From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 1 00:02:46 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2015 06:02:46 +0000 Subject: RK05 classic computing trivia question In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: > As a guess, something is either twice as small, or there twice as many of them. The RK05F has a pair of heads like an RK05. It has twice as many cylinders, which are logically addressed as 2 physical drives. So the optical scale in the linear positioner (which is not part of the head) is different, and there are some minor differences to the drive logic boards. The heads look very similar. The mounting arms/springs are the same. The head 'buttons' are similar-looking white ceramic disks. Yes, if you compare them, the core width for the -F is narrower, but to recognise the heads like that you either know them very well or have a pile to sort through and can see both types next to each other. There are no obvious coloured dots on the springs, or part numbers, or anything like that. But there is one thing that is different. OK, I'll give a hint. There is no reason it has to be different, it is done for identification. And it is a colour. > Either way, I could really use both -:) Heads or drives? -tony From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Thu Jan 1 03:10:14 2015 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2015 10:10:14 +0100 Subject: RK05 classic computing trivia question In-Reply-To: <54A48894.90002@update.uu.se> References: <54A48894.90002@update.uu.se> Message-ID: -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- From: Johnny Billquist Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2015 12:36 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: RK05 classic computing trivia question On 2014-12-31 20:30, tony duell wrote: > Based on some boxes of stuff I unpacked today... > > How could you quickly distinguish an RK05F spare head from a normal RK05 > spare head? I wasn't even aware that there were any differences. But I guess there are, as you ask. It's been close to 30 years since I touched an RK05F... But the disk being fixed was the thing I knew. Is the optical thingy that tells the head movement a part of the head? ISTR that the doubling of the number of tracks was already reached by fixing the cartridge on those pins and that the positioning sensor (glass with lines) already had sufficient precision. Are the 05/f heads recognized by a different color of the connector housing or is that the case for RL01 / RL02 heads? - Henk, PA8PDP From aswood at t-online.de Thu Jan 1 05:24:40 2015 From: aswood at t-online.de (aswood at t-online.de) Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 12:24:40 +0100 Subject: OpenGenera Message-ID: <1Y6drs-3dkbNw0@fwd41.aul.t-online.de> Shouldn't OpenGenera now free of copyright terms? I seem to remember 2015 was the year! -- Andreas From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 1 09:07:35 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 16:07:35 +0100 Subject: RK05 classic computing trivia question In-Reply-To: References: <54A48894.90002@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54A562B7.4090201@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-01 05:00, Paul Anderson wrote: > The differences are the door, which doesn't really mater, the heads, the > linear positional, and reformat the pack. most regular packs can be > reformatted. There are 2 boards from the A which are interchangeable with > the F (most of the newer drives have them), and they have a few dip > switches that need to be changed. I might be misremembering, but I seem to remember the RK05F that I played with had the same door, except it had been fixed in place. > Another neat option which i don't remember the part #, if the RK05 front > panel with the TU56 type rotary switches to change the drive ID # on the > fly. I think I kept a few for myself. I have one. The front side identifies it as a RK05J if I remember right. But I don't know what part # for the conversion. Johnny > > On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 5:36 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> On 2014-12-31 20:30, tony duell wrote: >> >>> Based on some boxes of stuff I unpacked today... >>> >>> How could you quickly distinguish an RK05F spare head from a normal RK05 >>> spare head? >>> >> >> I wasn't even aware that there were any differences. But I guess there >> are, as you ask. >> It's been close to 30 years since I touched an RK05F... >> >> But the disk being fixed was the thing I knew. Is the optical thingy that >> tells the head movement a part of the head? >> >> 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 >> -- 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 aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 1 09:35:07 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 07:35:07 -0800 Subject: RK05 classic computing trivia question In-Reply-To: <54A562B7.4090201@update.uu.se> References: <54A48894.90002@update.uu.se> <54A562B7.4090201@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54A5692B.5030409@bitsavers.org> On 1/1/15 7:07 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > I have one. The front side identifies it as a RK05J if I remember right. But I don't know what part # for the conversion. > RK05-H bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/disc/RK05-H_EngrDrws_Apr77 From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 1 09:37:44 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 16:37:44 +0100 Subject: RK05 classic computing trivia question In-Reply-To: <54A5692B.5030409@bitsavers.org> References: <54A48894.90002@update.uu.se> <54A562B7.4090201@update.uu.se> <54A5692B.5030409@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54A569C8.90601@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-01 16:35, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/1/15 7:07 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> I have one. The front side identifies it as a RK05J if I remember >> right. But I don't know what part # for the conversion. >> > > RK05-H > > bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/disc/RK05-H_EngrDrws_Apr77 Path was missing a rk05 in there, but I noticed there are also RK05J drawings from 78 in there. Seems more likely I have that version. :-) 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 jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Jan 1 12:35:59 2015 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 12:35:59 -0600 Subject: RK05 classic computing trivia question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54A5938F.9090309@gmail.com> On 12/31/2014 01:30 PM, tony duell wrote: > Based on some boxes of stuff I unpacked today... > > How could you quickly distinguish an RK05F spare head from a normal RK05 spare head? Ask Tony? ;) From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 1 12:36:50 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2015 10:36:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: RK05 classic computing trivia question In-Reply-To: <54A5938F.9090309@gmail.com> References: <54A5938F.9090309@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150101103616.Y55832@shell.lmi.net> > How could you quickly distinguish an RK05F spare head from a normal RK05 spare head? Is there a difference in sound if you install the other one? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 1 12:54:49 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2015 18:54:49 +0000 Subject: RK05 classic computing trivia question In-Reply-To: References: <54A48894.90002@update.uu.se>, Message-ID: > Are the 05/f heads recognized by a different color of the connector > housing or is that the case for RL01 / RL02 heads? You got it. RK05F heads have blue connrector housings, normal RK05 heads have white. This seems to follow an unwritten (?) DEC convention that 'blue' means 'higher density' -- think of the handles on RL02 and RK07 packs. -tony From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 1 21:59:51 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 19:59:51 -0800 Subject: 64700A Message-ID: <54A617B7.9090901@bitsavers.org> Today's project was a teardown and photo shoot of a 64700A, which isn't of much practical use with a 68302 pod on it, and even after 10 years of ignoring them the prices are still too high and the software to use them unobtanium. http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/hp/64700/64700A/photos/ The lack of documentation for the whole 64700 family is pretty sad. I scraped the Agilent web site back in 2000 and there wasn't much there on the A series back then. I also pulled most of my Applied Microsystems stuff out and that will be tomorrow's project. From drlegendre at gmail.com Thu Jan 1 23:17:08 2015 From: drlegendre at gmail.com (drlegendre .) Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2015 23:17:08 -0600 Subject: Camiacs Model V document V0.3 update Message-ID: Camiacs RS-232 / CL converter Model V document - Updated, with corrections. Your comments / additions / etc are of course requested. -------------- next part -------------- Camiacs Model V RS-232 - Current Loop converter info-sheet - Ver. 0.3 - 01-JAN-2014 (c) 2014 legendre at nerp.net - This document may be freely redistributed under the terms of the current GNU/GPL license. Circuit board "RS232/CL MODEL 5 CAM 25-116A" I. External ports ----------------- A. RS-232 Port (DB25-F) pinout information: 2 - TXD 3 - RXD 5 - CTS * 6 - DSR * 7 - GND 8 - DCD / RLSD * 1, 4, 9-25 - N/C (* = Manually set active / inactive with internal jumper. Default = active. See end notes for further information.) B. Current Loop Port (DB25-F) pinout information: 1 - Rx+ 2 - Rx- 3 - Tx+ 4 - Tx- C. AC mains power Voltage - 117V AC via IEC connector on rear panel Red LED power indicator on front panel Utility sockets - Two (2) on rear panel, fused. Power consumption - 5W (40mA) average, not including utility socket load II. Internal features --------------------- A. Fuse information: Buss MDX 5A / 250V - Bottom of PCB B. LED information: LED1 - Tx loop activity LED2 - Rx loop activity Note: Apparent LED brightness is proportional to magnitude of loop current & data rate. Higher current level and/or lower data rate = higher relative brightness. B. Loop current power supplies (24V / 55mA short-circuit): Jumper set T1-T9 - Tx loop power T2-T3, T4-T5, T6-T7 = Tx Active (Default) T1-T2, T3-T4, T5-T6 = Tx Passive Jumper set R1-R9 - Rx loop power R2-R3, R4-R5, R6-R7 = Rx Active R1-R2, R3-R4, R7-R8 = Rx Passive (Default) III. Additional Notes --------------------- 1) While this converter is intended for 20mA current loop operation, the DC power supply is configured for 24V DC @ 55mA short-circuit. For short runs, use an appropraite current-limiting resistor in the loop(s) to attenuate current to 20mA nominal. 750R @ 1/2W is suggested for short runs; 470R - 1K should be acceptable. 2) Being that the current loop protocol does not support any form of hardware flow control, as does the RS-232 protocol, the various jumper settings for the CTS, DSR and DCD / RLSD lines are only present to satisfy the requirements of the RS-232 device. They have no bearing on the activity or status of the current loop Rx / Tx lines, where only software flow control (XON / XOFF) may be implemented. 3) A simple loopback test can be made as follows: On the current loop port, connect Pins 1&3 with a 750R 1/2W, and Pins 3&4 with a second 750R 1/2W. Any data sent to the RS-232 port will be echoed back to the sending device. When performing a loopback test, be sure to de-select "Local echo" on the RS-232 side, lest there be any confusion (false positive). However, it is allowable and may be necessary to select "Add linefeed" on the RS-232 side. 4) The 6-pos. jumper header near the edge of the board, adjacent to D1 and D2, is for spare jumper storage only. This header is not connected to the circuitry. 5) IC 1 is the Tx opto-coupler, IC 2 is the Rx opto-coupler. 6) There is a 7-pos. jumper header, fitted with two jumpers, on the edge of the board adjacent to IC 5. The purpose of this header has not presently been discovered, but it appears to select which outputs from the MC1489A are delivered to the rest of the circuitry. The default settings are 2-3 and 6-7, with pin 1 being closest to the rear of the chassis. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 2 00:23:14 2015 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 01:23:14 -0500 Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? Message-ID: Happy New Year, all! Has anyone here gone through the process of reparing leaky NiCd damage to an A4000 motherboard? I _thought_ I had removed the battery some time ago but puttering around today, I cracked open the case to find the battery still there and some damage around U891 (a 74F245) and U850 (Bank 3 DIMM socket). I have washed off the residue but I may have to pull a DIMM socket to get access to the vias under it. I know the general process, but I'm curious if anyone has done this specifically to an A4000 board and has any tips. As I said, I'm probably going to have to pull the DIMM socket to get to all the damage. Barring success from running a dozen or so repair wires, would anyone happen to have a lead on an A4000 motherboard? Everything else in the machine should be good, the Daughter Card, the CPU card, etc... It's my only A4000, so I'd like to get it back up and running, or replace it if necessary. Thanks for any tips, -ethan From charles at uniwho.com Fri Jan 2 03:06:48 2015 From: charles at uniwho.com (Charles) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 04:06:48 -0500 Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6ED64DBC-D76C-445D-9252-B33C65C4A6E3@uniwho.com> well change all the Elertrolytics first. They are all toast. clean it up really good, and try it. it might still work anyways. Charles MacCaps.com ps: make sure to change the caps on the cpu card as well. I re-cap many of these for people. On Jan 2, 2015, at 1:23 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > Happy New Year, all! > > Has anyone here gone through the process of reparing leaky NiCd damage > to an A4000 motherboard? I _thought_ I had removed the battery some > time ago but puttering around today, I cracked open the case to find > the battery still there and some damage around U891 (a 74F245) and > U850 (Bank 3 DIMM socket). I have washed off the residue but I may > have to pull a DIMM socket to get access to the vias under it. > > I know the general process, but I'm curious if anyone has done this > specifically to an A4000 board and has any tips. As I said, I'm > probably going to have to pull the DIMM socket to get to all the > damage. > > Barring success from running a dozen or so repair wires, would anyone > happen to have a lead on an A4000 motherboard? Everything else in the > machine should be good, the Daughter Card, the CPU card, etc... > > It's my only A4000, so I'd like to get it back up and running, or > replace it if necessary. > > Thanks for any tips, > > -ethan From abuse at cabal.org.uk Fri Jan 2 03:36:19 2015 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 09:36:19 +0000 Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150102093619.GA5284@mooli.org.uk> On Fri, Jan 02, 2015 at 01:23:14AM -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote: [...] You didn't say what kind of A4000, but I'm assuming you are referring to the Amiga, as this is a known problem. > I know the general process, but I'm curious if anyone has done this > specifically to an A4000 board and has any tips. As I said, I'm probably > going to have to pull the DIMM socket to get to all the damage. I've never had much luck with this kind of repair, but the A4000 repair always sounded particularly difficult and liable to fail. Still, if you've got the right tools and are patient and careful, you won't be worse off than if you didn't bother at all. > Barring success from running a dozen or so repair wires, would anyone happen > to have a lead on an A4000 motherboard? Everything else in the machine > should be good, the Daughter Card, the CPU card, etc... I've got a surplus spare from a part-stripped carcass I bought back in 2001 to try and clear a fault in my own A4000. However, a motherboard swap failed to clear the fault I had. What this would imply is that both boards are OK since the failure was sufficiently bizarre that it was unlikely that both would fail identically, but since I've not conclusively seen either of them work for nearly two decades, I wouldn't like to offer any sort of guarantee. These boards also turn up on eBay in the USA, which might be a better bet. As far as I can tell, the same boards were used in both NTSC and PAL machines and a jumper configures the video standard. (I sometimes re-jumpered mine for NTSC to reduce display flicker.) From abuse at cabal.org.uk Fri Jan 2 03:36:19 2015 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 09:36:19 +0000 Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150102093619.GA5284@mooli.org.uk> On Fri, Jan 02, 2015 at 01:23:14AM -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote: [...] You didn't say what kind of A4000, but I'm assuming you are referring to the Amiga, as this is a known problem. > I know the general process, but I'm curious if anyone has done this > specifically to an A4000 board and has any tips. As I said, I'm probably > going to have to pull the DIMM socket to get to all the damage. I've never had much luck with this kind of repair, but the A4000 repair always sounded particularly difficult and liable to fail. Still, if you've got the right tools and are patient and careful, you won't be worse off than if you didn't bother at all. > Barring success from running a dozen or so repair wires, would anyone happen > to have a lead on an A4000 motherboard? Everything else in the machine > should be good, the Daughter Card, the CPU card, etc... I've got a surplus spare from a part-stripped carcass I bought back in 2001 to try and clear a fault in my own A4000. However, a motherboard swap failed to clear the fault I had. What this would imply is that both boards are OK since the failure was sufficiently bizarre that it was unlikely that both would fail identically, but since I've not conclusively seen either of them work for nearly two decades, I wouldn't like to offer any sort of guarantee. These boards also turn up on eBay in the USA, which might be a better bet. As far as I can tell, the same boards were used in both NTSC and PAL machines and a jumper configures the video standard. (I sometimes re-jumpered mine for NTSC to reduce display flicker.) From abuse at cabal.org.uk Fri Jan 2 03:40:23 2015 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 09:40:23 +0000 Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: <6ED64DBC-D76C-445D-9252-B33C65C4A6E3@uniwho.com> References: <6ED64DBC-D76C-445D-9252-B33C65C4A6E3@uniwho.com> Message-ID: <20150102094023.GB5284@mooli.org.uk> On Fri, Jan 02, 2015 at 04:06:48AM -0500, Charles wrote: [...] > make sure to change the caps on the cpu card as well. > I re-cap many of these for people. Is this a specific known problem with the A3640 board, or just a prophylactic fix-all for all machines of that age? It would perhaps explain the behaviour I'm seeing. From charles at uniwho.com Fri Jan 2 03:43:56 2015 From: charles at uniwho.com (Charles) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 04:43:56 -0500 Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: <20150102094023.GB5284@mooli.org.uk> References: <6ED64DBC-D76C-445D-9252-B33C65C4A6E3@uniwho.com> <20150102094023.GB5284@mooli.org.uk> Message-ID: <26696C29-7395-4E89-AC5F-1C0EB2D6913A@uniwho.com> yes and yes :-) make sure to read this? some of them are on there backwards from the factory. http://amiga.serveftp.net/A3640_capacitor.html On Jan 2, 2015, at 4:40 AM, Peter Corlett wrote: > On Fri, Jan 02, 2015 at 04:06:48AM -0500, Charles wrote: > [...] >> make sure to change the caps on the cpu card as well. >> I re-cap many of these for people. > > Is this a specific known problem with the A3640 board, or just a prophylactic > fix-all for all machines of that age? It would perhaps explain the behaviour > I'm seeing. > From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Fri Jan 2 04:31:23 2015 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave G4UGM) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 10:31:23 -0000 Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: <20150102094023.GB5284@mooli.org.uk> References: <6ED64DBC-D76C-445D-9252-B33C65C4A6E3@uniwho.com> <20150102094023.GB5284@mooli.org.uk> Message-ID: <01b701d02677$41e86f60$c5b94e20$@gmail.