but that precludes retrieval of > any of the data. I'm not completely sure, but I would guess that the method > it uses is to encrypt the partition table. It sure seems that way. > > Peace... Sridhar It was my understanding that the password is stored on a chip on the HD. Zane From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jun 18 15:19:22 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:19:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com> <4A3A9092.8030502@gmail.com> <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090618131444.X50025@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > It could probably be reformatted by the user, but that precludes > retrieval of any of the data. I'm not completely sure, but I would > guess that the method it uses is to encrypt the partition table. It > sure seems that way. If THAT's all that they did, what's stopping someone from simply rewriting the partition table - 20 years ago, that was FDISK /MBR What OS are we talking about? For example, NT4 just sets a flag that tells windoze not to access it without password; but booting Linux provides full access to a password "protected" NT4, including ability to wipe the password flag. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 15:21:44 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:21:44 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys References: <4A3A9967.E8E848B4@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3A9A68.3050802@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4A3AA1D8.F90A9E0D@cs.ubc.ca> "bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca" wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > > The Antikythera mechanism would seem a pertinent example of that. If people had > > attempted to dismantle it back when it was discovered, rather than leaving it > > alone, I think it unlikely we would have learned what we have since, through > > the modern nuclear-imaging techniques that have been applied to it. > > I beg to differ, in that I suspect the corrosion could have been reversed > using electric methods. Ben. Entropy. Corrosion is not a two-way process. From mark at wickensonline.co.uk Thu Jun 18 15:28:41 2009 From: mark at wickensonline.co.uk (Mark Wickens) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:28:41 +0100 Subject: DECserver 90TL to VT (VT320/VT420/VT520) terminal via 4 wire RJ45->MMJ connection? In-Reply-To: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <000601c9f053$60473140$20d593c0$@co.uk> Hi, I'd like to utilise an existing cable that runs between three floors in the house which is similar to decconnect cable but only has 4 wires. My question is whether it is possible to run a serial cable between a 90TL and a VT terminal using only four wires, and if so which four? If I enable ^S/^Q flow control can I do without the outmost DTR/DSR pins? Thanks for the help, Mark. From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 15:35:16 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:35:16 -0400 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <4A3AA075.25CCB91B@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <4A3A9074.10858DAA@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AA075.25CCB91B@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A3AA504.70909@gmail.com> Brent Hilpert wrote: > William Donzelli wrote: >>> Perhaps I overstate it in saying 'there is no story'; if this 1960's machine >>> was seen in substantially complete form (is that accurate?) at a DECUS event 20 >>> years later in the 80's and hasn't been seen since, then certainly there is the >>> disconcerting question of what happened to it. >> The 1980s were a bloodbath for these machines. 20-25 year old >> computers were pretty much just looked at as metal, especially in a >> corporate museum (remember, corporate museums play under different >> rules, often dictated by the marketing and accounting departments). We >> can lament the loss of this PDP-6, but we must remember that many >> other very important machines (probably) reached extinction in the >> 1980s as well. Where are the members of the IBM 7000 line? The big >> Burroughs machines? The Univac 1100 line? > > Yes, most of the big machines from the 50's and 60's, like the 7000 series, saw > a few years of life, were decommissioned and promptly scrapped. It was a > brand-new, fast-changing industry and significant portions of a warehouse would > be needed to hold onto them. > > However, for a machine like the PDP-6 to have survived 20 years was remarkable > by the 80's. It would seem from the discussion that in the case of the SAIL > machine there was recognition and interest in it's historicity even then, it > was known to and around people who might appreciate it, so it is more > perplexing that it cannot now be found. There's a distinct possibility that this particular machine had been considered historic, not because it's a PDP-6, but because it's *SAIL's* PDP-6. Peace... Sridhar From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jun 18 15:41:39 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:41:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com> <4A3A9092.8030502@gmail.com> <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090618133907.A50025@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Zane H. Healy wrote: > It was my understanding that the password is stored on a chip on the HD. Wow. Yeah, that would be harder to circumvent. How hard a password is it? Does it have any time delays or trial counts that would prevent a rapid brute furce crack? Anything preventing swapping board from another drive with chip holding known password? From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 18 15:43:06 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:43:06 -0600 Subject: Any PACE users out there? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3AA6DA.4000001@jetnet.ab.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > I seem to rememebr seeing references to little PCBs you could fit over > the pis nf defective 01As (between the valve and the holder) that > contained an FET and a few other bits and let you keep 1920's radios in > operation. Why bother? You can't find any AM music from 20's anyhow. More and more I find out about old Radios the tubes are the parts that work the best. It is the old CAPs that you have watch out for, and the mechanical parts. I tossed two old radios since the dial cords broke as well as other major problems. > -tony Ben. PS. I have a old short wave radio I plan to oil up today in my spare time today. (No WD-40 here!) From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 15:43:47 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:43:47 -0400 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <4A3AA075.25CCB91B@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <4A3A9074.10858DAA@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AA075.25CCB91B@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: > Yes, most of the big machines from the 50's and 60's, like the 7000 series, saw > a few years of life, were decommissioned and promptly scrapped. It was a > brand-new, fast-changing industry and significant portions of a warehouse would > be needed to hold onto them. > > However, for a machine like the PDP-6 to have survived 20 years was remarkable > by the 80's. It would seem from the discussion that in the case of the SAIL > machine there was recognition and interest in it's historicity even then, it > was known to and around people who might appreciate it, so it is more > perplexing that it cannot now be found. There were many 2nd generation mainframes that stuck around into the early 1980s, often powered down and taking up space. Many missed the prompt scrapping, being held by surplus dealers that thought they could perhaps sell the units. I missed a 7094 back then - but I was still in high school, so I probably could not have afforded to purchase it. I remember hearing about other big machines that were just too large for a high school kid to deal with. The SAIL PDP-6 was no different. Just part of the final slaughter. -- Will From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 18 15:48:19 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:48:19 -0600 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3AA1D8.F90A9E0D@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A3A9967.E8E848B4@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3A9A68.3050802@jetnet.ab.ca> <4A3AA1D8.F90A9E0D@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A3AA813.4030409@jetnet.ab.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: using electric methods. Ben. > > Entropy. Corrosion is not a two-way process. > In this case it is. How ever I don't think it was known about until the late 60's. Alas I don't have any more details than what I told you. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jun 18 15:39:52 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:39:52 -0300 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com><4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com><4A3A9092.8030502@gmail.com> <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> <20090618131444.X50025@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <1fa901c9f056$58147840$ee0619bb@desktaba> >> It could probably be reformatted by the user, but that precludes >> retrieval of any of the data. I'm not completely sure, but I would >> guess that the method it uses is to encrypt the partition table. It >> sure seems that way. No, it locks any access to the hard disk. The password is stored on the HDA, and no password, no access. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 15:53:34 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:53:34 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <4A3A9074.10858DAA@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AA075.25CCB91B@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AA504.70909@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3AA94D.4EE2F98D@cs.ubc.ca> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > > > However, for a machine like the PDP-6 to have survived 20 years was remarkable > > by the 80's. It would seem from the discussion that in the case of the SAIL > > machine there was recognition and interest in it's historicity even then, it > > was known to and around people who might appreciate it, so it is more > > perplexing that it cannot now be found. > > There's a distinct possibility that this particular machine had been > considered historic, not because it's a PDP-6, but because it's *SAIL's* > PDP-6. Yes there is, and those who are closer to it might speak to that, but it's not clear to me what your point is in the context of how it came to be lost. That it was SAIL's might add to it's significance, that it was a 20-year-old PDP-6 was nonetheless itself of some significance. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 16:02:07 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:02:07 -0700 Subject: Any PACE users out there? References: <4A3AA6DA.4000001@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4A3AAB4F.D5C4249C@cs.ubc.ca> "bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca" wrote: > Why bother? You can't find any AM music from 20's anyhow. > More and more I find out about old Radios the tubes are the parts that work > the best. It is the old CAPs that you have watch out for, and the mechanical > parts. I tossed two old radios since the dial cords broke as well as other > major problems. ?? Aside from corrosion and broken dials, there's not much inhibiting repair (of the electronics) of an old radio, dial cords are easy (and yes, I've done some complex ones). Not to say that sometimes one just might as well toss it in terms of effort vs. benefit. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 18 16:02:57 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:02:57 -0700 Subject: Any PACE users out there? In-Reply-To: <4A3AA6DA.4000001@jetnet.ab.ca> References: , <4A3AA6DA.4000001@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4A3A4911.27814.19EC0B35@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jun 2009 at 14:43, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > Why bother? You can't find any AM music from 20's anyhow. > More and more I find out about old Radios the tubes are the parts that > work the best. It is the old CAPs that you have watch out for, and > the mechanical parts. I tossed two old radios since the dial cords > broke as well as other major problems. Actually, it seems as if NEW caps are just as bad if not worse. Chinese capacitor disease seems to be a pandemic. --Chuck From evan at snarc.net Thu Jun 18 16:07:12 2009 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:07:12 -0400 Subject: Computer history in New Jersey Message-ID: <4A3AAC80.9070801@snarc.net> Hi cctalkers. Lately I've been compiling information about computer developments that happened at the former Army Signal Corps base ("Evans Signal Lab" ... no it wasn't named for me!) here in New Jersey. The base closed in the late 1990s and part of it became the computer museum where we hold VCF, etc. Some folks might find this interesting: http://www.snarc.net/cctalk-evans.pdf. The museum is open (most) Sundays from 1pm - 4pm, and other times by appointment for private tours, if anyone's taking a trip east this summer. (VCF isn't until September.) - EK From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 18 16:11:36 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:11:36 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> Message-ID: On Jun 18, 2009, at 4:15 PM, Ray Arachelian wrote: >> For the machines I mentioned, the PDP8s, PDP11s, and Philips P800s >> have a >> hardware front panel that works even without any boot disks. You can >> toggle in short programs and run them -- certainly programs to cause >> > As soon as you do that, you're running software - even if your > intention > of interacting with it is only to cause output on a scope, even if > it's > one opcode at a time. :-) Oh good lord. Can we give this up? SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT COMPUTING IS MORE THAN JUST SOFTWARE. Get over it. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From spedraja at ono.com Thu Jun 18 16:18:12 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:18:12 +0200 Subject: Doing DU0 bootable with RT11 5.3 from one TU58 Message-ID: Hello. I started one virtual TU58 with RT11 5.3 from the COM1 of my laptop in my PDP-11/23 PLUS using TU58EM. In the same machine I have one DILOG DQ696 with one ESDI hard drive of 768 Mb. I want to convert the ESDI drive in a bootable device with RT11. I've initialized the DU0 and copied the complete system from the DD0 (TU58) Searching for the fast path to continue... Someone knows what must I do exactly now to continue ? Thanks in advance. Regards Sergio From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 16:20:04 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:20:04 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys References: <4A3A9967.E8E848B4@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3A9A68.3050802@jetnet.ab.ca> <4A3AA1D8.F90A9E0D@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AA813.4030409@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4A3AAF84.122B1E61@cs.ubc.ca> "bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca" wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > using electric methods. Ben. > > > > Entropy. Corrosion is not a two-way process. > > > > In this case it is. > ... > Alas I don't have any more details than what I told you. Whatever that means. Corrosion involves a dispersal of atoms, and physical deformation, i.e. loss of information. You don't just reverse the process and get back what you had. The mechanism was pretty far gone in portions, reverse electrolysis would be far cruder than the imaging. From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 18 16:22:03 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:22:03 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7B5932B1-A17F-4154-8B51-A7E402F9804D@neurotica.com> On Jun 18, 2009, at 2:19 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> I'm looking at the schematic for the H744, and I see an LM723 with >> a big fat 2N5302 (Ic=30A) wrapped around it. Now, I'm aware that the >> LM723 can be used in a switching regulator topology, but at first >> glance that's not what it looks like to me. > > I'm darn sure it is a switcher. Look at that darn great inductor in > the > circuit. That's not a smoothing choke, it's the inductor of a > switching > regulator. > > Sitck a 'scope on one. You'll see switching waveforms... Yes, Eric educated me. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I was mistaken here. I have repaired scads of these but have never had to dig so deeply as to understand the whole circuit. When I see an LM723 with a big fat series pass transistor wrapped around it, I think "linear regulator". I've replaced a few electrolytic capacitors and a few of the transistors, usually the same ones. > Incidentally, the 723, as I am sure you know, is a 'regulator building > kit' consisting of a reference voltage source and an op-amp in one > package (OK, that's a slight simplification...) It can be wired as > either > a linear regulators (op-amp as the error amplifier, possibly > driving an > external pass transistor) or a switcher. Yup. I've built a few power supplies with LM723s with external pass transistors, but always linear, not switchers. I know from the datasheets that it is possible but I've never done it. > I've heard a rumour that early 723 data sheets only show it as a > linear > regulator, the designers didn't realise it could be used as a > switcher. > After it started getting used in the latter configuration, example > circuits were added to the data sheet. Does anyone have an early > 723 data > sheet which doesn't show a swtiching regulator circuit? I have some pretty old NS databooks; I will check. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Thu Jun 18 16:28:06 2009 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:28:06 +0100 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3A9CE1.6040406@gmail.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com> <4A3A9092.8030502@gmail.com> <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> <4A3A9CE1.6040406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3AB166.8060806@philpem.me.uk> Jules Richardson wrote: > indeed - I'm just curious about IBM's statement that it would need > replacing with another drive, as though the machine somehow 'breaks' the > old drive (implying it won't even work in a different machine, or can't > just be reformatted and restored from backups). The drive CAN be used in another system. The catch is, the system in question needs to support an oft-unimplemented part of the ATA specification. Basically, most modern ATA (and SATA too, if memory serves) hard drives support a few additional commands related to password-based security. These have been part of the ATA standard since ATA-ATAPI 3: - Set Password - Unlock - Erase Prepare - Erase Unit - Freeze Lock - Disable Password The spec calls for two 32-character passwords (the User and Master passwords) and two security levels (High and Maximum). In High security mode, either the User or Master password will unlock the device. In Maximum security mode, only the User password will unlock the device. Generally speaking, the Master password is set by the disk manufacturer at the factory, the user password isn't set, and the lock is disabled. Both the Master and User passwords can be changed at-will with the Set Password command. Freeze Lock is intended to stop someone maliciously setting a password on an unlocked drive. The system BIOS/bootloader/whatever is *supposed* to detect drives that support ATA Security on boot, and send a Freeze command to them. Most PC BIOSes.... don't do this. Big surprise. Disable Password turns the lock mode off. That is to say, once you send it to the device (assuming the password is correct), it nulls out the User password and disables lock mode. There are two ways to unlock the drive: - Unlock it - Reformat it In High security mode, you can unlock or format the drive with the User or Master password. In Maximum security mode, you need the User password to unlock, but can reformat the drive with the Master password. If you haven't got either password, the drive is "as useful, and as entertaining, as a brick." For bonus points, there's also a "retry counter". The drive counts (or at least is *supposed* to count) how many times you've sent a password. If it exceeds a predetermined maximum (and the spec doesn't say what that is) then you have to power-cycle the drive to try again. As for the Thinkpad, most models of TP have two passwords -- a Supervisor password (stored in the EEPROM) and a User password (usually stored in the CMOS). The catch is, if the CMOS copy of the User password gets hosed, the machine will lock up and demand the Supervisor password... This applies even if the User password is disabled -- if a supervisor password is set, you're going to need it as soon as the CMOS dies. I don't know if this happens on all Thinkpads, but I've seen it happen on a few, and this little "quirk" is the one single solitary reason I have both passwords turned off. In any case, I set them both to passwords I have long since committed to memory, *then* disabled them... -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From chris at mainecoon.com Thu Jun 18 16:29:50 2009 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Christian Kennedy) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:29:50 -0700 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 17, 2009, at 9:00 PM, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > >> The definition of "hard password" is generally one that is resistant >> to dictionary or social attack. By that definition you've failed to >> demonstrate that the passphrase I supplied in my previous example is >> any more vulnerable that "C0pp3rB0tt0m" or "i013ac$Z". In the >> absence >> of the ability to conduct a successful dictionary attack the >> difficulty of brute-forcing a passsphrase is a direct function of the >> length of the passphrase and the character space from which the >> passphrase is chosen. In such a context passphrases have a clear >> advantage, as it's easier for humans to remember sequences of words >> as >> opposed to semi-random collections of characters, thus encouraging a >> much longer length while discouraging the tendency to write down >> passwords that are difficult to remember. > > I disagree and would say that's not correct either. > the definition of "hard password" generally includes things that are > not easily > cracked by brute-force, eg "1234567890" while long, wouldn't be hard. I include "patently obvious" and "only chosen by idiots" in the category of "social attack". > brute-forcing a passphrase is not necessarily a function of the length > especially where windows is concerned, or if another system, where > there are weaknesses in > the cryptographic functions themselves. If you have no access to the cryptotext then you are forced to submit each candidate password to the system for validation. Weakness in the cryptosystem is irrelevant if you never have access to the cryptotext; in fact if one assumes perfect physical security, a security policy created by someone with something greater than a room temperature IQ and correct software implementation then storing passwords in plaintext would be as strong as storing them in cryptotext. > one portion of windows password stores saves the password as an 8 > character uppercase string, > that's hardly very secure and can easily provide clues as to the > true password. The original argument had nothing to do with Windows. The fact that Windows is brain-dead in this regard is irrelevant to the discussion of whether passphrases have strengths that in some cases make them superior to passwords. For passwords we want something that is easy to remember but hard to guess and which has a high degree of entropy from the set of valid passwords (it is entropy, not length, which is relevant to the strength of a password). Humans do poorly at remembering random vectors of characters of length much longer than seven but do reasonably well at remembering higher-order grouping, which is the mental crutch that passphrases provide. While longer is not inherently better, the increased entropy of true passphrases helps defeat probabilistic attacks and collapses the problem again down to something that is largely brute force. I doubt you're seriously advancing the notion that in the case of brute force attacks that longer is not generally better. There are 94 symbols on the standard PC keyboard; at eight characters there are 6,161,234,432,566,330 possible passwords, at 14 (the length of my current passphrase) there are 4,250,449,449,028,840,000,000,000,000 possible passwords. Using reasonable entropy assumptions (2^ bits of entropy based on password length) there are 8,589,934,592 "likely" passwords out of the total number of purely random passwords. Assuming that I change passphrases every 90 days I'll need to do around 33,140 probes/sec in order to compromise the 14 character passphrase vs 64.7/sec for an eight character password. Both are perfectly tractable if there is access to the cryptotext to test against; both are intractable if it's not (since in the latter case you'd have to be feeding them to the OS to test) , which is why systems that expose cryptotext or hashed passwords are really inexcusable. If I really cared about this I'd use the SHA1 of my passphrase as my "password" and use an SHA1 app on a PDA to compute the SHA1. As it turns out, I don't; the combination of the math and the fact that I don't use systems that expose cryptotext passwords coupled with a weak crytopsystem is enough for me to not care (and if I did I'd be using two or three factor authentication rather than passphrases). > and you just reinforced my suggestion, the methods I've been using. > the password generators I've written produce not only hardened > passwords, > and also passwords which are next to impossible to remember, > BUT are incredibly easy for the user to type in. > > this does several things > it means the user never has to write them down, > they can never give out their password > however, the user has no issues logging in. > > they're based on the natural flow of the users hands as they type. > not keyboard patterns, but a function of how words are formed > across the hands and fingers, combinations of left and right hand > typing. That's brilliant. Tell me, how does that work when I go from a machine with a QERTY keyboard to a dvorak keyboard? When using flying thumbs of fury with a Blackberry? When doing the painful one-finger hunt-and-peck with an iPhone? Biometric authenticaion of users based on keyboard behavior dates back to *at least* 1984 (that's when I was researching it), but it proved unacceptable due to things like changing keyboards, having multiple workstations of different manufacture, sporting injuries, being sick and being hung-over (yes, we sampled them all). You really should tell Bruce Schneier about this scheme of yours. I bet he'd tell the world all about it. >> FWIW, you're the one who introduced Windows into this discussion; >> Gene's original comment had precisely nothing to do with Windows and >> while your comments are valid relative to Windows that's not the >> context for the conversation. > > windows was an example, but it's not to say there are not other > systems > with equally or similarly weak cryptographic functions See above; unless you're dumb enough to expose the stored passwords the strength of the cryptosystem is irrelevant save for failures of implementation or physical security. > and FWIW, you started out (I believe) making the comparison of linux > vs windows > and saying they were equally strong (which is not correct). Not me; the only operating system I've mentioned has been Windows, and that in response to your holding it up as some sort of universal counterexample. Please get your attributions right. > > but that's water under the bridge now, it's purely for point of > providing > an example everyone is familiar with. > >> You seem to be confusing a bad implementation of the translation of >> plaintext to cryptotext and the poor storage of said cryptotext with >> the relative security of passphrases vs. passwords. The two are >> utterly distinct. > > no, I'm not, and they are not necessarily distinct, dependent on the > system. I said nothing of the system in question. I said that you were confusing two things that are distinct. Gene's original posting was not relevant to a given system, it was relevant to passphrases vs. passwords in general. If you want to recast the discussion to be "On Windows random garbage passwords are inherently superior to passphrases", fine, but that's not the conversation we're having. > any good security person has to take the system as a whole, there are > many "paths" to finding ways through the system, flaws in > implementation, > weaknesses in cryptography, the human element, and of course, others. This is news? That's why (like the rest of us) you encrypt your boot volumes and all storage devices, both fixed and removable, right? > You cannot truly understand a system unless you look at it > holistically. No one is talking about the system, we were talking about passphrases vs. passwords in the abstract, which is a perfectly reasonable conversation to have. You do inadvertently bring up a good point; you'll note that brute force attacks against ATM machines are virtually nonexistent despite having "passwords" that are usually chosen from a universe of four to eight *digits*. Why is this? Oh, right -- there's no way to play 20 questions with the underlying system to test candidate passwords, leading us back to the same point: a well designed system should require that candidate authentication information be presented to the system itself, rather than allowing a circa-1976 dictionary attack. ObClassicCmp: Does anyone recall when AT&T and BSD Unix outgrew this? >> In order to produce a partial password the program in question must >> either have access to the resulting cryptotext for the password in >> question or have the Great Karnack module installed which allows it >> to >> know things without having any way to know them. For the purposes of >> the point that Gene raised getting hung up on Windows (or, for that >> matter, Unix v7 or anything else that makes encrypted authentication >> information visible) as a counterexample is useless. Any >> authentication system designed in the past decade by anyone with >> intelligence exceeding that of a pine martin is going to employ a >> relatively sophisticated transform (i.e., not crypt() and not an >> MD5sum) and isn't going to allow you to see the stored cryptotext, >> meaning that you're actually going to have to submit each password to >> the system for authentication rather than have some program magically >> spew it out to you. > > This doesn't apply, at least in the case of windows (and perhaps > others). > On windows systems I've seen it decrypt the first (or second) half > of a password, > or the first 8 characters, I've seen it do portions in sections. > all this with no access to cleartext. I didn't say cleartext, I said *cryptotext*. If you have access to the cryptotext and if the underlying cryptosystem is weak then you can trivially discover passwords without having to play 20 questions with the operating system and without leaving an audit trail behind you. If you do not have access to the cryptotext you have nothing to test your trial passwords against; if you have access to cryptotext and the cryptosystem is not brain dead you won't be able to extract partial matches. The fact that you can on Windows simply says that in this specific case Windows is brain dead. > I'd have to double-check if this has any similarity for md5 > passwords, I don't recall, though I doubt it. Perhaps you mean "md5 summaries of passwords"? md5 is known to produce collisions and thus is defective as a secure hash but it's not so defective as to allow the sort of behavior you've described. > windows is a good example because it is (still) the most used OS in > the world, > and a large percentage of people have a false sense of security in > using it Who cares? Again, the question was regarding passphrases vs, password in an abstract sense, not in the case of Windows or any other system, past, present or future.. If you can't have a conversation regarding the relative strengths of passwords vs. passphrases without having to reference a specific platform then you've missed the point. -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 18 16:31:16 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:31:16 -0400 Subject: Doing DU0 bootable with RT11 5.3 from one TU58 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43E02A3F-55B0-46D7-8116-73F5298997A9@neurotica.com> On Jun 18, 2009, at 5:18 PM, SPC wrote: > I started one virtual TU58 with RT11 5.3 from the COM1 of my > laptop in my > PDP-11/23 PLUS using TU58EM. > > In the same machine I have one DILOG DQ696 with one ESDI hard drive > of 768 > Mb. I want to convert the ESDI drive in a bootable device with RT11. > > I've initialized the DU0 and copied the complete system from the > DD0 (TU58) > > Searching for the fast path to continue... Someone knows what must > I do > exactly now to continue ? Thanks in advance. If you're certain the target disk contains DU.SYS (or DUX.SYS as appropriate), you'll need to make it bootable. For example, this is how to do it using RT11SJ. This is from memory, you may want to double-check the syntax in the help system: . COPY/BOOT:DU DU0:RT11SJ DU0: -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 18 16:34:10 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:34:10 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jun 18, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >>> But I don't lioke changing the classic machine. Not even replacing >>> PSUs >>> with switchers. The original PSU is part of the design, and I >>> want to >>> keep it that way. >> >> While I agree with you here, I have to admit that, if my PDP-11/70 >> had switching power supplies, I'd probably run it a lot more often. > > Whatever have you done to it? AFAIK the 11/70 has switching > regulators as > standard (my 11/45 certainly does). Not the normal design of SMPSU (in > that there's a big mains-frequency trasnformer on the input), but > it's a > switcher none-the-less. Yes...Huge transformer, big bridge rectifiers, LM723, big series pass transistors...that says "linear" to me. :) I've never gotten deeply enough into the circuit I guess. I've been a DEChead all my life, but still I learn something new from you guys every day!! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From blstuart at bellsouth.net Thu Jun 18 16:41:46 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:41:46 -0500 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <7B5932B1-A17F-4154-8B51-A7E402F9804D@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <6c7bf5ce067e5e322a884ed0cf84f99d@bellsouth.net> >> I've heard a rumour that early 723 data sheets only show it as a >> linear >> regulator, the designers didn't realise it could be used as a >> switcher. >> After it started getting used in the latter configuration, example >> circuits were added to the data sheet. Does anyone have an early >> 723 data >> sheet which doesn't show a swtiching regulator circuit? > > I have some pretty old NS databooks; I will check. I just checked what I have. My 1977 Voltage Regulator Handbook doesn't list it at all. My 1980 Linear Databook includes a couple of switchers among the typical applications. That would suggest such a data sheet would have to be around 1978 or 79. BLS From alhartman at yahoo.com Thu Jun 18 16:46:12 2009 From: alhartman at yahoo.com (Al Hartman) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:46:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47149.36820.qm@web55308.mail.re4.yahoo.com> >From what I understand, the drive is locked by the system using the master supervisor password. Replacing the logic board (or the system unit as a whole) doesn't unlock the HDD. ? Only discovering and entering the master password will work. ? The unit will not boot to a floppy for a BIOS upgrade or to run a BIOS Password Crack program. It asks for the master password and refuses to go past that point. ? We didn't set the password, and presumably the original owner did and didn't tell us what it was. I tried contacting the seller, but the email address is no longer active. ? Replacing the security chip is more money and labor than the unit is worth. I can buy another unit for under $40 if I wanted to. ? I want to get to her HDD data, which she never backed up. Putting the HDD into a USB case results in a drive that is seen but won't mount on a PC, Mac or Linux Box. ? The drive is locked with an ATA command, and can only be unlocked by another ATA command supplying the password it was locked with. ? I can download a free utility to low level format the drive, but not unlock it. ? Paying $100 or more to have the data recovered is not in her budget, else she would have had the money to buy a new laptop rather than a bargain basement IBM Thinkpad. ? I've tried all sorts of supposed IBM Backdoor master passwords without success. I can't even find someone to tell me where the security chip is so I can use the circuit and software to read the password off the chip is. ? I really don't want to break the whole unit down if I don't have to. My eyes and hands aren't as steady as they used to be, and I'm not familiar with this unit as I am with Apple Powerbook G3 units. ? I've tried removing the battery for several days. Typing in every password I could think of. But, nothing works. ? I guess her data is gone, and my last backup of her data when I set the thing up for her is the best she is going to get. ? If anyone has any solutions, I'd be glad to hear them. ? Al Phila, PA From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 16:57:31 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:57:31 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys References: <7B5932B1-A17F-4154-8B51-A7E402F9804D@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A3AB84A.6E6343C1@cs.ubc.ca> Dave McGuire wrote: > > On Jun 18, 2009, at 2:19 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > I've heard a rumour that early 723 data sheets only show it as a > > linear > > regulator, the designers didn't realise it could be used as a > > switcher. > > After it started getting used in the latter configuration, example > > circuits were added to the data sheet. Does anyone have an early > > 723 data > > sheet which doesn't show a swtiching regulator circuit? > > I have some pretty old NS databooks; I will check. One datapoint: Motorola Linear 1976, MC1723 datasheet shows a switching config. National Application Notes AN1(1967), AN8(1968) and AN2(1969) show the LM100 regulator IC in switching configs. The LM100 looks like the predecessor to the 723, a reference and error amp in one package. It disappears from later databooks, presumably obsoleted by the 723. From ray at arachelian.com Thu Jun 18 16:59:16 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:59:16 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <4A3AB8B4.80601@arachelian.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > Oh good lord. Can we give this up? SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT > COMPUTING IS MORE THAN JUST SOFTWARE. Get over it. You're right. People believe lots of interesting, and strange stuff. But maybe I'm missing something here, so remind me again, just how does one get a Von Neumann architecture machine to *COMPUTE* something without that machine invoking any instruction/opcode/microcode at all? From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jun 18 16:59:29 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:59:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: FrameMaker for SunOS Message-ID: Who were the people who wanted packages of FrameMaker for SunOS? I volunteered to take the lot from Dave McGuire and repackage them for those who wanted them. He's finally getting around to sending them off to me. -- 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? From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 18 17:05:27 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:05:27 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A3AB8B4.80601@arachelian.com> References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> <4A3AB8B4.80601@arachelian.com> Message-ID: On Jun 18, 2009, at 5:59 PM, Ray Arachelian wrote: >> Oh good lord. Can we give this up? SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT >> COMPUTING IS MORE THAN JUST SOFTWARE. Get over it. > > You're right. People believe lots of interesting, and strange stuff. > > But maybe I'm missing something here, so remind me again, just how > does > one get a Von Neumann architecture machine to *COMPUTE* something > without that machine invoking any instruction/opcode/microcode at all? You're right, I guess I'll go scrap my house full of PDP-8s, PDP-11s, and DECsystem-2020 since they can all be completely replaced by emulators. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dgahling at hotmail.com Thu Jun 18 17:06:28 2009 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:06:28 -0400 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <47149.36820.qm@web55308.mail.re4.yahoo.com> References: <47149.36820.qm@web55308.mail.re4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: take it to a data recovery place, ask for a free estimate. be prepared to pay $1200 or more. as for the CMOS, you can still wipe it. remove the HDD, then boot either floppy or CD that would bypass that password, would also confirm exactly how it is locked. you can still try to contact IBM for recovery (for a large fee I suspect) otherwise you're SOL Dan. > Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:46:12 -0700 > From: alhartman at yahoo.com > Subject: Re: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > > >From what I understand, the drive is locked by the system using the master supervisor password. Replacing the logic board (or the system unit as a whole) doesn't unlock the HDD. > > Only discovering and entering the master password will work. > > The unit will not boot to a floppy for a BIOS upgrade or to run a BIOS Password Crack program. It asks for the master password and refuses to go past that point. > > We didn't set the password, and presumably the original owner did and didn't tell us what it was. I tried contacting the seller, but the email address is no longer active. > > Replacing the security chip is more money and labor than the unit is worth. I can buy another unit for under $40 if I wanted to. > > I want to get to her HDD data, which she never backed up. Putting the HDD into a USB case results in a drive that is seen but won't mount on a PC, Mac or Linux Box. > > The drive is locked with an ATA command, and can only be unlocked by another ATA command supplying the password it was locked with. > > I can download a free utility to low level format the drive, but not unlock it. > > Paying $100 or more to have the data recovered is not in her budget, else she would have had the money to buy a new laptop rather than a bargain basement IBM Thinkpad. > > I've tried all sorts of supposed IBM Backdoor master passwords without success. I can't even find someone to tell me where the security chip is so I can use the circuit and software to read the password off the chip is. > > I really don't want to break the whole unit down if I don't have to. My eyes and hands aren't as steady as they used to be, and I'm not familiar with this unit as I am with Apple Powerbook G3 units. > > I've tried removing the battery for several days. Typing in every password I could think of. But, nothing works. > > I guess her data is gone, and my last backup of her data when I set the thing up for her is the best she is going to get. > > If anyone has any solutions, I'd be glad to hear them. > > Al > Phila, PA _________________________________________________________________ Internet explorer 8 lets you browse the web faster. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9655582 From dgahling at hotmail.com Thu Jun 18 17:07:39 2009 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:07:39 -0400 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> Message-ID: Try out 0phcrack and L0phtcrack, and get back to me. otherwise, you don't really know what you're talking about. all your talk of entropy and changing passwords on a schedule is bile. Dan. > From: chris at mainecoon.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) > Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:29:50 -0700 > > _________________________________________________________________ Create a cool, new character for your Windows Live? Messenger. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9656621 From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jun 18 17:28:49 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:28:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3AAF84.122B1E61@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A3A9967.E8E848B4@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3A9A68.3050802@jetnet.ab.ca> <4A3AA1D8.F90A9E0D@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AA813.4030409@jetnet.ab.ca> <4A3AAF84.122B1E61@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <20090618152709.N67986@shell.lmi.net> > > using electric methods. Ben. > > > Entropy. Corrosion is not a two-way process. > > In this case it is. On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Corrosion involves a dispersal of atoms, and physical deformation, i.e. loss of > information. You don't just reverse the process and get back what you had. The > mechanism was pretty far gone in portions, reverse electrolysis would be far > cruder than the imaging. So, . . . I can't take a pile of rust, and apply just the right electrical signal and have it reform into a new shiny part? From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 18 17:30:35 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:30:35 -0600 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> <4A3AB8B4.80601@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <4A3AC00B.2090200@jetnet.ab.ca> Dave McGuire wrote: > You're right, I guess I'll go scrap my house full of PDP-8s, PDP-11s, > and DECsystem-2020 since they can all be completely replaced by emulators. Keep the DECsystem ... you need something to live in once you sell off your house and everything. :) > -Dave > From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 17:31:02 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:31:02 -0700 Subject: Any PACE users out there? References: , <4A3AA6DA.4000001@jetnet.ab.ca> <4A3A4911.27814.19EC0B35@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A3AC025.FF4EAEE9@cs.ubc.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Actually, it seems as if NEW caps are just as bad if not worse. > Chinese capacitor disease seems to be a pandemic. One of the few remaining local parts retailers just switched resistor brands after many years. The new ones are visibly crap (but apparently they 'sound cleaner' to the audioph**les who are some significant portion of his market). Just one retailer, or is this is the next step towards death of 'conventional' home-brew electronics and repairs? With the market for wire-lead components having been so reduced by SMD, what market remains is filled by low-quality manufacturers. From ragooman at comcast.net Thu Jun 18 17:30:16 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:30:16 -0400 Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3ABFF8.5030906@comcast.net> Tony Duell wrote: >> Andrew, >> >> Did you get the one copy at this link ? >> http://electrickery.xs4all.nl/comp/virtlibrary.html >> It doesn't have schematics per say, but there's plenty of info in that pdf. >> > > > I thought hte Epson QX10 used a 7220, and I've just checked the technical > manual and it does.. The video circuitry is on a daughterboard, the > newer one used an ASIC so the schemaitcs aren't a lot of use to you, but > the older one was the 7220 + DRAM + TTL + a chracter generator EPROM. It > doens't look _that_ complicated... > > I think the QX10 technical manual is on a web site somewhere, and > includes said schematics. > > May be of interest... > yes the tech manuals are on that website. I just downloaded them too How many pages is in the 7220 databook ? That link for the databook has 24 pages and a friend of mine here in Pittsburgh has a papercopy which has only 24pages. =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 18 17:36:10 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:36:10 -0600 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3AAF84.122B1E61@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A3A9967.E8E848B4@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3A9A68.3050802@jetnet.ab.ca> <4A3AA1D8.F90A9E0D@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AA813.4030409@jetnet.ab.ca> <4A3AAF84.122B1E61@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A3AC15A.5030205@jetnet.ab.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Corrosion involves a dispersal of atoms, and physical deformation, i.e. loss of > information. You don't just reverse the process and get back what you had. The > mechanism was pretty far gone in portions, reverse electrolysis would be far > cruder than the imaging. That is what I was looking for. "reverse electrolysis". I was counting on diffrent bronzes giving breaks in the corrosion types so that reverse electrolysis would give a better restoration of the original. Ben. From jpero at sympatico.ca Thu Jun 18 18:39:25 2009 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero at sympatico.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:39:25 -0500 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <47149.36820.qm@web55308.mail.re4.yahoo.com> References: , <47149.36820.qm@web55308.mail.re4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Date sent: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:46:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Al Hartman Subject: Re: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Send reply to: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > >From what I understand, the drive is locked by the system using the master supervisor password. Replacing the logic board (or the system unit as a whole) doesn't unlock the HDD. > ? > Only discovering and entering the master password will work. > ? > The unit will not boot to a floppy for a BIOS upgrade or to run a BIOS Password Crack program. It asks for the master password and refuses to go past that point. > ? > We didn't set the password, and presumably the original owner did and didn't tell us what it was. I tried contacting the seller, but the email address is no longer active. > ? > Replacing the security chip is more money and labor than the unit is worth. I can buy another unit for under $40 if I wanted to. > ? > I want to get to her HDD data, which she never backed up. Putting the HDD into a USB case results in a drive that is seen but won't mount on a PC, Mac or Linux Box. > ? > The drive is locked with an ATA command, and can only be unlocked by another ATA command supplying the password it was locked with. > ? > I can download a free utility to low level format the drive, but not unlock it. > ? > Paying $100 or more to have the data recovered is not in her budget, else she would have had the money to buy a new laptop rather than a bargain basement IBM Thinkpad. > ? > I've tried all sorts of supposed IBM Backdoor master passwords without success. I can't even find someone to tell me where the security chip is so I can use the circuit and software to read the password off the chip is. > ? > I really don't want to break the whole unit down if I don't have to. My eyes and hands aren't as steady as they used to be, and I'm not familiar with this unit as I am with Apple Powerbook G3 units. > ? > I've tried removing the battery for several days. Typing in every password I could think of. But, nothing works. > ? > I guess her data is gone, and my last backup of her data when I set the thing up for her is the best she is going to get. > ? > If anyone has any solutions, I'd be glad to hear them. > ? > Al > Phila, PA > Hi, I thought I emailed this method to crack this password I'll try again: http://sodoityourself.com/hacking-ibm-thinkpad-bios-password/ Try this and you will able to extract the password and in turn unlock whole notebook this method. The hard drive has to be in the PC during whole process jest this won't upset things. Cheers, Wizard From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 18 17:46:03 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:46:03 -0600 Subject: new crappy components In-Reply-To: <4A3AC025.FF4EAEE9@cs.ubc.ca> References: , <4A3AA6DA.4000001@jetnet.ab.ca> <4A3A4911.27814.19EC0B35@cclist.sydex.com> <4A3AC025.FF4EAEE9@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A3AC3AB.2090900@jetnet.ab.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Actually, it seems as if NEW caps are just as bad if not worse. >> Chinese capacitor disease seems to be a pandemic. > > One of the few remaining local parts retailers just switched resistor brands > after many years. The new ones are visibly crap > (but apparently they 'sound cleaner' to the audioph**les who are some > significant portion of his market). What are they ... I am building a amp and just using 1/2 watt carbon composition for everything but power resistors. > Just one retailer, or is this is the next step towards death of 'conventional' > home-brew electronics and repairs? With the market for wire-lead components > having been so reduced by SMD, what market remains is filled by low-quality manufacturers. I am looking at the new resistors ... all film resistors to blow at .1% greater wattage than specified @ 70C. I planned to use ordinary 5 watt power resistors, but they don't handle momentary overload at all nowdays, so I had buy 'audio' resistors at 10x the cost. 50 cents vs 5 dollars. Ben. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 17:48:53 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:48:53 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <4A3A9074.10858DAA@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AA075.25CCB91B@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A3AC455.65A5A2A3@cs.ubc.ca> William Donzelli wrote: > > > Yes, most of the big machines from the 50's and 60's, like the 7000 series, saw > > a few years of life, were decommissioned and promptly scrapped. It was a > > brand-new, fast-changing industry and significant portions of a warehouse would > > be needed to hold onto them. > > > > However, for a machine like the PDP-6 to have survived 20 years was remarkable > > by the 80's. It would seem from the discussion that in the case of the SAIL > > machine there was recognition and interest in it's historicity even then, it > > was known to and around people who might appreciate it, so it is more > > perplexing that it cannot now be found. > > There were many 2nd generation mainframes that stuck around into the > early 1980s, often powered down and taking up space. Many missed the > prompt scrapping, being held by surplus dealers that thought they > could perhaps sell the units. I missed a 7094 back then - but I was > still in high school, so I probably could not have afforded to > purchase it. I remember hearing about other big machines that were > just too large for a high school kid to deal with. Yes. > The SAIL PDP-6 was no different. Not that I was there, but from what I hear there was a difference. The machine in question was in a situation of awareness from which one might have had greater hope or expectation, it's wasn't quite the same as some machine sitting in the back of some surplus dealer's warehouse. > Just part of the final slaughter. Yes. Who knows who was making the final decisions. From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Jun 18 17:54:01 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:54:01 +0100 Subject: new crappy components In-Reply-To: <4A3AC3AB.2090900@jetnet.ab.ca> References: , <4A3AA6DA.4000001@jetnet.ab.ca> <4A3A4911.27814.19EC0B35@cclist.sydex.com> <4A3AC025.FF4EAEE9@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AC3AB.2090900@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <1245365641.6710.1.camel@elric> On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 16:46 -0600, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > I am looking at the new resistors ... all film resistors to blow at .1% greater > wattage than specified > @ 70C. [citation needed] Gordon From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 18:03:08 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:03:08 -0700 Subject: new crappy components References: , <4A3AA6DA.4000001@jetnet.ab.ca> <4A3A4911.27814.19EC0B35@cclist.sydex.com> <4A3AC025.FF4EAEE9@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AC3AB.2090900@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4A3AC7AC.15B89FEA@cs.ubc.ca> "bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca" wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> Actually, it seems as if NEW caps are just as bad if not worse. > >> Chinese capacitor disease seems to be a pandemic. > > > > One of the few remaining local parts retailers just switched resistor brands > > after many years. The new ones are visibly crap > > (but apparently they 'sound cleaner' to the audioph**les who are some > > significant portion of his market). > > What are they ... I am building a amp and just using 1/2 watt carbon composition > for everything but power resistors. For 15 years he was selling a grey-body metal-film resistor which seemed of reasonable or good quality, at least they were consistent and reliable. I think they were Philips. The new ones are a deep-blue-body (not flame-proofs) carbon-film type. Aside from the difficulty in distinguishing some color codes against the deep-blue of the body (leading to packaging errors, like 47K's in the bag of 4.7K's), the visible problem is that a fair portion of them out-of-the-bag have the final protective coating formed into drips as they dried and too thin in spots (one can see the resistive helix). They do not inspire confidence. I don't know the actual manufacturer. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 18:08:51 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:08:51 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <4A3A9074.10858DAA@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AA075.25CCB91B@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AC455.65A5A2A3@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A3AC902.5584AA70@cs.ubc.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > > William Donzelli wrote: > > > Just part of the final slaughter. > > Yes. Who knows who was making the final decisions. (For the sake of accuracy, I guess that should be "Yes, if that is what happened to it".) From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 18 18:11:11 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:11:11 -0600 Subject: new crappy components In-Reply-To: <1245365641.6710.1.camel@elric> References: , <4A3AA6DA.4000001@jetnet.ab.ca> <4A3A4911.27814.19EC0B35@cclist.sydex.com> <4A3AC025.FF4EAEE9@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AC3AB.2090900@jetnet.ab.ca> <1245365641.6710.1.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A3AC98F.9060805@jetnet.ab.ca> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 16:46 -0600, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > >> I am looking at the new resistors ... all film resistors to blow at .1% greater >> wattage than specified >> @ 70C. [citation needed] --> ME Fact #1 power rating you start de-rating @ 70C. Fact #2 They have a very high thermal resistance. I can't find the data but something like 150K/watt if I am guessing right. Fact#1+Fact#2 == *poof* > Gordon From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 18 18:14:23 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:14:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: from Dave McGuire at "Jun 18, 9 06:05:27 pm" Message-ID: <200906182314.n5INENXo011846@floodgap.com> > > one get a Von Neumann architecture machine to *COMPUTE* something > > without that machine invoking any instruction/opcode/microcode at all? > > You're right, I guess I'll go scrap my house full of PDP-8s, > PDP-11s, and DECsystem-2020 since they can all be completely replaced > by emulators. Send them to me and I'll us... I mean, I will scrap them for you. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Seen on hand dryer: "Push button for a message from your congressman." ----- From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 18 18:19:28 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:19:28 -0600 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <200906182314.n5INENXo011846@floodgap.com> References: <200906182314.n5INENXo011846@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4A3ACB80.1010402@jetnet.ab.ca> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > Send them to me and I'll us... I mean, I will scrap them for you. Remember that is Cash and Carry deal so ya'all get out there bright and early tommorow morning... From lists at databasics.us Thu Jun 18 18:20:55 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:20:55 -1000 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <200906180954.32287.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <4A39DEDB.20407@databasics.us> <200906180954.32287.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4A3ACBD7.3070401@databasics.us> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Thursday 18 June 2009, Warren Wolfe wrote: > >>> 13kVA three phase. It weighs about five tons and occupies 700 >>> square feet. >>> >> Oh, my, that would be.... about $15/hr. here. Ouch. But, again, >> this is EPIC collecting. Truly. I'm so impressed, and more than a >> little jealous... Wow, a prototype that has been upgraded. Simply >> mind-boggling. >> > > $1 per kWh? I know that power is relatively cheap here, but that sounds > fairly expensive. Commercial rates here are around $0.07-$0.10 per > kWh. (or less if you have a 'high voltage' feed to your place, eg 12kV > or 138kV. Purdue averages around 4 to 5 cents per kWh. :) No.... I figured that three phase would be drawing 13 kVA of each branch, thus equating to to about three times the current in a single phase system. And electricity here (The Big Island of Hawai'i) is about 35 cents per kilowatt hour. Seriously. Warren From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 18 18:23:51 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:23:51 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3ACBD7.3070401@databasics.us> References: <4A39DEDB.20407@databasics.us> <200906180954.32287.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A3ACBD7.3070401@databasics.us> Message-ID: <7C1DDB20-88BE-4096-B52A-00DA0AA4E759@neurotica.com> On Jun 18, 2009, at 7:20 PM, Warren Wolfe wrote: > No.... I figured that three phase would be drawing 13 kVA of each > branch, thus equating to to about three times the current in a > single phase system. And electricity here (The Big Island of > Hawai'i) is about 35 cents per kilowatt hour. Seriously. Jeeeeezus! Time to move! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From blstuart at bellsouth.net Thu Jun 18 18:28:55 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:28:55 -0500 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A3A893F.756816EA@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: > I'd like to create simulations of Colussus and the Bombes, along with sims > for the Lorenz and Enigma, to show the code-breaking processes involved. > The encoders are relatively easy, I haven't researched or seen an in-depth > explanation of the code-breaking machines though. Some years ago I got some booklets at Bletchley Park that discuss the machines and how they were used. Report No 16, The Turing Bombe, is the most complete description I've seen of how the machine actually worked. An appendix even has the output of a simulation. Reports 1, 3, and 4 all discuss how the Colossus was used. They don't say as much about the internals of the machine, but rather focus on how the statistics gathered by the machine were used. The series is called The Bletchley Park Trust Reports. I would think they're probably still available. BLS From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 18:32:43 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:32:43 -0400 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <4A3AC902.5584AA70@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <4A3A9074.10858DAA@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AA075.25CCB91B@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AC455.65A5A2A3@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AC902.5584AA70@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: >> Yes. Who knows who was making the final decisions. > > (For the sake of accuracy, I guess that should be "Yes, if that is what > happened to it".) There is the real possibility, however unlikely, that the PDP-6 - or another PDP-6 - is in a private collection to this day. Mainframe collectors are notoriously tight lipped. -- Will From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jun 18 18:42:41 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:42:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090618160143.S67986@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > Try out 0phcrack and L0phtcrack, and get back to me. > otherwise, you don't really know what you're talking about. > all your talk of entropy and changing passwords on a schedule > is bile. Be careful, Dan. There is a subtle, but significant difference between somebody not knowing what they are talking about V talking about a different subject. Please don't be offended by the following oversimplifications: Ophcrack cracks WINDOZE passwords. In order to do so, it takes advantage of the fact that it is almost trivial to find and read the "encrypted" hashed storage in Windoze. ophcrack reads the hashed storage of the password from Windoze, and then can generate a password that will hash to that and work. In theory, a hash function is "one way", that there is no possible way to compute the source string from the stored destination value. That, of course, is wrong. In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, theory and practice are quite different. If somebody is familiar with what algorithm is used, there is always the possibility that they might figure out a way to reverse the function. If you figure out a better way to factor large numbers into their prime factors, send a credible description to the personnel department at the NSA, and they will send a black helicopter to pick you up. Actually, you don't even need to contact them, just talk about it on a phone line or email that passes between Washington and Baltimore. If you have access to the hashed value, which is what ophcrack needs, then it IS possible to generate a string that will hash to the right value. Whether that is FEASABLE, or worth the effort, depends on whether the algorithm is well known, OR how much entropy there is in the storage. For example, AND BRINGING THIS BACK ON TOPIC, the passwords used by TRS-DOS are hashed and stored as a 16 bit value. We can see the hash, but not the original string of characters. OK, let's try AAAAAAAA and see what the hash value comes out to be. In the unlikely event 2^-16 that that hash was the one that we were looking for, then we now know that AAAAAAAA will work as the password, even if that was NOT the original one! Then try AAAAAAAB. write down your results in a flat file with fields in each record of "string tried", and "hash value". Although we are iterating the "string tried" for each new one, sort the file in sequence by "hash value". Eventually, that brute force technique will yield a string that will match the hash that we are looking for. But, even though THIS project is completed, keep going. Eventually, probably after a lot more than 65536 iterations, you will have a list of 65536 different strings, and can look up a string that will work for any hash value you need, even though there are gazillions of possible passwords. That one was easy, because Randy Cook only stored 16 bits of entropy. Even if we don't have access to the stored hash value, that 16 bit entropy means that we never have to try more than 65536 different "test" passwords. Ophcrack uses tables of precomputed hashes created with knowledge of the algorithm that was used, and taking advantage of the fact that MICROS~1 didn't even hash the entire password. Instead, any password longer than 7 characters is broken up into 7 character chunks, and each of those is hashed separately. That makes it possible to "unhash" one piece at a time. Remember WOPR? That means that a 14 character password is only twice as much work to crack as a 7 character one, instead of squaring the amount of work! None of that applies if we can't get access to the stored hash, although knowledge of the algorithm used might reveal some potential shortcuts. In the case of the Thinkpad that is being discussed, IBM claims that is "uncrackable". However, Wizard jpero at sympatico.ca sent a URL to instructions for SOME Thinkpads for trivial hardware to be able to read the UNENCRYPTED password straight from the memory of the "security" chip: http://sodoityourself.com/hacking-ibm-thinkpad-bios-password/ So, the entropy of the password system IS how much work it is going to take, UNLESS you have access to bypass parts of the system, as Ophcrack has with Windoze. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From technobug at comcast.net Thu Jun 18 18:44:07 2009 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:44:07 -0700 Subject: Printer rant In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8639CA0F-E625-4425-A9DC-9313666AC6FD@comcast.net> On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:10:42 -0500, Brian Lanning wrote: >> Have you replaced the fuser yet, or is it still the flaking one? > > It's still the flaking one. But It's bad. It's missing chunks from > both sides. I have a bid on a complete assembly at ebay. If I don't > get that today, I'll just order one. Partsmart is your printer's friend. Just a very satisfied customer... CRC From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jun 18 18:51:08 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:51:08 -0700 (PDT) Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <20090618160143.S67986@shell.lmi.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> <20090618160143.S67986@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20090618164912.L67986@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Fred Cisin wrote: > Please don't be offended by the following oversimplifications: However, before long, I will need to work this up into a lesson for beginning Information Science students. So PLEASE tell me what parts I got wrong, and what expansions should be added. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From chris at mainecoon.com Thu Jun 18 18:55:51 2009 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Christian Kennedy) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:55:51 -0700 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <4A2EB8A8.6050609@gmail.com> <7d3530220906091349kd5cc64dkc36ed0d7906a1ddb@mail.gmail.com> <4A2ECFB9.3030309@gmail.com> <4A2FD370.6010402@gmail.com> <511C333C-C22A-4543-A90E-8224D298B05E@neurotica.com> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> Message-ID: <41A05FA7-7FF9-484A-A96B-E9C0E1FF16D1@mainecoon.com> On Jun 18, 2009, at 3:07 PM, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > Try out 0phcrack and L0phtcrack, and get back to me. > otherwise, you don't really know what you're talking about. > all your talk of entropy and changing passwords on a schedule > is bile. Why? I already know that Windows is broken, I don't need Windows- specific tools to demonstrate that fact to me. Now, just as soon as you can offer up a tool that performs similar magic on a platform that doesn't expose its encrypted authentication information I'll start listening to you again, but until then I'm writing you off as one of those people who have been alive for less time than I've been worrying ITSEC problems. *plonk* -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From ray at arachelian.com Thu Jun 18 19:17:05 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:17:05 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> <4A3AB8B4.80601@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <4A3AD901.1030806@arachelian.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 18, 2009, at 5:59 PM, Ray Arachelian wrote: >>> Oh good lord. Can we give this up? SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT >>> COMPUTING IS MORE THAN JUST SOFTWARE. Get over it. >> >> You're right. People believe lots of interesting, and strange stuff. >> >> But maybe I'm missing something here, so remind me again, just how does >> one get a Von Neumann architecture machine to *COMPUTE* something >> without that machine invoking any instruction/opcode/microcode at all? > > You're right, I guess I'll go scrap my house full of PDP-8s, > PDP-11s, and DECsystem-2020 since they can all be completely replaced > by emulators. Where, exactly, did I ever suggest anyone should do such a thing? Certainly you cannot run software without hardware, but the point is that hardware without software is just as useless. I have taken exception to the anti-emulator sentiment, but that does not mean that I would promote the destruction of older hardware in favor of just emulation. You've apparently *not* been reading what I actually wrote, but rather assuming. From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jun 18 19:20:48 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:20:48 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A3AD901.1030806@arachelian.com> References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> <4A3AB8B4.80601@arachelian.com> <4A3AD901.1030806@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <125FD4D1-2C3E-4EE3-B5E7-6A332AAD9A2F@neurotica.com> On Jun 18, 2009, at 8:17 PM, Ray Arachelian wrote: >>>> Oh good lord. Can we give this up? SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT >>>> COMPUTING IS MORE THAN JUST SOFTWARE. Get over it. >>> >>> You're right. People believe lots of interesting, and strange >>> stuff. >>> >>> But maybe I'm missing something here, so remind me again, just >>> how does >>> one get a Von Neumann architecture machine to *COMPUTE* something >>> without that machine invoking any instruction/opcode/microcode at >>> all? >> >> You're right, I guess I'll go scrap my house full of PDP-8s, >> PDP-11s, and DECsystem-2020 since they can all be completely replaced >> by emulators. > > Where, exactly, did I ever suggest anyone should do such a thing? > Certainly you cannot run software without hardware, but the point is > that hardware without software is just as useless. > I have taken exception to the anti-emulator sentiment, but that > does not > mean that I would promote the destruction of older hardware in > favor of > just emulation. You are reading anti-emulator sentiment where there is none. I love emulators and I use them almost daily. I simply stated (correctly) that they are not a replacement for real hardware. > You've apparently *not* been reading what I actually wrote, but rather > assuming. Likewise! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jun 18 19:25:48 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:25:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244661877.9042.14.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090618153006.D67986@shell.lmi.net> > > cracked by brute-force, eg "1234567890" while long, wouldn't be hard. On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Christian Kennedy wrote: > I include "patently obvious" and "only chosen by idiots" in the > category of "social attack". "Remind me to change the combination on my luggage!" From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 19:45:25 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:45:25 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys References: <6c7bf5ce067e5e322a884ed0cf84f99d@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <4A3ADFA5.5BE86815@cs.ubc.ca> blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: > > >> I've heard a rumour that early 723 data sheets only show it as a > >> linear > >> regulator, the designers didn't realise it could be used as a > >> switcher. > >> After it started getting used in the latter configuration, example > >> circuits were added to the data sheet. Does anyone have an early > >> 723 data > >> sheet which doesn't show a swtiching regulator circuit? > > > > I have some pretty old NS databooks; I will check. > > I just checked what I have. My 1977 Voltage Regulator > Handbook doesn't list it at all. > > My 1980 Linear Databook > includes a couple of switchers among the typical applications. > That would suggest such a data sheet would have to be > around 1978 or 79. The earliest example I have at hand for the 723 is the manufacturer's schematic for the Wang 520 calculator. The power supply page with two 723's on it (used just in linear mode), is dated early 1971. Perhaps the earlier handbook was from a manufacturer that didn't 2nd-source it. From blstuart at bellsouth.net Thu Jun 18 20:04:14 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:04:14 -0500 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3ADFA5.5BE86815@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <56a014a0f912b96f2541d892a3d9f174@bellsouth.net> > blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: >> >> >> I've heard a rumour that early 723 data sheets only show it as a >> >> linear >> >> regulator, the designers didn't realise it could be used as a >> >> switcher. >> >> After it started getting used in the latter configuration, example >> >> circuits were added to the data sheet. Does anyone have an early >> >> 723 data >> >> sheet which doesn't show a swtiching regulator circuit? >> > >> > I have some pretty old NS databooks; I will check. >> >> I just checked what I have. My 1977 Voltage Regulator >> Handbook doesn't list it at all. >> >> My 1980 Linear Databook >> includes a couple of switchers among the typical applications. >> That would suggest such a data sheet would have to be >> around 1978 or 79. > > The earliest example I have at hand for the 723 is the manufacturer's schematic > for the Wang 520 calculator. The power supply page with two 723's on it (used > just in linear mode), is dated early 1971. Perhaps the earlier handbook was > from a manufacturer that didn't 2nd-source it. It was a National book, but I can believe that it could well be incomplete. That's why I equivocated and said it suggested a time frame. The existence of it in these earlier systems clearly moves the lower bound. BLS From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 20:27:18 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:27:18 -0700 Subject: 723 IC origins / was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys References: <56a014a0f912b96f2541d892a3d9f174@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <4A3AE977.24C61ED2@cs.ubc.ca> blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: > >> > >> I just checked what I have. My 1977 Voltage Regulator > >> Handbook doesn't list it at all. > >> > >> My 1980 Linear Databook > >> includes a couple of switchers among the typical applications. > >> That would suggest such a data sheet would have to be > >> around 1978 or 79. > > > > The earliest example I have at hand for the 723 is the manufacturer's schematic > > for the Wang 520 calculator. The power supply page with two 723's on it (used > > just in linear mode), is dated early 1971. Perhaps the earlier handbook was > > from a manufacturer that didn't 2nd-source it. > > It was a National book, but I can believe that it could > well be incomplete. That's why I equivocated and said > it suggested a time frame. The existence of it in these > earlier systems clearly moves the lower bound. Funny that it wouldn't even be mentioned, perhaps the chip was old enough by that time that it got left out of a current-techniques handbook (as opposed to a databook) in favor of newer stuff. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jun 18 20:42:48 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:42:48 -0700 Subject: 723 IC origins / was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3AE977.24C61ED2@cs.ubc.ca> References: <56a014a0f912b96f2541d892a3d9f174@bellsouth.net> <4A3AE977.24C61ED2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:27:18 -0700 > From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca > To: General at invalid.domain > Subject: 723 IC origins / was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys > > blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: >>>> >>>> I just checked what I have. My 1977 Voltage Regulator >>>> Handbook doesn't list it at all. >>>> >>>> My 1980 Linear Databook >>>> includes a couple of switchers among the typical applications. >>>> That would suggest such a data sheet would have to be >>>> around 1978 or 79. >>> >>> The earliest example I have at hand for the 723 is the manufacturer's schematic >>> for the Wang 520 calculator. The power supply page with two 723's on it (used >>> just in linear mode), is dated early 1971. Perhaps the earlier handbook was >>> from a manufacturer that didn't 2nd-source it. >> >> It was a National book, but I can believe that it could >> well be incomplete. That's why I equivocated and said >> it suggested a time frame. The existence of it in these >> earlier systems clearly moves the lower bound. > > Funny that it wouldn't even be mentioned, perhaps the chip was old enough by > that time that it got left out of a current-techniques handbook (as opposed to > a databook) in favor of newer stuff. Hi I used one in the control for one of the voltages in a mass spectrometer in 1976. It was an old part even then as I bought it at a surplus shop. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Bing? brings you maps, menus, and reviews organized in one place. Try it now. http://www.bing.com/search?q=restaurants&form=MLOGEN&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MLOGEN_Core_tagline_local_1x1 From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 18 20:45:38 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:45:38 -0700 Subject: 723 IC origins / was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys References: <56a014a0f912b96f2541d892a3d9f174@bellsouth.net> <4A3AE977.24C61ED2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A3AEDC3.D7AF5DE@cs.ubc.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > > blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: > > >> > > >> I just checked what I have. My 1977 Voltage Regulator > > >> Handbook doesn't list it at all. > > >> > > >> My 1980 Linear Databook > > >> includes a couple of switchers among the typical applications. > > >> That would suggest such a data sheet would have to be > > >> around 1978 or 79. > > > > > > The earliest example I have at hand for the 723 is the manufacturer's schematic > > > for the Wang 520 calculator. The power supply page with two 723's on it (used > > > just in linear mode), is dated early 1971. Perhaps the earlier handbook was > > > from a manufacturer that didn't 2nd-source it. > > > > It was a National book, but I can believe that it could > > well be incomplete. That's why I equivocated and said > > it suggested a time frame. The existence of it in these > > earlier systems clearly moves the lower bound. > > Funny that it wouldn't even be mentioned, perhaps the chip was old enough by > that time that it got left out of a current-techniques handbook (as opposed to > a databook) in favor of newer stuff. Come to think of it, the 723 probably originated with Fairchild, as Fairchild's linear stuff were 700-series numbers (702,709,710,741,...). National may well have been a 2nd-source for it. From blstuart at bellsouth.net Thu Jun 18 20:52:50 2009 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:52:50 -0500 Subject: 723 IC origins / was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3AE977.24C61ED2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: > blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: >> >> >> >> I just checked what I have. My 1977 Voltage Regulator >> >> Handbook doesn't list it at all. >> >> >> >> My 1980 Linear Databook >> >> includes a couple of switchers among the typical applications. >> >> That would suggest such a data sheet would have to be >> >> around 1978 or 79. >> > >> > The earliest example I have at hand for the 723 is the manufacturer's schematic >> > for the Wang 520 calculator. The power supply page with two 723's on it (used >> > just in linear mode), is dated early 1971. Perhaps the earlier handbook was >> > from a manufacturer that didn't 2nd-source it. >> >> It was a National book, but I can believe that it could >> well be incomplete. That's why I equivocated and said >> it suggested a time frame. The existence of it in these >> earlier systems clearly moves the lower bound. > > Funny that it wouldn't even be mentioned, perhaps the chip was old enough by > that time that it got left out of a current-techniques handbook (as opposed to > a databook) in favor of newer stuff. Could be. It's one of the thinnest of the National books I have, and it was distributed through Radio Shack. So it might well be a "greatest hits" compilation. It does include the [123]09, [123]17, 120, [123]23, [123]25, [123]26, [123]27, [123]40, 341, 342, [123]45, 78XX, 78LXX, 79XX. BLS From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 21:00:26 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:00:26 -0400 Subject: 723 IC origins / was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3AEDC3.D7AF5DE@cs.ubc.ca> References: <56a014a0f912b96f2541d892a3d9f174@bellsouth.net> <4A3AE977.24C61ED2@cs.ubc.ca> <4A3AEDC3.D7AF5DE@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: > Come to think of it, the 723 probably originated with Fairchild, as Fairchild's > linear stuff were 700-series numbers (702,709,710,741,...). > National may well have been a 2nd-source for it. The uA723 first appears in the 1970 Fairchild catalog. the 1969 edition does not list it, but it appears the number was set aside for it (in development, probably). -- Will From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 18 21:25:05 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:25:05 -0400 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <20090618153006.D67986@shell.lmi.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <20090618153006.D67986@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200906182225.06053.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 18 June 2009, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > cracked by brute-force, eg "1234567890" while long, wouldn't be > > > hard. > > On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Christian Kennedy wrote: > > I include "patently obvious" and "only chosen by idiots" in the > > category of "social attack". > > "Remind me to change the combination on my luggage!" I believe that was "1234" ;) I think that a side-thread about Spaceballs would be more useful and accurate than some people are being on this thread on password security. :( Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jun 18 21:34:19 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:34:19 -0500 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3A9C1C.1090100@arachelian.com> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com> <4A3A9092.8030502@gmail.com> <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> <4A3A9C1C.1090100@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090618211148.0439e830@mail.threedee.com> At 02:57 PM 6/18/2009, Ray Arachelian wrote: >Hang on, if it's just the partition table, then you should be able to >read past that point and find the file system on there, and guess what >should go in the partition table based on the size of the file system >(assuming there's only one, and if there is more than one, you could >read past the end of that file system, read the next file system, guess >what type it is and so forth.) Yes, any good file recovery tool will search for filesystems independently of the partition table... assuming they can read the disk at all. Here's Lenovo's page on their AES-128 "full disk encryption": http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-69621 At 05:06 PM 6/18/2009, Dan Gahlinger wrote: >take it to a data recovery place, ask for a free estimate. >be prepared to pay $1200 or more. Actually, in the case of electrically dead / medium-crazed media, reasonably good hard disk recovery is down in the $400-600 range (see www.gillware.com). At 06:39 PM 6/18/2009, jpero at sympatico.ca wrote: >Hi, I thought I emailed this method to crack this password I'll try again: >http://sodoityourself.com/hacking-ibm-thinkpad-bios-password/ To think they went to all that trouble, then left the password in memory at a fixed location in plaintext. - John From chris at mainecoon.com Thu Jun 18 21:55:39 2009 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Christian Kennedy) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:55:39 -0700 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <200906182225.06053.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <20090618153006.D67986@shell.lmi.net> <200906182225.06053.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <3CD88EC6-A6DB-4B82-BF96-BB8C13BEA6B9@mainecoon.com> On Jun 18, 2009, at 7:25 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Thursday 18 June 2009, Fred Cisin wrote: >>>> cracked by brute-force, eg "1234567890" while long, wouldn't be >>>> hard. >> >> On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Christian Kennedy wrote: >>> I include "patently obvious" and "only chosen by idiots" in the >>> category of "social attack". >> >> "Remind me to change the combination on my luggage!" > > I believe that was "1234" ;) Yes, but doesn't that require dramatic pauses between digits? ;) "They've gone to plaid" -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 18 22:03:41 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:03:41 -0400 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> Message-ID: <200906182303.41606.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 18 June 2009, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > brute-forcing a passphrase is not necessarily a function of the > length especially where windows is concerned, or if another system, > where there are weaknesses in the cryptographic functions themselves. If that's the case, I don't see how the randomness of a password matters in your ability to crack it. Re: passwords vs passphrases... I don't see how you can claim that a password is more secure than a passphrase. Using some basic combinatorics, you can calculate the strength of each, based on the possible combinations. A low estimate of the number of words in the English language is 500,000. If you use 4 words, and only 1/5 of the possible English words makes grammatical sense in each position, that gives you 100,000^4 possible passwords, so 10^20 total possible passwords. Using an eight charactor password, with any possible combination of generally valid characters (we'll call that ASCII chars 32-127, to make the math easier, or 96 possibilities), that gives you 96^8 possible passwords. If we call that 100^8 to make the math easier, that's 10^16 passwords. So, a conservative estimate for the number of possible passphrases vs an overestimate of the number of possible passwords leaves passphrases winning 10,000 to 1. > one portion of windows password stores saves the password as an 8 > character uppercase string, that's hardly very secure and can easily > provide clues as to the true password. Really? I doubt this applies outside of home environments. I know that the account/password distribution system we have at Purdue doesn't distribute anything but a password hash, and pretty much nothing uses LANMAN encrypted passwords anymore. In any case, I doubt that most important passwords (by percentage of passwords to systems) are (1) login passwords on Windows systems or (2) handled by a Windows system outside of the client's web browser (if even there). > and you just reinforced my suggestion, the methods I've been using. > the password generators I've written produce not only hardened > passwords, and also passwords which are next to impossible to > remember, BUT are incredibly easy for the user to type in. > > this does several things > it means the user never has to write them down, > they can never give out their password > however, the user has no issues logging in. Huh? If they're "next to impossible to remember" then someone is more likely to write them down than a short phrase that they can both remember and type easily. > > You seem to be confusing a bad implementation of the translation of > > plaintext to cryptotext and the poor storage of said cryptotext > > with the relative security of passphrases vs. passwords. The two > > are utterly distinct. > > no, I'm not, and they are not necessarily distinct, dependent on the > system. any good security person has to take the system as a whole, > there are many "paths" to finding ways through the system, flaws in > implementation, weaknesses in cryptography, the human element, and of > course, others. The strength of a password storage system has nothing to do with the security of the passwords you are storing in it. If you're storing passwords in plaintext in a world-readable file or using a trivial crypt() function, it doesn't matter how secure your passwords are. If you're storing passwords securely (like a MD5 hash, with a reasonably sized salt), then the strength of the password/passphrase matters. > This doesn't apply, at least in the case of windows (and perhaps > others). On windows systems I've seen it decrypt the first (or > second) half of a password, or the first 8 characters, I've seen it > do portions in sections. all this with no access to cleartext. So, which of these is it? And, where did you see it? What version of the OS, in what program, etc? I can't check this, as I don't have anything that runs Windows anymore to check this on. > I'd have to double-check if this has any similarity for md5 > passwords, I don't recall, though I doubt it. You can't decrypt an MD5 hash. You can potentially find collisions, but it's still not a trivial proposition, and you definately can't do it in parts. Also, it still doesn't necessarily give you the actual password, or something with characters in a set that you can enter into the password entry field. > windows is a good example because it is (still) the most used OS in > the world, and a large percentage of people have a false sense of > security in using it. The above includes Vista. I don't think that the security of the password that people use to log into the home system (if they even have a password set for that) is a valid measure of security of anything except for what's stored on their home PC. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From alhartman at yahoo.com Thu Jun 18 22:20:28 2009 From: alhartman at yahoo.com (Al Hartman) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:20:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <145463.73618.qm@web55304.mail.re4.yahoo.com> Dan, You seem to be missing the point of my request for help. 1. The laptop is worth about $50.00, I'm not spending $1200 to recover data off the HDD, and neither is my friend who it belongs to. She is upset losing the $100 it cost her two years ago. 2. The laptop doesn't boot. It asks for a password. This is in the BIOS. It can't be bypassed to boot from floppy or CD. Without this password, the system is bricked. There is no way to recover it other than changing the logic board and HDD. Since all I want is the HDD data, that is not the solution. There is a way to recover the password, but nobody will tell me where the TPM chip is located on the 600e logic board. I don't want to just take the laptop totally apart. I want to take as little apart as possible. I'm hoping someone knows the IBM master password so I can get into the bios and reset the system. Barring that, this system is junk. Thanks anyway. ----- Original Message ---- Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:06:28 -0400 From: Dan Gahlinger take it to a data recovery place, ask for a free estimate. be prepared to pay $1200 or more. as for the CMOS, you can still wipe it. remove the HDD, then boot either floppy or CD that would bypass that password, would also confirm exactly how it is locked. you can still try to contact IBM for recovery (for a large fee I suspect) otherwise you're SOL Dan. From ragooman at comcast.net Thu Jun 18 22:23:56 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:23:56 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3991F9.2060707@jbrain.com> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> <4A3991F9.2060707@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <4A3B04CC.7050202@comcast.net> Jim Brain wrote: > I can't argue the value of experiencing the actual vintage hardware > > I worry about taking an "elitist" position when it comes to vintage > hardware, though. Please don't use the term 'elistist' so loosely. It oftens gets confused with hobbyists who like to be 'purists'. It affects other hobbies besides this one. Also, elitists don't get their hands 'dirty' [they tend to be stodgy and never touch hardware], purists always do. > > For every person who wants to experience the slow speed of the 1541, > there are 10-100 people who find the C64 valuable but have no time for > the 1541. Specifically, the latter group includes the folks design SW > for the platform, software that users (who might enjoy the 1541) use. > So, by withholding newer technologies, it effectively discourages > those that the community wishes to interest in the platform. > > As well, the C64 never offered Ethernet, and the "use only > era-appropriate technologies" mentality would preclude such a technology. Ethernet has been around, technically, since 1973, and the 802 spec hardware was available around '82 -- so anyone with an Altair or PDP-11 could even have fun with this :) I like the C64 ethernet just for this reason, they made the effort to combine the two when it wasn't previously available [mostly due to costs back then] Although they use a relatively newer chip,CS8900, I'm open to that kind of hacking. > However, the CBM 8-bit line has enjoyed quite a bit of publicity over > innovative Ethernet software solutions (like the recently noted > Twitter client). Such publicity generates lots of value (additional > new users, developers who turn to the platform for the community > aspects of the challenge of such development, etc.) for the platform. I think new uses like this Twitter app is always a good thing for this hobby - I would call it recycling hardware into retro applications > > Maybe the recent vintage machines (like the home computer of the 80s) > are unique in that they still have a relatively large user community > and are being utilized in contemporary settings due to unique aspects > that have never been duplicated (The SID IC, for example) In fact, > the term "restoration" is seldom heard in the CBM community (it's > usually reserved for some extremely rare variant of the line, like an > early PET or some unreleased machine), but "use" is often heard. I guess because there's still alot more working vs. broken machines from this category still, hence the lack of restoration involved -- but I still have a boxful of 1541's to rebuild between those in our group here :) > > Quite possibly, I'm the odd man out in this community. I am > interested in preserving the CBM 8 bit line, but that's not the end of > my interest. I do agree that my position begs the question "At what > point have you 'enhanced' a machine beyond recognition?" I don't have > an answer for that question, but I have some ideas. I do have an interest in using some of the enhanced hardware sometimes, but mostly when it assists me in this hobby, such as archiving lots of software. =Dan -- [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jun 18 22:24:52 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:24:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <200906182303.41606.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <200906182303.41606.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <20090618201510.W67986@shell.lmi.net> > > This doesn't apply, at least in the case of windows (and perhaps > > others). On windows systems I've seen it decrypt the first (or > > second) half of a password, or the first 8 characters, I've seen it > > do portions in sections. all this with no access to cleartext. On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > So, which of these is it? And, where did you see it? What version of > the OS, in what program, etc? I can't check this, as I don't have > anything that runs Windows anymore to check this on. What Dan is referring to is what he has seem in Ophcrack. When Windoze has a password longer than 7 characters, it breaks it up into 7 character chunks. Thus, a 21 character password is treated as three 7 character passwords, each of which could be cracked independently of the others, and resulting in 3 times the work of a 7 character password, instead of the cube of the amount of work. Ophcrack is not relying on cleartext (like the Thinkpad), but IS working from the hashcodes read from the system. Working with precomputed tables, it is effectively reversing the one-way hash function, to be able to come up with a working 7 character string that will hash to the desired value. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From brain at jbrain.com Thu Jun 18 22:42:40 2009 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:42:40 -0500 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3B04CC.7050202@comcast.net> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> <4A3991F9.2060707@jbrain.com> <4A3B04CC.7050202@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A3B0930.7060306@jbrain.com> Dan Roganti wrote: > > > Ethernet has been around, technically, since 1973, and the 802 spec > hardware was available around '82 -- so anyone with an Altair or > PDP-11 could even have fun with this :) I like the C64 ethernet > just for this reason, they made the effort to combine the two when it > wasn't previously available [mostly due to costs back then] Although > they use a relatively newer chip,CS8900, I'm open to that kind of > hacking. You still OK if we move to 802.11b/g, which I don't think was around in the 80's? > I guess because there's still alot more working vs. broken machines > from this category still, hence the lack of restoration involved -- > but I still have a boxful of 1541's to rebuild between those in our > group here :) Well, holler if you need parts. I just picked up 20 of them this past weekend. I could build a small kids house using the ones I own as bricks. Jim From ragooman at comcast.net Thu Jun 18 23:00:59 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:59 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3B0930.7060306@jbrain.com> References: <4A387019.40706@jbrain.com> <4A397FE4.2090008@comcast.net> <4A3991F9.2060707@jbrain.com> <4A3B04CC.7050202@comcast.net> <4A3B0930.7060306@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <4A3B0D7B.6070807@comcast.net> Jim Brain wrote: > Dan Roganti wrote: >> >> >> Ethernet has been around, technically, since 1973, and the 802 spec >> hardware was available around '82 -- so anyone with an Altair or >> PDP-11 could even have fun with this :) I like the C64 ethernet >> just for this reason, they made the effort to combine the two when it >> wasn't previously available [mostly due to costs back then] Although >> they use a relatively newer chip,CS8900, I'm open to that kind of >> hacking. > You still OK if we move to 802.11b/g, which I don't think was around > in the 80's? hey, I want to add 802.11b/g to my embedded controller first :) If you have any leads on adding this to the AVR processor please let me know (and cheap). =Dan -- [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From dgahling at hotmail.com Thu Jun 18 23:05:01 2009 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:05:01 -0400 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <145463.73618.qm@web55304.mail.re4.yahoo.com> References: <145463.73618.qm@web55304.mail.re4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I wasn't missing the point, just trying to offer some suggestions. there may be a way to "short" the cmos to clear it, sorry I can't help with IBM specifics, the link provided previously in regards to the Atmel chip looks like your best bet, but also looks like you'll need to take apart more than you'd prefer. Dan. > Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:20:28 -0700 > From: alhartman at yahoo.com > Subject: RE: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > > Dan, > > You seem to be missing the point of my request for help. > > 1. The laptop is worth about $50.00, I'm not spending $1200 to recover data off the HDD, and neither is my friend who it belongs to. She is upset losing the $100 it cost her two years ago. > > 2. The laptop doesn't boot. It asks for a password. This is in the BIOS. It can't be bypassed to boot from floppy or CD. Without this password, the system is bricked. There is no way to recover it other than changing the logic board and HDD. Since all I want is the HDD data, that is not the solution. > > There is a way to recover the password, but nobody will tell me where the TPM chip is located on the 600e logic board. I don't want to just take the laptop totally apart. I want to take as little apart as possible. > > I'm hoping someone knows the IBM master password so I can get into the bios and reset the system. Barring that, this system is junk. > > Thanks anyway. > > > ----- Original Message ---- > Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:06:28 -0400 > From: Dan Gahlinger > > > take it to a data recovery place, ask for a free estimate. > be prepared to pay $1200 or more. > > as for the CMOS, you can still wipe it. > > remove the HDD, then boot either floppy or CD that would bypass that password, > would also confirm exactly how it is locked. > > you can still try to contact IBM for recovery (for a large fee I suspect) > otherwise you're SOL > > Dan. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live helps you keep up with all your friends, in one place. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9660826 From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 23:10:01 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:10:01 -0400 Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > I know we went through all of this several months ago ("Do the Commodores > > really need the 9VAC?")... My answer would be it depends on what you want your Commodore to do. > IIRC the 9V AC is fed to the expansion connector and used by some > add-ons, and is also used by the cassette motor circuit. And not a lot > else. The machine may well work without it, but I don't think you'll be > able to use cassettes. The cassette is one thing that runs off of the 9VAC. The internal 12V DC is another (and that's what the SID needs). So if you provide +5V and +12V DC to the machine, you can have sound without 9VAC. The TOD ticker is tapped off the 9VAC, but that's not essential to normal operations, and in fact, I think you'd have a hard time finding anything that used the TOD on the CIAs anyway. The final thing I can think of off the top of my head that might need the 9VAC is the Commodore RS232 cart - I _think_ it derives the negative voltage for the RS-232 drivers by tapping AC from the user port. You can make a functional replacement with a MAX232 chip and 4 caps, so it's hardly a show stopper, but if you had one lying around and wanted to use it, I think you need 9VAC for it to work (but it's been years since I opened one up, so I could be misremembering this one). So if you don't need the CIAs' TOD, and you don't need to use a cassette drive, and if you don't need to use the authentic C= RS-232 card, you should be able to feed +5V and +12V at sufficient current to a C-64 or C-128 and it should work just fine. I think lacking +12V will kill video as well as sound, so I don't think the +12V is optional. -ethan From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 18 23:20:17 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:20:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jun 19, 9 00:10:01 am" Message-ID: <200906190420.n5J4KHwV018474@floodgap.com> > The cassette is one thing that runs off of the 9VAC. The internal 12V > DC is another (and that's what the SID needs). So if you provide +5V > and +12V DC to the machine, you can have sound without 9VAC. The TOD > ticker is tapped off the 9VAC, but that's not essential to normal > operations, and in fact, I think you'd have a hard time finding > anything that used the TOD on the CIAs anyway. GEOS. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Dates on calendar are closer than they appear. ----------------------------- From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 18 23:28:40 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:28:40 -0400 Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: <200906190420.n5J4KHwV018474@floodgap.com> References: <200906190420.n5J4KHwV018474@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 12:20 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > ?The TOD > > ticker is tapped off the 9VAC, but that's not essential to normal > > operations, and in fact, I think you'd have a hard time finding > > anything that used the TOD on the CIAs anyway. > > GEOS. Ah, well there you go then. That's too new for my experience. I had no idea it used them. So... add to the list... no 9VAC == no TOD ticker == GEOS issues. Do you know if GEOS would not work, or would you get stagnant timestamps on your files, or what? -ethan From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 18 23:34:04 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:34:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: New communication method, old-school In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jun 19, 9 00:28:40 am" Message-ID: <200906190434.n5J4Y4Pp011718@floodgap.com> > > > ticker is tapped off the 9VAC, but that's not essential to normal > > > operations, and in fact, I think you'd have a hard time finding > > > anything that used the TOD on the CIAs anyway. > > > > GEOS. > > Ah, well there you go then. That's too new for my experience. I had > no idea it used them. > So... add to the list... no 9VAC == no TOD ticker == GEOS issues. > Do you know if GEOS would not work, or would you get stagnant > timestamps on your files, or what? I imagine it would still boot, but yes, timestamps, the clock, etc. would be bugged and probably anything depending on them like calendar DAs and such. I also know some tools that wedged clocks into BASIC that used the TOD instead of the jiffy clock, simply because the TOD is easier to drive and ostensibly free of issues introduced by the inaccuracy of the Timer A IRQ. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Beware the Lollipop of Mediocrity: lick it once, and you suck forever! ----- From rodsmallwood at btconnect.com Thu Jun 18 23:45:34 2009 From: rodsmallwood at btconnect.com (Rod Smallwood) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:45:34 +0100 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <20090618130145.W50025@shell.lmi.net> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org><4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca><3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <20090618130145.W50025@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: Tha was not DEC's way. They tended to keep things or offer them to educational establishments. I can't imagine a conversation along the lines of: Q. "Please may we have your PDP-6 to preserve?" A. " No I want to scrap it" Its possible that TPL canabilised it for parts to keep other machines going. Rod Smallwood I collect and restore old computer equipment with this logo. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Fred Cisin Sent: 18 June 2009 21:04 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) > The real point is that the computer museum people knew of its existence and > yet failed in their duty to recover and save it after the DECUS event. What SHOULD they do when they know of existence of a machine, and the OWNER of the machine intends to scrap it rather than give it to the museum? What do you do? From doug at stillhq.com Fri Jun 19 00:13:14 2009 From: doug at stillhq.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:13:14 +1000 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: References: <145463.73618.qm@web55304.mail.re4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A3B1E6A.8000007@stillhq.com> I dont know if it is helpful, but I recovered the use of an old BIOS password protected Digital laptop once by shorting the serial data out line on the NVram chip to ground using a long wire that I routed outside the case, powering up the laptop, which then complained that the NVram was corrupt (gosh!) - I then entered the bios setup utility, typed in a new password, cut the wire, and pressed 'enter' to set the password (write it to memory) - Worked like a beaut. Doug escaped outside the caseDan Gahlinger wrote: > I wasn't missing the point, just trying to offer some suggestions. > > there may be a way to "short" the cmos to clear it, > sorry I can't help with IBM specifics, the link provided previously in regards to the Atmel chip looks like your best bet, > but also looks like you'll need to take apart more than you'd prefer. > > Dan. > > > >> Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:20:28 -0700 >> From: alhartman at yahoo.com >> Subject: RE: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> >> >> Dan, >> >> You seem to be missing the point of my request for help. >> >> 1. The laptop is worth about $50.00, I'm not spending $1200 to recover data off the HDD, and neither is my friend who it belongs to. She is upset losing the $100 it cost her two years ago. >> >> 2. The laptop doesn't boot. It asks for a password. This is in the BIOS. It can't be bypassed to boot from floppy or CD. Without this password, the system is bricked. There is no way to recover it other than changing the logic board and HDD. Since all I want is the HDD data, that is not the solution. >> >> There is a way to recover the password, but nobody will tell me where the TPM chip is located on the 600e logic board. I don't want to just take the laptop totally apart. I want to take as little apart as possible. >> >> I'm hoping someone knows the IBM master password so I can get into the bios and reset the system. Barring that, this system is junk. >> >> Thanks anyway. >> >> >> ----- Original Message ---- >> Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:06:28 -0400 >> From: Dan Gahlinger >> >> >> take it to a data recovery place, ask for a free estimate. >> be prepared to pay $1200 or more. >> >> as for the CMOS, you can still wipe it. >> >> remove the HDD, then boot either floppy or CD that would bypass that password, >> would also confirm exactly how it is locked. >> >> you can still try to contact IBM for recovery (for a large fee I suspect) >> otherwise you're SOL >> >> Dan. >> > > _________________________________________________________________ > Windows Live helps you keep up with all your friends, in one place. > http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9660826 From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Jun 19 00:40:57 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:40:57 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org><4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca><3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <20090618130145.W50025@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A3B24EA.7D3AF6E2@cs.ubc.ca> Rod Smallwood wrote: > > Tha was not DEC's way. They tended to keep things or offer them to > educational establishments. I can't imagine a conversation along the lines > of: Q. "Please may we have your PDP-6 to preserve?" > A. " No I want to scrap it" > > Its possible that TPL canabilised it for parts to keep other machines going. TPL ? From bqt at softjar.se Thu Jun 18 04:30:03 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:30:03 +0200 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3A091B.9030100@softjar.se> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 17, 2009, at 4:40 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> > But I don't lioke changing the classic machine. Not even replacing >> > PSUs >> > with switchers. The original PSU is part of the design, and I want to >> > keep it that way. > > While I agree with you here, I have to admit that, if my PDP-11/70 > had switching power supplies, I'd probably run it a lot more often. > I'd *never* make it an irreversible modification, though. Um. An 11/70 have switched power supplies normally. Did you remove them and install large transformers? That would become a very heavy machine in that case. :-) Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From axelsson at acc.umu.se Thu Jun 18 05:05:43 2009 From: axelsson at acc.umu.se (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=F6ran_Axelsson?=) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:05:43 +0200 Subject: sorry no manual but... was Re: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual In-Reply-To: <138107.43508.qm@web65502.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <138107.43508.qm@web65502.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A3A1177.8000000@acc.umu.se> I have a large number of Nokia VDU 301, white phosphor VT220 terminals based on 80186 and NEC D7220AD. If you want a board just let me know, I'll rip one out and send it to you if you cover postage. /G?ran Chris M wrote: > Sorry Andrew, I wish I had it myself (just so I could sleep w/it under my pillow and brag). I do have several boards that use the 7220. If you want digital photos of any or all, I'd be happy (but something less then joyous) to provide them. They might provide the clues you need in the absence of a bona fide manual. Included in that list would be the NEC APC vid board, the NEC APC III, and probably a few others. > > --- On Wed, 6/10/09, Andrew Lynch wrote: > > >> From: Andrew Lynch >> Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 8:45 PM >> Hi! Does anyone have the NEC >> uPD7220/GDC Design Manual? >> >> >> >> I am looking for one as part of research on building a home >> brew NEC 7220 >> video board. >> >> >> >> On a related but different subject if anyone is interested, >> I just got the >> N8VEM VDU board working (SY6545 based) and there are photos >> in the N8VEM >> wiki. >> >> >> >> http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=VDU >> >> >> >> Thanks and have a nice day! >> >> Andrew Lynch >> >> From jws at jwsss.com Thu Jun 18 10:02:41 2009 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:02:41 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org><4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> Message-ID: <4A3A5711.5040301@jwsss.com> Not acceptable (to me). People who are in the mix in a Museum setting are operating on a continuous basis of not enough resources, not enough time and general attitudes which generally have no awareness of what they are doing and why they are doing it. It is always a tragedy when an artifact gets lost, but I don't think that your comment does service to all who posted to this list on the topic that are currently in the museum business, and what they have done. Maybe someone at the time slipped up on this artifact, and others assumed the problem was handled. But to shame everyone considering the thousands of things they have saved is pretty much a bad call. You can have your opinion and call, but I do not agree with it. Respectfully Jim Rod Smallwood wrote: > Everybody saying 'not I' does not alter the fact that a priceless piece of > computer history is at best missing and at worst destroyed. > > The real point is that the computer museum people knew of its existence and > yet failed in their duty to recover and save it after the DECUS event. > > Shame on you all!! > > > > Rod Smallwood > > > From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 18 13:26:43 2009 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:26:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual Message-ID: <724991.34454.qm@web65508.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> remember the APC had the ability to pan on a larger virtual "scree". The native resolution was 640 x 400/or 480. The virtual screen was like twice that (at least). That might be the reason for the complexity. I've seen much less dense boards based on the 7220. JOOC, where are you getting these 7220s from? --- On Wed, 6/17/09, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > From: Peter C. Wallace > Subject: RE:NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Date: Wednesday, June 17, 2009, 9:45 PM > On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Andrew Lynch > wrote: > > > Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:37:04 -0400 > > From: Andrew Lynch > > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic > Posts" > > > > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > Subject: RE:NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual > > > > --- On Wed, 6/10/09, Andrew Lynch wrote: > > interested in selling it? I contacted NEC and > they didn't know anything > > about it. Apparently very few people still have > the manual and bitsavers > > doesn't have it either. I did some library > searches but no luck although it > > is cited as a reference in a couple of college papers > like masters thesis, > > etc. > > > > What I really need to know is if I can implement a > simple circuit using few > > enough 74LS TTL ICs to fit on a Eurocard ECB > board. That means it can't be > > more than about 30 maximum. Using high capacity > SRAMs should help but I > > think it requires some funky latching mechanisms to > share the video address > > and data lines. > > > > I looked at the NEC APC video board and it is just > huge. I hope that is not > > an indication of the complexity needed! > > > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > > > Andrew Lynch > > > > > Probably 30 would do, I have in front of me a S100 card > with a 7220. 128KB of > 64 Kb DRAM and 31 TTL ICs... > > > Peter Wallace > Mesa Electronics > > (\__/) > (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your > (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. > > From leaknoil at comcast.net Thu Jun 18 15:00:25 2009 From: leaknoil at comcast.net (Pete) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:00:25 -0700 Subject: Cypher tape drive available on CL Bay Area In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3A9CD9.8070305@comcast.net> This may be something only someone on this list might be after. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/sys/1227134894.html From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 18 15:24:03 2009 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:24:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual Message-ID: <168875.65083.qm@web65509.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 6/18/09, Tony Duell wrote: > the older one was the 7220 + DRAM + TTL + a chracter > generator EPROM. It "older one" as in earlier model QX10 or QX10 as opposed to QX16? I have a 10, w/the Titan 8088 board if anyone needs pics of that. From julianskidmore at yahoo.com Thu Jun 18 18:26:24 2009 From: julianskidmore at yahoo.com (Julian Skidmore) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:26:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: British Computers, was: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys Message-ID: <526801.35245.qm@web37107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> bfranchuk wrote: > My gripe with British Computers of that era, No floppy drive of any kind. Sure, if British=Sinclair. But if British=Acorn or British=Dragon Data (wow) or British=Amstrad or British=Nascom or British=... well you get the picture. But who would even want to complain about the cheap and cheerful Speccy? At only 175ukp in 1982 it was cheaper than a modern netbook and single- handedly put computers into the sticky, but impoverished hands of around 2% of Brits. You gotta give'em a bit of Kudos ;-) ! Speaking of QDOS - Sinclair's uber-cheap 68008 QL also fell into Linus Torvolds young paws; setting him on the road to fame and fortune - kinda handy that :-) ! -cheers from julz @P From jws at jwsss.com Fri Jun 19 00:38:47 2009 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:38:47 -0700 Subject: IBM 3420 tape drive and 3803 controller available (with pictures) In-Reply-To: <733577.83618.qm@web82606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <733577.83618.qm@web82606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A3B2467.1020803@jwsss.com> Looks like the parting out may have started already, because the guy just listed a drive motor from a "vintage" IBM 3420. I wondered if the guy would resist a hack job and getting several hundred for the nice control panel in the back of the 3803. Jim William Maddox wrote: > The seller for eBay item # 250445866736 has a complete 3420 tape drive > and 3803 controller available. Located in Ladysmithc, Wisconsin. They > are due to be parted out if no one speaks up for them. > > From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 00:50:59 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:50:59 -0400 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <200906182225.06053.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <20090618153006.D67986@shell.lmi.net> <200906182225.06053.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4A3B2743.4050002@gmail.com> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Thursday 18 June 2009, Fred Cisin wrote: >>>> cracked by brute-force, eg "1234567890" while long, wouldn't be >>>> hard. >> On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Christian Kennedy wrote: >>> I include "patently obvious" and "only chosen by idiots" in the >>> category of "social attack". >> "Remind me to change the combination on my luggage!" > > I believe that was "1234" ;) "12345", actually. Peace... Sridhar From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 19 01:03:54 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:03:54 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3A091B.9030100@softjar.se> References: <4A3A091B.9030100@softjar.se> Message-ID: <47CDADFC-D395-4A19-B0EF-366751AD9CAA@neurotica.com> On Jun 18, 2009, at 5:30 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: >>> > But I don't lioke changing the classic machine. Not even >>> replacing > PSUs >>> > with switchers. The original PSU is part of the design, and I >>> want to >>> > keep it that way. >> While I agree with you here, I have to admit that, if my >> PDP-11/70 had switching power supplies, I'd probably run it a lot >> more often. I'd *never* make it an irreversible modification, >> though. > > Um. An 11/70 have switched power supplies normally. Did you remove > them and install large transformers? That would become a very heavy > machine in that case. :-) Nope, see my other message...it already has large transformers, and it is definitely a very heavy machine! ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Jun 19 01:08:55 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:08:55 -0600 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A3B2743.4050002@gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <20090618153006.D67986@shell.lmi.net> <200906182225.06053.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A3B2743.4050002@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3B2B77.90902@jetnet.ab.ca> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> I believe that was "1234" ;) > > "12345", actually. With all the warnings *not to use #####* that might be the safest thing to use. The real problem is you need a password for everything now days on the net. I gotta do better than just scraps of paper for notes! > Peace... Sridhar PS ... who would want old clothing any how :) From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Jun 19 01:14:48 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:14:48 -0700 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org><4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca><3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <20090618130145.W50025@shell.lmi.net> <4A3B24EA.7D3AF6E2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A3B2CD8.7716F94A@cs.ubc.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > > Rod Smallwood wrote: > > > > Tha was not DEC's way. They tended to keep things or offer them to > > educational establishments. I can't imagine a conversation along the lines > > of: Q. "Please may we have your PDP-6 to preserve?" > > A. " No I want to scrap it" > > > > Its possible that TPL canabilised it for parts to keep other machines going. > > TPL ? Scratch the question. Found it in one of your earlier messages: Traditional Product Line. From spedraja at ono.com Fri Jun 19 01:27:49 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:27:49 +0200 Subject: Doing DU0 bootable with RT11 5.3 from one TU58 In-Reply-To: <43E02A3F-55B0-46D7-8116-73F5298997A9@neurotica.com> References: <43E02A3F-55B0-46D7-8116-73F5298997A9@neurotica.com> Message-ID: Thank you, David. The information is correct. I installed succesfully RT11 5.3 in the ESDI drive. And, by now, at least can start my PDP-11/23 PLUS with one Operating System :-) Complementing previous information, the system has (by now) 2044Kw (4Mb) of memory in a couple of memory boards, and one Dilog DQ696 with its own setup ROM in 175000. This is important, because I can't bootstrap the DU (by now too) from the "START?" prompt of the PDP-11/23 PLUS and I must do it from the ODT prompt with this sequence: START? Y @175000G *DU0 If I've read my manuals correctly I think that is possible to automate this with switches in the DQ696 and the PDP cpu and front panel. I leave the previous messages below of this answer for someone that want to use it for configuration purposes. Thanks again. Regards. Sergio 2009/6/18 Dave McGuire > On Jun 18, 2009, at 5:18 PM, SPC wrote: > >> I started one virtual TU58 with RT11 5.3 from the COM1 of my laptop in my >> PDP-11/23 PLUS using TU58EM. >> >> In the same machine I have one DILOG DQ696 with one ESDI hard drive of 768 >> Mb. I want to convert the ESDI drive in a bootable device with RT11. >> >> I've initialized the DU0 and copied the complete system from the DD0 >> (TU58) >> >> Searching for the fast path to continue... Someone knows what must I do >> exactly now to continue ? Thanks in advance. >> > > If you're certain the target disk contains DU.SYS (or DUX.SYS as > appropriate), you'll need to make it bootable. For example, this is how to > do it using RT11SJ. This is from memory, you may want to double-check the > syntax in the help system: > > . COPY/BOOT:DU DU0:RT11SJ DU0: > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 19 02:14:47 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:14:47 -0700 Subject: Cypher tape drive available on CL Bay Area In-Reply-To: <4A3A9CD9.8070305@comcast.net> References: , <4A3A9CD9.8070305@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A3AD877.27264.1C1C1E3C@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jun 2009 at 13:00, Pete wrote: > > This may be something only someone on this list might be after. > > http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/sys/1227134894.html Darn--I was looking for one of the "square reel" Ciphers... :) --Chuck From quapla at xs4all.nl Fri Jun 19 02:38:58 2009 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (Ed Groenenberg) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:38:58 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Speaking of rediculous prices Message-ID: <38086.212.67.167.228.1245397138.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Have a look at item 300323705513 on ebay. A rather high price imo. Not affiliated etc. etc. etc.. -- Certified : VCP 3.x, SCSI 3.x SCSA S10, SCNA S10 From james at jfc.org.uk Fri Jun 19 02:47:51 2009 From: james at jfc.org.uk (James Carter) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:47:51 +0100 Subject: hp laserjet 4si Message-ID: <1245397671.26389.12.camel@voltaire.home.net> does anyone in the UK want one of these? it has postscript support, a duplex unit and a jet direct card. it was working fine until last week when it started displaying a "54 service" error. i have a spare maintenance kit (with fuser) and an unused toner cartridge for it. i expect the maintenance kit would get it going again, but to be honest i'd rather free up the (considerable) space. this would be pickup only from york.? it would be yorkshire's favourite price, of course. i'll help you carry it downstairs too! if you want it, let me know within the next week, or it might find a less loving home... -- James F. Carter www.jfc.org.uk www.podquiz.com www.starringthecomputer.com From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Jun 19 03:00:37 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:00:37 +0100 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3B1E6A.8000007@stillhq.com> References: <145463.73618.qm@web55304.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3B1E6A.8000007@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <1245398437.6710.3.camel@elric> On Fri, 2009-06-19 at 15:13 +1000, Doug Jackson wrote: > I dont know if it is helpful, but I recovered the use of an old BIOS > password protected Digital laptop once by shorting the serial data out > line on the NVram chip to ground using a long wire that I routed outside > the case, powering up the laptop, which then complained that the NVram > was corrupt (gosh!) - I then entered the bios setup utility, typed in a > new password, cut the wire, and pressed 'enter' to set the password > (write it to memory) - Worked like a beaut. The thing is, would that also clear the hard disk password? Probably not. Recovering the password from the NVRAM sounds like the way to go, assuming it's one password for the whole lot. Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Jun 19 03:03:46 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:03:46 +0100 Subject: British Computers, was: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <526801.35245.qm@web37107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <526801.35245.qm@web37107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1245398626.6710.5.camel@elric> On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 16:26 -0700, Julian Skidmore wrote: > > bfranchuk wrote: > > My gripe with British Computers of that era, No floppy drive of any kind. > > Sure, if British=Sinclair. Are we talking about "as manufactured" or "available"? By the mid-80s floppy disk interfaces for the Spectrum were both common and cheap. I got together the bits to build one, but never got it off the ground before important things like "O" Grades and girls kicked in. Gordon From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Jun 19 03:17:27 2009 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:17:27 -0700 Subject: Speaking of rediculous prices References: <38086.212.67.167.228.1245397138.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <4A3B4998.F1C89B26@cs.ubc.ca> Ed Groenenberg wrote: > > Have a look at item 300323705513 on ebay. > > A rather high price imo. If he sells that for $4000, I'll sell this http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/eec/calcs/Monroe610.html to the buyer for $2000 to sit right beside it on the desk. From amouses at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 03:41:20 2009 From: amouses at gmail.com (Marcus Bennett) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:41:20 +0200 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... Message-ID: <95ddf3400906190141x59e7b729k4535a5794c30c1b0@mail.gmail.com> Well a lot could be said about passwords! I have not seen all the posts but you need to clearly say the exact 4 digit IBM machine type and additional submodel code so everybody clearly knows the exact laptop you are fixing. Also identify which password you are trying to recover. I suggest the first point of call is the maintenance manual here IBM Thinkpad 600E maintenance manual http://www.linuxfocus.org/~guido/gentoo-tp600e/600e_hw_maintenance_manual.pdf This will tell you about the different passwords: e.g. Power-On, Supervisor, Hard Disk .... It appears that for a 600E you can reset the Power On Password by shorting pads onthe motherboard. --------- I did find an entertaining article about hacking the Supervisor password http://sodoityourself.com/hacking-ibm-thinkpad-bios-password/ This sounds ideal if you really like soldering and have a lot of free time on your hands. Let us all know how you get on! PS: As an aside, if anybody has a good article on how exactly hard disk passwords work, please post the link. I never quite figured out the exact mechanism of storing the HDD password, and communicating it to the BIOS/OS on first access. regards marcus b. From binarydinosaurs at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 03:49:40 2009 From: binarydinosaurs at gmail.com (Adrian Graham) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:49:40 +0100 Subject: DECserver 90TL to VT (VT320/VT420/VT520) terminal via 4 wire RJ45->MMJ connection? In-Reply-To: <000601c9f053$60473140$20d593c0$@co.uk> References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> <000601c9f053$60473140$20d593c0$@co.uk> Message-ID: <53e388f20906190149y6b2807ccvc2cd18b7a23571a8@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 9:28 PM, Mark Wickens wrote: > Hi, I'd like to utilise an existing cable that runs between three floors in > the house which is similar to decconnect cable but only has > 4 wires. My question is whether it is possible to run a serial cable > between > a 90TL and a VT terminal using only four wires, and if so which four? If I > enable ^S/^Q flow control can I do without the outmost DTR/DSR pins? > > Thanks for the help, Mark. > > According to my DECserver 700 manual you can get away with pins 2,3,4 and 5 if you're using XON/XOFF. -- -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk From mike at brickfieldspark.org Fri Jun 19 04:12:10 2009 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:12:10 +0100 Subject: [personal] Re: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org><4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca><3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <20090618130145.W50025@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <001501c9f0be$0aafb6b0$961ca8c0@mss.local> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Cisin" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 9:04 PM Subject: [personal] Re: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) >> The real point is that the computer museum people knew of its existence >> and >> yet failed in their duty to recover and save it after the DECUS event. > > What SHOULD they do when they know of existence of a machine, and the > OWNER of the machine intends to scrap it rather than give it to the > museum? > > What do you do? > Plead, beg, make the best case for recovery they can to the owner, offer to do the work of removal at no cost to the owner, Etc. Mike. > From pdp11 at saccade.com Fri Jun 19 05:39:10 2009 From: pdp11 at saccade.com (J. Peterson) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:39:10 -0700 Subject: Computer Graphics History Museum Release 0.1: Visible Storage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200906191039.n5JAdcfo049320@keith.ezwind.net> >I am pleased to announce the first public opening of the Computer >Graphics History Museum in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. Wow, sounds cool. Is the PS390 a raster display? One piece of hardware I'd really enjoy seeing again is the PS300. This was a really high-end vector display for CAD work. The best configurations had knob boxes and keyboards with alphanumeric LED legends you could set. The quality of the display is something I've never seen duplicated, even on modern LCD panels. Do any of these still exist? SLC would seem like a better than average place to find one. Cheers, jp From pdp11 at saccade.com Fri Jun 19 05:39:10 2009 From: pdp11 at saccade.com (J. Peterson) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:39:10 -0700 Subject: Computer Graphics History Museum Release 0.1: Visible Storage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200906191039.n5JAdc0O049321@keith.ezwind.net> >I am pleased to announce the first public opening of the Computer >Graphics History Museum in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. Wow, sounds cool. Is the PS390 a raster display? One piece of hardware I'd really enjoy seeing again is the PS300. This was a really high-end vector display for CAD work. The best configurations had knob boxes and keyboards with alphanumeric LED legends you could set. The quality of the display is something I've never seen duplicated, even on modern LCD panels. Do any of these still exist? SLC would seem like a better than average place to find one. Cheers, jp From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Fri Jun 19 05:54:26 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:54:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Linus 1st Computer, Re: British Computers, Message-ID: <613286.20048.qm@web112202.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I think his Grandfather's VIC-20 did that. He was programming on that as a child. He bought the QL later on.. --- On Thu, 6/18/09, Julian Skidmore wrote: > > Speaking of QDOS - Sinclair's uber-cheap 68008 QL also fell > into Linus > Torvolds young paws; setting him on the road to fame and > fortune - > kinda handy that :-) ! > > -cheers from julz @P From wmaddox at pacbell.net Fri Jun 19 06:26:13 2009 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:26:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Speaking of rediculous prices Message-ID: <950374.23589.qm@web82603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 6/19/09, Ed Groenenberg wrote: > Have a look at item 300323705513 on ebay. > > A rather high price imo. The VT05 is exceedingly rare, and much desired. It is quite possible the seller will get his price, though not from me. Gotta love that 70's styling, though. --Bill From spedraja at ono.com Fri Jun 19 06:59:35 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:59:35 +0200 Subject: Installing and running other OS than RT11 and XXDP (with TU58 emu) or BSD (with Vtserver) Message-ID: As I told in a previous message, I was success installing RT11 v5.3 in one ESDI drive managed with one Dilog DQ696 (treated as a DU drive) in one PDP11 where I boot with one copy of this OS managed with TU58EM (TU58 emulator) from one PC laptop. I shall try in a while to install BSD2.11 with Vtserver, and to start XXDP from TU58EM. But I should like to ask to ask everybody insterested about this question: Can I install other OS in the PDP11 using these pieces of software (Vtserver and TU58em) ? I was thinking in other versions of Unix previous to BSD2.11, or other OS as RSTS, IAS, RSX or DSM. By the way... Is this one (DSM-11) available in some form ? I know of one copy from one member of this list which was available some years ago but this is lost actually as far as I know. Regards Sergio From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 08:33:31 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:33:31 -0400 Subject: Speaking of rediculous prices In-Reply-To: <950374.23589.qm@web82603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <950374.23589.qm@web82603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 7:26 AM, William Maddox wrote: > --- On Fri, 6/19/09, Ed Groenenberg wrote: > > Have a look at item 300323705513 on ebay. > > > > A rather high price imo. > > The VT05 is exceedingly rare, and much desired. Indeed. I've been using and buying DEC equipment for 27 years. I've never seen one in the wild. Plenty of VT52s and plenty of ASR-33s, but never a VT05, not even in a dusty back room. >?It is quite possible the seller will get his price, though not from me. Agreed. I'm not going to put up that kind of cash, but someone might. > Gotta love that 70's styling, though. It's, um, special. ISTR it appears on a handbook cover of the era, in front of the rack of whatever machine it's attached to. I can't say that I agree with the message on the screen, though - I don't think it would make a good console for a PDP-8 or 11/20... consoles for those tended to be either ASR-33 for the papertape and TTY era, or for later machines with boot ROMs and floppy drives, VT52s. I really don't know where the VT05 fit into things. I think it was only available for a short time compared to its predecessors and successors, and wasn't very popular because of its limitations compared with pretty much every other option (no paper tape or a small screen). -ethan From slawmaster at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 09:52:49 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:52:49 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <7C1DDB20-88BE-4096-B52A-00DA0AA4E759@neurotica.com> References: <4A39DEDB.20407@databasics.us> <200906180954.32287.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A3ACBD7.3070401@databasics.us> <7C1DDB20-88BE-4096-B52A-00DA0AA4E759@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220906190752x6012f0f7ub8514c2ab229c50e@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 7:23 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 18, 2009, at 7:20 PM, Warren Wolfe wrote: >> >> No.... ?I figured that three phase would be drawing 13 kVA of each branch, >> thus equating to to about three times the current in a single phase system. >> ?And electricity here (The Big Island of Hawai'i) is about 35 cents per >> kilowatt hour. ?Seriously. > > ?Jeeeeezus! ?Time to move! > > ? ? ? ? -Dave > For some odd reason, the islands that probably have the most "Save the Planet"-type bumper stickers per capita, a steady supply of wind, and lots of sun... are powered by diesel generators. Using diesel shipped from the mainland. Hawaii is a strange (but beautiful and interesting) place, as I learned on my 3-month work stint in Maui. John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From jpero at sympatico.ca Fri Jun 19 10:03:15 2009 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero at sympatico.ca) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:03:15 +0000 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: References: <145463.73618.qm@web55304.mail.re4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: IBM/Lenovo implemented different levels of security from weak to strongest (supervisor's password is one of such) and reason this is not possible to recover a machine that has supervisor's pwd set without a pwd but there are work around, hence the link I gave here. Clearing a CMOS *will not work* on this particular design IBM/Lenovo implmented in their Thinkpads/Lenovo. This is main reason so much businesses specify the thindpads for this reason. Same with Blackberry due to way their management with data is secure and remote management as well. This is reason apple couldn't secure wide use in this particular area because iphone/itouch does not have security/programs running in background/management programs to control them from central site in their businesses like Thinkpad/Dell does. Supervisor pwd locks the computer tighter and locks the hard drive out with a encoded data that is not possible to extracted without this following method to crack the supervisor pwd. Once you have the correct pwd and entered thus, computer will unlock everything and go directly into bios set up screen and *disable all pwds*. Then you are home free and data is now accessible once again. Reason need the thinkpad running so the second PC running software dump can extract (snooping) the raw data while thinkpad reads the IC during boot up is raw because it is encrypted on the 8 pin EEPROM. Then a another software is run to decode the extracted data with a decoding pass so you can find the actual password at specific location as shown. That what wires and some easily made homebrewed circuit with few simple components hooked into thinkpad and a second PC with said software is necessary to pull this off. This cracking methods is different across different makes and works on majority of thinkpads/lenovos. Your 600e is one of them that you can do this method. Cheers, Wizard _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live helps you keep up with all your friends, in one place. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9660826 From jpero at sympatico.ca Fri Jun 19 10:13:30 2009 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero at sympatico.ca) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:13:30 +0000 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <145463.73618.qm@web55304.mail.re4.yahoo.com> References: <145463.73618.qm@web55304.mail.re4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hi, Have you checked this link? Requires some work to construct this little circuit (easily sourced from junk boards as diodes/resistors are jellybean items and a connector chopped from serial cable laying around that you have too many of or get one from Saver/Value Village for few bucks.) and bit of disassembly of thinkpad, not too bad to do and it is required. The IC is small SMD 8 pin with Atmel as shown in the FAQ. Make 3 wires disconnectable/connectable with some way of connectors from junk pile so you don't have to be so careful connecting/disconnecting right on the chip itself in live thinkpad. http://sodoityourself.com/hacking-ibm-thinkpad-bios-password/ Data is too important so have to do this done to unlock a thinkpad. Cheers, Wizard ---------------------------------------- > Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:20:28 -0700 > From: alhartman at yahoo.com > Subject: RE: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > > Dan, > > You seem to be missing the point of my request for help. > > 1. The laptop is worth about $50.00, I'm not spending $1200 to recover data off the HDD, and neither is my friend who it belongs to. She is upset losing the $100 it cost her two years ago. > > 2. The laptop doesn't boot. It asks for a password. This is in the BIOS. It can't be bypassed to boot from floppy or CD. Without this password, the system is bricked. There is no way to recover it other than changing the logic board and HDD. Since all I want is the HDD data, that is not the solution. > > There is a way to recover the password, but nobody will tell me where the TPM chip is located on the 600e logic board. I don't want to just take the laptop totally apart. I want to take as little apart as possible. > > I'm hoping someone knows the IBM master password so I can get into the bios and reset the system. Barring that, this system is junk. > > Thanks anyway. > > > ----- Original Message ---- > Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:06:28 -0400 > From: Dan Gahlinger > > > take it to a data recovery place, ask for a free estimate. > be prepared to pay $1200 or more. > > as for the CMOS, you can still wipe it. > > remove the HDD, then boot either floppy or CD that would bypass that password, > would also confirm exactly how it is locked. > > you can still try to contact IBM for recovery (for a large fee I suspect) > otherwise you're SOL > > Dan. _________________________________________________________________ We are your photos. Share us now with Windows Live Photos. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9666047 From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 11:01:36 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:01:36 -0400 Subject: [personal] Re: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <001501c9f0be$0aafb6b0$961ca8c0@mss.local> References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <20090618130145.W50025@shell.lmi.net> <001501c9f0be$0aafb6b0$961ca8c0@mss.local> Message-ID: > Plead, beg, make the best case for recovery they can to the owner, offer to do the work of removal at no cost to the owner, Etc. And then the scrapper comes in with MONEY...and drives away with the machine. A lesson learned? -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 11:05:13 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:05:13 -0400 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <20090618130145.W50025@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: > Tha was not DEC's way. They tended to keep things or offer them to > educational establishments. I can't imagine a conversation along the lines > of: Q. "Please may we have your PDP-6 to preserve?" > ? ?A. " No I want to scrap it" In the early 1980s? From every DEChead I have talked to, the early 1980s was a time for change in DEC - the company "grew up" and became far more corporate. Many say DEC lost their soul in the 1980s. And was't Jupiter killed about this time? The PDP-6 could have fallen just for spite. -- Will From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Fri Jun 19 11:24:13 2009 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:24:13 -0700 Subject: 723 Switcher; was Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys References: Message-ID: <001f01c9f0fa$62a48850$0201a8c0@hal9000> All of the early datasheets " TALK " about the 723 being used as a switcher. TI, Fairchild, and Intersil actually have a switching circuit. Philips, Signetics and SGS Thomson do not have a switching circuit on the datasheet. SGS Thomson has an internal schematic of the 723. Best regards, Steven > > Incidentally, the 723, as I am sure you know, is a 'regulator building > kit' consisting of a reference voltage source and an op-amp in one > package (OK, that's a slight simplification...) It can be wired as either > a linear regulators (op-amp as the error amplifier, possibly driving an > external pass transistor) or a switcher. > > I've heard a rumour that early 723 data sheets only show it as a linear > regulator, the designers didn't realise it could be used as a switcher. > After it started getting used in the latter configuration, example > circuits were added to the data sheet. Does anyone have an early 723 data > sheet which doesn't show a swtiching regulator circuit? > > -tony From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 19 11:35:49 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:35:49 -0700 Subject: [personal] Re: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: References: , <001501c9f0be$0aafb6b0$961ca8c0@mss.local>, Message-ID: <4A3B5BF5.8274.1E1DD0B5@cclist.sydex.com> On 19 Jun 2009 at 12:01, William Donzelli wrote: > And then the scrapper comes in with MONEY...and drives away with the > machine. Let me also add, as others have said, that hindsight is 20-20. The 1960s and 1970s were a time of huge upheaval in the computing business. Consider just the decade between 1964 and 1974--from the introduction of the IBM System/360 to the introduction of the MITS Altair. By about 1980, the scrapyards were awash in obsolete big iron. Who wanted it or could even say what was worth preserving? Would any of the list members now take it on themselves to accumulate all of the Pentium I PCs that they could get their hands on? How about CRT monitors? Yet I'll wager that in 30 years, those things will be sought after eagerly by collectors. For my part, today I'm taking a fixed-frequency HP workstation monitor down to the recyclers. It's a nice unit, but it's large and heavy and an LCD gives a better display. No point to keeping it at all. --Chuck From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 11:38:33 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:38:33 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> References: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 10:46 AM, Brian Lanning wrote: >> Make sure that the SCSI chain is properly terminated. ?If you're using >> internal and external devices, confirm that both ends are terminated >> properly and neither end is double terminated. ? Check the SCSI IDs being >> used by all devices on the chain. There was a resistor pack (looked like an IC) on the hard drive, but it wasn't seated correctly. I pushed it in, but no change. I'll keep looking. brian From ian_primus at yahoo.com Fri Jun 19 11:43:52 2009 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:43:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [personal] Re: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) Message-ID: <224169.4705.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 6/19/09, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Would any of > the list members now take it on themselves to accumulate > all of the > Pentium I PCs that they could get their hands on? How > about CRT > monitors? I collect old CRT monitors. Primarily early workstaion monitors, monochrome monitors, unusual monitors and early VGA monitors. I collect them to go with the old computers I collect. I hate using old iron with new monitors. Doesn't seem right somehow. And, I have a real hatred of LCD monitors. CRT's have much better picture, IMHO. > For my part, today I'm taking a fixed-frequency HP > workstation > monitor down to the recyclers. It's a nice unit, but > it's large and > heavy and an LCD gives a better display. No point to > keeping it at > all. You shouldn't scrap that! For one, that's exactly the kind of monitor I've been looking for for a long time now, and for two - it's important to preserve this kind of hardware. I mean, sure, you _can_ use an LCD with an old HP workstation, but would you want to? Not exactly accurate, if you ask me. -Ian From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jun 19 12:04:11 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:04:11 -0700 Subject: [personal] Re: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: <224169.4705.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <224169.4705.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A3BC50B.9090208@bitsavers.org> Mr Ian Primus wrote: >> For my part, today I'm taking a fixed-frequency HP >> workstation >> monitor down to the recyclers. It's a nice unit, but >> it's large and >> heavy and an LCD gives a better display. No point to >> keeping it at >> all. > > You shouldn't scrap that! For one, that's exactly the kind of monitor I've been looking for for a long time now Space, as well as time, is money. I've stopped holding on to things because someone else might want it some day. If you want it, I suggest you offer to pay shipping to get it. From mross666 at hotmail.com Fri Jun 19 13:21:36 2009 From: mross666 at hotmail.com (Mike Ross) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:21:36 +0000 Subject: Computer Graphics History Museum Release 0.1: Visible Storage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Wow, sounds cool. Is the PS390 a raster display? One piece of > hardware I'd really enjoy seeing again is the PS300. This was a > really high-end vector display for CAD work. The best configurations > had knob boxes and keyboards with alphanumeric LED legends you could > set. The quality of the display is something I've never seen > duplicated, even on modern LCD panels. > > Do any of these still exist? SLC would seem like a better than > average place to find one I have a PS300, possibly two, with all the displays, keyboards, dials and buttons, manuals, and software for the host system. I gave an additional unit to Jim Austin in the UK. Later this year I hope to start playing with it, will get material online in my copious free time. Mike http://www.corestore.org _________________________________________________________________ Bing? brings you maps, menus, and reviews organized in one place. Try it now. http://www.bing.com/search?q=restaurants&form=MLOGEN&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MLOGEN_Core_tagline_local_1x1 From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 19 13:25:40 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:25:40 -0400 Subject: Installing and running other OS than RT11 and XXDP (with TU58 emu) or BSD (with Vtserver) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jun 19, 2009, at 7:59 AM, SPC wrote: > Can I install other OS in the PDP11 using these pieces of software > (Vtserver > and TU58em) ? > > I was thinking in other versions of Unix previous to BSD2.11, or > other OS as > RSTS, IAS, RSX or DSM. I have installed 2.11BSD via vtserver. Then I used the running 2.11BSD system to help install other operating systems, by generating disk images with simh, transferring them to the PDP11 via ftp and using "dd" to write them to real disks. -Dave > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From RichA at vulcan.com Fri Jun 19 13:53:22 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:53:22 -0700 Subject: The DEC Jupiter project cancellation [was RE: Stanford's PDP-6 ... In-Reply-To: References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org> <4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca> <3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local> <20090618130145.W50025@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: > From: William Donzelli > Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 9:05 AM >> Tha was not DEC's way. They tended to keep things or offer them to >> educational establishments. I can't imagine a conversation along the lines >> of: Q. "Please may we have your PDP-6 to preserve?" >> A. " No I want to scrap it" > In the early 1980s? From every DEChead I have talked to, the early > 1980s was a time for change in DEC - the company "grew up" and became > far more corporate. Many say DEC lost their soul in the 1980s. > And was't Jupiter killed about this time? The PDP-6 could have fallen > just for spite. The cancellation of Jupiter[1] was announced at DECUS in May, 1983, the 20th Anniversary celebration a year and a half later, in December, 1984. I don't believe that the cancellation and the PDP-6 disappearance were related. In point of fact, the DECUS Large Systems SIG had enough influence that they were able to negotiate a continuation of support for the 36-bit line for a very long time: Digital agreed to continue hardware development for 5 years, and software development for 10. This gave us the MG20 memory (4MW in two boxes vs. 3MW in four boxes with MF20); the MCA25 cache (doubled the cache size); the CI interface, the HSC-50 and RA81 disk drives[2]; and the NIA-20 Ethernet interface[2]. It also gave us TOPS-20 versions 6.0, 6.1, and 7.0, and Tops-10 version 7.04.[3] This was a good thing. It gave the PDP-11, and later VAX, customers an example of what could be negotiated when those product lines were on the chopping block. [1] For those not familiar with the DEC 36-bit line, Jupiter was the code name for the follow-on to the KL-10 based systems (2040/2050/2060/2065 and 1080/1088/1090/1099/1095, defined by operating system and until the 1095/2065 by some microcode differences). It was expected to be called the 2090, although the sales materials produced immediately prior to the cancellation are labeled DECSYSTEM-4050. It was supposed to be a lot faster, but never reached even 50% of the expected speed improvement. As much as it pains me to say this, Digital was right to cancel it.[4] [2] OK, not everything was an improvement. [3] Possibly 7.03 as well, but I didn't work with Tops-10 until 5 years ago, and don't know the history well prior to chairing the DECUS session at which TOPS-20 v7 and Tops-10 v7.04 were announced. [4] Many many 36-bit customers turned away from Digital altogether following the Jupiter cancellation, replacing equipment with Sun or HP gear rather than VAX (or later Alpha), although a very few were able to hold out for the clones from System Concepts, and even fewer for the XKL Toad-1. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 14:09:42 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:09:42 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> References: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906191209t1120b9f8y790035b4c8c3e041@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 11:38 AM, Brian Lanning wrote: > On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 10:46 AM, Brian Lanning wrote: >>> Make sure that the SCSI chain is properly terminated. ?If you're using >>> internal and external devices, confirm that both ends are terminated >>> properly and neither end is double terminated. ? Check the SCSI IDs being >>> used by all devices on the chain. > > There was a resistor pack (looked like an IC) on the hard drive, but > it wasn't seated correctly. ?I pushed it in, but no change. ?I'll keep > looking. It was the disk. I have a new 7.6.1 cd that's currently booting. It worked the first try. :-) Thanks for the help. We'll see how far I get this time. brian From marvin at west.net Fri Jun 19 14:18:39 2009 From: marvin at west.net (Marvin Johnston) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:18:39 -0700 Subject: The Commodore 64 has a Twitter Client Message-ID: <4A3BE48F.9080505@west.net> I just saw this, and got a kick out it! http://gizmodo.com/5296046/good-god-even-the-commodore-64-has-a-twitter-client From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 14:30:35 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:30:35 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906191209t1120b9f8y790035b4c8c3e041@mail.gmail.com> References: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191209t1120b9f8y790035b4c8c3e041@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906191230j49f0143cu4ca51c93ccda154@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 2:09 PM, Brian Lanning wrote: > Thanks for the help. ?We'll see how far I get this time. Not very apparently. :-) So the 7.6.1 installer refuses to find the hard drive in the machine. It says there's no suitable hard drive on the scsi bus. I don't know the scsi id of the hard drive, but I tried two different IDs for the cdrom drive. Of course, it's a fight to get it to boot from the CD instead of finding the hosed hard drive, usually takes me 4 or 5 attempts. I have another scsi disk I could put in the machine. But think there's probably a way to make this one work. Does anyone have any idea what's happening? brian From doc at vaxen.net Fri Jun 19 14:38:07 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:38:07 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906191230j49f0143cu4ca51c93ccda154@mail.gmail.com> References: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191209t1120b9f8y790035b4c8c3e041@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191230j49f0143cu4ca51c93ccda154@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3BE91F.7080007@vaxen.net> Brian Lanning wrote: > On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 2:09 PM, Brian Lanning wrote: >> Thanks for the help. We'll see how far I get this time. > > Not very apparently. :-) > > So the 7.6.1 installer refuses to find the hard drive in the machine. > It says there's no suitable hard drive on the scsi bus. I don't know > the scsi id of the hard drive, but I tried two different IDs for the > cdrom drive. Of course, it's a fight to get it to boot from the CD > instead of finding the hosed hard drive, usually takes me 4 or 5 > attempts. I have another scsi disk I could put in the machine. But > think there's probably a way to make this one work. Does anyone have > any idea what's happening? 7.6.1 will only speak to Apple-branded SCSI disks. However, there's a patched set of MacOS 7.6.1 disk tools out there, shouldn't be hard to google up. Quick starter page: http://lowendmac.com/sable/07/mac-drive-setup-patch.html Doc From spedraja at ono.com Fri Jun 19 14:38:29 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:38:29 +0200 Subject: Installing and running other OS than RT11 and XXDP (with TU58 emu) or BSD (with Vtserver) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Mmm... Interesting technique. Some special parm to use DD to write the diverse OS's ? And with SIMH ? I was thinking in RSTS, for example. Regards Sergio 2009/6/19 Dave McGuire > On Jun 19, 2009, at 7:59 AM, SPC wrote: > >> Can I install other OS in the PDP11 using these pieces of software >> (Vtserver >> and TU58em) ? >> >> I was thinking in other versions of Unix previous to BSD2.11, or other OS >> as >> RSTS, IAS, RSX or DSM. >> > > I have installed 2.11BSD via vtserver. Then I used the running 2.11BSD > system to help install other operating systems, by generating disk images > with simh, transferring them to the PDP11 via ftp and using "dd" to write > them to real disks. > > -Dave > >> >> > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 14:46:21 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:46:21 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <4A3BE91F.7080007@vaxen.net> References: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191209t1120b9f8y790035b4c8c3e041@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191230j49f0143cu4ca51c93ccda154@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BE91F.7080007@vaxen.net> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906191246xb9456d1l777d51713301fb63@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 2:38 PM, Doc wrote: > ?7.6.1 will only speak to Apple-branded SCSI disks. ?However, there's a > patched set of MacOS 7.6.1 disk tools out there, shouldn't be hard to google > up. Shoot me. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 19 12:53:51 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:53:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect In-Reply-To: <38CC65DB-6D46-443D-813E-1D060447025F@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jun 18, 9 04:03:27 pm Message-ID: > > It is a computer, both in terms of the intenral architecture and the > > facilities it provides to the user, IMHO. Or at least I can't think > > of a > > sane defintion of 'computer' that would exclude it. > > You said "sane definition"...that's the key. Most of the unwashed > masses today will say "It's a calculator!" "Where's the mouse?" > "Where's the 'start' button?" This is classiccmp ;-). Most of the machines here don't have mide or 'start buttons' :-). If you're going to consider things like KIM1s to be 'computers' it's very hard to exclude the HP41.. How many 'calculators' do you know of that can be linked to a couple of 3.5" disk drives, a pen plotter, an inkjet printer, an RS232 interface, an HPIB interface, an 80 column video display and an ADC unit all at the same time. I've done that with an HP41. -tony > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 19 12:59:08 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:59:08 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> from "Ray Arachelian" at Jun 18, 9 04:15:21 pm Message-ID: > > Hi Tony, > > > Tony Duell wrote: > > For the machines I mentioned, the PDP8s, PDP11s, and Philips P800s have a > > hardware front panel that works even without any boot disks. You can > > toggle in short programs and run them -- certainly programs to cause > > > As soon as you do that, you're running software - even if your intention > of interacting with it is only to cause output on a scope, even if it's > one opcode at a time. :-) Technically, that is of course correct. But the original thread was clearly about things like operating syustems, applications, languages, etc. > Completely different from just powering up and admiring it (or using it > as a space heater, or listening to the fans.) Assming the CPU is not defective, and it's not being held in a reset or halt state, then it's executing instructions. Maybe just from random noise on the data bus, bnt it'll take that set of 1's and 0's as instructions. So a powered-up machines is probagly running some kind of 'software'. > > The former is obviously more > > interesting (as I said, I do try to get boot disks for my classics), but > > the latter is a lot better than nothing. > > > In the same way, running an emulator is a lot better than nothing, if > you don't have the actual machine. :-) No arguemtn with that. Oe perhaps one little one... I'd rather spend my time working on the hardware of a machine I do own (and I am not short of things to do...) than running an emulator for a machine that I don't. You may feel differently. Fine. I'm not going to stop you. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 19 14:19:06 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:19:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A3AD901.1030806@arachelian.com> from "Ray Arachelian" at Jun 18, 9 08:17:05 pm Message-ID: > I have taken exception to the anti-emulator sentiment, but that does not What anti-emulator sentiment? I can't find anything in this thread that claims that emulators are Bad Thing (or equivalent). The strongest is probably my statement that _I_ am not interested in emulators myself. Note I didn't say I didn't approve of people writing or using emulators, that I thought emualtors were ruining the hobby, or anything like that. Just that it's not my interest. I probalby won't get involved int threads on emulators, not because of any dislike of them, but simply because I have no knowledge of specific issues, and will leave the answers to those that do. If I anjoy looking at schematics for machines with several hundred (or more) chips, and probing around with a 'scope or logic analyser, that's my business. It's not harming anyone else. Similarly, if you prefer to run an emulator on the sort of machine I'd not want to own, that's your business. It's not harming anyone, it's certain;y not harming me. There are many aspects to this hobby, and I don't think anyone can be interested in them all. Let's just get on with the bits that interest us... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 19 13:08:31 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:08:31 +0100 (BST) Subject: DECserver 90TL to VT (VT320/VT420/VT520) terminal via 4 wire In-Reply-To: <000601c9f053$60473140$20d593c0$@co.uk> from "Mark Wickens" at Jun 18, 9 09:28:41 pm Message-ID: > > Hi, I'd like to utilise an existing cable that runs between three floors in > the house which is similar to decconnect cable but only has > 4 wires. My question is whether it is possible to run a serial cable between > a 90TL and a VT terminal using only four wires, and if so which four? If I > enable ^S/^Q flow control can I do without the outmost DTR/DSR pins? I've not tried it, but I can't see why it wouldn't work. As you suggest, you need the middle 4 pins o nthe connector. You _may_ need to strap DTR to DSR (i.e. the outer pins on the MMJ) together at each end, but I don;t think you do. DEC didn't normally use hardware flow control. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 19 13:59:09 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:59:09 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: from "Dave McGuire" at Jun 18, 9 05:34:10 pm Message-ID: > > Whatever have you done to it? AFAIK the 11/70 has switching > > regulators as > > standard (my 11/45 certainly does). Not the normal design of SMPSU (in > > that there's a big mains-frequency trasnformer on the input), but > > it's a > > switcher none-the-less. > > Yes...Huge transformer, big bridge rectifiers, LM723, big series > pass transistors...that says "linear" to me. :) I've never gotten But 'big series inductor and flyback diode' says 'switcher' to me... > deeply enough into the circuit I guess. I've been a DEChead all my > life, but still I learn something new from you guys every day!! I had to understand the cirucit after one of my -15V regulators almost literally exploded when I was debugging it. I made the silly mistake of disabling the overcurrent trip (lifted the collector of the sense transsitor), not realising the crowbar was firing. The result was transistors blown apart, a dead 723 -- and a blown fuse. Yes, I did get it going again (and even found out why the crowbar was firing). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 19 14:00:27 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:00:27 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <6c7bf5ce067e5e322a884ed0cf84f99d@bellsouth.net> from "blstuart@bellsouth.net" at Jun 18, 9 04:41:46 pm Message-ID: [723 regualtor as a swticher] > I just checked what I have. My 1977 Voltage Regulator > Handbook doesn't list it at all. My 1980 Linear Databook > includes a couple of switchers among the typical applications. > That would suggest such a data sheet would have to be > around 1978 or 79. You want to go back much further than that. DEC were using the 723 in a swithcing regulator circuit in 1972 (the date of my 11/45). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 19 14:03:07 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:03:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3AB84A.6E6343C1@cs.ubc.ca> from "Brent Hilpert" at Jun 18, 9 02:57:31 pm Message-ID: > National Application Notes AN1(1967), AN8(1968) and AN2(1969) show the LM100 > regulator IC in switching configs. Interesting. It looks like the rumour I heard about the 723 is false, in that it was known it could be used as a swticher from the start. > The LM100 looks like the predecessor to the 723, a reference and error amp in > one package. It disappears from later databooks, presumably obsoleted by the 723. I think that's right. I cam across an LM100 in something recently, probably something old and HP. Maybe a 6940 multiprogrammer??? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 19 14:35:37 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:35:37 +0100 (BST) Subject: Computer Graphics History Museum Release 0.1: Visible In-Reply-To: <200906191039.n5JAdcfo049320@keith.ezwind.net> from "J. Peterson" at Jun 19, 9 03:39:10 am Message-ID: > > > >I am pleased to announce the first public opening of the Computer > >Graphics History Museum in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. > > Wow, sounds cool. Is the PS390 a raster display? One piece of The PS390 is a raster display, but with all sorts of interesting featuers, like a hardware antialiasing chip ('Shadowfax' IIRC). It's a very high-end machine > hardware I'd really enjoy seeing again is the PS300. This was a > really high-end vector display for CAD work. The best configurations > had knob boxes and keyboards with alphanumeric LED legends you could The PS390 has that too. 8 characters (a pair of those 4 character HP LED display devices) for each fucntion key and knob. -tony From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 14:54:21 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:54:21 -0400 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906191246xb9456d1l777d51713301fb63@mail.gmail.com> References: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191209t1120b9f8y790035b4c8c3e041@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191230j49f0143cu4ca51c93ccda154@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BE91F.7080007@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191246xb9456d1l777d51713301fb63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Brian Lanning wrote: > > On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 2:38 PM, Doc wrote: > > ?7.6.1 will only speak to Apple-branded SCSI disks. ?However, there's a > > patched set of MacOS 7.6.1 disk tools out there, shouldn't be hard to google > > up. > > Shoot me. Yeah. I still have an Apple-branded 20MB and 400MB drive on the shelf for my old Mac stuff. Once you are up, you can install the FWB Toolkit to drop a brand-less driver on the front of your non-Apple drive, but getting up from original Apple media without an Apple drive was something of a challenge back in the day - normally, all Apple machines _came_ with Apple drives, so you were only totally screwed if your original drive died (or if you got a used machine that someone else replaced the drive in). I remember having all kinds of trouble with this about 12-14 years ago. I used floppy-based Macs in the early days (pre System-6.0), then went away (to Amigas and such), and when I came back to Macs newer than the Mac SE (Quadras and Mac IIs and such), I found several parts of the experience maddening - top of the list was Apple drive branding. Thanks for pointing out the patches, Doc. I would have *loved* to have had those back in 1996-1997. -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 19 15:12:53 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:12:53 -0400 Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <880D4C9B-6E18-458E-8D44-78635CDA8D7B@neurotica.com> On Jun 19, 2009, at 1:53 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >>> It is a computer, both in terms of the intenral architecture and the >>> facilities it provides to the user, IMHO. Or at least I can't think >>> of a >>> sane defintion of 'computer' that would exclude it. >> >> You said "sane definition"...that's the key. Most of the unwashed >> masses today will say "It's a calculator!" "Where's the mouse?" >> "Where's the 'start' button?" > > This is classiccmp ;-). Most of the machines here don't have mide or > 'start buttons' :-). If you're going to consider things like KIM1s > to be > 'computers' it's very hard to exclude the HP41.. *None* of my computers have "start" buttons. ;) > How many 'calculators' do you know of that can be linked to a > couple of > 3.5" disk drives, a pen plotter, an inkjet printer, an RS232 > interface, > an HPIB interface, an 80 column video display and an ADC unit all > at the > same time. I've done that with an HP41. They are glorious machines. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From doc at vaxen.net Fri Jun 19 15:36:17 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:36:17 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: References: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191209t1120b9f8y790035b4c8c3e041@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191230j49f0143cu4ca51c93ccda154@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BE91F.7080007@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191246xb9456d1l777d51713301fb63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3BF6C1.20402@vaxen.net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Brian Lanning wrote: >> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 2:38 PM, Doc wrote: >>> 7.6.1 will only speak to Apple-branded SCSI disks. However, there's a >>> patched set of MacOS 7.6.1 disk tools out there, shouldn't be hard to google >>> up. >> Shoot me. > Thanks for pointing out the patches, Doc. I would have *loved* to > have had those back in 1996-1997. You're welcome. They were around, at least by '97. I was overjoyed to find out I wasn't going to have to pay near-kilobux for a replacement disk.... Brian, I *think* I have a bootable CD with the patched HD Setup tools on it. If so, it'll be a 500-650MB download, burnable with anything that can burn a raw file. It has a lot of other awesome stuff on it, like the "Om" program. Want it? I can upload it tonight so it's available for download tomorrow. Doc From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 15:39:06 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:39:06 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: References: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191209t1120b9f8y790035b4c8c3e041@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191230j49f0143cu4ca51c93ccda154@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BE91F.7080007@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191246xb9456d1l777d51713301fb63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906191339n2a73a5e0wfe525ab3ca35810e@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 2:54 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Brian Lanning wrote: >> >> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 2:38 PM, Doc wrote: >> > ?7.6.1 will only speak to Apple-branded SCSI disks. ?However, there's a >> > patched set of MacOS 7.6.1 disk tools out there, shouldn't be hard to google >> > up. >> >> Shoot me. > > Yeah. ?I still have an Apple-branded 20MB and 400MB drive on the shelf > for my old Mac stuff. ?Once you are up, you can install the FWB > Toolkit to drop a brand-less driver on the front of your non-Apple > drive, but getting up from original Apple media without an Apple drive > was something of a challenge back in the day - normally, all Apple > machines _came_ with Apple drives, so you were only totally screwed if > your original drive died (or if you got a used machine that someone > else replaced the drive in). > > I remember having all kinds of trouble with this about 12-14 years > ago. ?I used floppy-based Macs in the early days (pre System-6.0), > then went away (to Amigas and such), and when I came back to Macs > newer than the Mac SE (Quadras and Mac IIs and such), I found several > parts of the experience maddening - top of the list was Apple drive > branding. I'm back to the chicken or egg problem then. I have the disk image, and it seemed to write correctly with rawrite on my usb floppy. But the quadra claims that it's not formatted. Same for pc formatted disks. Could be a bad drive. But most likely it's a bad disk. This hard drive *has* MacOS on it. Shouldn't it work then? I got the feeling that they were using some sort of disk compression with it. I might be wrong though. Maybe it doesn't matter. I considered burning a cdrom with some utilities on it. But I can't get the cdrom drive to eject. I guess it doesn't want to give up its system disk. And I'm not sure I can create an image it would read anyway. And I'm not sure I can get at the file in the bin file. I think I have a pci scsi controller somewhere. I could pull the disk and put it in my vista machine. If this were an amiga, I could use WinUAE and format the disk and install. I don't think such a thing exists for the mac though. I do have the IIfx I haven't tried to revive yet. That one requires the magic black external terminator so I suspect the 600e won't work with it. I've been meaning to get a nubus scsi controller for it to get around this. Not sure if that would work though. It might be an apple branded drive. I believe it's a quantum 1" disk. That's probably worth a try. brian From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 15:43:37 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:43:37 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <4A3BF6C1.20402@vaxen.net> References: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191209t1120b9f8y790035b4c8c3e041@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191230j49f0143cu4ca51c93ccda154@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BE91F.7080007@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191246xb9456d1l777d51713301fb63@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BF6C1.20402@vaxen.net> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906191343r627ada47w4d9b98bd14fecf96@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 3:36 PM, Doc wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > ?Brian, I *think* I have a bootable CD with the patched HD Setup tools on > it. ?If so, it'll be a 500-650MB download, burnable with anything that can > burn a raw file. ?It has a lot of other awesome stuff on it, like the "Om" > program. > > ?Want it? ?I can upload it tonight so it's available for download tomorrow. That would be awesome doc, please do. And by raw file, do you mean an ISO or something that's been applefied? And what's the Om program? brian From doc at vaxen.net Fri Jun 19 15:49:18 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:49:18 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906191343r627ada47w4d9b98bd14fecf96@mail.gmail.com> References: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191209t1120b9f8y790035b4c8c3e041@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191230j49f0143cu4ca51c93ccda154@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BE91F.7080007@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191246xb9456d1l777d51713301fb63@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BF6C1.20402@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191343r627ada47w4d9b98bd14fecf96@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3BF9CE.3080506@vaxen.net> Brian Lanning wrote: > On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 3:36 PM, Doc wrote: >> Ethan Dicks wrote: >> Brian, I *think* I have a bootable CD with the patched HD Setup tools on >> it. If so, it'll be a 500-650MB download, burnable with anything that can >> burn a raw file. It has a lot of other awesome stuff on it, like the "Om" >> program. >> >> Want it? I can upload it tonight so it's available for download tomorrow. > > That would be awesome doc, please do. > > And by raw file, do you mean an ISO or something that's been applefied? it's HFS format, so not ISO9660, but any bruning app that will just scribble the image onto the CDR will work. > And what's the Om program? It just chants "Ommmmmmmmmmm" :^) Doc Shipley From ray at arachelian.com Fri Jun 19 15:51:25 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:51:25 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3BFA4D.3090009@arachelian.com> Tony Duell wrote: > >> In the same way, running an emulator is a lot better than nothing, if >> you don't have the actual machine. :-) >> > > No arguemtn with that. > > Oe perhaps one little one... I'd rather spend my time working on the > hardware of a machine I do own (and I am not short of things to do...) > than running an emulator for a machine that I don't. > > You may feel differently. Fine. I'm not going to stop you. > Only slightly differently. I'd rather spend time writing an emulator for a machine that I own - for which there is no emulator, so that others who don't can enjoy it too. :-) And yes, if one of the machines I have, doesn't work, I'll certainly spend time fixing it. For me, it's less fun repairing an existing machine than writing an emulator - mostly because I don't want to cause more damage than has already been done, but so far I've managed to do just fine at it. Writing emulators is almost like designing and building a machine from scratch, except you do it to the spec of the existing machine, and you do it in code rather than on a schematic or breadboard. A lot of stuff can be reused, but in a lot of ways it's a lot harder if you have to write code that emulates chips for which there is no emulator. Then it gets to be not just designing the machine from scratch but also a lot of its chips too. Imagine having to build, say a VIA 6522 or Z8530 gate by gate without looking at the schematic of the existing one, but just with the documentation and then firing up the machine and seeing it work. :-D It's an incredibly wonderful feeling when it actually does work. Most of the time though, it's back to debugging the thing and getting it just right, and looking to see what odd thing the guest OS is trying to do with it and in how that differs from what you'd expect in the documentation of that chip, but there it is, the OS is trying to do something odd that obviously worked in the real thing, but therefore undocumented, so you have to readjust your idea of how that chip is supposed to work and reimplement it. As for playing with emulators of machines I don't own, I certainly do, but that's more for learning about stuff I don't already have, and if it strikes me, I might go out and get the actual machine to add to the collection (if I can afford it - price, space, power are factors.) There are some emulators I run regularly, for example Basilisk II - it's hard to lug around a IIsi with me, though I do have one at home, but very easy to run old Mac OS 68000 apps by launching it. Sometimes I'll fire VICE and mess with Pet emulation (even though I do have an 8032), or fire up MAME, and enjoy some old arcade games I enjoyed when I was a kid. From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 15:55:49 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:55:49 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <4A3BF9CE.3080506@vaxen.net> References: <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191209t1120b9f8y790035b4c8c3e041@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191230j49f0143cu4ca51c93ccda154@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BE91F.7080007@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191246xb9456d1l777d51713301fb63@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BF6C1.20402@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191343r627ada47w4d9b98bd14fecf96@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BF9CE.3080506@vaxen.net> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906191355n50659c1bof99f243b15662b9c@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Doc wrote: > ?it's HFS format, so not ISO9660, but any bruning app that will just > scribble the image onto the CDR will work. ok, I'm sure I can find something. >> And what's the Om program? > > ?It just chants "Ommmmmmmmmmm" ?:^) I'm going to need some meditation after this. I'm certainly starting to look like a monk now that I've pulled all my hair out. brian From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 19 18:13:31 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:13:31 -1000 Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3C1B9B.2010103@databasics.us> (Subject was: Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys (was: Re: UNIX V7)) Tony Duell wrote: >> a pretty complete set of Casio handhelds, a Juno, an IBM AT, an HP 9830, >> > > As an aside, the HP9830 is one of my favourites. It's got a claim to > being the first personal computer (I think it was the first all-in-one > machine you could just put on a desk, plug into the mains and start > typing BASIC). It's also one of the few bit-serial machines you're likely > to come across. > Additionally, a friend of mine and I were ever-so-close to buying one of them and starting a programming business, right after we got out of high school. Since we were both "kids," with no college education, the bank, in the end, didn't go for us as being the wizards we actually were. The business would have worked: we had clients lined up, and everything. > Repairing them is interesting, Most parts, the exceptions being the HP > custom ROMa and the Intel 1103 DRAMs are easy to find. But being a > bit-serial machine, tracing the fault is hard without a logic analyser (I > speak from experience having repaired several 9810s, a 9820 and a 9830). > Yes, I noticed that at the time. This was before microprocessors. We were going to go with the replacement guarantee... >> my Linux box, Darth.) My entire shop is gone. So, I feel naked. >> > > How on earth did that happen? > I fell in love with a woman living on the Big Island of Hawaii. That's pretty close to a third world country. Got married. We both wanted to be together as quickly as possible, so as soon as I could quit my job, get packed, and move, I did. That left me nearly without money. It also left most of my classic computers, and all of my test equipment, in a storage unit back on the mainland, to be shipped after I got some money together. When I showed up here, I found that my new wife's idea of marriage was that she kept everything of mine, and if I needed some of it, I could ask her politely for the key. If I had been good, and had done all I was told, perhaps I would be allowed access to my things. We lived on a street about 4 miles down a steep hill. I was not allowed access to a vehicle. Long story short, I was essentially her prisoner. I eventually broke out, and managed to save all my things which had been shipped over. I thought my escape was brilliant. But, that left me broke, homeless, and in debt. I started working, but was only making just a bit more than I needed to survive, and I lost my mainland storage unit, which included, as I said, the bulk of my collection, and my entire shop. SOMEBODY got a good deal. Or, maybe not. The storage place got at least a thousand dollars selling it, because they quit bugging me about the balance due... Still pisses me off. >> up emulator jockeying a significantly cheaper proposition for most people. >> > > I won't argue with that. But then hobbies don't hae to be cheap. > Certainly my other hobbies involve quite expensive equipment (if bought > new). > From this point, for the foreseeable future, MY hobbies have to be pretty cheap, or involve stuff I already have. >>> Put it this way, I'd rather learn how to do something like that than run >>> an emulator on an undocumented (to the sort of level I call 'documented') >>> machine under an OS that I don't have the source for. If I have problems >>> with that I can't solve them logically. If I am using tools/equipment >>> that I am capable of understnading and things go wrong, I can use a >>> logical procedure to sort it out. And I much prerfe that. >>> >>> >> Understood. Sounds like you'd be a candidate for an older PC running >> Linux.... >> > > And just what do you think I am typing this on? It's a real IBM5170 > (albeit the 8MHz version) with a 486 kludgeboard in the 80286 CPU socket > running an ancient version of linux. I've done all sorts of hardware mods > to it, piggybacked chips, kludgwires eerywhere. Apart from the hard > drive, I have scheamtics for everything in that box... > It wasn't apparent from your messages that they originated on a Linux PC, just SOME system without spell-checking. >> Yes. Been there, done that. Like you, my favorite machines are the >> older HP gear. I love fine engineering, and it was easier to find in HP >> > > Yes, older HPs are well-built and often well designed (although I am not > convinced the HP120 is a particularly good design for a CP/M box). I feel > the peiod from about 1965 to 9185 was the 'glory days of HP' when they > had some wonderful products. If I can get stuff from that period, I do.. > I agree on the HP-120, but the HP-125 actually is very nice. One of my favorites, AaMoF. >> than in any other manufacturer I've known. >> > > Well, there are some HP machines that are hard to find...... I know, I'm > looking for them. > I was speaking of the satisfaction of using the machines, not the availability. I only lost one 9830 in "the disaster," and it was a serious wreck. It was in SUCH bad shape that it only cost me $10. I was getting it in shape when I moved. Warren From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Jun 19 18:14:45 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:14:45 +0100 Subject: HP2000/Access BASIC (and Star Trek) Message-ID: <4A3C1BE5.8000503@dunnington.plus.com> I'm not very knowledgeable about HP BASIC but I recall some discussions a few years ago about emulators and running Access BASIC or TSB. Sadly I didn't keep all the emails where I thought. Today I've been asked a (serious) question about actually running TREK73 from my collection of Star Trek programs at http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/startrek What's the easiest way to get an emulator to run a suitable HP BASIC? (by the way, the researcher who asked, spotted a typo in my TREK73 listing so I've updated it -- and yes, he does have a serious reason for running this in an emulator) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Jun 19 19:00:42 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:00:42 +0100 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1245456042.6710.24.camel@elric> On Fri, 2009-06-19 at 18:59 +0100, Tony Duell wrote: > Oe perhaps one little one... I'd rather spend my time working on the > hardware of a machine I do own (and I am not short of things to do...) > than running an emulator for a machine that I don't. I've spent time writing an emulator for a machine I don't own and for which I have a certain amount of documentation. It's not like I'm going to pick up a PDP8 any time soon. Gordon From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 19 19:59:10 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:59:10 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <1245456042.6710.24.camel@elric> References: <1245456042.6710.24.camel@elric> Message-ID: <2AEC01AD-85C0-4912-9106-96494ADEADCB@neurotica.com> On Jun 19, 2009, at 8:00 PM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> Oe perhaps one little one... I'd rather spend my time working on the >> hardware of a machine I do own (and I am not short of things to >> do...) >> than running an emulator for a machine that I don't. > > I've spent time writing an emulator for a machine I don't own and for > which I have a certain amount of documentation. I can't think of any better way to learn the nuances of an architecture. Maybe not an implementation, but certainly an architecture. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 19 19:58:59 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:58:59 -1000 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <4A3C3453.4040202@databasics.us> Hello, All, There have been some incredibly good posts on this subject. Not to denigrate anyone else's excellent input, but Ray, your description deserves to be recorded somewhere, like perhaps a Wikipedia entry "What is the point of collecting old computers" or some such. Simply. Freaking. Brilliant. So, with all this inspiration, let me set down what *I* find fulfilling in this hobby.... First and foremost, I like to USE the machines. When I use them, I want the experience of people who used to program them, ESPECIALLY if I was one of those people. So, I feel a bit slighted when someone claims that the experience of the software is to boot up a word processor. Not at all. What *I* like, is to use a text editor to create a program to run, to create job control language of whatever type is necessary, to run and test the software I've written, and to revise it, again, using whatever was commonly used to write those programs. Along those lines, I'm okay with having, say, a HP Timeshare BASIC system with more disk space than I used to have, so I can store programs to disk, rather than printing out a punched tape - I would have done that back then, had I the opportunity. I'm okay with using a PC as a terminal, as compared with an ASR-33, too. But I like to have the disk structure, and the commands, available, and to actually DO the work on the old machine. Using *ALL* original hardware is an additional thrill, too, but one of less importance to me than having the "user experience" of the software creation cycle. Since I used many more machines over a data line than hands-on, a simulator often provides an experience just a few percent shy of the total experience for what interests me. I feel I should not have to say this, but I will anyway. This is what *I* like, and I'm not casting aspersions on any other facet of the hobby. I do see the value in almost everything anyone has mentioned, even to the point of just hearing the original machine work. For me, THAT bit involves an old 1A Bell system telephone switch, a room-filling array of clacking relays, connected to a computer remarkably advanced for its age, and still in use in several places. Every time I have used that computer interface, I have been sitting in front of a switch that is handling telephone traffic, and hence, making a serious amount of clatter. So, I get it. Honestly. I'm speaking, though, of those bits which motivate ME to do all the things I must to have the experience. Okay? Since the statute of limitations has tolled on this, I don't mind saying that as a youngster, the way I got experience on many computer systems was to hack my way in over a phone line modem connection. Let me hasten to add that I never destroyed anyone's data, and never paid any attention to private data. My purpose was to learn the machine, and learn how to write programs on it. At that time, most services charged an hourly connect rate that, as a teenager, was way over my head. So, I used the computers at night, when the load was low, and would sneak in when my presence would not be irritating anyone paying for access. It worked. As far as I know, I was only noticed on two different systems. One of those kicked me out, and put new security measures in place, measures I never again cracked. On the other system, the guy printed a list of my accesses to the machine for me, and wrote me a note saying that he understood what I was up to, and that if I kept it inoffensive as I had been doing, he had no problem with it, but to check with him if I was going to run a program that would swamp the processor so he could schedule it. What a guy! With the above experience, it should be clear that my exposure to most computers was via a modem. No clacking, no whirring of tapes, no *BUMP* noises from the drives, just an access I could explore, often without documentation of any kind. I'd try to find out what kind of a machine it was -- which is often more difficult than one would expect. When I figured that out, I'd look for books at the library about that kind of computer, and start using it. Seriously, I had a blast. So, for me, a simulation of a computer I have never used is a VERY good emulation of the experience I used to have -- well neigh perfect, actually. And, given the fact that I already have a couple of PC type machines, it's essentially free. I love it... And, I'll just have to wait on any hardware hobbyist activities for a while. Warren From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 19 20:04:06 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:04:06 -1000 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <20090618133907.A50025@shell.lmi.net> References: <14917.72424.qm@web55305.mail.re4.yahoo.com> <4A3A8753.1070708@gmail.com> <4A3A9092.8030502@gmail.com> <4A3A9709.1070608@gmail.com> <20090618133907.A50025@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A3C3586.2000002@databasics.us> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Zane H. Healy wrote: > >> It was my understanding that the password is stored on a chip on the HD. >> > > Wow. > Yeah, that would be harder to circumvent. How hard a password is it? > Does it have any time delays or trial counts that would prevent a rapid > brute furce crack? > > Anything preventing swapping board from another drive with chip holding > known password? > That's the right thinking, Fred.... Warren From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 19 20:05:15 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:05:15 -0400 Subject: Installing and running other OS than RT11 and XXDP (with TU58 emu) or BSD (with Vtserver) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5F10C49B-9AF2-4465-BD9C-D84B81F18942@neurotica.com> On Jun 19, 2009, at 3:38 PM, SPC wrote: > Mmm... Interesting technique. Some special parm to use DD to write the > diverse OS's ? And with SIMH ? > > I was thinking in RSTS, for example. RSTS was the first OS I did it with. No special parameters are necessary on either end. The format simh uses for disk emulation is just a raw expanse of bytes, no weird stuff anywhere. That makes things very easy. Just use the correct disk type in simh to make the image file the right size. Use "rauser" and set the size explicitly if you're using an MSCP disk that's not a "standard" DEC size like an RD54 or whatever, like for your ESDI controller. I made a bootable XXDP RL02 pack using this trick just recently. I transferred it to my 11/83 running 2.11BSD using FTP, cabled up an RL02 drive, put in a pack, did the dd, shut down, then I could boot that RL02 pack. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From jpero at sympatico.ca Fri Jun 19 21:57:24 2009 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero at sympatico.ca) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:57:24 -0500 Subject: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... In-Reply-To: <4A3C3586.2000002@databasics.us> References: , <20090618133907.A50025@shell.lmi.net>, <4A3C3586.2000002@databasics.us> Message-ID: Date sent: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:04:06 -1000 From: Warren Wolfe Organization: DataBasics To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt... Send reply to: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Fred Cisin wrote: > > On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > >> It was my understanding that the password is stored on a chip on the HD. > >> > > > > Wow. > > Yeah, that would be harder to circumvent. How hard a password is it? > > Does it have any time delays or trial counts that would prevent a rapid > > brute furce crack? > > > > Anything preventing swapping board from another drive with chip holding > > known password? > > > > That's the right thinking, Fred.... > > > Warren > > Not quite what it is. The design is more secure than you think, the locked HD is locked even with board swap. The pwd the hard drive itself checks against is stored on the platter itself. The hard drive board checks for presence of pwd every power cycles. If present, it's unaccessible. This is reason the NEED to extract the password by reading the thinkpad's eeprom IC with PC and homemade circuit while disassembled thinkpad powered on at the password request. When pwd is known, reassemble the thinkpad and type in password to unlock the whole thinkpad and that will unlock the hard drive, then go into bios and clear out password settings to disabled. Cheers, Wizard From lists at databasics.us Fri Jun 19 21:35:42 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:35:42 -1000 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <20090618160143.S67986@shell.lmi.net> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> <20090618160143.S67986@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A3C4AFE.5000808@databasics.us> Fred Cisin wrote: > Be careful, Dan. > There is a subtle, but significant difference between somebody not knowing > what they are talking about V talking about a different subject. > Indeed. > If you figure out a better way to factor large numbers into their prime > factors, send a credible description to the personnel department at the > NSA, and they will send a black helicopter to pick you up. Actually, you > don't even need to contact them, just talk about it on a phone line or > email that passes between Washington and Baltimore. > Hey, you don't even need to do that. I was hanging around the computer building in college, and gave a whoop of triumph when I discovered that the encryption method I had been developing actually did provide (mathematically proven) unbreakable code. Within 24 hours, I was talking to a couple gentlemen from an unnamed security agency, who advised me to avoid publishing my work. I told them that before I'd consign my work to the trashcan, I'd need a good reason. They provided one. Warren From ian_primus at yahoo.com Fri Jun 19 21:40:05 2009 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:40:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers Message-ID: <21393.98126.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Anyone remember the difference between the various Western Digital MFM disk controllers? I've got a few in front of me right now, and I'm trying to figure out which would be the best for this Compaq Portable 286. I've got the good ol' WD1002A-WX1, and what looks to be the bigger verison, the WD1002S-WX2, then another, even longer card, the one that came stock with the Compaq, the WD1015-PL03. Now, here's the dilemma. The stock card won't respond to the usual debug commands - they just freeze the computer. The original 20mb 3 1/2" Miniscribe hard drive is dead (won't even spin). I am going to replace it with a similar 3 1/2" form factor drive - the NEC D3142. (43mb! Woo!) I already got the drive formatted and working on the small WD1002A-WX1 card, but it's been a while since I worked with MFM controllers - and I seem to remember the WD1002S-WX2 being faster or something. Also, I don't remember the calculations for optimum interleave, I used 3, since that was the default.... Pointers? -Ian From n0body.h0me at inbox.com Fri Jun 19 22:34:59 2009 From: n0body.h0me at inbox.com (N0body H0me) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:34:59 -0800 Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: <4A3C1B9B.2010103@databasics.us> References: Message-ID: WHoa. At least I now know I'm not alone. > -----Original Message----- > From: lists at databasics.us > Sent: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:13:31 -1000 > To: > Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot >>> my Linux box, Darth.) My entire shop is gone. So, I feel naked. >>> >> >> How on earth did that happen? >> > > I fell in love with a woman living on the Big Island of Hawaii. That's > pretty close to a third world country. Got married. We both wanted to > be together as quickly as possible, so as soon as I could quit my job, > get packed, and move, I did. That left me nearly without money. It > also left most of my classic computers, and all of my test equipment, in > a storage unit back on the mainland, to be shipped after I got some > money together. When I showed up here, I found that my new wife's idea > of marriage was that she kept everything of mine, and if I needed some > of it, I could ask her politely for the key. If I had been good, and > had done all I was told, perhaps I would be allowed access to my > things. We lived on a street about 4 miles down a steep hill. I was > not allowed access to a vehicle. Long story short, I was essentially > her prisoner. I eventually broke out, and managed to save all my things > which had been shipped over. I thought my escape was brilliant. But, > that left me broke, homeless, and in debt. I started working, but was > only making just a bit more than I needed to survive, and I lost my > mainland storage unit, which included, as I said, the bulk of my > collection, and my entire shop. SOMEBODY got a good deal. Or, maybe > not. The storage place got at least a thousand dollars selling it, > because they quit bugging me about the balance due... Still pisses me > off. Okay, here's my sob story: I had a good job in WIchita, KS, writing software for a technology company there. I had been with them for five years, when I get laid off (in 2002) because the company wanted to 'trim some fat' so it would be attractive to a potential buyer. I end up at Wal-Mart, shoveling tile, and assembling bicycles (long story). A year goes by, we lose the house, declare bankruptcy, then move to the west coast. I then make the following chain of errors: 1. I leave most of my collection in the basement. I pay a *RELATIVE* to move it all to a storage unit. 2. I kill all of the utilities in the house becuase I figure 'it aint my problem no more'. 3. I forget to turn off the *WATER*. Months go by. I get a phone call from this person with whom I entrusted most of my stuff: 'Ah, most of the stuff is still in the basement-- under about EIGHT FEET OF WATER.' The damned pipes froze, burst, and flooded the basement because there was no electricity to the sump pump. Damn. I lose: FLuke 9010, no less then 3 SS-50's (SwTPc's), all of my 8" drives (fixed & floppy) all of my laser printers, most of my test equipment, my Vaxstation 4000/90's, my terminals, vacuum desoldering tools, A PDP-11/53, and 11/23+, an RL02 and platters for same, a FLuke 1720 (with keyboard), an HP 9816, and a whole bunch of other stuff I'll never see again. I have a hard time trusting people these days . . . . ____________________________________________________________ Receive Notifications of Incoming Messages Easily monitor multiple email accounts & access them with a click. Visit http://www.inbox.com/notifier and check it out! From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Fri Jun 19 23:19:08 2009 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:19:08 -0500 Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test Message-ID: <4A3C633C.2030008@brutman.com> It's running again! Please drop in and help me test it ... For those of you who are new, it is a Telnet BBS that I am writing running on an IBM PCjr. I have written all of the TCP/IP code and the BBS code from scratch. The only thing I didn't write was the packet driver for the Ethernet adapter and the version of DOS it is running. The IP address is 96.42.239.42 . That goes to my cable modem - the router port forwards telnet traffic directly to the PCjr. Pretty much any telnet client will do including the one built into Windows. Since the last round of testing I have added the following: * A forum area with threads * A private message area * Bulletins (read only files that are longer in length) * Basic user profile editing functions * Better telnet protocol support with performance improvements It is a pretty big set of changes. I am hoping there are no bugs, but having a few people on at the same time will help flush them out and give me an idea on if the machine is capable of servicing multiple users doing real BBS functions. (My previous tests were pretty limited.) The machine is setup to handle 6 online users at the same time. I am also looking for feedback on the user interface .. if it is not usable, then there isn't much point. I am limited with what I can do given the hardware, but let me know what you think would be neat and I'll add it to the todo list. (ANSI graphics isn't there, but I know how to get it done.) I will leave the machine running for about a week. If it falls over before then I will fix the bug and restart it as quickly as I can. If it makes it a week with no serious problems I'll be pretty happy. Thanks, Mike From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 19 23:41:41 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:41:41 -0700 Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test In-Reply-To: <4A3C633C.2030008@brutman.com> References: <4A3C633C.2030008@brutman.com> Message-ID: <4A3C0615.24213.20B6BA4C@cclist.sydex.com> On 19 Jun 2009 at 23:19, Michael B. Brutman wrote: > I will leave the machine running for about a week. If it falls over > before then I will fix the bug and restart it as quickly as I can. If > it makes it a week with no serious problems I'll be pretty happy. Looks good, Mike! But it lacks a certain realism--the screen paints too fast! Real BBSes were never like this. I wonder if you could simulate 1200 bps... :) Cheers, Chuck From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sat Jun 20 00:07:43 2009 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:07:43 -0500 Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test In-Reply-To: <4A3C0615.24213.20B6BA4C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A3C633C.2030008@brutman.com> <4A3C0615.24213.20B6BA4C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A3C6E9F.20204@brutman.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 19 Jun 2009 at 23:19, Michael B. Brutman wrote: > >> I will leave the machine running for about a week. If it falls over >> before then I will fix the bug and restart it as quickly as I can. If >> it makes it a week with no serious problems I'll be pretty happy. > > Looks good, Mike! > > But it lacks a certain realism--the screen paints too fast! Real > BBSes were never like this. I wonder if you could simulate 1200 > bps... :) > > Cheers, > Chuck > > I really did think about slowing down the '+++ATH' sequence that I put out when people log off, just to make the gag more realistic ... When you stop back in, try out the message/forum functions. That's what I'm really looking to test. That involves some disk I/O, and should prove more challenging for the machine. Mike From n0body.h0me at inbox.com Sat Jun 20 00:10:54 2009 From: n0body.h0me at inbox.com (N0body H0me) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:10:54 -0800 Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test In-Reply-To: <4A3C0615.24213.20B6BA4C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4a3c633c.2030008@brutman.com> Message-ID: It's a pretty cool system, but it doesn't seem to support liquor-over-ip!! :^) > -----Original Message----- > From: cclist at sydex.com > Sent: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:41:41 -0700 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: PCjr Telnet BBS Test > > On 19 Jun 2009 at 23:19, Michael B. Brutman wrote: > >> I will leave the machine running for about a week. If it falls over >> before then I will fix the bug and restart it as quickly as I can. If >> it makes it a week with no serious problems I'll be pretty happy. > > Looks good, Mike! > > But it lacks a certain realism--the screen paints too fast! Real > BBSes were never like this. I wonder if you could simulate 1200 > bps... :) > > Cheers, > Chuck ____________________________________________________________ Receive Notifications of Incoming Messages Easily monitor multiple email accounts & access them with a click. Visit http://www.inbox.com/notifier and check it out! From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Sat Jun 20 00:13:04 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:13:04 -0700 Subject: Service Manual for Ball TV-90 monitor? Message-ID: <4A3C6FE0.7070300@mail.msu.edu> Decided to dig out my IBM 5120 and try to get its monitor working, at long last. It's a Ball TV-90. Anyone out there have the service manual for this? (Worst case, there's a copy on eBay right now, but before I go through that I thought I'd bug you guys...) I mentioned this issue a few years ago, here's a photo of the interesting distortion I'm getting: http://yahozna.dyndns.org/scratch/5120disp.jpg. Thus far I've done a complete cap kit with no effect. I hate working on monitors, but I really want to get this running again... Thanks, Josh From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jun 20 00:55:04 2009 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:55:04 -0500 Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test In-Reply-To: <4A3C633C.2030008@brutman.com> References: <4A3C633C.2030008@brutman.com> Message-ID: <4A3C79B8.5030904@oldskool.org> Michael B. Brutman wrote: > It's running again! Please drop in and help me test it ... Seemed pretty flawless operation to me. If there was disk accesses, I didn't notice any. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From slawmaster at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 22:06:13 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:06:13 -0400 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A3C4AFE.5000808@databasics.us> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <20090618160143.S67986@shell.lmi.net> <4A3C4AFE.5000808@databasics.us> Message-ID: <7d3530220906192006y7ce7a2c5y318db23e83bde21b@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Warren Wolfe wrote: > Fred Cisin wrote: >> >> Be careful, Dan. >> There is a subtle, but significant difference between somebody not knowing >> what they are talking about V talking about a different subject. >> > > Indeed. ? > > >> If you figure out a better way to factor large numbers into their prime >> factors, send a credible description to the personnel department at the >> NSA, and they will send a black helicopter to pick you up. ?Actually, you >> don't even need to contact them, just talk about it on a phone line or >> email that passes between Washington and Baltimore. >> > > Hey, you don't even need to do that. ?I was hanging around the computer > building in college, and gave a whoop of triumph when I discovered that the > encryption method I had been developing actually did provide (mathematically > proven) unbreakable code. ?Within 24 hours, I was talking to a couple > gentlemen from an unnamed security agency, who advised me to avoid > publishing my work. ?I told them that before I'd consign my work to the > trashcan, I'd need a good reason. ?They provided one. > > > Warren > > Alternate humorous interpretation: WW: "My perfect unbreakable code is complete! What shall I call it? THE ONE TIME PAD! GENIUS!" MIB: "Umm you can't publish that." WW: "I'll need a pretty good reason before I toss this out!" MIB: "It's been around for decades, you'll get laughed at" WW: "Oh ok, that's a good reason." John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From lists at databasics.us Sat Jun 20 01:39:02 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:39:02 -1000 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <7d3530220906192006y7ce7a2c5y318db23e83bde21b@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <20090618160143.S67986@shell.lmi.net> <4A3C4AFE.5000808@databasics.us> <7d3530220906192006y7ce7a2c5y318db23e83bde21b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3C8406.4010700@databasics.us> John Floren wrote: > Alternate humorous interpretation: > > WW: "My perfect unbreakable code is complete! What shall I call it? > THE ONE TIME PAD! GENIUS!" > > MIB: "Umm you can't publish that." > > WW: "I'll need a pretty good reason before I toss this out!" > > MIB: "It's been around for decades, you'll get laughed at" > > WW: "Oh ok, that's a good reason." Ha! Well played. But, who's to say that isn't the PRIMARY interpretation? (in yours, I picture the Guinness "Brilliant" animation commercials.) Crap, I'm still laughing.... Thanks! Warren From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 20 01:56:30 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:56:30 -0400 Subject: Service Manual for Ball TV-90 monitor? In-Reply-To: <4A3C6FE0.7070300@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A3C6FE0.7070300@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Jun 20, 2009, at 1:13 AM, Josh Dersch wrote: > Decided to dig out my IBM 5120 and try to get its monitor working, > at long last. It's a Ball TV-90. Anyone out there have the > service manual for this? (Worst case, there's a copy on eBay right > now, but before I go through that I thought I'd bug you guys...) > > I mentioned this issue a few years ago, here's a photo of the > interesting distortion I'm getting: http://yahozna.dyndns.org/ > scratch/5120disp.jpg. Thus far I've done a complete cap kit with > no effect. I hate working on monitors, but I really want to get > this running again... Wow that's a bizarre distortion. I'd love to see the horizontal drive waveform on an oscilloscope. It almost looks like it might be some sort of zero-crossing distortion in an amplifier. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 20 02:06:50 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 03:06:50 -0400 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers In-Reply-To: <21393.98126.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <21393.98126.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <0AA70EDD-06DA-4F4A-8592-6D3059E28098@neurotica.com> On Jun 19, 2009, at 10:40 PM, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > Anyone remember the difference between the various Western Digital > MFM disk controllers? I've got a few in front of me right now, and > I'm trying to figure out which would be the best for this Compaq > Portable 286. > > I've got the good ol' WD1002A-WX1, and what looks to be the bigger > verison, the WD1002S-WX2, then another, even longer card, the one > that came stock with the Compaq, the WD1015-PL03. > > Now, here's the dilemma. The stock card won't respond to the usual > debug commands - they just freeze the computer. The original 20mb 3 > 1/2" Miniscribe hard drive is dead (won't even spin). I am going to > replace it with a similar 3 1/2" form factor drive - the NEC D3142. > (43mb! Woo!) I already got the drive formatted and working on the > small WD1002A-WX1 card, but it's been a while since I worked with > MFM controllers - and I seem to remember the WD1002S-WX2 being > faster or something. Wow. I used to know *all* of those part numbers, have been shaking my head trying to jog my memory for the past few minutes, but it seems that info is just gone. :-( > Also, I don't remember the calculations for optimum interleave, I > used 3, since that was the default.... You can use something like Spinrite to discover the proper interleave for a disk subsystem, and it will even format in-place (track at a time) and preserve data. I used it all the time, it was quite good. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 20 05:05:55 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:05:55 +0100 Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test In-Reply-To: <4A3C0615.24213.20B6BA4C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A3C633C.2030008@brutman.com> <4A3C0615.24213.20B6BA4C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1245492355.6710.26.camel@elric> On Fri, 2009-06-19 at 21:41 -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 19 Jun 2009 at 23:19, Michael B. Brutman wrote: > > > I will leave the machine running for about a week. If it falls over > > before then I will fix the bug and restart it as quickly as I can. If > > it makes it a week with no serious problems I'll be pretty happy. > > Looks good, Mike! > > But it lacks a certain realism--the screen paints too fast! Real > BBSes were never like this. I wonder if you could simulate 1200 > bps... :) nice -n 19 telnet and then kick off a big compile. Gordon From tiggerlasv at aim.com Sat Jun 20 06:14:00 2009 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:14:00 -0400 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers Message-ID: <8CBBFAF59082CDA-95C-23D3@webmail-me13.sysops.aol.com> "Back in the day" (which, some days, doesn't seem THAT long ago) there was a handy DOS utility called CALIBRAT.EXE, which would go out and do some read/writes, to determine the optimum interleave for your disk / controller combination, and even make the conversion for you, if desired. T From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Sat Jun 20 06:21:29 2009 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:21:29 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Service Manual for Ball TV-90 monitor? In-Reply-To: <4A3C6FE0.7070300@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A3C6FE0.7070300@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, 19 Jun 2009, Josh Dersch wrote: > I mentioned this issue a few years ago, here's a photo of the interesting > distortion I'm getting: http://yahozna.dyndns.org/scratch/5120disp.jpg. Thus > far I've done a complete cap kit with no effect. I hate working on monitors, > but I really want to get this running again... Take a scope and look at the base of the HOT. If this signal is ok, then you should look at the following components: line transformer, horizontal deflection coil, resistors and ceramic caps in that area, linearity coil. If the signal is already wrong at the base, trace the signal back to its origin, and you will find the fault. Christian From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Sat Jun 20 06:27:08 2009 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:27:08 +0200 (CEST) Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers In-Reply-To: <21393.98126.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <21393.98126.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 19 Jun 2009, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > Now, here's the dilemma. The stock card won't respond to the usual debug > commands - they just freeze the computer. The original 20mb 3 1/2" Normal MFM controllers never come with an own BIOS, so there's nothing to jump to. Christian From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Sat Jun 20 06:29:36 2009 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:29:36 +0200 (CEST) Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers In-Reply-To: <8CBBFAF59082CDA-95C-23D3@webmail-me13.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CBBFAF59082CDA-95C-23D3@webmail-me13.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > "Back in the day" (which, some days, doesn't seem THAT long ago) > there was a handy DOS utility called CALIBRAT.EXE, which would This program is part of the Norton Utilities, and I use it once every few years to "reformat" my drives because many MFM (and some ESDI) drives appear to lose their formatting over the time. Christian From afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 20 07:26:02 2009 From: afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk (Phill Harvey-Smith) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:26:02 +0100 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers In-Reply-To: References: <21393.98126.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A3CD55A.104@aurigae.demon.co.uk> Christian Corti wrote: > On Fri, 19 Jun 2009, Mr Ian Primus wrote: >> Now, here's the dilemma. The stock card won't respond to the usual >> debug commands - they just freeze the computer. The original 20mb 3 1/2" > > Normal MFM controllers never come with an own BIOS, so there's nothing > to jump to. Um that depends, the models the OP was discussing IIRC are XT controlers which *DO* for the most part come with their own BIOS, as the XT roms know nothing about hard disks of any sort. However for 16 bit AT type controllers you are mostly correct, that they don't need a BIOS since the AT rom does know about hard disks. There where exceptions however I have (or used to anyways) in my box of old cards a Seagate (I think) RLL controler that did have onboard bios, I believe for very old AT type boards that didn't have CMOS settable drive parameters. Cheers, Phill. -- Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric ! "You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush. From ray at arachelian.com Sat Jun 20 08:13:13 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:13:13 -0400 Subject: password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7) In-Reply-To: <4A3C4AFE.5000808@databasics.us> References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> <1244671019.5593.29.camel@elric> <3dd30116f4c156222294c76e6e89ceec@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244734547.5593.50.camel@elric> <6EF68BAF-2441-4B85-AEE7-8356B54444B2@lunar-tokyo.net> <1244757616.5593.63.camel@elric> <5a2586a092b27ca66316540c8613cd0a@lunar-tokyo.net> <4A32BA06.8030609@brouhaha.com> <1244881248.4797.23.camel@elric> <4A3664A4.5040507@gmail.com> <4A366A62.10405@gmail.com> <20090618160143.S67986@shell.lmi.net> <4A3C4AFE.5000808@databasics.us> Message-ID: <4A3CE069.1010807@arachelian.com> Warren Wolfe wrote: > > Hey, you don't even need to do that. I was hanging around the > computer building in college, and gave a whoop of triumph when I > discovered that the encryption method I had been developing actually > did provide (mathematically proven) unbreakable code. Within 24 > hours, I was talking to a couple gentlemen from an unnamed security > agency, who advised me to avoid publishing my work. I told them that > before I'd consign my work to the trashcan, I'd need a good reason. > They provided one. Maybe it's time to publish that algorithm now. After all strong crypto has been available for quite a while now. From jlobocki at gmail.com Fri Jun 19 09:42:45 2009 From: jlobocki at gmail.com (joe lobocki) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:42:45 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> References: <37ad2ddbd5e16e66ff43a0c5c1b08223.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com> <6dbe3c380906180846i5322f64ep49905ecd49f3d127@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I will state this: do not buy any other parts for the machine until you've swapped or replaced ram. reason being, it took me to replacing a motherboard, power supply, floppy drive, and hard drive in a Mac SE, and several days of wasted time, just to one day discover that I had bad RAM in my machine, and that was causing the floppy to act erratic, the hard drive not to detect in hd setup, the computer would stall during OS install. sad macs, from what i've seen, half the time are ram issues. On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 10:46 AM, Brian Lanning wrote: > On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Jeff Walther wrote: > > I would check along the lines that Doc suggested. Some times Apple's > "bus > > failure" means a SCSI bus failure. > > > > Make sure that the SCSI chain is properly terminated. If you're using > > internal and external devices, confirm that both ends are terminated > > properly and neither end is double terminated. Check the SCSI IDs being > > used by all devices on the chain. > > > > Go ahead and just pull the SIMMs on the motherboard. There's 4 MB on the > > logic board and that should be enough to boot from, or if it gets that > > far, you'll get a message about lack of memory, which is further than > > you're getting now. If that happens, hold down the shift key during boot > > to not load extensions. That will often save enough memory to allow > > booting in 4 MB. > > > > I don't remember the beginning of this thread, but isn't there a > suspicion > > that the internal hard drive is malfunctioning? Disconnect the internal > > hard drive completely, and only connect the CD-ROM drive. That will > > simplify your SCSI chain, and eliminate electronic babbling from the hard > > drive as a possibility. > > > > So, basically, pull the RAM and all SCSI devices other than the CDROM, > > make sure the CD-ROM drive is terminated and set to some ID other than 7 > > (SCSI ID 3 is traditional for CD-ROMs in a Mac) and try that. Also > > double check the cable you're using and try a different one if the first > > does not work. > > > > Once you get a successful boot, you can try adding things back in. > > Thanks, I'll give it a shot. I'm not sure about the internal > termination situation. This is just a jumper on the hard drive, > right? I think the 3.5" half height drives didn't use resistor packs. > I know there's no separate terminator on the ribbon cable inside. > > I'll swap out the cable and terminator. > > As far as I know, the hard drive is ok. > > I ordered another OS cd which should be here shortly. This one is a > new one so it shouldn't be suspect. > > I supposed it's possible that the cdrom drive could be bad. I ordered > it used from ebay. It's been behaving exactly as expected though so I > believe it's ok. > > brian > From bqt at softjar.se Fri Jun 19 11:27:54 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:27:54 +0200 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3BBC8A.4000104@softjar.se> Pete Turnbull wrote: > On 17/06/2009 16:34, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> > It's actually worse. The write enable signal apparently always gets to >> > both drives no matter what else you are doing. So when you write to one >> > drive, the other will also start writing, even if the head is moving >> > right at that time. I've had to recover an RD53 which was destroyed that >> > way. (Salvage as much data as I could, and then reformat the drive.) > > That won't happen unless both drives are also selected. Having the > write enable signal go to both drives at the same time is normal in > ST412 systems, and indeed all the signals go to all the drives at the > same time in such systems. Ok. I haven't checked all the details here, so it's part my research, and part information I've recevied from others. The only reason I even know about it is because I had to recover the data from a disk that they "destroyed" by doing this. >> > The funny thing is that DEC actually do write in the documentation that >> > it is not permissible to have two hard drives in a BA23, but that note >> > is not so easy to find, and if you don't have the documentation, it even >> > easier to assume that you can, since you do have connectors for two drives. > > The DEC information actually says that it's because of the power > requirements. The note that I read didn't say anything about power requirements, as far as I can remember. But maybe I should check the note I read again. This was about six years ago... (And as far as I know, the site is still running that machine, but they now have a couple of SCSI disks on it instead.) >> > I believe it's a hardware "bug", which can't be fixed without cutting >> > wires, and adding new ones. But maybe someone knows better here? > > Mine works, and I've not cut any wires. It could be that there are two revisions of the backplane? (Was it you who said that?) I know for a fact that a steel plant in Sweden stood still for five days because of this, six years ago. (Well, one part of it anyway.) Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From bqt at softjar.se Fri Jun 19 11:38:04 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:38:04 +0200 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3BBEEC.8090409@softjar.se> tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > I'm not certain of the mechanics involved, but, > you shouldn't be able to trash the format of either drive, > unless the Drive Select jumpers are set incorrectly. There are no drive select jumpers. That could, of course, be the problem. :-) > The only thing that might have an impact on this would be > if you try it in a BA23 with an un-modified 4-button front panel. This was definitely in a 4-butten front panel BA23. However, I'm not sure the front panel is the only place to blame. > *Maybe* the fact that the Ready/Write Protect lines > for the 2nd drive are left floating, is somehow confusing > the RQDXn controller, but that seems doubtful. The RQDX wasn't confused. It was the drives... When the RQDX started writing to #0, the write circuitry of #1 also went active. Or if it was writing to #1 which also activated the circuitry of #0. > Those lines merely report status of the 2nd drive. > The Drive Select and Head Select lines don't go > anywhere near the front panel, and there are > separate signal lines for drives 0, 1, 2, and 3. Exactly. Which is why I wonder if the front panel really is to blame for the problem. >>From a modification standpoint, there are NO CHANGES > required to the disk drive distribution panel; all of the > signal lines are there, and ready to use for 2 drives. > > DEC sold the "upgrade" kit for 2 hard drives; > it's called the BA23-UC. It consists only of a 6-button panel. > This is the same 6-button panel that was shipped with > later models of the MicroVax, which clearly supported > 2 internal RD-series disk drives. > > All the 6-button panels did was to add the extra > ready/write protect buttons. There is no extra logic involved. > > The Write Protect LIGHTS for the RX50's were deleted, > as the newer RQDX3 controller doesn't provide any outputs > for the floppy write protect lights. > > Most of this information is documented on-line, > in the document "third-party disks.txt". > > All that need be done to the 4-button panels is to > solder 2 resistors onto the boards, to pull the 2 signal lines > to their appropriate logic levels. The RQDX3 only uses these > signals to establish that the drive is on-line, and write-enabled. > It has nothing to do which drive is selected when it goes to write. > > Have I trashed the format of a drive in a 2-drive BA23 configuration? > Yes, I have. But only because I wasn't paying attention, > and didn't set the Drive Select jumpers to "3" on both drives. > > Remember: The distribution panel shifts the signal lines around, > and all hard drives need to be set to "3". > > This could easily trip you up if you weren't paying attention, > as some of the drives had DS markings of 0 - 3, and some > were marked 1 - 4 . . . > > Thus, depending on what DS settings you have, > you could in theory have 2 drives responding to the > same drive select signal, which could trash your format. Hmm. As far as I can remember, there are no DS jumpers on the drives. If you have an RQDXE, you have a bunch of jumpers on that in order to set up which drive is which, and all that. But the backplane of the BA23 don't have any jumpers, as far as I can remember. And in this case, both drives were RD53s. Properly formatted, DEC branded and everything. And no, it wasn't me who tried putting this together. I was called in after the fact, to rescue as much as I could from the trashed drive. Which is why I suspect it was writing to #1 which trashed #0, since I believe they were in the process of making a copy of #0, which was their only copy of the system, and which they booted from. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From bqt at softjar.se Fri Jun 19 15:09:01 2009 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:09:01 +0200 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3BF05D.5020509@softjar.se> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 18, 2009, at 5:30 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: >>>>> >>> > But I don't lioke changing the classic machine. Not even >>>> >>> replacing > PSUs >>>>> >>> > with switchers. The original PSU is part of the design, and I >>>> >>> want to >>>>> >>> > keep it that way. >>> >> While I agree with you here, I have to admit that, if my >>> >> PDP-11/70 had switching power supplies, I'd probably run it a lot >>> >> more often. I'd *never* make it an irreversible modification, >>> >> though. >> > >> > Um. An 11/70 have switched power supplies normally. Did you remove >> > them and install large transformers? That would become a very heavy >> > machine in that case. :-) > > Nope, see my other message...it already has large transformers, > and it is definitely a very heavy machine! ;) An 11/70 is a heavy machine, indeed. But if you were to have transformers to supply all the power needed, you'd increase the weight significantly... I have removed the power supply for the memory of a KL10, and that is really a linear supply. The weight, and power consumption of that is on a totally different scale to anything switching... Where have you seen any large transformers in an 11/70 by the way? Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From chrise at pobox.com Fri Jun 19 18:22:21 2009 From: chrise at pobox.com (Chris Elmquist) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:22:21 -0500 Subject: DECserver 90TL to VT (VT320/VT420/VT520) terminal via 4 wire In-Reply-To: References: <000601c9f053$60473140$20d593c0$@co.uk> Message-ID: <20090619232221.GQ8213@n0jcf.net> On Friday (06/19/2009 at 07:08PM +0100), Tony Duell wrote: > > > > Hi, I'd like to utilise an existing cable that runs between three floors in > > the house which is similar to decconnect cable but only has > > 4 wires. My question is whether it is possible to run a serial cable between > > a 90TL and a VT terminal using only four wires, and if so which four? If I > > enable ^S/^Q flow control can I do without the outmost DTR/DSR pins? > > I've not tried it, but I can't see why it wouldn't work. As you suggest, > you need the middle 4 pins o nthe connector. You _may_ need > to strap DTR to DSR (i.e. the outer pins on the MMJ) together at each > end, but I don;t think you do. DEC didn't normally use hardware flow control. You also need a ground don't you? Does this 4 wire cable have an overall shield that you'll use for ground? or do you have to use one of the four as the ground? In which case you really only get three signal wires... I bring this up because I have actually fried line receivers (aka 1489-like devices) when two units were connected over a long cable and powered from two different AC circuits and the ground over the data cable was missing. Definitely a function of the design of the two things being connected but a risk if you accidently omit the ground. Chris -- Chris Elmquist From thomsondrp1 at rogers.com Fri Jun 19 20:34:50 2009 From: thomsondrp1 at rogers.com (DougT) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:34:50 -0400 Subject: Who can tell me more about this really weird Z80 Canadian Message-ID: <001101c9f147$50fefcf0$f804f663@nonef8vgf4xcaf> If you still have it, or know who has, I might be interested in taking it off your/their hands - one way or another! For more than a decade I've kept 2 of them operating daily - one has double-sided drives, the other single. Over the years I've had to do without either printer, the monitor on the single, and now one of the double drives decided to destroy diskettes, which themselves are almost impossible to get. Usually I can run a Recovery program and regain all, or almost all, the data, but with only one drive the Recovery process can't be used - it reads from the damaged diskette in the lower drive and writes to a blank one in the upper. So, if you have a complete machine, or printer, working monitor, diskettes, or ESPECIALLY a double-sided drive (could be Tandon, Micropolis, Mitsubishi or other) I'd be interested in acquiring any or all. Anticipating your response, Doug Thomson From andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk Sat Jun 20 04:17:46 2009 From: andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk (Andy Holt) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:17:46 +0100 Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect In-Reply-To: <880D4C9B-6E18-458E-8D44-78635CDA8D7B@neurotica.com> Message-ID: >>>> *None* of my computers have "start" buttons. ;) <<<< Hmmm, for the two mainframes* that I had close enough association with to start them up from scratch, the first** stage was to press the start button on the MG set. * ICL1905E, Honeywell Level 66/60 ** Actually, I lie a little. The very first steps (after turning on some 3KW of room lighting) were: Check that the aircon was operational (and start it up if not) Check that the processor swirches were set to "Halt" (It should have been unless the previous shutdown was a power failure or a use of the "Red Button") NOW I could start the MG and wait for it to stabilse (a few seconds) Then power on the processor and then peripherals. (note that for todays equipment it is usually best to do it the other way round) Possibly have to load the firmware into the PF56 (the disk controller on the 1905E) Ensure the right disk packs were loaded (they normally were, but ...) and start them up (one start button each) Start up the drum (another start button) If booting from tape load the right tape (NO WPR!) on the right drive. (yet another start button!) Probably start up the comms processors (a Digico micro-16 for the 1905e; a DN355 for the Honeywell) Finally, I could press and release "boot" and let the processor "run" .... If I was testing Exec mods on the 1905E I might have to recover from mistakes in those mods. [Luckily we never had one of those huge CDC fixed disks that had to run up for HOURS after any power interruption at all.] OK, so these systems didn't have one "start" button - they had over a dozen :-) Andy From andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk Sat Jun 20 04:37:17 2009 From: andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk (Andy Holt) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:37:17 +0100 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <1245456042.6710.24.camel@elric> Message-ID: >>>> On Behalf Of Gordon JC Pearce On Fri, 2009-06-19 at 18:59 +0100, Tony Duell wrote: > Oe perhaps one little one... I'd rather spend my time working on the > hardware of a machine I do own (and I am not short of things to do...) > than running an emulator for a machine that I don't. I've spent time writing an emulator for a machine I don't own and for which I have a certain amount of documentation. <<<< I've written a couple of emulators a long time ago. The more memorable one being for the F8 microprocessor that ran on the ICL 1900, was written in assembler (probably GIN5, might have been PLAN) and whose execution speed on the mainframe was almost the same as for a real hardware F8. The difficult decision was whether to follow the documentation or the real hardware in a very common situation. On the F8 after a jump instruction according to the doumentation the contents of the accumulator became undefined in the real hardware they were very well defined, but totally wierd: the low order 8 bits of the jump address. after some discussion with the department who was teaching this micro, the emulator corrupted the accumulator but to a different value. So in one sense it was not a correct emulator; but in another it was a far more useful development tool. Andy From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sat Jun 20 08:25:03 2009 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 08:25:03 -0500 Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test In-Reply-To: <4A3C79B8.5030904@oldskool.org> References: <4A3C633C.2030008@brutman.com> <4A3C79B8.5030904@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <4A3CE32F.5040209@brutman.com> Jim Leonard wrote: > Michael B. Brutman wrote: >> It's running again! Please drop in and help me test it ... > > Seemed pretty flawless operation to me. If there was disk accesses, I > didn't notice any. Single user shouldn't be a problem. I'm concerned about 5 or 6 on at a time doing things that hit the disk: Leaving a reply or starting a new message: Around 7 disk I/Os, some of which are to the same part of the file so it might be more equivalent to 5 disk I/Os. Listing private messages: painful .. private messages were implemented using the same code as the public forums, so the messages for a user are interspersed with other users. (Privately, of course.) I have pointers to know where things are, but there can be a lot of head skipping to move around.) Reading bulletins - all disk I/O. Mike From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Jun 20 09:40:00 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:40:00 +0100 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: <4A3BBC8A.4000104@softjar.se> References: <4A3BBC8A.4000104@softjar.se> Message-ID: <4A3CF4C0.40004@dunnington.plus.com> On 19/06/2009 17:27, Johnny Billquist wrote: > Pete Turnbull wrote: >>> > I believe it's a hardware "bug", which can't be fixed without >>> cutting > wires, and adding new ones. But maybe someone knows better >>> here? >> >> Mine works, and I've not cut any wires. > > It could be that there are two revisions of the backplane? (Was it you > who said that?) It wasn't me, but it's possible. However, the earliest manuals I have suggest you can use both positions, and I've never seen a unit where it mattered. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Jun 20 10:22:14 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:22:14 +0100 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: <4A3BBEEC.8090409@softjar.se> References: <4A3BBEEC.8090409@softjar.se> Message-ID: <4A3CFEA6.3050102@dunnington.plus.com> On 19/06/2009 17:38, Johnny Billquist wrote: > This was definitely in a 4-butten front panel BA23. However, I'm not > sure the front panel is the only place to blame. > >> *Maybe* the fact that the Ready/Write Protect lines >> for the 2nd drive are left floating, is somehow confusing >> the RQDXn controller, but that seems doubtful. > > The RQDX wasn't confused. It was the drives... When the RQDX started > writing to #0, the write circuitry of #1 also went active. Or if it was > writing to #1 which also activated the circuitry of #0. > >> Those lines merely report status of the 2nd drive. >> The Drive Select and Head Select lines don't go >> anywhere near the front panel, and there are >> separate signal lines for drives 0, 1, 2, and 3. > > Exactly. Which is why I wonder if the front panel really is to blame for > the problem. It's not to blame at all. It has nothing to do with the drive selects. It might stop a drive working reliably, but it definitely cannot cause two to be selected at the same time. All it can do is tell the RQDX not to use the drive. > Hmm. As far as I can remember, there are no DS jumpers on the drives. If > you have an RQDXE, you have a bunch of jumpers on that in order to set > up which drive is which, and all that. Not entirely. It's intended to provide sufficient connectors and to route the some DS lines (etc) to the external unit. That doesn't remove the need to set the DS jumpers on the drive(s) correctly. > But the backplane of the BA23 don't have any jumpers, as far as I can > remember. That's right, the backplane doesn't. > And in this case, both drives were RD53s. Properly formatted, DEC > branded and everything. Well, those drives definitely have Drive Select jumpers. Look at the legend on the PCB by contact numbers 32 to 26 on the 34-way connector. They're the drive select lines, and you'll see they're labelled, and they go to a set of jumpers right beside the connector position, next to the terminator resistor pack. If they were "as supplied by DEC" and the person who installed them assumed the arrangement for a BA23 should be the same as for a BA123 and didn't change one, they would both be set to DS3, and so of course they both were selected at the same time. User error, pure and simple. The microPDP-11 Maintenance manual says where they are, and moreover it says: Always place the first fixed-disk drive in port 0 (left mass storage slot of the enclosure containing the RQDX controller. Set the device select to DS3 on any fixed disk installed in port 0 of the enclosure or expansion unit. Set the device select to DS4 on any fixed disk installed in port 1 (right mass storage slot) of the enclosure or expansion unit. This rule also applies to any subsystem installed in a BA23 enclosure. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jun 20 10:38:47 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:38:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test Message-ID: <374387.28043.qm@web23404.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Yeah, I dropped by and had a blast (I'm Lonewolf10). A neat all round experience. Just hope I don't get hooked on BBS's now! :) Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Sat, 20/6/09, Michael B. Brutman wrote: From: Michael B. Brutman Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test To: "CCTalk_list" Date: Saturday, 20 June, 2009, 5:19 AM It's running again! Please drop in and help me test it ... For those of you who are new, it is a Telnet BBS that I am writing running on an IBM PCjr. I have written all of the TCP/IP code and the BBS code from scratch. The only thing I didn't write was the packet driver for the Ethernet adapter and the version of DOS it is running. The IP address is 96.42.239.42 . That goes to my cable modem - the router port forwards telnet traffic directly to the PCjr. Pretty much any telnet client will do including the one built into Windows. Since the last round of testing I have added the following: * A forum area with threads * A private message area * Bulletins (read only files that are longer in length) * Basic user profile editing functions * Better telnet protocol support with performance improvements It is a pretty big set of changes. I am hoping there are no bugs, but having a few people on at the same time will help flush them out and give me an idea on if the machine is capable of servicing multiple users doing real BBS functions. (My previous tests were pretty limited.) The machine is setup to handle 6 online users at the same time. I am also looking for feedback on the user interface .. if it is not usable, then there isn't much point. I am limited with what I can do given the hardware, but let me know what you think would be neat and I'll add it to the todo list. (ANSI graphics isn't there, but I know how to get it done.) I will leave the machine running for about a week. If it falls over before then I will fix the bug and restart it as quickly as I can. If it makes it a week with no serious problems I'll be pretty happy. Thanks, Mike From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sat Jun 20 10:55:24 2009 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:55:24 -0500 Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test In-Reply-To: <374387.28043.qm@web23404.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <374387.28043.qm@web23404.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A3D066C.9060000@brutman.com> Andrew Burton wrote: > Yeah, I dropped by and had a blast (I'm Lonewolf10). > A neat all round experience. Just hope I don't get hooked on BBS's now! :) > > > Regards, > Andrew B > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Your connection was interesting - I noticed it was driving my TCP/IP stack nuts. (It was retransmitting a lot of packets while you were online - far more than normal.) Your message about being on a USB modem made me feel slightly better about it. That, and being in the UK probably is just causing a very long latency. My retransmit timeout on the TCP/IP packets is probably too low ... Mike From ray at arachelian.com Sat Jun 20 10:59:05 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:59:05 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3D0749.2060201@arachelian.com> Andy Holt wrote: > On the F8 after a jump instruction > according to the doumentation the contents of the accumulator became > undefined > in the real hardware they were very well defined, but totally wierd: the > low order 8 bits of the jump address. > > after some discussion with the department who was teaching this micro, the > emulator corrupted the accumulator > but to a different value. So in one sense it was not a correct emulator; > but in another it was a far more useful > development tool Depends on your goals, however, if any existing code took advantage of the bug or at least invoked that bug, you should have implemented the actual behavior, because otherwise that software will not run on the emulator and would run on the hardware. Since you goal (or the rest of your department) was to prevent someone from using the bug as a way to optimize their code, that was the path you took. Were you to try to build that emulator for historical purposes, you'd want to faithfully emulate the bug. In my own case, the guys that built the Lisa's MMU took advantage of undefined 68000 behavior (the reference guide won't give you the exact details, just says things like the PC value in a bus error stack frame will be incremented by some number), and managed to build a way to restart certain specific opcodes, and had built their compilers to emit code that would limit itself to just those opcodes when accessing a page of memory not previously accessed. That was the biggest pain of all in getting it to work, until I disassembled their bus error routine and was scratching my head as to why they were subtracting values from the PC on the stack frame based on what opcode triggered the bus error; a light bulb immediately light up over my head, and as soon as I made that change, Lisa Office System immediately started to work. :-) When looking at code in the Lisa boot ROM, you can find stretches of code written in specific styles, some of them are better than others, and what they're really good at is optimizing. In run of code, you can easily tell what's been written by a human writing tightly optimized assembly, and what a compiler generated. And the stuff that's hand written, when it's really good will make you say "What are they doing?" - two seconds later when you look things up in the reference guide you see why their way is better. Sometimes you do see naively written assembly too. It's certainly very educating to look at code of that era. Modern code is rarely so heavily optimized, and mostly comes out of a compiler, which sometimes can do good optimizations that are very hard to even follow. But in most cases, they emit a lot more code than needed. From ray at arachelian.com Sat Jun 20 11:04:59 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:04:59 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A3C3453.4040202@databasics.us> References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> <4A3C3453.4040202@databasics.us> Message-ID: <4A3D08AB.6000106@arachelian.com> Warren Wolfe wrote: > > There have been some incredibly good posts on this subject. Not to > denigrate anyone else's excellent input, but Ray, your description > deserves to be recorded somewhere, like perhaps a Wikipedia entry > "What is the point of collecting old computers" or some such. Simply. > Freaking. Brilliant. Glad you think so. So Tony, perhaps you could join in, in the same style and write up a bit of what you love about old hardware and keeping it running, what's enjoyable and rewarding about it, etc. Did anyone build a replica? If so, perhaps you could write a bit about what you enjoyed about that, and how you went about it, and we can put all the stuff together into a single article explaining the joys of our hobby? I'd guess it should be kept generic, not mentioning any specific system so as to attract readers to the hobby rather than to a specific machine or interest. So we have hardware work, emulator work, and replica work. Any other big field I've missed that can be part of this hobby of ours? Perhaps why we actually collect and how we go about obtaining machines, peripherals, data, and how we let others know not to throw out old machines, but to let us know about them first so they can be rescued? From rickb at bensene.com Sat Jun 20 11:15:01 2009 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:15:01 -0700 Subject: DEC KM11 Question In-Reply-To: <4A3CF4C0.40004@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4A3BBC8A.4000104@softjar.se> <4A3CF4C0.40004@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: I recently acquired two complete original DEC KM11 maintenance panel board sets (the board with the four toggle switches and bank of incandescent lamps) and the other "extender" board with the transistorized drivers for the lamps. >From what I've been able to tell, these boards can be used for diagnosing things at the microcode level on (at least) the first generation microcoded Unibus PDP 11's (11/35, 11/45, 11/05) as well as diagnosis of the RK11 disk controllers (with an appropriate plastic overlay for the indicator lights). The question I have is can this be used on an 11/34a to step through the microcode? The 11/34a runs fine so I don't need them for actual diagnostic work, but it'd be at least cool to try out the KM11s (I understand that two are needed) and watch the lights if they in fact will work on the 11/34a. I've dug around in the usual places to try to find the answer myself, and have come up empty. Also, if the KM11 can be used on the 11/34a, does anyone know of documentation that explains how to use it in this context? From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 20 11:21:20 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:21:20 -0400 (EDT) Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers Message-ID: <55957.76.2.120.32.1245514880.squirrel@mail.neurotica.com> On Sat, June 20, 2009 7:27 am, Christian Corti wrote: > On Fri, 19 Jun 2009, Mr Ian Primus wrote: >> Now, here's the dilemma. The stock card won't respond to the usual debug >> commands - they just freeze the computer. The original 20mb 3 1/2" > > Normal MFM controllers never come with an own BIOS, so there's nothing to > jump to. XT controllers do. But now I recall that Ian said "WD1003" and I seem to recall that that's the AT controller series. I think I remember using an "IBM Advancced Diagnostics" floppy, or something like that, for this. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 20 11:58:21 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:58:21 -0400 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys In-Reply-To: <4A3BF05D.5020509@softjar.se> References: <4A3BF05D.5020509@softjar.se> Message-ID: On Jun 19, 2009, at 4:09 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > An 11/70 is a heavy machine, indeed. But if you were to have > transformers to supply all the power needed, you'd increase the > weight significantly... > I have removed the power supply for the memory of a KL10, and that > is really a linear supply. The weight, and power consumption of > that is on a totally different scale to anything switching... > > Where have you seen any large transformers in an 11/70 by the way? I'm talking about the big honkers in the front sections of the H7420s. Admittedly they're nothing compared to what's in the bottom of my System/36, but I've had to lift those power supplies. Ow! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 20 12:01:21 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:01:21 -0400 Subject: DEC KM11 Question In-Reply-To: References: <4A3BBC8A.4000104@softjar.se> <4A3CF4C0.40004@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: On Jun 20, 2009, at 12:15 PM, Rick Bensene wrote: > I recently acquired two complete original DEC KM11 maintenance panel > board sets (the board with the four toggle switches and bank of > incandescent lamps) and the other "extender" board with the > transistorized drivers for the lamps. > > From what I've been able to tell, these boards can be used for > diagnosing things at the microcode level on (at least) the first > generation microcoded Unibus PDP 11's (11/35, 11/45, 11/05) as well as > diagnosis of the RK11 disk controllers (with an appropriate plastic > overlay for the indicator lights). The question I have is can this be > used on an 11/34a to step through the microcode? > > The 11/34a runs fine so I don't need them for actual diagnostic work, > but it'd be at least cool to try out the KM11s (I understand that two > are needed) and watch the lights if they in fact will work on the > 11/34a. I've dug around in the usual places to try to find the answer > myself, and have come up empty. Also, if the KM11 can be used on the > 11/34a, does anyone know of documentation that explains how to use > it in > this context? The KM11 predates the 11/34 by a few years...I wonder if it can be used in that machine at all, I kinda doubt it. The KY11-LB front panel, if properly equipped with the two additional (10-pin I think) "maintenance" cables, can be used to single-step microcode in the 11/34 CPU. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jun 20 12:07:21 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:07:21 -0600 Subject: How much would you pay for a working VT05? Message-ID: ...would you pay US$3900? Ebay item # 300323705513 Too rich for my blood. Lots of nice photos though. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jun 20 12:14:06 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:14:06 -0600 Subject: Computer Graphics History Museum Release 0.1: Visible Storage In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:39:10 -0700. <200906191039.n5JAdc0O049321@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: In article <200906191039.n5JAdc0O049321 at keith.ezwind.net>, "J. Peterson" writes: > >I am pleased to announce the first public opening of the Computer > >Graphics History Museum in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. > > Wow, sounds cool. Is the PS390 a raster display? PS/390 is a frame buffer/raster display based product, yes. > One piece of > hardware I'd really enjoy seeing again is the PS300. Me too :-). Early E&S workstations/terminals are exceedingly hard to come by. It took quite a bit of work to find a PS/390. > This was a > really high-end vector display for CAD work. The best configurations > had knob boxes and keyboards with alphanumeric LED legends you could > set. The quality of the display is something I've never seen > duplicated, even on modern LCD panels. I'm still hunting for the appropriate black E&S keyboard/dials/tablet to go with the PS/390. They've shown up once in a while on ebay, but I always get outbid. > Do any of these still exist? SLC would seem like a better than > average place to find one. You might think that, but you'd be wrong. Although they were manufactured here, they tended to be purchased and used elsewhere. E&S is just a dim shadow of what it once was, so there's not really any hope of getting one from them. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jun 20 12:15:35 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:15:35 -0600 Subject: Computer Graphics History Museum Release 0.1: Visible Storage In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:21:36 -0000. Message-ID: In article , Mike Ross writes: > I have a PS300=2C possibly two=2C with all the displays=2C keyboards=2C dia= > ls and buttons=2C manuals=2C and software for the host system. I gave an ad= > ditional unit to Jim Austin in the UK. > > Later this year I hope to start playing with it=2C will get material online= > in my copious free time. Mike, didn't you move to the states? I'd love to visit that sometime. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jun 20 12:17:46 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:17:46 -0600 Subject: Computer Graphics History Museum Release 0.1: Visible In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:35:37 +0100. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > > hardware I'd really enjoy seeing again is the PS300. This was a > > really high-end vector display for CAD work. The best configurations > > had knob boxes and keyboards with alphanumeric LED legends you could > > The PS390 has that too. 8 characters (a pair of those 4 character HP LED > display devices) for each fucntion key and knob. ESV workstation has it as well. I have the matching one for the ESV. You can program the labels and obtain information on the dial knob values using the XInput extension to the X server. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jun 20 12:20:00 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:20:00 -0600 Subject: [personal] Re: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:01:36 -0400. Message-ID: In article , William Donzelli writes: > > Plead, beg, make the best case for recovery they can to the owner, offer to do the work of removal at no cost to the owner, Etc. > > And then the scrapper comes in with MONEY...and drives away with the machine. Given that scrappers bid on a per-lb. basis based on what they think they can recover from the machine, it shouldn't be too hard to outbid a scrapper. However, sometimes you have to deal with "property surplus" organizations that seem to prefer scrappers since they deal with them regularly over the one-time bidder that comes in. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jun 20 13:03:12 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:03:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test Message-ID: <930052.34607.qm@web23404.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Well, you did want us to test it out and try and break it, lol. Just glad I didn't bring it down completely. Is there a way to adjust the retransmit time depending on user location, or is that impossible / too complicated? Or will it be more friendly to everyone once it is increased a little? Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Sat, 20/6/09, Michael B. Brutman wrote: From: Michael B. Brutman Subject: Re: PCjr Telnet BBS Test To: "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Date: Saturday, 20 June, 2009, 4:55 PM Andrew Burton wrote: > Yeah, I dropped by and had a blast (I'm Lonewolf10). > A neat all round experience. Just hope I don't get hooked on BBS's now! :) > > > Regards, > Andrew B > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Your connection was interesting - I noticed it was driving my TCP/IP stack nuts.? (It was retransmitting a lot of packets while you were online - far more than normal.) Your message about being on a USB modem made me feel slightly better about it.? That, and being in the UK probably is just causing a very long latency.? My retransmit timeout on the TCP/IP packets is probably too low ... Mike From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 20 13:41:19 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:41:19 -0700 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers In-Reply-To: <55957.76.2.120.32.1245514880.squirrel@mail.neurotica.com> References: <55957.76.2.120.32.1245514880.squirrel@mail.neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A3CCADF.27919.23B73BF8@cclist.sydex.com> On 20 Jun 2009 at 12:21, Dave McGuire wrote: > XT controllers do. But now I recall that Ian said "WD1003" and I > seem > to recall that that's the AT controller series. I think I remember > using an "IBM Advancced Diagnostics" floppy, or something like that, > for this. There are lots of third-party low-level formatters--and later, many included in the BIOS setup screen. Basically, they just make INT 13H BIOS calls to format a track at a time. Landmark PC Probe is a good interleave-tester and formatter in my experience. --Chuck From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Sat Jun 20 14:45:37 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:45:37 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3D3C61.10306@mail.msu.edu> Andy Holt wrote: > > > I've spent time writing an emulator for a machine I don't own and for > which I have a certain amount of documentation. > > <<<< > > I've written a couple of emulators a long time ago. > The more memorable one being for the F8 microprocessor that ran on the ICL > 1900, was written in > assembler (probably GIN5, might have been PLAN) and whose execution speed on > the mainframe was > almost the same as for a real hardware F8. > > The difficult decision was whether to follow the documentation or the real > hardware in a very > common situation. > I ended up hitting the same sort of decision while writing my PERQ emulator (or rather, the decision was forced on me at a later point) -- the PERQ's CPU contains an "expression stack" which is 16 levels deep. According to the official microcode documentation, the behavior of this stack on overflow/underflow is "undefined." I coded the emulator to log a warning when this occurred and to clip the value into the range [0,16], under the (naive) thinking that the only times this clipping code would be hit would be when an emulation error occurred, and I'd want to know about it. Well, that caused a very subtle bug that took me a long time to track down. There is some microcode (notably, a RNG loaded by the game PERQMan) that accidentally "leaks" a pop on every invocation and it's only the fact that the _real_ hardware wraps the eStack pointer around that allows it to run on the real hardware without destroying the stack. (It's still dumb luck that it manages to work at all.) This was crashing horribly on my emulator with really odd results. After doing a lot of debugging, I tracked it to the RNG microcode and made a very simple change to the eStack code. Now I can play Pac-Man on PERQemu, and all is well with the world... Josh > Andy > > > > > From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jun 20 14:58:33 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:58:33 -0700 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A3D08AB.6000106@arachelian.com> References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> <4A3C3453.4040202@databasics.us> <4A3D08AB.6000106@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <4A3D3F69.5020703@bitsavers.org> Ray Arachelian wrote: > So we have hardware work, emulator work, and replica work. Any other > big field I've missed that can be part of this hobby of ours? Collecting how the machines were used, and who used them. Also the history of companies that produced them and the development process. Historians seem to be more interested in the social aspects of computing, as opposed to the nuts and bolts of how they worked that collectors concentrate on. There have been historians that question why anyone would bother collecting software at all, for example. I was asked recently by someone concerning archiving software what use people could make of software if the binaries and sources were made available for non-commercial use. Beyond intellectual research/curiosity, I was having some trouble doing so given the constraint of it being for non-commercial use. What would you do if the agreement with the software's owner is that it has to be "frozen in amber", ie. you have to agree not to make changes/improvements to it even though you have the sources? From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Jun 20 15:01:03 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:01:03 -0600 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A3D3C61.10306@mail.msu.edu> References: <4A3D3C61.10306@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4A3D3FFF.206@jetnet.ab.ca> Josh Dersch wrote: Well, that caused a very subtle bug that took me a long time to track > down. There is some microcode (notably, a RNG loaded by the game > PERQMan) that accidentally "leaks" a pop on every invocation and it's > only the fact that the _real_ hardware wraps the eStack pointer around > that allows it to run on the real hardware without destroying the > stack. (It's still dumb luck that it manages to work at all.) This was > crashing horribly on my emulator with really odd results. After doing a > lot of debugging, I tracked it to the RNG microcode and made a very > simple change to the eStack code. Now I can play Pac-Man on PERQemu, > and all is well with the world... > > Josh I say the real hardware is the final word... That is what runs the software. >> Andy PS . And think of all the quarters you now save. :) From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 20 12:53:53 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:53:53 +0100 (BST) Subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect In-Reply-To: <880D4C9B-6E18-458E-8D44-78635CDA8D7B@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jun 19, 9 04:12:53 pm Message-ID: > *None* of my computers have "start" buttons. ;) At least one of mine does No, I've nto started running Windows boxen. Rather, my Philips P850 has a frontpanel pushbutton labelled 'start'. It basically gets the machine doing whatever you've sleected with the interlocked mode buttons (read memory/register, write memory/register, start running a progrma, single-step) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 20 13:07:18 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:07:18 +0100 (BST) Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: <4A3C1B9B.2010103@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 19, 9 01:13:31 pm Message-ID: > > Repairing them is interesting, Most parts, the exceptions being the HP > > custom ROMa and the Intel 1103 DRAMs are easy to find. But being a > > bit-serial machine, tracing the fault is hard without a logic analyser (I > > speak from experience having repaired several 9810s, a 9820 and a 9830). > > > > Yes, I noticed that at the time. This was before microprocessors. We > were going to go with the replacement guarantee... That's not a lot of help _now_ (and nor is board-swapping, whatever your moral views on doing it. If you can't get known-good working boardsm you can't swap them). In fact HP put a test connector inside on the CPU control (microcode) PCB. Amongst other things it carries the 8 bit microcode address. Looking at that -- even just seeing if it executes certain microinstructions -- is a great help in debugging a faulty machine. Well, provided you understnad the processor and have the microcode listings it is :-) > > How on earth did that happen? > > > > I fell in love with a woman living on the Big Island of Hawaii. That's Oh I see.... :-( > From this point, for the foreseeable future, MY hobbies have to be > pretty cheap, or involve stuff I already have. I, alas, have the same problem for rather different reasons (no ladies involved...). Fortunatley when I had spare money, I bought good tools and test gear, and I've got a numnber of machiens around that need reapiring, so I'ev got plenty to keep me busy. > > Yes, older HPs are well-built and often well designed (although I am not > > convinced the HP120 is a particularly good design for a CP/M box). I feel > > the peiod from about 1965 to 9185 was the 'glory days of HP' when they > > had some wonderful products. If I can get stuff from that period, I do.. > > > > I agree on the HP-120, but the HP-125 actually is very nice. One of my > favorites, AaMoF. What's the difference? I am serious. Apart from the keyboard interface, they're pretty much the same machine, just differently laid out. Even the ROMs are the same between the HP120 and one version of the HP125. The keyboard interface is physically very diffeernt, but the keyboards are logically fairly similar, to the extend you can use an HP125 keyboard on an HP120 with a 3-chip circuit (all 4000-series CMOS parts), although the reverse is a lot harder. OK, there's no official way to have an internal printer in a 120, but the interface is there, and althohgh I've not tried it, it should work. One day I'll borrow bits fro man HP150 and see. When I said I didn't like the design of the HP120, I didn't mean the 'looks ' of the machine. I meant the electronic design -- a separate terminal processor communicating with the application processor through a little 'mailbox' and a very strange video circuit. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 20 13:16:26 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:16:26 +0100 (BST) Subject: DECserver 90TL to VT (VT320/VT420/VT520) terminal via 4 wire In-Reply-To: <20090619232221.GQ8213@n0jcf.net> from "Chris Elmquist" at Jun 19, 9 06:22:21 pm Message-ID: > > I've not tried it, but I can't see why it wouldn't work. As you suggest, > > you need the middle 4 pins o nthe connector. You _may_ need > > to strap DTR to DSR (i.e. the outer pins on the MMJ) together at each > > end, but I don;t think you do. DEC didn't normally use hardware flow control. > > You also need a ground don't you? Does this 4 wire cable have an overall Indeed you do. But AFAIK the 4 'middle pins' are effectively TxD, RxD, ground and an Rx reference line. So you have ground there. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 20 14:17:46 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:17:46 +0100 (BST) Subject: Service Manual for Ball TV-90 monitor? In-Reply-To: from "Dave McGuire" at Jun 20, 9 02:56:30 am Message-ID: > > Decided to dig out my IBM 5120 and try to get its monitor working, > > at long last. It's a Ball TV-90. Anyone out there have the > > service manual for this? (Worst case, there's a copy on eBay right > > now, but before I go through that I thought I'd bug you guys...) > > > > I mentioned this issue a few years ago, here's a photo of the > > interesting distortion I'm getting: http://yahozna.dyndns.org/ > > scratch/5120disp.jpg. Thus far I've done a complete cap kit with > > no effect. I hate working on monitors, but I really want to get > > this running again... > > Wow that's a bizarre distortion. I'd love to see the horizontal > drive waveform on an oscilloscope. It almost looks like it might be > some sort of zero-crossing distortion in an amplifier. I tired to look at that URL earier (when I was on a machine with a graphical display), but for some reaosn I couldn't access it. So I've not seen the actual distorted image. However, very few monitors use any form of linear amplifier stage to apply a sawtooth current to the horizontal defliection coil (they do for the vertical, of course). Rather, they use the inductance of the yoke as part of the sawtooth generator. The horizontal output stage is essentially a switch. Before you go any further, check the supply to the monitor. If there's something wrong in the PSU you might get significant ripple at the horizontal frequency which will produce 'interesting' displays. Things I would check : The horizotnal output transistor and its drive (although if it's not been turned hard on and off, it'll overheat and fail very quickly0 The flyback 'damper' diode Any damping resistors in paralell with inductors in the yoke circuit A horizontal linearity coil (if one is fitted -- and check it's the right way round. It may be a 2-terminal inductor, but it is polarised). The yoke coupling capacitor (OK, you've replaced this) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 20 14:29:45 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:29:45 +0100 (BST) Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A3D08AB.6000106@arachelian.com> from "Ray Arachelian" at Jun 20, 9 12:04:59 pm Message-ID: > So Tony, perhaps you could join in, in the same style and write up a bit > of what you love about old hardware and keeping it running, what's > enjoyable and rewarding about it, etc. It's sometimes difficult to explain why you like something. You know you do, but don't know why. But I'll give it a go. If I was being flippant I'd point out that earlier in this thread somebody said 'Anyone can run the emulator'. I'd prefer to do something that not everybody can do :-). But there's a lot more to it than that... I think my love of the real old hardware comes from two things. Firstly, I like to fully understand things. There is no way I can understand a machine with most of the logic in undocumented ASICs. I can understand a TTL-built minicomputer., Heck, there are even transsitor-level schematics of some of the chips in the databook. The second thing is that I love puzzles. Figuring out how the machine really works is a puzzle. So is finding and correcting faults. As I've mentioned before. my method of faultfinding is to grab the test gear, make some measurements and then think about them -- solving the puzzle. And then, and only then, do I make any changes to the machine. Of course quite often I get it wrong the first time, I don't replace the right part. So I make some more measurements and think again. There is a certain joy in taking a machine that's, perhaps, 35 years old, and getting it to work again. > So we have hardware work, emulator work, and replica work. Any other > big field I've missed that can be part of this hobby of ours? Perhaps Preserving the contents of old storage media ? The software is useful (I hesitate to say essential) for running the real hardware, for running on an emulator, and for running on a replica. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 20 14:33:50 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:33:50 +0100 (BST) Subject: DEC KM11 Question In-Reply-To: from "Rick Bensene" at Jun 20, 9 09:15:01 am Message-ID: > > >From what I've been able to tell, these boards can be used for > diagnosing things at the microcode level on (at least) the first > generation microcoded Unibus PDP 11's (11/35, 11/45, 11/05) as well as > diagnosis of the RK11 disk controllers (with an appropriate plastic And on some other devices. I've used one on an RX01, for example. > overlay for the indicator lights). The question I have is can this be > used on an 11/34a to step through the microcode? AFAIK it can't be used on an 11/34. There is a way of single-stepping the microocde on an 11/34 -- IIRC you link a couple of special cables between the frontpanel control board and one of the CPU boards (10 wire ribbon cables?) There's then some odd key combination on the panel that lets you single-step the mircocode. > The 11/34a runs fine so I don't need them for actual diagnostic work, > but it'd be at least cool to try out the KM11s (I understand that two > are needed) and watch the lights if they in fact will work on the Not all devices need 2 KM11s. The 11/45 can use two, but one is for the main CPU, the other for the FPU. You cna use one at a time. The RK11-C really needs two, the RK11-D and RX01 just have one KM11 connector. I can't remember the 11/40. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 20 14:40:10 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:40:10 +0100 (BST) Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook Message-ID: Does anyone have a National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook (databook) from around 1989? I am looking for datasheets (or at least pinouts) for : DP8468 DP8465 DP8455 DP8462 DP8463 Datasheetarchive and Digchip don't have anything, and a google search is not helpful. In case you're curious, I am trying to identify a house-coded part with a National Logo that I suspect is one of these devies. 24 pin shrinkdip if it helps.. On another subject, has anyone heard of an AMD 8053? 40 pin DIL, I suspect it's a derivative of the 8051 microcontorller. No I don't mean 8035... -tony From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jun 20 15:23:14 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:23:14 -0600 Subject: Anyone got a good reference URL for Sun frame buffers? Message-ID: cg6, cg12, etc. I'm looking for something that collects all the information in one place. Any suggestions? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From geoffr at zipcon.net Sat Jun 20 16:06:00 2009 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoff Reed) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:06:00 -0700 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers In-Reply-To: <21393.98126.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <21393.98126.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1AF5A287FFF04BE29907404520A0332A@liberator> The stock card requires a setup utility. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mr Ian Primus Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 7:40 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers Anyone remember the difference between the various Western Digital MFM disk controllers? I've got a few in front of me right now, and I'm trying to figure out which would be the best for this Compaq Portable 286. I've got the good ol' WD1002A-WX1, and what looks to be the bigger verison, the WD1002S-WX2, then another, even longer card, the one that came stock with the Compaq, the WD1015-PL03. Now, here's the dilemma. The stock card won't respond to the usual debug commands - they just freeze the computer. The original 20mb 3 1/2" Miniscribe hard drive is dead (won't even spin). I am going to replace it with a similar 3 1/2" form factor drive - the NEC D3142. (43mb! Woo!) I already got the drive formatted and working on the small WD1002A-WX1 card, but it's been a while since I worked with MFM controllers - and I seem to remember the WD1002S-WX2 being faster or something. Also, I don't remember the calculations for optimum interleave, I used 3, since that was the default.... Pointers? -Ian From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Sat Jun 20 16:50:44 2009 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 22:50:44 +0100 Subject: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 18 Jun 2009, at 20:06, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > From: Ray Arachelian > >> I now plan to publish my emulator on the web, along with original >> software which non programmers can run on it. I am very unsure of how >> many people will be interested in such a thing. I need to get the >> physical machine running to retrieve said software from unique ten >> track mag tapes and from standard 80 column cards, though I could >> probably get the latter read elsewhere, I don't want to have to >> transport about 150,000 card somewhere to have them read, probably at >> great cost. > Hey, I'd happily play with it. I probably won't get very deep into > it, > but I would like to interact with it and see what it was like. (Which > mainframe btw?) The ICT 1301 dating from 1962. It is possibly unique in not having a program counter. Of course there is a way to get the next pair of instructions or a double length instruction. If you think of it as a three instruction pipeline which (in normal operation) always contain an instruction to do the instruction fetch that gives you the idea. The fetch instruction is an absolute jump, so contains the address. After execution it re-enters the pipeline with one added. There can of course be more than one absolute jump in the pipeline, it can even be all jumps, and the jump instruction can be used to jump to a subroutine which saves some of the pipeline in memory as its first instruction. > Hopefully you'll add various things to make the experience more > authentic, such as sounds and pictures/animation of actual tapes, > punch > cards, etc. (As much as possible.) Yes that would be nice. > You've done a wonderful thing by letting people look inside a large > machine. Hopefully you'll get the chance to do it again and get to > see > lots of smiles on the little kiddies faces. Thanks. Not so much smiles as wide eyed amazement. >> For micro computers I agree, not quite sure this applies to >> mainframes. I guess it depends on how you define software. If a >> single >> instruction is software then I suppose so. At the lowest level >> debugging I can set an instruction into control register one, set the >> machine to single cycle and watch the lights on the console as I send >> single clock pulses through the hardware every time I press a button. > Sorry, that's still running software. Microcode is still software My machine has no microcode its all hard wired logic. Confusingly there are two instructions, the multiply and the block move which proceed in small steps in what the manuals micro instructions but there is no memory of any sort they are read from, no micro instruction set, just logic which decides if the multiplier, or word count has reached zero and if a (decimal) digit is more or less than five to decide to subtract or add the multiplier. > You can hold a programming class. Maybe provide actual documentation > ahead of time so they know what to expect and can have an idea of what > sort of programs that they can execute, maybe provide some samples for > them to start with and tweak as they go along. For ordinary visitors we don't have contact beforehand. We could possibly have days in the same way as preserved steam railways have days when they sell people the experience of being a steam engine driver, under strict supervision of course. Car racing tracks have days when you are taught the safety rules and the allowed to drive around the track in a fast car accompanied by a professional racing driver. This costs a lot of money of course. For computers maybe something could be done on the web for free with emulation. This could be worldwide all year around. Any local people could arrange to come and run their programs on the real hardware in the warmer months. > If you can get actual > terminals to the mainframe, once they're done using the emulator, you > could fire up the real thing and let them play with that for a short > time. Maybe if you're worried about the cost of the electricity, you > could charge a bit of cash for that purpose and let them know what the > cost is for. Forget terminals, the machine never had them. A very small number of them had the optional teleprinter but I have never seen one. I could hook up a teletype, Flexowriter or a Creed but there is no operating system to use it with. There are 400 words of protected drum storage to hold a punched card bootstrap and a few utilities. > I don't think several hundred visitors a day would write code, they > might just want to see it in action, but maybe a few dozen would > like to > get deeper. Maybe I could ask people this year if they would like to do that. Too soon for this year anyway, 12th July is too soon to do anything much. > Sure, there will be much better 3D modeling software out there by that > time, but I imagine many would want to go back and see what it was > like > in the day and experience that for themselves. Hmm, I suppose I am falling into the same trap as the people who scrapped the mainframes, assuming that because things are no longer useful they have no reason to exist. > Myself, I have two little ones, they're not quite old enough to > understand computers yet, though I've given them one to play with - > right now they just use it to watch videos or listen to kids' > audiobooks > on. Rarely they play games on them. But when they're about 9 or so I > imagine I can show them a lot more and let them play with the machines > I've collected over the years and maybe they can play with the ROM > BASIC > and code a bit. :-) Something I'm looking forward to. Yes, before they become teenagers and have no patience. >> One aspect of emulators I have not yet explored is, well hold on a >> second and I'll explain. When looking through the 1301's >> documentation, circuit diagrams and instruction set, I am very >> tempted >> to add improvement which could have been done by the designer, but >> for >> some reason, either budgetary or lack of knowledge (some software >> techniques had not been invented yet). In an emulator I could add >> indexing or indirect addressing, or immediate mode data, or relative >> mode, or branch on NOT some condition without having to modify the >> actual hardware. I could then try programming the machine in that >> configuration and see how it affected the program size and ease of >> programming. >> >> It would be even more fun if the emulator was done at logic gate >> level >> and even more so if mated to an interactive 3D model of the hardware >> where you could open the cover, insert emulated scope probes and look >> at the signals. You could even emulate random logic failures for >> educational reasons, though to do so as a game would probably be a >> step too far for me, though programming the emulator to do it WOULD >> be >> fun. > Right, a logic simulator could be used to model this, and later you > could change the emulator around to match the proposed change. Gate > level emulation is very difficult. Not so much difficult to write, > but > its going to require a lot of processing power, and the timing aspects > will be very hard to get right. Fortunately I have a very slow machine to model, the faster instruction takes 12 microseconds. There are about 4000 PCBs, 1000 of which are JK flip-flops. The other 3000 have at most 4 And gates on each, plus wire-or so I would guess about 15,000 gates and 1000 flip- flops. I have scanned the 'Address Book' which lists all the interconnections in the machine. I want to OCR it and then write a program which generates C code to recursively process all changes in logic level for that clock cycle and then latch the data into the flip- flops at the end of the clock pulse. As there are so few logic levels which change on each clock cycle I would think that could be done in real time, after all a modern machine has a clock speed about 2000 times greater my 1301's 1MHz clock. > It has been done in the past, mainly to help designers test out their > designs, but they typically run several thousand times slower than the > actual machine. Presumably someone designing a new computer would be designing something faster than what already exists so the simulation would be often be running on a slower machine in the first place. > I remember there was something, possibly Java or such on that page, > but > it's long gone now. Unfortunately it wasn't something one could > download. That's one of the things that utterly sucks about the web. > You can archive it, but things that depend on a back end server > can't be > replicated without having what runs there (or a simulation thereof.) > It's sad that it wasn't released publicly. Now we have been appointed as the '1301 working group' of the CCS, the other half of the team gets a seat on the CCS committee (I'm too busy earning a living to keep going up to London every few months) so perhaps he can see if that is a possibility. > Most of Colossus was just circuitry, not much to program there, but > you > could code simulations of those circuits and provide code that does > similar enough things. (At least what little I know if it comes from > the book.) I think you need a knowledge of basic cryptography to make much sense of what the plug-able 'menus' do, knowledge I don't have. Roger Holmes. From bear at typewritten.org Sat Jun 20 17:45:59 2009 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:45:59 -0700 Subject: Terak 8510/a monitors available - Seattle WA Message-ID: <7ACDF123-77DC-4A3A-814E-D4827B7F9BD2@typewritten.org> There are two Terak monitors at Re*PC in Seattle. They are headed for the Tukwila store, where they may remain for a short time, but I can't say from there whether they'll go on the floor, on eBay or be scrapped. My contact mentioned he thought he'd seen the keyboards come through separately, earlier, but that if so they'd already been sent to Tukwila. This should be taken as apocryphal as they keyboards really could belong to anything. Crappy cel phone photos: http://www.typewritten.org/~bear/junk/IMG_0065.JPG http://www.typewritten.org/~bear/junk/IMG_0066.JPG If you're interested, move fast. I am willing to serve as an intermediary if necessary. ok bear From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sat Jun 20 18:16:53 2009 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:16:53 -0500 Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test In-Reply-To: <930052.34607.qm@web23404.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <930052.34607.qm@web23404.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A3D6DE5.7090308@brutman.com> Andrew Burton wrote: > Well, you did want us to test it out and try and break it, lol. > Just glad I didn't bring it down completely. > Is there a way to adjust the retransmit time depending on user location, or is that impossible / too complicated? > Or will it be more friendly to everyone once it is increased a little? > > > Regards, > Andrew B > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Cosam and I were talking about it and the right neurons fired in my brain. Back in December I made a change to the way I measure elapsed time. The change gave me like a 30% performance improvement because my original code was so bad, and the new code was counting timer ticks which is pretty easy. When I made the change I changed all of my units of time measurement from 100ths of seconds to milliseconds. Except in the configuration file that defines the timeouts for the BBS. :-) The result is that I'm retransmitting packets if I don't get an acknowledgment in 0.4 seconds, not the 4 seconds that I intended. Which explains why your particular modem connection was driving the retransmits so hard. Most broad-band users don't have that problem. It's not bad enough to stop and restart the BBS, but it definitely is exercising that path in the code pretty hard. Mike From dundas at caltech.edu Sat Jun 20 18:29:20 2009 From: dundas at caltech.edu (dundas at caltech.edu) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:29:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: DEC KM11 Question In-Reply-To: References: <4A3BBC8A.4000104@softjar.se> <4A3CF4C0.40004@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <50237.75.16.40.47.1245540560.squirrel@webmail.caltech.edu> Rick, >>From what I've been able to tell, these boards can be used for > diagnosing things at the microcode level on (at least) the first > generation microcoded Unibus PDP 11's (11/35, 11/45, 11/05) as well as > diagnosis of the RK11 disk controllers (with an appropriate plastic > overlay for the indicator lights). The question I have is can this be > used on an 11/34a to step through the microcode? I'm not an expert on either the KM11 or the /34a, though I too have a working /34a. AFAIK, the KM11 is not compatible with the /34a. However, in addition to the processors mentioned above, I believe the /70 can take advantage of two (one for the CPU, one for the FP11?), and the RK05 can take one [both of which I also have]. Fairly certain there are a good number of other peripherals that can use the KM as well. Wish I could come across a pair. Someday when I'm wealthy I'll buy the kit from Guy. John From ray at arachelian.com Sat Jun 20 19:05:13 2009 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:05:13 -0400 Subject: 1301 and Colossus (was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3D7939.7090608@arachelian.com> Roger Holmes wrote: > > The ICT 1301 dating from 1962. It is possibly unique in not having a > program counter. Of course there is a way to get the next pair of > instructions or a double length instruction. If you think of it as a > three instruction pipeline which (in normal operation) always contain > an instruction to do the instruction fetch that gives you the idea. > The fetch instruction is an absolute jump, so contains the address. > After execution it re-enters the pipeline with one added. There can of > course be more than one absolute jump in the pipeline, it can even be > all jumps, and the jump instruction can be used to jump to a > subroutine which saves some of the pipeline in memory as its first > instruction. The wikipedia article on it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICT_1301 and this page http://ict1301.co.uk/13010310.htm, are quite impressive. So it states upto 2000 48 bit words. So that shouldn't be any problem to emulate. Punch cards and paper tape might be fun to simulate on the web page. I'd say get some scanned in and maybe get some javascript or something to allow the end user to click on the various positions of the cards to punch a hole, and maybe make the same sound as a hole puncher would make. Ditto for paper tape. And maybe if they make a mistake, the card could be thrown away and a they'd need to start over. While authentic, that would be fun for about 10 minutes or so before patience runs out, so an alternate method, such as typing it into a text box and having the javascript punch the cards for the user would be a good alternate. :-) > My machine has no microcode its all hard wired logic. Confusingly > there are two instructions, the multiply and the block move which > proceed in small steps in what the manuals micro instructions but > there is no memory of any sort they are read from, no micro > instruction set, just logic which decides if the multiplier, or word > count has reached zero and if a (decimal) digit is more or less than > five to decide to subtract or add the multiplier. > For ordinary visitors we don't have contact beforehand. We could > possibly have days in the same way as preserved steam railways have > days when they sell people the experience of being a steam engine > driver, under strict supervision of course. Car racing tracks have > days when you are taught the safety rules and the allowed to drive > around the track in a fast car accompanied by a professional racing > driver. This costs a lot of money of course. For computers maybe > something could be done on the web for free with emulation. This could > be worldwide all year around. Any local people could arrange to come > and run their programs on the real hardware in the warmer months. Sure. I guess for general visitors, perhaps some sort of demo program can be shown, feeding in punch cards and producing some result or other. > >> I don't think several hundred visitors a day would write code, they >> might just want to see it in action, but maybe a few dozen would like to >> get deeper. > > Maybe I could ask people this year if they would like to do that. Too > soon for this year anyway, 12th July is too soon to do anything much. Well, pick whatever day is convenient for you. > Hmm, I suppose I am falling into the same trap as the people who > scrapped the mainframes, assuming that because things are no longer > useful they have no reason to exist. Useful as in modern day, probably not. Useful as in historical, or learning classic computer architecture, absolutely. > > Yes, before they become teenagers and have no patience. :-) Indeed. It's hard enough to get the older one to want to read. He mostly just wants to play, or watch cartoons. > >> Right, a logic simulator could be used to model this, and later you >> could change the emulator around to match the proposed change. Gate >> level emulation is very difficult. Not so much difficult to write, but >> its going to require a lot of processing power, and the timing aspects >> will be very hard to get right. > > Fortunately I have a very slow machine to model, the faster > instruction takes 12 microseconds. There are about 4000 PCBs, 1000 of > which are JK flip-flops. The other 3000 have at most 4 And gates on > each, plus wire-or so I would guess about 15,000 gates and 1000 > flip-flops. I have scanned the 'Address Book' which lists all the > interconnections in the machine. I want to OCR it and then write a > program which generates C code to recursively process all changes in > logic level for that clock cycle and then latch the data into the > flip-flops at the end of the clock pulse. As there are so few logic > levels which change on each clock cycle I would think that could be > done in real time, after all a modern machine has a clock speed about > 2000 times greater my 1301's 1MHz clock. This is true, however each gate will take a bit of work in order to evaluate its state. This is non trivial. The JK flipflops are easier, just pretend that they're storage instead of two gates feeding each other. It's a cheat, sure, but if you go about it the proper way, it will eat a lot of host CPU for little gain. For that sized gate count (excluding the flops), it can absolutely be done in real time. Mmm, I think you can even reduce this to the equivalent of a spreadsheet, which each "cell" being a gate with a variable holding the state as its output and a list of pointers to the input states, then for each instruction cycle, recalculate all of the states of the gates. I don't think I've actually seen any emulator that goes about it this way, it would certainly be very unique. Hardware output would have to be emulated as well. For the drums you could have an index into the current position of the drum and a very large two dimensional array for the actual data. You'd update the index every clock cycle, or every Xth clock cycle to move the data into view of the r/w heads. > >> It has been done in the past, mainly to help designers test out their >> designs, but they typically run several thousand times slower than the >> actual machine. > > Presumably someone designing a new computer would be designing > something faster than what already exists so the simulation would be > often be running on a slower machine in the first place. A straightforward way to emulate this, would normally be to just to implement the instruction set in C (or some other language) and have it do exactly what the hardware would do without simulating the gates. Ditto for the I/O hardware. That would be fairly trivial for a machine of this speed. > > Now we have been appointed as the '1301 working group' of the CCS, the > other half of the team gets a seat on the CCS committee (I'm too busy > earning a living to keep going up to London every few months) so > perhaps he can see if that is a possibility. If you could get in touch with the Colossus guys, and ask them to put their emulator back online, as well as details about the replica, that would be wonderful. > I think you need a knowledge of basic cryptography to make much sense > of what the plug-able 'menus' do, knowledge I don't have. > I've got that down from my days as a cypherpunk :-) however, the Colossus (Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers by B. Jack Copeland et al) book does have a nice introduction to it. It does include some descriptions of the electronics and how they simulated rotors using vacuum tubes as a large rotary shift register, but nowhere near enough to actually build an emulator or a replicate of the machine. You could build something similar, but it wouldn't be accurate at all. Most of that good book is a wonderful historical recounting of various codes and code machines, well worth a read. But sorry, no full schematic of the Colossus. :-) It does however go fairly deep into the theory of how it cracked messages. From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Sat Jun 20 22:36:32 2009 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:36:32 -0700 Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook References: Message-ID: <000301c9f221$78b68580$0201a8c0@hal9000> Tony, I have a datasheet for the DP8464 ( supposed to be similar to the 8468 ) and a bunch of Application Notes for using that family of parts ( i.e. AN774, AN414, etc..). It would be helpful to know if it is a pulse detector, data separator or whatever function you think it might serve. I also have a datasheet for the AMD8751 / 8753 which are the EPROM versions of the factory mask ROM 8051 and 8053. The 8753 has 8 K of EPROM and same functionality as the 8051 / 8751 ( 4 K ROM / EPROM ). / steven ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Duell" To: Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2009 12:40 PM Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook > Does anyone have a National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook > (databook) from around 1989? I am looking for datasheets (or at least > pinouts) for : > > DP8468 > DP8465 > DP8455 > DP8462 > DP8463 > > Datasheetarchive and Digchip don't have anything, and a google search is > not helpful. > > In case you're curious, I am trying to identify a house-coded part with a > National Logo that I suspect is one of these devies. 24 pin shrinkdip if > it helps.. > > On another subject, has anyone heard of an AMD 8053? 40 pin DIL, I > suspect it's a derivative of the 8051 microcontorller. No I don't mean > 8035... > > -tony From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jun 20 23:35:30 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:35:30 -0700 Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook In-Reply-To: <000301c9f221$78b68580$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <000301c9f221$78b68580$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <4A3DB892.9050902@bitsavers.org> Scanning wrote: >> Does anyone have a National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook >> (databook) from around 1989? sections 2 and 9 of the 1989 edition are up now under http://bitsavers.org/pdf/national/_dataBooks/1989_Mass_Storage_Handbook From rickr at castles.com Sat Jun 20 09:04:29 2009 From: rickr at castles.com (ME) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:04:29 -0700 Subject: Tandy PC's Message-ID: <5648F9B35DB1459CA4A49704CBCF1ED0@ME2> On June 19, 2009, rickr at castles.com wrote: I have many different type of Tandy PC's. TRS 80 to the various types of Tandy 1000 xxx's. Tandy 100. Portable in a sewing type case - think it is a Model 4P. Monitors of three types. Lots of dos and cp/m (I think). And various types of programs and disks and peripherals. I'm being some what vague because it has been a very long time since I used them. The '80s I believe. They all worked then but the drives might need to be hand spun to free them from sitting. I have moved twice and they are packed up. I am in my early 60's of age now and will never get to put a collection room together. I would like to see them go to a worthy cause and be used - not destroyed. I was given your contact address: From: "Mike" > To: > Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 5:14 PM > Subject: Re: Comment from a reader of your web page 'MyReference' "your best bet is to post a notice to this list ": cctalk at classiccmp.org including your general location. There are several collectors in the area, I'm on the East coast." Mike I am located on the west coast Bay Area of Calif. If you are interested OR know of someone who might be, please let me know. If I die my son will just trash them and I don't wish that to happen. Thank you for your time. Rick From csquared3 at tx.rr.com Sat Jun 20 21:34:12 2009 From: csquared3 at tx.rr.com (CSquared) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:34:12 -0500 Subject: Service Manual for Ball TV-90 monitor? References: <4A3C6FE0.7070300@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <006c01c9f218$c3d9af50$6400a8c0@acerd3c08b49af> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Josh Dersch" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2009 12:13 AM Subject: Service Manual for Ball TV-90 monitor? > Decided to dig out my IBM 5120 and try to get its monitor working, at long > last. It's a Ball TV-90. Anyone out there have the service manual for > this? (Worst case, there's a copy on eBay right now, but before I go > through that I thought I'd bug you guys...) > > I mentioned this issue a few years ago, here's a photo of the interesting > distortion I'm getting: http://yahozna.dyndns.org/scratch/5120disp.jpg. > Thus far I've done a complete cap kit with no effect. I hate working on > monitors, but I really want to get this running again... > > Thanks, > Josh > Is that display by any chance supposed to be 40 characters wide rather than 80? ISTR the 5120 has a 40-wide video mode. The reason I ask is that the best I can tell from the picture the display is exactly 40 characters wide with the characters brighter starting at about the 10th character through the 20th character on each line. If that is correct then I'd think the problem is possibly with the grid-1 or cathode circuitry, in the sense that something is driving grid-1 somewhat more positive or the cathode more negative in sync with the horizontal sweep. But of course ICBW... Later, Charlie Carothers -- My email address is csquared3 at tx dot rr dot com From lists at databasics.us Sun Jun 21 00:47:58 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:47:58 -1000 Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3DC98E.9050101@databasics.us> Tony Duell wrote: > OK, there's no official way to have an internal printer in a 120, but the > interface is there, and althohgh I've not tried it, it should work. One > day I'll borrow bits fro man HP150 and see. > I really like the 125 for several reasons. First, it has an HPIB interface for disks, etc. That interface also allowed it to be a controller for calibration instruments. It also used an easy to create disk format. Also handy. > When I said I didn't like the design of the HP120, I didn't mean the > 'looks ' of the machine. I meant the electronic design -- a separate > terminal processor communicating with the application processor through a > little 'mailbox' and a very strange video circuit. > I worked for two companies which made terminal / PC combo devices. I suppose I have a weakness for them. The 125 behaved as a decent terminal on an HP 3000, and ran as a CP/M computer simultaneously, allowing a switch between disparate processes that the standard PC world wouldn't see for many years. The "strange" circuitry made it easy for the user to alternate processes, and allowed communication between them. It's appropriate to have complex hardware and software to make the use of the machine easier. At least, that's my theory. The HP 125 was both pretty and easy to use, as an HPIB controller, an HP terminal, and as a CP/M machine. Warren From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Jun 21 02:51:32 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:51:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: trs80 Model 4 versus Model 4D Message-ID: I'm wondering if a TRS-80 Model 4 can be converted into a 4D simply by swapping out the floppy drives. Anyone? -- 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? From julian at jnt.me.uk Sun Jun 21 03:00:43 2009 From: julian at jnt.me.uk (Julian) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:00:43 +0100 Subject: Anyone got a good reference URL for Sun frame buffers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3DE8AB.4050309@jnt.me.uk> Richard wrote: > cg6, cg12, etc. I'm looking for something that collects all the > information in one place. Any suggestions? > > Have you seen http://www.sunhelp.org/faq/FrameBuffer.html? Julian > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 8.5.374 / Virus Database: 270.12.82/2190 - Release Date: 06/20/09 17:54:00 > > From wmaddox at pacbell.net Sun Jun 21 03:30:29 2009 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 01:30:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM 2740/2741 terminal Message-ID: <843083.53353.qm@web82605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Is anyone here interested in an IBM Selectric terminal? It is a 2740 or a 2741, but I'm not sure which. Please reply privately. --Bill From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jun 21 03:59:51 2009 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:59:51 +0100 Subject: MicroVAX II Diagnostics Config and Devices Display Message-ID: <000601c9f24e$a4bb29b0$ee317d10$@jarratt@ntlworld.com> I am trying to get my MicroVAX II working, and now, thanks to a generous person on this list, I have a working CPU and Memory combination. I am now trying to run the MicroVAX II diagnostics from the TK50 diagnostics tape that came with the machine. The puzzling thing is that it does not seem to display the correct configuration and devices when I select that option from the menu. Here is what it says: SYSTEM CONFIGURATION AND DEVICES SYSTEM CONFIGURATION CPUA ... MicroVAX CPU KA630-AA 1MB, FPU MC=00 HW=00 Press the RETURN key to return to the previous menu. > I have never used these diagnostics before so I don't know what should be displayed. However I also have in there the following devices: Two memory boards. M7559 - TK70 controller. Known to be working as that is what I booted the diagnostics from. M3106 - DZQ11 Asynchrnous Multiplxer (4 lines) M7555 - RQDX3 Disk Controller DEQNA - Known to be working as I can do partial network boots (fails for other reasons yet to be determined) So, the question is, should I expect to see these devices listed, should I expect it to tell me how much memory is installed? If I am not seeing the devices listed and they are known to work, why would they not appear? I suspect that the M7559 might not appear as it controls a TK70 and this MicroVAX II probably predates that device. I ran the diagnostic tests and it tested only the CPU, which passed the tests. Thanks Rob From spedraja at ono.com Sun Jun 21 04:07:08 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:07:08 +0200 Subject: Installing and running other OS than RT11 and XXDP (with TU58 emu) or BSD (with Vtserver) In-Reply-To: <5F10C49B-9AF2-4465-BD9C-D84B81F18942@neurotica.com> References: <5F10C49B-9AF2-4465-BD9C-D84B81F18942@neurotica.com> Message-ID: Aha, I see. I think that I shall begin with the installation of BSD 2.11. The ESDI drive has 739 Mb of capacity... I guess if could be possible to define more than one partition ar PC style... I confess happily my ignorance, I'm a complete newbie (or nerd) in this matter :-) Another option could be to have a couple of drives... I suppose that I could use two boards (the DQ696 and one RQDX3) in the PDP-11/23 PLUS... and I have one MFM drive from one old PC ready to use. This last question make think in something that I've read in some place or file... Is it neccesary to start up with XXDP to format the MFM drives connected to one RQDX3 ? Thanks Sergio 2009/6/20 Dave McGuire > On Jun 19, 2009, at 3:38 PM, SPC wrote: > >> Mmm... Interesting technique. Some special parm to use DD to write the >> diverse OS's ? And with SIMH ? >> >> I was thinking in RSTS, for example. >> > > RSTS was the first OS I did it with. No special parameters are necessary > on either end. The format simh uses for disk emulation is just a raw > expanse of bytes, no weird stuff anywhere. That makes things very easy. > Just use the correct disk type in simh to make the image file the right > size. Use "rauser" and set the size explicitly if you're using an MSCP disk > that's not a "standard" DEC size like an RD54 or whatever, like for your > ESDI controller. > > I made a bootable XXDP RL02 pack using this trick just recently. I > transferred it to my 11/83 running 2.11BSD using FTP, cabled up an RL02 > drive, put in a pack, did the dd, shut down, then I could boot that RL02 > pack. > > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From jfoust at threedee.com Sun Jun 21 07:20:28 2009 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:20:28 -0500 Subject: Terak 8510/a monitors available - Seattle WA In-Reply-To: <7ACDF123-77DC-4A3A-814E-D4827B7F9BD2@typewritten.org> References: <7ACDF123-77DC-4A3A-814E-D4827B7F9BD2@typewritten.org> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090621071831.044d2d00@mail.threedee.com> At 05:45 PM 6/20/2009, r.stricklin wrote: >There are two Terak monitors at Re*PC in Seattle. They are headed for >the Tukwila store, where they may remain for a short time, but I can't >say from there whether they'll go on the floor, on eBay or be scrapped. Good catch! They're mono composite, collect 'em all... >My contact mentioned he thought he'd seen the keyboards come through >separately, earlier, but that if so they'd already been sent to >Tukwila. This should be taken as apocryphal as they keyboards really >could belong to anything. They're metal and don't end in PS/2 connectors, so that would stand out. I guess the real question would be, where's the Teraks? They'd probably be accused of being external 8 inch disk drives, not computers. - John From steve at cosam.org Sun Jun 21 07:29:52 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:29:52 +0200 Subject: Installing and running other OS than RT11 and XXDP (with TU58 emu) or BSD (with Vtserver) In-Reply-To: References: <5F10C49B-9AF2-4465-BD9C-D84B81F18942@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <95838e090906210529yc345b4do11e93ebd943bf7ff@mail.gmail.com> Sergio wrote: > Aha, I see. I think that I shall begin with the installation of BSD 2.11. > The ESDI drive has 739 Mb of capacity... I guess if could be possible to > define more than one partition ar PC style... 2.11BSD supports disklabels for partitioning, but there's no "universal" scheme supported by all operating systems. You may need to get creative in order to get more than one OS on a single physical disk. > Another option could be to have a couple of drives... I suppose that I could > use two boards (the DQ696 and one RQDX3) in the PDP-11/23 PLUS... and I have > one MFM drive from one old PC ready to use. You can't just hook up any old MFM drive to an RQDX3, unless you want to calculate the parameters required to format it. It can be done, but it's not exactly straight forward. The DQ696 may be more flexible in that area, I don't know. > This last question make think in something that I've read in some place or > file... Is it neccesary to start up with XXDP to format the MFM drives > connected to one RQDX3 ? You will need to format the drive if it's not yet been formatted on for a RQDX3 or something compatible, e.g. a MicroVAX. There is a stand-alone version of the XXDP formatting program for VTServer (I say "stand-alone", you still need to use boot.dd to load it). Cheers, -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ From steve at cosam.org Sun Jun 21 07:52:35 2009 From: steve at cosam.org (Steve Maddison) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:52:35 +0200 Subject: MicroVAX II Diagnostics Config and Devices Display In-Reply-To: <-3534520996368508046@unknownmsgid> References: <-3534520996368508046@unknownmsgid> Message-ID: <95838e090906210552y136627f0k959d80adedf9e371@mail.gmail.com> Robert Jarratt wrote: > I am trying to get my MicroVAX II working, and now, thanks to a generous > person on this list, I have a working CPU and Memory combination. I am now > trying to run the MicroVAX II diagnostics from the TK50 diagnostics tape > that came with the machine. The puzzling thing is that it does not seem to > display the correct configuration and devices when I select that option from > the menu. Here is what it says: ... > So, the question is, should I expect to see these devices listed, should I > expect it to tell me how much memory is installed? If I am not seeing the > devices listed and they are known to work, why would they not appear? I > suspect that the M7559 might not appear as it controls a TK70 and this > MicroVAX II probably predates that device. I'd expect to see total memory and a list of devices. Which backplane are you using and where are all the modules inserted? Have you tried moving them around to see if you at least get different results? Cheers, -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/ From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Jun 21 08:38:58 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 06:38:58 -0700 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers In-Reply-To: <4A3CCADF.27919.23B73BF8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <55957.76.2.120.32.1245514880.squirrel@mail.neurotica.com> <4A3CCADF.27919.23B73BF8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > From: cclist at sydex.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:41:19 -0700 > Subject: Re: ISA MFM disk controllers > > On 20 Jun 2009 at 12:21, Dave McGuire wrote: > >> XT controllers do. But now I recall that Ian said "WD1003" and I >> seem >> to recall that that's the AT controller series. I think I remember >> using an "IBM Advancced Diagnostics" floppy, or something like that, >> for this. > > There are lots of third-party low-level formatters--and later, many > included in the BIOS setup screen. Basically, they just make INT 13H > BIOS calls to format a track at a time. > > Landmark PC Probe is a good interleave-tester and formatter in my > experience. > > --Chuck > Hi It is not really too hard to write ones own format code at the port level. I used a XT board on a machine that didn't have a 8088 or x86. It wasn't that much to write. The controller does most of the work. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Storage_062009 From legalize at xmission.com Sun Jun 21 10:05:44 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:05:44 -0600 Subject: Anyone got a good reference URL for Sun frame buffers? In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:00:43 +0100. <4A3DE8AB.4050309@jnt.me.uk> Message-ID: In article <4A3DE8AB.4050309 at jnt.me.uk>, Julian writes: > Richard wrote: > > cg6, cg12, etc. I'm looking for something that collects all the > > information in one place. Any suggestions? > > > Have you seen http://www.sunhelp.org/faq/FrameBuffer.html? Hadn't seen it before it was pointed out to me on this list and the rescue list, that's exactly the kind of reference I was looking for! Now I know what's in my Sun 3/110 :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From rodsmallwood at btconnect.com Sun Jun 21 11:05:11 2009 From: rodsmallwood at btconnect.com (Rod Smallwood) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:05:11 +0100 Subject: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) In-Reply-To: References: <4A38774C.4875DA43@cs.ubc.ca> <4A390B68.9080503@bitsavers.org><4A390C77.4090908@bitsavers.org> <4A3931AD.B35591CB@cs.ubc.ca><3ABDA1425CF040EA86C2F8C835F633C3@EDIConsultingLtd.local><20090618130145.W50025@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <082C9C0295F44E9A9BD8E7278BD62C3A@EDIConsultingLtd.local> Where you working at DEC at the time? - I was! Regards Rod Smallwood I collect and restore old computer equipment with this logo. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of William Donzelli Sent: 19 June 2009 17:05 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. EmulatorJockeys) > Tha was not DEC's way. They tended to keep things or offer them to > educational establishments. I can't imagine a conversation along the lines > of: Q. "Please may we have your PDP-6 to preserve?" > ? ?A. " No I want to scrap it" In the early 1980s? From every DEChead I have talked to, the early 1980s was a time for change in DEC - the company "grew up" and became far more corporate. Many say DEC lost their soul in the 1980s. And was't Jupiter killed about this time? The PDP-6 could have fallen just for spite. -- Will From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 21 11:56:08 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:56:08 -0400 Subject: Installing and running other OS than RT11 and XXDP (with TU58 emu) or BSD (with Vtserver) In-Reply-To: <95838e090906210529yc345b4do11e93ebd943bf7ff@mail.gmail.com> References: <5F10C49B-9AF2-4465-BD9C-D84B81F18942@neurotica.com> <95838e090906210529yc345b4do11e93ebd943bf7ff@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 21, 2009, at 8:29 AM, Steve Maddison wrote: >> Aha, I see. I think that I shall begin with the installation of >> BSD 2.11. >> The ESDI drive has 739 Mb of capacity... I guess if could be >> possible to >> define more than one partition ar PC style... > > 2.11BSD supports disklabels for partitioning, but there's no > "universal" scheme supported by all operating systems. You may need to > get creative in order to get more than one OS on a single physical > disk. He's using a Dilog DQ696, which supports two drives. Some other ESDI controllers (Emulex MSCP controllers come to mind) also support logical partitioning to present a single physical drive as multiple drives to the host computer (DU0, DU1, etc), but I don't think the Dilog DQ696 can do that. > You can't just hook up any old MFM drive to an RQDX3, unless you want > to calculate the parameters required to format it. It can be done, but > it's not exactly straight forward. The DQ696 may be more flexible in > that area, I don't know. It is, FYI. (for ESDI drives, that is) -Dave > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Jun 21 12:49:36 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:49:36 -0700 Subject: Installing and running other OS than RT11 and XXDP (with TU58 emu) or BSD (with Vtserver) In-Reply-To: References: <5F10C49B-9AF2-4465-BD9C-D84B81F18942@neurotica.com> <95838e090906210529yc345b4do11e93ebd943bf7ff@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: At 12:56 PM -0400 6/21/09, Dave McGuire wrote: > He's using a Dilog DQ696, which supports two drives. Some other >ESDI controllers (Emulex MSCP controllers come to mind) also support >logical partitioning to present a single physical drive as multiple >drives to the host computer (DU0, DU1, etc), but I don't think the >Dilog DQ696 can do that. The Webster WQESD/4 supports this as well. It's quite handy, though I prefer SCSI with removable disk trays. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From silent700 at gmail.com Sun Jun 21 13:05:23 2009 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:05:23 -0500 Subject: PET Software on ebay Message-ID: <51ea77730906211105h6128a6e3v5a9c7879f040d3a9@mail.gmail.com> I don't know how much of the PET world is archived and available out there, but someone (not me, don't know him) but this might be a good project for someone willing to read these tapes: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320386939956 From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jun 21 13:43:07 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:43:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Tandy PC's In-Reply-To: <5648F9B35DB1459CA4A49704CBCF1ED0@ME2> References: <5648F9B35DB1459CA4A49704CBCF1ED0@ME2> Message-ID: <20090621113857.Q89185@shell.lmi.net> On June 19, 2009, rickr at castles.com wrote: > I have many different type of Tandy PC's. TRS 80 to the various types of > Tandy 1000 xxx's. Tandy 100. Portable in a sewing type case - think it is > a Model 4P. Monitors of three types. Lots of dos and cp/m (I think). And Not much CP/M likely, only model 2 and model 4, unless you count hardware mods and RELOCATED (not a popular solution) CP/M from FMG From pontus at update.uu.se Sun Jun 21 14:00:02 2009 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:00:02 +0200 Subject: Vax 11/750 disks Message-ID: <4A3E8332.5080005@update.uu.se> Hi all. I have a Vax 11/750 coming my way. It currently has a three RA81 disks in a half-height rack. I feel that the RA81 takes up a little too much room. I would rather run on as small disks as possible (physical size of course). What options do I have? I believe that RA90 would work with existing controllers and I could fit one or two of those into a rack I already have. Kind regards, Pontus. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 21 14:04:21 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:04:21 -0700 Subject: Tandy PC's In-Reply-To: <20090621113857.Q89185@shell.lmi.net> References: <5648F9B35DB1459CA4A49704CBCF1ED0@ME2>, <20090621113857.Q89185@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A3E21C5.16779.4C502AC@cclist.sydex.com> On 21 Jun 2009 at 11:43, Fred Cisin wrote: > On June 19, 2009, rickr at castles.com wrote: > > I have many different type of Tandy PC's. TRS 80 to the various > > types of Tandy 1000 xxx's. Tandy 100. Portable in a sewing type case > > - think it is a Model 4P. Monitors of three types. Lots of dos and > > cp/m (I think). And > > Not much CP/M likely, only model 2 and model 4, unless you count > hardware mods and RELOCATED (not a popular solution) CP/M from FMG The Tandy 1000 wouldn't run CP/M-86? --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 21 14:05:12 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:05:12 -0400 Subject: Vax 11/750 disks In-Reply-To: <4A3E8332.5080005@update.uu.se> References: <4A3E8332.5080005@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <5758A63A-D1FE-44E0-9891-A84EEC8547F3@neurotica.com> On Jun 21, 2009, at 3:00 PM, Pontus wrote: > I have a Vax 11/750 coming my way. It currently has a three RA81 disks > in a half-height rack. I feel that the RA81 takes up a little too much > room. I would rather run on as small disks as possible (physical > size of > course). What options do I have? I believe that RA90 would work with > existing controllers and I could fit one or two of those into a rack I > already have. If it has RA81s, and no HSC, then it has a UDA50. Any RA-series disks should work, even 5.25" ones like the RA7x series. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From spedraja at ono.com Sun Jun 21 14:08:04 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:08:04 +0200 Subject: Combination and Orientation of RQDX boards in one PDP-11/23 PLUS Message-ID: Well, for my surprise I've discovered a set of three boards in a lot that received from the US some months ago and I couldn't poen until now. It comes with three RQDX boards, more exactly: * 7555 * 7513 * RQDX distribution signal As far as I can imagine it appears that they were used in one PDP QBUS system in the order, from up to down in the order of the previous list, with one ribbon cable from the RQDX3 to the 7513 J1 (?) connector, and another one from the J2 (?) to the RQDX distribution board. Exists another connector (J3 ?) in the 7513 that appears to point to one external connector that I saw in one BA23. Finally, the RQDX comes with MFM cables but too with one standard floppy PC cable. I have some doubts with this last matter: * Is used this crossed floppy cable in DEC systems too (as in PeeCees) or it's used other kind of cables ? * I have a couple of RX33. Must I use TWO cables (one per floppy unit) ? * Same question with the MFM disks * What is the orientation of the RQDX ? I imagine it with the connectors side turn down because turning it up would be a problem with the previous board in the BA11-SB Can this be possible ? By the way, these questions connect with your last comments about the matter in the list, which is being an open book of knowledge for a newbie as me. Thanks all. Regards. Sergio From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jun 21 14:58:00 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:58:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Tandy PC's In-Reply-To: <4A3E21C5.16779.4C502AC@cclist.sydex.com> References: <5648F9B35DB1459CA4A49704CBCF1ED0@ME2>, <20090621113857.Q89185@shell.lmi.net> <4A3E21C5.16779.4C502AC@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20090621125718.G89185@shell.lmi.net> > > Not much CP/M likely, only model 2 and model 4, unless you count > > hardware mods and RELOCATED (not a popular solution) CP/M from FMG On Sun, 21 Jun 2009, Chuck Guzis wrote: > The Tandy 1000 wouldn't run CP/M-86? Probably could; the model 2000 might need some patching, . . . From pontus at update.uu.se Sun Jun 21 15:22:16 2009 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:22:16 +0200 Subject: Vax 11/750 disks In-Reply-To: <5758A63A-D1FE-44E0-9891-A84EEC8547F3@neurotica.com> References: <4A3E8332.5080005@update.uu.se> <5758A63A-D1FE-44E0-9891-A84EEC8547F3@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A3E9678.6060400@update.uu.se> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 21, 2009, at 3:00 PM, Pontus wrote: >> I have a Vax 11/750 coming my way. It currently has a three RA81 disks >> in a half-height rack. I feel that the RA81 takes up a little too much >> room. I would rather run on as small disks as possible (physical size of >> course). What options do I have? I believe that RA90 would work with >> existing controllers and I could fit one or two of those into a rack I >> already have. > > If it has RA81s, and no HSC, then it has a UDA50. Any RA-series > disks should work, even 5.25" ones like the RA7x series. > > -Dave > That is excellent, I believe I can get some RA72 and RA73 disks with the 11/750 Cheers, Pontus. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 21 15:29:54 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:29:54 +0100 (BST) Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: <4A3DC98E.9050101@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 20, 9 07:47:58 pm Message-ID: > > I really like the 125 for several reasons. First, it has an HPIB I wonder why you like the HP125 and not the HP120, given that they're almost the same machine electronically. All the points you make apply to the 120 as well. > interface for disks, etc. That interface also allowed it to be a > controller for calibration instruments. It also used an easy to create Sure, but most HP machines have HPIB :-). The HP120 doesn't properly support the HPIB port in the BIOS (IIRC there's no BIOS function to read from an HPIB device) so you pretty much have to talk to the 9914 directly. Not a big problem, but if you get it into the wrong state you may find you can no longer talk to the disk drives. For talking to instruments, I prefer to use an HP9000/200 machine with a second HPIB port (HP98624). Firstly there's much better standard software support for the HPIB interface, and secondly, if one of the instruments 'hangs the bus' (likely in my case as I might well be repairing said instrument), I can still talk to the disks. > disk format. Also handy. > > > > When I said I didn't like the design of the HP120, I didn't mean the > > 'looks ' of the machine. I meant the electronic design -- a separate > > terminal processor communicating with the application processor through a > > little 'mailbox' and a very strange video circuit. > > > > I worked for two companies which made terminal / PC combo devices. I > suppose I have a weakness for them. The 125 behaved as a decent > terminal on an HP 3000, and ran as a CP/M computer simultaneously, > allowing a switch between disparate processes that the standard PC world > wouldn't see for many years. The "strange" circuitry made it easy for > the user to alternate processes, and allowed communication between It's not so much that, but rather the actual design of the video circuit. It uses that National 8350 chip (actually a differently mask-programmed one for a different screen format). That's a strange chip, it interrupts the Z80 at the start of each character line, and fills an 80 byte shift register with characters. And then there's the attributesm which are set on a character line basis. Basically, every character is either normal or enhanced (decided by bit 7 of the chracter code). You can only have one type of enhancement in a given line. So you could have normal and underlined characters in the same line, but you can't have normal, inverse, and underlined characters all in the same line. Another problem is that AFAIK there's no official way for a CP/M program to set the parameters of the serial ports (not even the 'printer' port). The serial chips are on the terminal processor bus, there's no direct way for the application processor to talk to them. There's an undocumented way to run code on the terminal processor (in that at least one HP application does that), but I can't find out how to do it. > them. It's appropriate to have complex hardware and software to make > the use of the machine easier. At least, that's my theory. The HP 125 Sure, but I don't think the HP120 falls into that category. > was both pretty and easy to use, as an HPIB controller, an HP terminal, > and as a CP/M machine. I'd much rather have an HP9000/200.... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 21 15:32:02 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:32:02 +0100 (BST) Subject: trs80 Model 4 versus Model 4D In-Reply-To: from "David Griffith" at Jun 21, 9 00:51:32 am Message-ID: > > > I'm wondering if a TRS-80 Model 4 can be converted into a 4D simply by > swapping out the floppy drives. Anyone? I don;t think you end up with exactly a 4D, but it's certainly possible to put double-sided drives on a Model 4 (I've done it). You may need to replace the edge connectors on the floppy drive cable, Tandy did their drive selection by having missing pins in the connectors, and I think one that's often pulled is the side select line. You can also have 80 cylinder drives, but I advise you to keep drive 0 as a 40 cylidner one (if only becasue you'll not be able to boot standard disks if you don't). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 21 15:18:43 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:18:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook In-Reply-To: <000301c9f221$78b68580$0201a8c0@hal9000> from "Scanning" at Jun 20, 9 08:36:32 pm Message-ID: > > Tony, > > I have a datasheet for the DP8464 ( supposed to be similar to the 8468 ) and That datasheet is on Datasheetarchive, so I'd got a pinout of that. The 8468 is similar in consept, but has more pins (I think it only came in a PLCC package) and thus a diferent pinout > a bunch of Application Notes for using that family of parts ( i.e. AN774, > AN414, etc..). It would be helpful to know if it is a pulse detector, data > separator or whatever function you think it might serve. Thanks to Al Kossow, I've now seen all the datasheets (on bitsavers) and know that, alas, none of them apply to the chip I am looking at. The power and groudn pins don't agree, for example. All I can tell you is that it's some kind of data encoder/decoder. The Read and Write data signals, together with the Read and Write clock lines go directly to it. I've not traced out enough to know more. > > I also have a datasheet for the AMD8751 / 8753 which are the EPROM versions > of the factory mask ROM 8051 and 8053. The 8753 has 8 K of EPROM and same > functionality as the 8051 / 8751 ( 4 K ROM / EPROM ). If you've got the data sheets to hamd, can you check if it's the same pinout as the 8051, please (it looks to be). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 21 15:20:06 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:20:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook In-Reply-To: <4A3DB892.9050902@bitsavers.org> from "Al Kossow" at Jun 20, 9 09:35:30 pm Message-ID: > > Scanning wrote: > > >> Does anyone have a National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook > >> (databook) from around 1989? > > sections 2 and 9 of the 1989 edition are up now under > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/national/_dataBooks/1989_Mass_Storage_Handbook Thank you very much. I noticed the other sections are there too... I've looked at all the chips I mentioned, and none of them agree with the thing I am looking at (I can't even match up power and ground pins). The device is clearly some kind of data enocder/decoder, but it may, alas, be a custom part. -tony From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jun 21 15:41:28 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:41:28 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test Message-ID: <1051.90192.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Ahh, I see. I will try and pay another visit to it tomorrow via a landline connection. I would do it tonight, but I don't have the time. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Sun, 21/6/09, Michael B. Brutman wrote: From: Michael B. Brutman Subject: Re: PCjr Telnet BBS Test To: "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Date: Sunday, 21 June, 2009, 12:16 AM Andrew Burton wrote: > Well, you did want us to test it out and try and break it, lol. > Just glad I didn't bring it down completely. > Is there a way to adjust the retransmit time depending on user location, or is that impossible / too complicated? > Or will it be more friendly to everyone once it is increased a little? > > > Regards, > Andrew B > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Cosam and I were talking about it and the right neurons fired in my brain. Back in December I made a change to the way I measure elapsed time.? The change gave me like a 30% performance improvement because my original code was so bad, and the new code was counting timer ticks which is pretty easy.? When I made the change I changed all of my units of time measurement from 100ths of seconds to milliseconds. Except in the configuration file that defines the timeouts for the BBS. :-) The result is that I'm retransmitting packets if I don't get an acknowledgment in 0.4 seconds, not the 4 seconds that I intended.? Which? explains why your particular modem connection was driving the retransmits so hard.? Most broad-band users don't have that problem. It's not bad enough to stop and restart the BBS, but it definitely is exercising that path in the code pretty hard. Mike From shumaker at att.net Sun Jun 21 15:53:12 2009 From: shumaker at att.net (steve shumaker) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:53:12 -0400 Subject: 11/03 score!! Message-ID: <4A3E9DB8.5000308@att.net> Not sure how much of a score it is but I'm now the owner of what was described as a fully functioning pdp11/03. This would be my first pdp unit Cards installed are: Cards are: M8059KJ M8186 M8639 M8028 I've done the obvious thing on bitsavers but whats a good place to start exploring with this unit? There's no drives or console with it although there is a large ribbon cable attached to the M8639 card. It also has a serial cable so one MIGHT be able to connect a console to it. Never had access to anything like this so it's all new.. The goal obviously is to assemble a complete system. Suggestions comments recommendation all welcome! steve shumaker From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 21 16:00:53 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:00:53 -0400 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: <4A3E9DB8.5000308@att.net> References: <4A3E9DB8.5000308@att.net> Message-ID: <2211695B-ED88-4FC5-AF99-EB901809403B@neurotica.com> On Jun 21, 2009, at 4:53 PM, steve shumaker wrote: > Not sure how much of a score it is but I'm now the owner of what > was described as a fully functioning pdp11/03. This would be my > first pdp unit > > Cards installed are: > Cards are: > M8059KJ > M8186 > M8639 > M8028 That's a PDP-11/23, not a PDP-11/03. The M8186 is a KDF11 processor module. In other words: SCORE! > I've done the obvious thing on bitsavers but whats a good place to > start exploring with this unit? There's no drives or console with > it although there is a large ribbon cable attached to the M8639 > card. It also has a serial cable so one MIGHT be able to connect a > console to it. That's an RQDX1 disc controller board. Pretty limited actually. Was there anything on the other end of the ribbon cable? > Never had access to anything like this so it's all new.. The goal > obviously is to assemble a complete system. You are close...we just need to find you some sort of disk subsystem. What kind of chassis do you have? Look for a number starting with "BA" (BA11-xx, BA23, etc). Or take a pic and I'll ID it for you. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Sun Jun 21 16:05:24 2009 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:05:24 +0200 Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: References: <4A3DC98E.9050101@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 20, 9 07:47:58 pm Message-ID: > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Tony Duell > Verzonden: zondag 21 juni 2009 22:30 > Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Onderwerp: Re: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot > > > > > I really like the 125 for several reasons. First, it has an HPIB > > I wonder why you like the HP125 and not the HP120, given that > they're almost the same machine electronically. All the > points you make apply to the 120 as well. > > > interface for disks, etc. That interface also allowed it to be a > > controller for calibration instruments. It also used an easy to > > create > > Sure, but most HP machines have HPIB :-). The HP120 doesn't > properly support the HPIB port in the BIOS (IIRC there's no > BIOS function to read from an HPIB device) so you pretty much > have to talk to the 9914 directly. Not a big problem, but if > you get it into the wrong state you may find you can no > longer talk to the disk drives. > > For talking to instruments, I prefer to use an HP9000/200 > machine with a second HPIB port (HP98624). Firstly there's > much better standard software support for the HPIB interface, > and secondly, if one of the instruments 'hangs the bus' > (likely in my case as I might well be repairing said > instrument), I can still talk to the disks. > > > disk format. Also handy. > > > > > > > When I said I didn't like the design of the HP120, I > didn't mean the > > > 'looks ' of the machine. I meant the electronic design -- > a separate > > > terminal processor communicating with the application processor > > > through a little 'mailbox' and a very strange video circuit. > > > > > > > I worked for two companies which made terminal / PC combo > devices. I > > suppose I have a weakness for them. The 125 behaved as a decent > > terminal on an HP 3000, and ran as a CP/M computer simultaneously, > > allowing a switch between disparate processes that the standard PC > > world wouldn't see for many years. The "strange" circuitry made it > > easy for the user to alternate processes, and allowed communication > > between > > It's not so much that, but rather the actual design of the > video circuit. > It uses that National 8350 chip (actually a differently > mask-programmed one for a different screen format). That's a > strange chip, it interrupts the Z80 at the start of each > character line, and fills an 80 byte shift register with characters. > > And then there's the attributesm which are set on a character > line basis. > Basically, every character is either normal or enhanced > (decided by bit 7 of the chracter code). You can only have > one type of enhancement in a given line. So you could have > normal and underlined characters in the same line, but you > can't have normal, inverse, and underlined characters all in > the same line. > > Another problem is that AFAIK there's no official way for a > CP/M program to set the parameters of the serial ports (not > even the 'printer' port). > The serial chips are on the terminal processor bus, there's > no direct way for the application processor to talk to them. > There's an undocumented way to run code on the terminal > processor (in that at least one HP application does that), > but I can't find out how to do it. > > > them. It's appropriate to have complex hardware and > software to make > > the use of the machine easier. At least, that's my theory. The HP > > 125 > > Sure, but I don't think the HP120 falls into that category. > > > was both pretty and easy to use, as an HPIB controller, an HP > > terminal, and as a CP/M machine. > > I'd much rather have an HP9000/200.... > > -tony > Me too, and for the speed a HP 9000/300 ;-) I like the view of a HP 125 ET-head but it is not a very handy machine. The 9000's series 200 or 300 are much more useful. Rik From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Jun 21 16:11:35 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:11:35 -0700 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: <2211695B-ED88-4FC5-AF99-EB901809403B@neurotica.com> References: <4A3E9DB8.5000308@att.net> <2211695B-ED88-4FC5-AF99-EB901809403B@neurotica.com> Message-ID: At 5:00 PM -0400 6/21/09, Dave McGuire wrote: > That's a PDP-11/23, not a PDP-11/03. The M8186 is a KDF11 processor module. > > In other words: SCORE! Well... If someone actually wants a *REAL* PDP-11/03, and can pick it up locally (I will not ship it), they can contact me. I'm in the Portland, Oregon area. I have three that came with my /23. I've had them for about 10 years, and have never even tried to power them on. At 4:53 PM -0400 6/21/09, steve shumaker wrote: >I've done the obvious thing on bitsavers but whats a good place to >start exploring with this unit? There's no drives or console with >it although there is a large ribbon cable attached to the M8639 >card. It also has a serial cable so one MIGHT be able to connect a >console to it. > >Never had access to anything like this so it's all new.. The goal >obviously is to assemble a complete system. > >Suggestions comments recommendation all welcome! What part of the world are you located? Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From spedraja at ono.com Sun Jun 21 16:34:25 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:34:25 +0200 Subject: qbus board CESI PIOL11 Message-ID: Hello. One of the boards that I've located today is... absolutely unknown, for me and in appeareance for the Internet. It's a CESI PIOL11. It comes with two dip switches banks, the S1 with ten switches, and the S2 with five. Two connectors of 40-pin, one named "OUT J1" and the other "IN J2". Below them, a row of 18 pins with 17 of them with resistors installed, being free of them the 18 Any information would be welcome Regards Sergio From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 21 16:40:00 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:40:00 -0400 Subject: qbus board CESI PIOL11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jun 21, 2009, at 5:34 PM, SPC wrote: > One of the boards that I've located today is... absolutely unknown, > for me > and in appeareance for the Internet. > > It's a CESI PIOL11. It comes with two dip switches banks, the S1 > with ten > switches, and the S2 with five. Two connectors of 40-pin, one named > "OUT J1" > and the other "IN J2". > > Below them, a row of 18 pins with 17 of them with resistors > installed, being > free of them the 18 > > Any information would be welcome Can you scan or photograph this board? We may be able to glean some idea of its functionality by what components it has. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From lists at databasics.us Sun Jun 21 16:49:41 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:49:41 -1000 Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3EAAF5.9070406@databasics.us> Tony Duell wrote: > Sure, but most HP machines have HPIB :-). The HP120 doesn't properly > support the HPIB port in the BIOS (IIRC there's no BIOS function to read > from an HPIB device) so you pretty much have to talk to the 9914 > directly. Not a big problem, but if you get it into the wrong state you > may find you can no longer talk to the disk drives. > Yes, that's true. > For talking to instruments, I prefer to use an HP9000/200 machine with a > second HPIB port (HP98624). Firstly there's much better standard software > support for the HPIB interface, and secondly, if one of the instruments > 'hangs the bus' (likely in my case as I might well be repairing said > instrument), I can still talk to the disks. > Second ports are always nice. > And then there's the attributesm which are set on a character line basis. > Basically, every character is either normal or enhanced (decided by bit 7 > of the chracter code). You can only have one type of enhancement in a > given line. So you could have normal and underlined characters in the > same line, but you can't have normal, inverse, and underlined characters > all in the same line. > Okay, I'll grant you that was a bit weird. Honestly, though, it was never an issue for me, or the original owner. > Another problem is that AFAIK there's no official way for a CP/M program > to set the parameters of the serial ports (not even the 'printer' port). > The serial chips are on the terminal processor bus, there's no direct way > for the application processor to talk to them. There's an undocumented > way to run code on the terminal processor (in that at least one HP > application does that), but I can't find out how to do it. > I don't know how 'official' it was, but I had PORTSET.COM which directly set up the serial port from the CP/M side. Er, it RAN on the CP/M side, and set up the ports. > I'd much rather have an HP9000/200.... An attorney's office near me had the HP-125. When they upgraded, I got their old system for a song. Nobody I knew was getting rid of an HP9000/200. This was before eBay, and I really didn't have a good way to find specific equipment. One takes what's available. Still and all, I very much enjoyed using it, and it was the first machine I had that would be a reasonable terminal, HPIB controller, AND general purpose computer. Also, they were SLEEK. So, scoff if you want, but I liked it just fine. It probably would have been more difficult than average to repair hardware problems on it, but in about 15 years, I never had one. Warren From spedraja at ono.com Sun Jun 21 16:57:12 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:57:12 +0200 Subject: qbus board CESI PIOL11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'll try but I'm charging the battery of my camera now. It would be better one photo, I think. Regards Sergio 2009/6/21 Dave McGuire > On Jun 21, 2009, at 5:34 PM, SPC wrote: > >> One of the boards that I've located today is... absolutely unknown, for me >> and in appeareance for the Internet. >> >> It's a CESI PIOL11. It comes with two dip switches banks, the S1 with ten >> switches, and the S2 with five. Two connectors of 40-pin, one named "OUT >> J1" >> and the other "IN J2". >> >> Below them, a row of 18 pins with 17 of them with resistors installed, >> being >> free of them the 18 >> >> Any information would be welcome >> > > Can you scan or photograph this board? We may be able to glean some idea > of its functionality by what components it has. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From doc at vaxen.net Sun Jun 21 17:00:15 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:00:15 -0500 Subject: SGI Indigo2 feet Message-ID: <4A3EAD6F.8040808@vaxen.net> I just unearthed several pair of deskside feet for the SGI I^2. I have a couple of teal pairs and a couple of purple pairs. USPS flat-rate is $10.35, so I'll take $16/pair shipped, first come first served. Let me know *off-list* whether you want teal or purple and we'll arrange payment. I'll post here when/if they're all claimed and will ship within 2 days after I receive payment. Doc Shipley From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jun 21 16:56:42 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:56:42 -0400 Subject: qbus board CESI PIOL11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 5:40 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 21, 2009, at 5:34 PM, SPC wrote: >> One of the boards that I've located today is... absolutely unknown, for me >> and in appeareance for the Internet. >> >> It's a CESI PIOL11. It comes with two dip switches banks, the S1 with ten >> switches, and the S2 with five. Two connectors of 40-pin, one named "OUT J1" >> and the other "IN J2". >> >> Below them, a row of 18 pins with 17 of them with resistors installed, being >> free of them the 18 >> >> Any information would be welcome > > ?Can you scan or photograph this board? ?We may be able to glean some idea of its functionality by what components it has. A photograph would be helpful, but from the name "PIOL11", it sounds like a CESI clone of a DEC parallel in-out card such as a DRV11. -ethan From spedraja at ono.com Sun Jun 21 17:07:53 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:07:53 +0200 Subject: Dilog DQ615 information and utility program Message-ID: Another Qbus board in the lot: one Dilog DQ615. In appeareance is one MFM to RK06/07 board. I know that someone has the program for one version of the DQ614 (the P if I remember well) but there is nothing available for the DQ615. Someone hasavailable the utility program for this board ? Thanks Sergio From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Sun Jun 21 17:29:09 2009 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:29:09 -0700 Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook References: Message-ID: <001301c9f2bf$b2807c50$0201a8c0@hal9000> Hi Tony, Thanks Al for the heads-up on the datasheets !! Tony, do you think it is some kind of Manchester / Miller encoder / decoder ? Do we know if it is a National chip or has it's total identity been wiped ? Maybe Signetics or Plessey or TI or ?? Where are the power pins ( sometimes that is a good tell ) ? You mentioned 24 pin skinny DIP ? I'll keep looking. This is for some type of magnetic disk / floppy media system ? Pinouts are the same for the AMD 8051 / 8053. Hope that helps. Best regards, Steven > > > > Tony, > > > > I have a datasheet for the DP8464 ( supposed to be similar to the 8468 ) and > > That datasheet is on Datasheetarchive, so I'd got a pinout of that. The > 8468 is similar in consept, but has more pins (I think it only came in a > PLCC package) and thus a diferent pinout > > > a bunch of Application Notes for using that family of parts ( i.e. AN774, > > AN414, etc..). It would be helpful to know if it is a pulse detector, data > > separator or whatever function you think it might serve. > > Thanks to Al Kossow, I've now seen all the datasheets (on bitsavers) and > know that, alas, none of them apply to the chip I am looking at. The > power and groudn pins don't agree, for example. > > All I can tell you is that it's some kind of data encoder/decoder. The > Read and Write data signals, together with the Read and Write clock lines > go directly to it. I've not traced out enough to know more. > > > > > I also have a datasheet for the AMD8751 / 8753 which are the EPROM versions > > of the factory mask ROM 8051 and 8053. The 8753 has 8 K of EPROM and same > > functionality as the 8051 / 8751 ( 4 K ROM / EPROM ). > > If you've got the data sheets to hamd, can you check if it's the same > pinout as the 8051, please (it looks to be). > > -tony From gstreet at indy.net Sun Jun 21 18:20:07 2009 From: gstreet at indy.net (Robert) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:20:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers (From 19Jun09) Message-ID: <13919872.1245626407944.JavaMail.root@elwamui-norfolk.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Hello Ian, IIRC, the debug commands worked with XT controllers. It seems that the debug commands will not work with the newer AT controllers that have their own BIOS. Also, aren't you talking about 5 1/2" drives? I thought that the smaller 3 1/2 drives were IDE drives, not MFM. Disclaimer: I might be wrong. Others might have better answers. Regards, Robert Greenstreet ------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 9 Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:40:05 -0700 (PDT) From: Mr Ian Primus Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Message-ID: <21393.98126.qm at web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Anyone remember the difference between the various Western Digital MFM disk controllers? I've got a few in front of me right now, and I'm trying to figure out which would be the best for this Compaq Portable 286. I've got the good ol' WD1002A-WX1, and what looks to be the bigger verison, the WD1002S-WX2, then another, even longer card, the one that came stock with the Compaq, the WD1015-PL03. Now, here's the dilemma. The stock card won't respond to the usual debug commands - they just freeze the computer. The original 20mb 3 1/2" Miniscribe hard drive is dead (won't even spin). I am going to replace it with a similar 3 1/2" form factor drive - the NEC D3142. (43mb! Woo!) I already got the drive formatted and working on the small WD1002A-WX1 card, but it's been a while since I worked with MFM controllers - and I seem to remember the WD1002S-WX2 being faster or something. Also, I don't remember the calculations for optimum interleave, I used 3, since that was the default.... Pointers? -Ian From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 21 18:29:53 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:29:53 -0400 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers (From 19Jun09) In-Reply-To: <13919872.1245626407944.JavaMail.root@elwamui-norfolk.atl.sa.earthlink.net> References: <13919872.1245626407944.JavaMail.root@elwamui-norfolk.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Jun 21, 2009, at 7:20 PM, Robert wrote: > Also, aren't you talking about 5 1/2" drives? I thought that the > smaller 3 1/2 drives were IDE drives, not MFM. There are lots of 3.5" MFM drives and several 5.25" IDE drives. There is no correlation between platter diameter and interface type. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jun 21 18:30:18 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:30:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers (From 19Jun09) In-Reply-To: <13919872.1245626407944.JavaMail.root@elwamui-norfolk.atl.sa.earthlink.net> References: <13919872.1245626407944.JavaMail.root@elwamui-norfolk.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20090621162517.A94359@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 21 Jun 2009, Robert wrote: > IIRC, the debug commands worked with XT controllers. It seems that the > debug commands will not work with the newer AT controllers that have > their own BIOS. The DEBUG commands were never completely standardized. Although there were a lot of controllers that used same or similar commands, there were always exceptions, such as the original IBM Xebec > Also, aren't you talking about 5 1/2" drives? I thought that the smaller > 3 1/2 drives were IDE drives, not MFM. Not all. There were still a lot of MFM 3.5" drives. I even have one machine here with a ~100M ESDI 3.5 If I remember correctly, the controller on that machine is a WD ?????07 Since ESDI, MFM, and RLL had virtually identical cabling and connectors, it's a good idea to look up any drive before connecting. From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 21 18:38:46 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:38:46 -0400 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers (From 19Jun09) In-Reply-To: <20090621162517.A94359@shell.lmi.net> References: <13919872.1245626407944.JavaMail.root@elwamui-norfolk.atl.sa.earthlink.net> <20090621162517.A94359@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <28CE99D8-6AA7-408C-9EBC-8F5F91D78897@neurotica.com> On Jun 21, 2009, at 7:30 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > I even have one machine here with a ~100M ESDI 3.5 If I remember > correctly, the controller on that machine is a WD ?????07 WD1007. -Dave > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From shumaker at att.net Sun Jun 21 18:51:27 2009 From: shumaker at att.net (steve shumaker) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:51:27 -0400 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: <2211695B-ED88-4FC5-AF99-EB901809403B@neurotica.com> References: <4A3E9DB8.5000308@att.net> <2211695B-ED88-4FC5-AF99-EB901809403B@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A3EC77F.1030907@att.net> photos are loaded at http://picasaweb.google.com/traveler8811 Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jun 21, 2009, at 4:53 PM, steve shumaker wrote: >> Not sure how much of a score it is but I'm now the owner of what was >> described as a fully functioning pdp11/03. This would be my first >> pdp unit >> >> Cards installed are: >> Cards are: >> M8059KJ >> M8186 >> M8639 >> M8028 > > That's a PDP-11/23, not a PDP-11/03. The M8186 is a KDF11 processor > module. > In other words: SCORE! That would explain why I wasn't finding in any of the cards associated with the 11/03. So this unit was significantly upgraded in some fashion? Date stamps on the 8059 and 8186 are jan 1985. most other stamps are 1980... the unit was supposedly pulled from the internal network of the Borden Chemical Co but there are CompuServe inventory stickers on the boards. > >> I've done the obvious thing on bitsavers but whats a good place to >> start exploring with this unit? There's no drives or console with >> it although there is a large ribbon cable attached to the M8639 >> card. It also has a serial cable so one MIGHT be able to connect a >> console to it. > > That's an RQDX1 disc controller board. Pretty limited actually. > Was there anything on the other end of the ribbon cable? The cable terminates in a DB50female connector and the "console" cable terminates in 4 wires into a bare db25male connector > >> Never had access to anything like this so it's all new.. The goal >> obviously is to assemble a complete system. > > You are close...we just need to find you some sort of disk > subsystem. What kind of chassis do you have? Look for a number > starting with "BA" (BA11-xx, BA23, etc). Or take a pic and I'll ID it > for you. I look ed over the entire chassis but could see no BA series numbers. There are 2 11/03 model numbers in the back (looks like some sort of upgrade sequence) but nothing BA related. Where would they be? > > -Dave > From shumaker at att.net Sun Jun 21 18:52:59 2009 From: shumaker at att.net (steve shumaker) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:52:59 -0400 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: References: <4A3E9DB8.5000308@att.net> <2211695B-ED88-4FC5-AF99-EB901809403B@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A3EC7DB.3050906@att.net> Wash DC... that would be a reach! Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 5:00 PM -0400 6/21/09, Dave McGuire wrote: >> That's a PDP-11/23, not a PDP-11/03. The M8186 is a KDF11 >> processor module. >> >> In other words: SCORE! > > Well... If someone actually wants a *REAL* PDP-11/03, and can pick it > up locally (I will not ship it), they can contact me. I'm in the > Portland, Oregon area. I have three that came with my /23. I've had > them for about 10 years, and have never even tried to power them on. > > At 4:53 PM -0400 6/21/09, steve shumaker wrote: >> I've done the obvious thing on bitsavers but whats a good place to >> start exploring with this unit? There's no drives or console with >> it although there is a large ribbon cable attached to the M8639 >> card. It also has a serial cable so one MIGHT be able to connect a >> console to it. >> >> Never had access to anything like this so it's all new.. The goal >> obviously is to assemble a complete system. >> >> Suggestions comments recommendation all welcome! > > What part of the world are you located? > > Zane > > > From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 21 19:11:36 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:11:36 -0400 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: <4A3EC77F.1030907@att.net> References: <4A3E9DB8.5000308@att.net> <2211695B-ED88-4FC5-AF99-EB901809403B@neurotica.com> <4A3EC77F.1030907@att.net> Message-ID: <35C0884A-DBAB-4E02-B199-5B5D8C05118C@neurotica.com> On Jun 21, 2009, at 7:51 PM, steve shumaker wrote: > photos are loaded at > > http://picasaweb.google.com/traveler8811 Mmm, nice! That's a BA11-M chassis. I really like those...very compact. The downside is that we'll need to figure out a way to get a disk subsystem connected to it. Making cables for the RQDX3 was discussed here in the past day or so...you have an RQDX1, it'll use the same cable. Actually, the RQDX1 is kinda crappy. If you shoot me your shipping address in private mail I'll send you an RQDX3. I have a metric buttload of them. >> That's a PDP-11/23, not a PDP-11/03. The M8186 is a KDF11 >> processor module. >> In other words: SCORE! > > That would explain why I wasn't finding in any of the cards > associated with the 11/03. So this unit was significantly > upgraded in some fashion? Yes. >> That's an RQDX1 disc controller board. Pretty limited >> actually. Was there anything on the other end of the ribbon cable? > > The cable terminates in a DB50female connector and the "console" > cable terminates in 4 wires into a bare db25male connector That's your console port. >> You are close...we just need to find you some sort of disk >> subsystem. What kind of chassis do you have? Look for a number >> starting with "BA" (BA11-xx, BA23, etc). Or take a pic and I'll >> ID it for you. > > I look ed over the entire chassis but could see no BA series > numbers. There are 2 11/03 model numbers in the back (looks like > some sort of upgrade sequence) but nothing BA related. Where would > they be? It's a BA11-M chassis. I guess the sticker fell off. You can fire it up and interact with the machine ("ODT"...a sort of low-level monitor, and the boot ROM at a higher level) but you won't be able to do much without a drive. Firing it up diskless will at least verify that the hardware works and that your serial cabling is correct. Do you have any DEC RD-series hard drives kicking around? Here are the "generic" makes and models: RD50 Seagate ST-506 5MB RD51 Seagate ST-412 10MB RD52 Quantum Q540 32MB RD53 Micropolis 1325 71MB RD54 Maxtor XT2190 159MB RD31 Seagate ST225 21MB RD32 Seagate ST251 42MB ...though you'll only be able to use the later ones if you have an RQDX3. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sun Jun 21 20:24:48 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:24:48 +0100 Subject: Combination and Orientation of RQDX boards in one PDP-11/23 PLUS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A3EDD60.2060406@dunnington.plus.com> On 21/06/2009 20:08, SPC wrote: > As far as I can imagine it appears that they were used in one PDP QBUS > system in the order, from up to down in the order of the previous list, with > one ribbon cable from the RQDX3 to the 7513 J1 (?) connector, and another > one from the J2 (?) to the RQDX distribution board. Exists another connector > (J3 ?) in the 7513 that appears to point to one external connector that I > saw in one BA23. That would make sense; the M7513 is an RQDXE extender, used to allow you to connect an external set of drives as well as the internal ones handled by the distribution board. Unless you want some drives in the host enclosure and one or more in an external one, you don't need it. > Finally, the RQDX comes with MFM cables but too with one standard floppy PC > cable. I have some doubts with this last matter: > > * Is used this crossed floppy cable in DEC systems too (as in PeeCees) or > it's used other kind of cables ? No. PCs are the only things that use the crossed cable. Other systems would normally not have a cross, but would have different jumper settings on the floppy drives for the drive selects. > * I have a couple of RX33. Must I use TWO cables (one per floppy unit) ? No, you can use a simple bus arrangement with two connectors in parallel -- but set the DS jumpers on the two floppies so one is DS1 and the other is DS2 (that's assuming you count DS1...DS4. If the links are labelled DS0...DS3 then set the first to DS0 and the second to DS1). Don't use a PC cable with a twist; it doesn't do the right thing. You need quite a late version of firmware in the RQDX3 to support RX33s, though. > * Same question with the MFM disks If you're using the M9058 distribution board, the easiest way to do it is to use one 34-way cable and one 20-way cable for each fixed disk (ie for two fixed disks, two pairs of cables). > * What is the orientation of the RQDX ? I imagine it with the connectors > side turn down because turning it up would be a problem with the previous > board in the BA11-SB Do you mean the RQDX-E? Just don't use it unless you have to. The M9058 distribution board is meant for a BA123, and has its own slot at the bottom of the backplane where it's not in the way. It only takes power from the backplane, no signals, so it can go way below anything else without having to worry about grant continuity or bus termination. Look at the PDF files at http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/RQDX/ and specifically at M9058_layout.pdf because that will show you what needs connected. Regard an RX50 as being equivalent to a pair of RX33s, at least as far as the interface connections are concerned, so it (or the 2 x RS33) connect to J11, and your first fixed disk as RD1 so it connects to J1 and J5. Set the drive select on any fixed disk in this setup to DS3. J12 connects to the RQDX3 via 50-way ribbon cable, and J9 connects to the front panel switches. You probably don't have those, but if you look at the diagram in RQDXn_LEDs_switches.pdf you'll see that it would be easy to construct a substitute, and if need be, just use a couple of pullup resistors to ensure the drive is ready and write enabled. If you want to see more, fetch the "microPDP-11 Maintenance Manual" from the net, and look at the chapter on storage devices. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Jun 21 22:39:32 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:39:32 -0700 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: <35C0884A-DBAB-4E02-B199-5B5D8C05118C@neurotica.com> References: <4A3E9DB8.5000308@att.net> <2211695B-ED88-4FC5-AF99-EB901809403B@neurotica.com> <4A3EC77F.1030907@att.net> <35C0884A-DBAB-4E02-B199-5B5D8C05118C@neurotica.com> Message-ID: At 8:11 PM -0400 6/21/09, Dave McGuire wrote: > You can fire it up and interact with the machine ("ODT"...a sort >of low-level monitor, and the boot ROM at a higher level) but you >won't be able to do much without a drive. Firing it up diskless >will at least verify that the hardware works and that your serial >cabling is correct. Wasn't that a dual-height CPU board I saw? If so I am wondering what sort of boot ROM it might have. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 21 22:46:42 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:46:42 -0400 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: References: <4A3E9DB8.5000308@att.net> <2211695B-ED88-4FC5-AF99-EB901809403B@neurotica.com> <4A3EC77F.1030907@att.net> <35C0884A-DBAB-4E02-B199-5B5D8C05118C@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jun 21, 2009, at 11:39 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> You can fire it up and interact with the machine ("ODT"...a sort >> of low-level monitor, and the boot ROM at a higher level) but you >> won't be able to do much without a drive. Firing it up diskless >> will at least verify that the hardware works and that your serial >> cabling is correct. > > Wasn't that a dual-height CPU board I saw? If so I am wondering > what sort of boot ROM it might have. Yes, it's a dual (KDF11-A), no boot ROMs. Clearly a board is missing...it probably had a third-party disk controller in it at some point, or perhaps a BDV11. I have several BDV11s that I can send out to Steve if he needs one. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jun 21 22:49:16 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:49:16 -0400 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: References: <4A3E9DB8.5000308@att.net> <2211695B-ED88-4FC5-AF99-EB901809403B@neurotica.com> <4A3EC77F.1030907@att.net> <35C0884A-DBAB-4E02-B199-5B5D8C05118C@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 11:39 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Wasn't that a dual-height CPU board I saw? ?If so I am wondering what sort of boot ROM it might have. That looks like a plain KDF-11 to me (M8186) - no boot ROM on that board. Perhaps it had more boards at one time - that's a pretty lightly-loaded machine. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jun 21 23:06:39 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:06:39 -0400 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: <4A3EC77F.1030907@att.net> References: <4A3E9DB8.5000308@att.net> <2211695B-ED88-4FC5-AF99-EB901809403B@neurotica.com> <4A3EC77F.1030907@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 7:51 PM, steve shumaker wrote: > > photos are loaded at Nice. >>> Not sure how much of a score it is but I'm now the owner of what was described as a fully functioning pdp11/03. ? This would be my first pdp unit >>> >>> Cards installed are: >>> Cards are: >>> M8059KJ >>> M8186 >>> M8639 >>> M8028 > That would explain why I wasn't finding in any of the cards associated with the 11/03. ? So this unit was > significantly upgraded in some fashion? None of those boards are from the PDP-11/03 era, except perhaps the DLV-11F (M8028). It's pretty much had a total makeover. > Date stamps on the 8059 and 8186 are jan 1985. ?most other stamps are 1980... ?the unit was supposedly pulled from the internal network of the Borden Chemical Co but there are CompuServe inventory stickers on the boards. Interesting (I have plenty of stuff from CompuServe, and my 11/70s came from Borden). Are you in Columbus, or did you just get the equipment from Columbus (however indirectly)? >>> I've done the obvious thing on bitsavers but whats a good place to start exploring with this unit? ? There's no drives or console with it although there is a large ribbon cable attached ?to the M8639 card. ?It also has a serial cable so one MIGHT be able to connect a console to it... > > The cable terminates in a DB50female connector and the "console" cable terminates in 4 wires into a bare db25male connector >From what I can see in the pictures, your console cable is the DB25 that attaches to the M8028 via the thin cable and the 40-pin BERG connector. The ribbon cable that goes into your RQDX1 that has the DD50P connector on it, probably went to an external disk box. I have one or two - they are the same enclosure as an external TK50, sometimes called a Leprechaun box, but depending on what was meant to go inside, there were different backpanel boards for the purpose. One such board exists for an external MFM drive over a single 50-pin cable. That's probably what originally attached to your machine. As has been hashed over on the list recently, all RQDXn controllers use the same 50-pin pinout to provide signals for floppy and disk. How many and what type depend on your cabling and the model (revision) of your controller. I saw that Dave McGuire offered you a BDV-11 and an RQDX3. You'll probably want those. One hassle with the RQDX1 is that it doesn't pass grant and has to be the last card in the system. The RQDX3 won't have that limitation. It's meant to be near last (which makes the cabling in a BA23 easy), but it will work in other places. The BDV-11 will give you boot ROMs and terminate your bus (the other termination is on the CPU). In a BA23, IIRC, the bus is terminated on the backplane itself, so you don't need a BDV-11 there. Depending on what ROMs are on the BDV11, you might want to explore burning new ones. I don't recall if the MSCP bootstrap (DU device) is there or not - probably it depends on how old the BDV11 is. Mostly, I use them with controllers like the RLV12, so I know that works fine. It shouldn't be difficult to get you up and running on 5.25" floppies or a smallish MFM hard disk. With the CPU and memory you have there, I'd recommend RT-11. 2.11BSD won't run on that CPU (no Split I+D space), and 2.9BSD won't really be happy with that little RAM. RT-11 will work great with 64Kw (your M8059 card), and work fine on 5.25" floppy or small hard disk. You will probably be able to use an RX33 floppy with whatever RQDX3 that Dave sends you. With your RQDX1 (and the same cables), I think you are stuck with the RX50. One advantage the RX50 has is that it's two slots (one positioner), so you can boot from one diskette and swap out the other. The disadvantage is that they are weird, and if you don't already have one, you might not want to mess with them. The RX33 is a standard Teac FD55GFR as seen in many PCs of the 286 and 386 era, with certain jumpers set a certain way to make the motors and lights and select work in the expected fashion. The drive itself, though, is identical to the one in PCs. There are setup instruction on the 'net that aren't hard to find (or at least weren't the last time I looked). I hope this info helps you sort out the hardware you have in front of you. -ethan From IanK at vulcan.com Mon Jun 22 00:04:30 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:04:30 -0700 Subject: Vax 11/750 disks In-Reply-To: <4A3E8332.5080005@update.uu.se> References: <4A3E8332.5080005@update.uu.se> Message-ID: If your machine has CI, you can pick up HSJ controllers pretty readily, and they'll work with StorageWorks shelves of common 4GB SCSI drives. Star couplers - an essential part of the CI interconnect system - can be hard to come by these days, but I happen to have a stash. :-) The HSJ is nice because you can do mirror sets, stripe sets and incorporate other storage such as CDROM and tape. Cheers -- Ian PS: congratulations on the acquisition! ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Pontus [pontus at update.uu.se] Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2009 12:00 PM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Vax 11/750 disks Hi all. I have a Vax 11/750 coming my way. It currently has a three RA81 disks in a half-height rack. I feel that the RA81 takes up a little too much room. I would rather run on as small disks as possible (physical size of course). What options do I have? I believe that RA90 would work with existing controllers and I could fit one or two of those into a rack I already have. Kind regards, Pontus. From spedraja at ono.com Mon Jun 22 01:07:46 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:07:46 +0200 Subject: Combination and Orientation of RQDX boards in one PDP-11/23 PLUS In-Reply-To: <4A3EDD60.2060406@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4A3EDD60.2060406@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: Thank you very much, Pete. A *very* complete lesson :-) I approach to say that I have a few items more in the pile to probe, being the more interesting a couple of continuity QBUS boards and one BA11 expansion box. I leave its installation and use for a future message. As an additional comment to explain my list of messages, I must say that the BA11 and the boards object of my messages came to me almost two years ago from the US and I couldn't access them until now for cause of some problems in my basement. It was for cause of my RX33 message that I did a review in the basement and located these two boxes. I shall publish in the list my progress when the system is up and running with all these items. Regards Sergio 2009/6/22 Pete Turnbull > On 21/06/2009 20:08, SPC wrote: > > > As far as I can imagine it appears that they were used in one PDP QBUS >> system in the order, from up to down in the order of the previous list, >> with >> one ribbon cable from the RQDX3 to the 7513 J1 (?) connector, and another >> one from the J2 (?) to the RQDX distribution board. Exists another >> connector >> (J3 ?) in the 7513 that appears to point to one external connector that I >> saw in one BA23. >> > > That would make sense; the M7513 is an RQDXE extender, used to allow you to > connect an external set of drives as well as the internal ones handled by > the distribution board. Unless you want some drives in the host enclosure > and one or more in an external one, you don't need it. > > Finally, the RQDX comes with MFM cables but too with one standard floppy >> PC >> cable. I have some doubts with this last matter: >> >> * Is used this crossed floppy cable in DEC systems too (as in PeeCees) or >> it's used other kind of cables ? >> > > No. PCs are the only things that use the crossed cable. Other systems > would normally not have a cross, but would have different jumper settings on > the floppy drives for the drive selects. > > * I have a couple of RX33. Must I use TWO cables (one per floppy unit) ? >> > > No, you can use a simple bus arrangement with two connectors in parallel -- > but set the DS jumpers on the two floppies so one is DS1 and the other is > DS2 (that's assuming you count DS1...DS4. If the links are labelled > DS0...DS3 then set the first to DS0 and the second to DS1). Don't use a PC > cable with a twist; it doesn't do the right thing. > > You need quite a late version of firmware in the RQDX3 to support RX33s, > though. > > * Same question with the MFM disks >> > > If you're using the M9058 distribution board, the easiest way to do it is > to use one 34-way cable and one 20-way cable for each fixed disk (ie for two > fixed disks, two pairs of cables). > > * What is the orientation of the RQDX ? I imagine it with the connectors >> side turn down because turning it up would be a problem with the previous >> board in the BA11-SB >> > > Do you mean the RQDX-E? Just don't use it unless you have to. The M9058 > distribution board is meant for a BA123, and has its own slot at the bottom > of the backplane where it's not in the way. It only takes power from the > backplane, no signals, so it can go way below anything else without having > to worry about grant continuity or bus termination. > > Look at the PDF files at http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/RQDX/ > and specifically at M9058_layout.pdf because that will show you what needs > connected. > > Regard an RX50 as being equivalent to a pair of RX33s, at least as far as > the interface connections are concerned, so it (or the 2 x RS33) connect to > J11, and your first fixed disk as RD1 so it connects to J1 and J5. Set the > drive select on any fixed disk in this setup to DS3. > > J12 connects to the RQDX3 via 50-way ribbon cable, and J9 connects to the > front panel switches. You probably don't have those, but if you look at the > diagram in RQDXn_LEDs_switches.pdf you'll see that it would be easy to > construct a substitute, and if need be, just use a couple of pullup > resistors to ensure the drive is ready and write enabled. > > If you want to see more, fetch the "microPDP-11 Maintenance Manual" from > the net, and look at the chapter on storage devices. > > -- > Pete Peter Turnbull > Network Manager > University of York > From doc at docsbox.net Sun Jun 21 16:50:17 2009 From: doc at docsbox.net (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:50:17 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906191355n50659c1bof99f243b15662b9c@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906190938w54d50a11i1bfb4017709e3e52@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191209t1120b9f8y790035b4c8c3e041@mail.gmail.com> <6dbe3c380906191230j49f0143cu4ca51c93ccda154@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BE91F.7080007@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191246xb9456d1l777d51713301fb63@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BF6C1.20402@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191343r627ada47w4d9b98bd14fecf96@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BF9CE.3080506@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191355n50659c1bof99f243b15662b9c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3EAB19.3070806@docsbox.net> Brian Lanning wrote: > On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Doc wrote: >> it's HFS format, so not ISO9660, but any bruning app that will just >> scribble the image onto the CDR will work. > > ok, I'm sure I can find something. > > >>> And what's the Om program? >> It just chants "Ommmmmmmmmmm" :^) > > I'm going to need some meditation after this. I'm certainly starting > to look like a monk now that I've pulled all my hair out. :^) Welcome to Classic Computing! I'm still looking for that CD - I may have to set up the IIci and make a new image. I'm in the midst of a huge spring cleaning project, so things are a little disorganized here. Doc From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Mon Jun 22 08:01:55 2009 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:01:55 -0500 Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test In-Reply-To: <4A3C633C.2030008@brutman.com> References: <4A3C633C.2030008@brutman.com> Message-ID: <4A3F80C3.2070109@brutman.com> Hi everybody, The Jr is still running. I've had 50 people register and play over the last two days. There are just under 50 test messages in the forum area. So far I'm found one bug that is affecting my TCP/IP code a little bit, but not enough to stop and fix it. (I am retransmitting after too short of a period due to a configuration issue in the code.) My warning messages for the BBS application and the TCP/IP code are going to a log file, so I won't see the real dirt until I shut down and start looking at the log file. If you haven't stopped in yet, I'm still looking for a lot more activity. The machine is configured to take five users at a time, but it is usually only being used by one person. The extra activity helps me find timing windows in the code. I'm also logging extra diagnostic information on Telnet connections so I can see what telnet options I'm not handling. And lastly (but pretty important) I'm still looking for feedback on what people like and don't like. The IP address is 96.42.239.42 .. If you've already checked in, it's time to check back! The good news is that I've pretty much proven that not only is it possible, but it seems to work pretty well. I've been working on the TCP/IP code for 4 years so this almost feels like a victory lap. :-) Mike From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jun 22 12:30:41 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:30:41 -0600 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:11:35 -0700. Message-ID: In article , "Zane H. Healy" writes: > At 5:00 PM -0400 6/21/09, Dave McGuire wrote: > > That's a PDP-11/23, not a PDP-11/03. The M8186 is a KDF11 processor modu le. > > > > In other words: SCORE! > > Well... If someone actually wants a *REAL* PDP-11/03, and can pick > it up locally (I will not ship it), they can contact me. I'm in the > Portland, Oregon area. I have three that came with my /23. I've had > them for about 10 years, and have never even tried to power them on. I drove to Carson City, NV from SLC, UT to get my 11/03 + 2 RL01s in a nice big heavy cabinet + LA120. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From brianlanning at gmail.com Mon Jun 22 13:01:24 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:01:24 -0500 Subject: Classic mac fun (and some questions) (continued...) In-Reply-To: <4A3EAB19.3070806@docsbox.net> References: <6dbe3c380906191230j49f0143cu4ca51c93ccda154@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BE91F.7080007@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191246xb9456d1l777d51713301fb63@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BF6C1.20402@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191343r627ada47w4d9b98bd14fecf96@mail.gmail.com> <4A3BF9CE.3080506@vaxen.net> <6dbe3c380906191355n50659c1bof99f243b15662b9c@mail.gmail.com> <4A3EAB19.3070806@docsbox.net> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906221101o4047a623tf9472bcbb0fb601a@mail.gmail.com> thanks. it appears that I can now read mac floppies on my xp box. this was a disk I formatted on the quadra. so I think I can get the utilities over there now. my problem now is that the utilities are in a bin file. I can't seem to get them out or manage to write the bin to a disk that the quara can read. if you have the disk utility handy an could email it to me, I coul probably get it going. alternatively, if you know of a program that can write mac bin files on xp, that would work also. rawrite seems to not work. On 6/21/09, Doc Shipley wrote: > Brian Lanning wrote: >> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Doc wrote: >>> it's HFS format, so not ISO9660, but any bruning app that will just >>> scribble the image onto the CDR will work. >> >> ok, I'm sure I can find something. >> >> >>>> And what's the Om program? >>> It just chants "Ommmmmmmmmmm" :^) >> >> I'm going to need some meditation after this. I'm certainly starting >> to look like a monk now that I've pulled all my hair out. > > :^) Welcome to Classic Computing! > > I'm still looking for that CD - I may have to set up the IIci and > make a new image. I'm in the midst of a huge spring cleaning project, > so things are a little disorganized here. > > > Doc > From RichA at vulcan.com Mon Jun 22 13:15:01 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:15:01 -0700 Subject: [private] RE: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: <4A3D3F69.5020703@bitsavers.org> References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> <4A3C3453.4040202@databasics.us> <4A3D08AB.6000106@arachelian.com> <4A3D3F69.5020703@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Hi, Al, With regard to your first point below, are you familiar with the eBay auction (270412475150) for a 1975 DEC-20 Marketing Guide? We're considering bidding on it, but if you are interested, we'll hold off. This is a "private listing", by the way, so no one can tell who else is bidding, even by eBay's encoded indicators. Thanks, Rich -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2009 12:59 PM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators Ray Arachelian wrote: > So we have hardware work, emulator work, and replica work. Any other > big field I've missed that can be part of this hobby of ours? Collecting how the machines were used, and who used them. Also the history of companies that produced them and the development process. Historians seem to be more interested in the social aspects of computing, as opposed to the nuts and bolts of how they worked that collectors concentrate on. There have been historians that question why anyone would bother collecting software at all, for example. I was asked recently by someone concerning archiving software what use people could make of software if the binaries and sources were made available for non-commercial use. Beyond intellectual research/curiosity, I was having some trouble doing so given the constraint of it being for non-commercial use. What would you do if the agreement with the software's owner is that it has to be "frozen in amber", ie. you have to agree not to make changes/improvements to it even though you have the sources? From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jun 22 13:18:14 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:18:14 -0400 Subject: Vax 11/750 disks In-Reply-To: References: <4A3E8332.5080005@update.uu.se> Message-ID: On Jun 22, 2009, at 1:04 AM, Ian King wrote: > If your machine has CI, you can pick up HSJ controllers pretty > readily, and they'll work with StorageWorks shelves of common 4GB > SCSI drives. Star couplers - an essential part of the CI > interconnect system - can be hard to come by these days, but I > happen to have a stash. :-) The HSJ is nice because you can do > mirror sets, stripe sets and incorporate other storage such as > CDROM and tape. Cheers -- Ian Speaking of 11/750 CI interfaces...Does anyone have a spare one? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From RichA at vulcan.com Mon Jun 22 13:23:28 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:23:28 -0700 Subject: [private] RE: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators In-Reply-To: References: <4A3AA059.5090700@arachelian.com> <4A3C3453.4040202@databasics.us> <4A3D08AB.6000106@arachelian.com> <4A3D3F69.5020703@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Oh, hell. That was supposed to be private. Sorry, everyone. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rich Alderson Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 11:15 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: [private] RE: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators Hi, Al, With regard to your first point below, are you familiar with the eBay auction (270412475150) for a 1975 DEC-20 Marketing Guide? We're considering bidding on it, but if you are interested, we'll hold off. This is a "private listing", by the way, so no one can tell who else is bidding, even by eBay's encoded indicators. Thanks, Rich -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2009 12:59 PM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators Ray Arachelian wrote: > So we have hardware work, emulator work, and replica work. Any other > big field I've missed that can be part of this hobby of ours? Collecting how the machines were used, and who used them. Also the history of companies that produced them and the development process. Historians seem to be more interested in the social aspects of computing, as opposed to the nuts and bolts of how they worked that collectors concentrate on. There have been historians that question why anyone would bother collecting software at all, for example. I was asked recently by someone concerning archiving software what use people could make of software if the binaries and sources were made available for non-commercial use. Beyond intellectual research/curiosity, I was having some trouble doing so given the constraint of it being for non-commercial use. What would you do if the agreement with the software's owner is that it has to be "frozen in amber", ie. you have to agree not to make changes/improvements to it even though you have the sources? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 22 13:07:02 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:07:02 +0100 (BST) Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: from "Rik Bos" at Jun 21, 9 11:05:24 pm Message-ID: > > I'd much rather have an HP9000/200.... > > > > -tony > > > Me too, and for the speed a HP 9000/300 ;-) I am sure yuo realise why I prefer the series 200 to the series 300... Perhaps I am being unkind -- the only 9000/300 machine I'ev been inside is the model 340, and it seemed to be stuffed with unrecognisable PGA-packaged ICs. At least the series 200s are mostly standard parts with the odd PAL, ROM and microcontroller thrown in. > I like the view of a HP 125 ET-head but it is not a very handy machine. It is an interesting styling and odd to work on -- release a quarter-turn fastener, slide the casing slightly forwards on the stand, then lift it up on a stay. You can then release some Nylatch clips and lower the processor board to work on that, The HP120, BTW (and the oriignal HP150, which has much the same physical layout) is odd... You can remvoe the top casing with 2 quarter-turn fasteners, but that jsut gets you to the PSU and monitor PCBs. To get to the logic boards, you have to unclip the battery pack, then remove the jackposts on all the connectors, and then remove 5 screws and the rear panel of the card cage. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 22 13:19:19 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:19:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: <4A3EAAF5.9070406@databasics.us> from "Warren Wolfe" at Jun 21, 9 11:49:41 am Message-ID: > > And then there's the attributesm which are set on a character line basis. > > Basically, every character is either normal or enhanced (decided by bit 7 > > of the chracter code). You can only have one type of enhancement in a > > given line. So you could have normal and underlined characters in the > > same line, but you can't have normal, inverse, and underlined characters > > all in the same line. > > > > Okay, I'll grant you that was a bit weird. Honestly, though, it was > never an issue for me, or the original owner. It just seems very strang for HP to do something like this. THe video system in the HP9000s is a lot more conventional (6845-based), I think the HP150 one is not too strange. And I don't think it came directly from any of the terminals (I've not seen one which doesn't allow you to have several differenet nehancemnets on one line). It's not a big deal, the machine works fine, and most of the time all you need are stnadard characters. > I don't know how 'official' it was, but I had PORTSET.COM which directly That's not on the standard CP/M boot disk, and I can find no reference to it in any of the manuals on hpmuseum.net. > set up the serial port from the CP/M side. Er, it RAN on the CP/M side, > and set up the ports. I suspect it did downlaod something to the terminal processor. But obviously I can't be sure > > > > I'd much rather have an HP9000/200.... > > An attorney's office near me had the HP-125. When they upgraded, I got > their old system for a song. Nobody I knew was getting rid of an > HP9000/200. This was before eBay, and I really didn't have a good way > to find specific equipment. One takes what's available. Still and all, > I very much enjoyed using it, and it was the first machine I had that > would be a reasonable terminal, HPIB controller, AND general purpose > computer. Also, they were SLEEK. So, scoff if you want, but I liked it I'm not socoffing, I am just pointing out things I don't like about the design based on sitting down with the schematics and figuring out just how it works, I like the machine (HP120) enough to buy one of E-bay (after I'd read some technical info on it, and had an idea as to what I was getting into). Like most HP stuff of that period, it's _solid_. Both mechancially and electronically. > just fine. It probably would have been more difficult than average to > repair hardware problems on it, but in about 15 years, I never had one. I don't see why. Getting some of the chips might be hard now, but apart from that it's not too bad. The design is understnadable, it can be debugged in the normal way. FWIW, Mine fired up with no problems. OK, I had to make a keyboard for it (not a normal problem if you got one new...), I had to repair the cooling fan, and I had to change one capacitor on the PSU board -- it seemed OK, but the top was bluging. Since it was one of the mains smoothing capacitors, and since if it had burst it would have gone straight towards the CRT neck, I replaced it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 22 13:29:13 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:29:13 +0100 (BST) Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook In-Reply-To: <001301c9f2bf$b2807c50$0201a8c0@hal9000> from "Scanning" at Jun 21, 9 03:29:09 pm Message-ID: > > Hi Tony, > > Thanks Al for the heads-up on the datasheets !! Tony, do you think it is Indeed. That was extremely fast and very helpful. At least I know what it isn't.. > some kind of Manchester / Miller encoder / decoder ? Do we know if it is a Yes. I think it's the circuit that combines and separates clocks and data pluses. Possibly RLL 2.7 code, I thought it might be a DP8463, but none of the signals match. > National chip or has it's total identity been wiped ? Maybe Signetics or > Plessey or TI or ?? Where are the power pins ( sometimes that is a good A proverb about grandmothers and sucking eggs springs to mind :-) :-) > tell ) ? You mentioned 24 pin skinny DIP ? I'll keep looking. This is for > some type of magnetic disk / floppy media system ? OK, more seriously, I'll tell you what I've discovered. This is a chip on the logic board of an HP winchester drive with what I am pretty sure is an ESDI interface. This board has about 50 chips on it, inclduing the 8053 microcontorller and a custom PGA thing with 95 pins. The chip in question has a National Semiconductor logo and the HP house-code 1820-5422. It's a 24 pin skinnyDIP (normal 0.1" pin spacing, 0.3" between the rows). As I said, I think the host interface on this drive is ESDI. The read/write data and read/write clock differential signals from the 20 pin connecotr are buffered in the ovious way (I forget the numbers of the buffer chips, but I have data sheets on them) and then go to this device. I;'ve not traced many pins yet, but the ones I know are : 8 : +5V (Vcc) 9 : Master clock input (from a 20MHz oscillator can) 11 : Write Clock input 12 : Write Data input 15 : Read Data output 16 : Read Clock output 20 : Ground There are no other pins connected to power or ground, which pretty much makes the ones I've found the real power pins (as opposed to, say, mode control pins that are tied high or low). Thoes power pins are odd (not the corner pins). > > Pinouts are the same for the AMD 8051 / 8053. Hope that helps. Thanks. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 22 13:39:54 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:39:54 +0100 (BST) Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers (From 19Jun09) In-Reply-To: <20090621162517.A94359@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jun 21, 9 04:30:18 pm Message-ID: > Since ESDI, MFM, and RLL had virtually identical cabling and connectors, To be pedantic. you are confusing interfaces and data encoding methods here. The ST412 interface (developed from the ST506 interface, the ST412 allows buffered seems) uses a 34 pin control cable and a 20 pin data cable. The control signals are very like those on a floppy drive (there are step/diorection/track 0 signals for moving the heads, for example). The data encoding/decoding is done in the _controller_, what appears on the interface connector is essentially the bitstream to/from the head. The controller determins whether you use MFM or RLL encoding (or something else, I guess). Some drives could handle RLL, some apparently couldn;t (but all could handle MFM encoding). The ESDI interface uses the same cables. The control signals are less like a floppy drive (there's a bit serial command/status interface for sending seek commands, etc). The clock and data signals are combined (writing) and separated (reading) in the drive. At the interface connecto you get the data signal and the clock that goes with it. The drive internally may use RLL or MFM encoding -- to most users it doesn't matter (it does to me at the moment, having got various drives in bits on the bench). One minor difference in (some) cabling. The ST412 interface sues a 1-ofn (actually 1 of 4) drive select scheme (4 wires, one is asserted to select a particular drive), like floppy drives. Some PC hard disk cables for 2 drives had a twist in them so you set all the drives to the same drive select number, ut the signals appears on different pins at the controller -- rater like the IBM twist in a floppy cable, but different wires are involved> The ESDI interface has 3 binary-coded select lines for a maximum of 7 drives (all deasserted selects no drive at all). You can use the twisted cable with ESDI. -tony From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Mon Jun 22 14:16:29 2009 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:16:29 +0200 Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: References: from "Rik Bos" at Jun21, 9 11:05:24 pm Message-ID: <84E02D77B6B3412CBAB3FA0D756E79DA@xp1800> > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Tony Duell > Verzonden: maandag 22 juni 2009 20:07 > Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Onderwerp: Re: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot > > > > I'd much rather have an HP9000/200.... > > > > > > -tony > > > > > Me too, and for the speed a HP 9000/300 ;-) > > I am sure yuo realise why I prefer the series 200 to the > series 300... > Perhaps I am being unkind -- the only 9000/300 machine I'ev > been inside is the model 340, and it seemed to be stuffed > with unrecognisable PGA-packaged ICs. At least the series > 200s are mostly standard parts with the odd PAL, ROM and > microcontroller thrown in. The processor and memory boards of the 350/360 are build from TTL and PAL's(lots of them) I just fixed a 16Mb memoryboard for my 360 by reverse eng. the memory decoding and buffering circuits. The interface board contains 1 big pga i/o chip (propriarity hp) but the rest is TTL and some LSI-chips. The hi-res video boards are build from pga's and ram, but you use also older video boards Or plant a 68030 acceleratorboard in a HP 9816, you wouldn't beleivbe your eyes how fast the thing gets then ;-) The 345/375 and 382 types are more 'modern'and build in SMD with a lot of special function chips. But the 345 has a 68040 emulator board wit a 68030 implemented. So please don't throw them all away because of a few pga's ;-) > > I like the view of a HP 125 ET-head but it is not a very > handy machine. > > It is an interesting styling and odd to work on -- release a > quarter-turn fastener, slide the casing slightly forwards on > the stand, then lift it up on a stay. You can then release > some Nylatch clips and lower the processor board to work on that, I worked on mine it had a bad video/terminal ram chip, thanks to the diagnostic LED's it was easy to find. With not very handy I was refering to the use of the machine, and it is big takes a lot of space. > The HP120, BTW (and the oriignal HP150, which has much the > same physical > layout) is odd... You can remvoe the top casing with 2 > quarter-turn fasteners, but that jsut gets you to the PSU > and monitor PCBs. To get to the logic boards, you have to > unclip the battery pack, then remove the jackposts on all the > connectors, and then remove 5 screws and the rear panel of > the card cage. > > -tony > Rik From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 22 15:04:08 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:04:08 +0100 (BST) Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: <84E02D77B6B3412CBAB3FA0D756E79DA@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" at Jun 22, 9 09:16:29 pm Message-ID: > > I am sure yuo realise why I prefer the series 200 to the > > series 300... > > Perhaps I am being unkind -- the only 9000/300 machine I'ev > > been inside is the model 340, and it seemed to be stuffed > > with unrecognisable PGA-packaged ICs. At least the series > > 200s are mostly standard parts with the odd PAL, ROM and > > microcontroller thrown in. > > The processor and memory boards of the 350/360 are build from TTL and > PAL's(lots of them) Right... As I said, I've only been inside the 9000/340 (I have a number of those that I was given, all with high-res video boards, and IIRC, 16M RAM.). Somewhere I have an interface board for an external video box, the different back panel that goes with that, and a little cardcage you can fit to that backpanel that has a DIO slot). > I just fixed a 16Mb memoryboard for my 360 by reverse eng. the memory > decoding and buffering circuits. > The interface board contains 1 big pga i/o chip (propriarity hp) but the > rest is TTL and some LSI-chips. Custom LSI, or things I might have heard of? It's not the PGA package I oject to per se, rather it's the fact I can't get data or replacements for some of the ICs. > The hi-res video boards are build from pga's and ram, but you use also older > video boards > Or plant a 68030 acceleratorboard in a HP 9816, you wouldn't beleivbe your > eyes how fast the thing gets then ;-) I can believe it :-). Actually the 12.5MHz 68010 in the 9836CU and 9817 feels noticeably faster than the normal 8MHz 68000. I assume it's just due to the 1.5* clock speed. > > The 345/375 and 382 types are more 'modern'and build in SMD with a lot of > special function chips. > But the 345 has a 68040 emulator board wit a 68030 implemented. > > So please don't throw them all away because of a few pga's ;-) As if I would :-) > > I worked on mine it had a bad video/terminal ram chip, thanks to the > diagnostic LED's it was easy to find. Right. > With not very handy I was refering to the use of the machine, and it is big > takes a lot of space. Yes, I ahev a 2623 terminal (same case) somewhere -- I borrowed the keyboard from it as a possible keyboard for the HP120 (I described that work a couple of months back). I must extract the terminal iteself sometime and have a serious look at the insides. -tony From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 22 15:25:20 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:25:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Tandy 1000 to a good home, CIB, Calgary area pick-up preferred Message-ID: <405686.28669.qm@web23404.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Cool videos. It would be nice if I could revisit my old Spectrum games I made, but my parents have put my Spectrum 128K (in its original box) someplace 'safe' :( Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Wed, 17/6/09, Shane Dorosh wrote: From: Shane Dorosh Subject: Tandy 1000 to a good home, CIB, Calgary area pick-up preferred To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Date: Wednesday, 17 June, 2009, 6:10 PM Hi all, I've got a much loved old Tandy 1000 I've decided to part with.? It's still working, and it's been well cared-for.? It has 640KB of memory and a 20MB HD.? It comes with the original boxes, disks, and manuals, including the original BASIC manual!? The monitor is monochrome, not color. I'm looking for collectors of Radio Shack gear in the Calgary area who would like this computer and who can come pick it up.? Failing that, I will ship the Tandy out to someone if you pay the shipping.? This is a great collector's item, so I hope someone will reply! I still need the Tandy for another week or two... I'm putting up videos of my programming experiences on Youtube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEwkd2Lk7Vs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWdsWmL_YFo ... but I should be done with it by the end of the month. Please let me know if you're interested! S. D. Calgary, Alberta P.S.? Last but not least, there's a DMP 430 dot matrix printer with the Tandy as well.? If you come to pick it up, I'll ask you to take it as well.? (I don't have a car, so I can't recycle it very easily myself.)? If you need me to ship the Tandy, though, I'm quite sure you will NOT want the printer, as it's huge and heavy and will probably double the shipping costs. From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Mon Jun 22 15:38:41 2009 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:38:41 +0200 Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: References: <84E02D77B6B3412CBAB3FA0D756E79DA@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" at Jun22, 9 09:16:29 pm Message-ID: <125621AD50AD48A99CE161F95DD3FD98@xp1800> > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Tony Duell > Verzonden: maandag 22 juni 2009 22:04 > Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Onderwerp: Re: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot > > > > I am sure yuo realise why I prefer the series 200 to the series > > > 300... > > > Perhaps I am being unkind -- the only 9000/300 machine I'ev been > > > inside is the model 340, and it seemed to be stuffed with > > > unrecognisable PGA-packaged ICs. At least the series 200s > are mostly > > > standard parts with the odd PAL, ROM and microcontroller > thrown in. > > > > The processor and memory boards of the 350/360 are build > from TTL and > > PAL's(lots of them) > > Right... As I said, I've only been inside the 9000/340 (I > have a number of those that I was given, all with high-res > video boards, and IIRC, 16M RAM.). Somewhere I have an > interface board for an external video box, the different back > panel that goes with that, and a little cardcage you can fit > to that backpanel that has a DIO slot). Is it for the Graphic coprocessor ? That's an external unit you place next to the system unit, it connects to somekind of bus extender board with a flatcable. > > > I just fixed a 16Mb memoryboard for my 360 by reverse eng. > the memory > > decoding and buffering circuits. > > The interface board contains 1 big pga i/o chip > (propriarity hp) but > > the rest is TTL and some LSI-chips. > > Custom LSI, or things I might have heard of? It's not the PGA > package I oject to per se, rather it's the fact I can't get > data or replacements for some of the ICs. One custom LSI I think it's the I/O controller. The others are Lance Ethernet Ti HP-IB controller HIL-chip, serial controller 1820-3623 and some other standaard interface chips. The only one that would bother you would be the HP 1TQ4-0401. I'll make some pictures this week and put them on flickr so you can look at them. > > > The hi-res video boards are build from pga's and ram, but > you use also > > older video boards Or plant a 68030 acceleratorboard in a > HP 9816, you > > wouldn't beleivbe your eyes how fast the thing gets then ;-) > > I can believe it :-). Actually the 12.5MHz 68010 in the > 9836CU and 9817 feels noticeably faster than the normal 8MHz > 68000. I assume it's just due to the 1.5* clock speed. > > > > > The 345/375 and 382 types are more 'modern'and build in SMD > with a lot > > of special function chips. > > But the 345 has a 68040 emulator board wit a 68030 implemented. > > > > So please don't throw them all away because of a few pga's ;-) > > As if I would :-) I know. > > > > > I worked on mine it had a bad video/terminal ram chip, > thanks to the > > diagnostic LED's it was easy to find. > > Right. > > > With not very handy I was refering to the use of the > machine, and it > > is big takes a lot of space. > > Yes, I ahev a 2623 terminal (same case) somewhere -- I > borrowed the keyboard from it as a possible keyboard for the > HP120 (I described that work a couple of months back). I must > extract the terminal iteself sometime and have a serious look > at the insides. I know was fun reading the story. Hardware problems are always 'fun' ;-) > -tony > Rik From shumaker at att.net Mon Jun 22 18:06:21 2009 From: shumaker at att.net (steve shumaker) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:06:21 -0400 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A400E6D.6090700@att.net> I've done Sacramento to SLC and back twice for gear while I was living in Sacto - that's quite a drive. but I suspect Wash state to Reston VA would be a bit much even for a serious score! Richard wrote: > In article , > "Zane H. Healy" writes: > > >> At 5:00 PM -0400 6/21/09, Dave McGuire wrote: >> >>> That's a PDP-11/23, not a PDP-11/03. The M8186 is a KDF11 processor modu >>> > le. > >>> In other words: SCORE! >>> >> Well... If someone actually wants a *REAL* PDP-11/03, and can pick >> it up locally (I will not ship it), they can contact me. I'm in the >> Portland, Oregon area. I have three that came with my /23. I've had >> them for about 10 years, and have never even tried to power them on. >> > > I drove to Carson City, NV from SLC, UT to get my 11/03 + 2 RL01s > in a nice big heavy cabinet + LA120. > From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 22 18:17:24 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:17:24 -0600 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: <4A400E6D.6090700@att.net> References: <4A400E6D.6090700@att.net> Message-ID: <4A401104.9020601@jetnet.ab.ca> steve shumaker wrote: > I've done Sacramento to SLC and back twice for gear while I was living > in Sacto - that's quite a drive. but I suspect Wash state to Reston VA > would be a bit much even for a serious score! No ... it boils down to how much you want that 11. Pay a high school kid ... pick up this box , you have all summer to get it here. :) From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jun 22 18:24:41 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:24:41 -0600 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:06:21 -0400. <4A400E6D.6090700@att.net> Message-ID: In article <4A400E6D.6090700 at att.net>, steve shumaker writes: > I've done Sacramento to SLC and back twice for gear while I was living > in Sacto - that's quite a drive. I've done round-trips to St. Louis, MO (fly out, drive back over two days) and Tucson, AZ (long 1-day drive each way). > but I suspect Wash state to Reston VA > would be a bit much even for a serious score! For that distance, I'd use Craters & Freighters. A clotheswasher sized 11/03 cabinet is not going to be dinged up by typical freight handling, just wrap and strap to a pallet ought to be good enough. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From shumaker at att.net Mon Jun 22 18:30:09 2009 From: shumaker at att.net (steve shumaker) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:30:09 -0400 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: <4A401104.9020601@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4A400E6D.6090700@att.net> <4A401104.9020601@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4A401401.90403@att.net> ya that is true. For the moment though, I'm content to play with just this one.. ss bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: > steve shumaker wrote: >> I've done Sacramento to SLC and back twice for gear while I was >> living in Sacto - that's quite a drive. but I suspect Wash state to >> Reston VA would be a bit much even for a serious score! > > No ... it boils down to how much you want that 11. Pay a high school > kid ... pick up this box , you have all summer to get it here. :) > > From slawmaster at gmail.com Mon Jun 22 18:49:26 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:49:26 -0700 Subject: DEC terminal Message-ID: <7d3530220906221649v207f5ba1kbcdb4eb95303875@mail.gmail.com> Don't know how often these come up; I spotted this while looking for a teletype for the office. http://cgi.ebay.com/Decital-Correspondent-Printer-Teletype-machine_W0QQitemZ130314286948QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCOMP_Printers?hash=item1e57563764&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12|66%3A2|39%3A1|72%3A1234|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A1|294%3A50 John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From evan at snarc.net Tue Jun 23 01:26:41 2009 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:26:41 -0400 Subject: Portable ASR-33? Message-ID: <4A4075A1.1050401@snarc.net> Anyone know which model of the ASR-33 (perhaps from a different company) was sold in a portable case circa 1972, with one half containing the teletype and the other half containing an acoustic modem? (No, I don't mean the later T.I. Silent 700.) From silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com Tue Jun 23 03:29:42 2009 From: silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com (silvercreekvalley) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:29:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: WTB DEC cabinets (UK) Message-ID: <106383.6203.qm@web56207.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Looking for a 19" DEC rack - any height - if anyone has one. Its to house some RL02 drives which are currently languishing on various tables/floor space. Will collect, etc. UK only thanks. Would prefer DEC originals but anything considered really. Ian. From spedraja at ono.com Tue Jun 23 04:11:17 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:11:17 +0200 Subject: WTB SCSI-50 to Centronics, mfm, esdi and flat floppy cables (for 5'25 units) (Spain) Message-ID: I located some places where purchase it from Internet, but I should like to know if someone has some of these available. I need them to use in my PDP-11/23 PLUS. I pay the shipment plus a reasonable extra if neccesary. Regards Sergio From shumaker at att.net Tue Jun 23 07:17:08 2009 From: shumaker at att.net (shumaker at att.net) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:17:08 +0000 Subject: Vaxen available! Message-ID: <062320091217.12946.4A40C7C40001B7770000329222230704929B0A02D29B9B0EBF9D0A050E039A089C@att.net> There 4 VAX 11/750s available on Craigslist in Kent Wash. Owner claims they came from Boeing. no other details listed. he wants $500 each. craigslist Seattle-Tacoma PostingID: 1231299617 From spedraja at ono.com Tue Jun 23 07:52:13 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:52:13 +0200 Subject: Vaxen available! In-Reply-To: <062320091217.12946.4A40C7C40001B7770000329222230704929B0A02D29B9B0EBF9D0A050E039A089C@att.net> References: <062320091217.12946.4A40C7C40001B7770000329222230704929B0A02D29B9B0EBF9D0A050E039A089C@att.net> Message-ID: Good luck but very sad for me. I'm searching for one in Europe from years ago. And one that I caught went to the dumpster during the vacations of the seller. Regards Sergio 2009/6/23 > There 4 VAX 11/750s available on Craigslist in Kent Wash. Owner claims > they came from Boeing. no other details listed. he wants $500 each. > > craigslist Seattle-Tacoma PostingID: 1231299617 > > > > From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Tue Jun 23 08:37:54 2009 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:37:54 +0200 Subject: Vaxen available! In-Reply-To: References: <062320091217.12946.4A40C7C40001B7770000329222230704929B0A02D29B9B0EBF9D0A050E039A089C@att.net> Message-ID: <20090623133754.GG25676@lug-owl.de> On Tue, 2009-06-23 14:52:13 +0200, SPC wrote: > 2009/6/23 wrote: > > There 4 VAX 11/750s available on Craigslist in Kent Wash. Owner claims > > they came from Boeing. no other details listed. he wants $500 each. > > > > craigslist Seattle-Tacoma PostingID: 1231299617 > > Good luck but very sad for me. I'm searching for one in Europe from years > ago. And one that I caught went to the dumpster during the vacations of the > seller. Same for me, wrong continent :( Shipping even one from USA to Germany will probably kill me :) But if I ever find one nearby... MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de +49-172-7608481 Signature of: Alles wird gut! ...und heute wirds schon ein bi?chen besser. the second : From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jun 23 10:23:22 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:23:22 -0700 Subject: Vaxen available! In-Reply-To: <062320091217.12946.4A40C7C40001B7770000329222230704929B0A02D29B9B0EBF9D0A 050E039A089C@att.net> References: <062320091217.12946.4A40C7C40001B7770000329222230704929B0A02D29B9B0EBF9D0A 050E039A089C@att.net> Message-ID: At 12:17 PM +0000 6/23/09, shumaker at att.net wrote: >There 4 VAX 11/750s available on Craigslist in Kent Wash. Owner >claims they came from Boeing. no other details listed. he wants >$500 each. > >craigslist Seattle-Tacoma PostingID: 1231299617 To much, no space, and no time. :-( I'd love a VAX 11/750. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 23 10:29:00 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:29:00 -0600 Subject: Portable ASR-33? In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:26:41 -0400. <4A4075A1.1050401@snarc.net> Message-ID: In article <4A4075A1.1050401 at snarc.net>, Evan Koblentz writes: > Anyone know which model of the ASR-33 (perhaps from a different company) > was sold in a portable case circa 1972, with one half containing the > teletype and the other half containing an acoustic modem? (No, I don't > mean the later T.I. Silent 700.) There were some "portable" teletypes made for military use. They show up on govliquidation.com from time to time. The name of the manufacturer eludes me at the moment, but I believe they were discussed on the list within the past few months. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 23 10:55:30 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:55:30 -0400 Subject: Portable ASR-33? In-Reply-To: References: <4A4075A1.1050401@snarc.net> Message-ID: > There were some "portable" teletypes made for military use. Most Teletypes (and teletypes) were made for the military. -- Will From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 23 12:46:47 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:46:47 -0600 Subject: Surplus waves Message-ID: Has anyone else noticed that there are "waves" of certain kinds of equipment being surplussed all at once? Its most readily apparent when monitoring govliquidation.com because the military tends to surplus an item across and entire force (Navy, Air Force, Army, etc.) and scads of the stuff shows up all at once. However, I see it as well in commercial circles. A new generation of technology is deployed and an entire wave of the old technology is surplussed all at once. After that big wave subsides, those items will be hard to find. I think these surplus waves are what people are remembering when they say "VT100s are all over the place, dirt cheap" because they remember the VT100 surplus wave when you could barely walk through a surplus house without tripping over one. Nowadays they are few and far between. I seem to recall some discussions of "ownership humps" over the lifetime of equipment. Initially noone, or few, owns it. Then lots of people own it. Then some people own it because lots of people surplus it and there's a glut in the secondary market. Then noone, or few, owns it again and the secondary market is pricey for spares. Then noone owns it anymore and the secondary market is overpriced, still thinking people need spares. Eventually the secondary market crashes and they dump their holdings and collectors might be able to experience a slight secondary surplus wave. After that, its hen's teeth time. Thoughts? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 23 12:35:43 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:35:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: <125621AD50AD48A99CE161F95DD3FD98@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" at Jun 22, 9 10:38:41 pm Message-ID: > > > > Right... As I said, I've only been inside the 9000/340 (I > > have a number of those that I was given, all with high-res > > video boards, and IIRC, 16M RAM.). Somewhere I have an > > interface board for an external video box, the different back > > panel that goes with that, and a little cardcage you can fit > > to that backpanel that has a DIO slot). > > Is it for the Graphic coprocessor ? The interface board (that fits in place of the graphics board) may well be. Somwehre I have an HP box, the same size as a 9000/340, which appears to be some kind of grapghics processor (there's an i860 on one of the boards and lots of ASICs IIRC). That came with an HP9000/400 series machine, but it may well (a) not have gone with that one and (b) might work on the 9000/340 too. The DIO slot seems normal. There was a 98625 (high speed HPIB using the Medusa chip) with it. I assume that went in said DIO slot. > > > The interface board contains 1 big pga i/o chip > > (propriarity hp) but > > > the rest is TTL and some LSI-chips. > > > > Custom LSI, or things I might have heard of? It's not the PGA > > package I oject to per se, rather it's the fact I can't get > > data or replacements for some of the ICs. > > One custom LSI I think it's the I/O controller. > The others are Lance Ethernet Ti HP-IB controller HIL-chip, serial > controller 1820-3623 and some other standaard interface chips. The only one Oh that doesn't sound too bad. I don't recognise that serial chip off the top of my head, but it might be something standard. For some inexplicable reason, HP used the 8250 in the 9000/200 series. A very odd choice given that it's a 68000 machine... > that would bother you would be the HP 1TQ4-0401. > I'll make some pictures this week and put them on flickr so you can look at > them. Thanks... > Hardware problems are always 'fun' ;-) Indeed. Well, as everyone knows by now, my primary interest is hardware... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 23 12:37:39 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:37:39 +0100 (BST) Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Jun 22, 9 05:24:41 pm Message-ID: > For that distance, I'd use Craters & Freighters. A clotheswasher > sized 11/03 cabinet is not going to be dinged up by typical freight > handling, just wrap and strap to a pallet ought to be good enough. I wouldn't bet on it. I thought HP hardware was solid until I had a machine sent to me. It arrived in more pieces than it should have done... As Flanders and Swann (roughly the UK version of Tom Lehrer) said 'The new way to split the atom : Send it through the post marked 'fragile'' :-) -tony From brianlanning at gmail.com Tue Jun 23 12:51:48 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:51:48 -0500 Subject: Surplus waves In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906231051u7cd13695pedb623011aaa31fa@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 12:46 PM, Richard wrote: > Has anyone else noticed that there are "waves" of certain kinds of > equipment being surplussed all at once? Sounds good to me. Schools certainly unloaded apple 2es and classic macs in large quantities. From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jun 23 12:57:46 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:57:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Surplus waves In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 23 Jun 2009, Richard wrote: > Has anyone else noticed that there are "waves" of certain kinds of > equipment being surplussed all at once? > > Its most readily apparent when monitoring govliquidation.com because > the military tends to surplus an item across and entire force (Navy, > Air Force, Army, etc.) and scads of the stuff shows up all at once. > > However, I see it as well in commercial circles. A new generation of > technology is deployed and an entire wave of the old technology is > surplussed all at once. After that big wave subsides, those items > will be hard to find. > > I think these surplus waves are what people are remembering when they say > "VT100s are all over the place, dirt cheap" because they remember the > VT100 surplus wave when you could barely walk through a surplus house > without tripping over one. Nowadays they are few and far between. > > I seem to recall some discussions of "ownership humps" over the > lifetime of equipment. Initially noone, or few, owns it. Then lots > of people own it. Then some people own it because lots of people surplus > it and there's a glut in the secondary market. Then noone, or few, > owns it again and the secondary market is pricey for spares. Then > noone owns it anymore and the secondary market is overpriced, still > thinking people need spares. Eventually the secondary market crashes > and they dump their holdings and collectors might be able to > experience a slight secondary surplus wave. After that, its hen's > teeth time. > > Thoughts? I suspect you're definitely on to something, at least with regards to modern equipment. I know that now days where I work, once it's off warrenty, it's time to start thinking about replacing it. Of course everything runs on EM64T based servers now as well, except for a few legacy applications. Reliability seems to have gone down a lot as well. We often see stuff dying in waves once it reaches a certain age. You did fail to mention one *KEY* factor, and that is Geography. As near as I can tell around here PDT-11's have always been rare as hens teeth, the same is not true for around what was DEC country (the Mill, etc.). Zane From sellam at vintagetech.com Tue Jun 23 13:02:54 2009 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:02:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VCF Archives: Just a few more days of helping hands needed... Message-ID: This went out to the VCF maillist but I'm also sending it here because I'm desperate :) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:01:13 -0700 From: Sellam Ismail To: sellam at vintage.org Subject: VCF Archives: Just a few more days of helping hands needed... Dear Friends of VCF, I am still moving. This is into the sixth week now. Never in my wildest nightmares did I anticipate this thing dragging out as long as it has. I'll keep it short and simple: I still need help moving through the end of this week. There's a deadline in there by which time I'm supposed to be out, but truth be told deadlines have no meaning for me at this point. I just want to be done. The sooner the better. My estimates of how much longer this will take have been laughably incompetent, so I won't say I need to be done by this Thursday afternoon. I *want* this to be done by Thursday afternoon. Heck, I want it to be done by the time I'm through writing this pathetic missive. But either way, it's only going to happen with just a little bit more help from the VCF community. The help received so far has been excellent. This past weekend was perhaps the most productive. We had something like 8 volunteers on Saturday and about 6 throughout the day on Sunday. If I had days like that everyday then I would've been long since done. To get finished this week, I would just need 2-3 people per day helping. Won't you come out for just an hour or two to lend a hand? It would mean the world to me, and your favor will be remembered, and more importantly, returned. Yes, now I'm begging. Please contact me ASAP if you can come out to help, even if just for a little bit, because every little bit counts in big ways. Thanks! Sellam Ismail Schlepper (spent) Vintage Computer Festival From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jun 23 13:26:46 2009 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:26:46 -0700 Subject: Surplus waves In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A411E66.1080502@bitsavers.org> Richard wrote: > I seem to recall some discussions of "ownership humps" over the > lifetime of equipment. > Thoughts? Depreciation of equipment by companies, or equipment coming off lease. The wave is a company dumps the gear when it's worth zero on the books. That is when the first tier brokers come in. The guys that come in when a company goes bankrupt and cleans out the place is the tail. This is normally a 5-10 year wave. I've observed this pretty consistently in the valley since I've been out here (mid 80's). The current glut is early '00s Opteron servers. You can follow this on what is going cheap on eBay as well. Note that we are twenty years out now from the 'classicmp' wave. What shows up from that is when a packrat empties out his garage. From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 23 14:26:46 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:26:46 -0600 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:37:39 +0100. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > > For that distance, I'd use Craters & Freighters. A clotheswasher > > sized 11/03 cabinet is not going to be dinged up by typical freight > > handling, just wrap and strap to a pallet ought to be good enough. > > I wouldn't bet on it. I own one of these cabinets, so I would bet on it. Of course there's no guarantees. People can drive a forklift straight through your shipment no matter how well crated it is. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 23 14:28:07 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:28:07 -0600 Subject: Surplus waves In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:57:46 -0700. Message-ID: In article , "Zane H. Healy" writes: > You did fail to mention one *KEY* factor, and that is Geography. As near as > I can tell around here PDT-11's have always been rare as hens teeth, the > same is not true for around what was DEC country (the Mill, etc.). Yes, vintage stuff in Utah seems quite rare. The vast majority of items in my collection were obtained out of state. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 23 14:30:12 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:30:12 -0400 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > I own one of these cabinets, so I would bet on it. ?Of course there's > no guarantees. ?People can drive a forklift straight through your > shipment no matter how well crated it is. It mostly depends on how much money was spent on shipping. -- Will From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 23 14:33:40 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:33:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090623123217.L72293@shell.lmi.net> > > > For that distance, I'd use Craters & Freighters. A clotheswasher > > > sized 11/03 cabinet is not going to be dinged up by typical freight > > > handling, just wrap and strap to a pallet ought to be good enough. > > I wouldn't bet on it. On Tue, 23 Jun 2009, Richard wrote: > I own one of these cabinets, so I would bet on it. Of course there's > no guarantees. People can drive a forklift straight through your > shipment no matter how well crated it is. Which machines are heavy enough to destroy the forklift instead of your computer? From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 23 15:00:58 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:00:58 -0600 Subject: Surplus waves In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:26:46 -0700. <4A411E66.1080502@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In article <4A411E66.1080502 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > The current glut is early '00s Opteron servers. You can follow this on > what is going cheap on eBay as well. I've noticed certain SGI gear appearing more often now. Origin 2000 and Onyx/Origin2K racks. However, it appears that people are still holding onto these because they haven't gotten "gluttonous" yet. Resellers are still listing them on ebay in the thousands of dollars. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From spedraja at ono.com Tue Jun 23 15:07:05 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:07:05 +0200 Subject: WTB Replacement for one Qbus Dilog DQ614-s Message-ID: As far as I can imagine from my tests, I have one Dilog DQ614-S which don't works. I tested it with a couple of 5.25 hard disks (one IMI, one RD52-A and one Seagate) all in the list of recognized drives. And, in fact, the disk can be accesed in some form (intermintent lights, etc). But when the format try to begin, the DL614P.SAV program answers me with one "UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION VECTOR 000000" It could be the cables, with they work with other drive without problem. Now comes the real question: Do you have someone one DQ614 operative for trade which could be managed with the DQ614P.SAV program or another release of this one appropiate for the board ? Or eventually... Someone has or knows of another board which could manage one hard disk (MFM, ESDI or SCSI) as FOUR DLx disks as the DILOG DQ614 does ? Thanks. Regards. Sergio From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Tue Jun 23 15:14:20 2009 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:14:20 +0200 Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual In-Reply-To: <359F5F8564394FAA850DB9389FCE9C4B@andrewdesktop> References: <359F5F8564394FAA850DB9389FCE9C4B@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: > From: lynchaj at yahoo.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: RE:NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual > Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:37:04 -0400 > > --- On Wed, 6/10/09, Andrew Lynch wrote: >> >> From: Andrew Lynch >> Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 8:45 PM >> >> Hi! Does anyone have the NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual? >> >> I am looking for one as part of research on building a home >> brew NEC 7220 video board. >> >> Thanks and have a nice day! >> >> Andrew Lynch > > I waited with a response, assuming that somebody has the manual > you are looking for. I am not 100% sure, but I might have that > manual. I am sure that I do have _a_ NEC 7220 GDC manual, and > I remember (15+ years ago) that I used that manual to write a > BASIC program to calculate register values based on the timing > parameters for the VDU. I don't remember if the manual contained > hardware info, it might. Next time I am in the old house, I will > search for the manual in the attic. Perhaps this weekend ... > > - Henk. > > > -----REPLY----- > > Hi Henk! Thanks! Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. I am > interested and researching the possibility of a NEC uPD7220 home brew video > board. The SY6545 video board I made for the N8VEM project is working out > really well but it is just a simple character only display. > > Ideally, you could scan the book if that is possible but if not would you be > interested in selling it? I contacted NEC and they didn't know anything > about it. Apparently very few people still have the manual and bitsavers > doesn't have it either. I did some library searches but no luck although it > is cited as a reference in a couple of college papers like masters thesis, > etc. > > What I really need to know is if I can implement a simple circuit using few > enough 74LS TTL ICs to fit on a Eurocard ECB board. That means it can't be > more than about 30 maximum. Using high capacity SRAMs should help but I > think it requires some funky latching mechanisms to share the video address > and data lines. > > I looked at the NEC APC video board and it is just huge. I hope that is not > an indication of the complexity needed! > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Andrew Lynch I have bought in the eigthies a eurocard sized board with memory and the 7220 GDC (for a lot of money). So, it must be possible to build a graphics module on 160x100 mm with the 7220, especially now that large capacity RAM chips are available. I also found a schematic with the 7220 but I cannot say if that is the schematic of the module ... The schematic is just 2 pages, so I can scan that and email it to you. I have found the manual I remembered. It is called "?PD 7220 GDC GRAPHICS DISPLAY CONTROLLER", and has 112 pages. It contains software sections and hardware descriptions. In the back is a minimum GDC system design schematic. I don't work at Oc? any longer, so I don't have the nice fast hi-res scanning machines available to me anymore. I guess that it is possible to scan the 112 pages, but I don't need the manual anymore. For snail mail cost (from The Netherlands), I can send it to you. Contact me privately. It would be nice if you could scan it and pass that on to Al for archiving on bitsavers. greetz, - Henk. From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 23 15:33:37 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:33:37 -0600 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:30:12 -0400. Message-ID: In article , William Donzelli writes: > > I own one of these cabinets, so I would bet on it. =A0Of course there's > > no guarantees. =A0People can drive a forklift straight through your > > shipment no matter how well crated it is. > > It mostly depends on how much money was spent on shipping. Wrap & Strap treatment is the cheapest you can get from C&F. I've done that on a couple of occasions and been happy with it. I've also gone the full custom wooden crate 8'x6'x4' and been happy with that. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jun 23 16:45:11 2009 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:45:11 -0600 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A414CE7.5030103@jetnet.ab.ca> Richard wrote: > In article , > William Donzelli writes: > >>> I own one of these cabinets, so I would bet on it. =A0Of course there's >>> no guarantees. =A0People can drive a forklift straight through your >>> shipment no matter how well crated it is. >> It mostly depends on how much money was spent on shipping. > > Wrap & Strap treatment is the cheapest you can get from C&F. I've > done that on a couple of occasions and been happy with it. I've also > gone the full custom wooden crate 8'x6'x4' and been happy with that. Good idea ... Crating the forklift! *ducks* From chd_1 at nktelco.net Tue Jun 23 17:11:31 2009 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:11:31 -0400 Subject: DECServer 90TL Message-ID: <4A415313.7030009@nktelco.net> Someone mentioned the 90TL a couple of days ago which reminded me that I still haven't found a copy of the DECServer configuration backup utility for Windows. I had a copy, but my windows computer hard disk crashed and I lost it. Contact me if you know where I can get a copy. -chuck From innfoclassics at gmail.com Tue Jun 23 18:23:23 2009 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:23:23 -0700 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers In-Reply-To: <21393.98126.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <21393.98126.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > Anyone remember the difference between the various Western Digital MFM disk controllers? I've got a few in front of me right now, and I'm trying to figure out which would be the best for this Compaq Portable 286. > > I've got the good ol' WD1002A-WX1, and what looks to be the bigger verison, the WD1002S-WX2, WX-1 is 2 MFM hard drives only, WX-2 is hard drives plus two floppys. My CSC Hard Drive manual says it is an 8 bit contoller for two hard drives. To format use G=C800:5 (Why is that so familiar!!!) >From the book the default jumpers on the WD 1002A-WX1 are W3,W4-2 & 3, W6-2 & 3, W8-2 & 3, S1-8 (AT Mode) >then another, even longer card, the one that came stock with the Compaq, the WD1015-PL03. > That doesn't show up in the book, but it was probably made for compaq. The first card (WD1002A-WX1) should work. However the setup programs were custom for Compaq. I don't think you can just use debug unless you know Compaq codes. > Now, here's the dilemma. The stock card won't respond to the usual debug commands - they just freeze the computer. The original 20mb 3 1/2" Miniscribe hard drive is dead (won't even spin). I am going to replace it with a similar 3 1/2" form factor drive - the NEC D3142. (43mb! Woo!) I already got the drive formatted and working on the small WD1002A-WX1 card, but it's been a while since I worked with MFM controllers - and I seem to remember the WD1002S-WX2 being faster or something. > I think you will need the compaq set up disks. I still have a set but not sure where they are. I might be able to locate them if you need me to. > Also, I don't remember the calculations for optimum interleave, I used 3, since that was the default.... > I think an interleave of 3 would be OK as it is an XT class controller. But, as mentioned, Spinrite can optimize it for you. The nec drive is an AT class drive at 28 ms. It should work fine. > Pointers? > > -Ian > > -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Tue Jun 23 18:23:44 2009 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:23:44 -0400 Subject: Joystick reproduction (RC transmitter) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Just a follow-up in case any future reader wants information. I took a chance and bought an old Futaba FP-T5FN radio control transmitter, offered on ebay. It cost $26 plus $10 shipping. I consider myself triply lucky: 1) The unit had not been used in many years and the internal battery had leaked all over the main circuit board, completely ruining it. This considerably eases my conscience over tearing up the unit and only using the sticks. 2) The joysticks have 5k pots as required and, other than a very light coat of fuzz on the pot cans, were unaffected by the leak and operate perfectly. 3) As a bonus, the joysticks' physical appearance very closely resembles those originally used by Cromemco. Bill Sudbrink From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jun 23 22:20:10 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:20:10 -0400 Subject: 11/03 score!! In-Reply-To: <20090623123217.L72293@shell.lmi.net> References: <20090623123217.L72293@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200906232320.10801.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 23 June 2009, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > > For that distance, I'd use Craters & Freighters. A > > > > clotheswasher sized 11/03 cabinet is not going to be dinged up > > > > by typical freight handling, just wrap and strap to a pallet > > > > ought to be good enough. > > > > > > I wouldn't bet on it. > > On Tue, 23 Jun 2009, Richard wrote: > > I own one of these cabinets, so I would bet on it. Of course > > there's no guarantees. People can drive a forklift straight > > through your shipment no matter how well crated it is. > > Which machines are heavy enough to destroy the forklift instead of > your computer? Just build yourself a crate out of 1/2" thick steel, and make sure you put some foam padding inside of it. With any luck, the forklift operator will crush the pallet behind it instead. I've actually had a shipper drive a forklift through the front of a 3420 tape drive, that I was shipping to NL. It wasn't pretty. :( Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jun 23 22:21:56 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:21:56 -0600 Subject: Fwd: [comp.sys.sgi.marketplace] FS: two Octane systems Message-ID: This message has been forwarded from Usenet. To reply to the original author, use the email address from the forwarded message. Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:16:05 -0400 Groups: comp.sys.sgi.marketplace From: "David Jackson" Org: LabeNet (leba.net) Subject: FS: two Octane systems Id: <4a4129f8$0$31877$a20654c8 at news.leba.net> ======== Hi. I've got two Octane systems. It's been at least three years since I've used these systems, so this is all by memory. The first system was an SI and had the personal video option. At some point, it had a problem that I was never able to figure out and bought a second system with was an SI with texture. I transferred the HD from the first system to the second and continued on for a few years but then eventually transferred everything to a mac when OSX came out. Anyway, I'm looking to get rid of everything I have. Two Octanes. One works the other doesn't, although it might be easily fixable by someone who knows these systems. There are two monitors, keyboards and mice. There is one external CD drive. There is also a tape drive for backup and a 2GB jaz drive. I just booted the second system and it's working fine. Not really sure what this is all worth. I'm not interested in shipping them so you'll need to be within driving distance of central Pennsylvania. Drop me a line if you're interested. I'd like to get rid of them in the near future. Cheers, David (jacksond at dickinson.edu) From csquared3 at tx.rr.com Tue Jun 23 11:42:04 2009 From: csquared3 at tx.rr.com (CSquared) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:42:04 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 References: , , <16C5FFAB-0EBF-4FD6-B995-DD008225AD8E@neurotica.com> <4A264301.12767.A6CCB7C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <004701c9f421$8a7a9fc0$6500a8c0@workroomdsktop1> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 11:31 AM Subject: Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 70, Issue 3 > On 3 Jun 2009 at 12:10, Dave McGuire wrote: > >> The MAX232, if memory serves, is specced at 10V but usually tops >> out at 8-9V in my experience. I sure do love those chips. :) > > I get about +/-10 out of the MAX232Ns from TI, but I use 10 uF/25v > caps instead of 1uF on them (just have more of them in my hellbox). > There are also the cap-less models from Maxim (can't recall the part > numbers) that are pretty tempting. > > Some modern equipment gives you +5/0 for "RS232" levels. My DTV set- > top-box with a DE9 on the rear panel labeld "RS232" is such an > example. > > Although, I suppose we're going to have to start calling it "TIA- > 232". > > --Chuck > I was interested to see this comment because I have a DS232AS I need to replace, and the board it is on uses 10uF caps as you mention. The Dallas Semiconductor data sheet mentions 10uF as an option "to reduce ripple". However, neither the Maxim nor the TI datasheets I've downloaded mention anything higher than 1.0uF. I was concerned that if I substitute one of the other vendor's parts I would need to change the caps as well, but I gather this is not the case, so thanks for that comment. I was concerned that the higher capacitance value might somehow load down the charge-pump circuitry or cause it to malfunction in some manner with a TI or Maxim part. Later, Charlie Carothers My email address is csquared3 at tx dot rr dot com From segin2005 at gmail.com Wed Jun 24 07:14:05 2009 From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Kirn Gill) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:14:05 -0400 Subject: Macintosh Plus Message-ID: <4A42188D.2070905@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I recently came across the an image on an anonymous imageboard called 4chan (if you do not know what 4chan is, be very glad, it's the absolute worst cesspool of the Web), and while this is a diagram of the original Macintosh (note the 128K RAM mentioned), it's still of one of the Macs from that era. The image is http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/6631/macplus.jpg First of all, if anyone has any high-resolution copies of this image, that would be nice. Secondly, I used to have a Mac Plus, years ago. I had a 400K external floppy drive that I had salvaged from a trashcan on the side of the road, but the drive was burned out. I replaced the drive inside the external case with a 1.4MB internal from one of the early PowerPC Macs (But you were still limited to 800k disks). I originally made floppies on an old PowerMac by sticking duct tape over the HD hole on some floppies I found lying around, and imaging some old games disks (Arkanoid was fun!) Sadly, when I moved (this was back when I was 14 or so), the mouse on it had died, and so had the PowerMac. I had lost all my disks, and aside from it going Ping! whenever you powered it on, I found no real use for it, and just left it for the junk pile. (You have *no* idea how much I curse myself today...) Being that my first jump into classic computing was these beige toasters, if someone could find me some good, high-resolution documentation (and maybe curse me for being such an idiot back then), it would be appreciated. Thanks. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkpCGI0ACgkQF9H43UytGia1PACfT+B4tutOFdpOPVleQtdPZnzv mYMAnipQX1dXQBUkquPQwzGKvMmxai6x =aLFZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From ian_primus at yahoo.com Wed Jun 24 09:06:18 2009 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:06:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers Message-ID: <791304.54856.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 6/23/09, Paxton Hoag wrote: > WX-1 is 2 MFM hard drives only, WX-2 is hard drives plus > two floppys. > My CSC Hard Drive manual says it is an 8 bit contoller for > two hard > drives. To format use G=C800:5 (Why is > that so familiar!!!) OK, that makes sense. I ended up just using the WX-1 because I was familiar with it. I was able to format the drive from debug no problems, and the Compaq boots from it, despite not using the Compaq setup program. > >From the book the default jumpers on the WD 1002A-WX1 > are > W3,W4-2 & 3, W6-2 & 3, W8-2 & 3, S1-8 (AT > Mode) Hmm, I didn't change any of the jumpers on the card, I'll have to check those when I get home. I assume this just changes the controller to work with an AT BIOS? > I think you will need the compaq set up disks. I still have > a set but > not sure where they are. I might be able to locate them if > you need me > to. A kind listmember is already sending me a copy. I found _a_ setup program, but it's clealy not the one for this computer. At least I was able to change the time and date, but it's options for the hard disk were really limited. Right now I just have the 'fixed disk' disabled in the setup. The Compaq boots just fine from the controller as it is now. > I think an interleave of 3 would be OK as it is an XT > class > controller. But, as mentioned, Spinrite can optimize it for > you. The > nec drive is an AT class drive at 28 ms. It should work > fine. It does work, I just wonder if changing the interleave could make it any faster. I mean, the computer isn't particularly fast in any case, but anything to improve hard disk performance is a good thing. Do you have a version of Spinrite that will work? I was only able to find version 6.0 on the internet, and it won't even load on the 286. Just hangs. -Ian From ian_primus at yahoo.com Wed Jun 24 09:10:40 2009 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:10:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Looking for a Needham's PB-10 EPROM programmer Message-ID: <667081.3755.qm@web52708.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Does anyone happen to have a spare Needham's PB-10 EPROM programmer they'd be willing to part with? It's an old ISA based programmer, but I've come to really like it. I have one, and I use it an awful lot. But it's gotten to the point where it would be extremely handy to have another one that I could install into a portable computer for use elsewhere. So, if anyone has one they'd be willing to sell/trade/etc, let me know, I can sure put it to use. -Ian From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 24 09:42:03 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:42:03 -0400 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers In-Reply-To: References: <21393.98126.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4600889A-153B-41E3-A500-F7C602FFC25F@neurotica.com> On Jun 23, 2009, at 7:23 PM, Paxton Hoag wrote: > I think an interleave of 3 would be OK as it is an XT class > controller. But, as mentioned, Spinrite can optimize it for you. The > nec drive is an AT class drive at 28 ms. It should work fine. I hope you're not suggesting that the average access time has something to do with interleave restrictions, because it doesn't. -Dave > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jun 24 09:43:44 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:43:44 -0400 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers In-Reply-To: <791304.54856.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <791304.54856.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jun 24, 2009, at 10:06 AM, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > It does work, I just wonder if changing the interleave could make > it any faster. I mean, the computer isn't particularly fast in any > case, but anything to improve hard disk performance is a good > thing. Do you have a version of Spinrite that will work? I was only > able to find version 6.0 on the internet, and it won't even load on > the 286. Just hangs. I know you were asking Paxton, but I *might* be able to find my old copy, I will look. Setting the interleave properly for your particular model of controller can result in significant data transfer rate improvements. Setting it too low can slow things down a *lot*. The best controllers, of course, will handle 1:1 interleave (a.k.a. "no interleave"). -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From rmu_scada at yahoo.com Wed Jun 24 09:55:09 2009 From: rmu_scada at yahoo.com (Joe Abbott) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:55:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Portable ASR-33 Message-ID: <476086.1389.qm@web45112.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> > > Anyone know which model of the ASR-33 (perhaps from a > different company) > was sold in a portable case circa 1972, with one half > containing the > teletype and the other half containing an acoustic > modem? (No, I don't > mean the later T.I. Silent 700.) > Anderson Jacobson perhaps. See http://www.pdp8.net/asr33/pics/old_sound.shtml. Not exactly portable, but it was on wheels. I had one at one time but not with wood case. It came with the A-C modem but that is long gone (kick self, repeat...) Joe From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 24 10:23:27 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:23:27 -0700 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers In-Reply-To: References: <791304.54856.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com>, Message-ID: <4A41E27F.9437.592B54@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Jun 2009 at 10:43, Dave McGuire wrote: > Setting the interleave properly for your particular model of > controller can result in significant data transfer rate improvements. > Setting it too low can slow things down a *lot*. The best > controllers, of course, will handle 1:1 interleave (a.k.a. "no > interleave"). I've always been a little peeved at the disk drive utilities that determine "optimum" interleave for an AT-style MFM controller. There are really two dimensions to the problem--and no interleave "optimizer" that I know of deals effectively with them. The first, of course, is how fast your PC and controller can get data off of a drive. Choosing a too-small interleave can have disastrous effects on performance because you can get to the point where only a single sector per rev is being transferred. A too-large interleave has a much lesser effect on performance, since the PC is waiting only a sector time or two to get the next sector. In other words, on may not notice a large subjective difference in performance if the interleave is at 4:1 instead of 3:1. The other aspect of the problem is how fast an application can read data--that is, how much processing is going on between disk accesses. Setting the interleave to a value that an optimizer comes up with can have the same effect as a too-small interleave. That is, the application must wait a whole revolution before data is available. Some old CP/M systems used three interleaves (I've got at least one sample of this in my collection). The boot tracks are formatted with a 1:1 interleave, as they're simply streamed into memory with no processing; the directory area is formatted at 2:1 because directory searches aren't usually processor-intensive and the remainder (data area) of the disk is formatted at at 3:1. Ultimately, the solution is a controller with a large buffer or cache or a cache driver in the PC. Then the controller essentially becomes the limiting factor and the "optimum" interleave determined by a utility is essentially the correct one, since reads are occurring a track at a time. But for non-cache, sector-at-a-time setups, it's better to choose an interleave that's slightly larger than recommended. Similarly, if a controller can support multi-sector reads at unity interleave, it makes sense to interleave clusters rather than sectors. FWIW, --Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 24 14:10:01 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:10:01 -0400 Subject: ISA MFM disk controllers In-Reply-To: References: <791304.54856.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > On Jun 24, 2009, at 10:06 AM, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > > It does work, I just wonder if changing the interleave could make it any faster. I mean, the computer > isn't particularly fast in any case, but anything to improve hard disk performance is a good thing. The optimal situation is that you have a controller that can handle 1:1 interleave (i.e., "none" - the sectors are in sequential order around the track) and a machine that can keep up with that sustained transfer rate. Where interleave comes into play is if your controller and/or host is too slow to keep up with one sector after another, so the sectors are staggered to give the machine time to be ready to transfer the next block as it's about to pas s under the read head. The worst case is when your interleave is too "small" for your system, the next block passes under the head before the system is ready to handle it, and the system has to wait a full revolution of the disk for the next pass. Since someone else mentioned "28ms", it minds me to mention there are two sets of delays that are now usually grouped together... one is seek time, which is what 28ms is one measure of, the other is rotational latency, which is where the interleave factor comes into play. No matter what your interleave factor, if your drive is rated at "28ms average seek time", it will take that long to move the head in and out to the right track. Once the disk is on track, because it's going to be over a random sector, the average rotational latency is half the time it takes the disk to spin once - which is why there's such a push for 10K and 15K drives now (in the old days, 3600rpm was doing pretty good). _On top of that_, interleave is part of what determines how long it will take to get to the second then the third then the fourth sectors on that track. So if your interleave is badly matched for your machine and disk controller, you may see some poor sustained transfer rates, but if it's only a little off, you'll gain back some lost performance, the amount of which is largely dependent on your disk speed (slow disks mean better performance recovery, but you still have a slow disk, thus high rotational latency to begin with). ISTR a certain obsession with this amongst DOS users back in the day, but perhaps that was because it was reasonable to expect your files to be somewhat linear on disk and because hardware performance varied so widely. Over in the DEC world, you pretty much got what you got, and with the exception of the RM02/RM03 differences (different rotation speeds for different systems that could handle different amounts of disk throughput), we didn't obsess about drive performance minutiae except when were deciding what disk to buy next. -ethan From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jun 24 14:26:19 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:26:19 +0000 (GMT) Subject: VT52 emulator (was: Fw: Still Falling for Tetris, 25 Years After Its Birth ) Message-ID: <900182.65159.