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Peter > Corlett > Sent: 02 January 2015 09:40 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? > > On Fri, Jan 02, 2015 at 04:06:48AM -0500, Charles wrote: > [...] > > make sure to change the caps on the cpu card as well. > > I re-cap many of these for people. > > Is this a specific known problem with the A3640 board, or just a prophylactic > fix-all for all machines of that age? It would perhaps explain the behaviour > I'm seeing. Electrolytic and Tantalum Capacitors seem to be problematic on machines of a wide range of ages. Sometimes it is obvious they have failed as the caps have domed tops. Some times its not so obvious I would recommend a low-voltage ESR meter that uses less than 0.6v so it doesn't turn on any diodes. Dave G4UGM From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 2 04:43:07 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 08:43:07 -0200 Subject: 64700A In-Reply-To: <54A617B7.9090901@bitsavers.org> References: <54A617B7.9090901@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Hey, I had one of these year ago! unfortunately never used for lack of software :( On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 1:59 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > Today's project was a teardown and photo shoot of a 64700A, which isn't of > much > practical use with a 68302 pod on it, and even after 10 years of ignoring > them > the prices are still too high and the software to use them unobtanium. > > http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/hp/64700/64700A/photos/ > > The lack of documentation for the whole 64700 family is pretty sad. I > scraped the > Agilent web site back in 2000 and there wasn't much there on the A series > back then. > > I also pulled most of my Applied Microsystems stuff out and that will be > tomorrow's > project. > > > From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 2 04:39:42 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 08:39:42 -0200 Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: <20150102093619.GA5284@mooli.org.uk> References: <20150102093619.GA5284@mooli.org.uk> Message-ID: I've repaired many...I usually take off all the components of the affected area, wash it with vinegar (!) to neutralize the electrolyte, wash again with alchool or MEK (Metil-Etil-Ketone, cancerous and very dangerous solvent) and rebuild the traces with very thin (awg 30) wire-wrap wire. It always works (for me) :) I've spent someday 6 hours to recover a board. In Brazil it is worth it! good luck! On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 7:36 AM, Peter Corlett wrote: > On Fri, Jan 02, 2015 at 01:23:14AM -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote: > [...] > > You didn't say what kind of A4000, but I'm assuming you are referring to > the > Amiga, as this is a known problem. > > > I know the general process, but I'm curious if anyone has done this > > specifically to an A4000 board and has any tips. As I said, I'm probably > > going to have to pull the DIMM socket to get to all the damage. > > I've never had much luck with this kind of repair, but the A4000 repair > always > sounded particularly difficult and liable to fail. Still, if you've got > the > right tools and are patient and careful, you won't be worse off than if you > didn't bother at all. > > > Barring success from running a dozen or so repair wires, would anyone > happen > > to have a lead on an A4000 motherboard? Everything else in the machine > > should be good, the Daughter Card, the CPU card, etc... > > I've got a surplus spare from a part-stripped carcass I bought back in > 2001 to > try and clear a fault in my own A4000. However, a motherboard swap failed > to > clear the fault I had. What this would imply is that both boards are OK > since > the failure was sufficiently bizarre that it was unlikely that both would > fail > identically, but since I've not conclusively seen either of them work for > nearly two decades, I wouldn't like to offer any sort of guarantee. > > These boards also turn up on eBay in the USA, which might be a better > bet. As > far as I can tell, the same boards were used in both NTSC and PAL machines > and > a jumper configures the video standard. (I sometimes re-jumpered mine for > NTSC > to reduce display flicker.) > > From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 2 04:39:42 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 08:39:42 -0200 Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: <20150102093619.GA5284@mooli.org.uk> References: <20150102093619.GA5284@mooli.org.uk> Message-ID: I've repaired many...I usually take off all the components of the affected area, wash it with vinegar (!) to neutralize the electrolyte, wash again with alchool or MEK (Metil-Etil-Ketone, cancerous and very dangerous solvent) and rebuild the traces with very thin (awg 30) wire-wrap wire. It always works (for me) :) I've spent someday 6 hours to recover a board. In Brazil it is worth it! good luck! On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 7:36 AM, Peter Corlett wrote: > On Fri, Jan 02, 2015 at 01:23:14AM -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote: > [...] > > You didn't say what kind of A4000, but I'm assuming you are referring to > the > Amiga, as this is a known problem. > > > I know the general process, but I'm curious if anyone has done this > > specifically to an A4000 board and has any tips. As I said, I'm probably > > going to have to pull the DIMM socket to get to all the damage. > > I've never had much luck with this kind of repair, but the A4000 repair > always > sounded particularly difficult and liable to fail. Still, if you've got > the > right tools and are patient and careful, you won't be worse off than if you > didn't bother at all. > > > Barring success from running a dozen or so repair wires, would anyone > happen > > to have a lead on an A4000 motherboard? Everything else in the machine > > should be good, the Daughter Card, the CPU card, etc... > > I've got a surplus spare from a part-stripped carcass I bought back in > 2001 to > try and clear a fault in my own A4000. However, a motherboard swap failed > to > clear the fault I had. What this would imply is that both boards are OK > since > the failure was sufficiently bizarre that it was unlikely that both would > fail > identically, but since I've not conclusively seen either of them work for > nearly two decades, I wouldn't like to offer any sort of guarantee. > > These boards also turn up on eBay in the USA, which might be a better > bet. As > far as I can tell, the same boards were used in both NTSC and PAL machines > and > a jumper configures the video standard. (I sometimes re-jumpered mine for > NTSC > to reduce display flicker.) > > From snhirsch at gmail.com Fri Jan 2 06:39:32 2015 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 07:39:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 2 Jan 2015, Ethan Dicks wrote: > Has anyone here gone through the process of reparing leaky NiCd damage > to an A4000 motherboard? I _thought_ I had removed the battery some > time ago but puttering around today, I cracked open the case to find > the battery still there and some damage around U891 (a 74F245) and > U850 (Bank 3 DIMM socket). I have washed off the residue but I may > have to pull a DIMM socket to get access to the vias under it. > > I know the general process, but I'm curious if anyone has done this > specifically to an A4000 board and has any tips. As I said, I'm > probably going to have to pull the DIMM socket to get to all the > damage. Went through this entire process on my A4000 a couple of years back. In my case there was damage to traces underneath several of the adjacent chips and the clock chip was dead to boot. I would suggest soaking the board overnight in dilute vinegar in addition to washing, since the alkaline crud gets into via holes where washing won't dislodge it. If traces are not already eaten, this may eliminate the need to remove the DIMM sockets. I ended up removing all the chips in the immdiate vicinity of the battery and piecing things back together with 30g wire. This did include threading through a few of the vias. One random bit of advice: The leaked crud tends to dissolve the solder mask on the circuit board and makes hot-air reflow a bit touch and go. The solder will migrate underneath the chip rather than flowing around the legs. After two unsuccesful rounds with the reflow tool (shorted traces underneath) I ended up hand-soldering the smaller parts. At the time I did this work, the Ricoh clock chip was still available from Amigakit in the UK. Unfortunately its function goes beyond simple timekeeping. It has some involvement in the power-up sequence and the system won't function with it. There may be a way to mod around this, but I simply replaced the chip. Steve -- From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 2 07:18:14 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 11:18:14 -0200 Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: the chip isn't hard to come by, Steve. You can find it on ebay. On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 10:39 AM, Steven Hirsch wrote: > On Fri, 2 Jan 2015, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > Has anyone here gone through the process of reparing leaky NiCd damage >> to an A4000 motherboard? I _thought_ I had removed the battery some >> time ago but puttering around today, I cracked open the case to find >> the battery still there and some damage around U891 (a 74F245) and >> U850 (Bank 3 DIMM socket). I have washed off the residue but I may >> have to pull a DIMM socket to get access to the vias under it. >> >> I know the general process, but I'm curious if anyone has done this >> specifically to an A4000 board and has any tips. As I said, I'm >> probably going to have to pull the DIMM socket to get to all the >> damage. >> > > Went through this entire process on my A4000 a couple of years back. In my > case there was damage to traces underneath several of the adjacent chips > and the clock chip was dead to boot. I would suggest soaking the board > overnight in dilute vinegar in addition to washing, since the alkaline crud > gets into via holes where washing won't dislodge it. If traces are not > already eaten, this may eliminate the need to remove the DIMM sockets. > > I ended up removing all the chips in the immdiate vicinity of the battery > and piecing things back together with 30g wire. This did include threading > through a few of the vias. One random bit of advice: The leaked crud > tends to dissolve the solder mask on the circuit board and makes hot-air > reflow a bit touch and go. The solder will migrate underneath the chip > rather than flowing around the legs. After two unsuccesful rounds with the > reflow tool (shorted traces underneath) I ended up hand-soldering the > smaller parts. > > At the time I did this work, the Ricoh clock chip was still available from > Amigakit in the UK. Unfortunately its function goes beyond simple > timekeeping. It has some involvement in the power-up sequence and the > system won't function with it. There may be a way to mod around this, but > I simply replaced the chip. > > Steve > > > > -- > From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 2 09:38:27 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 07:38:27 -0800 Subject: 64700A In-Reply-To: References: <54A617B7.9090901@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54A6BB73.6010208@bitsavers.org> On 1/2/15 2:43 AM, Alexandre Souza wrote: > Hey, I had one of these year ago! unfortunately never used for lack of > software :( > From digging around B3761-14504 is the CD for the HP-UX software. For which version of the hardware, though, I don't know. It would be nice to have a 64700B with a 68030 pod. It is possible to run them from the serial interface on the back. The vendors of ICE systems really wanted you to run them through the PC or Unix interfaces. I didn't realize until this week that the Huntsville Microsystems 68K ICE that I have had a command prompt. I spotted the manual for it on the net, so that should be here this week, which I'll scan and upload. Digging around this morning, I found two more ES 1800 emulators for the 68020 and 68332 and they even still had the processor pods attached. I found a really early version of the ES 1800 control processor in my pile of boards that has the memory on a separate card, which makes tracing out what's going on easier. The edge connectors are Multibus form factor, it looks like the emulation bus is on the P1 connector and the control bus on P2. There is an emulation board, overlay RAM and trace board on the P1, which all also connect to P2. The emulation boards have the CPU specific 6809 code on them, and a smaller EPROM that gets mapped to the target. The EL 1800 units replaced the 6809 with a 68302 and made SCSI and Ethernet standard. I wonder if they emulate the 6809 to run the emulator boards? A bunch of new pictures of the Applied Microsystems boards should be up on the bitsavers mirrors now. From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Fri Jan 2 15:34:28 2015 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 21:34:28 +0000 (WET) Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: "Your message dated Fri, 02 Jan 2015 07:39:32 -0500 (EST)" References: Message-ID: <01PGUW8LO146002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> > > Went through this entire process on my A4000 a couple of years back. In my > case there was damage to traces underneath several of the adjacent chips > and the clock chip was dead to boot. I would suggest soaking the board > overnight in dilute vinegar in addition to washing, since the alkaline > crud gets into via holes where washing won't dislodge it. If traces are > not already eaten, this may eliminate the need to remove the DIMM sockets. > I've often seen it suggested that acid or alkali contamination should be neutralised somehow. In theory it seems like the thing to do but I've always had doubts about how successfully this can be done and whether the cure might do further damage on top of the original contamination. In practice, I can't see how it would be possible to get the concentration of neutralising agent even approximately right and how it would be possible to cover all the contaminated areas and yet avoid getting it on non-contaminated areas and maybe causing new damage there. And then there's the wondering whether the resulting wet salts will do different or worse damage than the original contamination before they are washed off and whether they might be dangerous to people? Unusally for this list, everyone seems to agree that it is the way to go but it still seems a bit black art to me. Yet we have long and inconclusive debates about retrobrite and the like where there are opionions on both sides of the fence. I'm not saying I'd like to have a big debate about this, just wondering if I'm missing something somewhere. Regards, Peter Coghlan. From lyndon at orthanc.ca Fri Jan 2 16:43:44 2015 From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 14:43:44 -0800 Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: <01PGUW8LO146002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01PGUW8LO146002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: On Jan 2, 2015, at 1:34 PM, Peter Coghlan wrote: > In practice, I can't see how it would be possible to get the concentration of > neutralising agent even approximately right and how it would be possible to > cover all the contaminated areas and yet avoid getting it on non-contaminated > areas and maybe causing new damage there. > > And then there's the wondering whether the resulting wet salts will do different > or worse damage than the original contamination before they are washed off > and whether they might be dangerous to people? The few times I have had to deal with this, I washed/cleaned with a relatively weak acid/base solution. Household vinegar isn't all that acidic, and for a base I used a teaspoon of baking soda in cup of water. After scrubbing things down with a soft brush to remove the caked on crud, the key is to rinse everything thoroughly with lots of distilled water. A Waterpik full of distilled water is very useful to flush out residue and neutralizing solution from hard-to-reach places, and especially vias. Afterwards, put the board under a fan to dry out. (You don't need to hit it with a hair dryer. A steady continuous airflow is all that's required.) So far I have rescued two cell phones, one Pentax SLR, and an expensive Fluke DVM using this technique. --lyndon From scaron at umich.edu Fri Jan 2 16:53:52 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 17:53:52 -0500 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs Message-ID: Hi all, I'm looking to pick up a few TI TMS9902 ICs... this is an asynchronous communications chip for TMS9900 based systems. I'm considering the architecture for my next retro-SBC as I get closer to wrapping up my 6502 SBC, so, trying to put all the pieces together. Willing to pay a fair price. Thanks! Sean From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 2 16:38:35 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 20:38:35 -0200 Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? References: <01PGUW8LO146002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: > Unusally for this list, everyone seems to agree that it is the way to go > but it still seems a bit black art to me. Yet we have long and > inconclusive > debates about retrobrite and the like where there are opionions on both > sides > of the fence. I'm not saying I'd like to have a big debate about this, > just > wondering if I'm missing something somewhere. Dear Peter I hate to "show credentials" but... I'm an engineer with long experience in development and repair of embbedded electronics systems, from simple household items to radar and microwave communication systems. I've repaired boards way more complicated (and fragile) than A4000 boards for years, and - of course - before applying techniques unknown in fragile (and more expensive than a year's pay) boards, I've studied the chemical and physical aspects of anything, since an error could me cost lots and lots of money. So, when I say something, it may even not be the more perfect method (so it must be reproductible by people without acess to special chemicals and tools) but **it works, because I tried and use it for years**. It isn't a tip from a weekender. Anyway, I can always be wrong, and I'm very happy to be confronted with good knowledge and pratice. Anyone here, please, feel free to correct me. But give me proof. Very sorry to "show credentials", I don't want to be rude nor better than anyone here in any way Greetings from Brazil Alexandre From tothwolf at concentric.net Fri Jan 2 19:08:35 2015 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 19:08:35 -0600 (CST) Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: <01PGUW8LO146002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01PGUW8LO146002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: On Fri, 2 Jan 2015, Peter Coghlan wrote: >> Went through this entire process on my A4000 a couple of years back. In >> my case there was damage to traces underneath several of the adjacent >> chips and the clock chip was dead to boot. I would suggest soaking the >> board overnight in dilute vinegar in addition to washing, since the >> alkaline crud gets into via holes where washing won't dislodge it. If >> traces are not already eaten, this may eliminate the need to remove the >> DIMM sockets. > > I've often seen it suggested that acid or alkali contamination should be > neutralised somehow. In theory it seems like the thing to do but I've > always had doubts about how successfully this can be done and whether > the cure might do further damage on top of the original contamination. > > In practice, I can't see how it would be possible to get the > concentration of neutralising agent even approximately right and how it > would be possible to cover all the contaminated areas and yet avoid > getting it on non-contaminated areas and maybe causing new damage there. > > And then there's the wondering whether the resulting wet salts will do > different or worse damage than the original contamination before they > are washed off and whether they might be dangerous to people? > > Unusally for this list, everyone seems to agree that it is the way to go > but it still seems a bit black art to me. Yet we have long and > inconclusive debates about retrobrite and the like where there are > opionions on both sides of the fence. I'm not saying I'd like to have a > big debate about this, just wondering if I'm missing something > somewhere. I recently re-re-summarized the process over on the EEVBlog forums after Dave Jones found his Apple Lisa badly damaged by the on-board batteries. (I don't know if he will repair it, but I think it would make for a good how-to video for this process should he decide to do it.) I'm not sure how many times I've mentioned the process I use in neutralizing the alkaline mess from leaking NiCd or alkaline batteries (finding those old messages isn't easy with the archives down), but I know lots of people have used this technique successfully. "Basically, you clean the entire affected area (multiple boards in the case of this Lisa) with white vinegar and scrub at it lightly with a toothbrush (even get down into the card edge sockets, although they will likely need to be replaced later). The NiCd material that leaks from the batteries is highly alkaline, so the vinegar, being a mild acid, will neutralize it. You then need to rinse the boards with lots of water in a sink to make sure you flush out all the vinegar because any remaining vinegar would also be mildly corrosive. Flushing with vinegar and scrubbing away any buildup will stabilize the boards and stop further corrosion. Simply cleaning with isopropyl won't neutralize the battery mess and even if you clean off a lot of it, without neutralizing, the boards will corrode up again." "The next step, if you wanted to go a little further with cleaning, would be to lightly scrub the corroded areas using a baking soda and water paste with a toothbrush, followed by another water rinse. This will remove the bulk of the surface corrosion on any exposed copper traces, component leads, etc. and also helps neutralize any remaining vinegar." "The cleaning/stabilization technique is very simple, but a little messy, so you'll want to clean the boards in a sink. Some people claim you need deionized water for this sort of thing, but I've been using tap water to do this for decades and have yet to have any issues with it." "As for the discoloration and tarnish under the solder mask, once the board is neutralized with white vinegar, it shouldn't corrode further. Unless there is already a break in a trace, those discolored spots are best left alone." http://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-696-apple-lisa-retro-computer-teardown/msg574717/#msg574717 "I've repaired 100s of battery damaged boards and very rarely did I need to scrape away the solder mask. The discolored spots are just tarnish/oxidization of the surface of the copper trace just under the solder mask. Tarnish under the solder mask is really more of just a cosmetic blemish and will not affect the conductivity of the copper trace itself. What seems to happen is that there are microscopic holes or weak spots in the solder mask and when the batteries leak/vent, it tarnishes the surface of the copper." "Unless the solder mask is actually bubbling up and peeling or flaking off the copper, messing with it will cause more harm than good. If the solder mask is peeling, then that probably means the solder mask wasn't applied well and battery electrolyte actually got in between the copper and solder mask. In that case, the baking soda paste and toothbrush technique I mentioned is likely to remove any loose solder mask anyway, so you probably wouldn't have to scrape it." http://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-696-apple-lisa-retro-computer-teardown/msg574804/#msg574804 From tothwolf at concentric.net Fri Jan 2 19:15:17 2015 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 19:15:17 -0600 (CST) Subject: Repairing A4000 leaky NiCd damage? In-Reply-To: References: <20150102093619.GA5284@mooli.org.uk> Message-ID: On Fri, 2 Jan 2015, Alexandre Souza wrote: > On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 7:36 AM, Peter Corlett wrote: >> On Fri, Jan 02, 2015 at 01:23:14AM -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> [...] >> >> You didn't say what kind of A4000, but I'm assuming you are referring >> to the Amiga, as this is a known problem. >> >>> I know the general process, but I'm curious if anyone has done this >>> specifically to an A4000 board and has any tips. As I said, I'm >>> probably going to have to pull the DIMM socket to get to all the >>> damage. >> >> I've never had much luck with this kind of repair, but the A4000 repair >> always sounded particularly difficult and liable to fail. Still, if >> you've got the right tools and are patient and careful, you won't be >> worse off than if you didn't bother at all. > > I've repaired many...I usually take off all the components of the > affected area, wash it with vinegar (!) to neutralize the electrolyte, > wash again with alchool or MEK (Metil-Etil-Ketone, cancerous and very > dangerous solvent) and rebuild the traces with very thin (awg 30) > wire-wrap wire. It always works (for me) :) > > I've spent someday 6 hours to recover a board. In Brazil it is worth it! What is the purpose of using MEK (Methyl-Ethyl-Ketone) on a pc board? I would be worried it could potentially damage the rubber end seals of electrolytics or any styrene or ABS plastic encapsulated components. From jws at jwsss.com Fri Jan 2 22:25:17 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 20:25:17 -0800 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54A76F2D.2040502@jwsss.com> On 1/2/2015 2:53 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm looking to pick up a few TI TMS9902 ICs... this is an asynchronous > communications chip for TMS9900 based systems. I'm considering the > architecture for my next retro-SBC as I get closer to wrapping up my 6502 > SBC, so, trying to put all the pieces together. Willing to pay a fair price. > > Thanks! > > Sean > > We used the 9902 with a 9995 for a 16 port async controller. It is a very nice chip. I'll hunt around and see if I can find our firmware for that system anywhere. jim From tothwolf at concentric.net Sat Jan 3 03:05:11 2015 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2015 03:05:11 -0600 (CST) Subject: Compaq Systempro processor board repair Message-ID: I have a Compaq Systempro 486DX2/66 processor board (Spare No. 133825-001) which I'm trying to repair that is missing some SMD components on the solder side of the board. Does anyone happen to have one of these in their collection and would be willing to read the component markings so I can repair this one? Thankfully Compaq used SMD capacitors with readable codes on them which indicate their values. My board is missing R135, C227, C178, and C153. Looking at the solder side of the board with the card edge connectors facing towards you, R135 and C227 are towards the top left corner, about 1" from the top and 1.5" from the left. They are opposite U54 which is on the component side of the board. I /think/ R135 is supposed to be 56 ohms and C227 0.047uF (based on some similar looking circuitry on the board) but I have no way to verify if those are the correct values. C178 is about 1/4" from the top edge of the board and just to the left of U511 (ATT7C174J). It is opposite U43/U60 which is on the component side of the board. C153 is just above the longest card edge connector, about 1" from the leftmost contacts. It is opposite U32 which is on the component side of the board. I salvaged this board out of a scrap bin many years ago and have already made lots of repairs to it, but I've never quite finished it. I'm about to order some other SMD parts for other projects, so if I can figure out what value these parts are supposed to be, I can pick up a few extra reels of components and finally finish this board. From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jan 3 09:55:26 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 07:55:26 -0800 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54A810EE.4000903@bitsavers.org> On 1/2/15 2:53 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm looking to pick up a few TI TMS9902 ICs they don't seem to be difficult to find http://www.ebay.com/itm/131214056343 there seems to be whole kits of 9900 parts there If it were me, I'd use a 9995 instead of a 9000 though I wonder what this is a kit for? http://www.ebay.com/itm/161348716210 The whole system seems to be there, including two memory mappers? From scaron at umich.edu Sat Jan 3 11:25:30 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2015 12:25:30 -0500 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: <54A810EE.4000903@bitsavers.org> References: <54A810EE.4000903@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: OK, back story, I'm particularly interested in the TMS9900 because my dad used TI 990 machines in some way in his first job out of school at Chrysler (maybe as a CAE machine and embedded development platform for early auto electronics he was working on?) so, growing up, poring through the bookshelves, I would stumble across documentation for this "strange" TI 990 system and I've always been kind of intrigued by it... I've never seen a TI 990 system in the wild, and only a few folks are displaying 990 architecture SBCs or actual TI-990 systems so the obscurity factor is there a little bit... Last but not least the architecture is somewhat unique and the instruction set is nice. I was visiting my parents over the holidays and, being the more historically inclined of the two of us, offered to help my dad get rid of some old obsolete "ephemera" ;) So, amongst a fairly huge "data dump", my dad set me off to start with a large binder left over from an introductory seminar on the 990 from the 70s and a few ICs from his junk box... TMS9901s... we couldn't find any CPUs for some reason though my dad was certain he had a few kicking around somewhere. We'll look again next time I visit. I did some research and it seems that straight TMS9900s are hard to find (and harder to find cheap) and they are frustrating to work with because they require three different voltages to operate, and four clocks (ideally supplied by the equally difficult to find TIM9904). So, I'm with you, I did decide to use the TMS9995 to do my 990-architecture machine. (I'll just use my stock of DIP 68000s when I want to build something with a 16-bit data bus...) The reason I asked here is that I'm really wary of the parts from China and Hong Kong, I have read a lot of stories where people have bought these ICs and they have turned out to be completely re-marked, totally bad, somewhat defective, etc. I'm trying to find a local source if I can... I was able to source the 9995s locally from a guy here in MI... I got the 9901s from my dad. Just need a few 9902s and I should be ready to roll... if I get desperate I might try the China suppliers but I'd rather get it from a list member, or at least an onshore eBay seller. Has anyone bought ICs from one of these Chinese suppliers and found that they were bona fide and in general functional (I know, now 100% guarantees on random old ICs...)? I'd be very interested to hear endorsements. The offshore sellers have a lot of interesting old ICs and the prices are in general very low... I would go to town if I felt safer, LOL. I have seen those parts kits you mention and I have wondered about them as well... I assume they are targeted at guys like me, people trying to build home brew 990 machines? I do wonder about the origins... I could believe they were maybe 99/4a machines at some point in time sent overseas to be scrapped, with the remainder... the EPROM, SRAM and glue, made up from other sources. However, I've closely scrutinized a picture of the 99/4a motherboard and I don't see a TMS9902 on there so it might not be so easy to just say, oh, someone pulled all the bits off a 99/4a and threw some extra stuff on top; I'm just not sure. Best, Sean On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 10:55 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/2/15 2:53 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> I'm looking to pick up a few TI TMS9902 ICs >> > > they don't seem to be difficult to find > > http://www.ebay.com/itm/131214056343 > > there seems to be whole kits of 9900 parts there > > If it were me, I'd use a 9995 instead of a 9000 though > > I wonder what this is a kit for? > > http://www.ebay.com/itm/161348716210 > > The whole system seems to be there, including two memory mappers? > > > > > From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jan 3 12:26:02 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 10:26:02 -0800 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: References: <54A810EE.4000903@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54A8343A.2070400@bitsavers.org> On 1/3/15 9:25 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > I have seen those parts kits you mention and I have wondered about them as > well... I assume they are targeted at guys like me, people trying to build > home brew 990 machines? The one I pointed to has a CPLD, so it seems like it is a parts kit for something.. There are other kits that have a Yamaha ASIC. From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jan 3 12:31:24 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 10:31:24 -0800 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: References: <54A810EE.4000903@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54A8357C.6090908@bitsavers.org> On 1/3/15 9:25 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > I've never seen a TI > 990 system in the wild, and only a few folks are displaying 990 > architecture SBCs or actual TI-990 systems so the obscurity factor is there > a little bit. I have at least 6 990s (/4 /10 /12) and several truckloads of boards/documentation/software that no one here has expressed any interest in after talking about them a couple of times over the years. Dave Pitts has several and has written an emulator that runs most of the OSes for them http://www.cozx.com/~dpitts/ti990.html From scaron at umich.edu Sat Jan 3 13:42:36 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2015 14:42:36 -0500 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: <54A8357C.6090908@bitsavers.org> References: <54A810EE.4000903@bitsavers.org> <54A8357C.6090908@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: I guess I missed the discussion, though I was away for quite a while, LOL. I'm definitely interested in anything to do with the TI-990. I'd really like to have a 990/4 or 990/5; one of the smaller machines; someday but a little SBC implementation will do just fine to sate my desire to play with the architecture. I saw Dave's page, a great read. I plan to use his assembler. I hadn't done much Googling on the topic in quite a while and I see the state of things has much advanced in terms of what's out there for the 990. I ought to download a copy of the emulator and try DX10. Best, Sean On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 1:31 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/3/15 9:25 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > >> I've never seen a TI >> 990 system in the wild, and only a few folks are displaying 990 >> architecture SBCs or actual TI-990 systems so the obscurity factor is >> there >> a little bit. >> > > I have at least 6 990s (/4 /10 /12) and several truckloads of > boards/documentation/software > that no one here has expressed any interest in after talking about them a > couple of times over > the years. Dave Pitts has several and has written an emulator that runs > most of the OSes for > them http://www.cozx.com/~dpitts/ti990.html > > > > > From terry at webweavers.co.nz Sat Jan 3 22:02:16 2015 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 17:02:16 +1300 Subject: PET/CBM Book available In-Reply-To: <002101d01891$a9800b90$fc8022b0$@com> References: <002101d01891$a9800b90$fc8022b0$@com> Message-ID: David. Is this still available and if so is it in good condition? Mine is starting to fall apart. Cheers Terry (Tez) On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 7:05 AM, David Williams wrote: > I have a spare copy of the PET/CBM Personal Computer Guide Second Edition > by > Adam Osborne & Carroll S. Donahue published by Osborne/McGraw-Hill > available. If you are interested make me an offer. > > > > David Williams > > www.trailingedge.com > > > > From johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 4 06:42:29 2015 From: johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk (John Wallace) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 12:42:29 +0000 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1420375349.6038.YahooMailBasic@web171801.mail.ir2.yahoo.com> Dave Pitts' aforementioned page links to some 990 stuff at bitsavers. The stuff there is largely system