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Cool video. Thanks for the link :) Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Sat, 13/6/09, Alexander Voropay wrote: From: Alexander Voropay Subject: Re: VT52 emulator (was: Fw: Still Falling for Tetris, 25 Years After Its Birth ) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Date: Saturday, 13 June, 2009, 9:08 PM 2009/6/4 Alexander Voropay : >>> The 0177 character was a 6x8 block. >> >> The VT52 ignored 0177 on receipt, so this game won't work on any decent >> VT52 emulator. You'd have to guess where the pieces were. :-) Sergei Frolov made a video playing this TETRIS game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0gAgQQHFcQ Rather bad VTY/CAM interference, nice keyboard "clicks" :) Look at 2:25, the russian DVK (a PDP-11 clone) boots. -- -=AV=- From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jun 24 14:27:05 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:27:05 -0600 Subject: Fwd: [alt.sys.pdp11] buy Message-ID: This message has been forwarded from Usenet. To reply to the original author, use the email address from the forwarded message. Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:09:08 -0700 (PDT) Groups: alt.sys.pdp11 From: padilla Org: http://groups.google.com Subject: buy Id: <66e20698-e1d4-4101-8072-0804a08bc325 at s6g2000vbp.googlegroups.co m> ======== Need 5 DECtape II, TU58-K with the price of each one as soon as possible I would like to send me a quote if possible greetings From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jun 24 15:04:08 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:04:08 -0600 Subject: Portable ASR-33? In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:26:41 -0400. <4A4075A1.1050401@snarc.net> Message-ID: In article <4A4075A1.1050401 at snarc.net>, Evan Koblentz writes: > Anyone know which model of the ASR-33 (perhaps from a different company) > was sold in a portable case circa 1972, with one half containing the > teletype and the other half containing an acoustic modem? (No, I don't > mean the later T.I. Silent 700.) Ah.. think I finally stumbled on the right military designation. AN/UGC In particular, I've seen units like this one on govliquidation: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jun 24 15:11:14 2009 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:11:14 +0000 (GMT) Subject: cool article Message-ID: <40922.49139.qm@web23401.mail.ird.yahoo.com> I personally like #1,#4, #13 and #15 :) Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --- On Mon, 15/6/09, Brian Lanning wrote: From: Brian Lanning Subject: cool article To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Date: Monday, 15 June, 2009, 6:25 PM I'm particularly impressed with the TI-99/4A in problem #13 http://technologizer.com/2009/06/14/fifteen-classic-pc-design-mistakes/ From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 24 15:22:25 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:22:25 -0400 Subject: Portable ASR-33? In-Reply-To: References: <4A4075A1.1050401@snarc.net> Message-ID: > Ah.. think I finally stumbled on the right military designation. > > AN/UGC AN/UGC-something. And then their are AN/PGCs, AN/SGCs, and scads of others. AN/UGC-74 is a fairly common type - heavy as hell, and sure to have bad capacitors. > In particular, I've seen units like this one on govliquidation: > Yes, I have seen those as well. Those are actually AUTODIN terminals, so the network history guys should be excitied. -- Will From robo58 at optonline.net Wed Jun 24 17:16:21 2009 From: robo58 at optonline.net (ROBO5.8) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:16:21 -0400 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?G=F6ran_____NEC_uPD7220/GDC_Design_Manual?= In-Reply-To: <4A4238CB.2010309@acc.umu.se> References: <359F5F8564394FAA850DB9389FCE9C4B@andrewdesktop> <4A4238CB.2010309@acc.umu.se> Message-ID: <006301c9f519$67f0ed80$37d2c880$@net> G?ran, I'd be interested in a digital copy of the manual. Are you interested in selling one of these boards with the uPD7220? If so can you give me a feel for cost + shipping to the USA. Thanks Robo5.8 I can scan the manual and send it to Al. It would probably be faster and cheaper to send it to me in Sweden... unless you really wants the dead tree version of the manual. I have added a picture of the main board of the Nokia VDU301 VT 220 terminal to my website. The gold plated angled pin header on the top right side is just connected to a board with two DB25 serial ports, a mouse port and the keyboard connector. The blue and red connectors to the left is the connectors for the analog video section and the power supply. http://www.home.neab.net/guest/Nokia-VDU301-mainboard.jpg I've got a ton of these boards and literally a ton of complete terminals, anyone in need of a Nokia terminal? /G?ran From dmabry at mich.com Wed Jun 24 18:02:55 2009 From: dmabry at mich.com (Dave Mabry) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:02:55 -0400 Subject: Looking for a Needham's PB-10 EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <667081.3755.qm@web52708.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <667081.3755.qm@web52708.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A42B09F.8000304@mich.com> Hi Ian, Yes, I have one. It looks like new, but I'm sure it has been used and then stored for years. Don't know for sure if it works, but it was put away working some time ago. I want $50 for it and I'll pay to ship. If it doesn't work, I'll refund everything but the shipping cost. Is that fair? Dave Mr Ian Primus said the following on 6/24/2009 10:10 AM: > Does anyone happen to have a spare Needham's PB-10 EPROM programmer they'd be willing to part with? It's an old ISA based programmer, but I've come to really like it. I have one, and I use it an awful lot. But it's gotten to the point where it would be extremely handy to have another one that I could install into a portable computer for use elsewhere. > > So, if anyone has one they'd be willing to sell/trade/etc, let me know, I can sure put it to use. > > -Ian > > > From axelsson at acc.umu.se Wed Jun 24 09:31:39 2009 From: axelsson at acc.umu.se (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=F6ran_Axelsson?=) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:31:39 +0200 Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual In-Reply-To: References: <359F5F8564394FAA850DB9389FCE9C4B@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: <4A4238CB.2010309@acc.umu.se> > I have bought in the eigthies a eurocard sized board with memory and > the 7220 GDC (for a lot of money). So, it must be possible to build a > graphics module on 160x100 mm with the 7220, especially now that large > capacity RAM chips are available. I also found a schematic with the 7220 > but I cannot say if that is the schematic of the module ... > The schematic is just 2 pages, so I can scan that and email it to you. > > I have found the manual I remembered. It is called "?PD 7220 GDC GRAPHICS > DISPLAY CONTROLLER", and has 112 pages. It contains software sections and > hardware descriptions. In the back is a minimum GDC system design schematic. > > I don't work at Oc? any longer, so I don't have the nice fast hi-res > scanning machines available to me anymore. I guess that it is possible to > scan the 112 pages, but I don't need the manual anymore. For snail mail > cost (from The Netherlands), I can send it to you. Contact me privately. > It would be nice if you could scan it and pass that on to Al for archiving > on bitsavers. > > greetz, > - Henk. > > I can scan the manual and send it to Al. It would probably be faster and cheaper to send it to me in Sweden... unless you really wants the dead tree version of the manual. I have added a picture of the main board of the Nokia VDU301 VT 220 terminal to my website. The gold plated angled pin header on the top right side is just connected to a board with two DB25 serial ports, a mouse port and the keyboard connector. The blue and red connectors to the left is the connectors for the analog video section and the power supply. http://www.home.neab.net/guest/Nokia-VDU301-mainboard.jpg I've got a ton of these boards and literally a ton of complete terminals, anyone in need of a Nokia terminal? /G?ran From chrise at pobox.com Wed Jun 24 18:37:48 2009 From: chrise at pobox.com (Chris Elmquist) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:37:48 -0500 Subject: Portable ASR-33? In-Reply-To: References: <4A4075A1.1050401@snarc.net> Message-ID: <20090624233748.GA2455@n0jcf.net> On Wednesday (06/24/2009 at 02:04PM -0600), Richard wrote: > > In article <4A4075A1.1050401 at snarc.net>, > Evan Koblentz writes: > > > Anyone know which model of the ASR-33 (perhaps from a different company) > > was sold in a portable case circa 1972, with one half containing the > > teletype and the other half containing an acoustic modem? (No, I don't > > mean the later T.I. Silent 700.) > > Ah.. think I finally stumbled on the right military designation. > > AN/UGC AN/UGC-129 is a "tactical teletypewriter" that does BAUDOT and ASCII at 45.5 to 2400 baud I believe. Fair Radio used to have a few in stock but appear to be out now. https://www.fairradio.com/catalog.php?mode=viewitem&item=1247 They were built by a company called Tracor and there used to be a guy who worked there and had a web site with a bunch of photos of the people who developed the unit. There were all sorts of ADM-3A terminals in the photos too. Can't find it now though-- looks like it was taken down. Chris -- Chris Elmquist From wmaddox at pacbell.net Thu Jun 25 03:18:36 2009 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:18:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Concurrent 3280 (80s vintage realtime mini) on eBay Message-ID: <609642.67331.qm@web82604.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Item # 220437075128 . Two days to go. --Bill From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jun 25 08:10:27 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:10:27 -0700 Subject: Looking for a Needham's PB-10 EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <667081.3755.qm@web52708.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <667081.3755.qm@web52708.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > From: ian_primus at yahoo.com > > > Does anyone happen to have a spare Needham's PB-10 EPROM programmer they'd be willing to part with? It's an old ISA based programmer, but I've come to really like it. I have one, and I use it an awful lot. But it's gotten to the point where it would be extremely handy to have another one that I could install into a portable computer for use elsewhere. > > So, if anyone has one they'd be willing to sell/trade/etc, let me know, I can sure put it to use. > > -Ian Hi I have and use one my self. I use it all the time but for some special EPROMs I have an old Data I/O. I've had to replace a few parts on mine a couple of times. I think it was an 7405 or such once and a transistor once. I do agree, they are handy. I keep a machine running, just to use it. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail?. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009 From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jun 25 13:39:38 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:39:38 -0300 Subject: Looking for a Needham's PB-10 EPROM programmer References: <667081.3755.qm@web52708.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <0b6501c9f5c5$086ea080$7d7b19bb@desktaba> >I do agree, they are handy. I keep a machine running, just to >use it. I think it is just too much of a hassle to have a separate machine just for an eprom programmer...I had a PB-10 and it was an **excellent** programmer. But what it does that a Willem (connected to the parallel port and cheap to make) doesn't do? Alexandre, pu1BZZ From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Thu Jun 25 14:41:58 2009 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:41:58 +0200 Subject: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual In-Reply-To: <4A4238CB.2010309@acc.umu.se> References: <359F5F8564394FAA850DB9389FCE9C4B@andrewdesktop> <4A4238CB.2010309@acc.umu.se> Message-ID: > Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:31:39 +0200 > From: axelsson at acc.umu.se > To: General at acc.umu.se > Subject: Re: NEC uPD7220/GDC Design Manual > > >> I have bought in the eigthies a eurocard sized board with memory and >> the 7220 GDC (for a lot of money). So, it must be possible to build a >> graphics module on 160x100 mm with the 7220, especially now that large >> capacity RAM chips are available. I also found a schematic with the 7220 >> but I cannot say if that is the schematic of the module ... >> The schematic is just 2 pages, so I can scan that and email it to you. >> >> I have found the manual I remembered. It is called "?PD 7220 GDC GRAPHICS >> DISPLAY CONTROLLER", and has 112 pages. It contains software sections and >> hardware descriptions. In the back is a minimum GDC system design schematic. >> >> I don't work at Oc? any longer, so I don't have the nice fast hi-res >> scanning machines available to me anymore. I guess that it is possible to >> scan the 112 pages, but I don't need the manual anymore. For snail mail >> cost (from The Netherlands), I can send it to you. Contact me privately. >> It would be nice if you could scan it and pass that on to Al for archiving >> on bitsavers. >> >> greetz, >> - Henk. > > > I can scan the manual and send it to Al. It would probably be faster and > cheaper to send it to me in Sweden... unless you really wants the dead > tree version of the manual. > > I have added a picture of the main board of the Nokia VDU301 VT 220 > terminal to my website. The gold plated angled pin header on the top > right side is just connected to a board with two DB25 serial ports, a > mouse port and the keyboard connector. > The blue and red connectors to the left is the connectors for the analog > video section and the power supply. > http://www.home.neab.net/guest/Nokia-VDU301-mainboard.jpg > > I've got a ton of these boards and literally a ton of complete > terminals, anyone in need of a Nokia terminal? > > /G?ran Hi G?ran, mail is coming in very slow from CCtalk at the moment ... compared to the lots of mails last two weeks! I already wrote to Dan that I will send the manual to him. He will scan the manual and will send the PDF to Al for bitsavers. thanks, - Henk. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jun 25 19:46:11 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:46:11 -0700 Subject: Looking for a Needham's PB-10 EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <0b6501c9f5c5$086ea080$7d7b19bb@desktaba> References: <667081.3755.qm@web52708.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <0b6501c9f5c5$086ea080$7d7b19bb@desktaba> Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br > >>I do agree, they are handy. I keep a machine running, just to >>use it. > > I think it is just too much of a hassle to have a separate machine just > for an eprom programmer...I had a PB-10 and it was an **excellent** > programmer. But what it does that a Willem (connected to the parallel port > and cheap to make) doesn't do? > > Alexandre, pu1BZZ > Parallel port? Maybe through a USB? Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail? has ever-growing storage! Don?t worry about storage limits. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Storage_062009 From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Thu Jun 25 21:44:12 2009 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:44:12 -0400 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: <200906131857.44992.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200906131123.08181.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200906131857.44992.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4A4435FC.7040505@compsys.to> >Patrick Finnegan wrote: >On Saturday 13 June 2009, SPC wrote: > > >>Mmm... this needs of one BA23, isn't so ? >> >>Regards >>Sergio >> >> > >No. There's a DEC QBUS board that splits it out, or you can make your >own cable to do it. Google is your friend for that. > > Jerome Fine replies: Since I am not familiar with the above solution and I don't have the hardware knowledge to evaluate if it can be done, I will not comment. However, my personal experience with TWO RX33 floppy drives connected to an RQDX3 is as follows: (a) First, it is necessary to use an RQDX3 with the firmware revision which supports the RX33 floppy drive. I am not sure what the required firmware revision level is supposed to be, but I am fairly sure that the very first RQDX3 controllers did not support the RX33. Most likely, however, support for the RX33 was made a feature of the firmware since I did not have a problem with the RQDX3 that I used to support my dual RX33 drives. (b) Second, I suggest that a test of the RQDX3 controller that will be used be performed by using an RX50 dual floppy drive unit. If the RX50 dual floppy drive unit works, then it is very likely that the RX33 will work. (c) You will require a different end connector for the cable at the RX33 since the the RX50 uses a single header and the RX33 requires two 34-pin edge connectors daisy chained from one RX33 to the next WITHOUT any modification of the cable between one RX33 drive and the next RX33 drive (as is normally done with a PC when two floppy drives are used). (d) The e-mail from Zane Healy on February 5th, 2008 is copied below to provide the jumper settings needed, in particular the DS0 and DS1 to allow the RQDX3 to select the specified floppy drive unit. (e) Just a helpful suggestion to provide an enclosure for the dual RX33 drives: I found a non-working RX50 dual floppy drive and used the empty case to hold both RX33 drives. The access slots in the case allowed both the power cable the 34-pin cable. The power cable was connected to a Y-power cable splitter inside the enclosure. The two 34-pin edge connectors were daisy chained to the RX33 drives before bolting the RX33 drives to the enclosure from the RX50 dual drives. The sled underneath the enclosure was retained as well and fits very nicely into the BA23 box. The results looks very much like the dual RX50 floppy drives at first glance until the handles of the RX33 drives are recognized. In addition, my personal preference was to situate both RX33 drives in the upright position as opposed to the RX50 having one drive upside-down. If you have any other questions, please ask. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine >>2009/6/13 Patrick Finnegan >> >>>On Saturday 13 June 2009, SPC wrote: >>> >>> >>>>I am searching one controller to use a couple of RX33 in one >>>>PDP11-23/PLUS. Someone knows what could I use ? >>>> >>>> >>>RQDX3 >>> >>>Pat >>>-- >>>Purdue University Research Computing --- >>>http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge >>>--- http://computer-refuge.org >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =========================================================================== ===== Note 93.3 Low-end disk devices - The Digital difference 3 of 136 EISNER::KENNEDY "Terry Kennedy" 72 lines 16-JAN-1988 02:05 -< RX33 >- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- The DEC RX33 is an IBM AT-type drive with some jumper changes. DEC's drive is some variant of the TEAC FD55G. I have exper- imented and discovered that the following drives/jumperings work with the RQDX3: TEAC FD-55GFV-17-U Jumpers in: HG I (Roman numeral 1) U1 U2 DC FG DS0 (for first RX33) DS1 (for second RX33) Jumpers out: (all others) Install the terminator, RA1, on the last (or only) drive TEAC FD-55GFR-540-U Jumpers in: I (Roman numeral 1) U0 U1 DC2 FG D0 (for first RX33) D1 (for second RX33) Jumpers out: (all others) Install the terminator, RA1, on the last (or only) drive Toshiba FDD 6882E1J01 (or ND-08DE-G) Jumpers in: LD DC DE D1 (for first RX33) D2 (for second RX33) Jumpers out: (all others) Install the terminator jumper, TM, on the last (or only) drive I have purchased many of the TEAC 540 drives from JDR Micro- devices in California, (800) 538-5000. They have the follow- ing items of interest: [NOTE: This is *old* info (1988) and probably isn't valid any more] FD-55G High density drive - $129.95 FD-5Y 'Y' cable to power 2 drives from the BAnn box - $2.95 FD55-MHW Mounting hardware for two FD-55G drives - $2.95 FD55-FP Beige faceplate for FD-55G drive (black is std.) - $2.95 FD55-SPEC Specification for FD-55G drive - $5.00 FD55-MAINT Maintenance manual for FD-55G drives - $25.00 Therfore, you can get two RX33's for $265.80 with the Y cable and mounting hardware - a far cry from DEC's $795.00 each... You need an RQDX3 to run these drives, of course. You will also need to save the skid plate from your RX50 drive. If you order these drives elsewhere, please remember that the mounting hole threads are *metric*. Finding the right screws will be a lot harder than finding the drives! =========================================================================== ===== Note 93.77 Low-end disk devices - The Digital difference 77 of 136 EISNER::KENNEDY "Terry Kennedy" 15 lines 19-JUL-1991 01:40 -< Newer Teac model for RX33 substitute >- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- A number of people have asked me for other RX33 substitutes, since the Teac models I gave earlier in this thread are no longer available. I did some experimenting and I have a new one for you: The Teac FD-55GFR-149-U can be used as an RX33 by installing jumpers on FG, DC, I, and D0 (for 1st drive) or D1 (for 2nd drive). The "I" jum- per is hard to find - here's a picture: LG o o IS o o o<---- This is the "I" jumper o<-/ DC o o o o o o o I've tested this with RX50 and RX33 media under XXDP+ and RSTS/E. Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing te... at spcvxa.spc.edu St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA +1 201 915 9381 (voice) +1 201 435-3662 (FAX) From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jun 25 23:58:35 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:58:35 -0700 Subject: Trade a Sparc 5 for a 851 8 inch drive In-Reply-To: <609642.67331.qm@web82604.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <609642.67331.qm@web82604.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hi I have a Sparc 5 with black/white monitor. It has a bad hard disk drive but was otherwise working about a year ago. It would be fine for someone with a good drive that new how to install an OS. I need a 8 inch two sided disk drive and prefer a 851. It needs to be someone in the San Francisco bay area as I'll not ship this box. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Lauren found her dream laptop. Find the PC that?s right for you. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/choosepc/?ocid=ftp_val_wl_290 From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jun 26 03:50:56 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:50:56 -0300 Subject: Looking for a Needham's PB-10 EPROM programmer References: <667081.3755.qm@web52708.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <0b6501c9f5c5$086ea080$7d7b19bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <145a01c9f63b$48327720$7d7b19bb@desktaba> >Parallel port? Maybe through a USB? For USB, you have even better options. - Wellon - is a CHEAP programmer from China. I have the VP-280 (48 pin) and it costed me 100 bucks. Program everything but the older chips (e.g.: It programs almost any MCS-51 chips, but no 8751/48/49/etc). Tests RAMs, works with BPROMs (things that most newer programmers don't) and go as low as 2716 (no 2704/08). There are higher models who program everything, but in the price range of a way better... - ...BEEPROG from ELNEC. This is the best programmer I've ever seen. It programs EVERYTHING. Period. But costs a nice sum of money. If you're lucky you can find a beeprog (not plus) or a labprog 48+ in ebay. If you find two, save one for me, it costs around $300 used - Willem USB - don't have, haven't seen it, but I know that exists and it is a free design. I'm mostly satisfied with my wellon! :o) Alexandre, PU1BZZ From spedraja at ono.com Fri Jun 26 06:47:45 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:47:45 +0200 Subject: SC/MP documents In-Reply-To: <4A4472EC.3010501@iais.fraunhofer.de> References: <4A4472EC.3010501@iais.fraunhofer.de> Message-ID: With all my respects, I think they would be better in one open repository as www.bitsavers.org better than in one like scribd.com which need of personal registration. For some reason, my spam increments its volume in proportion to these supossed 'confidential' subscriptions, and I'm lightly angry with this matter. Regards Sergio 2009/6/26 Holger Veit > Hi, > some weeks ago I sent a query for some old SC/MP documents to this > list, and Lars generously offered me these docs for scanning and > providing to the community. > > Now, with a longer delay, these docs are available here: > > http://www.scribd.com/doc/16799273/Scmp-Microprocessor-Application-Handbook > and > http://www.scribd.com/doc/16797738/Scmp-Programming-and-Assembler-Manual-Feb1976 > > I think to download them from there as a pdf, you have to register at the > site. > > I uploaded them there as there are some restrictions to provide them > through > my employer's site, but as I haven't seen them yet in Internet, I used this > way > to spread them to the interested classiccmp community here. Feel free to > get them > from there and reissue them in accordance to existing copyright issues. > > -- > Holger > > From silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com Fri Jun 26 06:47:56 2009 From: silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com (silvercreekvalley) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:47:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Tektronix Terminal Message-ID: <838263.45968.qm@web56202.mail.re3.yahoo.com> If anyone is looking for a Tektronic terminal and you are based in the UK - please email me of list. Thanks. From keithvz at verizon.net Fri Jun 26 10:18:25 2009 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:18:25 -0400 Subject: hard drive compatibility Message-ID: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net> I have a hard drive that I bought 15 years ago. Western Digital Caviar 2420. 425mb IDE drive. Still works fine in my Amiga. I recently tried to image the drive using DD under linux. While Linux recognizes the model number and capacity, it's unable to read even a single block off the drive. I get "ABRT" errors and "DRDY ERR" errors during a read. I have managed using another method to obtain an image of the drive as I'm sure failure is right around the corner, but I'm still interested in the problem I saw. The ATA-1 standard was passed in the same year as the drive was made, 1994 --- it's possible the drive is "pre-standard." The label on the drive says "AT Compatible Intelligent Drive." Think semi-recent BIOS and new versions of linux should autodetect the drive type ? Modify the (limited) info in BIOS? Use hdparam in linux? Thanks Keith P.S. drive data sheet at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/legacy/Legacy.asp?r=3 WD is awesome for still having this on their site. Although I couldn't check the warranty status w/ the serial number, what the heck!?@# :) From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jun 26 10:22:01 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:22:01 -0600 Subject: Tektronix Terminal In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:47:56 -0700. <838263.45968.qm@web56202.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: In article <838263.45968.qm at web56202.mail.re3.yahoo.com>, silvercreekvalley writes: > If anyone is looking for a Tektronic terminal and you > are based in the UK - please email me of list. Thanks. I'm not in the UK, but it would probably help to know if its storage tube or raster. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 26 10:39:17 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:39:17 -0700 Subject: hard drive compatibility In-Reply-To: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net> References: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jun 2009 at 11:18, Keith wrote: > Think semi-recent BIOS and new versions of linux should autodetect the > drive type ? Modify the (limited) info in BIOS? Use hdparam in linux? Most IDE drives shouldn't have a problem--I've got some fairly ancient ones. Are you using a 40-conductor drive cable? If your BIOS permits setting the transfer mode, have you set it to PIO (the faster DMA modes don't work with old drives). And finally, you're not trying to use it as a slave with another manufacturer's drive being master (or vice-versa), are you? Old IDE drives were notoriously finicky when paired up with other makers' units. See if you can access the drive (at least on a physical sector basis) under MS-DOS/INT 13 services. --Chuck From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 26 10:53:20 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:53:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: hard drive compatibility In-Reply-To: <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net> <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Jun 2009, Chuck Guzis wrote: > ancient ones. Are you using a 40-conductor drive cable? If your My guess is that he isn't. I know I've been bit by this before, and thankfully this list came to my rescue when I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Zane From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Fri Jun 26 11:18:08 2009 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:18:08 -0500 Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test In-Reply-To: <4A3F80C3.2070109@brutman.com> References: <4A3C633C.2030008@brutman.com> <4A3F80C3.2070109@brutman.com> Message-ID: <4A44F4C0.1030103@brutman.com> Still going! (But not for much longer ...) Main menu -> stats Server started: Fri Jun 19 23:58:37 2009 Session start: Fri Jun 26 10:53:28 2009 Current time: Fri Jun 26 11:08:24 2009 Active sessions 1, Max Active sessions 5, Total Sessions: 249 Registered users: 74 Tcp Pkts Sent 129078 Rcvd 108740 Retrans 4407 Seq/Ack errs 2873 Dropped 0 Pkt stats: Incoming pkts: 113570 Dropped: 0 Sent: 133875 From the 'info' command: Bios date: 06/01/83 Dos version 5.02 Type: (fd) PCjr 4860 Free memory: 248016 bytes, Local heap: Ok, Far heap: Ok 248K free, even with DOS 5, a bunch of device drivers, the packet driver, and a 80KB RAM disk. (It's been like that since it started so I know that I'm not leaking memory.) Thanks to all of you who have signed in and played around! It's going to be up for a little while longer. When I finally do shut it down I'll be looking through the error logs to see what strange things I might need to deal with. Mike From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jun 26 12:05:53 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:05:53 -0300 Subject: Digital (music) keyboard with Kaypro computer?! References: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net><4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1a0101c9f681$195b7cd0$7d7b19bb@desktaba> http://www.markglinsky.com/Msgmus.html Very interesting, manufactured a keyboard with the boards of a keypro inside?! From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jun 26 12:08:48 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:08:48 -0300 Subject: SC/MP documents References: <4A4472EC.3010501@iais.fraunhofer.de> Message-ID: <1a0201c9f681$1ac12750$7d7b19bb@desktaba> > With all my respects, I think they would be better in one open repository > as > www.bitsavers.org better than in one like scribd.com which need of > personal > registration. For some reason, my spam increments its volume in proportion > to these supossed 'confidential' subscriptions, and I'm lightly angry with > this matter. Sergio, I solved this problem with a "boi-de-piranha"* email account on gmail. EVERYTHING I register I use this e-mail, so I can filter spam with no troubles :o) Greetings from Brazil Alexandre, PU1BZZ *"Boi de piranha" is a brazilian expression. When people are moving cows thru the pastage and they need to pass thru a river, they always send the oldest and weakest cow first, because if there are "piranhas" (I think in english this carnivore fish is also called piranha) on the river, they will eat the least valuable cow, and leave others...So this expression applies to something that can be expendable, to save others. From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 26 12:19:37 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:19:37 -0400 Subject: SC/MP documents In-Reply-To: <1a0201c9f681$1ac12750$7d7b19bb@desktaba> References: <4A4472EC.3010501@iais.fraunhofer.de> <1a0201c9f681$1ac12750$7d7b19bb@desktaba> Message-ID: On Jun 26, 2009, at 1:08 PM, Alexandre Souza wrote: >> With all my respects, I think they would be better in one open >> repository as >> www.bitsavers.org better than in one like scribd.com which need of >> personal >> registration. For some reason, my spam increments its volume in >> proportion >> to these supossed 'confidential' subscriptions, and I'm lightly >> angry with >> this matter. > > Sergio, I solved this problem with a "boi-de-piranha"* email > account on gmail. EVERYTHING I register I use this e-mail, so I can > filter spam with no troubles :o) > > Greetings from Brazil > Alexandre, PU1BZZ > > *"Boi de piranha" is a brazilian expression. When people are > moving cows thru the pastage and they need to pass thru a river, > they always send the oldest and weakest cow first, because if there > are "piranhas" (I think in english this carnivore fish is also > called piranha) on the river, they will eat the least valuable cow, > and leave others...So this expression applies to something that can > be expendable, to save others. Niiiice! :-) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From keithvz at verizon.net Fri Jun 26 12:29:13 2009 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:29:13 -0400 Subject: hard drive compatibility In-Reply-To: <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net> <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A450569.5090004@verizon.net> Hi Chuck, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Most IDE drives shouldn't have a problem--I've got some fairly > ancient ones. Are you using a 40-conductor drive cable? You mean versus an 80-conductor cable? No it's a 40. > And finally, you're > not trying to use it as a slave with another manufacturer's drive > being master (or vice-versa), are you? I had it as a Master (and also tried 'single drive installation') on a chain by itself. > See if you can access the drive (at least on a physical sector basis) > under MS-DOS/INT 13 services. I barely know what you are talking about here. :) I can just google it, or if you have a good ref, I'll take that too. :) Let me see if the BIOS lets me pick PIO. > --Chuck Thanks Keith From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 26 12:36:49 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:36:49 -0400 Subject: hard drive compatibility In-Reply-To: <4A450569.5090004@verizon.net> References: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net> <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> <4A450569.5090004@verizon.net> Message-ID: <9E835F38-8799-4468-AD31-2FE4EE4DED82@neurotica.com> On Jun 26, 2009, at 1:29 PM, Keith wrote: > Let me see if the BIOS lets me pick PIO. I have a hunch that Chuck's suggestion of DMA modes is correct. The BIOS won't have anything to do with it, though...Linux (along with most other operating systems) doesn't use the BIOS routines to access disks, it controls the hardware directly. I think you can pass kernel parameters (via your boot manager...lilo, grub, etc) to restrict DMA modes. Google is your friend on that one. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 26 13:16:38 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:16:38 -0700 Subject: hard drive compatibility In-Reply-To: <4A450569.5090004@verizon.net> References: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net>, <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com>, <4A450569.5090004@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4A44AE16.12804.2747AAF@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jun 2009 at 13:29, Keith wrote: > > See if you can access the drive (at least on a physical sector > > basis) under MS-DOS/INT 13 services. > > I barely know what you are talking about here. :) I can just google > it, or if you have a good ref, I'll take that too. :) Well, if none of this helps, drop me an off-list message and I'll email you a DOS program that probes IDE drives directly and lets you know what's what. Some of the early IDE drives were non-standard in their responses to the IDENTIFY command. In particular, I recall that early Maxtor models swapped the order of the words in the field used to report total number of sectors, necessitating a kludge in some drivers (e.g. If C*H*S ~= total sectors, try swapping the words). There were many other peculiarities... --Chuck From john_finigan at yahoo.com Fri Jun 26 14:14:58 2009 From: john_finigan at yahoo.com (John Finigan) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:14:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Tymcom-X Message-ID: <412243.87345.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I've been reading a little about the PDP-10 lately, and it seems like most of the operating systems have survived and are publicly available. Does anybody know if Tymcom-X by Tymshare survived? If it has, I wonder who owns the rights. John Finigan From evan at snarc.net Fri Jun 26 14:24:54 2009 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:24:54 -0400 Subject: Tymcom-X In-Reply-To: <412243.87345.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <412243.87345.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A452086.5090400@snarc.net> > > I've been reading a little about the PDP-10 lately, and it seems like most > of the operating systems have survived and are publicly available. > Does anybody know if Tymcom-X by Tymshare survived? If it has, I wonder who > owns the rights. > > John Finigan Says here that it belonged to WorldCom as of 2002, which means it's owned today by Verizon, unless a creditor picked it up at some point. http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/tymshare/ By the way -- that took me 45 seconds of Googling -- work on your search skills before posting. :) From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 26 14:53:49 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:53:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Tymcom-X In-Reply-To: <412243.87345.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <412243.87345.qm@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Jun 2009, John Finigan wrote: > > I've been reading a little about the PDP-10 lately, and it seems like most > of the operating systems have survived and are publicly available. > Does anybody know if Tymcom-X by Tymshare survived? If it has, I wonder who > owns the rights. > > John Finigan > If anything has survived it would be on Bitsavers, I don't believe anything has. Basically we've quite a bit of TOPS-10 and TOPS-20, and then some ITS. It is a toss up as to for which platform more has survived, the PDP-10, or the PDP-11. Zane From spedraja at ono.com Fri Jun 26 16:10:05 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:10:05 +0200 Subject: Western Digital WD1000 for one SGS CP/M system Message-ID: Hello. I think is difficult but... someone could have one Western Digital WD1000 controller in working condition ? I need it for one SGS CP/M system which comes with one 8" hard disk but without controller. Some equivalent device with working warranties (including other storage device) would be helpful too. Thanks. Regards Sergio From doc at vaxen.net Fri Jun 26 17:47:47 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc Shipley) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:47:47 -0500 Subject: IndyCams Message-ID: <4A455013.5090303@vaxen.net> and Indy mics. These look like they're new - each cam is bagged with a microphone. $12 shipped to lower 48. Doc From doc at vaxen.net Fri Jun 26 17:49:43 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc Shipley) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:49:43 -0500 Subject: Lost mail Message-ID: <4A455087.90803@vaxen.net> My colo provider got evicted last week, so if you've sent me email from last Monday (June 15) to now, please resend. I probably did not get it. From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jun 26 17:56:44 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:56:44 -0600 Subject: IndyCams In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:47:47 -0500. <4A455013.5090303@vaxen.net> Message-ID: In article <4A455013.5090303 at vaxen.net>, Doc Shipley writes: > and Indy mics. These look like they're new - each cam is bagged with > a microphone. > > $12 shipped to lower 48. Count me in for 2. Paypal? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From doc at vaxen.net Fri Jun 26 18:19:42 2009 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc Shipley) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:19:42 -0500 Subject: Aten KVM Message-ID: <4A45578E.8060007@vaxen.net> yes, it's on topic, I have one AT/DE9 breakout cable! Seriously, it works well with any x86 OS and old PCs. Other platforms, it's manageable. ;) 8-port Aten Masterview w/ wall wart, PS2 kbd/mouse & HD15 console 7 PS2 kbd/mouse, HD15 graphics breakouts 1 AT kbd, PS2 mouse, HD15 graphics 1 AT kbd, DE9 serial mouse, HD15 $30 + shipping, make offers offlist please. Doc Shipley From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Fri Jun 26 18:54:10 2009 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:54:10 -0400 Subject: Cromemco Dazzler Kaleidoscope - BUG FOUND In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The file I have been hosting: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/kscope_rdos.txt had one byte in error. This has now been corrected. I can't imagine how it got that way, I tested it numerous times and the version on my non-server machine is correct. It is also interesting that it was downloaded several dozen times but no one reported the error. Anyway, it's fixed now. Bill Sudbrink From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Jun 26 19:51:25 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:51:25 +0100 Subject: Digital (music) keyboard with Kaypro computer?! In-Reply-To: <1a0101c9f681$195b7cd0$7d7b19bb@desktaba> References: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net> <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> <1a0101c9f681$195b7cd0$7d7b19bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <1246063885.1033.8.camel@elric> On Fri, 2009-06-26 at 14:05 -0300, Alexandre Souza wrote: > http://www.markglinsky.com/Msgmus.html > > Very interesting, manufactured a keyboard with the boards of a keypro > inside?! > Interesting, how's the voice generation done? The Fairlight CMI and the PPG Waveterm were both based on off-the-shelf 6809 computers. IIRC the Simmons SDX was some sort of off-the-shelf 68000-based machine, at least for the prototypes. Gordon From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jun 26 20:41:13 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:41:13 -0400 Subject: Digital (music) keyboard with Kaypro computer?! In-Reply-To: <1246063885.1033.8.camel@elric> References: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net> <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> <1a0101c9f681$195b7cd0$7d7b19bb@desktaba> <1246063885.1033.8.camel@elric> Message-ID: > Interesting, how's the voice generation done? > > The Fairlight CMI and the PPG Waveterm were both based on off-the-shelf > 6809 computers. And horribly buggy software. The Synclavier also had more than its fair share of bugs. I am ot sure what NED used - they started out as a minicomputer maker, with their sole customer being the US government. I have only ever seen parts of these minicomputers. I wonder if the Synclavier was based on one of their mini designs? -- Will From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jun 26 20:45:04 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:45:04 -0600 Subject: Cromemco Dazzler or MicroAngelo (was: Cromemco Dazzler Kaleidoscope - BUG FOUND) In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:54:10 -0400. Message-ID: Cromemco Dazzler is something that I drooled over back in the day. There is a pretty good Wikipedia entry on that. How many people have the Dazzler? How many people have the MicroAngelo graphics boards for an S-100 box? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 26 20:57:57 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:57:57 -0400 Subject: Cromemco Dazzler or MicroAngelo (was: Cromemco Dazzler Kaleidoscope - BUG FOUND) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <371D3C83-D304-40B2-ACD5-D0E30056E787@neurotica.com> On Jun 26, 2009, at 9:45 PM, Richard wrote: > Cromemco Dazzler is something that I drooled over back in the day. > There is a pretty good Wikipedia entry on that. > > How many people have the Dazzler? > > How many people have the MicroAngelo graphics boards for an S-100 box? I was impressed by the Dazzler, but I DROOLED over the MicroAngelo years ago. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jun 26 21:04:44 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:04:44 -0700 Subject: Cromemco Dazzler or MicroAngelo (was: Cromemco Dazzler Kaleidoscope - BUG FOUND) In-Reply-To: <371D3C83-D304-40B2-ACD5-D0E30056E787@neurotica.com> References: <371D3C83-D304-40B2-ACD5-D0E30056E787@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A457E3C.5090100@brouhaha.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > I was impressed by the Dazzler, but I DROOLED over the MicroAngelo > years ago. Not a good idea, it promotes corrosion! I wanted one of those, and/or a Microdiversions Screensplitter. Still looking for the latter. Eric From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jun 26 21:12:54 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:12:54 -0400 Subject: Cromemco Dazzler or MicroAngelo (was: Cromemco Dazzler Kaleidoscope - BUG FOUND) In-Reply-To: <4A457E3C.5090100@brouhaha.com> References: <371D3C83-D304-40B2-ACD5-D0E30056E787@neurotica.com> <4A457E3C.5090100@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Jun 26, 2009, at 10:04 PM, Eric Smith wrote: >> I was impressed by the Dazzler, but I DROOLED over the >> MicroAngelo years ago. > Not a good idea, it promotes corrosion! ;) > I wanted one of those, and/or a Microdiversions Screensplitter. > Still looking for the latter. I don't think I've heard of that. What is it? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jun 26 21:30:16 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:30:16 -0600 Subject: Cromemco Dazzler or MicroAngelo (was: Cromemco Dazzler Kaleidoscope - BUG FOUND) In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:04:44 -0700. <4A457E3C.5090100@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: In article <4A457E3C.5090100 at brouhaha.com>, Eric Smith writes: > Dave McGuire wrote: > > I was impressed by the Dazzler, but I DROOLED over the MicroAngelo > > years ago. > Not a good idea, it promotes corrosion! > > I wanted one of those, and/or a Microdiversions Screensplitter. Still > looking for the latter. Me neither! Any other S-100 graphics board sets out there? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From brianlanning at gmail.com Fri Jun 26 22:09:49 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:09:49 -0500 Subject: cheap KVM switches Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906262009l5c74d9bu6f20947809bae639@mail.gmail.com> Does anyone know of a good source for inexpensive KVM switches? Ideally, I'd like something that switches VGA, ps2 keyboards, and serial mice. I'd also like one that switches macintosh hardware, that is, the 15-pin monitor connector and ADB (if such a thing exists). brian p.s. I seem to remember asking this question somewhere in the past, but I can't remember if it was here. My apologies if this is a repeat. From ragooman at comcast.net Fri Jun 26 22:34:09 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:34:09 -0400 Subject: Cromemco Dazzler Kaleidoscope - BUG FOUND In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A459331.4050803@comcast.net> Bill Sudbrink wrote: > The file I have been hosting: > > http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/kscope_rdos.txt > > had one byte in error. This has now been corrected. > I can't imagine how it got that way, I tested it > numerous times and the version on my non-server > machine is correct. It is also interesting that it > was downloaded several dozen times but no one > reported the error. Anyway, it's fixed now. > > I don't understand how you could have an error in your file. I see you have a change on line 118 [?] DA 7A 30 <--------change [?] But from disassembling the papertape file, it should be 0072: DA 7A 00 JC 0x007A since the code is supposed to reside in page 0 of memory. =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From mike at fenz.net Sat Jun 27 01:17:13 2009 From: mike at fenz.net (Mike van Bokhoven) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:17:13 +1200 Subject: Digital GIGI - needs a couple of key caps, or a new home In-Reply-To: <4A459331.4050803@comcast.net> References: <4A459331.4050803@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A45B969.5020006@fenz.net> Hi - I have a Digital GIGI here, looks in good condition but it's missing a couple of key caps. I'm interested in either getting hold of the two keys (the Setup key, and whichever key is in the very bottom left of the keyboard, below CTRL), or passing the machine on to someone who's interested in it. Running condition's unknown, but I could check. I'm in Auckland, New Zealand, so I'm guessing that there's no-one within range who'd be keen? Mike From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jun 27 01:29:48 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:29:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Digital GIGI - needs a couple of key caps, or a new home In-Reply-To: <4A45B969.5020006@fenz.net> References: <4A459331.4050803@comcast.net> <4A45B969.5020006@fenz.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Jun 2009, Mike van Bokhoven wrote: > Hi - I have a Digital GIGI here, looks in good condition but it's > missing a couple of key caps. I'm interested in either getting hold of > the two keys (the Setup key, and whichever key is in the very bottom > left of the keyboard, below CTRL), or passing the machine on to someone > who's interested in it. Running condition's unknown, but I could check. > I'm in Auckland, New Zealand, so I'm guessing that there's no-one within > range who'd be keen? Related to this, I recently acquired a DEC Correspondent (Silent 700 on steroids) that's missing the very same key. Does anyone know a good place for spare keys? -- 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? From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jun 27 02:23:55 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:23:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: cheap KVM switches In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906262009l5c74d9bu6f20947809bae639@mail.gmail.com> from Brian Lanning at "Jun 26, 9 10:09:49 pm" Message-ID: <200906270723.n5R7NtLT020044@floodgap.com> > Does anyone know of a good source for inexpensive KVM switches? > Ideally, I'd like something that switches VGA, ps2 keyboards, and > serial mice. I'd also like one that switches macintosh hardware, that > is, the 15-pin monitor connector and ADB (if such a thing exists). They do, but they are slightly unobtanium. It's been awhile since I've seen one myself. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Today's forecast is total crap! -- Strong Bad, "Homestar Runner" Menu #11 -- From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jun 27 03:00:56 2009 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:00:56 -0400 Subject: cheap KVM switches References: <200906270723.n5R7NtLT020044@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6053D25B6B594810932E50ABD941F546@dell8300> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cameron Kaiser" To: Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2009 3:23 AM Subject: Re: cheap KVM switches >> Does anyone know of a good source for inexpensive KVM switches? >> Ideally, I'd like something that switches VGA, ps2 keyboards, and >> serial mice. I'd also like one that switches macintosh hardware, that >> is, the 15-pin monitor connector and ADB (if such a thing exists). > > They do, but they are slightly unobtanium. It's been awhile since I've > seen one myself. You mean something like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/8-Way-Keyboard-Video-Switch-for-Mac-BlackBox-SR016A_W0QQitemZ300267147686 http://cgi.ebay.com/12-Way-Keyboard-Video-Switch-for-Mac-BlackBox-SR022A_W0QQitemZ300267142534 I have a 12 port Black Box Apple ADB KVM but mine just has pushbuttons for selecting the machine and not rotary dials. Dr.BOTT made a 4 port ADB KVM also. From halarewich at gmail.com Sat Jun 27 03:29:30 2009 From: halarewich at gmail.com (Chris Halarewich) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:29:30 -0700 Subject: cheap KVM switches In-Reply-To: <6053D25B6B594810932E50ABD941F546@dell8300> References: <200906270723.n5R7NtLT020044@floodgap.com> <6053D25B6B594810932E50ABD941F546@dell8300> Message-ID: <6d6501090906270129g45e753f5nf785d71d7009d7a5@mail.gmail.com> might check out here http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=101&cp_id=10102 http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10401&cs_id=1040111&p_id=74&seq=1&format=2 On 6/27/09, Teo Zenios wrote: > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cameron Kaiser" > To: > Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2009 3:23 AM > Subject: Re: cheap KVM switches > > > Does anyone know of a good source for inexpensive KVM switches? >>> Ideally, I'd like something that switches VGA, ps2 keyboards, and >>> serial mice. I'd also like one that switches macintosh hardware, that >>> is, the 15-pin monitor connector and ADB (if such a thing exists). >>> >> >> They do, but they are slightly unobtanium. It's been awhile since I've >> seen one myself. >> > > > You mean something like this: > > > http://cgi.ebay.com/8-Way-Keyboard-Video-Switch-for-Mac-BlackBox-SR016A_W0QQitemZ300267147686 > > > http://cgi.ebay.com/12-Way-Keyboard-Video-Switch-for-Mac-BlackBox-SR022A_W0QQitemZ300267142534 > > I have a 12 port Black Box Apple ADB KVM but mine just has pushbuttons for > selecting the machine and not rotary dials. Dr.BOTT made a 4 port ADB KVM > also. > From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Jun 27 04:31:49 2009 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:31:49 +0100 Subject: Cromemco Dazzler or MicroAngelo In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A45E705.5020909@dunnington.plus.com> On 27/06/2009 02:45, Richard wrote: > Cromemco Dazzler is something that I drooled over back in the day. > There is a pretty good Wikipedia entry on that. > > How many people have the Dazzler? I have one, but my Cromemco isn't 100% well and hasn't been switched on in years. I'll get a round tuit... -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jun 26 23:31:51 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:31:51 -0300 Subject: Anyone can lend a hand? I need to create a PAL. References: <371D3C83-D304-40B2-ACD5-D0E30056E787@neurotica.com> <4A457E3C.5090100@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <022401c9f70b$81ed4000$880319bb@desktaba> Dear friends, I'm a bit confused here I have a very small logic function I want to integrate into a PALCE / GAL chip. Can anyone point me to the right direction? What to read and to download? My programmer supports all the chips I want to use and JEDEC files. Thanks Alexandre, PU1BZZ From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jun 27 04:51:36 2009 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:51:36 -0600 Subject: Digital GIGI - needs a couple of key caps, or a new home In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:17:13 +1200. <4A45B969.5020006@fenz.net> Message-ID: In article <4A45B969.5020006 at fenz.net>, Mike van Bokhoven writes: > Hi - I have a Digital GIGI here, looks in good condition but it's > missing a couple of key caps. I believe the keycaps are interchangeable with a VT100 keyboard. I can check down at the warehouse. VT100 keyboards come up on ebay fairly often and would be much easier to find than a GIGI. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 27 05:38:16 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:38:16 +0100 Subject: Digital (music) keyboard with Kaypro computer?! In-Reply-To: References: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net> <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> <1a0101c9f681$195b7cd0$7d7b19bb@desktaba> <1246063885.1033.8.camel@elric> Message-ID: <1246099096.1033.50.camel@elric> On Fri, 2009-06-26 at 21:41 -0400, William Donzelli wrote: > > Interesting, how's the voice generation done? > > > > The Fairlight CMI and the PPG Waveterm were both based on off-the-shelf > > 6809 computers. > > And horribly buggy software. The Synclavier also had more than its > fair share of bugs. > > I am ot sure what NED used - they started out as a minicomputer maker, > with their sole customer being the US government. I have only ever > seen parts of these minicomputers. I wonder if the Synclavier was > based on one of their mini designs? I know that the Synclavier workshop manuals were never released because some part of the CPU design was classified... I'm surprised there's not some more discussion of computer-based musical instruments in here. A lot of them more than meet the ten-year rule. The Ensoniq Mirage is basically a 6809-based machine with a disk drive and a DOC chip as used in the Apple IIgs. There were various third-party OSes available for it that gave different capabilities. Even as standard Ensoniq provided normal Mirage OS, and MASOS with sample transfer and advanced editing functions. Gordon Gordon From mike at fenz.net Sat Jun 27 06:01:27 2009 From: mike at fenz.net (Mike van Bokhoven) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:01:27 +1200 Subject: Digital GIGI - needs a couple of key caps, or a new home In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A45FC07.1070509@fenz.net> Richard wrote: > Mike van Bokhoven writes: > >> Hi - I have a Digital GIGI here, looks in good condition but it's >> missing a couple of key caps. >> > I believe the keycaps are interchangeable with a VT100 keyboard. I > can check down at the warehouse. VT100 keyboards come up on ebay > fairly often and would be much easier to find than a GIGI. > That'd be great - thanks! It'd be hard to justify sending a whole keyboard to New Zealand just for a couple of key caps, but if you have just the caps available, I'm sure the freight wouldn't be too expensive. Mike From mjd.bishop at emeritus-solutions.com Sat Jun 27 06:34:57 2009 From: mjd.bishop at emeritus-solutions.com (Martin Bishop) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:34:57 +0100 Subject: Anyone can lend a hand? I need to create a PAL. In-Reply-To: <022401c9f70b$81ed4000$880319bb@desktaba> References: <371D3C83-D304-40B2-ACD5-D0E30056E787@neurotica.com><4A457E3C.5090100@brouhaha.com> <022401c9f70b$81ed4000$880319bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <1E2BDF951967414B9C46BA48F7AF97FB01F29788@exch-be09.exchange.local> Lattice Semi have free (if voluminous) tools for GALs: http://www.latticesemi.com/products/designsoftware/isplever/ispleverclas sic/index.cfm If you require a specific PALCE / GAL architecture which didn't make it into the modern era (i.e. remains in production) you may have to start searching for a legacy or open source tool. HtH; Regards Martin : M0EJW -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Alexandre Souza Sent: 27 June 2009 05:32 To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: Anyone can lend a hand? I need to create a PAL. Dear friends, I'm a bit confused here I have a very small logic function I want to integrate into a PALCE / GAL chip. Can anyone point me to the right direction? What to read and to download? My programmer supports all the chips I want to use and JEDEC files. Thanks Alexandre, PU1BZZ From thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org Sat Jun 27 07:02:09 2009 From: thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org (Alexis) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:32:09 +0930 Subject: Unknown Motorola IC "SC 440 00 L" Message-ID: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Hi, I've had this 40-pin IC for a while now. The only markings on it are (Motorola Logo) SC 440 00 L 7532 H The second one is obviously a date code. The regular Internet searches reveal nothing. It came off a small board with an MC6810 128-byte RAM. Anyone know what it is? Thanks, Alexis. From james at jdfogg.com Sat Jun 27 07:25:50 2009 From: james at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 08:25:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: cheap KVM switches In-Reply-To: <6dbe3c380906262009l5c74d9bu6f20947809bae639@mail.gmail.com> References: <6dbe3c380906262009l5c74d9bu6f20947809bae639@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2126.192.168.99.119.1246105550.squirrel@webmail.jdfogg.com> > Does anyone know of a good source for inexpensive KVM switches? > Ideally, I'd like something that switches VGA, ps2 keyboards, and > serial mice. I'd also like one that switches macintosh hardware, that > is, the 15-pin monitor connector and ADB (if such a thing exists). An additional data point - how many ports? Optional - do you need LAN access (physical keyboard/vid/mouse somewhere else on the LAN). -- James - From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Jun 27 08:13:46 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 06:13:46 -0700 Subject: Western Digital WD1000 for one SGS CP/M system In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------------------------------------- > From: spedraja at ono.com > > Hello. > > I think is difficult but... someone could have one Western Digital WD1000 > controller in working condition ? I need it for one SGS CP/M system which > comes with one 8" hard disk but without controller. > > Some equivalent device with working warranties (including other storage > device) would be helpful too. > > Thanks. > > Regards > Sergio Hi They do rarely come up on ebay but a better option is to get a TRS80 5Meg hard drive box. It has an almost identical controller to a WD1000, a power supply and a hard disk in one box. These are much more common on ebay. The controller has a couple of extra things. It has an address decoder and an external signal for a write protect. The address decoder can just be tied off such that you use only one line as a select. The write protect signal just needs a tie off, unless you want to use the write protect switch on the box. I'm using one of these boxes on my Olivetti M20 instead of a WD1000 controller with a ST251 instead of the original drive. It works just fine. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live?: Keep your life in sync. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009 From spedraja at ono.com Sat Jun 27 09:06:59 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:06:59 +0200 Subject: Western Digital WD1000 for one SGS CP/M system In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks ! I shall track any apeareance of this TRS80 device. Regards Sergio 2009/6/27 dwight elvey > > > > ---------------------------------------- > > From: spedraja at ono.com > > > > Hello. > > > > I think is difficult but... someone could have one Western Digital WD1000 > > controller in working condition ? I need it for one SGS CP/M system which > > comes with one 8" hard disk but without controller. > > > > Some equivalent device with working warranties (including other storage > > device) would be helpful too. > > > > Thanks. > > > > Regards > > Sergio > > Hi > They do rarely come up on ebay but a better option is to get > a TRS80 5Meg hard drive box. It has an almost identical controller > to a WD1000, a power supply and a hard disk in one box. > These are much more common on ebay. > The controller has a couple of extra things. It has an address > decoder and an external signal for a write protect. > The address decoder can just be tied off such that you use > only one line as a select. The write protect signal just > needs a tie off, unless you want to use the write protect switch > on the box. > I'm using one of these boxes on my Olivetti M20 instead of > a WD1000 controller with a ST251 instead of the original drive. > It works just fine. > Dwight > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Windows Live?: Keep your life in sync. > http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009 From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sat Jun 27 09:43:59 2009 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:43:59 -0500 Subject: PCjr Telnet BBS Test In-Reply-To: <4A44F4C0.1030103@brutman.com> References: <4A3C633C.2030008@brutman.com> <4A3F80C3.2070109@brutman.com> <4A44F4C0.1030103@brutman.com> Message-ID: <4A46302F.9070800@brutman.com> Testing is done! I had to shut it down around 3:30 in the morning .. it had been up for a week and we had some major thunderstorms coming in. I was copying down statistics while the lightning was illuminating the room. Total uptime was around one week, 3 hours. In that time the machine sent 132067 TCP/IP packets and received 111346. 72 users registers and left around 70 messages. The most visible bug was my retransmit timer. Due to a misconfiguration it was timing out on packets 10x faster than it should, so there were a lot more retransmitted packets than normal. This lead to some dropped connections - if a packet has to be retransmitted more than 6 times I assume the connection is dead. There are some telnet options that I received and did not answer - I'm going to dig into those to see if that is something I should fix. There are also some warning from my TCP stack I'd like to look into deeper. Overall, it was a great test. I think the machine is more than capable of handling a multi-user telnet BBS with reasonable responsiveness. I'd like to thank everybody who signed in and poked around. I had connections from New Zealand, the UK, Canada, Brazil, and many points in the US. The oldest machine that connected was a Mac SE - most others seemed to be using Windows or Linux. Mike From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Sat Jun 27 09:52:25 2009 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:52:25 +0200 Subject: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot In-Reply-To: References: <125621AD50AD48A99CE161F95DD3FD98@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" at Jun22, 9 10:38:41 pm Message-ID: <6D91426B53E440D5917B07E5165319C4@xp1800> > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Tony Duell > Verzonden: dinsdag 23 juni 2009 19:36 > Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Onderwerp: Re: How to lose most of an an entire collection in one shot > > > > > > > Right... As I said, I've only been inside the 9000/340 (I have a > > > number of those that I was given, all with high-res video boards, > > > and IIRC, 16M RAM.). Somewhere I have an interface board for an > > > external video box, the different back panel that goes with that, > > > and a little cardcage you can fit to that backpanel that > has a DIO > > > slot). > > > > Is it for the Graphic coprocessor ? > > The interface board (that fits in place of the graphics > board) may well be. Somwehre I have an HP box, the same size > as a 9000/340, which appears to be some kind of grapghics > processor (there's an i860 on one of the boards and lots of > ASICs IIRC). That came with an HP9000/400 series machine, but > it may well (a) not have gone with that one and (b) might > work on the 9000/340 too. > > The DIO slot seems normal. There was a 98625 (high speed HPIB > using the Medusa chip) with it. I assume that went in said DIO slot. > > > > > The interface board contains 1 big pga i/o chip > > > (propriarity hp) but > > > > the rest is TTL and some LSI-chips. > > > > > > Custom LSI, or things I might have heard of? It's not the PGA > > > package I oject to per se, rather it's the fact I can't > get data or > > > replacements for some of the ICs. > > > > One custom LSI I think it's the I/O controller. > > The others are Lance Ethernet Ti HP-IB controller HIL-chip, serial > > controller 1820-3623 and some other standaard interface chips. The > > only one > > Oh that doesn't sound too bad. I don't recognise that serial > chip off the top of my head, but it might be something standard. > > For some inexplicable reason, HP used the 8250 in the > 9000/200 series. A very odd choice given that it's a 68000 machine... > > > that would bother you would be the HP 1TQ4-0401. > > I'll make some pictures this week and put them on flickr so you can > > look at them. > > Thanks... It is done ;-) Url http://www.flickr.com/photos/hp-fix/ > > > Hardware problems are always 'fun' ;-) > > Indeed. Well, as everyone knows by now, my primary interest > is hardware... > > -tony Rik From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jun 27 09:57:49 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 07:57:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: cheap KVM switches In-Reply-To: <6053D25B6B594810932E50ABD941F546@dell8300> from Teo Zenios at "Jun 27, 9 04:00:56 am" Message-ID: <200906271457.n5REvnko019510@floodgap.com> > > They do, but they are slightly unobtanium. It's been awhile since I've > > seen one myself. > > > You mean something like this: Well, I did say *slight* unobtanium. ;-) -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- LOAD"STANDARD DISCLAIMER",8,1 ---------------------------------------------- From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sat Jun 27 10:35:17 2009 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:35:17 +0100 Subject: Trouble with a M7559 TK70 Controller Message-ID: <00c501c9f73c$e3834860$aa89d920$@jarratt@ntlworld.com> Just as I got my MicroVAX II booting, the TK70 controller has started to play up and is no longer working correctly. If I try to boot off the tape I get a CTRLERR, and if I boot VMS from the network and then try to mount a tape I get "%MOUNT-F-DEVOFFLINE, device is not in configuration or not available". It was booting from tape just fine a few days ago. I can see that the controller has two LEDs on it. When I power it up they both come on but then one of them switches off leaving the other one on. The light that stays on is the one on the right when viewing the board flat, looking at the ribbon cable connector, with the component side up. I think this means its self test has failed in some way, but I cannot find a manual anywhere online to tell me. Can anyone tell me what this might mean? Thanks Rob From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sat Jun 27 11:21:48 2009 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:21:48 +0100 Subject: Trouble with a M7559 TK70 Controller In-Reply-To: <00c501c9f73c$e3834860$aa89d920$@jarratt@ntlworld.com> References: <00c501c9f73c$e3834860$aa89d920$@jarratt@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <00ca01c9f743$60737a60$215a6f20$@jarratt@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Robert Jarratt > Sent: 27 June 2009 16:35 > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: Trouble with a M7559 TK70 Controller > > Just as I got my MicroVAX II booting, the TK70 controller has started > to > play up and is no longer working correctly. If I try to boot off the > tape I > get a CTRLERR, and if I boot VMS from the network and then try to mount > a > tape I get "%MOUNT-F-DEVOFFLINE, device is not in configuration or not > available". It was booting from tape just fine a few days ago. I can > see > that the controller has two LEDs on it. When I power it up they both > come on > but then one of them switches off leaving the other one on. The light > that > stays on is the one on the right when viewing the board flat, looking > at the > ribbon cable connector, with the component side up. > > > > I think this means its self test has failed in some way, but I cannot > find a > manual anywhere online to tell me. Can anyone tell me what this might > mean? > > > > Thanks > > > > Rob Never mind. I cleaned the heads and the problem went away. Just a bit surprised that this caused the errors I saw. Regards Rob From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jun 27 11:29:45 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:29:45 -0700 Subject: Digital (music) keyboard with Kaypro computer?! In-Reply-To: <1246099096.1033.50.camel@elric> References: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net> <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> <1a0101c9f681$195b7cd0$7d7b19bb@desktaba> <1246063885.1033.8.camel@elric> <1246099096.1033.50.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A4648F9.8080009@brouhaha.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > I know that the Synclavier workshop manuals were never released because > some part of the CPU design was classified... > If any part of it was actually classified, they wouldn't have been able to sell it to civilians. From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jun 27 11:31:03 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:31:03 -0700 Subject: Unknown Motorola IC "SC 440 00 L" In-Reply-To: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Message-ID: <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> Alexis wrote: > I've had this 40-pin IC for a while now. The only markings on it are > > (Motorola Logo) > SC 440 00 L > 7532 H > > The second one is obviously a date code. The regular Internet searches reveal > nothing. It came off a small board with an MC6810 128-byte RAM. > > Anyone know what it is? > > Motorola used the SC prefix for custom parts. There was no published data. Rarely, SC parts were modified versions of standard parts. From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de Fri Jun 26 02:04:12 2009 From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:04:12 +0200 Subject: SC/MP documents Message-ID: <4A4472EC.3010501@iais.fraunhofer.de> Hi, some weeks ago I sent a query for some old SC/MP documents to this list, and Lars generously offered me these docs for scanning and providing to the community. Now, with a longer delay, these docs are available here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16799273/Scmp-Microprocessor-Application-Handbook and http://www.scribd.com/doc/16797738/Scmp-Programming-and-Assembler-Manual-Feb1976 I think to download them from there as a pdf, you have to register at the site. I uploaded them there as there are some restrictions to provide them through my employer's site, but as I haven't seen them yet in Internet, I used this way to spread them to the interested classiccmp community here. Feel free to get them from there and reissue them in accordance to existing copyright issues. -- Holger From snhirsch at gmail.com Fri Jun 26 06:34:55 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:34:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Looking for a Needham's PB-10 EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <145a01c9f63b$48327720$7d7b19bb@desktaba> References: <667081.3755.qm@web52708.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <0b6501c9f5c5$086ea080$7d7b19bb@desktaba> <145a01c9f63b$48327720$7d7b19bb@desktaba> Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Jun 2009, Alexandre Souza wrote: > For USB, you have even better options. > - Wellon - is a CHEAP programmer from China. I have the VP-280 (48 pin) > and it costed me 100 bucks. Program everything but the older chips (e.g.: It > programs almost any MCS-51 chips, but no 8751/48/49/etc). Tests RAMs, works > with BPROMs (things that most newer programmers don't) and go as low as 2716 > (no 2704/08). There are higher models who program everything, but in the > price range of a way better... > - ...BEEPROG from ELNEC. This is the best programmer I've ever seen. It > programs EVERYTHING. Period. But costs a nice sum of money. If you're lucky > you can find a beeprog (not plus) or a labprog 48+ in ebay. If you find two, > save one for me, it costs around $300 used > - Willem USB - don't have, haven't seen it, but I know that exists and it > is a free design. > > I'm mostly satisfied with my wellon! :o) I would advise staying far away from Advin programmers. The company has utterly worthless tech support, whose _incorrect_ advice on an older unit led to me wasting almost $200! Nothing like knowing your own product line, I say. Very happy with my Andromeda Research unit. Inexpensive to begin with, and they will gladly sell you bare boards and schematics if you want to build the various adapters yourself. -- From les at frii.com Fri Jun 26 13:31:37 2009 From: les at frii.com (les at frii.com) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:31:37 -0600 Subject: Looking for a Needham's PB-10 EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <292a4dfa337ed9d987c4185af23924b3.squirrel@users.frii.com> As I said in the email I sent the original poster, I have at least one of these if he wants to make an offer. The only thing I can do with the PB-10 that I cant do with any other programmer are the Epson memory cards, like a PCMCIA (People Cant Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms) card with an edge connector. Les From paul at pgdeng.co.uk Fri Jun 26 17:00:59 2009 From: paul at pgdeng.co.uk (Paul Drescher) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:00:59 +0100 Subject: Compaq SLT/286 References: f4eb766f05082215145f6e467d@mail.gmail.com Message-ID: <4A45451B.7040109@pgdeng.co.uk> Hi Bill , I have been reading about making a diagnostic disk for my slt 286, to set time and date etc, I am a little confused? the slt 286 has a 1.44mb 3,5 fd and I have downloaded images and unzipped them and saved then to my floppy on my pc, but the compaq refuses to reconise the disk? what is the correct procedere to make a suitable disk for this machine? does it have to be done in dos system? using Teledisk or similar? HELP ! ! regards Paul From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sat Jun 27 11:53:49 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:53:49 -0400 Subject: Digital (music) keyboard with Kaypro computer?! In-Reply-To: <4A4648F9.8080009@brouhaha.com> References: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net> <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> <1a0101c9f681$195b7cd0$7d7b19bb@desktaba> <1246063885.1033.8.camel@elric> <1246099096.1033.50.camel@elric> <4A4648F9.8080009@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: > If any part of it was actually classified, they wouldn't have been able to > sell it to civilians. And who would give Zappa a security clearance anyway. -- Will From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 27 11:54:51 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:54:51 -0400 Subject: Anyone can lend a hand? I need to create a PAL. In-Reply-To: <022401c9f70b$81ed4000$880319bb@desktaba> References: <371D3C83-D304-40B2-ACD5-D0E30056E787@neurotica.com> <4A457E3C.5090100@brouhaha.com> <022401c9f70b$81ed4000$880319bb@desktaba> Message-ID: On Jun 27, 2009, at 12:31 AM, Alexandre Souza wrote: > Dear friends, I'm a bit confused here > > I have a very small logic function I want to integrate into a > PALCE / GAL chip. Can anyone point me to the right direction? What > to read and to download? My programmer supports all the chips I > want to use and JEDEC files. Your best bet is to use PALASM under a DOS emulator. I do this with some frequency and it works great. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 27 12:04:30 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:04:30 +0100 (BST) Subject: Digital (music) keyboard with Kaypro computer?! In-Reply-To: <1246099096.1033.50.camel@elric> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Jun 27, 9 11:38:16 am Message-ID: > I know that the Synclavier workshop manuals were never released because > some part of the CPU design was classified... What's to stop somebody buying a Synclavier, taking it apart and reverse-engineering this so-say classified CPU? It's not that hard to discover all sorts of 'secrets' from working hardware. If it really was classified (in the military sense), I am very suprised it was available for sale to the public. To me, this just sounds like yet another ogus reason not to supply a service manual.... -tony From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 27 12:14:57 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:14:57 +0100 Subject: Digital (music) keyboard with Kaypro computer?! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1246122897.1560.1.camel@elric> On Sat, 2009-06-27 at 18:04 +0100, Tony Duell wrote: > > I know that the Synclavier workshop manuals were never released because > > some part of the CPU design was classified... > > What's to stop somebody buying a Synclavier, taking it apart and Cost. I nearly bought one ten years ago for ?1000, but that would have wiped me out totally. Now you'd be struggling to find one for less than ten times that, at least in the UK. Gordon From pcw at mesanet.com Sat Jun 27 12:04:59 2009 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:04:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Anyone can lend a hand? I need to create a PAL. In-Reply-To: References: <371D3C83-D304-40B2-ACD5-D0E30056E787@neurotica.com> <4A457E3C.5090100@brouhaha.com> <022401c9f70b$81ed4000$880319bb@desktaba> Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote: > Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:54:51 -0400 > From: Dave McGuire > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Cc: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" > Subject: Re: Anyone can lend a hand? I need to create a PAL. > > On Jun 27, 2009, at 12:31 AM, Alexandre Souza wrote: >> Dear friends, I'm a bit confused here >> >> I have a very small logic function I want to integrate into a PALCE / GAL >> chip. Can anyone point me to the right direction? What to read and to >> download? My programmer supports all the chips I want to use and JEDEC >> files. > > Your best bet is to use PALASM under a DOS emulator. I do this with some > frequency and it works great. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL OPAL is another DOS alternative Peter Wallace From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sat Jun 27 12:23:28 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:23:28 -0400 Subject: Digital (music) keyboard with Kaypro computer?! In-Reply-To: <1246122897.1560.1.camel@elric> References: <1246122897.1560.1.camel@elric> Message-ID: > I nearly bought one ten years ago for ?1000, but that would have wiped > me out totally. ?Now you'd be struggling to find one for less than ten > times that, at least in the UK. Even back ten years ago, that was a steal and a half. Synclaviers are still very much in demand, unlike Fairlights. -- Will From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jun 27 12:41:00 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:41:00 +0100 Subject: Digital (music) keyboard with Kaypro computer?! In-Reply-To: References: <1246122897.1560.1.camel@elric> Message-ID: <1246124460.4811.0.camel@elric> On Sat, 2009-06-27 at 13:23 -0400, William Donzelli wrote: > > I nearly bought one ten years ago for ?1000, but that would have wiped > > me out totally. Now you'd be struggling to find one for less than ten > > times that, at least in the UK. > > Even back ten years ago, that was a steal and a half. Synclaviers are > still very much in demand, unlike Fairlights. Yeah. I know that *now*, don't I? Gordon From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jun 27 12:45:25 2009 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:45:25 -0400 Subject: cheap KVM switches References: <200906271457.n5REvnko019510@floodgap.com> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cameron Kaiser" To: Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2009 10:57 AM Subject: Re: cheap KVM switches >> > They do, but they are slightly unobtanium. It's been awhile since I've >> > seen one myself. >> >> >> You mean something like this: > > Well, I did say *slight* unobtanium. ;-) > > -- They got cheap/available years after I finally found one cheap. From brianlanning at gmail.com Sat Jun 27 12:49:42 2009 From: brianlanning at gmail.com (Brian Lanning) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:49:42 -0500 Subject: cheap KVM switches In-Reply-To: <6053D25B6B594810932E50ABD941F546@dell8300> References: <200906270723.n5R7NtLT020044@floodgap.com> <6053D25B6B594810932E50ABD941F546@dell8300> Message-ID: <6dbe3c380906271049q479c706ei8d337dff3e79d32@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 3:00 AM, Teo Zenios wrote: > You mean something like this: Thanks. I snapped one up. I hope it works with the 2gs also. Now I just need 9 more macs to fill up the other ports. lol I need to locate the two cables to go between the box and montor/keyboard now. But I have to shovel mulch now before it rains... brian From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jun 27 12:56:43 2009 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:56:43 -0400 Subject: cheap KVM switches References: <200906270723.n5R7NtLT020044@floodgap.com><6053D25B6B594810932E50ABD941F546@dell8300> <6dbe3c380906271049q479c706ei8d337dff3e79d32@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: IIgs video is different from mac so don't mix those up. You can use S-video cables for adb if you have to, same plug. I think the video cables are just straight pin to pin so you might even be able to build them , or just buy them on ebay. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian Lanning" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2009 1:49 PM Subject: Re: cheap KVM switches > On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 3:00 AM, Teo Zenios wrote: >> You mean something like this: > > Thanks. I snapped one up. I hope it works with the 2gs also. > > Now I just need 9 more macs to fill up the other ports. lol > > I need to locate the two cables to go between the box and > montor/keyboard now. But I have to shovel mulch now before it > rains... > > brian From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jun 27 13:33:47 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:33:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> http://www.macworld.com/article/141364/2009/06/hpcalcapps.html Is this somebody's labor of love? Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? or down the tubes? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 27 13:41:11 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:41:11 +0100 (BST) Subject: Digital (music) keyboard with Kaypro computer?! In-Reply-To: <1246122897.1560.1.camel@elric> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Jun 27, 9 06:14:57 pm Message-ID: > > On Sat, 2009-06-27 at 18:04 +0100, Tony Duell wrote: > > > I know that the Synclavier workshop manuals were never released because > > > some part of the CPU design was classified... > >=20 > > What's to stop somebody buying a Synclavier, taking it apart and=20 > > Cost. > > I nearly bought one ten years ago for =C2=A31000, but that would have wiped > me out totally. Now you'd be struggling to find one for less than ten > times that, at least in the UK. Yes, but if you're talking about discovering classified (military) information, then I don't think cost is a major factor. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 27 13:45:53 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:45:53 +0100 (BST) Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jun 27, 9 11:33:47 am Message-ID: > Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? or down the tubes? IMHO HP _went_ down the tubes over 10 years ago when the test equipment became 'Agilent' (Note, I am not saying that Agilent went down the tubes...) It saddens me that a company who used to be known for making some of the best measuring insturments around are now known for cheap printers and scanners. And that they once made the best pocket calculators, now many of their calculators are just badge-engineered models. -tony From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Sat Jun 27 14:15:39 2009 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:15:39 -0400 Subject: Cromemco Dazzler Kaleidoscope - BUG FOUND In-Reply-To: <4A459331.4050803@comcast.net> Message-ID: Dan Roganti wrote: > I don't understand how you could have an error in your file. > I see you have a change on line 118 [?] > DA > 7A > 30 <--------change [?] > > But from disassembling the papertape file, it should be > 0072: DA 7A 00 JC 0x007A > > since the code is supposed to reside in page 0 of memory. Yes, that is the correction. The RDOS version is relocated to 0x3000. So the RDOS assembler would be: 3072: DA 7A 30 JC 0x307A From slawmaster at gmail.com Sat Jun 27 14:44:32 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:44:32 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: References: <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <7d3530220906271244q2ec20d43j67b4e0a98d0babe7@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 11:45 AM, Tony Duell wrote: >> Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? ?or down the tubes? > > IMHO HP _went_ down the tubes over 10 years ago when the test equipment > became 'Agilent' (Note, I am not saying that Agilent went down the tubes...) > > It saddens me that a company who used to be known for making some of the > best measuring insturments around are now known for cheap printers and > scanners. And that they once made the best pocket calculators, now many > of their calculators are just badge-engineered models. > > -tony > I'm pretty pleased with my HP 50G, although the physical packaging (case design, keys) don't quite hold up to the older calculators. Still, it's quite powerful and has a much better keypad than TI calculators (except for the arrow keys, which are terrible). John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 27 14:56:27 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:56:27 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org>, <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com>, <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A4616FB.22253.7F6744C@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jun 2009 at 11:33, Fred Cisin wrote: > http://www.macworld.com/article/141364/2009/06/hpcalcapps.html > > Is this somebody's labor of love? > Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? or down the > tubes? Feh. My made-in-the-USA 16C is on its second set of batteries since I purchased it sometime around 1983. I wonder if the same claim could be made for an iPhone 25+ years from now? I also note that the 16C is not one of the emulations offered. --Chuck From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Sat Jun 27 15:16:12 2009 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:16:12 +0200 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <4A4616FB.22253.7F6744C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org>, <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com>, <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> <4A4616FB.22253.7F6744C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <84AB2EA183D54F6EB23B57439A86D860@xp1800> > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Chuck Guzis > Verzonden: zaterdag 27 juni 2009 21:56 > Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Onderwerp: Re: HP Calc emulators > > On 27 Jun 2009 at 11:33, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > http://www.macworld.com/article/141364/2009/06/hpcalcapps.html > > > > Is this somebody's labor of love? > > Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? or down the > > tubes? > > Feh. My made-in-the-USA 16C is on its second set of > batteries since I purchased it sometime around 1983. I wonder > if the same claim could be made for an iPhone 25+ years from now? > > I also note that the 16C is not one of the emulations offered. You wouldn't have all those iphone users hunting for a real HP 16C on epay ;-) I'm glad with my HP calculators don't need a iphone for that. The real fun of old calculators is touching them and playing with them, no touchscreen is giving you that fun. > --Chuck > -Rik From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jun 27 15:43:40 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:43:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <4A4616FB.22253.7F6744C@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jun 27, 9 12:56:27 pm" Message-ID: <200906272043.n5RKhecP015384@floodgap.com> > Feh. My made-in-the-USA 16C is on its second set of batteries since > I purchased it sometime around 1983. I wonder if the same claim could > be made for an iPhone 25+ years from now? No, because the battery is not trivially replaceable ;-) Right now, my iPhone 3GS, though I really enjoy it, makes me think of those old Ricochet modems which are essentially useless because the service provider no longer supports them. Come to think of it, my iPhone 8GB and my original iPhone 3G are essentially just iPod Touches now. I probably should jailbreak them. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I use my C128 because I am an ornery, stubborn, retro grouch. -- Bob Masse - From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jun 27 15:46:14 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:46:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: cheap KVM switches In-Reply-To: from Teo Zenios at "Jun 27, 9 01:56:43 pm" Message-ID: <200906272046.n5RKkExg017250@floodgap.com> > You can use S-video cables for adb if you have to, same plug. I think the > video cables are just straight pin to pin so you might even be able to build > them , or just buy them on ebay. They are indeed just straight through. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- All things are possible, except skiing through a revolving door. ----------- From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sat Jun 27 15:49:24 2009 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:49:24 +0100 Subject: Trouble with a M7559 TK70 Controller In-Reply-To: <00ca01c9f743$60737a60$215a6f20$@jarratt@ntlworld.com> References: <00c501c9f73c$e3834860$aa89d920$@jarratt@ntlworld.com> <00ca01c9f743$60737a60$215a6f20$@jarratt@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <00de01c9f768$c29f0270$47dd0750$@jarratt@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Robert Jarratt > Sent: 27 June 2009 17:22 > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: RE: Trouble with a M7559 TK70 Controller > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Robert Jarratt > > Sent: 27 June 2009 16:35 > > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > > Subject: Trouble with a M7559 TK70 Controller > > > > Just as I got my MicroVAX II booting, the TK70 controller has started > > to > > play up and is no longer working correctly. If I try to boot off the > > tape I > > get a CTRLERR, and if I boot VMS from the network and then try to > mount > > a > > tape I get "%MOUNT-F-DEVOFFLINE, device is not in configuration or > not > > available". It was booting from tape just fine a few days ago. I can > > see > > that the controller has two LEDs on it. When I power it up they both > > come on > > but then one of them switches off leaving the other one on. The light > > that > > stays on is the one on the right when viewing the board flat, looking > > at the > > ribbon cable connector, with the component side up. > > > > > > > > I think this means its self test has failed in some way, but I cannot > > find a > > manual anywhere online to tell me. Can anyone tell me what this might > > mean? > > > > > > > > Thanks > > > > > > > > Rob > > Never mind. I cleaned the heads and the problem went away. Just a bit > surprised that this caused the errors I saw. > > Regards > > Rob Still having a few odd problems with this that I have not observed before. If I put a tape in that the TK70 does not "like" this is what happens in VMS: $ mou/over=id mua0 %MOUNT-F-DEVOFFLINE, device is not in configuration or not available And thereafter it happens even with a good tape. Any thoughts on this? Regards Rob From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jun 27 15:56:57 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:56:57 -0300 Subject: HP Calc emulators References: Message-ID: <094d01c9f76a$7e950820$880319bb@desktaba> >> Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? or down the tubes? > IMHO HP _went_ down the tubes over 10 years ago when the test equipment > became 'Agilent' (Note, I am not saying that Agilent went down the > tubes...) > It saddens me that a company who used to be known for making some of the > best measuring insturments around are now known for cheap printers and > scanners. And that they once made the best pocket calculators, now many > of their calculators are just badge-engineered models. Me too?, but at least they are still around... From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jun 27 15:57:30 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:57:30 -0300 Subject: Looking for a Needham's PB-10 EPROM programmer References: <292a4dfa337ed9d987c4185af23924b3.squirrel@users.frii.com> Message-ID: <094e01c9f76a$7fd947f0$880319bb@desktaba> > As I said in the email I sent the original poster, I have at least one of > these if he wants to make an offer. > The only thing I can do with the PB-10 that I cant do with any other > programmer are the Epson memory cards, like a PCMCIA (People Cant Memorize > Computer Industry Acronyms) card with an edge connector. My wellom programmer can do that with a suitable adapter From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 27 16:13:30 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:13:30 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <200906272043.n5RKhecP015384@floodgap.com> References: <4A4616FB.22253.7F6744C@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jun 27, 9 12:56:27 pm", <200906272043.n5RKhecP015384@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4A46290A.21469.83CE15A@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jun 2009 at 13:43, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > No, because the battery is not trivially replaceable ;-) Having graduated to the 16C from the TI "Programmer", one thing that struck me was that the 16C boasts a power consumption of 250 microwatts. Pretty remarkable for an early 80's design. An iPhone drinks what, a couple of watts? --Chuck From lbickley at bickleywest.com Sat Jun 27 16:13:51 2009 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:13:51 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200906271413.51382.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Saturday 27 June 2009, Fred Cisin wrote: > http://www.macworld.com/article/141364/2009/06/hpcalcapps.html > > > Is this somebody's labor of love? > Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? or down the tubes? If you want to see a "labor of love" in HP Calculator simulation, look at Eric Smith's "High-Fidelity Calculator Simulator" goodies at: http://nonpareil.brouhaha.com/ His curent release simulates: HP-35, HP-45, HP-55, HP-80 HP-21, HP-25 HP-31E, HP-33C, HP-34C, HP-37E, HP-38E, HP-38C HP-41CV, HP-41CX BTW: The iPhone HP calulator similations are based on Eric's licensed code. Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jun 27 16:20:43 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:20:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <4A46290A.21469.83CE15A@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jun 27, 9 02:13:30 pm" Message-ID: <200906272120.n5RLKhHg016544@floodgap.com> > > No, because the battery is not trivially replaceable ;-) > > Having graduated to the 16C from the TI "Programmer", one thing that > struck me was that the 16C boasts a power consumption of 250 > microwatts. Pretty remarkable for an early 80's design. That *is* pretty nice. > An iPhone drinks what, a couple of watts? According to this, http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-10115467-233.html the CPU draw is around 180 milliwatts; I don't know if that includes the PowerVR chip. The 3GS probably draws somewhat less due to its more efficient core. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Swirly Photoshop Magic! -- Strong Bad #150 --------------------------------- From rescue at hawkmountain.net Sat Jun 27 17:06:08 2009 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:06:08 -0400 Subject: Sun 3/50 DVMA memory error, and another 3/50 with parity error Message-ID: <4A4697D0.90609@hawkmountain.net> So, I have 2 3/50 boards I'm trying to resurrect. I thought one was good (passed diags with diag switch on). The other I know has a bad ram chip. The one I thought was good... gets (as one example): MEMORY ERROR! STATUS D4, DVMA-BIT 0, Context 0, Vaddr: FFE10C, Paddr: 003FC10C, Type 0 at 0FeF4C88 It gets several of D4, D2, and D1 when it attempts to boot, or if you interact with it at the boot PROM. I did try changing the large socketed (MMU + more) chips from the board with the bad memory chip... same behavior. I have not tried changing CPU, FPU, boot rom, or any PALs. As for the one with the bad ram chip, it fails quickly on power up with: Memory Parity Data Test Err 2: Addr 0x00000400, Exp: 0x00000001, Obs: 0x0080001, Xor: 0x00080000 I've not found any memory map to help me determine which chip this is. 0x00000400 is the 1024th byte of RAM... so I'd suspect the first bank... but which bank that is I don't know. Anyone have a 3/50 memory map so I know which chip to replace ? Or a good technique for figuring that out ? Thanks in advance, -- Curt From spedraja at ono.com Sat Jun 27 17:25:06 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:25:06 +0200 Subject: Altos 586 disks Message-ID: FInally I could extract the information of the Altos 586 disks which I mention some weeks ago. The fact was to convert the IMD files in BINARY images. Then you can access them with the 'tar' command. It works, but... the cobol set which was what I was searching comes only with one disk, but they are TWO. You can note it when decompress the existent disk with 'tar' in the Altos System in raw and noraw mode, and it tell you: "please, insert tape/disk number 2; then type 'y ' " If you 'untar' the tar files in one pc and review the readme files you can see too the fault of some important files as the COBOL compiler itself. The question is: Some opportunity to obtain the lost second COBOL disk ? Thanks Regards Sergio From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jun 27 19:08:07 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:08:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <200906271413.51382.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> <200906271413.51382.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <20090627170609.E73758@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 27 Jun 2009, Lyle Bickley wrote: > If you want to see a "labor of love" in HP Calculator simulation, look > at Eric Smith's "High-Fidelity Calculator Simulator" goodies at: > http://nonpareil.brouhaha.com/ > . . . > HP-31E, HP-33C, HP-34C, HP-37E, HP-38E, HP-38C > HP-41CV, HP-41CX > BTW: The iPhone HP calulator similations are based on Eric's licensed code. OOops! I owe Eric an apology; I didn't even know that he was doing calculator emulations! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 27 19:55:00 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:55:00 -0700 Subject: Altos 586 disks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A465CF4.18127.9083366@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Jun 2009 at 0:25, SPC wrote: > The question is: Some opportunity to obtain the lost second COBOL disk Exactly whose COBOL is this? I might have it. --Chuck From ggs at shiresoft.com Sat Jun 27 20:52:00 2009 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:52:00 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <20090627170609.E73758@shell.lmi.net> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> <200906271413.51382.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <20090627170609.E73758@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <748ACF7A-C2C2-48A6-8804-247918E8E511@shiresoft.com> On Jun 27, 2009, at 5:08 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Sat, 27 Jun 2009, Lyle Bickley wrote: >> If you want to see a "labor of love" in HP Calculator simulation, >> look >> at Eric Smith's "High-Fidelity Calculator Simulator" goodies at: >> http://nonpareil.brouhaha.com/ >> . . . >> HP-31E, HP-33C, HP-34C, HP-37E, HP-38E, HP-38C >> HP-41CV, HP-41CX >> BTW: The iPhone HP calulator similations are based on Eric's >> licensed code. > > OOops! > I owe Eric an apology; I didn't even know that he was doing calculator > emulations! Note: that there are iPhone HP calculators that are based on Eric's code long before HP posted their versions that were referenced in the Macworld article. Rumor has it that HP contacted Eric for his ROM images because they (HP) *lost* all of the bits. What Eric has done is truly phenomenal. He *reverse engineered* the ROM data *and* the CPU instruction set from the actual calculators (according to Eric you can't just read the ROM, you have to execute the instructions). Eric's emulations *are* HP calculators in all but silicon and plastic. They emulate the underlying CPU and run the captured ROM images from the actual calculators. TTFN - Guy From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jun 27 21:10:07 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:10:07 -0400 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <748ACF7A-C2C2-48A6-8804-247918E8E511@shiresoft.com> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> <200906271413.51382.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <20090627170609.E73758@shell.lmi.net> <748ACF7A-C2C2-48A6-8804-247918E8E511@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <9CB095D7-8D1D-46B7-9D27-52E905511C59@neurotica.com> On Jun 27, 2009, at 9:52 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > Note: that there are iPhone HP calculators that are based on Eric's > code long before HP posted their versions that were referenced in > the Macworld article. > > Rumor has it that HP contacted Eric for his ROM images because they > (HP) *lost* all of the bits. > > What Eric has done is truly phenomenal. He *reverse engineered* > the ROM data *and* the CPU instruction set from the actual > calculators (according to Eric you can't just read the ROM, you > have to execute the instructions). Eric's emulations *are* HP > calculators in all but silicon and plastic. They emulate the > underlying CPU and run the captured ROM images from the actual > calculators. This is nothing short of *awesome*. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 27 21:59:55 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:59:55 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <9CB095D7-8D1D-46B7-9D27-52E905511C59@neurotica.com> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org>, <748ACF7A-C2C2-48A6-8804-247918E8E511@shiresoft.com>, <9CB095D7-8D1D-46B7-9D27-52E905511C59@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4A467A3B.12711.97AD97F@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jun 2009 at 22:10, Dave McGuire wrote: > This is nothing short of *awesome*. I liked the one about reading the HP-35 ROM optically: http://www.pmonta.com/calculators/hp-35/ --Chuck From schoedel at kw.igs.net Sat Jun 27 22:07:13 2009 From: schoedel at kw.igs.net (Kevin Schoedel) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:07:13 -0400 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <748ACF7A-C2C2-48A6-8804-247918E8E511@shiresoft.com> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> <200906271413.51382.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <20090627170609.E73758@shell.lmi.net> <748ACF7A-C2C2-48A6-8804-247918E8E511@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: At 6:52 pm -0700 2009/06/27, Guy Sotomayor wrote: >What Eric has done is truly phenomenal. He *reverse engineered* the >ROM data *and* the CPU instruction set from the actual calculators >(according to Eric you can't just read the ROM, you have to execute >the instructions). Eric's emulations *are* HP calculators in all but >silicon and plastic. In the case of the 12C, they're the silicon and plastic too. The current incarnation runs on Eric's emulator on an ARM. -- Kevin Schoedel VA3TCS From ploopster at gmail.com Sat Jun 27 22:12:09 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:12:09 -0400 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A46DF89.7080909@gmail.com> Fred Cisin wrote: > http://www.macworld.com/article/141364/2009/06/hpcalcapps.html > > > Is this somebody's labor of love? > Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? or down the tubes? I wish they would come out with versions for the Palm Pre. I also would prefer the HP-16c over the 12c or 15c. Peace... Sridhar From ggs at shiresoft.com Sat Jun 27 22:38:05 2009 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:38:05 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <4A46DF89.7080909@gmail.com> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> <4A46DF89.7080909@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 27, 2009, at 8:12 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Fred Cisin wrote: >> http://www.macworld.com/article/141364/2009/06/hpcalcapps.html >> Is this somebody's labor of love? >> Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? or down the >> tubes? > > I wish they would come out with versions for the Palm Pre. I also > would prefer the HP-16c over the 12c or 15c. There's a 16c (based on Eric's work) for the iPhone - it works well. :-) TTFN - Guy From ploopster at gmail.com Sat Jun 27 23:56:08 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:56:08 -0400 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> <4A46DF89.7080909@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A46F7E8.2020307@gmail.com> Guy Sotomayor wrote: > > On Jun 27, 2009, at 8:12 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > >> Fred Cisin wrote: >>> http://www.macworld.com/article/141364/2009/06/hpcalcapps.html >>> Is this somebody's labor of love? >>> Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? or down the tubes? >> >> I wish they would come out with versions for the Palm Pre. I also >> would prefer the HP-16c over the 12c or 15c. > > There's a 16c (based on Eric's work) for the iPhone - it works well. :-) Got a link? I only saw the 15c in there. Peace... Sridhar From IanK at vulcan.com Sat Jun 27 23:58:12 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:58:12 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <84AB2EA183D54F6EB23B57439A86D860@xp1800> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org>, <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com>, <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> <4A4616FB.22253.7F6744C@cclist.sydex.com>, <84AB2EA183D54F6EB23B57439A86D860@xp1800> Message-ID: I bought my HP48SX for two reasons. One was that I needed the sort of computation it could provide (e.g. matrix calculations) in a small unit with a clean user interface. The other was that it was the last model (as far as I could tell) that had the correct color for its buttons and logos. :-) I used TI programmables back in the late 70s because they were more affordable, but always lusted after the HPs. I completely agree that there is a visceral pleasure in holding and using an original-series HP programmable calculator. It demonstrates that while a general purpose computer is not simply a souped-up calculator, a souped-up calculator has significant value. Even today. I'm going to go get my SX and do some calculations... because I can. -- Ian ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rik Bos [hp-fix at xs4all.nl] Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2009 1:16 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: HP Calc emulators > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Chuck Guzis > Verzonden: zaterdag 27 juni 2009 21:56 > Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Onderwerp: Re: HP Calc emulators > > On 27 Jun 2009 at 11:33, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > http://www.macworld.com/article/141364/2009/06/hpcalcapps.html > > > > Is this somebody's labor of love? > > Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? or down the > > tubes? > > Feh. My made-in-the-USA 16C is on its second set of > batteries since I purchased it sometime around 1983. I wonder > if the same claim could be made for an iPhone 25+ years from now? > > I also note that the 16C is not one of the emulations offered. You wouldn't have all those iphone users hunting for a real HP 16C on epay ;-) I'm glad with my HP calculators don't need a iphone for that. The real fun of old calculators is touching them and playing with them, no touchscreen is giving you that fun. > --Chuck > -Rik From ggs at shiresoft.com Sun Jun 28 00:07:12 2009 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:07:12 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <4A46F7E8.2020307@gmail.com> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> <4A46DF89.7080909@gmail.com> <4A46F7E8.2020307@gmail.com> Message-ID: Go into iTunes and search for 16c calculator. It'll show up as prg16c. TTFN - Guy On Jun 27, 2009, at 9:56 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Guy Sotomayor wrote: >> On Jun 27, 2009, at 8:12 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> Fred Cisin wrote: >>>> http://www.macworld.com/article/141364/2009/06/hpcalcapps.html >>>> Is this somebody's labor of love? >>>> Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? or down the >>>> tubes? >>> >>> I wish they would come out with versions for the Palm Pre. I also >>> would prefer the HP-16c over the 12c or 15c. >> There's a 16c (based on Eric's work) for the iPhone - it works >> well. :-) > > Got a link? I only saw the 15c in there. > > Peace... Sridhar > From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 28 00:07:38 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:07:38 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <4A46F7E8.2020307@gmail.com> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org>, , <4A46F7E8.2020307@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A46982A.18446.9EF3269@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Jun 2009 at 0:56, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Got a link? I only saw the 15c in there. http://code.google.com/p/hpcalc-iphone/ --Chuck From snhirsch at gmail.com Sat Jun 27 11:56:05 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:56:05 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Digital (music) keyboard with Kaypro computer?! In-Reply-To: <4A4648F9.8080009@brouhaha.com> References: <4A44E6C1.2090606@verizon.net> <4A448935.1277.1E46BD7@cclist.sydex.com> <1a0101c9f681$195b7cd0$7d7b19bb@desktaba> <1246063885.1033.8.camel@elric> <1246099096.1033.50.camel@elric> <4A4648F9.8080009@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Jun 2009, Eric Smith wrote: > Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> I know that the Synclavier workshop manuals were never released because >> some part of the CPU design was classified... >> > If any part of it was actually classified, they wouldn't have been able to > sell it to civilians. This statement about the ABEL minicomputer (bit-slice design that underlay the Synclavier) persists in on-line wisdom. It never made any sense to me either. I knew many folks that worked at New England Digital and it would be stretch to believe that any had classified clearances. -- From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jun 28 01:03:45 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:03:45 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4A4707C1.8060904@brouhaha.com> Fred Cisin wrote: > http://www.macworld.com/article/141364/2009/06/hpcalcapps.html > > Is this somebody's labor of love? > Or is HP on its way to becoming a software company? or down the tubes? > They were developed by HP. I wasn't directly involved, though I did offer them a small amount of technical information to help them write their own simulator for the original 12C hardware to run on their latest hardware which is based on an Atmel AT91SAM7L128 microprocessor (ARM 7 core). I am rather surprised that they have decided to sell these as iPhone applications. I'm the coauthor of the SCI-11C, FIN-12C, SCI-15C, and PRG-16C iPhone applications sold by Thomas Fors LLC, and the i41CX and i41CX+ iPhone applications sold by AL Software. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jun 28 01:07:26 2009 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:07:26 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <4A4616FB.22253.7F6744C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org>, <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com>, <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> <4A4616FB.22253.7F6744C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A47089E.5040301@brouhaha.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I also note that the 16C is not one of the emulations offered. > It's not from HP, but I'm the coauthor of the PRG-16C simulator sold by Thomas Fors LLC. IMNSHO, our applications are better than the HP ones anyhow, with two exceptions: 1) Ours don't come with an online user manual 2) Ours currently only work in landscape orientation (HP's 12C and 15C iPhone apps offer a reduced-functionality portrait mode). Eric From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Jun 28 01:47:18 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:47:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: TRS-80 documentation Message-ID: I distinctly remember sending PDFs of the users and service manual of the TRS-80 PT-210 terminal to someone who hosts a website of documentation. I forget who that was and Google isn't helping me. So, who has an archive of Tandy docs? -- 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? From spedraja at ono.com Sun Jun 28 01:58:51 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:58:51 +0200 Subject: Altos 586 disks In-Reply-To: <4A465CF4.18127.9083366@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4A465CF4.18127.9083366@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: It is Microsoft Cobol. I can send one of the readme files which indicates the files of the distribution Regards Sergio 2009/6/28 Chuck Guzis > On 28 Jun 2009 at 0:25, SPC wrote: > > > The question is: Some opportunity to obtain the lost second COBOL disk > > Exactly whose COBOL is this? I might have it. > > --Chuck > > From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Sun Jun 28 02:33:34 2009 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:33:34 -0700 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org>, <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com>, <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> <4A4616FB.22253.7F6744C@cclist.sydex.com>, <84AB2EA183D54F6EB23B57439A86D860@xp1800> Message-ID: <4A471CCE.70708@mail.msu.edu> Ian King wrote: > I bought my HP48SX for two reasons. One was that I needed the sort of computation it could provide (e.g. matrix calculations) in a small unit with a clean user interface. The other was that it was the last model (as far as I could tell) that had the correct color for its buttons and logos. :-) I used TI programmables back in the late 70s because they were more affordable, but always lusted after the HPs. > > I completely agree that there is a visceral pleasure in holding and using an original-series HP programmable calculator. It demonstrates that while a general purpose computer is not simply a souped-up calculator, a souped-up calculator has significant value. Even today. > > I'm going to go get my SX and do some calculations... because I can. -- Ian > I got a 48GX for my 15th birthday and used the hell out of it through college. (The color scheme's not as nice as the SX, I'll agree.) I'd still use it today, but the LCD screen has started "leaking" -- there's a neat blotchy pattern on the screen now which unfortunately makes the screen rather hard to read. Probably not much I can do to fix it other than find a replacement calc... (unless someone knows where to find replacement LCDs...) Picked up a 50G a couple years back and I like it... the keys aren't quite as nice (and I really miss the big ENTER key) but the screen is much nicer (better contrast & slightly better resolution) and it's considerably faster. It's too bad HP basically gave up the calculator market to TI, there's been no interesting innovations in the graphing calculator market since the TI-92 came out in 1996 or so... but maybe there wasn't much more to do there before they became general-purpose computers. The 48 still feels nicer in my hand. Those things were built like tanks. Most of the weight of the 50G is in the batteries :). The iPhone HP calc emulations are neat, but I can't imagine using one (or any other touch-based calc) for any length of time unless I had nothing else on hand. The lack of tactile feedback is a big turn-off for me. Josh From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 28 02:38:02 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:38:02 -0700 Subject: TRS-80 documentation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A46BB6A.32611.A78F11B@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jun 2009 at 23:47, David Griffith wrote: > > I distinctly remember sending PDFs of the users and service manual of > the TRS-80 PT-210 terminal to someone who hosts a website of > documentation. I forget who that was and Google isn't helping me. > So, who has an archive of Tandy docs? If it isn't Ira Goldklang, he would certainly know who it might be... http://www.trs-80.com/ Cheers, Chuck From ian_primus at yahoo.com Sun Jun 28 06:19:46 2009 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:19:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: TRS-80 documentation Message-ID: <564460.41124.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- On Sun, 6/28/09, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > I distinctly remember sending PDFs of the users and > service manual of > > the TRS-80 PT-210 terminal to someone who hosts a > website of > > documentation.? I forget who that was and Google > isn't helping me. > > So, who has an archive of Tandy docs? > > If it isn't Ira Goldklang, he would certainly know who it > might be... > > http://www.trs-80.com/ Yeah, but Ira doesn't actually have any documentation on his website. He's got pictures of the covers though. Must have been somebody else. -Ian From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Jun 28 06:58:58 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:58:58 -0300 Subject: HP Calc emulators References: <200906272043.n5RKhecP015384@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <0d0001c9f7e7$db3ffe40$880319bb@desktaba> > Come to think of it, my iPhone 8GB and my original iPhone 3G are > essentially > just iPod Touches now. I probably should jailbreak them. Why? They are widely used here in Brazil! ;oO If you're throwing then away, I can send a trashcan for you :) From mardy at voysys.com Sun Jun 28 07:08:12 2009 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:08:12 -0400 Subject: Zax ICD-378 Z80 In-circuit Emulator Documentation Message-ID: <21376C75-F6F5-4E8D-ABCA-147AA6DBDB43@voysys.com> Does anyone have a copy of the documentation for a Zax ICD-378 Z80 emulator? Thanks, -Mardy From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Jun 28 07:01:04 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 09:01:04 -0300 Subject: HP Calc emulators References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org><4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net><200906271413.51382.lbickley@bickleywest.com><20090627170609.E73758@shell.lmi.net><748ACF7A-C2C2-48A6-8804-247918E8E511@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <0d5a01c9f7e9$599f9100$880319bb@desktaba> > In the case of the 12C, they're the silicon and plastic too. The current > incarnation runs on Eric's emulator on an ARM. Lemmesee if I understood that: The HP12C I buy nowadays is an arm core running Eric's emulation?! From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jun 28 07:59:08 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 05:59:08 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <0d5a01c9f7e9$599f9100$880319bb@desktaba> from Alexandre Souza at "Jun 28, 9 09:01:04 am" Message-ID: <200906281259.n5SCx88c012528@floodgap.com> > > In the case of the 12C, they're the silicon and plastic too. The current > > incarnation runs on Eric's emulator on an ARM. > > Lemmesee if I understood that: The HP12C I buy nowadays is an arm core > running Eric's emulation?! I am impressed with Eric's ingenuity and depressed at HP's gauchness. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. -- Napoleon Bonaparte --------- From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jun 28 08:00:10 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 06:00:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <0d0001c9f7e7$db3ffe40$880319bb@desktaba> from Alexandre Souza at "Jun 28, 9 08:58:58 am" Message-ID: <200906281300.n5SD0AQm013392@floodgap.com> > > Come to think of it, my iPhone 8GB and my original iPhone 3G are > > essentially just iPod Touches now. I probably should jailbreak them. > > Why? They are widely used here in Brazil! ;oO If you're throwing then > away, I can send a trashcan for you :) No, no, jailbreak as in crack them and install something else. I've been watching the iPhone Linux project with interest. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Of course, what I really want is total world domination. -- Linus Torvalds - From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jun 28 08:04:19 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 06:04:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <4A471CCE.70708@mail.msu.edu> from Josh Dersch at "Jun 28, 9 00:33:34 am" Message-ID: <200906281304.n5SD4JBa011024@floodgap.com> > The iPhone HP calc emulations are neat, but I can't imagine using one > (or any other touch-based calc) for any length of time unless I had > nothing else on hand. The lack of tactile feedback is a big turn-off > for me. A friend of mine was cleaning out his closet a few years ago and tossed me his old HP-15C. It's a fun unit. I probably don't exercise it nearly enough but hearing that the current HPs are not what they used to be makes me want to keep it in better shape now. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- When relatives are outlawed, only outlaws will have inlaws. ---------------- From spedraja at ono.com Sun Jun 28 08:52:33 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:52:33 +0200 Subject: Altos Worknet and Altos 486 PSU Message-ID: Hello. Some questions for everyone which could help me: * I'm searching for one Altos 486 PSU and Hard Disk * Someone worked with Altos Worknet ? * Is this available in some form in the actual simulators as AltairZ80 and so ? Regards Sergio From jdr_use at bluewin.ch Sun Jun 28 09:46:40 2009 From: jdr_use at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:46:40 +0200 Subject: HP32-II repair Message-ID: <4A478250.6050400@bluewin.ch> Since we are talking HP calcs : Am i right in believing that an HP-32 II with broken LCD screen is beyond repair ? At the moment I would not even know how to open it.... Jos From robert at irrelevant.com Sun Jun 28 11:27:47 2009 From: robert at irrelevant.com (Rob) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:27:47 +0100 Subject: FTGH: DEC TS30G (UK) Message-ID: <2f806cd70906280927i6b7df872p6b2e6147615827e8@mail.gmail.com> Hi All. I'm set to no-mail, due to the volume of mail I was getting from the list, and severe lack of time. Please cc any list-aimed replies to me.. I'm currently clearing out, and have unearthed an old Digital TS30G laptop which up to now I had competely forgotten about. It's of no use to me, but, being DEC, I thought might be of slightly more interest to someone than the normal run of the mill machines.. Any UK collectors about? It's got a PSU with it, and no less than two docking stations. (handy, as they include ethernet interfaces not available on the laptop itself.) I've not tested it, but I seem to recall there was a fault last time it was used,with the screen going completely white. If anybody wants it, it's free to the first sensible reply from somebody who can collect it (Nr Manchester, England) or I might be persuaded to ship it, at cost, if someone is suitably desperate... regards Rob O'Donnell. From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Sun Jun 28 12:20:21 2009 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:20:21 +0200 Subject: HP32-II repair In-Reply-To: <4A478250.6050400@bluewin.ch> References: <4A478250.6050400@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <1E39EA1538334F1D815A74E094C74777@xp1800> Jos, It's not beyond repair, if you have a spare LCD. Opening is a careful business, but if you remove the small posts at the battery compartment (the melted circles). And then prie carefull with a knive to get the two halves separated so you can open the calculator. After that it's rather easy to remove the LCD. If you search on the www.hpmuseum.org site (HP calculators)you can find several articles about opening the HP 32S and SII. -Rik > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Jos Dreesen > Verzonden: zondag 28 juni 2009 16:47 > Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Onderwerp: HP32-II repair > > Since we are talking HP calcs : > > Am i right in believing that an HP-32 II with broken LCD > screen is beyond repair ? > > At the moment I would not even know how to open it.... > > Jos > > From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Sun Jun 28 12:22:59 2009 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:22:59 +0200 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <0d5a01c9f7e9$599f9100$880319bb@desktaba> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org><4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net><200906271413.51382.lbickley@bickleywest.com><20090627170609.E73758@shell.lmi.net><748ACF7A-C2C2-48A6-8804-247918E8E511@shiresoft.com> <0d5a01c9f7e9$599f9100$880319bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <26436815286A4EC2B6A0615E6FA158FC@xp1800> The first versions ran on a saturn processor the same as the HP-71B. The HP-12 is the only Voyager witch survived the 90th ;-) -Rik > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Alexandre Souza > Verzonden: zondag 28 juni 2009 14:01 > Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only > Onderwerp: Re: HP Calc emulators > > > In the case of the 12C, they're the silicon and plastic too. The > > current incarnation runs on Eric's emulator on an ARM. > > Lemmesee if I understood that: The HP12C I buy nowadays > is an arm core running Eric's emulation?! > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 28 13:09:34 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:09:34 +0100 (BST) Subject: HP32-II repair In-Reply-To: <4A478250.6050400@bluewin.ch> from "Jos Dreesen" at Jun 28, 9 04:46:40 pm Message-ID: > > Since we are talking HP calcs : > > Am i right in believing that an HP-32 II with broken LCD screen is beyond repair ? Officially yes. All HPs after (and including) the clamshell models (18C, 28C, etc) are non-repairale. The cases are heat-staked together. OF course what's officially possible, and what enthusiasts get up to are 2 completely different things :-). The Clamshell models are probaly the worst to work on (gettign them to stay reassembled is a pain), but others can be done fairly easily. > At the moment I would not even know how to open it.... There are 4 heatstakes in the battery compartment, 4 under the metal trim on the keyboard. The former are easy to deal with (cut off the tops using a 3.5mm twist drill bit held in your fingers). Some people then 'rip' the machine apart, I am always worried that will damage the keyboard, so I carefully peel off the metal overlay (use a long thin rod under the overlay between each row of keys) and then drill out those heatstakes too. Removeing the PCB is then easy... Bu the only place you'll get a replacement LCD from is another 32S-II, and in my expeirence, cracked LCD glass is by far the most common failure. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 28 13:13:18 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:13:18 +0100 (BST) Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <26436815286A4EC2B6A0615E6FA158FC@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" at Jun 28, 9 07:22:59 pm Message-ID: > > The first versions ran on a saturn processor the same as the HP-71B. The orignal Voyagers (11C, 12C, etc) used a _NUT_ processor, similar to the one in an HP41. According to the datasheet there are differences mostly relating to the different battery voltage. Original 11Cs and 12Cs contained 2 chips. The smaller one is the Nut CPU. The larage one is the ROM/RAM/Display Driver, always known as 'R2D2'. 16Cs are much the same, the 15C has a thrid chip which is extra memory. Rik, I looked at your photos... It looks like some 9000/300 machines are going to be of interest to me. Darn, something else to look for :-). And I love your vehicle :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 28 13:19:03 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:19:03 +0100 (BST) Subject: Another mystery IC Message-ID: I have another mystery IC in a hard disk. This one seems to be made by Analog Devices and is some kind of compaartor/filter. Basically the read signals comes from the HDA (there's a preamp in there I am pretty sure), through a couple of amplifier ICs (MC1350 and TL592) and then goes to this device. Here's what I know about it : -- 14 pin ceramic DIL package -- Analog Devices Logo, HP 1820-5489 house-code -- Inputs (from the amplfier chain) on pins 4 and 13 Inductors between 3 and 2 and 1 and 14 (2 inductors), there may well be other components connected there, some kind of filter +5V on pins 12 and 6 (one may be an enable or something) Ground on pin 5 Does that ring any bells with anyone? -tony From spedraja at ono.com Sun Jun 28 14:57:55 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:57:55 +0200 Subject: MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Xenix Personal Computers Message-ID: Well, finally came the time to install one find from over a couple of years ago: Five floppies with the MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Personal Computers running Xenix 286. I plan to install it in the Altos 586. The software don't have special indications about the SCO Xenix or so. The worst that could happen is that it don't work. But I plan to do some disk images of the floppies previously with Imagedisk. The Xenix default for installation is /dev/fd048ds9 Some conseils ? By the way, no problem to make them available in one of the well known repositories of people in this list. I don't have actually web site and storage for them. I suppose that the prosecution of this copy is not the main objective of BG or SB from MS actually having in mind how is raining in the world at date. In fact, if BG is suscribed to this list (who knows, with the tribe of spammers out of the walls which try to enter in the Fort everyday) I have no problem to send him a copy... I would be VERY surprised if even MS could have a copy of this stuff. Regards Sergio From david_comley at yahoo.com Sun Jun 28 15:12:47 2009 From: david_comley at yahoo.com (David Comley) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:12:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PDP-11/23 H786 PSU Fault Finding Message-ID: <742129.56696.qm@web30606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Can anyone offer any guidance on an 11/23 switchmode power supply I'm attempting to repair ? It failed in use and started blowing fuses. I diagnosed a failed bridge rectifier in the primary side and replaced it. That resolved the problem with the fuses blowing. However, when I monitor the +12V line, I can see it peak around +11.5V on power up and then it slowly sags (off-load), all the way down to +4.5V over a period of a few minutes. With a small dummy load connected the 12V line drops down to 4.5V in a matter of less than a second. I can see why it stops at 4.5V; there's a diode, normally reverse biased when the voltages are correct, that's connected between +12 and +5. The +5V line is rock solid at 5.1V. The power supply has a single pair of transistors driving the primary side of T2, and +5 works so I am inclined to think that the problem is somewhere on the secondary side. I pulled the pass transistor (Q3) for the 12V line and checked it with the Huntron Tracker; it appears to be serviceable. The schematic for this is on p75 of http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/qbus/MP00740_1123_schem_Oct81.pdf. Is there a common cause for 'sag' in output voltages in switchmode supplies ? I am wondering if this is regulation issue or a problem with drive to the pass transistor ? Thanks, -Dave From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jun 28 15:34:15 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:34:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <4A4707C1.8060904@brouhaha.com> References: <200906272132.10016.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4A464947.8080203@brouhaha.com> <20090627113219.W64498@shell.lmi.net> <4A4707C1.8060904@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <20090628132848.L939@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 27 Jun 2009, Eric Smith wrote: > They were developed by HP. I wasn't directly involved, though I did > offer them a small amount of technical information to help them write > their own simulator for the original 12C hardware to run on their latest > hardware which is based on an Atmel AT91SAM7L128 microprocessor (ARM 7 > core). > I am rather surprised that they have decided to sell these as iPhone > applications. > I'm the coauthor of the SCI-11C, FIN-12C, SCI-15C, and PRG-16C iPhone > applications sold by Thomas Fors LLC, and the i41CX and i41CX+ iPhone > applications sold by AL Software. WOW! I didn't know that part of what you had been up to! I still can't comfortably use an iPhone (it needs modifications for HAC), but the possibilities of porting 16c to Palm OS (Fossil/Abacus!) might someday mean that I can retire my CFX400s. From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Sun Jun 28 15:37:39 2009 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:37:39 +0200 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: References: <26436815286A4EC2B6A0615E6FA158FC@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" at Jun28, 9 07:22:59 pm Message-ID: <6A9EBEB28A45471E96C7397FDE6DFD72@xp1800> Oops, too fast me and my big mouth ;-) > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Tony Duell > Verzonden: zondag 28 juni 2009 20:13 > Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Onderwerp: Re: HP Calc emulators > > > > > The first versions ran on a saturn processor the same as the HP-71B. > > The orignal Voyagers (11C, 12C, etc) used a _NUT_ processor, > similar to the one in an HP41. According to the datasheet > there are differences mostly relating to the different > battery voltage. > > Original 11Cs and 12Cs contained 2 chips. The smaller one is > the Nut CPU. > The larage one is the ROM/RAM/Display Driver, always known as 'R2D2'. > 16Cs are much the same, the 15C has a thrid chip which is > extra memory. I found this from Eric Smith: http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/hpcalc/chips/ > > Rik, I looked at your photos... It looks like some 9000/300 > machines are going to be of interest to me. Darn, something > else to look for :-). And I love your vehicle :-) Told you, the 300 series (some) are fun too ;-) The DS is going to the painter half of august. After that there will be more pictures. > -tony > -Rik From spedraja at ono.com Sun Jun 28 16:30:19 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:30:19 +0200 Subject: MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Xenix Personal Computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Nah... Absolutely unreadable. In fact, I NOW got a problem with the 5.25 floppy unit. At least the manuals are complete. If someone obtains one copy of the MS Basic stuff for Xenix it would be welcome. Regards Sergio 2009/6/28 SPC > Well, finally came the time to install one find from over a couple of years > ago: Five floppies with the MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Personal > Computers running Xenix 286. > > I plan to install it in the Altos 586. The software don't have special > indications about the SCO Xenix or so. The worst that could happen is that > it don't work. > > But I plan to do some disk images of the floppies previously with > Imagedisk. The Xenix default for installation is /dev/fd048ds9 > > Some conseils ? > > By the way, no problem to make them available in one of the well known > repositories of people in this list. I don't have actually web site and > storage for them. I suppose that the prosecution of this copy is not the > main objective of BG or SB from MS actually having in mind how is raining in > the world at date. > > In fact, if BG is suscribed to this list (who knows, with the tribe of > spammers out of the walls which try to enter in the Fort everyday) I have no > problem to send him a copy... I would be VERY surprised if even MS could > have a copy of this stuff. > > Regards > Sergio > > From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 28 16:58:18 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:58:18 -0400 Subject: MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Xenix Personal Computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jun 28, 2009, at 3:57 PM, SPC wrote: > Well, finally came the time to install one find from over a couple > of years > ago: Five floppies with the MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for > Personal > Computers running Xenix 286. > > I plan to install it in the Altos 586. The software don't have special > indications about the SCO Xenix or so. The worst that could happen > is that > it don't work. > > But I plan to do some disk images of the floppies previously with > Imagedisk. > The Xenix default for installation is /dev/fd048ds9 Wow...if you can read these disks, I would LOVE to have copies of those. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jun 28 17:07:10 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:07:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <26436815286A4EC2B6A0615E6FA158FC@xp1800> from Rik Bos at "Jun 28, 9 07:22:59 pm" Message-ID: <200906282207.n5SM7AVW014484@floodgap.com> > The first versions ran on a saturn processor the same as the HP-71B. > The HP-12 is the only Voyager witch survived the 90th ;-) I note with interest on http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/hpcalc/voyager/variants.html that the 12C Platinum has a 6502-compatible core. That alone makes me want to find one. Is this currently sold Platinum the same thing? http://www.amazon.com/Hewlett-Packard-113394-12C-Platinum-Calculator/dp/B00009WNV9 -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- If ignorance is bliss, shouldn't I be happier? ----------------------------- From spedraja at ono.com Sun Jun 28 17:15:54 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:15:54 +0200 Subject: MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Xenix Personal Computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At this stage almost impossible. I shall do a cleaning of the diskette drive tomorrow and we'll see. But I'm not optimistic. Sergio 2009/6/28 Dave McGuire > On Jun 28, 2009, at 3:57 PM, SPC wrote: > >> Well, finally came the time to install one find from over a couple of >> years >> ago: Five floppies with the MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Personal >> Computers running Xenix 286. >> >> I plan to install it in the Altos 586. The software don't have special >> indications about the SCO Xenix or so. The worst that could happen is that >> it don't work. >> >> But I plan to do some disk images of the floppies previously with >> Imagedisk. >> The Xenix default for installation is /dev/fd048ds9 >> > > Wow...if you can read these disks, I would LOVE to have copies of those. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jun 28 18:11:03 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:11:03 -0400 Subject: MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Xenix Personal Computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49060D6C-6DC6-4185-B915-4FD567E42832@neurotica.com> This is unfortunate. I will keep my fingers crossed. -Dave On Jun 28, 2009, at 6:15 PM, SPC wrote: > At this stage almost impossible. I shall do a cleaning of the > diskette drive > tomorrow and we'll see. > > But I'm not optimistic. > > Sergio > > 2009/6/28 Dave McGuire > >> On Jun 28, 2009, at 3:57 PM, SPC wrote: >> >>> Well, finally came the time to install one find from over a >>> couple of >>> years >>> ago: Five floppies with the MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for >>> Personal >>> Computers running Xenix 286. >>> >>> I plan to install it in the Altos 586. The software don't have >>> special >>> indications about the SCO Xenix or so. The worst that could >>> happen is that >>> it don't work. >>> >>> But I plan to do some disk images of the floppies previously with >>> Imagedisk. >>> The Xenix default for installation is /dev/fd048ds9 >>> >> >> Wow...if you can read these disks, I would LOVE to have copies of >> those. >> >> -Dave >> >> -- >> Dave McGuire >> Port Charlotte, FL >> >> -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Sun Jun 28 18:31:29 2009 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:31:29 -0700 Subject: Another mystery IC References: Message-ID: <000801c9f848$908d4180$0201a8c0@hal9000> Tony, I believe it is an AD891D Rigid Disk Data Channel Qualifier !! The datasheet ( PDF ) is 491K if you want me to send it to you. Best regards, Steven > I have another mystery IC in a hard disk. This one seems to be made by > Analog Devices and is some kind of compaartor/filter. > > Basically the read signals comes from the HDA (there's a preamp in there > I am pretty sure), through a couple of amplifier ICs (MC1350 and TL592) > and then goes to this device. > > Here's what I know about it : > > -- 14 pin ceramic DIL package > -- Analog Devices Logo, HP 1820-5489 house-code > -- Inputs (from the amplfier chain) on pins 4 and 13 > Inductors between 3 and 2 and 1 and 14 (2 inductors), there may well > be other components connected there, some kind of filter > +5V on pins 12 and 6 (one may be an enable or something) > Ground on pin 5 > > Does that ring any bells with anyone? > > -tony From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Jun 28 19:23:18 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:23:18 -0300 Subject: 1541 drive emulators References: <26436815286A4EC2B6A0615E6FA158FC@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" at Jun28, 9 07:22:59 pm <6A9EBEB28A45471E96C7397FDE6DFD72@xp1800> Message-ID: <124101c9f850$eb2a9b80$880319bb@desktaba> Dear friends, A friend of mine got a C128 and I want to make a drive emulator for him. I wasn't able to find anything suitable (e.g.: Runs in windows or linux, preferable windows, has schematics avaiable, free) in google. Anyone can help? :o) Thanks Alexandre From slawmaster at gmail.com Sun Jun 28 22:38:47 2009 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:38:47 -0700 Subject: Anyone got a 386/486 in the SF area? Message-ID: <7d3530220906282038o7c049c09q7406f3289d0ab0e2@mail.gmail.com> Lately I've been fiddling around with old Unix versions and I'm finding that things don't work perfectly on QEMU. I'd really like to find a 386 or 486 around the SF bay area to work with... if anybody has a spare lying around, drop me a line. I'd especially like to find one made for running UNIX but that's probably less easy. Also if anyone has a 3B2 that's cluttering up the garage I'd be happy to take that off your hands ;) John -- "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C, Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Jun 28 23:27:58 2009 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:27:58 -0700 Subject: 1541 drive emulators In-Reply-To: <124101c9f850$eb2a9b80$880319bb@desktaba> References: <26436815286A4EC2B6A0615E6FA158FC@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" at Jun28, 9 07:22:59 pm <6A9EBEB28A45471E96C7397FDE6DFD72@xp1800> <124101c9f850$eb2a9b80$880319bb@desktaba> Message-ID: At 9:23 PM -0300 6/28/09, Alexandre Souza wrote: > A friend of mine got a C128 and I want to make a drive emulator >for him. I wasn't able to find anything suitable (e.g.: Runs in >windows or linux, preferable windows, has schematics avaiable, free) >in google. Anyone can help? :o) Are you looking for hardware or software? I really like Jim Brain's uIEC, and it's fairly inexpensive. Hands down the single best piece of hardware I've ever purchased for my C-64! Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Jun 28 23:57:20 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:57:20 -0300 Subject: 1541 drive emulators References: <26436815286A4EC2B6A0615E6FA158FC@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" atJun28, 9 07:22:59 pm <6A9EBEB28A45471E96C7397FDE6DFD72@xp1800><124101c9f850$eb2a9b80$880319bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <135c01c9f876$7a34a670$880319bb@desktaba> >> A friend of mine got a C128 and I want to make a drive emulator >>for him. I wasn't able to find anything suitable (e.g.: Runs in >>windows or linux, preferable windows, has schematics avaiable, free) >>in google. Anyone can help? :o) > Are you looking for hardware or software? I really like Jim Brain's > uIEC, and it's fairly inexpensive. Hands down the single best piece > of hardware I've ever purchased for my C-64! I'm pretty sure it is! But I'm a bit "too far away" and short on money :P So I'll have to find a locally reproductible option :) From brain at jbrain.com Mon Jun 29 00:05:59 2009 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:05:59 -0500 Subject: 1541 drive emulators In-Reply-To: References: <26436815286A4EC2B6A0615E6FA158FC@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" at Jun28, 9 07:22:59 pm <6A9EBEB28A45471E96C7397FDE6DFD72@xp1800> <124101c9f850$eb2a9b80$880319bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <4A484BB7.6040107@jbrain.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 9:23 PM -0300 6/28/09, Alexandre Souza wrote: >> A friend of mine got a C128 and I want to make a drive emulator >> for him. I wasn't able to find anything suitable (e.g.: Runs in >> windows or linux, preferable windows, has schematics avaiable, free) >> in google. Anyone can help? :o) > > Are you looking for hardware or software? I really like Jim Brain's > uIEC, and it's fairly inexpensive. Hands down the single best piece > of hardware I've ever purchased for my C-64! > > Zane > > > /me blushes... As for software emulators, you might see if anyone has written a drive emu that uses the openCBM libraries. Beyond that, I'm not sure there is anything available. Jim -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X) brain at jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! Home: http://www.jbrain.com From gklinger at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 00:14:28 2009 From: gklinger at gmail.com (Golan Klinger) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:14:28 -0400 Subject: 1541 drive emulators In-Reply-To: References: <26436815286A4EC2B6A0615E6FA158FC@xp1800> <6A9EBEB28A45471E96C7397FDE6DFD72@xp1800> <124101c9f850$eb2a9b80$880319bb@desktaba> Message-ID: Zane H. Healy wrote: > I really like Jim Brain's uIEC, and it's fairly inexpensive. The uIEC is an excellent piece of hardware but it is worth mentioning that it isn't a 1541 "emulator" per se. The only device that can lay claim to that distinction would be the 1541 Ultimate [1]. Unfortunately it's quite a bit more expensive (although it does offer a lot of additional functionality) and doesn't fit in with the OP's requirements. [1] -- Golan Klinger Dark is the suede that mows like a harvest. From brain at jbrain.com Mon Jun 29 00:32:25 2009 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:32:25 -0500 Subject: 1541 drive emulators In-Reply-To: <135c01c9f876$7a34a670$880319bb@desktaba> References: <26436815286A4EC2B6A0615E6FA158FC@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" atJun28, 9 07:22:59 pm <6A9EBEB28A45471E96C7397FDE6DFD72@xp1800><124101c9f850$eb2a9b80$880319bb@desktaba> <135c01c9f876$7a34a670$880319bb@desktaba> Message-ID: <4A4851E9.4090104@jbrain.com> Alexandre Souza wrote: >>> A friend of mine got a C128 and I want to make a drive emulator >>> for him. I wasn't able to find anything suitable (e.g.: Runs in >>> windows or linux, preferable windows, has schematics avaiable, free) >>> in google. Anyone can help? :o) >> Are you looking for hardware or software? I really like Jim Brain's >> uIEC, and it's fairly inexpensive. Hands down the single best piece >> of hardware I've ever purchased for my C-64! > > I'm pretty sure it is! But I'm a bit "too far away" and short on > money :P So I'll have to find a locally reproductible option :) Well, if you're handy with a soldering iron and you have a Linux or Windows PC with a parallel port (for programming), the uIEC design and the firmware are GPL. The IDE version can be created with no surface mount components (ATMEGA644 DIP 40 pin + 40 pin IDE connector). It'll probably cost USD$15.00-20.00 or so in parts, though. Jim From spedraja at ono.com Mon Jun 29 01:14:15 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:14:15 +0200 Subject: MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Xenix Personal Computers In-Reply-To: <49060D6C-6DC6-4185-B915-4FD567E42832@neurotica.com> References: <49060D6C-6DC6-4185-B915-4FD567E42832@neurotica.com> Message-ID: Well... Exist another option: I could send the diskettes to someone who could try to read them with more resources than me. I shall do the scan work with the manuals. I have too one set for the Xenix 8086 (including development manuals) for the IBM PC waiting, together with some similar for the ITT PC. This is a lot of pages and I was waiting until christmas, when I plan to purchase one new multifunction printer/scanner/fax to substitute my relatively old Deskjet. Regards Sergio 2009/6/29 Dave McGuire > > This is unfortunate. I will keep my fingers crossed. > > -Dave > > > On Jun 28, 2009, at 6:15 PM, SPC wrote: > >> At this stage almost impossible. I shall do a cleaning of the diskette >> drive >> tomorrow and we'll see. >> >> But I'm not optimistic. >> >> Sergio >> >> 2009/6/28 Dave McGuire >> >> On Jun 28, 2009, at 3:57 PM, SPC wrote: >>> >>> Well, finally came the time to install one find from over a couple of >>>> years >>>> ago: Five floppies with the MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for >>>> Personal >>>> Computers running Xenix 286. >>>> >>>> I plan to install it in the Altos 586. The software don't have special >>>> indications about the SCO Xenix or so. The worst that could happen is >>>> that >>>> it don't work. >>>> >>>> But I plan to do some disk images of the floppies previously with >>>> Imagedisk. >>>> The Xenix default for installation is /dev/fd048ds9 >>>> >>>> >>> Wow...if you can read these disks, I would LOVE to have copies of those. >>> >>> -Dave >>> >>> -- >>> Dave McGuire >>> Port Charlotte, FL >>> >>> >>> > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From spedraja at ono.com Mon Jun 29 05:02:40 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:02:40 +0200 Subject: Mysterious website Message-ID: Someone knows about this website ? http://chiclassiccomp.org It appears to be one website named 'Chicago Classic Computing' and mentions VCF 2009, but is accesible actually only using Google cached webpages. In appeareance has a repository of documents, being some of them Altos related. I'm actually searching all what I can obtain related with this firm and products. Regards Sergio From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Mon Jun 29 08:26:35 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:26:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website Message-ID: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I guess they didn't have permission and had to take it down. I'm sorry I know this is off topic, but why did the Atari group call themselves SCAT!?! from the site: ============================================================== Chicago Classic Computing! A mailing list for classic/vintage computing collectors and enthusiasts in the Chicago, Northern Illinois and Northwest Indiana area. Everything from 8-bit game consoles to the Big Iron is welcome. Subscribe to chiclassiccomp * * * VINTAGE COMPUTER FESTIVAL MIDWEST 2009 - MORE INFO SOON! * * * Documents Videos Local Clubs and Lists SCAT - Suburban Chicago ATarians Chicago Area Timex/Sinclair Users Group Glenside Color Computer Club (Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer) SWRAP - Chicago's Commodore Group Since 1983 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Jun 29 09:04:14 2009 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:04:14 -0700 Subject: PDP-11/23 H786 PSU Fault Finding In-Reply-To: <742129.56696.qm@web30606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <742129.56696.qm@web30606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > From: david_comley at yahoo.com > > > Can anyone offer any guidance on an 11/23 switchmode power supply I'm attempting to repair ? > > It failed in use and started blowing fuses. I diagnosed a failed bridge rectifier in the primary side and replaced it. That resolved the problem with the fuses blowing. > > However, when I monitor the +12V line, I can see it peak around +11.5V on power up and then it slowly sags (off-load), all the way down to +4.5V over a period of a few minutes. With a small dummy load connected the 12V line drops down to 4.5V in a matter of less than a second. I can see why it stops at 4.5V; there's a diode, normally reverse biased when the voltages are correct, that's connected between +12 and +5. The +5V line is rock solid at 5.1V. > > The power supply has a single pair of transistors driving the primary side of T2, and +5 works so I am inclined to think that the problem is somewhere on the secondary side. I pulled the pass transistor (Q3) for the 12V line and checked it with the Huntron Tracker; it appears to be serviceable. > > The schematic for this is on p75 of http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/qbus/MP00740_1123_schem_Oct81.pdf. > > Is there a common cause for 'sag' in output voltages in switchmode supplies ? I am wondering if this is regulation issue or a problem with drive to the pass transistor ? > > Thanks, > -Dave Hi The schematics are not real clear as to what wires are connected to what wires from board to board. There seems to be a separate 555 that pulses the T4 that drives Q3. On page 80 there is several points you might probe. You might check the voltages and signals at Q1, E1, Q5, E2 and Q6. The decaying voltage is most likely related to the start-up +12. It is only there for a short time to get the regulator running. Once running, it should provide its own voltage which in this case it doesn't seem to be. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Lauren found her dream laptop. Find the PC that?s right for you. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/choosepc/?ocid=ftp_val_wl_290 From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jun 29 09:27:28 2009 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:27:28 -0400 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200906291027.28144.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 29 June 2009, Christian Liendo wrote: > I guess they didn't have permission and had to take it down. Permission for what? Whois returns no results, so I would guess that someone just let the domain name expire. > I'm sorry I know this is off topic, but why did the Atari group call > themselves SCAT!?! I'm haven't yet figured out if it's a sick joke, or if someone just didn't realize that it's a bad name to use. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From drb at msu.edu Mon Jun 29 09:43:10 2009 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:43:10 -0400 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: (Your message of Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:27:28 EDT.) <200906291027.28144.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200906291027.28144.pat@computer-refuge.org> <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200906291443.n5TEhAUY018701@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > Permission for what? Excellent question. > Whois returns no results, so I would guess that someone just let the > domain name expire. Put the 'o' in 'comp'. It's there. > I'm haven't yet figured out if it's a sick joke, or if someone just > didn't realize that it's a bad name to use. Given some of the folks involved, I suspect sick joke. De From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 29 09:44:48 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:44:48 -0700 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <200906291027.28144.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <200906291027.28144.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4A4870F0.18113.735082@cclist.sydex.com> On 29 Jun 2009 at 10:27, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > I'm haven't yet figured out if it's a sick joke, or if someone just > didn't realize that it's a bad name to use. Happens more often than you'd think. Long ago, a friend decided to call his company "Tripas" (a variant spelling of "Tri-pass"). After the corporate name had been registered, the janitorial crew informed him that they thought it was funny--apparently it's Spanish for entriails (tripe). Some names don't have the cross-language implication, but just sound strange. In particular, ones derived from Latin often sound like the names of diseases. --Chuck From joachim.thiemann at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 10:24:52 2009 From: joachim.thiemann at gmail.com (Joachim Thiemann) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:24:52 -0400 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <4A4870F0.18113.735082@cclist.sydex.com> References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <200906291027.28144.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A4870F0.18113.735082@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4affc5e0906290824g2f917a94g5475d44aea07f8e6@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 10:44, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 29 Jun 2009 at 10:27, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >> I'm haven't yet figured out if it's a sick joke, or if someone just >> didn't realize that it's a bad name to use. > > Happens more often than you'd think. ?Long ago, a friend decided to > call his company "Tripas" (a variant spelling of "Tri-pass"). ?After > the corporate name had been registered, the janitorial crew informed > him that they thought it was funny--apparently it's Spanish ?for > entriails ?(tripe). > > Some names don't have the cross-language implication, but just sound > strange. ?In particular, ones derived from Latin often sound like the > names of diseases. Up here in Canada, the Reform party briefly renamed itself the "Conservative Reform Alliance" Party: CRAP That lasted all of two days, IIRC. -- Joachim Thiemann :: http://www.tsp.ece.mcgill.ca/~jthiem From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Mon Jun 29 10:29:27 2009 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:29:27 +0100 Subject: A plan for a "universal" low-pin-count programmer Message-ID: <4A48DDD7.4000702@philpem.me.uk> Hi guys, I know a few folks here (besides myself) have accumulated collections of older-generation (i.e. "obsolete") fuse-PROMs, GALs, PALs, and so on. A common complaint is that modern programmers won't touch these devices -- negative voltages (sometimes very high negative voltages) are required to program some of them, and for others the programming hardware just wasn't tested with them. In my experience, when confronted with the fact that their programmers don't actually work, most programmer manufacturers seem to respond by asking why you're even thinking about using 1702 EPROMs in their programmer, and sooner-or-later admit that they actually didn't test them on anything more recent than a programmer they last sold in the late 1980s, and that they "just ported the software across and thought it would work". So what I'm proposing is this. A completely open-sourced device programmer. That is, all the hardware designs, PCB layouts, software and firmware are (or at least will be) completely open. My "rough feature set" boils down to: * Single input power supply -- probably 24V DC. Fed from a normal mains adapter. I'm tempted to use 12V DC instead, and live with the higher current consumption -- my only spare 24V PSU is a massive 600W Nemic-Lambda dual-fan unit that makes a sound not unlike that of a mid-sized jet aircraft. 12V 2A power supplies are a bit more plentiful... * Two programmable positive power supplies, all variable between around 2V and ~24V (or higher if need be). Maybe add a third if necessary (for ECL maybe?) * Two programmable negative power supplies, variable between -2V and -50V. Meaning you can program 1702s with it. * 24, 32 or 40 individually-programmable pin drivers. More or less if you like -- add or remove a few pin drivers. I think the upper maximum is likely to be around 64 pins, based on typical CPLD pin counts. * Modular design -- one interface controller (computer -> driver interface), swappable power supply boards, pin count can be increased in 8-pin blocks by adding more pin drivers (or boards can be swapped to troubleshoot driver issues). There is one obvious limitation here -- you need the programming algorithm for the chip you want to program. The algorithms for MMI PALs are (I've been told) in their databook, the Signetics algorithms (for fuse-PROMs) are just as easy to find, and TI put their TIBPAL programming algorithms on their website. Things like Lattice GALs might be difficult, unless you could live with using an "unofficial" programming algorithm (*cough* GALBlast). I suppose you could reverse-engineer an algorithm from a working programmer and a minimum of two blank chips, but I suspect something like the GAL algorithm (in complexity) might be somewhat tricky to reverse-engineer. Does anyone (besides me) think this is a worthy endeavour? At the moment I'm thinking of using FET-based pin-drivers (lower pin count and voltage drop, potentially faster switching) and MC34063-based switch-mode PSUs. The control interface will likely be USB, possibly based on a Cypress EZ-USB FX2LP chip -- the advantage being that the firmware is stored in the MCU's RAM (uploaded from the PC on startup), so no PIC, AVR or 8051 programmer is required. Unless anyone has any other comments or suggestions? Cheers, -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From mikelee at tdh.com Mon Jun 29 10:31:09 2009 From: mikelee at tdh.com (Michael Lee) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:31:09 -0500 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A48DE3D.5080906@tdh.com> The www.chiclassiccomp.org website is back up. Temporary server issue. As for the name, it's just the acronym right? SCAT - Suburban Chicago ATarians Christian Liendo wrote: > I guess they didn't have permission and had to take it down. > > > I'm sorry I know this is off topic, but why did the Atari group call themselves SCAT!?! > > > from the site: > ============================================================== > Chicago Classic Computing! > A mailing list for classic/vintage computing collectors and enthusiasts in the Chicago, Northern Illinois and Northwest Indiana area. Everything from 8-bit game consoles to the Big Iron is welcome. > > Subscribe to chiclassiccomp > > * * * VINTAGE COMPUTER FESTIVAL MIDWEST 2009 - MORE INFO SOON! * * * > Documents > Videos > Local Clubs and Lists > SCAT - Suburban Chicago ATarians > Chicago Area Timex/Sinclair Users Group > Glenside Color Computer Club (Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer) > SWRAP - Chicago's Commodore Group Since 1983 > > > > > > > > > > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 10:39:33 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:39:33 -0400 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <4A48DE3D.5080906@tdh.com> References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4A48DE3D.5080906@tdh.com> Message-ID: On 6/29/09, Michael Lee wrote: > The www.chiclassiccomp.org website is back up. Temporary server issue. > > As for the name, it's just the acronym right? > SCAT - Suburban Chicago ATarians > >> I'm sorry I know this is off topic, but why did the Atari group call >> themselves SCAT!?! Besides the obvious modern dirty meaning of the word, there is another. Chicago is known for its music, especially Blues. One expression of Blues is singing strings of nonsense syllables (Ella Fitzgerald, et al.) This style has been called "Scat" for decades. Because of the Internet, that meaning is probably not the first to come to mind. -ethan From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 10:59:23 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:59:23 -0400 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <4A4870F0.18113.735082@cclist.sydex.com> References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <200906291027.28144.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A4870F0.18113.735082@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A48E4DB.7020207@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 29 Jun 2009 at 10:27, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >> I'm haven't yet figured out if it's a sick joke, or if someone just >> didn't realize that it's a bad name to use. > > Happens more often than you'd think. Long ago, a friend decided to > call his company "Tripas" (a variant spelling of "Tri-pass"). After > the corporate name had been registered, the janitorial crew informed > him that they thought it was funny--apparently it's Spanish for > entriails (tripe). > > Some names don't have the cross-language implication, but just sound > strange. In particular, ones derived from Latin often sound like the > names of diseases. One of my favorites is http://www.ferrethandjobs.com/ Peace... Sridhar From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jun 29 11:12:56 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:12:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <4A48E4DB.7020207@gmail.com> from Sridhar Ayengar at "Jun 29, 9 11:59:23 am" Message-ID: <200906291612.n5TGCu2E011374@floodgap.com> > > Some names don't have the cross-language implication, but just sound > > strange. In particular, ones derived from Latin often sound like the > > names of diseases. > > One of my favorites is http://www.ferrethandjobs.com/ Oy, not Latin, but possibly a *psychiatric* illness. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- "I don't think so," said Descartes, and he vanished. ----------------------- From mjkerpan at kerpan.com Mon Jun 29 11:51:26 2009 From: mjkerpan at kerpan.com (Michael Kerpan) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:51:26 -0400 Subject: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems Message-ID: <8dd2d95c0906290951gf388ae5s171385267211a6aa@mail.gmail.com> I'd be interested to know what's out there vis a vis classic systems that are on the Internet offering public access. Currently, I know of twenex.org (emulated KL-10B DECSYSTEM-20 with Panda TOPS-20), pdpplanet.com (a TOAD-1 with TOPS-20, a DECSYSTEM-10 2065 and a VAX 780) and cray-cyber.org (an emulated CDC Cyber plus a rotating selection of historic super computers on weekends), but is there anything else? Is anybody running classic versions of UNIX (UCB-era BSD, AT&T-era System III/V, V6/V7, etc) Is anybody running a public IBM system? What about various lesser-known systems? Given that most people used these systems through remote terminals to begin with, a public access system would seem to be an ideal way to experience them, but how many of them are available in such a way? From afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 29 12:03:15 2009 From: afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk (Phill Harvey-Smith) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:03:15 +0100 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <4A48E4DB.7020207@gmail.com> References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <200906291027.28144.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A4870F0.18113.735082@cclist.sydex.com> <4A48E4DB.7020207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A48F3D3.8090908@aurigae.demon.co.uk> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > One of my favorites is http://www.ferrethandjobs.com/ Giggle :) Shades of Experts exchange who changed their name to www.experts-exchange.com from www.expertsexchange.com cause it read as expert-sex-change......... Cheers. Phill. -- Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric ! "You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush. From marvin at west.net Mon Jun 29 12:30:36 2009 From: marvin at west.net (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:30:36 -0700 Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website Message-ID: <4A48FA3C.5050908@west.net> > On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 10:44, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> > On 29 Jun 2009 at 10:27, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> > >>> >> I'm haven't yet figured out if it's a sick joke, or if someone just >>> >> didn't realize that it's a bad name to use. >> > >> > Happens more often than you'd think. ?Long ago, a friend decided to >> > call his company "Tripas" (a variant spelling of "Tri-pass"). ?After >> > the corporate name had been registered, the janitorial crew informed >> > him that they thought it was funny--apparently it's Spanish ?for >> > entriails ?(tripe). > > Up here in Canada, the Reform party briefly renamed itself the > "Conservative Reform Alliance" Party: CRAP > > That lasted all of two days, IIRC. Anyone remember the eBay marketing promotion, "Do It eBay"? I still love it ... Do It eBay, short for DIE! From david_comley at yahoo.com Mon Jun 29 12:52:06 2009 From: david_comley at yahoo.com (David Comley) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:52:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PDP-11/23 H786 PSU Fault Finding Message-ID: <91024.50928.qm@web30605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 6/29/09, dwight elvey wrote: > Hi > The schematics are not real clear as to what wires > are connected to what wires from board to board. > There seems to be a separate 555 that pulses the T4 that > drives > Q3. On page 80 there is several points you might probe. > You might check the voltages and signals at Q1, E1, Q5, > E2 and Q6. Will do. > The decaying voltage is most likely related to the > start-up +12. > It is only there for a short time to get the regulator > running. Good point - never occurred to me. Does the startup voltage actually get suppressed once the switchmode circuit comes up ? Thanks for the pointers, Dwight. I'll take a look tonight when I get home. -Dave From RichA at vulcan.com Mon Jun 29 12:52:32 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:52:32 -0700 Subject: the fallacy of modernity [was RE: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website] In-Reply-To: References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4A48DE3D.5080906@tdh.com> Message-ID: > From: Ethan Dicks > Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 8:40 AM > On 6/29/09, Michael Lee wrote: >>> I'm sorry I know this is off topic, but why did the Atari group call >>> themselves SCAT!?! >> The www.chiclassiccomp.org website is back up. Temporary server issue. >> As for the name, it's just the acronym right? >> SCAT - Suburban Chicago ATarians > Besides the obvious modern dirty meaning of the word, there is another. ?????? The use of the word "scat" to mean "ordure, dung" goes back several centuries. It is a learned borrowing, from the ancient Greek _skOr_, _skatos_,[1] of the same meaning (with and without the overtones of the related Germanic words). Scholars needing to refer to the subject simply borrowed the stem of the Greek word, at a time when English-speaking scholars regularly learned both Latin and Greek to a comfortable reading level by their early teens. [1] The "O" represents the Greek letter _o mega_. Traditionally, Greek words are cited in the nominative and genitive singular (the latter to show the stem, which may be obscured in the former). I've left off the accents for simplicity. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From RichA at vulcan.com Mon Jun 29 12:57:52 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:57:52 -0700 Subject: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems In-Reply-To: <8dd2d95c0906290951gf388ae5s171385267211a6aa@mail.gmail.com> References: <8dd2d95c0906290951gf388ae5s171385267211a6aa@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: Michael Kerpan > Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 9:51 AM > I'd be interested to know what's out there vis a vis classic systems > that are on the Internet offering public access. Currently, I know of > twenex.org (emulated KL-10B DECSYSTEM-20 with Panda TOPS-20), > pdpplanet.com (a TOAD-1 with TOPS-20, a DECSYSTEM-10 2065 and a VAX > 780) and cray-cyber.org (an emulated CDC Cyber plus a rotating > selection of historic super computers on weekends), but is there > anything else? Is anybody running classic versions of UNIX (UCB-era > BSD, AT&T-era System III/V, V6/V7, etc) Is anybody running a public > IBM system? What about various lesser-known systems? Given that most > people used these systems through remote terminals to begin with, a > public access system would seem to be an ideal way to experience them, > but how many of them are available in such a way? Among our next projects at the PDPplanet site (which will be changing names soon) are a PDP-8/e running either TSS/8 or MULTOS, and a PDP-11/45 running Unix v7. We will announce their availability here as well as other well- known fora for vintage/classic computing. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 29 12:37:18 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:37:18 +0100 (BST) Subject: PDP-11/23 H786 PSU Fault Finding In-Reply-To: <742129.56696.qm@web30606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> from "David Comley" at Jun 28, 9 01:12:47 pm Message-ID: > > > Can anyone offer any guidance on an 11/23 switchmode power supply I'm > attempting to repair ? > > It failed in use and started blowing fuses. I diagnosed a failed > bridge rectifier in the primary side and replaced it. That resolved the > problem with the fuses blowing. > > However, when I monitor the +12V line, I can see it peak around +11.5V > on power up and then it slowly sags (off-load), all the way down to > +4.5V over a period of a few minutes. With a small dummy load connected > the 12V line drops down to 4.5V in a matter of less than a second. I can > see why it stops at 4.5V; there's a diode, normally reverse biased when > the voltages are correct, that's connected between +12 and +5. The +5V > line is rock solid at 5.1V. > > The power supply has a single pair of transistors driving the primary > side of T2, and +5 works so I am inclined to think that the problem is > somewhere on the secondary side. I pulled the pass transistor (Q3) for > the 12V line and checked it with the Huntron Tracker; it appears to be > serviceable. I've not looked at the schemaitcs, but I assume there's one chopper transformer that provides both the +5V and +12V output. In which case, the problem has to be on the secondary side. Now, in most of these supplies, the 5V line provides the regulation feedback, and the other lines essentially tag along. DEC were better than most in that they provided separate regulator circuits, often linear, for the other supplies. My first question is 'do you have enough load on the 5V line?'. If you don't, the chopper circuit is running very 'lightky', and probably the 12V side isn't getting enough power to work properly. I've certainly had DEC supplies where the 12V output is low untill I loaded the 5V output. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 29 12:40:02 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:40:02 +0100 (BST) Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: <6A9EBEB28A45471E96C7397FDE6DFD72@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" at Jun 28, 9 10:37:39 pm Message-ID: > > Rik, I looked at your photos... It looks like some 9000/300 > > machines are going to be of interest to me. Darn, something > > else to look for :-). And I love your vehicle :-) > > Told you, the 300 series (some) are fun too ;-) Indeed. I was perhaps a little unlucky in that the only 9000/300 I've got is a 9000/340 (and I've got far too many of those :-)). and that does seem to have an ASIC on the mainboard next to the CPU. It's been a long time since I've been inside one, though. > The DS is going to the painter half of august. > After that there will be more pictures. I will take a look when you get it done ;-). The DS has always been a vehicle I've loved. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 29 13:00:35 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:00:35 +0100 (BST) Subject: Another mystery IC In-Reply-To: <000801c9f848$908d4180$0201a8c0@hal9000> from "Scanning" at Jun 28, 9 04:31:29 pm Message-ID: > > Tony, > > I believe it is an AD891D Rigid Disk Data Channel Qualifier !! The datasheet > ( PDF ) is 491K if you want me to send it to you. I am absolutely sure you're correct -- many thanks... If I'd thoguht of searching for 'rigid disk', I might well have found it myself. Oh why can't there be standard names for these things :-). And of course being an ECL chip means that the power lines appear to be the wrong way round at first. But upon reading the datasheet (no need to send it,, I've read it on datasheet archinve), I saw the bit about running it from +5 and +12V. The input circuit shown seems to match up with what I have too... -tony From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 13:13:18 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:13:18 -0400 Subject: the fallacy of modernity [was RE: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website] In-Reply-To: References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4A48DE3D.5080906@tdh.com> Message-ID: On 6/29/09, Rich Alderson wrote: >> Besides the obvious modern dirty meaning of the word, there is another. > ?????? I was meaning the modern use of the word to refer not merely to "dung" but as slang for coprophilia, which is how the word has been used widely on the internet in recent years. > The use of the word "scat" to mean "ordure, dung" goes back several > centuries. > It is a learned borrowing, from the ancient Greek _skOr_, _skatos_,[1] of > the same meaning Yes. I've taken ancient Greek and read/write/speak modern Greek. The word is still in use on the streets of Greece in a recognizable form. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 13:17:43 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:17:43 -0400 Subject: PDP-11/23 H786 PSU Fault Finding In-Reply-To: References: <742129.56696.qm@web30606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/29/09, Tony Duell wrote: > My first question is 'do you have enough load on the 5V line?'. If you > don't, the chopper circuit is running very 'lightky', and probably the > 12V side isn't getting enough power to work properly. I've certainly had > DEC supplies where the 12V output is low untill I loaded the 5V output. There's a load-board for the uVAX2000/VS2000 box for use if you don't have an internal hard drive. AFAIK, that's why it's needed - to ensure enough load on the +5V line for the +12V regulator to work. While I've seen it, I haven't used one myself (thus can't check details) - all of my uV/VS2000 boxes have drives. -ethan From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Mon Jun 29 13:24:38 2009 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:24:38 +0100 Subject: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <894F5809-D68F-4141-A8C8-9C655BF52C50@microspot.co.uk> On 29 Jun 2009, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > From: Michael Kerpan > Subject: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems > What about various lesser-known systems? Given that most > people used these systems through remote terminals to begin with, a > public access system would seem to be an ideal way to experience them, > but how many of them are available in such a way? Mine is too old, no serial connection, no operating system, not even an operator terminal. Bootstrap from drum and read 80 column punched cards. I have modified the bootstrap to read from paper tape and I have now got a bit bashing serial link which uses 100% of the CPU to make it work - no time to service any terminals though, no interrupts and no multi-programming capabilities. It would be nice to see a ICT/ICL 1900 online one day. The first machine I used was an IBM 7094. We punched our cards, they were taken to London and next week we got our listing back saying syntax error on line 1. Roger ICT 1301 mainframe (1962) From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 29 13:37:35 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:37:35 -0700 Subject: the fallacy of modernity [was RE: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website] In-Reply-To: References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, , Message-ID: <4A48A77F.4570.148710E@cclist.sydex.com> On 29 Jun 2009 at 14:13, Ethan Dicks wrote: > Yes. I've taken ancient Greek and read/write/speak modern Greek. The > word is still in use on the streets of Greece in a recognizable form. On the other hand, "skat" (spelled phonetically) in Russian means "slope" or "incline". I don't get the point. ??? --Chuck From IanK at vulcan.com Mon Jun 29 14:17:10 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:17:10 -0700 Subject: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems In-Reply-To: <894F5809-D68F-4141-A8C8-9C655BF52C50@microspot.co.uk> References: <894F5809-D68F-4141-A8C8-9C655BF52C50@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Roger Holmes > Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 11:25 AM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems > > > On 29 Jun 2009, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > > From: Michael Kerpan > > Subject: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems > > > What about various lesser-known systems? Given that most > > people used these systems through remote terminals to begin with, a > > public access system would seem to be an ideal way to experience > them, > > but how many of them are available in such a way? > > Mine is too old, no serial connection, no operating system, not even > an operator terminal. Bootstrap from drum and read 80 column punched > cards. I have modified the bootstrap to read from paper tape and I > have now got a bit bashing serial link which uses 100% of the CPU to > make it work - no time to service any terminals though, no interrupts > and no multi-programming capabilities. > > It would be nice to see a ICT/ICL 1900 online one day. > > The first machine I used was an IBM 7094. We punched our cards, they > were taken to London and next week we got our listing back saying > syntax error on line 1. > > Roger > ICT 1301 mainframe (1962) > My first programming language was FORTRAN, our card decks processed in batch on the school district's 370. One learned to be very, very cautious when keypunching, as the three-day turnaround rapidly ate into the semester! Your comments highlight an important distinction: your system is NOT one that was used "through remote terminals", but rather as a batch job processor. With minicomputers, we see a slightly different distinction: those designed for use by multiple, possibly remoted terminals, and machines such as our PDP-7 that was really intended for a single local user. The PDP-8 originally fell into that latter class, but was extended to support multiple users through extensions in software (e.g. TSS-8) and hardware (the Unibus, on which it was relatively simple to add new serial adapters). Each of these three classes provide obviously different challenges in terms of presentation to a 'distributed' audience. -- Ian From david_comley at yahoo.com Mon Jun 29 14:23:41 2009 From: david_comley at yahoo.com (David Comley) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:23:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Diskless Vaxstation 2000 (was Re: PDP-11/23 H786 PSU Fault Finding) Message-ID: <425092.14291.qm@web30607.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 6/29/09, Ethan Dicks wrote: > While I've seen it, I haven't used one myself (thus can't > check > details) - all of my uV/VS2000 boxes have drives. Thanks for pointing that out; I'd forgotten about the load board and the 12V situation. That's the first thing to try, loading up the +5V line. I'd be so happy if that's all it is. I have the exact opposite situation - my VS2000 is driveless and has the load board in it. I can't seem to keep an RD5x drive running long enough to install anything on it these days. I did try to get it to run OpenVMS 7.3 diskless at one point but to no avail. Perhaps they were never meant to ? I didn't spend long looking at it. -Dave From spedraja at ono.com Mon Jun 29 14:42:26 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:42:26 +0200 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <4A4870F0.18113.735082@cclist.sydex.com> References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <200906291027.28144.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A4870F0.18113.735082@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: Yes, tripas is tripe in Spanish. A good corporate name for one fast food company, for example. Sergio 2009/6/29 Chuck Guzis > On 29 Jun 2009 at 10:27, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > > I'm haven't yet figured out if it's a sick joke, or if someone just > > didn't realize that it's a bad name to use. > > Happens more often than you'd think. Long ago, a friend decided to > call his company "Tripas" (a variant spelling of "Tri-pass"). After > the corporate name had been registered, the janitorial crew informed > him that they thought it was funny--apparently it's Spanish for > entriails (tripe). > > Some names don't have the cross-language implication, but just sound > strange. In particular, ones derived from Latin often sound like the > names of diseases. > > --Chuck > > From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 14:43:26 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:43:26 -0400 Subject: Diskless Vaxstation 2000 (was Re: PDP-11/23 H786 PSU Fault Finding) In-Reply-To: <425092.14291.qm@web30607.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <425092.14291.qm@web30607.