level stuff. People whose interests are closer to chip level might want to have a look at the 9900 Microprocessor Series Family Systems Design Databook available at archive.org, if they're not already aware: https://archive.org/details/9900MicroprocessorSeriesFamilySystemsDesignDataBook A 2 inch thick book that contained pretty much everything you were likely to need to know about the 9900 family. One of the few other useful 9900 resources I vaguely remember was a 3rd party 9900 book which contained the source for an "instant input assembler" - a tiny line by line assembler which you could add to your PROM-based 9900 debug monitor so you could enter small programs as source rather than hex. Neat. Can't remember name of author or of book, can't quickly find them either. I worked with 990/4 systems many years ago and there was almost no 9900 family glue logic inside. As far as I remember, the /4 was designed before (most of?) the 99xx support chips came to market. So a serial card in a /4 had a handful of chips doing what a 9902 would eventually do in one. Not sure about the video controller but the same probably applied. I have a vague recollection that the interweb has some decent writeups of the innards of the 99/4 home computer stuff (sorry, no pointers); from those, it might be possible to work out if the kit of parts on eBay is a plausible match for a 99/4 or similar volume market product. Have a lot of fun John Wallace From supervinx at libero.it Sun Jan 4 07:59:56 2015 From: supervinx at libero.it (supervinx) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 14:59:56 +0100 Subject: 8" drive advice... Message-ID: <1420379996.3119.5.camel@PIV-Ubuntu> I need to connect an external 8" floppy drive to the FDADAP card. I've found two drives: NEC FD1165A and Shugart SA851. I have to buy ine of them. I'm about to choose the NEC one, since it doesn't need an AC power source. The Shugart SA851 is targeted 115 VAC, and I live in Europe. Beside power supply questions, are there other reasons why I should choose the Shugart? Hard sectored disk support? I only have to read/write IBM S/36 and 5120 floppy disks... Thanks! -- Vincenzo (aka Supervinx) --==ooOoo==-- My computer collection: http://www.supervinx.com/Retrocomputer --==ooOoo==-- You can reach me at: www.supervinx.com www.facebook.com/supervinx http://www.youtube.com/user/supervinx http://www.myspace.com/supervinx From nico at farumdata.dk Sun Jan 4 10:05:19 2015 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 17:05:19 +0100 Subject: 8" drive advice... References: <1420379996.3119.5.camel@PIV-Ubuntu> Message-ID: >I need to connect an external 8" floppy drive to the FDADAP card. > I've found two drives: NEC FD1165A and Shugart SA851. I have to buy ine > of them. > I'm about to choose the NEC one, since it doesn't need an AC power > source. > The Shugart SA851 is targeted 115 VAC, and I live in Europe. > Beside power supply questions, are there other reasons why I should > choose the Shugart? Hard sectored disk support? I only have to > read/write IBM S/36 and 5120 floppy disks... I have used the FD1165A for many years in many systems, and have never experienced problems with the drive. My experience with Shugart is very limited, I only have a SA800 in a specialized system. The 1165A does not need AC power, so that would be a good advantage. /Nico From dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com Sun Jan 4 10:04:25 2015 From: dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com (Doug Ingraham) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 09:04:25 -0700 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) Message-ID: Time for another trivia question. We will start off the year with an easy one. This one is related to computers but not exclusive to computers. What is the significance of the phrase: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. No fair looking it up on the internet. Doug Ingraham PDP-8 S/N 1175 From scaron at umich.edu Sun Jan 4 10:15:07 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 11:15:07 -0500 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: <1420375349.6038.YahooMailBasic@web171801.mail.ir2.yahoo.com> References: <1420375349.6038.YahooMailBasic@web171801.mail.ir2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Do you happen to have any leads on the title? I searched for TMS9900 on Amazon and I'm just getting back a few TI publications. Sounds like something I'd like to have in my antiquarian EE/CS book collection if I can find it :) I know a lot of the "family" ICs are just there for convenience and that in principle it's possible to hook up basically any LSI UART (or combination of discrete parts equating to a UART) to any CPU given enough glue... but since it's my first time through with the architecture, I want to keep it simple if I can :) OTOH, I guess upping the challenge level a little bit wouldn't kill me. ;) As you note, I don't think the TMS9902 was even used in the TI99/4a; I looked at some high-res board pics and couldn't make it out. I do have other UARTs in my inventory i.e. 6551, 6850, 16550, etc. I'm definitely looking forward to it... my TMS9995s should be here pretty soon so I can start fooling around. Best, Sean On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 7:42 AM, John Wallace wrote: > Dave Pitts' aforementioned page links to some 990 stuff at bitsavers. The > stuff there is largely system level stuff. > > People whose interests are closer to chip level might want to have a look > at the 9900 Microprocessor Series Family Systems Design Databook available > at archive.org, if they're not already aware: > > https://archive.org/details/9900MicroprocessorSeriesFamilySystemsDesignDataBook > > A 2 inch thick book that contained pretty much everything you were likely > to need to know about the 9900 family. > > One of the few other useful 9900 resources I vaguely remember was a 3rd > party 9900 book which contained the source for an "instant input assembler" > - a tiny line by line assembler which you could add to your PROM-based 9900 > debug monitor so you could enter small programs as source rather than hex. > Neat. Can't remember name of author or of book, can't quickly find them > either. > > I worked with 990/4 systems many years ago and there was almost no 9900 > family glue logic inside. As far as I remember, the /4 was designed before > (most of?) the 99xx support chips came to market. So a serial card in a /4 > had a handful of chips doing what a 9902 would eventually do in one. Not > sure about the video controller but the same probably applied. > > I have a vague recollection that the interweb has some decent writeups of > the innards of the 99/4 home computer stuff (sorry, no pointers); from > those, it might be possible to work out if the kit of parts on eBay is a > plausible match for a 99/4 or similar volume market product. > > Have a lot of fun > John Wallace > From rickb at bensene.com Sun Jan 4 10:20:25 2015 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 08:20:25 -0800 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > What is the significance of the phrase: > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. > The sentence contains all of the letters of the alphabet, making it suitable as a good test for electromechanical and electronic typing equipment, as well as a good exercise for typists to be able to accurately and quickly know each letter key on the typewriter keyboard. I didn't look this up anywhere, just knew it from memory from typing class back in high school. -Rick Bensene From rwiker at gmail.com Sun Jan 4 10:23:11 2015 From: rwiker at gmail.com (Raymond Wiker) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 17:23:11 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3AF63662-6ED6-4A98-9EB6-3AA66C29B3F0@gmail.com> That phrase uses all the letters in the (English) alphabet. Regards, Raymond Wiker > On 04 Jan 2015, at 17:04 , Doug Ingraham wrote: > > Time for another trivia question. We will start off the year with an easy > one. This one is related to computers but not exclusive to computers. > > What is the significance of the phrase: > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. > > No fair looking it up on the internet. > > Doug Ingraham > PDP-8 S/N 1175 From scaron at umich.edu Sun Jan 4 10:32:35 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 11:32:35 -0500 Subject: SIM990/DX10 help? Message-ID: Hi everyone, I downloaded Dave Pitts' SIM990 emulator and the pre-rolled DX10 disk images available on his site yesterday evening, thinking I'd give it a run. SIM990 compiled clean; I'm running on Debian 7.7, 32-bit, on an Intel D510 Atom system. I feel as though this should be plenty of power... I run Hercules on this same system all the time to fool around with MTS and MVS 3.8J and I find the performance to be just fine... (way better than on my old Sun Fire V120s, LOL) I extracted the DX10 images and I started the emulator on them as directed: sim990 -msc 12 512K dx10.cfg For a terminal emulator, I'm using PuTTY; I also tried Procomm Plus (latest version) with a few different emulations and couldn't make it work, I seem to get furthest with PuTTY. I connect using Telnet protocol to port 2000 on the emulation host. I get the DX10 IPL screen: * TEXAS INSTRUMENTS * DX10 "SYS3 " SYSTEM IPL * ST01 I hit F10 then "!" and I get a sort of menu-like thing: **************************** DX10 3.7.0 THIS SYSTEM HAS THE FOLLOWING SUBSYSTEMS INSTALLED: COBOL PASCAL SORTMRG BASIC ... ***************************** I don't get a signon prompt but I assume user login has not been enabled on this basic disk image, however... I never get the SCI prompt, [], and it seems unresponsive; I've tried typing i.e. BASIC, COBOL, commands from the DX10 manual, totally random junk, etc. and I don't get any response; I mean, it seems to be refreshing the screen every time I hit RETURN; it's not giving me any kind of error message, but it's not really doing anything either. Is my emulation just not working right? I tried the DNOS image too and I was able to get a little further... At IPL it prompts for date and time which I'm able to fill in, and there is a login stage (l: SYSTEM, p: SYSTEM) which I can get through, just use the cursor keys to move through the fields and hit RETURN to push the screen (it seems screen-oriented, feels reminiscent of an IBM) but once that's done I land at an equally unresponsive main menu just like I describe occurring with DX10. Has anyone played with this and found a Telnet client that works well? I don't see anything on the author's site other than to note that Windows Telnet won't work. Not clear what I'm doing wrong. Thanks! Sean From pontus at Update.UU.SE Sun Jan 4 10:34:06 2015 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 17:34:06 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150104163406.GA6530@Update.UU.SE> On Sun, Jan 04, 2015 at 08:20:25AM -0800, Rick Bensene wrote: > > What is the significance of the phrase: > > > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. > > > The sentence contains all of the letters of the alphabet It's nice and all but it lacks a few letters. "Flygande b?ckasiner s?ka hwila p? mjuka tuvor (qxz)" /P From scaron at umich.edu Sun Jan 4 10:51:33 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 11:51:33 -0500 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: <20150104163406.GA6530@Update.UU.SE> References: <20150104163406.GA6530@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: Chalk me up as a +1 to Rick's answer. But Pontus' question now has me wondering, are there canonical equivalent phrases to this in other languages and keyboard layouts? European readers please share! Best, Sean On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > On Sun, Jan 04, 2015 at 08:20:25AM -0800, Rick Bensene wrote: > > > What is the significance of the phrase: > > > > > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. > > > > > The sentence contains all of the letters of the alphabet > > It's nice and all but it lacks a few letters. > > "Flygande b?ckasiner s?ka hwila p? mjuka tuvor (qxz)" > > /P > From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Sun Jan 4 11:11:13 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 15:11:13 -0200 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: References: <20150104163406.GA6530@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: In Brazil we use the same phrase... enviado do meu telemovel Em 04/01/2015 14:57, "Sean Caron" escreveu: > Chalk me up as a +1 to Rick's answer. But Pontus' question now has me > wondering, are there canonical equivalent phrases to this in other > languages and keyboard layouts? European readers please share! > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Pontus Pihlgren > wrote: > > > On Sun, Jan 04, 2015 at 08:20:25AM -0800, Rick Bensene wrote: > > > > What is the significance of the phrase: > > > > > > > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. > > > > > > > The sentence contains all of the letters of the alphabet > > > > It's nice and all but it lacks a few letters. > > > > "Flygande b?ckasiner s?ka hwila p? mjuka tuvor (qxz)" > > > > /P > > > From mhs.stein at gmail.com Sun Jan 4 11:14:34 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 12:14:34 -0500 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) References: <20150104163406.GA6530@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: Franz jagt im komplett verwahrlosten Taxi quer durch Bayern. BTW, these are known as Pangrams. m ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sean Caron" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" ; "Sean Caron" Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2015 11:51 AM Subject: Re: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) Chalk me up as a +1 to Rick's answer. But Pontus' question now has me wondering, are there canonical equivalent phrases to this in other languages and keyboard layouts? European readers please share! Best, Sean On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > On Sun, Jan 04, 2015 at 08:20:25AM -0800, Rick Bensene wrote: > > > What is the significance of the phrase: > > > > > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. > > > > > The sentence contains all of the letters of the alphabet > > It's nice and all but it lacks a few letters. > > "Flygande b?ckasiner s?ka hwila p? mjuka tuvor (qxz)" > > /P > From js at cimmeri.com Sun Jan 4 11:14:02 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 12:14:02 -0500 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: References: <20150104163406.GA6530@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <54A974DA.4050001@cimmeri.com> Why would you use the same phrase when your spelling is different? Why not invent your own which includes all letters of the Roman alphabet? - J. On 1/4/2015 12:11 PM, Alexandre Souza wrote: > In Brazil we use the same phrase... > > enviado do meu telemovel > Em 04/01/2015 14:57, "Sean Caron" escreveu: > >> Chalk me up as a +1 to Rick's answer. But Pontus' question now has me >> wondering, are there canonical equivalent phrases to this in other >> languages and keyboard layouts? European readers please share! >> >> Best, >> >> Sean >> >> >> On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Pontus Pihlgren >> wrote: >> >>> On Sun, Jan 04, 2015 at 08:20:25AM -0800, Rick Bensene wrote: >>>>> What is the significance of the phrase: >>>>> >>>>> The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. >>>>> >>>> The sentence contains all of the letters of the alphabet >>> It's nice and all but it lacks a few letters. >>> >>> "Flygande b?ckasiner s?ka hwila p? mjuka tuvor (qxz)" >>> >>> /P >>> > From elson at pico-systems.com Sun Jan 4 11:14:57 2015 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 11:14:57 -0600 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54A97511.8010909@pico-systems.com> On 01/04/2015 10:04 AM, Doug Ingraham wrote: > Time for another trivia question. We will start off the year with an easy > one. This one is related to computers but not exclusive to computers. > > What is the significance of the phrase: > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. > > it has all letters of the alphabet. It was used as part of an idle string on Teletypes to free up the mechanism. Usually also had 01234567890 and RYRYRYRY, which is 10101 01010 in Baudot. Jon From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jan 4 11:47:48 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 09:47:48 -0800 Subject: SIM990/DX10 help? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54A97CC4.6090700@bitsavers.org> On 1/4/15 8:32 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > > Has anyone played with this Try emailing Dave, he's a good guy. I'd be interested in finding out what the problem is. From bqt at update.uu.se Sun Jan 4 11:57:10 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 18:57:10 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54A97EF6.8010608@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-04 17:04, Doug Ingraham wrote: > Time for another trivia question. We will start off the year with an easy > one. This one is related to computers but not exclusive to computers. > > What is the significance of the phrase: > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. > > No fair looking it up on the internet. It contains all characters in the alphabet, and is a good test phrase for output. 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 cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 4 12:13:19 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 10:13:19 -0800 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54A982BF.9020301@sydex.com> On 01/04/2015 08:04 AM, Doug Ingraham wrote: > Time for another trivia question. We will start off the year with an easy > one. This one is related to computers but not exclusive to computers. > > What is the significance of the phrase: > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. > > No fair looking it up on the internet. > > Doug Ingraham > PDP-8 S/N 1175 Too easy--it's a typing exercise (predates modern computers) that incorporates every letter of the English alphabet. I suspect that other languages have similar exercises, though I don't know what the Japanese do in Kanji. --Chuck From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sun Jan 4 13:03:31 2015 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 19:03:31 +0000 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54A98E83.1000907@dunnington.plus.com> On 04/01/2015 16:04, Doug Ingraham wrote: > What is the significance of the phrase: > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. It contains all the letters of the English alphabet, as does Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. It originates as a typing exercise, as does Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party, an exercise for touch typist that has (very) roughly the common ratios and sequences of letters. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jan 4 13:22:31 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 11:22:31 -0800 Subject: SIM990/DX10 help? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54A992F7.4040909@bitsavers.org> On 1/4/15 8:32 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > For a terminal emulator, I'm using PuTTY It just occured to me that you probably have to be running something that looks like a TI CRT. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 4 13:42:36 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 11:42:36 -0800 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: <54A98E83.1000907@dunnington.plus.com> References: <54A98E83.1000907@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <54A997AC.1060408@sydex.com> On 01/04/2015 11:03 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: > Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party, > > an exercise for touch typist that has (very) roughly the common ratios > and sequences of letters. Not only that, it's an exercise for speed, as there are strong patterns of alternating right- and left-hand letters. --Chuck From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 4 13:46:39 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 19:46:39 -0000 Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure Message-ID: <03b301d02857$2809efb0$781dcf10$@ntlworld.com> When I power up my DECsystem 5100 I get the output shown at the end of this email. I thought this was to do with the DS1287 chip as it seems be an NVRAM battery error (perhaps). Since I know these devices fail I took out the DS1287, put in a socket and then bought a replacement DS12887A. But I still get the same problem. It could be that I bought a bad replacement, or that I have done some damage in my desoldering of the original, or it could be that the error is something completely different. In fact the Maintenance Manual suggests test 9 is to do with the DZ, and I can't find what test 4 relates to. Does anyone know what this failure is if it isnt' the DS1287? Is there an easy way to test a DS1287? Regards Rob 26..25..24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..14..14.. 13..12..11..10..09..?45a nv ba?45a nv bat ?45a nv ba?45a nv bat ?45a nv ba?45a nv bat 08..07..06..05..04..?45a nv bat 03.. ?45a nv bat ?45a nv bat ?45a nv bat ?45a nv bat ?45a nv bat ?45a nv bat KN230 V1.4 08-00-2b-27-04-50 0x800000 >> conf -f hardware: revision 1 firmware: revision 5 cpu: revision 2.32 fpu: revision 3.32 security switch: secure mode password: clear eeprom: valid ethernet hardware address: 08-00-2b-27-04-50 option board: not present memory: total size 8MBs bank0 4MB SIMMs size: 8MBs 0 bad pages scsi peripherals unit type product removable/fixed capacity 7 host adapter >> prcache From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 4 13:47:32 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 19:47:32 +0000 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > Time for another trivia question. We will start off the year with an easy > one. This one is related to computers but not exclusive to computers. > > What is the significance of the phrase: > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. I always prefered XV QUICK NYMPHS BEG FJORD WALTZ (both use all the letters in the alphabet, the second one is each letter once and once only). >From where I am sitting I can see a telegraph distortion meter which can send the standard (Quick Brow Fox) test message in 5 bit ITA2 code (the one that is commonly called Baudot code). The message is stored as a pattern of conducting and insulating blocks on a disk, with a ratchet mechanism to move it on after each character and a set of spring contacts to read out the bits. The serialisation of each 5 bit character is done by a ring of triode valves. But I digress. -tony From b4 at gewt.net Sun Jan 4 14:03:45 2015 From: b4 at gewt.net (Cory Smelosky) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 15:03:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: <03b301d02857$2809efb0$781dcf10$@ntlworld.com> References: <03b301d02857$2809efb0$781dcf10$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 4 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: > When I power up my DECsystem 5100 I get the output shown at the end of this > email. I thought this was to do with the DS1287 chip as it seems be an NVRAM > battery error (perhaps). Since I know these devices fail I took out the > DS1287, put in a socket and then bought a replacement DS12887A. But I still > get the same problem. It could be that I bought a bad replacement, or that I > have done some damage in my desoldering of the original, or it could be that > the error is something completely different. In fact the Maintenance Manual > suggests test 9 is to do with the DZ, and I can't find what test 4 relates > to. > > > How does the DDS12887A compare in speed/timing compared to the original DS1287 I know with Suns some 150ns ones don't work, yet 100ns or 200ns or whatever are fine. -- Cory Smelosky http://gewt.net Personal stuff http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects From emu at e-bbes.com Sun Jan 4 14:04:24 2015 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 13:04:24 -0700 Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: <03b301d02857$2809efb0$781dcf10$@ntlworld.com> References: <03b301d02857$2809efb0$781dcf10$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54A99CC8.9060200@e-bbes.com> On 2015-01-04 12:46, Robert Jarratt wrote: > When I power up my DECsystem 5100 I get the output shown at the end of this > email. I thought this was to do with the DS1287 chip as it seems be an NVRAM > battery error (perhaps). Since I know these devices fail I took out the > DS1287, put in a socket and then bought a replacement DS12887A. But I still > get the same problem. It could be that I bought a bad replacement, or that I > have done some damage in my desoldering of the original, or it could be that > the error is something completely different. In fact the Maintenance Manual > suggests test 9 is to do with the DZ, and I can't find what test 4 relates > to. test 4 is RTC test From scaron at umich.edu Sun Jan 4 14:05:50 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 15:05:50 -0500 Subject: SIM990/DX10 help? In-Reply-To: <54A992F7.4040909@bitsavers.org> References: <54A992F7.4040909@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Could be? That might throw me... I don't know if there is any contemporary software out there that will emulate the TI VDTs... I checked in Procomm which is the best I've got for emulating strange terminals and it's got nothing. Best, Sean On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 2:22 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/4/15 8:32 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > > For a terminal emulator, I'm using PuTTY >> > > It just occured to me that you probably have to be running something that > looks > like a TI CRT. > > > > From linimon at lonesome.com Sun Jan 4 14:38:41 2015 From: linimon at lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 14:38:41 -0600 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: <54A98E83.1000907@dunnington.plus.com> References: <54A98E83.1000907@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <20150104203841.GA25486@lonesome.com> On Sun, Jan 04, 2015 at 07:03:31PM +0000, Pete Turnbull wrote: > On 04/01/2015 16:04, Doug Ingraham wrote: > It contains all the letters of the English alphabet, as does > > Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. Someone on the FreeBSD.org mailing lists uses "sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow." Cited in http://listverse.com/2012/05/16/10-notable-pangrams/ among others. I didn't know there were so many. mcl From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 4 15:31:05 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 21:31:05 -0000 Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: <54A99CC8.9060200@e-bbes.com> References: <03b301d02857$2809efb0$781dcf10$@ntlworld.com> <54A99CC8.9060200@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: <03c101d02865$bf454420$3dcfcc60$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of emanuel > stiebler > Sent: 04 January 2015 20:04 > To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off- > Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure > > On 2015-01-04 12:46, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > When I power up my DECsystem 5100 I get the output shown at the end of > > this email. I thought this was to do with the DS1287 chip as it seems > > be an NVRAM battery error (perhaps). Since I know these devices fail I > > took out the DS1287, put in a socket and then bought a replacement > > DS12887A. But I still get the same problem. It could be that I bought > > a bad replacement, or that I have done some damage in my desoldering > > of the original, or it could be that the error is something completely > > different. In fact the Maintenance Manual suggests test 9 is to do > > with the DZ, and I can't find what test 4 relates to. > > test 4 is RTC test Hmmm, that seems to pass OK if I do this: >> test -v 0x4 -004-03 rtc tsts -004-04 wrt nv ram w/ aa -004-04 chk nv ram w/ aa -004-04 wrt nv ram w/ 55 -004-04 chk nv ram w/ 55 -004-05 wrt nv ram w/ inc pat -004-05 chk nv ram w/ pat -004-06 wrt rtc reg w/ inc pat -004-06 chk rtc reg w/ pat -004-07 set time - enb uie int -004-08 chk periodic int >> The test numbers in the power-up sequence don't match the numbers in the extended list of tests where the test numbers are in hex (test 10 in the power up is test 0x4 - RTC). Having discovered the test -v options I got a bit more detail from test -v 0x0: 09.. -005-05 dz ln 01 int rx/tx lpback tst ?45a nv ba?45a nv bat -005-05 dz ln 02 int rx/tx lpback tst ?45a nv ba?45a nv bat -005-05 dz ln 03 int rx/tx lpback tst ?45a nv ba?45a nv bat 08.. -006-03 sii tsts -006-04 sii buf ram tst -006-05 sii trgt tst -006-06 sii initiator tst 07.. -007-01 lance tsts -007-03 lance csr tst -007-04 lance intrnl lb tst -007-06 lance crc err detect tst -007-07 lance promiscuous mode rx tst -007-08 lance coll detect tst -007-09 lance multicast rx tst -007-0a lance irq tst 06.. -008-03 eeprom tst -008-03 chk pats -008-03 chksum tst 05..04..?45a nv bat >> It suggests the 09 test is a loopback problem, and that would be OK as I don't have a loopback connector installed, but looking again, the test is an internal loopback test. But it does not help at all on the 04 failure.... Regards Rob From roeapeterson at gmail.com Sun Jan 4 15:34:12 2015 From: roeapeterson at gmail.com (Roe Peterson) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 15:34:12 -0600 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F88DD7F-3754-4BC5-A1B3-C094ACAFD514@gmail.com> Hits every key. > On Jan 4, 2015, at 10:04 AM, Doug Ingraham wrote: > > Time for another trivia question. We will start off the year with an easy > one. This one is related to computers but not exclusive to computers. > > What is the significance of the phrase: > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. > > No fair looking it up on the internet. > > Doug Ingraham > PDP-8 S/N 1175 From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sun Jan 4 16:03:43 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 17:03:43 -0500 (EST) Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) Message-ID: <20150104220343.6046818C086@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Chuck Guzis > I suspect that other languages have similar exercises, though > I don't know what the Japanese do in Kanji. Err, think you mean kana, right? (Kanji are the ideograms, there are over a thousand in common use.) There is something called the 'iroha': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroha which is a poem which uses every element of the Japanese syllabary - and exactly once! It was used to teach writing, no idea if it's used for the keyboard thingy. Noel From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 4 16:33:31 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 14:33:31 -0800 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: <20150104220343.6046818C086@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150104220343.6046818C086@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54A9BFBB.8000603@sydex.com> On 01/04/2015 02:03 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Chuck Guzis > > > I suspect that other languages have similar exercises, though > > I don't know what the Japanese do in Kanji. > > Err, think you mean kana, right? (Kanji are the ideograms, there are over a > thousand in common use.) There is something called the 'iroha': No, having set up katakana keyboards and typefaces in the path, I do mean kanji. I still have some work from back in the day from Fujitsu (I think), where the operator keys in the proper component strokes and the Wapro comes back with suggestions of ideograms and the operator selects one. I was just wondering what a typing exercise involving, say, only joyo kanji would look like... --Chuck From jws at jwsss.com Sun Jan 4 17:35:29 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 15:35:29 -0800 Subject: SIM990/DX10 help? In-Reply-To: References: <54A992F7.4040909@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54A9CE41.1060404@jwsss.com> On 1/4/2015 12:05 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > Could be? That might throw me... I don't know if there is any contemporary > software out there that will emulate the TI VDTs... I checked in Procomm > which is the best I've got for emulating strange terminals and it's got > nothing. > > Best, > > Sean > > The description says that ansi terminal is required. I got a response from the emulator. I have a windows XP running Putty for my main system. I was ssh'ed into a linux system running the emulator. I compiled it and moved it to /usr/local/bin. I started with the DX10 system as Sean did. when you follow the example (with path set to /usr/local/bin and sim990 there) you get an error as the simulator cannot find the roms. I moved copies from the build directory into the dx10 directory, and ran the emulator again. I got a good message there. jws at jws2:~/nas/projects/jws-main/ti990/dx10$ sim990 -msc 12 512K dx10.cfg TI 990 Simulator 3.0.2: /12 CPU 512K To connect to the emulator, I used another putty session ssh'ed into the same linux system. Once there I used linux telnet to connect to the emulator. The ssh session will be an ANSI compatable ssh terminal emulation. Running telnet into the same system to port 2000, means that the session supports ANSI for the terminal. Once connected, I hit F10 (and then carriage return). The banner appeared. I typed the LL to elicit a response. I The "ERROR, COMMAND..." message appeared after typing ll (echoed back upper cased) then enter. Below is what I have so far. Time to read and see what should actually work. Jim ******************************************************************************** * * * DX10 3.7.0 * * * * THIS SYSTEM HAS THE FOLLOWING SUBSYSTEMS INSTALLED: * * * * COBOL 3.5.0 FOCAL 1.0.4 (REQUIRES /12 CPU) * * PASCAL 1.8.0 FORTH 1.0.2 * * SORTMRG 3.1.0 TXDS FORTRAN 3.1.0 * * BASIC 3.1.0 * * * * THIS SYSTEM HAS BEEN PATCHED FOR Y2K. * * * ******************************************************************************** LL ERROR, COMMAND OR SCROLL FUNCTION REQUIRED: From jwsmail at jwsss.com Sun Jan 4 18:02:03 2015 From: jwsmail at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 16:02:03 -0800 Subject: SIM990/DX10 help? Keyboard mappings In-Reply-To: <54A9CE41.1060404@jwsss.com> References: <54A992F7.4040909@bitsavers.org> <54A9CE41.1060404@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <54A9D47B.5070804@jwsss.com> On 1/4/2015 3:35 PM, jwsmobile wrote: >> > The description says that ansi terminal is required. Page 342, or A-2 of the Errors and codes manuals has keyboard mapping pages. Studying them for inspiration. I have not found the error message anywhere as to what keystroke is required for a "Command" or "Scroll" yet, but will play some more. The keyboard mapping might help. Jim http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ti/990/dx10/0946250-9706F_DX10_Vol6_ErrorReporting_Jan85.pdf From jws at jwsss.com Sun Jan 4 18:04:30 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 16:04:30 -0800 Subject: SIM990/DX10 help? In-Reply-To: <54A9CE41.1060404@jwsss.com> References: <54A992F7.4040909@bitsavers.org> <54A9CE41.1060404@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <54A9D50E.3090507@jwsss.com> On 1/4/2015 3:35 PM, jwsmobile wrote: > > Below is what I have so far. Control X is your friend. It is the "Command" key for some terminal, and gets a "System is not initialized response back. Onward to screw up my disk image... T E X A S I N S T R U M E N T S D X 1 0 S Y S T E M 3 . 7 . 0 SELECT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING COMMAND GROUPS /DEV - DEVICE OPERATIONS /FILE - FILE OPERATIONS /PDEV - PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT /SMAIN - DX10 MAINTENANCE /SOP - DX10 OPERATION Jim From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 4 20:12:54 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 18:12:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: References: <20150104163406.GA6530@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <20150104181149.Q12108@shell.lmi.net> or . . . Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs From scaron at umich.edu Sun Jan 4 21:48:52 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 22:48:52 -0500 Subject: SIM990/DX10 help? In-Reply-To: References: <54A992F7.4040909@bitsavers.org> <54A9CE41.1060404@jwsss.com> <54A9D50E.3090507@jwsss.com> Message-ID: And if I hit Ctrl-X in my Telnet session /now/ (after I have initialized the system; this seems important) as you say, it works! I'm off! Thanks for your ideas! Best, Sean On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 10:43 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > Yeah, I kind of "figured it out"... poring through README.txt and just > noodling around a little bit. So, you extract the disk images and run > sim990 (still, from a SSH session via PuTTY): > > sim990 -m 10 -s 512K -c dx10.cfg > > Once it starts up, from within that window, I found I could hit Esc (not > F10) then "!" and then I got an SCI prompt and a message about the system > being uninitialized! > > I ran a "IS" command as described in Vol. 2 of the DX-10 documentation... > this system is pretty easy to use... just filled in the date and ran with > defaults otherwise. It churned for no more than 30 seconds and eventually > it lands at a QUIT message. I let it sit for a while and once I convince > myself it's idle, I try poking at it again... > > Hit Esc and "!" and I get prompted to sign on to SCI now! I logged in with > the username and password given in README.txt (SYS001/SYSTEM). I get the > SCI prompt at the console, I can run commands just fine. Cool! > > So, now that I can use the system from the console, I'm trying to test it > with Telnet again, to see if it'll behave differently after the system has > been initialized. > > I find that now when I open Telnet sessions to port 2000, I get a prompt > to signon to SCI, which I didn't get before, and if I create a new user > account for myself using "AUI" at the console, I can get logged in. After > login, I'm at the same menu I saw before, but I still don't get a SCI > prompt in the Telnet sessions like I do from the console. > > I strongly am suspecting it might be an "emulation" issue with the Telnet > sessions, where the console is set up as a "TTY" while it is expecting the > Telnet sessions to look more like a TI VDT. I'm still poking at it but at > this point I'm confident I'll get to the bottom of it... or... I can just > use it from the console, failing all else. > > The scheme used for user accounts in DX10 is bizarre and amusing. It took > me a minute to figure out that the user ID /is/ the three digits in the > account name and they need to be unique across accounts! LOL > > Woo hoo! > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 7:04 PM, jwsmobile wrote: > >> >> On 1/4/2015 3:35 PM, jwsmobile wrote: >> >>> >>> Below is what I have so far. >>> >> Control X is your friend. It is the "Command" key for some terminal, and >> gets a "System is not initialized response back. >> >> Onward to screw up my disk image... >> >> T E X A S I N S T R U M E N T S >> D X 1 0 S Y S T E M 3 . 7 . 0 >> >> >> >> SELECT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING COMMAND GROUPS >> >> /DEV - DEVICE OPERATIONS >> /FILE - FILE OPERATIONS >> /PDEV - PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT >> /SMAIN - DX10 MAINTENANCE >> /SOP - DX10 OPERATION >> >> >> Jim >> > > From scaron at umich.edu Sun Jan 4 21:56:44 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 22:56:44 -0500 Subject: SIM990/DX10 help? In-Reply-To: References: <54A992F7.4040909@bitsavers.org> <54A9CE41.1060404@jwsss.com> <54A9D50E.3090507@jwsss.com> Message-ID: Telnet is a little dodgy but Ctrl-X always brings back the SCI prompt once you're logged in (given that the system has been initialized from the console, first). The console (set up as TTY) seems to work with 100% consistency. Honestly, I might just like to set the Telnet sessions up as TTY, too, if I could, but this is definitely working well enough to get the point across now. I love it! SYSTEM COMMAND INTERPRETER - PLEASE LOG IN. No lowercase! Best, Sean On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 10:48 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > And if I hit Ctrl-X in my Telnet session /now/ (after I have initialized > the system; this seems important) as you say, it works! I'm off! Thanks for > your ideas! > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 10:43 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > >> Yeah, I kind of "figured it out"... poring through README.txt and just >> noodling around a little bit. So, you extract the disk images and run >> sim990 (still, from a SSH session via PuTTY): >> >> sim990 -m 10 -s 512K -c dx10.cfg >> >> Once it starts up, from within that window, I found I could hit Esc (not >> F10) then "!" and then I got an SCI prompt and a message about the system >> being uninitialized! >> >> I ran a "IS" command as described in Vol. 2 of the DX-10 documentation... >> this system is pretty easy to use... just filled in the date and ran with >> defaults otherwise. It churned for no more than 30 seconds and eventually >> it lands at a QUIT message. I let it sit for a while and once I convince >> myself it's idle, I try poking at it again... >> >> Hit Esc and "!" and I get prompted to sign on to SCI now! I logged in >> with the username and password given in README.txt (SYS001/SYSTEM). I get >> the SCI prompt at the console, I can run commands just fine. Cool! >> >> So, now that I can use the system from the console, I'm trying to test it >> with Telnet again, to see if it'll behave differently after the system has >> been initialized. >> >> I find that now when I open Telnet sessions to port 2000, I get a prompt >> to signon to SCI, which I didn't get before, and if I create a new user >> account for myself using "AUI" at the console, I can get logged in. After >> login, I'm at the same menu I saw before, but I still don't get a SCI >> prompt in the Telnet sessions like I do from the console. >> >> I strongly am suspecting it might be an "emulation" issue with the Telnet >> sessions, where the console is set up as a "TTY" while it is expecting the >> Telnet sessions to look more like a TI VDT. I'm still poking at it but at >> this point I'm confident I'll get to the bottom of it... or... I can just >> use it from the console, failing all else. >> >> The scheme used for user accounts in DX10 is bizarre and amusing. It took >> me a minute to figure out that the user ID /is/ the three digits in the >> account name and they need to be unique across accounts! LOL >> >> Woo hoo! >> >> Best, >> >> Sean >> >> >> On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 7:04 PM, jwsmobile wrote: >> >>> >>> On 1/4/2015 3:35 PM, jwsmobile wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Below is what I have so far. >>>> >>> Control X is your friend. It is the "Command" key for some terminal, >>> and gets a "System is not initialized response back. >>> >>> Onward to screw up my disk image... >>> >>> T E X A S I N S T R U M E N T S >>> D X 1 0 S Y S T E M 3 . 7 . 0 >>> >>> >>> >>> SELECT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING COMMAND GROUPS >>> >>> /DEV - DEVICE OPERATIONS >>> /FILE - FILE OPERATIONS >>> /PDEV - PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT >>> /SMAIN - DX10 MAINTENANCE >>> /SOP - DX10 OPERATION >>> >>> >>> Jim >>> >> >> > From scaron at umich.edu Sun Jan 4 21:43:20 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 22:43:20 -0500 Subject: SIM990/DX10 help? In-Reply-To: <54A9D50E.3090507@jwsss.com> References: <54A992F7.4040909@bitsavers.org> <54A9CE41.1060404@jwsss.com> <54A9D50E.3090507@jwsss.com> Message-ID: Yeah, I kind of "figured it out"... poring through README.txt and just noodling around a little bit. So, you extract the disk images and run sim990 (still, from a SSH session via PuTTY): sim990 -m 10 -s 512K -c dx10.cfg Once it starts up, from within that window, I found I could hit Esc (not F10) then "!" and then I got an SCI prompt and a message about the system being uninitialized! I ran a "IS" command as described in Vol. 2 of the DX-10 documentation... this system is pretty easy to use... just filled in the date and ran with defaults otherwise. It churned for no more than 30 seconds and eventually it lands at a QUIT message. I let it sit for a while and once I convince myself it's idle, I try poking at it again... Hit Esc and "!" and I get prompted to sign on to SCI now! I logged in with the username and password given in README.txt (SYS001/SYSTEM). I get the SCI prompt at the console, I can run commands just fine. Cool! So, now that I can use the system from the console, I'm trying to test it with Telnet again, to see if it'll behave differently after the system has been initialized. I find that now when I open Telnet sessions to port 2000, I get a prompt to signon to SCI, which I didn't get before, and if I create a new user account for myself using "AUI" at the console, I can get logged in. After login, I'm at the same menu I saw before, but I still don't get a SCI prompt in the Telnet sessions like I do from the console. I strongly am suspecting it might be an "emulation" issue with the Telnet sessions, where the console is set up as a "TTY" while it is expecting the Telnet sessions to look more like a TI VDT. I'm still poking at it but at this point I'm confident I'll get to the bottom of it... or... I can just use it from the console, failing all else. The scheme used for user accounts in DX10 is bizarre and amusing. It took me a minute to figure out that the user ID /is/ the three digits in the account name and they need to be unique across accounts! LOL Woo hoo! Best, Sean On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 7:04 PM, jwsmobile wrote: > > On 1/4/2015 3:35 PM, jwsmobile wrote: > >> >> Below is what I have so far. >> > Control X is your friend. It is the "Command" key for some terminal, and > gets a "System is not initialized response back. > > Onward to screw up my disk image... > > T E X A S I N S T R U M E N T S > D X 1 0 S Y S T E M 3 . 7 . 0 > > > > SELECT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING COMMAND GROUPS > > /DEV - DEVICE OPERATIONS > /FILE - FILE OPERATIONS > /PDEV - PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT > /SMAIN - DX10 MAINTENANCE > /SOP - DX10 OPERATION > > > Jim > From useddec at gmail.com Mon Jan 5 00:32:02 2015 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 00:32:02 -0600 Subject: paper tape readers Message-ID: I found a FTI table top reader today, and the only number on it is 2939. Also a Remex rack mount with 6300BB1, which could be a serial number. I might have a few more to dig out at some point. If interested, please contact me off list. Shipping from zip 61853. Thanks, Paul From scaron at umich.edu Sun Jan 4 22:00:02 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2015 23:00:02 -0500 Subject: SIM990/DX10 help? In-Reply-To: References: <54A992F7.4040909@bitsavers.org> <54A9CE41.1060404@jwsss.com> <54A9D50E.3090507@jwsss.com> Message-ID: Sorry to keep responding to my own messages but I figure it's a good documentary thread... I'll try to make this the last one ;) The secret for best behavior in the Telnet sessions seems to be to hit Ctrl-D instead of Enter. Once you do that, it appears to be pretty well-behaved. So unusual! Quasi-screen-oriented, feels a little IBM-y, but not. Best, Sean On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 10:56 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > Telnet is a little dodgy but Ctrl-X always brings back the SCI prompt once > you're logged in (given that the system has been initialized from the > console, first). The console (set up as TTY) seems to work with 100% > consistency. Honestly, I might just like to set the Telnet sessions up as > TTY, too, if I could, but this is definitely working well enough to get the > point across now. > > I love it! SYSTEM COMMAND INTERPRETER - PLEASE LOG IN. No lowercase! > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 10:48 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > >> And if I hit Ctrl-X in my Telnet session /now/ (after I have initialized >> the system; this seems important) as you say, it works! I'm off! Thanks for >> your ideas! >> >> Best, >> >> Sean >> >> >> On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 10:43 PM, Sean Caron wrote: >> >>> Yeah, I kind of "figured it out"... poring through README.txt and just >>> noodling around a little bit. So, you extract the disk images and run >>> sim990 (still, from a SSH session via PuTTY): >>> >>> sim990 -m 10 -s 512K -c dx10.cfg >>> >>> Once it starts up, from within that window, I found I could hit Esc (not >>> F10) then "!" and then I got an SCI prompt and a message about the system >>> being uninitialized! >>> >>> I ran a "IS" command as described in Vol. 2 of the DX-10 >>> documentation... this system is pretty easy to use... just filled in the >>> date and ran with defaults otherwise. It churned for no more than 30 >>> seconds and eventually it lands at a QUIT message. I let it sit for a while >>> and once I convince myself it's idle, I try poking at it again... >>> >>> Hit Esc and "!" and I get prompted to sign on to SCI now! I logged in >>> with the username and password given in README.txt (SYS001/SYSTEM). I get >>> the SCI prompt at the console, I can run commands just fine. Cool! >>> >>> So, now that I can use the system from the console, I'm trying to test >>> it with Telnet again, to see if it'll behave differently after the system >>> has been initialized. >>> >>> I find that now when I open Telnet sessions to port 2000, I get a prompt >>> to signon to SCI, which I didn't get before, and if I create a new user >>> account for myself using "AUI" at the console, I can get logged in. After >>> login, I'm at the same menu I saw before, but I still don't get a SCI >>> prompt in the Telnet sessions like I do from the console. >>> >>> I strongly am suspecting it might be an "emulation" issue with the >>> Telnet sessions, where the console is set up as a "TTY" while it is >>> expecting the Telnet sessions to look more like a TI VDT. I'm still poking >>> at it but at this point I'm confident I'll get to the bottom of it... or... >>> I can just use it from the console, failing all else. >>> >>> The scheme used for user accounts in DX10 is bizarre and amusing. It >>> took me a minute to figure out that the user ID /is/ the three digits in >>> the account name and they need to be unique across accounts! LOL >>> >>> Woo hoo! >>> >>> Best, >>> >>> Sean >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 7:04 PM, jwsmobile wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> On 1/4/2015 3:35 PM, jwsmobile wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Below is what I have so far. >>>>> >>>> Control X is your friend. It is the "Command" key for some terminal, >>>> and gets a "System is not initialized response back. >>>> >>>> Onward to screw up my disk image... >>>> >>>> T E X A S I N S T R U M E N T S >>>> D X 1 0 S Y S T E M 3 . 7 . 0 >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> SELECT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING COMMAND GROUPS >>>> >>>> /DEV - DEVICE OPERATIONS >>>> /FILE - FILE OPERATIONS >>>> /PDEV - PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT >>>> /SMAIN - DX10 MAINTENANCE >>>> /SOP - DX10 OPERATION >>>> >>>> >>>> Jim >>>> >>> >>> >> > From richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca Mon Jan 5 10:19:01 2015 From: richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca (Richard Loken) Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 09:19:01 -0700 (MST) Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: <03b301d02857$2809efb0$781dcf10$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 4 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: > When I power up my DECsystem 5100 I get the output shown at the end of this > email. I thought this was to do with the DS1287 chip as it seems be an NVRAM > battery error (perhaps). Since I know these devices fail I took out the > DS1287, put in a socket and then bought a replacement DS12887A. But I still > get the same problem. It could be that I bought a bad replacement, or that I I hope you did not throw out the old one. Assuming the new one is not compatible with you system or the battery in the new one is also dead, you can find a set of instructions on the internet to drill a couple appropriate holes in the DS1297 to disconnect the internal battery and attach an external battery. I have the link some where if you cannot find it. I have an Alphaserver 4100 (running VMS) within arm's reach that is turned off because of a dead DS1287, I have the parts but I have not found the time to do the repair. This conversation reminds me that I have put that off for too long. -- Richard Loken VE6BSV, Unix System Administrator : "Anybody can be a father Athabasca University : but you have to earn Athabasca, Alberta Canada : the title of 'daddy'" ** richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca ** : - Lynn Johnston From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 5 11:43:34 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 17:43:34 -0000 Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: References: <03b301d02857$2809efb0$781dcf10$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <03ef01d0290f$20e289f0$62a79dd0$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard > Loken > Sent: 05 January 2015 16:19 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure > > On Sun, 4 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > > When I power up my DECsystem 5100 I get the output shown at the end of > > this email. I thought this was to do with the DS1287 chip as it seems > > be an NVRAM battery error (perhaps). Since I know these devices fail I > > took out the DS1287, put in a socket and then bought a replacement > > DS12887A. But I still get the same problem. It could be that I bought > > a bad replacement, or that I > > I hope you did not throw out the old one. Assuming the new one is not > compatible with you system or the battery in the new one is also dead, you can > find a set of instructions on the internet to drill a couple appropriate holes in > the DS1297 to disconnect the internal battery and attach an external battery. I have kept the original, but I am not sure that it was faulty in the first place. I think the fault is something else, but I am not sure what. I did find some pages on how to "repair" one, but I would rather be sure it is faulty now before trying to do anything to it. For the record the RTC self-test passes successfully. Regards Rob > > I have the link some where if you cannot find it. > > I have an Alphaserver 4100 (running VMS) within arm's reach that is turned off > because of a dead DS1287, I have the parts but I have not found the time to do > the repair. This conversation reminds me that I have put that off for too long. I would consider at least taking out the old one and soldering in a socket so that if necessary it is easy to replace. Regards Rob From richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca Mon Jan 5 12:28:31 2015 From: richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca (Richard Loken) Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 11:28:31 -0700 (MST) Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: <03ef01d0290f$20e289f0$62a79dd0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 5 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > the repair. This conversation reminds me that I have put that off for too > long. > > I would consider at least taking out the old one and soldering in a socket > so that if necessary it is easy to replace. I get off easy, the RTC chip is already in a socket and not hard to access once I have removed about 10kg of screws and sheet metal. -- Richard Loken VE6BSV, Unix System Administrator : "Anybody can be a father Athabasca University : but you have to earn Athabasca, Alberta Canada : the title of 'daddy'" ** richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca ** : - Lynn Johnston From richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca Mon Jan 5 12:36:39 2015 From: richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca (Richard Loken) Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 11:36:39 -0700 (MST) Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: <03ef01d0290f$20e289f0$62a79dd0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 5 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: > I have kept the original, but I am not sure that it was faulty in the first > place. I think the fault is something else, but I am not sure what. I did > find some pages on how to "repair" one, but I would rather be sure it is > faulty now before trying to do anything to it. For the record the RTC > self-test passes successfully. I agree that you might want reserve judgement on the RTC. The RTC problem in my Alphaserver a very strange (and well documented) case. If the battery is dead, which it is after 20 years on the job, then the system time is not what OpenVMS expects so it refuses to boot. I have not found a way around this except to reinstall VMS which I did on two occasions and then it will run just fine (for VMS anyway) until the next time the power is disconnected. That business gets old really fast - especially when the guy in the next office trips the circuit breaker less than 24 hours after I have brought it back on line. I like this big noisy box and I like VMS so I must fix the RTC. -- Richard Loken