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A49195E.3050404@gmail.com> David Comley wrote: > I did try to get it to run OpenVMS 7.3 diskless at one point but to no avail. Perhaps they were never meant to ? I didn't spend long looking at it. I've clusterbooted a Vaxstation 2000 before. Peace... Sridhar From spedraja at ono.com Mon Jun 29 14:52:50 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:52:50 +0200 Subject: the fallacy of modernity [was RE: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website] In-Reply-To: <4A48A77F.4570.148710E@cclist.sydex.com> References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4A48A77F.4570.148710E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: My excuses for the sensibles stomachs, but: Eschatology (escatologia in Spanish). The RAE (Royal Academy of Spanish Language) attribute these meanings to the word: * Set of beliefs and doctrines concerning the grave life * Dealin with excreta A word related is eschatological: * Belonging or related to excrement and dirt It's related with ???????, ????, ?????? Sergio 2009/6/29 Chuck Guzis > On 29 Jun 2009 at 14:13, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > > Yes. I've taken ancient Greek and read/write/speak modern Greek. The > > word is still in use on the streets of Greece in a recognizable form. > > On the other hand, "skat" (spelled phonetically) in Russian means > "slope" or "incline". I don't get the point. ??? > > --Chuck > > From david_comley at yahoo.com Mon Jun 29 15:03:05 2009 From: david_comley at yahoo.com (David Comley) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:03:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Diskless Vaxstation 2000 (was Re: PDP-11/23 H786 PSU Fault Finding) Message-ID: <479751.77197.qm@web30602.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 6/29/09, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > I've clusterbooted a Vaxstation 2000 before. Ah - good to know. I'll take another look at it in due course. I'd like to have it up and running. As I recall it would hang while attempting to join the cluster but it's been a couple of years and I don't remember where exactly. -Dave From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 15:08:43 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:08:43 -0400 Subject: Diskless Vaxstation 2000 (was Re: PDP-11/23 H786 PSU Fault Finding) In-Reply-To: <479751.77197.qm@web30602.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <479751.77197.qm@web30602.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A491F4B.7030500@gmail.com> David Comley wrote: >> I've clusterbooted a Vaxstation 2000 before. > > Ah - good to know. I'll take another look at it in due course. I'd > like to have it up and running. As I recall it would hang while > attempting to join the cluster but it's been a couple of years and I > don't remember where exactly. Is there enough memory in the system to bring up the network? Peace... Sridhar From spedraja at ono.com Mon Jun 29 15:22:59 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:22:59 +0200 Subject: MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Xenix Personal Computers In-Reply-To: <49060D6C-6DC6-4185-B915-4FD567E42832@neurotica.com> References: <49060D6C-6DC6-4185-B915-4FD567E42832@neurotica.com> Message-ID: Well... at least I could recover the PC floppy unit. But it took some time and one diskette with clean liquid (not a cleaning diskette... I needed to improvise). I shall begin with the ALTOS diskette unit now. By the way... I have some difficult to create one File System with format or mkfs in this machine. I have the indications of the manual for mkfs, but perhaps someone could have more luck than me and could provide me with the correct parameters for one 5.25 floppy of 360k under Altos Xenix 3.2f Regards Sergio From david_comley at yahoo.com Mon Jun 29 15:24:02 2009 From: david_comley at yahoo.com (David Comley) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:24:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Diskless Vaxstation 2000 (was Re: PDP-11/23 H786 PSU Fault Finding) Message-ID: <211439.71766.qm@web30603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 6/29/09, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Is there enough memory in the system to bring up the > network? I'll pull it off the shelf and check what's installed. Memory sounds like a good place to start. -Dave From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 29 15:36:44 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:36:44 +0100 (BST) Subject: MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Xenix Personal Computers In-Reply-To: from "SPC" at Jun 29, 9 10:22:59 pm Message-ID: > > Well... at least I could recover the PC floppy unit. But it took some time > and one diskette with clean liquid (not a cleaning diskette... I needed to > improvise). I've always found it best to remove the floppy drive and clean the head(s) with a cotton bud soaked in propan-2-ol. At the same time I clean the optical sensors (index, track 0, and write-protect, as applicable), since dirt there can cause all sorts of problems. -tony From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 15:55:45 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:55:45 -0400 Subject: MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Xenix Personal Computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A492A51.20802@gmail.com> Tony Duell wrote: >> Well... at least I could recover the PC floppy unit. But it took some time >> and one diskette with clean liquid (not a cleaning diskette... I needed to >> improvise). > > I've always found it best to remove the floppy drive and clean the > head(s) with a cotton bud soaked in propan-2-ol. At the same time I clean > the optical sensors (index, track 0, and write-protect, as applicable), > since dirt there can cause all sorts of problems. I usually use a lint-free cloth soaked in isopropanol. Peace... Sridhar From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Mon Jun 29 16:04:53 2009 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:04:53 +0200 Subject: HP Calc emulators In-Reply-To: References: <6A9EBEB28A45471E96C7397FDE6DFD72@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" at Jun28, 9 10:37:39 pm Message-ID: > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Tony Duell > Verzonden: maandag 29 juni 2009 19:40 > Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Onderwerp: Re: HP Calc emulators > > > > Rik, I looked at your photos... It looks like some > 9000/300 machines > > > are going to be of interest to me. Darn, something else > to look for > > > :-). And I love your vehicle :-) > > > > Told you, the 300 series (some) are fun too ;-) > > Indeed. I was perhaps a little unlucky in that the only > 9000/300 I've got is a 9000/340 (and I've got far too many of > those :-)). and that does seem to have an ASIC on the > mainboard next to the CPU. It's been a long time since I've > been inside one, though. > > > The DS is going to the painter half of august. > > After that there will be more pictures. > > I will take a look when you get it done ;-). The DS has > always been a vehicle I've loved. I think you would like this website, it's not about the DS but Porche. But the guy is describing the D-Jetronic EFI witch is also used in the DS 21IE an DS 23IE. It's about the Bosch analoge electronic injection system using a inductive map-sensor to determine the right mixture. http://members.rennlist.com/pbanders/djetfund.htm > -tony > -Rik From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Jun 29 16:08:20 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:08:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <4A48FA3C.5050908@west.net> References: <4A48FA3C.5050908@west.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Marvin Johnston wrote: >>> > Happens more often than you'd think. ?Long ago, a friend decided to >>> > call his company "Tripas" (a variant spelling of "Tri-pass"). ?After >>> > the corporate name had been registered, the janitorial crew informed >>> > him that they thought it was funny--apparently it's Spanish ?for >>> > entriails ?(tripe). >> >> Up here in Canada, the Reform party briefly renamed itself the >> "Conservative Reform Alliance" Party: CRAP >> >> That lasted all of two days, IIRC. > > Anyone remember the eBay marketing promotion, "Do It eBay"? I still love it > ... Do It eBay, short for DIE! Some years ago a shoe company came out with a shoe they named "The Incubus". Said shoes were in the stores before management realized what an incubus is. Now for something more modern, have any of you noticed the rash of suggestive fast food adverts? -- 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? From spedraja at ono.com Mon Jun 29 16:15:44 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:15:44 +0200 Subject: MS Basic Interpreter and Compiler for Xenix Personal Computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've recovered too the Altos floppy unit. I could un-tar the first floppy of the Cobol set as I did some days ago. But I continue with a problem when I do one MKFS. It's related with the writing of something but the message is not exccesively explicit. I should need to access the source code of MKFS of this version. Regards Sergio 2009/6/29 Tony Duell > > > > Well... at least I could recover the PC floppy unit. But it took some > time > > and one diskette with clean liquid (not a cleaning diskette... I needed > to > > improvise). > > I've always found it best to remove the floppy drive and clean the > head(s) with a cotton bud soaked in propan-2-ol. At the same time I clean > the optical sensors (index, track 0, and write-protect, as applicable), > since dirt there can cause all sorts of problems. > > -tony > > From IanK at vulcan.com Mon Jun 29 16:25:16 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:25:16 -0700 Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: References: <4A48FA3C.5050908@west.net> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of David Griffith > Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 2:08 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious > website > > On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Marvin Johnston wrote: > > >>> > Happens more often than you'd think. ?Long ago, a friend decided > to > >>> > call his company "Tripas" (a variant spelling of "Tri-pass"). > ?After > >>> > the corporate name had been registered, the janitorial crew > informed > >>> > him that they thought it was funny--apparently it's Spanish ?for > >>> > entriails ?(tripe). > >> > >> Up here in Canada, the Reform party briefly renamed itself the > >> "Conservative Reform Alliance" Party: CRAP > >> > >> That lasted all of two days, IIRC. > > > > Anyone remember the eBay marketing promotion, "Do It eBay"? I still > love it > > ... Do It eBay, short for DIE! > > Some years ago a shoe company came out with a shoe they named "The > Incubus". Said shoes were in the stores before management realized > what > an incubus is. Now for something more modern, have any of you noticed > the > rash of suggestive fast food adverts? > > -- > David Griffith > dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu > While Nixon's 'Committee to RE-Elect the President' (CREEP) is an oldie but goodie, my personal favorite comes from my time at Microsoft. The internal technology group (known for many years as ITG) decided they needed a spiffy new name. Some Clever Young Person came up with Global Operations and Technology: GOAT. I think that lasted for about two weeks.... They went through several more name changes but when I left last year, pretty much everyone still called them ITG. -- Ian From david_comley at yahoo.com Mon Jun 29 17:04:53 2009 From: david_comley at yahoo.com (David Comley) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:04:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: D'oh - Re: PDP-11/23 H786 PSU Fault Finding Message-ID: <454274.82759.qm@web30601.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > On 6/29/09, Tony Duell > > My first question is 'do you have enough load on the > 5V line?'. If you > > don't, the chopper circuit is running very 'lightky', > and probably the > > 12V side isn't getting enough power to work properly. > I've certainly had > > DEC supplies where the 12V output is low untill I > loaded the 5V output. --- On Mon, 6/29/09, Ethan Dicks wrote:> > There's a load-board for the uVAX2000/VS2000 box for use if > you don't > have an internal hard drive.? AFAIK, that's why it's > needed - to > ensure enough load on the +5V line for the +12V regulator > to work. Well, as both Tony and Ethan noted, you do indeed have to load the +5V line up before the +12V line will regulate properly. I put a low wattage automotive turn signal bulb across the +5V line and the +12V line jumped right back to where it should be. Many thanks. I can now reassemble the 11/23 and get it back in the rack. Don't you love it when stuff works ! Now I just have to fix that RLV12... -Dave From pontus at update.uu.se Mon Jun 29 17:27:29 2009 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:27:29 +0200 Subject: 1966 Lunar Orbiter image tapes rescued in LA Times: via AmpexFR-900 In-Reply-To: References: <6.2.3.4.2.20090416124716.0448e8a8@mail.threedee.com> <49E99914.4070008@update.uu.se> <49EA1AD5.11F5BBE2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4A493FD1.5080502@update.uu.se> Randy Dawson wrote: > > >> Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2009 11:24:20 -0700 >> From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca >> To: General at invalid.domain >> Subject: Re: 1966 Lunar Orbiter image tapes rescued in LA Times: via AmpexFR-900 >> >> Pontus Pihlgren wrote: >> >>> John Foust wrote: >>> >>>> http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/22/nation/na-lunar22 >>>> >>>> http://www.moonviews.com/archives/2008/11/image_collection_from_a_garage.html >>>> >>>> http://neverworld.net/lunar/ >>>> >>>> http://www.thelivingmoon.com/47john_lear/02files/Lunar_Orbiter_Tapes_Found.html >>>> >>>> http://twitter.com/lunarOrbiter >>>> >>> Are these the same tapes mentioned here? >>> >>> http://thinkingshift.wordpress.com/2007/07/27/the-curious-case-of-lost-nasa-tapes/ >>> >>> Pretty awesome though, that lady Evans is a real hero! >>> >> Looked like a really fun project to work on. I like the picture of the sleeping >> bag laid out amidst the stacks of tapes in the "recovery laboratory" (abandoned >> McDonalds restaurant). >> >> There was some mention of the analog tape format but I wish there had been a >> little more technical write-up of the old equipment and the transfer process >> and issues they went through. >> > > The lunar orbiter missing tapes story is not nearly as interesting as the LOST lunar landing tapes in the thinkingshift link above. > They still have not found these - the images were much better that what we saw. > > A little surfing turned up the lunar camera manual: > > http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/refer/Notes/gamma.html > > The TV telemetry and communications documents are here: > > http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-TVDocs.html > I worked on these recorders - I did moon quake data reduction (Apollo ALSEP) for the University of Texas when NASA shifted priorities to Skylab. The nuclear powered seismometers were all still functioning and sending live data. NASA had no use for them anymore, so we took over. The recording/playback machines were called 'Wideband Instrumentation Recorders' and handled analog data up to 500KHz or so. They recorded in both FM and direct (baseband) modes. The recording was of course a digital one, and we recovered the data and transcribed it to digital 7 track on a PDP 15. > > We plotted the seismic data on Versatec electrostatic 'wet' type printers. Whenever we were plotting, and we came upon an 'event' either a moonquake or a meteor strike, the geophysics guys had a field day. On one occasion, NASA crashed the spent SIV-B stage into the moon, just to see what happened. The moon is solid, a crystal and no molten core. Following the impact, it 'rang like a bell' for almost an hour. We got the bright idea to speed it up a bit, D/A convert it and listen. Id did indeed sound like a bell... well more like a cymbal crash. > > Randy > > _________________________________________________________________ > Rediscover Hotmail?: Now available on your iPhone or BlackBerry > http://windowslive.com/RediscoverHotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Rediscover_Mobile2_042009 I'm waking up an old thread here, but this sounds like related and good news: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/110442/WORLD-EXCLUSIVE-NASA-finds-missing-moon-landing-tapes Not sure how reliable that is, but I hope it is :) /P From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 17:32:25 2009 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:32:25 -0400 Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: References: <4A48FA3C.5050908@west.net> Message-ID: >> >>> > Happens more often than you'd think... Then there's the old story about "Wang Cares" (no idea if true or urban legend). -ethan From dm561 at torfree.net Mon Jun 29 17:39:29 2009 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:39:29 -0400 Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website Message-ID: <01C9F8E9.0FAE0120@MSE_D03> Message: 25 Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:08:20 -0700 (PDT) From: David Griffith On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Marvin Johnston wrote: >>> > Happens more often than you'd think. ?Long ago, a friend decided to >>> > call his company "Tripas" (a variant spelling of "Tri-pass"). ?After >>> > the corporate name had been registered, the janitorial crew informed >>> > him that they thought it was funny--apparently it's Spanish ?for >>> > entriails ?(tripe). >> >> Up here in Canada, the Reform party briefly renamed itself the >> "Conservative Reform Alliance" Party: CRAP >> >> That lasted all of two days, IIRC. > > Anyone remember the eBay marketing promotion, "Do It eBay"? I still love it > ... Do It eBay, short for DIE! Some years ago a shoe company came out with a shoe they named "The Incubus". Said shoes were in the stores before management realized what an incubus is. Now for something more modern, have any of you noticed the rash of suggestive fast food adverts? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu ---------------Reply: And of course there was a small problem with Commodore's VIC 20 in Germany which led to its being renamed the "VC20 VolksComputer". (hint: the V is pronounced F in German, and they use an 'I' where we use a 'U') From dm561 at torfree.net Mon Jun 29 17:38:22 2009 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:38:22 -0400 Subject: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems Message-ID: <01C9F8E9.0E138B00@MSE_D03> ----------Original Message: Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:57:52 -0700 From: Rich Alderson > From: Michael Kerpan > Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 9:51 AM > I'd be interested to know what's out there vis a vis classic systems > that are on the Internet offering public access. Currently, I know of > twenex.org (emulated KL-10B DECSYSTEM-20 with Panda TOPS-20), > pdpplanet.com (a TOAD-1 with TOPS-20, a DECSYSTEM-10 2065 and a VAX > 780) and cray-cyber.org (an emulated CDC Cyber plus a rotating > selection of historic super computers on weekends), but is there > anything else? Is anybody running classic versions of UNIX (UCB-era > BSD, AT&T-era System III/V, V6/V7, etc) Is anybody running a public > IBM system? What about various lesser-known systems? Given that most > people used these systems through remote terminals to begin with, a > public access system would seem to be an ideal way to experience them, > but how many of them are available in such a way? Among our next projects at the PDPplanet site (which will be changing names soon) are a PDP-8/e running either TSS/8 or MULTOS, and a PDP-11/45 running Unix v7. We will announce their availability here as well as other well- known fora for vintage/classic computing. Rich Alderson --------------Reply: Well, I've had a Cromemco running Cromix with two ports on the Internet a few times just as a proof of concept, and could put UNIX V or V.2 on it as well I suppose, but I thought there are already UNIX systems out there and Cromix would actually be more interesting; yeah, that's how they were used all right; I still have a few of the 1200bd modems...;-) I've only got dial-up access for it which makes it a little awkward, so I've been trying to talk some fellow Cromemco owners with hi-speed to put one up as a BBS system, but no takers so far... Unfortunately Howard Harte (who's done amazing stuff with the SIMH emulator) hasn't quite got a Cromix emulation finished. How would you tell the difference? Sort of the modern Turing Test: is it the real machine or an emulation... mike From silent700 at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 18:07:33 2009 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:07:33 -0500 Subject: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <51ea77730906291607i4ed6e9c2le0136491baa45680@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 5:02 AM, SPC wrote: > Someone knows about this website ? > > http://chiclassiccomp.org > > It appears to be one website named 'Chicago Classic Computing' and mentions > VCF 2009, but is accesible actually only using Google cached webpages. > > In appeareance has a repository of documents, being some of them Altos > related. I'm actually searching all what I can obtain related with this firm > and products. Hi Sergio - I run that website for our local classic computing mailing list. I'm not sure what you mean about it being only accessible via cache - it does appear to be up right now. The document archive is made up of manuals, advertising and other stuff that I've been (slowly) scanning as time allows. I may have more Altos material to be scanned at some future date. I've got a storage locker full of boxes and boxes of manuals and books and no real clue what's in there :) Feel free to download what is there and contribute it to other collections, if you like. -- -jason From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jun 29 18:02:48 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:02:48 -0300 Subject: A plan for a "universal" low-pin-count programmer References: <4A48DDD7.4000702@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <280901c9f90e$c1a7ae60$880319bb@desktaba> > A completely open-sourced device programmer. That is, all the hardware > designs, PCB layouts, software and firmware are (or at least will be) > completely open. My "rough feature set" boils down to: Willem? :oO www.willem.org completely open source, as far as I know. There is a new full-pindriver version called willem USB. From lists at databasics.us Mon Jun 29 18:27:19 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:27:19 -1000 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <4A4870F0.18113.735082@cclist.sydex.com> References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <200906291027.28144.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A4870F0.18113.735082@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4A494DD7.9020109@databasics.us> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 29 Jun 2009 at 10:27, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > >> I'm haven't yet figured out if it's a sick joke, or if someone just >> didn't realize that it's a bad name to use. >> > > Happens more often than you'd think. Long ago, a friend decided to > call his company "Tripas" (a variant spelling of "Tri-pass"). After > the corporate name had been registered, the janitorial crew informed > him that they thought it was funny--apparently it's Spanish for > entriails (tripe). Tripas? Hey, wait a menudo.... (Menudo=Tripe Soup) Sorry. I worked, for a year or two, for a company called "Application Development Systems." The owner originally wanted to call it "Applied Industrial Development Systems," but some of the original employees convinced him it was a bad idea. Also, I am currently involved in starting up a non-profit organization to care for feral and abandoned cats in Kona. It's called "Kona Cat Care." Originally, the other founders were considering making the name 'cuter' by spelling it "Kona Kat Kare," but I pointed out that the initials were already taken. Seriously, being only one letter away from KFC is bad enough. Also, a friend of mine started a company that was a holding company, owning retail outlets with various names. But the name of the holding company is "New Directions". I told him he had better be very careful with his 'diction' when he said the name. He looked puzzled for a moment, and then turned white as a sheet. Apparently, he'd never made the connection before. Most amusing. But, one case was so good it is STILL used as a joke. There was a Cleveland, Ohio furniture store in the late fifties that was called "Sofa King." They advertised heavily, but only on rock-and-roll radio. There are still some tapes from back then floating around... "Other stores might offer low prices, but only WE can offer you prices that are Sofa King low!" This made the audiences (all kids, for the most part) shriek. And, it was the fifties, when there was no naughtiness allowed on the airwaves. Choice. Warren From ragooman at comcast.net Mon Jun 29 18:37:44 2009 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:37:44 -0400 Subject: 1966 Lunar Orbiter image tapes rescued in LA Times: via AmpexFR-900 In-Reply-To: <4A493FD1.5080502@update.uu.se> References: <6.2.3.4.2.20090416124716.0448e8a8@mail.threedee.com> <49E99914.4070008@update.uu.se> <49EA1AD5.11F5BBE2@cs.ubc.ca> <4A493FD1.5080502@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <4A495048.6090303@comcast.net> Pontus wrote: > I'm waking up an old thread here, but this sounds like related and good > news: > > http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/110442/WORLD-EXCLUSIVE-NASA-finds-missing-moon-landing-tapes > > Not sure how reliable that is, but I hope it is :) > > There's a nice movie about the Parkes Observatory in Australia and the Apollo moon landing, "The Dish", 2000. They went into great detail in using the original equipment, a PDP system and more, inside the control room. The majority of the moon landing video --about 2.5hrs-- was taken off the feed from the Parkes Observatory - which, for some reason, had the best signal strength at the time between all three receiving stations. =Dan [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ] From RichA at vulcan.com Mon Jun 29 18:57:42 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:57:42 -0700 Subject: the fallacy of modernity [was RE: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website] In-Reply-To: References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4A48DE3D.5080906@tdh.com> Message-ID: > From: Ethan Dicks > Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 11:13 AM > On 6/29/09, Rich Alderson wrote: >>> Besides the obvious modern dirty meaning of the word, there is another. >> ?????? > I was meaning the modern use of the word to refer not merely to "dung" > but as slang for coprophilia, which is how the word has been used > widely on the internet in recent years. OK, I'm unfamiliar with that usage, and leapt to the wrong conclusion. >> The use of the word "scat" to mean "ordure, dung" goes back several >> centuries. It is a learned borrowing, from the ancient Greek _skOr_, >> _skatos_,[1] of the same meaning > Yes. I've taken ancient Greek and read/write/speak modern Greek. The > word is still in use on the streets of Greece in a recognizable form. In point of fact, weren't you one of the advocates (along with me) for the original sci.classics (which later became humanities.classics, but that's a story for another day)? I was explaining for the *non*-classicists among us. Rich From classiccmp at crash.com Mon Jun 29 19:07:43 2009 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:07:43 -0700 Subject: Diskless Vaxstation 2000 (was Re: PDP-11/23 H786 PSU Fault Finding) In-Reply-To: <4A49195E.3050404@gmail.com> References: <425092.14291.qm@web30607.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4A49195E.3050404@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A49574F.8070405@crash.com> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > David Comley wrote: >> I did try to get it to run OpenVMS 7.3 diskless at one point but to no >> avail. Perhaps they were never meant to ? I didn't spend long looking >> at it. > > I've clusterbooted a Vaxstation 2000 before. I've booted enough VS2000's at once to crash the MVII that was the boot node for the whole LAVC. Admittedly it didn't take many... Do I get a cookie? --S. From RichA at vulcan.com Mon Jun 29 19:26:24 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:26:24 -0700 Subject: the fallacy of modernity [was RE: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website] In-Reply-To: References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4A48A77F.4570.148710E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: SPC > Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 12:53 PM > My excuses for the sensibles stomachs, but: > Eschatology (escatologia in Spanish). The RAE (Royal Academy of Spanish > Language) attribute these meanings to the word: > * Set of beliefs and doctrines concerning the grave life > * Dealin with excreta > A word related is eschatological: > * Belonging or related to excrement and dirt > It's related with ???????, ????, ?????? OK, we've wandered way, WAY off-topic here, but I can't allow this to stand.[0] In Greek, and are generally unrelated.[1] Each reflects a separately reconstructible sound all the way back to Proto-Indo-European, usually written as *k and *gh in ASCII, although in the handbooks the and will frequently have accents to indicate that they are palatals rather than velars, and the will be superscripted.[2] Because Spanish does not have an aspirate class (nor did Latin, where the borrowing first took place), and are both represented by , here pronounced [k], and a distinction is lost that was present in Greek. Further, in the history of Spanish, initial clusters of s+{p,t,k} developed an epenthetic vowel e-, so that original Greek _eskhato-_ and _skato-_ fall together in Spanish as _eskato-_.[3] Note that the Greek word _eskhatos_ means "last", and eschatology is that part of religious doctrine that deals with death, judgment, and destiny. Now I'll shut up on this topic. [0] Before I became a full-time computer programmer and later system manager, I spent more than a decade studying Indo-European linguistics, both as an undergraduate and as a graduate student. I see too much nonsense passing for linguistics in the newspapers and on-line, and I do what I can to correct it. [1] There is a conditional relationship called Grassman's Law (better "Rule"), in which underlying aspirates can appear as nonaspirates. In addition, an aspirate before final -s deaspirates. The canonical example in classical Greek is the word _thriks_, _trikhos_ "hair", in which the final -s keeps Grassman's from operating in the nominative. [2] In linguistics fora, I write that kind of thing in TeX notation, but I'll forego that here. [3] For example, Greek _skhola_ yields Spanish _escuela_ "school", Latin _stare_ "stand" gives Spanish _estar_ "to be" (of transient states), etc. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com (206) 342-2239 (206) 465-2916 cell http://www.pdpplanet.org/ From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Mon Jun 29 20:31:30 2009 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:31:30 -0700 Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook References: Message-ID: <001301c9f922$7ebb53e0$0201a8c0@hal9000> Tony, Here is my list of what it isn't ; Part Number Pins Match Function ? DP8451 20 NO DP8455 20 NO DP8459 28 NO ( PCC ) DP8460 24 ??? DP8461 24 NO DP8462 24 NO DP8463 28 NO DP8464 24 NO DP8465 24 NO DP8466 48 NO DP8469 PCC NO Couldn't find any poop on the DP8460 ???? Best regards, Steven > > > > Hi Tony, > > > > Thanks Al for the heads-up on the datasheets !! Tony, do you think it is > > Indeed. That was extremely fast and very helpful. At least I know what it > isn't.. > > > some kind of Manchester / Miller encoder / decoder ? Do we know if it is a > > Yes. I think it's the circuit that combines and separates clocks and data > pluses. Possibly RLL 2.7 code, I thought it might be a DP8463, but none > of the signals match. > > > National chip or has it's total identity been wiped ? Maybe Signetics or > > Plessey or TI or ?? Where are the power pins ( sometimes that is a good > > A proverb about grandmothers and sucking eggs springs to mind :-) :-) > > > tell ) ? You mentioned 24 pin skinny DIP ? I'll keep looking. This is for > > some type of magnetic disk / floppy media system ? > > OK, more seriously, I'll tell you what I've discovered. > > This is a chip on the logic board of an HP winchester drive with what I > am pretty sure is an ESDI interface. This board has about 50 chips on it, > inclduing the 8053 microcontorller and a custom PGA thing with 95 pins. > > The chip in question has a National Semiconductor logo and the HP > house-code 1820-5422. It's a 24 pin skinnyDIP (normal 0.1" pin spacing, > 0.3" between the rows). > > As I said, I think the host interface on this drive is ESDI. The > read/write data and read/write clock differential signals from the 20 pin > connecotr are buffered in the ovious way (I forget the numbers of the > buffer chips, but I have data sheets on them) and then go to this device. > > I;'ve not traced many pins yet, but the ones I know are : > > 8 : +5V (Vcc) > 9 : Master clock input (from a 20MHz oscillator can) > 11 : Write Clock input > 12 : Write Data input > 15 : Read Data output > 16 : Read Clock output > 20 : Ground > > There are no other pins connected to power or ground, which pretty much > makes the ones I've found the real power pins (as opposed to, say, mode > control pins that are tied high or low). Thoes power pins are odd > (not the corner pins). > > > > > Pinouts are the same for the AMD 8051 / 8053. Hope that helps. > > Thanks. > > -tony From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jun 29 20:30:33 2009 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:30:33 -0300 Subject: A plan for a "universal" low-pin-count programmer References: <4A48DDD7.4000702@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <836701c9f922$a85f1e20$880319bb@desktaba> > I know a few folks here (besides myself) have accumulated collections of > older-generation (i.e. "obsolete") fuse-PROMs, GALs, PALs, and so on. A > common > complaint is that modern programmers won't touch these devices -- negative > voltages (sometimes very high negative voltages) are required to program > some > of them, and for others the programming hardware just wasn't tested with > them. Philip, maybe you should update your knowledge on modern programmers :o) There are three kinds of programmers you can use on that - Old ISA and parallel port programmers. It is easy to find an ALL-03A or something like that, that programs even 1702. - Modern home-built programmers - Willem/Willem USB come to mind. It doesn't touch proms, gals, pals, but programs most everything else. - Modern el-cheapo USB programmers from China. I have a wellom programmer that programs everything but old 87xx and anything below 2716, but do all kinds of GALs, PALs, PROMs and like. There is a more expensive model that programs everything but I thought (WRONG!) that I'd never need that. > In my experience, when confronted with the fact that their programmers > don't > actually work, most programmer manufacturers seem to respond by asking why > you're even thinking about using 1702 EPROMs in their programmer, and > sooner-or-later admit that they actually didn't test them on anything more > recent than a programmer they last sold in the late 1980s, and that they > "just > ported the software across and thought it would work". You're asking the wrong manufacturer. Try that with Elnec. You'll have a great and pleasurefull surprise :) > A completely open-sourced device programmer. That is, all the hardware > designs, PCB layouts, software and firmware are (or at least will be) > completely open. My "rough feature set" boils down to: Willem USB anyone? > * 24, 32 or 40 individually-programmable pin drivers. More or less if > you > like -- add or remove a few pin drivers. I think the upper maximum is > likely > to be around 64 pins, based on typical CPLD pin counts. You hardly use 40, the best designs today uses 48 From IanK at vulcan.com Mon Jun 29 21:34:30 2009 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:34:30 -0700 Subject: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems In-Reply-To: References: <894F5809-D68F-4141-A8C8-9C655BF52C50@microspot.co.uk>, Message-ID: Oops - it's Monday. I obviously meant Omnibus, not Unibus, on the PDP8. -- Ian ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ian King [IanK at vulcan.com] Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 12:17 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Roger Holmes > Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 11:25 AM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems > > > On 29 Jun 2009, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > > From: Michael Kerpan > > Subject: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems > > > What about various lesser-known systems? Given that most > > people used these systems through remote terminals to begin with, a > > public access system would seem to be an ideal way to experience > them, > > but how many of them are available in such a way? > > Mine is too old, no serial connection, no operating system, not even > an operator terminal. Bootstrap from drum and read 80 column punched > cards. I have modified the bootstrap to read from paper tape and I > have now got a bit bashing serial link which uses 100% of the CPU to > make it work - no time to service any terminals though, no interrupts > and no multi-programming capabilities. > > It would be nice to see a ICT/ICL 1900 online one day. > > The first machine I used was an IBM 7094. We punched our cards, they > were taken to London and next week we got our listing back saying > syntax error on line 1. > > Roger > ICT 1301 mainframe (1962) > My first programming language was FORTRAN, our card decks processed in batch on the school district's 370. One learned to be very, very cautious when keypunching, as the three-day turnaround rapidly ate into the semester! Your comments highlight an important distinction: your system is NOT one that was used "through remote terminals", but rather as a batch job processor. With minicomputers, we see a slightly different distinction: those designed for use by multiple, possibly remoted terminals, and machines such as our PDP-7 that was really intended for a single local user. The PDP-8 originally fell into that latter class, but was extended to support multiple users through extensions in software (e.g. TSS-8) and hardware (the Unibus, on which it was relatively simple to add new serial adapters). Each of these three classes provide obviously different challenges in terms of presentation to a 'distributed' audience. -- Ian From brain at jbrain.com Mon Jun 29 21:38:11 2009 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:38:11 -0500 Subject: 1966 Lunar Orbiter image tapes rescued in LA Times: via AmpexFR-900 In-Reply-To: <4A495048.6090303@comcast.net> References: <6.2.3.4.2.20090416124716.0448e8a8@mail.threedee.com> <49E99914.4070008@update.uu.se> <49EA1AD5.11F5BBE2@cs.ubc.ca> <4A493FD1.5080502@update.uu.se> <4A495048.6090303@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4A497A93.70807@jbrain.com> Dan Roganti wrote: > > > Pontus wrote: >> I'm waking up an old thread here, but this sounds like related and good >> news: >> >> http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/110442/WORLD-EXCLUSIVE-NASA-finds-missing-moon-landing-tapes >> >> >> Not sure how reliable that is, but I hope it is :) >> >> > > There's a nice movie about the Parkes Observatory in Australia and the > Apollo moon landing, "The Dish", 2000. They went into great detail in > using the original equipment, A very enjoyable film, I would add. Although the generator issue in the film is a fabrication, Parkes did indeed battle extreme winds to catch the signal and hold it. Jim From quapla at xs4all.nl Tue Jun 30 00:43:00 2009 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (Ed Groenenberg) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:43:00 +0200 (CEST) Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website Message-ID: <63981.212.67.167.228.1246340580.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> With the danger that this is going to be non topic.... Warren, Could you explain what this did mean? I'm not of English/American origin. ====snip==== > Also, a friend of mine started a company that was a holding company, > owning retail outlets with various names. But the name of the holding > company is "New Directions". I told him he had better be very careful > with his 'diction' when he said the name. He looked puzzled for a > moment, and then turned white as a sheet. Apparently, he'd never made > the connection before. Most amusing. ===snip==== -- Certified : VCP 3.x, SCSI 3.x SCSA S10, SCNA S10 From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Jun 30 00:58:02 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:58:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <63981.212.67.167.228.1246340580.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> References: <63981.212.67.167.228.1246340580.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jun 2009, Ed Groenenberg wrote: > With the danger that this is going to be non topic.... > > Warren, > > Could you explain what this did mean? I'm not of English/American > origin. It's a similar kind of funny as "co-workers" --> "cow-orkers". Just move the space around a bit. > ====snip==== > >> Also, a friend of mine started a company that was a holding company, >> owning retail outlets with various names. But the name of the holding >> company is "New Directions". I told him he had better be very careful >> with his 'diction' when he said the name. He looked puzzled for a >> moment, and then turned white as a sheet. Apparently, he'd never made >> the connection before. Most amusing. > > ===snip==== -- 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? From spedraja at ono.com Tue Jun 30 01:20:56 2009 From: spedraja at ono.com (SPC) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:20:56 +0200 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: References: <63981.212.67.167.228.1246340580.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: New-directions... Newd-ire... :-)) Sergio Warren, >> >> Could you explain what this did mean? I'm not of English/American >> origin. >> > > It's a similar kind of funny as "co-workers" --> "cow-orkers". Just move > the space around a bit. > From snhirsch at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 06:10:16 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:10:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: 1541 drive emulators In-Reply-To: <124101c9f850$eb2a9b80$880319bb@desktaba> References: <26436815286A4EC2B6A0615E6FA158FC@xp1800> from "Rik Bos" at Jun28, 9 07:22:59 pm <6A9EBEB28A45471E96C7397FDE6DFD72@xp1800> <124101c9f850$eb2a9b80$880319bb@desktaba> Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Jun 2009, Alexandre Souza wrote: > A friend of mine got a C128 and I want to make a drive emulator for him. I > wasn't able to find anything suitable (e.g.: Runs in windows or linux, > preferable windows, has schematics avaiable, free) in google. Anyone can > help? :o) What about an appropriate X-cable: http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~schepers/cables.html and a copy of HDD64? I think the DOS version is free. -- From dtulbert at acanac.net Mon Jun 29 17:23:52 2009 From: dtulbert at acanac.net (Dr. David J. Tulbert) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:23:52 -0400 Subject: HP 1630 logic analysers Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20090629182140.03c96330@acanac.net> Hi, Jay, I just stumbled upon your email in an old post about manuals for the HP 1630. We just picked up a 1630G from eBay and I'd be most appreciative for any documentation you could make available. Is there also a software module for the device? Thanks, Dave Tulbert From lists at databasics.us Tue Jun 30 01:21:07 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:21:07 -1000 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <63981.212.67.167.228.1246340580.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> References: <63981.212.67.167.228.1246340580.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <4A49AED3.10503@databasics.us> Ed Groenenberg wrote: > With the danger that this is going to be non topic.... > > Warren, > > Could you explain what this did mean? I'm not of English/American > origin. > Zweifellos bedeutet es ?nackte aufrechte Penis.? Warren From lists at databasics.us Tue Jun 30 01:24:24 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:24:24 -1000 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: References: <63981.212.67.167.228.1246340580.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <4A49AF98.30500@databasics.us> SPC wrote: > New-directions... Newd-ire... :-)) Significa ?o p?nis ereto nu? no portugu?s Warren From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Tue Jun 30 04:10:01 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:10:01 +0100 Subject: OT: deliberate mis-spelling, was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <4A494DD7.9020109@databasics.us> References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> , <200906291027.28144.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A4870F0.18113.735082@cclist.sydex.com> <4A494DD7.9020109@databasics.us> Message-ID: <1246353001.26671.6.camel@elric> On Mon, 2009-06-29 at 13:27 -1000, Warren Wolfe wrote: > Also, I am currently involved in starting up a non-profit organization > to care for feral and abandoned cats in Kona. It's called "Kona Cat > Care." Originally, the other founders were considering making the name > 'cuter' by spelling it "Kona Kat Kare," but I pointed out that the > initials were already taken. Seriously, being only one letter away from > KFC is bad enough. There's a word for that, where you deliberately mis-spell something for effect, like "kat kare" or "cheez". Years ago my mum (a retired English teacher) told me what it was, but I can't remember and neither can she. I mean, she's got an excuse, being a little over twice my age... Anyone here know it? Gordon From lists at databasics.us Tue Jun 30 05:36:09 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:36:09 -1000 Subject: OT: deliberate mis-spelling, was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <1246353001.26671.6.camel@elric> References: <476589.87266.qm@web112208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> , <200906291027.28144.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4A4870F0.18113.735082@cclist.sydex.com> <4A494DD7.9020109@databasics.us> <1246353001.26671.6.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4A49EA99.2070404@databasics.us> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > There's a word for that, where you deliberately mis-spell something for > effect, like "kat kare" or "cheez". Years ago my mum (a retired English > teacher) told me what it was, but I can't remember and neither can she. > I mean, she's got an excuse, being a little over twice my age... > > Anyone here know it? > Spellings such as "lite" are referred to as variant spellings. The phrases such as "I can haz cheezburger?" are called Leet. Any other, I don't know. Warren From ama at ugr.es Tue Jun 30 06:49:21 2009 From: ama at ugr.es (Angel Martin Alganza) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:49:21 +0200 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: References: <4A2EAE3F.60909@vaxen.net> Message-ID: <20090630114921.GJ28057@darwin.ugr.es> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 10:25:52AM -0700, Gene Buckle wrote: > > What, you've never heard of "sudo -s" ? :) How does it differ from 'sudo su'? That's what I usually do. Cheers, ?ngel From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jun 30 07:44:29 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:44:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <20090630114921.GJ28057@darwin.ugr.es> from Angel Martin Alganza at "Jun 30, 9 01:49:21 pm" Message-ID: <200906301244.n5UCiTv3014914@floodgap.com> > > What, you've never heard of "sudo -s" ? :) > > How does it differ from 'sudo su'? That's what I usually do. I just sudo tcsh and get a shell that way. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. -- C.S. Lewis ----- From jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com Tue Jun 30 08:15:30 2009 From: jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:15:30 -0500 (CDT) Subject: HP 1630 logic analysers In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20090629182140.03c96330@acanac.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Dr. David J. Tulbert wrote: > I just stumbled upon your email in an old post about manuals for the HP > 1630. We just picked up a 1630G from eBay and I'd be most appreciative for > any documentation you could make available. Is there also a software module > for the device? Greetings Dave; That may have been in response to my post, as I picked up a 1630G also from eBay a year or two ago. As it turns out Agilent, who picked up HP's lab equipment business some years ago, has back-scanned copies of their manuals. IF you head on over to agilent.com, select 'Manuals', and then search for '1630' you'll find it. I also have a copy of the Service Manual which I could pass along. I know I found this online, and probably on agilent.com also, but I wasn't able to find it on my 6-second search a few minutes ago. - JP From jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com Tue Jun 30 08:15:30 2009 From: jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:15:30 -0500 (CDT) Subject: HP 1630 logic analysers In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20090629182140.03c96330@acanac.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Dr. David J. Tulbert wrote: > I just stumbled upon your email in an old post about manuals for the HP > 1630. We just picked up a 1630G from eBay and I'd be most appreciative for > any documentation you could make available. Is there also a software module > for the device? Greetings Dave; That may have been in response to my post, as I picked up a 1630G also from eBay a year or two ago. As it turns out Agilent, who picked up HP's lab equipment business some years ago, has back-scanned copies of their manuals. IF you head on over to agilent.com, select 'Manuals', and then search for '1630' you'll find it. I also have a copy of the Service Manual which I could pass along. I know I found this online, and probably on agilent.com also, but I wasn't able to find it on my 6-second search a few minutes ago. - JP From lee at geekdot.com Tue Jun 30 08:35:36 2009 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:35:36 +0100 Subject: OT: deliberate mis-spelling, was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website Message-ID: <4A4A14A8.6030900@geekdot.com> > There's a word for that, where you deliberately mis-spell something > for effect, like "kat kare" or "cheez". Years ago my mum (a retired > English teacher) told me what it was, but I can't remember and > neither can she. Cacography? Lee. From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Tue Jun 30 09:02:21 2009 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:02:21 -0400 Subject: OT: deliberate mis-spelling In-Reply-To: <4A4A14A8.6030900@geekdot.com> Message-ID: <200906301402.n5UE2Un5061508@keith.ezwind.net> Deliberate mis-spellings are very common to distinguish registered trademarks. Compaq(r) is a solid trademark where Compact Computer would not pass muster with the USTPO as being discriptive. The common pain pill Aleve got its name when it's origional relief based name was rejected as being generic. Aleve was not a real word in use and was easily registered even though phoneticly very close. Deliberate mis-spellings are often used to try to get around trademark restrictions, only to fail the likeliness of confusion test and end up dealing with angry lawyers. later... The other Bob From binarydinosaurs at gmail.com Tue Jun 30 09:11:38 2009 From: binarydinosaurs at gmail.com (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:11:38 +0100 Subject: OT: deliberate mis-spelling In-Reply-To: <200906301402.n5UE2Un5061508@keith.ezwind.net> References: <4A4A14A8.6030900@geekdot.com> <200906301402.n5UE2Un5061508@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <53e388f20906300711w733884b0ge4ea3796bb81008c@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 3:02 PM, Bob Bradlee wrote: > Deliberate mis-spellings are very common to distinguish registered > trademarks. > > Compaq(r) is a solid trademark where Compact Computer would not pass muster > with the USTPO as being > discriptive. > > The common pain pill Aleve got its name when it's origional relief based > name was rejected as being > generic. > Aleve was not a real word in use and was easily registered even though > phoneticly very close. > > Deliberate mis-spellings are often used to try to get around trademark > restrictions, only to fail the likeliness > of confusion test and end up dealing with angry lawyers. > > later... > > The other Bob > > COMPAQ originally stood for 'COMPAtability with Quality' because of their IBM-copyright busting compatible BIOS. That's the official line anyhoo :) -- -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Tue Jun 30 09:23:36 2009 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:23:36 +0100 Subject: hiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <31AFCB76-523F-4BC3-957D-E356201E8D96@microspot.co.uk> > > From: Warren Wolfe > > I worked, for a year or two, for a company called "Application > Development Systems." The owner originally wanted to call it "Applied > Industrial Development Systems," but some of the original employees > convinced him it was a bad idea. WAY back, my company was going to (or maybe we did) sell some software for testing CNC machine 'programs' on an Apple ][ and a pen plotter, it was called CNC Aids. > Also, I am currently involved in starting up a non-profit organization > to care for feral and abandoned cats in Kona. It's called "Kona Cat > Care." Originally, the other founders were considering making the > name > 'cuter' by spelling it "Kona Kat Kare," but I pointed out that the > initials were already taken. Seriously, being only one letter away > from > KFC is bad enough. KCC = Kent County Council here. The big problem with mnemonics is their meaning differs with context, either geographical, temporal or industrial sector. If I search for the company who made my computer (International Computers and Tabulators) on the internet, I either get nothing if I search by name, but if I search for ICT I have to go through every reference and discard the 99.99% connected with "Information and Communication Technologies" to find the few references which are relevant. Of course if I search for 'ICT (1200,1201,1202,1300,1301,1302,1900,1901,1902,1903,1904,1905,1906 .......) I get much better results but throw up load of addresses of US streets with those big numbers in them, and possibly miss out any odd references to peripherals with numbers like 660, 1930 and several hundred more. Of course there is also the problem of people describing a 1980s item as vintage/antique/veteran/ancient when I am looking for something manufactured in the 1960s. eBay in particular is very bad at this, it should record approximate manufacture dates for items and let people search by date range. End of grumpy old man gripe. > Also, a friend of mine started a company that was a holding company, > owning retail outlets with various names. But the name of the holding > company is "New Directions". I told him he had better be very careful > with his 'diction' when he said the name. He looked puzzled for a > moment, and then turned white as a sheet. Apparently, he'd never made > the connection before. Most amusing. > > But, one case was so good it is STILL used as a joke. There was a > Cleveland, Ohio furniture store in the late fifties that was called > "Sofa King." They advertised heavily, but only on rock-and-roll > radio. > There are still some tapes from back then floating around... "Other > stores might offer low prices, but only WE can offer you prices that > are > Sofa King low!" This made the audiences (all kids, for the most part) > shriek. And, it was the fifties, when there was no naughtiness > allowed > on the airwaves. Choice. Great! An old story here was that Siemens were going to move their UK base a few miles down the road to the town of Staines until they realised what their address was going to be. From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jun 30 09:30:32 2009 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:30:32 -0400 Subject: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <63981.212.67.167.228.1246340580.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> References: <63981.212.67.167.228.1246340580.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <4A4A2188.9010904@gmail.com> Ed Groenenberg wrote: > With the danger that this is going to be non topic.... > > Warren, > > Could you explain what this did mean? I'm not of English/American > origin. new directions -> nude erections Peace... Sridhar > ====snip==== > >> Also, a friend of mine started a company that was a holding company, >> owning retail outlets with various names. But the name of the holding >> company is "New Directions". I told him he had better be very careful >> with his 'diction' when he said the name. He looked puzzled for a >> moment, and then turned white as a sheet. Apparently, he'd never made >> the connection before. Most amusing. > > ===snip==== > > From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Tue Jun 30 09:34:48 2009 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:34:48 -0400 Subject: OT: deliberate mis-spelling In-Reply-To: <53e388f20906300711w733884b0ge4ea3796bb81008c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200906301435.n5UEYuYE064009@keith.ezwind.net> On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:11:38 +0100, Adrian Graham wrote: >> >> >COMPAQ originally stood for 'COMPAtability with Quality' because of their >IBM-copyright busting compatible BIOS. That's the official line anyhoo :) I have no reason to dispute any official story/reason .... Does not change the fact that the spelling Compaq was not in common use until they registered it as a trademark and now it has attained exclusive use in a wide range of products and services. While it is possiable to get a common name registered as a trademark, it requires the common word be used in an uncommon way and a good lawyer :-) later Bob From binarydinosaurs at gmail.com Tue Jun 30 09:42:20 2009 From: binarydinosaurs at gmail.com (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:42:20 +0100 Subject: OT: deliberate mis-spelling In-Reply-To: <200906301435.n5UEYuYE064009@keith.ezwind.net> References: <53e388f20906300711w733884b0ge4ea3796bb81008c@mail.gmail.com> <200906301435.n5UEYuYE064009@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <53e388f20906300742o615b338ai94d4367a1da1ab0@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Bob Bradlee wrote: > On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:11:38 +0100, Adrian Graham wrote: > > >> > >> > >COMPAQ originally stood for 'COMPAtability with Quality' because of their > >IBM-copyright busting compatible BIOS. That's the official line anyhoo :) > > > I have no reason to dispute any official story/reason .... > > Does not change the fact that the spelling Compaq was not in common use > until they registered it as a > trademark and now it has attained exclusive use in a wide range of products > and services. > > While it is possiable to get a common name registered as a trademark, it > requires the common word be > used in an uncommon way and a good lawyer :-) > > later > Bob > > 'windows', anyone? -- -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jun 30 09:48:34 2009 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:48:34 -0400 Subject: UNIX V7 In-Reply-To: <200906301244.n5UCiTv3014914@floodgap.com> References: <200906301244.n5UCiTv3014914@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <867f7278c5fd09628eec997abb0f64b7.squirrel@mail.neurotica.com> On Tue, June 30, 2009 8:44 am, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> > What, you've never heard of "sudo -s" ? :) >> >> How does it differ from 'sudo su'? That's what I usually do. > > I just sudo tcsh and get a shell that way. I just use "su". -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Tue Jun 30 10:10:43 2009 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:10:43 +0200 Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <01C9F8E9.0FAE0120@MSE_D03> References: <01C9F8E9.0FAE0120@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <20090630171043.8874848b.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:39:29 -0400 M H Stein wrote: > Some years ago a shoe company came out with a shoe they named "The > Incubus". Said shoes were in the stores before management realized > what an incubus is. My all time favorit: Mitsubishi Pajero. They soled that car under this name in parts of the world where spanish is spoken. Not noticing that "pajero" in spanish means "wanker". They where surprised that the car didn't sell well. When they noticed the mistake they renamed the car to Montero. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Tue Jun 30 10:59:44 2009 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:59:44 -0700 Subject: deliberate mis-spelling,was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website References: <4A4A14A8.6030900@geekdot.com> Message-ID: <001301c9f99b$ca4b0110$0201a8c0@hal9000> How 'bout Malapropism ?? / Steven > > There's a word for that, where you deliberately mis-spell something > > for effect, like "kat kare" or "cheez". Years ago my mum (a retired > > English teacher) told me what it was, but I can't remember and > > neither can she. > > Cacography? > > Lee. From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Tue Jun 30 11:08:58 2009 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:08:58 +0100 Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <20090630171043.8874848b.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <01C9F8E9.0FAE0120@MSE_D03> <20090630171043.8874848b.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <1246378138.16337.1.camel@elric> On Tue, 2009-06-30 at 17:10 +0200, Jochen Kunz wrote: > On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:39:29 -0400 > M H Stein wrote: > > > Some years ago a shoe company came out with a shoe they named "The > > Incubus". Said shoes were in the stores before management realized > > what an incubus is. > My all time favorit: Mitsubishi Pajero. > They soled that car under this name in parts of the world where spanish > is spoken. Not noticing that "pajero" in spanish means "wanker". They > where surprised that the car didn't sell well. When they noticed the > mistake they renamed the car to Montero. See, I know someone for whom that was one of the selling points... Gordon From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 30 11:54:30 2009 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:54:30 -0700 Subject: deliberate mis-spelling, was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <001301c9f99b$ca4b0110$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <4A4A14A8.6030900@geekdot.com>, <001301c9f99b$ca4b0110$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <4A49E0D6.26785.6107EB8@cclist.sydex.com> On 30 Jun 2009 at 8:59, Scanning wrote: > How 'bout Malapropism ?? > > / Steven > > > > There's a word for that, where you deliberately mis-spell > > > something > > > for effect, like "kat kare" or "cheez". Years ago my mum (a > > > retired English teacher) told me what it was, but I can't > > > remember and neither can she. > > > > Cacography? Not a malapropism (unintentional substitution of a similar-sounding, but different in meaning word). A recent example that comes to mine is the BBC Radio 4 series "Ladies of Letters" with Prunella Scales and Patricia Routledge that's liberally sprinkled with them. Cacography seems to say "intentional bad writing/spelling", with the emphasis on "kakos"=bad. I'm not certain that the word captures the spriit of a variant spelling. Cacography seems to carry the sense of the opposite of calligraphy. Or so it seems to me. FWIW, Chuck From alanp at snowmoose.com Tue Jun 30 12:32:41 2009 From: alanp at snowmoose.com (Alan Perry) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:32:41 -0700 Subject: Thinning the collection a little Message-ID: <4A4A4C39.2070201@snowmoose.com> I am thinning the collection a little. The following items are for sale and I wanted to see if there was any interest here before putting them on eBay. Prices are "make offer". All items "As Is", but I am willing to test as requested (and as I have facilities here to do so). Located in the Seattle, WA area. 1. DEC 881A (REV.D01) power supply. Was sitting loose in a DEC SA482 cabinet (that was full of RA82s when I bought my VAX). 2. NeXT 030 slab with monitor and NeXT printer. Mono. 25MHz. Was working when I put it in storage and will test confirm that it still works before the sale. 3. Canon BJ-10e bubblejet printer with user manual and programmers manual. alan From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 30 13:37:31 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:37:31 +0100 (BST) Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook In-Reply-To: <001301c9f922$7ebb53e0$0201a8c0@hal9000> from "Scanning" at Jun 29, 9 06:31:30 pm Message-ID: > > Tony, > > Here is my list of what it isn't ; Thanks... After reading the databook that Al kindly scnaned and put on Bitsavers, I came to the same conclusion. It's none of the obvious devices. I now know a little more about it -- it's the data encoder/decoder, and it may also do things like sector mark detection. Pin 4 is the encoded write data output, which goes to an external delay line. The taps on the delay line are selected by a '151 multiplexer, the control inputs on that come from pins 1-3 on this unknown IC. Presumably write precompensation. Output of the mux goes to the HDA connector. I wodner if it is a custom part... -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 30 14:11:56 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:11:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT: deliberate mis-spelling In-Reply-To: <200906301402.n5UE2Un5061508@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200906301402.n5UE2Un5061508@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <20090630120941.E90019@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 30 Jun 2009, Bob Bradlee wrote: > Deliberate mis-spellings are often used to try to get around trademark > restrictions, only to fail the likeliness of confusion test and end up > dealing with angry lawyers. . . . also to get around truth in advertising laws. "Froot Loops" don't have to be made of fruit. "Cheez" doesn't have to be made of cheese A related topic is Mondegreens - the substitution of homonyms. From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 30 14:15:18 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:15:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <1246378138.16337.1.camel@elric> References: <01C9F8E9.0FAE0120@MSE_D03> <20090630171043.8874848b.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <1246378138.16337.1.camel@elric> Message-ID: <20090630121420.W90019@shell.lmi.net> How well did Nova (No Va) sell in Spanish speaking countries? IIRC, GM had some difficulty with their "Nova" From bbrown at harpercollege.edu Tue Jun 30 14:21:43 2009 From: bbrown at harpercollege.edu (Bob Brown) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:21:43 -0500 Subject: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems In-Reply-To: <8dd2d95c0906290951gf388ae5s171385267211a6aa@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <3E7B329687F1C541A9F1251B3A2A201E033AA721@admexchs1.admdom.harpercollege.edu> I offer an emaulated hp2000 timeshared system. Telnet mickey.ath.cx Do ctl-J,ctl-M until you get the 2nd login prompt, then: Hel-t001,hp2000,1 -Bob -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Michael Kerpan Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 11:51 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Telnet access to classic mainframe/timesharing systems I'd be interested to know what's out there vis a vis classic systems that are on the Internet offering public access. Currently, I know of twenex.org (emulated KL-10B DECSYSTEM-20 with Panda TOPS-20), pdpplanet.com (a TOAD-1 with TOPS-20, a DECSYSTEM-10 2065 and a VAX 780) and cray-cyber.org (an emulated CDC Cyber plus a rotating selection of historic super computers on weekends), but is there anything else? Is anybody running classic versions of UNIX (UCB-era BSD, AT&T-era System III/V, V6/V7, etc) Is anybody running a public IBM system? What about various lesser-known systems? Given that most people used these systems through remote terminals to begin with, a public access system would seem to be an ideal way to experience them, but how many of them are available in such a way? From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Tue Jun 30 14:29:44 2009 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:29:44 +0100 Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook In-Reply-To: References: <001301c9f922$7ebb53e0$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: A quick perusal of HP Bench Briefs (they listed the 1820-xxxx etc to real number) does not have that chip listed so likely a special Dave Caroline From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 30 15:11:06 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:11:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook In-Reply-To: from "Dave Caroline" at Jun 30, 9 08:29:44 pm Message-ID: > > A quick perusal of HP Bench Briefs (they listed the 1820-xxxx etc to > real number) does not have that chip listed so likely a special Do you happen to know the latest issue that had such a list in it? The list I have goes up to the mid-3000s (if you see what I mean), and I've seen higher numbers used on stnadard chips. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 30 15:14:34 2009 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:14:34 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <20090630121420.W90019@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jun 30, 9 12:15:18 pm Message-ID: > > How well did Nova (No Va) sell in Spanish speaking countries? IIRC, GM > had some difficulty with their "Nova" Some years ago I rescued most of a DG Nova 1210 from a skip (dumpster). 'Most' meaning the rack-mount chassis, CPU board, core memory board and a special interface board. Alas it was (and still is) missing the cooling fan (no problem) and the lights-and-switches board (big problem...) When I got it, I sent a message to some of my classic-computer-loving freinds with the subject; 'Nova -- it doesn't go' and went on to expalin the urban legend and why it was true in this particular case. -tony From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Jun 30 15:31:02 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:31:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <20090630121420.W90019@shell.lmi.net> References: <01C9F8E9.0FAE0120@MSE_D03> <20090630171043.8874848b.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <1246378138.16337.1.camel@elric> <20090630121420.W90019@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jun 2009, Fred Cisin wrote: > How well did Nova (No Va) sell in Spanish speaking countries? IIRC, GM > had some difficulty with their "Nova" The "no va" connection is false. The single word "nova" means "new" in Latin and Portuguese. It's somewhat a valid word in Spanish even though the proper word is "nueva". Mind your genders. -- 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? From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Tue Jun 30 15:34:55 2009 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:34:55 +0100 Subject: National Semiconductor Mass Storage Handbook In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 1990 07 12 from http://www.hparchive.com/bench_briefs.htm Dave Caroline On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 9:11 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> >> A quick perusal of HP Bench Briefs (they listed the 1820-xxxx etc to >> real number) does not have that chip listed so likely a special > > Do you happen to know the latest issue that had such a list in it? The > list I have goes up to the mid-3000s (if you see what I mean), and I've > seen higher numbers used on stnadard chips. > > -tony > From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 30 15:40:46 2009 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:40:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: References: <01C9F8E9.0FAE0120@MSE_D03> <20090630171043.8874848b.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <1246378138.16337.1.camel@elric> <20090630121420.W90019@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20090630133954.J90019@shell.lmi.net> > The "no va" connection is false. The single word "nova" means "new" in > Latin and Portuguese. It's somewhat a valid word in Spanish even though > the proper word is "nueva". Mind your genders. "If it (Betelgeuse) is anything like my old Chevy Nove, it'll light up the night sky." From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Tue Jun 30 15:58:28 2009 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:58:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website Message-ID: <81133.87250.qm@web112206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I am so sorry I started this thread. I never knew it would explode to this many OT posts. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Jun 30 16:03:03 2009 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:03:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT Names was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <81133.87250.qm@web112206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <81133.87250.qm@web112206.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jun 2009, Christian Liendo wrote: > I am so sorry I started this thread. I never knew it would explode to > this many OT posts. Don't worry too much. Spiralling OT threads are almost a requirement here. -- 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? From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Tue Jun 30 18:34:46 2009 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:34:46 -0400 Subject: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive In-Reply-To: <4A3CFEA6.3050102@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4A3BBEEC.8090409@softjar.se> <4A3CFEA6.3050102@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <4A4AA116.5040703@compsys.to> Sorry for the delay in answering this topic. I finally found the altered 10-pin cable that was constructed about 20 years ago (taken out of service about 15 years ago when a BA123 was substituted for the BA23) to support both a Fixed Disk 0 and a Fixed Disk 1 with a single BA23 box. This post discusses the changes to the 10-pin cable which is plugged into the J4 slot in the BA23 Signal Distribution Panel which is located just behind the bulkhead at the rear of the two drive compartment at the front of a BA23 box. These changes support the use of a (second) Fixed Disk 1. CRITICAL INFORMATION: The Fixed Disk 0 MUST be selected as DS3 and the Fixed Disk 1 MUST be selected as DS4. Failure to do so will almost certainly result in a loss of FORMAT for both of the Fixed Disk drives. (Been There - Done That!) I realize that this response is very long and provides a lot of detail. However, it seems better to provide too much than too little. I am holding a 4-button front panel for the BA23 in my hands: P/N 70-20695-01 REV. A2 ECO MFG. CAN 43/85 After removing the 4 bolts on the back, the PCB board: BA23 FRONT PANEL KA 54-15610-00 C1/88 Left-Hand Number which is vertical is 5015609 Right-Hand Number which is vertical is 5415610 The labels for this panel are: Fixed Disk 0 Write Protect Halt Removable Run Disk @ @ o 1 O Ready Restart DC OK 2 O @ @ o where: @ is a push-button switch, O is a red LED and o is a green LED The above front panel (without any alterations in the wiring) supports ONLY a single Fixed Disk 0 and two floppy disks. However, by altering the 10-pin cable which is connected to the J4 slot in the BA23 Signal Distribution Panel, TWO Fixed Disks can be supported PROVIDED that: (a) Both Fixed Disks are either READY / NOT READY at the same time (b) Both Fixed Disks are either WRITE PROTECT / NOT WRITE PROTECT at the same time Note that the 10-pin cable which plugs into the J4 slot in the BA23 Signal Distribution Panel is one-half of the other end of the 20-pin cable which plugs into the Front Panel at the front of the BA23 box. The two alterations to the 10-pin cable are (lines are numbered from line 1 to line 10 with the red cable being line 1): (a) Cut the 5th line just before it enters the J4 slot and splice the free end to the 1st line (without cutting the 1st line) (b) Cut the 6th line just before it enters the J4 slot and splice the free end to the 2nd line (without cutting the 2nd line) In order to be able to easily remove the above alteration, a short 6" length of 10-pin cable was first attached to a male and female pair of headers. The female end of the substitute cable was inserted into the J4 slot and the female end of the standard 10-pin cable which normally plugs into the J4 slot is plugged in the the male header on the substitute cable. After normal operation has been verified, the above two hardware changes are made. A second Fixed Disk 1 is then cabled to the specified connectors on the BA23 Signal Distribution Panel AND with the drive select jumper set as DS4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In order to make sure that a little can go wrong as possible, it is suggested that the XXDP format program be run using ONLY Fixed Disk 0 set for DS3 when the second disk drive is being formatted (as well as removing the patched cable). Preliminary testing to show that this drive is working is also best carried out in this configuration. It would be appreciated for feedback to be posted by anyone who attempts to implement the above changes to the 10-pin cable. Also, if Tony Duell can dig up the schematics for the BA23 Signal Distribution Panel to confirm the the reason why the above changes actually work, that would be very helpful. A second post describing the 6-button front panel for the BA23 which correctly supports both a Fixed Disk 0 and a Fixed Disk 1 along with 2 floppy disk drives will be posted separately immediately after this post. This post describing the 6-button BA23 front panel should put to rest the question of whether or not a BA23 can support 2 fixed disk drives. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine >Pete Turnbull wrote: > On 19/06/2009 17:38, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> This was definitely in a 4-butten front panel BA23. However, I'm not >> sure the front panel is the only place to blame. >> >>> *Maybe* the fact that the Ready/Write Protect lines >>> for the 2nd drive are left floating, is somehow confusing >>> the RQDXn controller, but that seems doubtful. >> >> >> The RQDX wasn't confused. It was the drives... When the RQDX started >> writing to #0, the write circuitry of #1 also went active. Or if it >> was writing to #1 which also activated the circuitry of #0. >> >>> Those lines merely report status of the 2nd drive. >>> The Drive Select and Head Select lines don't go >>> anywhere near the front panel, and there are >>> separate signal lines for drives 0, 1, 2, and 3. >> >> >> Exactly. Which is why I wonder if the front panel really is to blame >> for the problem. > > > It's not to blame at all. It has nothing to do with the drive selects. > It might stop a drive working reliably, but it definitely cannot cause > two to be selected at the same time. All it can do is tell the RQDX not > to use the drive. > >> Hmm. As far as I can remember, there are no DS jumpers on the drives. >> If you have an RQDXE, you have a bunch of jumpers on that in order to >> set up which drive is which, and all that. > > > Not entirely. It's intended to provide sufficient connectors and to > route the some DS lines (etc) to the external unit. That doesn't > remove the need to set the DS jumpers on the drive(s) correctly. > >> But the backplane of the BA23 don't have any jumpers, as far as I can >> remember. > > > That's right, the backplane doesn't. > >> And in this case, both drives were RD53s. Properly formatted, DEC >> branded and everything. > > > Well, those drives definitely have Drive Select jumpers. Look at the > legend on the PCB by contact numbers 32 to 26 on the 34-way connector. > They're the drive select lines, and you'll see they're labelled, and > they go to a set of jumpers right beside the connector position, next to > the terminator resistor pack. If they were "as supplied by DEC" and the > person who installed them assumed the arrangement for a BA23 should be > the same as for a BA123 and didn't change one, they would both be set to > DS3, and so of course they both were selected at the same time. User > error, pure and simple. > > The microPDP-11 Maintenance manual says where they are, and moreover > it says: > > Always place the first fixed-disk drive in port 0 (left mass > storage slot of the enclosure containing the RQDX controller. > > Set the device select to DS3 on any fixed disk installed in port > 0 of the enclosure or expansion unit. > > Set the device select to DS4 on any fixed disk installed in port > 1 (right mass storage slot) of the enclosure or expansion unit. > This rule also applies to any subsystem installed in a BA23 > enclosure. From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Tue Jun 30 18:35:34 2009 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:35:34 -0400 Subject: 6-Button Fron Panel for BA23 (Was: PDP-11 Controller needed to use a couple of RX33 drive) In-Reply-To: <4A3CFEA6.3050102@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4A3BBEEC.8090409@softjar.se> <4A3CFEA6.3050102@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <4A4AA146.4020709@compsys.to> I am NOW holding a 6-button front panel for the BA23 in my hands: P/N 70-22007-02 REV. B1 ECO MFG. KAO 49/87 Right-Hand Number which is vertical is 90-09255-04 After removing the 4 bolts on the back, the PCB board: BA23 FRONT PANEL KA 54-16458-02 8150/87 (last 4 characters hand written in ink) Left-Hand Number which is vertical is 5016457 The labels for this panel are: Fixed Disk 1 Fixed Disk 0 Write Protect Write Protect Halt Run @ @ @ o Ready Ready Restart DC OK @ @ @ o where: @ is a push-button switch and o is a green LED NOTE: I have never tested this 6-button front panel with a BA23 box, so I do not know if it functions correctly as would be expected from the labels. In addition, since DEC manufactured an RQDXE board which specifically provided for Fixed Disk 1 to be supported by an RQDXn, it seems reasonable to assume that the 6-button front panel could handle TWO hard drives and that DEC supported this configuration with the Fixed Disk 1 being held in an expansion BA23 box. This would allow 2 additional 5 1/4" drive bays, one in the first BA23 box and the second in the expansion BA23 box, to hold other drives such as an RX50 floppy drive and a TK50 tape drive. What I do NOT know is which connectors should be used on the BA23 Signal Distribution Panel in the BA23 expansion box, i.e. the Fixed Disk 0 pair of connectors or the Fixed Disk 1 pair of connectors. If anyone has ever placed a Fixed Disk 1 in a BA23 box or knows of any documentation which provides the answer, please HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Alternatively, if the first (perhaps only) BA23 box is used to hold both Fixed Disks, the Signal Distribution Panel at the rear of the compartment can be used to connect the Fixed Disks to the RQDXn controller. The metal bulkhead is clearly marked with the connectors to be used for Fixed Disk 0 and Fixed Disk 1. If an RX50 floppy drive is also required and a second BA23 box is not present, then it would be possible to run the required cables from a BA23 box out to an external location to an RX50 floppy drive. While not the best solution, I would deem it to be acceptable since the RX50 is an enclosed box. CRITICAL INFORMATION: The Fixed Disk 0 MUST be selected as DS3 and the Fixed Disk 1 MUST be selected as DS4. Failure to do so will almost certainly result in a loss of FORMAT for both of the Fixed Disk drives. Finally, while there are no LEDs to provide information about the WRITE PROTECT status of the media in a floppy drive, I am confident that an RX50 drive could be connected in addition to a Fixed Disk 0 and a Fixed Disk 1. However, the unit numbers for the floppy media will (if both Fixed Disks are present) be set as 2 and 3. I realize that the above information is not a specific response to the discussion below, however, it does pertain to the use of TWO Fixed Disks along with the facts of what is probably needed to operate Fixed Disk 0 and Fixed Disk 1 using either a single BA23 box or 2 BA23 boxes. In my previous e-mail, I discussed my experience in using TWO Fixed Disks with a 4-button front panel in a single BA23 box. I also added my expectation of what would likely be the usage when 2 BA23 boxes are used with TWO Fixed Disks. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine >Pete Turnbull wrote: > On 19/06/2009 17:38, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> This was definitely in a 4-butten front panel BA23. However, I'm not >> sure the front panel is the only place to blame. >> >>> *Maybe* the fact that the Ready/Write Protect lines >>> for the 2nd drive are left floating, is somehow confusing >>> the RQDXn controller, but that seems doubtful. >> >> >> The RQDX wasn't confused. It was the drives... When the RQDX started >> writing to #0, the write circuitry of #1 also went active. Or if it >> was writing to #1 which also activated the circuitry of #0. >> >>> Those lines merely report status of the 2nd drive. >>> The Drive Select and Head Select lines don't go >>> anywhere near the front panel, and there are >>> separate signal lines for drives 0, 1, 2, and 3. >> >> >> Exactly. Which is why I wonder if the front panel really is to blame >> for the problem. > > > It's not to blame at all. It has nothing to do with the drive selects. > It might stop a drive working reliably, but it definitely cannot cause > two to be selected at the same time. All it can do is tell the RQDX not > to use the drive. > >> Hmm. As far as I can remember, there are no DS jumpers on the drives. >> If you have an RQDXE, you have a bunch of jumpers on that in order to >> set up which drive is which, and all that. > > > Not entirely. It's intended to provide sufficient connectors and to > route the some DS lines (etc) to the external unit. That doesn't > remove the need to set the DS jumpers on the drive(s) correctly. > >> But the backplane of the BA23 don't have any jumpers, as far as I can >> remember. > > > That's right, the backplane doesn't. > >> And in this case, both drives were RD53s. Properly formatted, DEC >> branded and everything. > > > Well, those drives definitely have Drive Select jumpers. Look at the > legend on the PCB by contact numbers 32 to 26 on the 34-way connector. > They're the drive select lines, and you'll see they're labelled, and > they go to a set of jumpers right beside the connector position, next to > the terminator resistor pack. If they were "as supplied by DEC" and the > person who installed them assumed the arrangement for a BA23 should be > the same as for a BA123 and didn't change one, they would both be set to > DS3, and so of course they both were selected at the same time. User > error, pure and simple. > > The microPDP-11 Maintenance manual says where they are, and moreover > it says: > > Always place the first fixed-disk drive in port 0 (left mass > storage slot of the enclosure containing the RQDX controller. > > Set the device select to DS3 on any fixed disk installed in port > 0 of the enclosure or expansion unit. > > Set the device select to DS4 on any fixed disk installed in port > 1 (right mass storage slot) of the enclosure or expansion unit. > This rule also applies to any subsystem installed in a BA23 > enclosure. From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jun 30 19:00:11 2009 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 01:00:11 +0100 Subject: A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing Message-ID: <575131af0906301700p6e4f2af5x584e270e75b438e@mail.gmail.com> Tom's Hardware - a popular site for PC hardware tweakers and overclockers - has done an ambitious article on the development of the mainframe: http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/508-mainframe-computer-history.html It's a little American-centric but it's not at all bad. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508 From RichA at vulcan.com Tue Jun 30 19:36:21 2009 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:36:21 -0700 Subject: A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing In-Reply-To: <575131af0906301700p6e4f2af5x584e270e75b438e@mail.gmail.com> References: <575131af0906301700p6e4f2af5x584e270e75b438e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: Liam Proven > Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 5:00 PM > Tom's Hardware - a popular site for PC hardware tweakers and > overclockers - has done an ambitious article on the development of the > mainframe: > http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/508-mainframe-computer-history.html > It's a little American-centric but it's not at all bad. *American*-centric!?! How about *IBM*-centric?!? After the 1960s, the only non-IBM product mentioned is the (minicomputer) VAX-11/780. (OK, *super*minicomputer, but even so...) And in the 1960s, the only other DEC product mentioned is *the PDP-8*???? (with a brushoff for several years of successful sales prior to the -8, no less.) Another mini, and no acknowledgement of the PDP-10 mainframe on which the bulk of the development of the modern Internet took place. It would be nice if they knew what they were talking about. IMAO, Rich From lists at databasics.us Tue Jun 30 20:39:21 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:39:21 -1000 Subject: OT Names In-Reply-To: <20090630171043.8874848b.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <01C9F8E9.0FAE0120@MSE_D03> <20090630171043.8874848b.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <4A4ABE49.8080208@databasics.us> Jochen Kunz wrote: > My all time favorit: Mitsubishi Pajero. > They soled that car under this name in parts of the world where spanish > is spoken. Not noticing that "pajero" in spanish means "wanker". They > where surprised that the car didn't sell well. When they noticed the > mistake they renamed the car to Montero. Excellent. The Chevy Nova had similar problems in Mexico. Finally, someone noticed that that translated as Chevrolet doesn't go. Now we have the Nova awards, for bad translations in advertisements. I'm a language buff, and I truly love them. They are usually English ---> Spanish translations, because many people THINK they know simple Spanish, but have no idea of actual usage. For example, anyone in the U.S. will recognize the "Got Milk" posters, usually with a famous person with milk on their upper lip, advertising drinking milk. Somebody wanted to set this up in Mexico, and translated the phrase as "?Tienes leche?" Makes perfect high-school Spanish sense. However, that phrase actually translates as "Are you lactating?" Awkward. Warren From lists at databasics.us Tue Jun 30 20:40:39 2009 From: lists at databasics.us (Warren Wolfe) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:40:39 -1000 Subject: deliberate mis-spelling, was Re: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website In-Reply-To: <001301c9f99b$ca4b0110$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <4A4A14A8.6030900@geekdot.com> <001301c9f99b$ca4b0110$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <4A4ABE97.1050401@databasics.us> Scanning wrote: > How 'bout Malapropism ?? No, we wouldn't want anyone to get misconscrewed. Warren / sorry. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 30 20:41:25 2009 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:41:25 -0400 Subject: A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing In-Reply-To: References: <575131af0906301700p6e4f2af5x584e270e75b438e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > It would be nice if they knew what they were talking about. Just ignore it. It is just another lame ass top-n list in disguise. Sort of like the culinary equivalent of Cheez Whiz on a Ritz. -- Will From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jun 30 22:19:26 2009 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:19:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: marginal OT: Classilla Message-ID: <200907010319.n613JQv2013682@floodgap.com> I took the wraps off the very initial, unfinished build of the Classilla browser for classic Mac systems. It requires Mac OS 8.6 or better, and runs on any Power Macintosh (but G3 recommended). Rather than take up a lot of list with a blurb on something that is not quite on topic yet, I'll point you to http://www.classilla.org/ and http://classilla.googlecode.com/ -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Please dispose of this message in the usual manner. -- Mission: Impossible - From tmanos at concursive.com Tue Jun 30 14:02:15 2009 From: tmanos at concursive.com (Tom Manos) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:02:15 -0400 Subject: Telnet access to moderately old UNIX boxes Message-ID: <12D432BE-F772-48E3-938C-BDD23D8494D0@concursive.com> I'm running a couple of AT&T SVR4 machines and am thinking of doing an SVR3. These are running on old Intel hardware, in text-only mode, etc. Unfortunately I'm really worried about opening these to the public net because they obviously have a ton of security holes. For instance, it's really hard to get a modern ssh running on them, so I have to use telnet. I have them set up on a private network with a modern linux machine on both the public and private networks that I can ssh into and telnet out of. It also acts as a mail relay for them. SVR4 is not that old, so I'm not sure how many might be interested in it, but if you really are, let me know, and I can set you up an account and tell you how to get in. The machine has a bunch of the old text mode software we used to use in those days: games, email clients, and very soon, USENET. Even a curses-based menu system. It's basically a rebuild of an old public access UNIX system I used to run. I'm also interested to know if anyone out there with old systems is interested in building a dark network for retro computing folks using UUCP over tcp. I have this perverse urge to get pathalias running again and build a little UUCP mapping project. Because my SVR4 box is on a private network, I'll need to bounce through the linux box. I'd like to implement a set of private USENET groups, and file transfer. I am also considering completely blowing off net access for these boxes and just using dialup. I was thinking of buying one of those MagicJack thingies that give you a local number and unlimited voip calling for $20 a year and setting up a modem on it. The downside is that most folks don't have modems any more. Ideas? Am I just nuts for even considering something like this? -Tom