VE6BSV, Unix System Administrator : "Anybody can be a father Athabasca University : but you have to earn Athabasca, Alberta Canada : the title of 'daddy'" ** richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca ** : - Lynn Johnston From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 5 13:20:38 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 19:20:38 -0000 Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: References: <03ef01d0290f$20e289f0$62a79dd0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <03f801d0291c$b033c3f0$109b4bd0$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard > Loken > Sent: 05 January 2015 18:37 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure > > On Mon, 5 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > > I have kept the original, but I am not sure that it was faulty in the > > first place. I think the fault is something else, but I am not sure > > what. I did find some pages on how to "repair" one, but I would rather > > be sure it is faulty now before trying to do anything to it. For the > > record the RTC self-test passes successfully. > > I agree that you might want reserve judgement on the RTC. > > The RTC problem in my Alphaserver a very strange (and well documented) > case. > If the battery is dead, which it is after 20 years on the job, then the system time > is not what OpenVMS expects so it refuses to boot. I have not found a way > around this except to reinstall VMS which I did on two occasions and then it will > run just fine (for VMS anyway) until the next time the power is disconnected. > That business gets old really fast - especially when the guy in the next office > trips the circuit breaker less than 24 hours after I have brought it back on line. > > I like this big noisy box and I like VMS so I must fix the RTC. Have you tried buying a DS12887 as a replacement? They are supposed to be drop-in replacements, and if yours is already socketed then it should be pretty simple to try. Regards Rob From richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca Mon Jan 5 14:24:17 2015 From: richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca (Richard Loken) Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 13:24:17 -0700 (MST) Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: <03f801d0291c$b033c3f0$109b4bd0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 5 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: > Have you tried buying a DS12887 as a replacement? They are supposed to be > drop-in replacements, and if yours is already socketed then it should be > pretty simple to try. Yes, I have two of them here. That will be the first attempt and fortunate then I will be able to stop there if I am lucky. -- Richard Loken VE6BSV, Unix System Administrator : "Anybody can be a father Athabasca University : but you have to earn Athabasca, Alberta Canada : the title of 'daddy'" ** richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca ** : - Lynn Johnston From RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org Mon Jan 5 19:22:57 2015 From: RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org (Rich Alderson) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 01:22:57 +0000 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: <20150104220343.6046818C086@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150104220343.6046818C086@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA01A9D45516@505MBX2.corp.vnw.com> From: Noel Chiappa Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2015 2:04 PM > From: Chuck Guzis >> I suspect that other languages have similar exercises, though >> I don't know what the Japanese do in Kanji. > Err, think you mean kana, right? (Kanji are the ideograms, there are over a ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > thousand in common use.) ... No, they are not. Kanji are *LOGOgrams*, expressing *words*, not *ideas*. (In fact, in Japanese they can express more than one word, given whether they are read as Japanese or one of several different Chinese pronunciations, of which kanon[1] and goon[2] are most common.) > ... There is something called the 'iroha': > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroha > which is a poem which uses every element of the Japanese syllabary - and > exactly once! It was used to teach writing, no idea if it's used for the > keyboard thingy. A fellow graduate student in linguistics, a young lady from Japan, told me 35+ years ago that this poem was no longer used in schools, and that kana were taught with reference to a grid layout. She also characterized it as not very good poetry. Rich [1] "Han pronunciation", where orthographic represents a velar fricative like the German ach-laut [2] "Wu pronunciation", where the reconstructed Middle Chinese pronunciation of the character read as "wu" in Mandarin is [gwou] or [gwou?]. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computer Museum 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jan 5 20:52:18 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 18:52:18 -0800 Subject: Logic Analyzers and In-Circuit Emulators Message-ID: <54AB4DE2.6090503@bitsavers.org> I spent the last week trying to document some of my analyzers and ICEs. There are tons of photos, firmware dumps and some new manuals on bitsavers under appliedMicrosystems, biomation, hmi, futuredata, hp/te hp/64000 and hp/64700. The HMI-200-68000 manual that arrived today had the 68K DOS software in the binder, zipped and up now under bits/HuntsvilleMicrosystems Has anyone ever noticed a pattern to the numbering on the underside of MMI PALs? It would be nice not to have to lift the labels off them. The ones I indentified were B7304 14L4 B7320 16L8 B7321 16R4 B7830 20S10 B7840 20L8 Most are protected. Every once and a while I found one that wasn't. I'd be interested in other AMC ICE firmware dumps to add to the archive. I've made some progress identifying the buses and what the various chunks of firmware are for. Next thing to do is trace the pinouts and see if the house-marked 6809 memory mapper is a MC6829. From looking at the manual, the HMI-200 is kind of interesting in that it can run without a target. The Applied Microsystems units require a 'null target' board. From spacewar at gmail.com Mon Jan 5 21:04:52 2015 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 20:04:52 -0700 Subject: Logic Analyzers and In-Circuit Emulators In-Reply-To: <54AB4DE2.6090503@bitsavers.org> References: <54AB4DE2.6090503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 7:52 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > Has anyone ever noticed a pattern to the numbering on the underside of MMI PALs? I think those are packaging lot numbers, so they may not have a 1:1 correspondence with part numbers. > Next thing to do is trace the pinouts and see if the house-marked 6809 > memory mapper is a MC6829. The Motorola SC67476 is apparently an MC6829. The SC prefix indicates that it was sold as a custom (or semi-custom) part, so it could have functional, electrical, or timing differences from the MC6829 specifications. From glen.slick at gmail.com Mon Jan 5 21:22:31 2015 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 19:22:31 -0800 Subject: Logic Analyzers and In-Circuit Emulators In-Reply-To: <54AB4DE2.6090503@bitsavers.org> References: <54AB4DE2.6090503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 6:52 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > I spent the last week trying to document some of my analyzers and ICEs. > There > are tons of photos, firmware dumps and some new manuals on bitsavers under > appliedMicrosystems, biomation, hmi, futuredata, hp/te hp/64000 and > hp/64700. > The HMI-200-68000 manual that arrived today had the 68K DOS software in the > binder, zipped and up now under bits/HuntsvilleMicrosystems > As always your work is very appreciated. You have pictures now of the 10343B SCSI Bus Preprocessor. Have you found a copy of the Config/IA disk for that? The last time I looked at the manual for it I didn't think it was compatible with the Config/IA for the E2423A SCSI Bus Preprocessor (which is also the same thing as the FuturePlus FS2230). From useddec at gmail.com Mon Jan 5 22:01:58 2015 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 22:01:58 -0600 Subject: SC008s Message-ID: I found a few while cleaning. If interested in making an offer please contact me off list. I think they all had mounting brackets and some terminators and jumpers. No nuts and bolts. Shipping from 61853 Thanks, Paul From useddec at gmail.com Mon Jan 5 21:57:05 2015 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 21:57:05 -0600 Subject: Dataram, EEM (Electronics Memories & Magnetics) cross reference lists Message-ID: Does anyone have easy access to lists that cross reference 3ed party memories to DEC, DG, ETC? Thanks, Paul From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 5 22:27:06 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 23:27:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) Message-ID: <20150106042706.A513618C07E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Rich Alderson > Kanji are *LOGOgrams*, expressing *words*, not *ideas*. Since this is a list about antique computers, not about the technical minutiae of written languages, I elected to use the word that would be familiar to non-specialists, i.e. 'ideogram' (with the common meaning, not the specialist one). >> There is something called the 'iroha' ... It was used to teach writing > this poem was no longer used in schools Which would be why I said it "was used to teach writing", not 'is used to teach writing'. Noel From snhirsch at gmail.com Tue Jan 6 06:31:25 2015 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 07:31:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Catweasel support for N* Message-ID: Does anyone have a version of 'cwns' more recent than 0.01? It looks like Andrew Lynch wrote this, but Google did not turn up any work since 2007. It would be great to have a way to generate N* floppies on the CW card. Alternately, has Dave Dunfield's NST ever been ported to work on the Advantage? Google turns up nothing other then references to Kermit (not helpful for disk image transfer) or the Central Point Matchpoint card (unobtanium). I did find a disk image for Advantage N*DOS on Dunfield's site, which may have the ability to run the NST stub, but it presents a recursive problem in that I have no means to write it to a DS N* floppy. I do have a Horizon, but it's fitted with SSDD drives. Any suggestions or workarounds I'm overlooking? Steve -- From snhirsch at gmail.com Tue Jan 6 06:10:46 2015 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 07:10:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Logic Analyzers and In-Circuit Emulators In-Reply-To: <54AB4DE2.6090503@bitsavers.org> References: <54AB4DE2.6090503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Mon, 5 Jan 2015, Al Kossow wrote: > I spent the last week trying to document some of my analyzers and ICEs. There > are tons of photos, firmware dumps and some new manuals on bitsavers under > appliedMicrosystems, biomation, hmi, futuredata, hp/te hp/64000 and hp/64700. > The HMI-200-68000 manual that arrived today had the 68K DOS software in the > binder, zipped and up now under bits/HuntsvilleMicrosystems Let us know if you turn up documentation on a Zax ICD-378 68000/68010 ICE? I picked up one of these in mint condition at a flea market but, as is too often the case, without any manuals. It may have enough similarities to the Zax Z80 ICE to muddle through, but it would be great to find the docs. -- From david at attglobal.net Tue Jan 6 08:49:25 2015 From: david at attglobal.net (David Schmidt) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 09:49:25 -0500 Subject: Catweasel support for N* In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54ABF5F5.9040703@attglobal.net> On 1/6/2015 7:31 AM, Steven Hirsch wrote: > Does anyone have a version of 'cwns' more recent than 0.01? It looks > like Andrew Lynch wrote this, but Google did not turn up any work since > 2007. It would be great to have a way to generate N* floppies on the CW > card. Does it somehow not work for you? I have used it successfully to read, but I admit I'm not interested in writing. I too had a hard time pinning down the source, and there hasn't been any work done on it since then besides the following... > Any suggestions or workarounds I'm overlooking? I took the source and combined it with other Tim Mann-derived variants to communicate to the Mac driver model in this project: http://sourceforge.net/p/catweasel-osx/wiki/Home/ I didn't to much to his code besides fit it to the new backend, but I note that it doesn't implement nearly the number of switches it says it does: http://sourceforge.net/p/catweasel-osx/wiki/cwns/ From snhirsch at gmail.com Tue Jan 6 10:56:17 2015 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 11:56:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Catweasel support for N* In-Reply-To: <54ABF5F5.9040703@attglobal.net> References: <54ABF5F5.9040703@attglobal.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 6 Jan 2015, David Schmidt wrote: > On 1/6/2015 7:31 AM, Steven Hirsch wrote: >> Does anyone have a version of 'cwns' more recent than 0.01? It looks >> like Andrew Lynch wrote this, but Google did not turn up any work since >> 2007. It would be great to have a way to generate N* floppies on the CW >> card. > > Does it somehow not work for you? I have used it successfully to read, but I > admit I'm not interested in writing. I too had a hard time pinning down the > source, and there hasn't been any work done on it since then besides the > following... My impression from forum posts is that it was not operational. Reading N* is not a problem for me. The DeviceSide unit does that just fine, but I really need a way to generate diskettes. >> Any suggestions or workarounds I'm overlooking? > I took the source and combined it with other Tim Mann-derived variants to > communicate to the Mac driver model in this project: > http://sourceforge.net/p/catweasel-osx/wiki/Home/ > > I didn't to much to his code besides fit it to the new backend, but I note > that it doesn't implement nearly the number of switches it says it does: > http://sourceforge.net/p/catweasel-osx/wiki/cwns/ I saw that, but I'm not a Mac person. I'll see if 0.01 can do the trick. Thanks! Steve -- From js at cimmeri.com Tue Jan 6 11:03:23 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 12:03:23 -0500 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: <20150106042706.A513618C07E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150106042706.A513618C07E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54AC155B.1010807@cimmeri.com> Noel, those overly concerned with semantics will *always* jump at the chance to demonstrate their superior knowledge. Their knowledge is indeed superior, but their inate need to demonstrate it is just as great. On 1/5/2015 11:27 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Rich Alderson > > > Kanji are *LOGOgrams*, expressing *words*, not *ideas*. > > Since this is a list about antique computers, not about the technical minutiae > of written languages, I elected to use the word that would be familiar to > non-specialists, i.e. 'ideogram' (with the common meaning, not the specialist > one). > > >> There is something called the 'iroha' ... It was used to teach writing > > > this poem was no longer used in schools > > Which would be why I said it "was used to teach writing", not 'is used to > teach writing'. > > Noel > > From mtapley at swri.edu Tue Jan 6 11:09:10 2015 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Tapley, Mark) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 17:09:10 +0000 Subject: OT: Re: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) (Kanji) In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA01A9D45516@505MBX2.corp.vnw.com> References: <20150104220343.6046818C086@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA01A9D45516@505MBX2.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: <3B549905-9CEE-479C-896F-53328EA857CA@swri.edu> On Jan 5, 2015, at 7:22 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > No, they are not. Kanji are *LOGOgrams*, expressing *words*, not *ideas*. > (In fact, in Japanese they can express more than one word, given whether > they are read as Japanese or one of several different Chinese pronunciations, > of which kanon[1] and goon[2] are most common.) That is a pretty interesting statement. There are many words in Japanese which are written as a combination of two or more kanji (possibly plus word endings, written out in hiragana). That to me fits a lot better with the description ?ideogram? than ?logogram? (based on the etymology of both descriptions). ?Ideogram? is also the description I have heard most often (by far). How does the ?logogram? description deal with combinations of kanji? - Mark From emu at e-bbes.com Tue Jan 6 11:52:39 2015 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 10:52:39 -0700 Subject: Catweasel support for N* In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54AC20E7.3070604@e-bbes.com> On 2015-01-06 05:31, Steven Hirsch wrote: > Does anyone have a version of 'cwns' more recent than 0.01? It looks > like Andrew Lynch wrote this, but Google did not turn up any work since > 2007. It would be great to have a way to generate N* floppies on the CW > card. Andrew is on this list, so probably he will answer From RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org Tue Jan 6 13:40:40 2015 From: RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org (Rich Alderson) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 19:40:40 +0000 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: <54AC155B.1010807@cimmeri.com> References: <20150106042706.A513618C07E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54AC155B.1010807@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA01A9D48461@505MBX2.corp.vnw.com> From: js at cimmeri.com Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2015 9:03 AM >> On 1/5/2015 11:27 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: >>> From: Rich Alderson >>> Kanji are *LOGOgrams*, expressing *words*, not *ideas*. >> Since this is a list about antique computers, not about the technical minutiae >> of written languages, I elected to use the word that would be familiar to >> non-specialists, i.e. 'ideogram' (with the common meaning, not the specialist >> one). >>>> There is something called the 'iroha' ... It was used to teach writing >>> this poem was no longer used in schools >> Which would be why I said it "was used to teach writing", not 'is used to >> teach writing'. NB: I have moved js's top-posted comment to its correct place in the conversation. > Noel, those overly concerned with semantics will *always* jump at the chance > to demonstrate their superior knowledge. Their knowledge is indeed superior, > but their inate need to demonstrate it is just as great. Let me make an analogy that you will perhaps understand. Were Noel and I writing on a linguistics mailing list (say LINGUIST or ArcLing) and in a post I referred to a 2716 as a microprocessor, would Noel be "overly concerned with semantics" if he corrected me? And if I stated to a non-computer expert audience that germanium transistors were used to build computers, might Noel be forgiven for noting that that was in the 1960s, to give them an idea of time scale? I've spent 45+ years studying and working with computers. I've also spent 45+ years in linguistics, studying and working with languages and language. Rather than pandering to the misinformed by misusing terminology from either field, I use the correct terminologies in both and expect the same from others, and if there is a lapse somewhere, I expect it to be corrected. You will have seen me thanking others for correcting my own errors, as well, rather than defending them. Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computer Museum 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org Tue Jan 6 14:11:41 2015 From: RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org (Rich Alderson) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 20:11:41 +0000 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) (Kanji) In-Reply-To: <3B549905-9CEE-479C-896F-53328EA857CA@swri.edu> References: <20150104220343.6046818C086@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA01A9D45516@505MBX2.corp.vnw.com> <3B549905-9CEE-479C-896F-53328EA857CA@swri.edu> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA01A9D484A0@505MBX2.corp.vnw.com> From: Tapley, Mark Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2015 9:09 AM > On Jan 5, 2015, at 7:22 PM, Rich Alderson > wrote: >> No, they are not. Kanji are *LOGOgrams*, expressing *words*, not *ideas*. >> (In fact, in Japanese they can express more than one word, given whether >> they are read as Japanese or one of several different Chinese pronunciations, >> of which kanon[1] and goon[2] are most common.) > That is a pretty interesting statement. There are many words in Japanese > which are written as a combination of two or more kanji (possibly plus word > endings, written out in hiragana). That to me fits a lot better with the > description "ideogram" than "logogram" (based on the etymology of both > descriptions). "Ideogram" is also the description I have heard most often > (by far). > How does the "logogram" description deal with combinations of kanji? When multiple kanji are used to write a Japanese word, they are often used not for their meanings but for their sounds. Even when used for their meanings, it is specific word meanings, not some numinous "idea", which are in play. The notion of "ideograms" goes back to mediaeval and Renaissance misunderstand- ings of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, of which monumental examples such as "Cleopatra's needles" existed in Rome. The pictures of birds, mammals, serpents, etc. were taken as literal, and were supposed to put an image into the mind of the viewer such that the intended meaning should become clear. Even after the decipherment of Egyptian by Champollion, the same notion was still applied to the Chinese writing system and its descendants by a Western misunderstanding of its structure ("radical" + "phonetic", where the radical can, if forced, be viewed as ideogramatic, though that's not correct, either). Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computer Museum 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From js at cimmeri.com Tue Jan 6 17:24:51 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 18:24:51 -0500 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA01A9D48461@505MBX2.corp.vnw.com> References: <20150106042706.A513618C07E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54AC155B.1010807@cimmeri.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA01A9D48461@505MBX2.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: <54AC6EC3.5090209@cimmeri.com> On 1/6/2015 2:40 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > NB: I have moved js's top-posted > comment to its correct place in the > conversation. >> Noel, those overly concerned with semantics will *always* jump at the chance >> to demonstrate their superior knowledge. Their knowledge is indeed superior, >> but their inate need to demonstrate it is just as great. > Let me make an analogy that you will perhaps understand. > > Were Noel and I writing on a linguistics mailing list (say LINGUIST or ArcLing) > and in a post I referred to a 2716 as a microprocessor, would Noel be "overly > concerned with semantics" if he corrected me? There's a subtle difference here, though. The difference is that I (at least) understood what Noel was saying in his context, with almost zero knowledge of Japanese and *without* further elaboration, whereas I'm not sure someone with zero knowledge of computers would know what a "2716" even referred to, moreso in comparison to a microprocessor. I hear these same kinds of mistakes resulting from very loose (and improper) use of language all the time, especially in movies when someone with no knowledge of computers has written the script, and the script happens to refer to some technical aspect of computers. They almost always get the lingo wrong, but I doubt that the audience ever notices. The improper language works on the audience because the audience is just as clueless as the writer was. Same holds here. Because I'm clueless on Japanese, Noel's language worked for me, despite not being 100% accurate. So, in your example, if both parties are clueless re 2716 eproms and microprocessors, the language might *still* work for them... because in their context, accuracy is not inherently important to the message. > And if I stated to a non-computer expert audience that germanium transistors > were used to build computers, might Noel be forgiven for noting that that was > in the 1960s, to give them an idea of time scale? Different type of example, and here, I concur with you 100%. > I've spent 45+ years studying and working with computers. I've also spent 45+ > years in linguistics, studying and working with languages and language. Rather > than pandering to the misinformed by misusing terminology from either field, I > use the correct terminologies in both and expect the same from others, and if > there is a lapse somewhere, I expect it to be corrected. You will have seen me > thanking others for correcting my own errors, as well, rather than defending > them. To each his own, and you are certainly entitled to it. I just happen to be in perhaps the minority that finds tangential or off-subject elaborations to be tiresome. - J. From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 6 21:56:01 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 22:56:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Another PDP-8 on eBay Message-ID: <20150107035601.4EE2E18C0AA@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Another one (an 8/L) starting at a reasonable price: http://www.ebay.com/itm/181630674348 Non-functional, but sounds like it might be close to running. Noel From bobvines00 at gmail.com Tue Jan 6 10:04:15 2015 From: bobvines00 at gmail.com (Bob Vines) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 11:04:15 -0500 Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure Message-ID: On Mon, 05 Jan 2015 13:24:17 -0700 (MST), you wrote: [snip] > On Mon, 5 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: > >> Have you tried buying a DS12887 as a replacement? They are supposed to be >> drop-in replacements, and if yours is already socketed then it should be >> pretty simple to try. > > Yes, I have two of them here. That will be the first attempt and fortunate > then I will be able to stop there if I am lucky. > > -- > Richard Loken VE6BSV, Unix System Administrator : "Anybody can be a father > Athabasca University : but you have to earn > Athabasca, Alberta Canada : the title of 'daddy'" > ** richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca ** : - Lynn Johnston > Richard, Those chips have "battery-backed static RAM" according to their data sheet. Does your system store anything critical in them? If so, you may want to read & save that data so that you can put it back before you install the replacement chip (and add an external battery in a location where leakage won't cause serious damage in the future). I know that some Tektronix 'scopes store their calibration values in the (DS1297 or equal) chip's battery-backed RAM and it is critical to read the info and transfer it to the new chip *before* the original battery dies. Otherwise, you have to either pay ($$$) for or perform the entire re-calibration procedure yourself, if you have the necessary calibration equipment. However, since you said your battery was already dead and you have to reinstall VMS every time the system is powered down, I guess that your system doesn't store anything *critical* in that RAM. Bob From scaron at umich.edu Tue Jan 6 10:12:21 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 11:12:21 -0500 Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't think you'll get too far trying to run VMS on a DECstation... ;) AFAIK the DECstations are 100% "hard power" and I think the MAC address is hard-coded, not in NVRAM i.e like in a Sun, or a SGI Indy, so you can probably just run the system as-is, it just won't autoboot and you get all those errors at power-up. I thought OP already tried swapping in the 12887 and it didn't work? I heard about those scopes on, EEVblog, I think. Yikes!! Best, Sean On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 11:04 AM, Bob Vines wrote: > On Mon, 05 Jan 2015 13:24:17 -0700 (MST), you wrote: > > [snip] > > On Mon, 5 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > > >> Have you tried buying a DS12887 as a replacement? They are supposed to > be > >> drop-in replacements, and if yours is already socketed then it should be > >> pretty simple to try. > > > > Yes, I have two of them here. That will be the first attempt and > fortunate > > then I will be able to stop there if I am lucky. > > > > -- > > Richard Loken VE6BSV, Unix System Administrator : "Anybody can be a > father > > Athabasca University : but you have to > earn > > Athabasca, Alberta Canada : the title of > 'daddy'" > > ** richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca ** : - Lynn Johnston > > > > Richard, > > Those chips have "battery-backed static RAM" according to their data > sheet. Does your system store anything critical in them? If so, you > may want to read & save that data so that you can put it back before > you install the replacement chip (and add an external battery in a > location where leakage won't cause serious damage in the future). > > I know that some Tektronix 'scopes store their calibration values in > the (DS1297 or equal) chip's battery-backed RAM and it is critical to > read the info and transfer it to the new chip *before* the original > battery dies. Otherwise, you have to either pay ($$$) for or perform > the entire re-calibration procedure yourself, if you have the > necessary calibration equipment. > > However, since you said your battery was already dead and you have to > reinstall VMS every time the system is powered down, I guess that your > system doesn't store anything *critical* in that RAM. > > > Bob > From rickb at bensene.com Tue Jan 6 11:10:05 2015 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 09:10:05 -0800 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 Message-ID: I have an RK05J drive that has been sitting around for a long time, and I want to prepare it for going back into service on my PDP 8/e system. Here's what I've done so far: - I have replaced the foam that isolates the blower motor from the housing, as it had started to deteriorate. - I vacuumed out the entire drive very carefully - I removed the head-lock that was put in when the drive was transported from its original location to my location - I ran the drive without a cartridge (and not connected to a system) for about 6 hours with the old absolute filter in place - I removed all of the circuit boards and cleaned the edge connectors and sockets - I tested all of the front panel lamps, and found all to be good - I replaced the absolute filter and ran the drive for another few hours to circulate air and get any last particles of stuff filtered out. - I very carefully cleaned the heads... they were extremely clean. I used a lint-free swap, and a commercial solution that I have that I've used for floppy disk head cleaning that seems to work well. I used this solution on the first RK05's heads, and it worked with no problems. However, the first drive was in service on the PDP 8/e when I got it, and was running fine. This second drive came off a PDP 11 system, and has been sitting for a very long time (years). I plan on running the drive without a pack in it for about 2 hours before I try loading a pack. I'm wondering if there is anything else that I should do before add the drive to the chain (this would be the second drive on the system)? I am also wondering, that since I have very few PDP8-sectored RK05 packs, and a ton of PDP-11 sectored packs, if , when I first power up the drive after it has been connected up to the RK8E , I can put one of my PDP 11 packs in there and spin it up, if the controller will be able to load the heads? I'd much rather sacrifice one of these packs if there are problems rather than risk one of my precious PDP-8 sectored packs. Thanks in advance for any suggestions/answers. Rick Bensene From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 6 12:59:57 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 18:59:57 +0000 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > I am also wondering, that since I have very few PDP8-sectored RK05 packs, and a ton of PDP-11 sectored > packs, if , when I first power up the drive after it has been connected up to the RK8E , I can put one of my PDP 11 > packs in there and spin it up, if the controller will be able to load the heads? I'd much rather sacrifice one of > these packs if there are problems rather than risk one of my precious PDP-8 sectored packs. An RK05 will spin up and load the heads without a controller. It is a darn good idea to have a terminator fitted (otherwise noise on the interface lines can do interesting things, like cause write glitches, don't ask how I found that out). It does need a pack with the slotted hub so that the drive electronics can tell the drive is up to speed before it tries to load the heads. But obviously a 12 sector (PDP11) pack will do for that. So yes, you can use a PDP11 type of pack to see if the heads will fly even though the drive is on an RK8/E -tony From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Tue Jan 6 15:31:02 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 21:31:02 -0000 Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <04b101d029f8$123e10b0$36ba3210$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctech [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Sean > Caron > Sent: 06 January 2015 16:12 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts; Sean Caron > Subject: Re: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure > > I don't think you'll get too far trying to run VMS on a DECstation... ;) > > AFAIK the DECstations are 100% "hard power" and I think the MAC address is > hard-coded, not in NVRAM i.e like in a Sun, or a SGI Indy, so you can probably > just run the system as-is, it just won't autoboot and you get all those errors at > power-up. > > I thought OP already tried swapping in the 12887 and it didn't work? Sort of. I replaced it, and I got the same error. But.... I am not convinced the error is related to this device. Specifically the RTC tests pass. So not sure what the error is now. Regards Rob From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Tue Jan 6 15:36:15 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 21:36:15 -0000 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <04b201d029f8$ccfdaeb0$66f90c10$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctech [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony duell > Sent: 06 January 2015 19:32 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: Resurrecting RK05 > > > > > That's a good idea. It should load heads with no problem, but should > > not be able to read or write. I would suggest going through all of the > > servo adjustments in the PM procedure but would advise you NOT do a > > head alignment. > > Can't some of the servo adjustments affect the exact point at which the servo > locks? > In other words you should really do a head alignment after adjusting them. > > Whatever you do don't put the alignment disk in as the first pack you try, for > very obvious reasons!. But if you have an alignment disk I see no reason not to > do the head alignment -- after you are sure the drive is OK. > > What I would do is to make sure it will spin up with a 12 sector pack (as those > are > common) and the heads fly, etc > It is good to know that RK05 packs for the PDP11 are common. I have an RK05 drive for my 11/45 but no packs. It is going to be a while before I get this machine going again, but if anyone in the UK has suitable packs they might be prepared to part with, it would be good to hear about it. Thanks Rob From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 6 09:21:41 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 07:21:41 -0800 Subject: Logic Analyzers and In-Circuit Emulators In-Reply-To: References: <54AB4DE2.6090503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54ABFD85.9010106@bitsavers.org> On 1/5/15 7:22 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > You have pictures now of the 10343B SCSI Bus Preprocessor. Have you > found a copy of the Config/IA disk for that? The last time I looked at > the manual for it I didn't think it was compatible with the Config/IA > for the E2423A SCSI Bus Preprocessor (which is also the same thing as > the FuturePlus FS2230). > I'll dig around. I also need to dump the eprom int he RS-232 preprocessor which also has an HP-IB connector. That may be handy if I start looking at CS-80 disk transactions. From richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca Tue Jan 6 11:13:53 2015 From: richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca (Richard Loken) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 10:13:53 -0700 (MST) Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 6 Jan 2015, Sean Caron wrote: > I don't think you'll get too far trying to run VMS on a DECstation... ;) Yes, but the conversation became complicated. I have an Alphaserver 4100 which uses the same chip so the comparison was at that level. On the other hand, my AS4100 is a lousy platform for running Ultrix. -- Richard Loken VE6BSV, Unix System Administrator : "Anybody can be a father Athabasca University : but you have to earn Athabasca, Alberta Canada : the title of 'daddy'" ** richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca ** : - Lynn Johnston From richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca Tue Jan 6 11:17:48 2015 From: richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca (Richard Loken) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 10:17:48 -0700 (MST) Subject: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 6 Jan 2015, Bob Vines wrote: > However, since you said your battery was already dead and you have to > reinstall VMS every time the system is powered down, I guess that your > system doesn't store anything *critical* in that RAM. Yes, whatever was in there is long gone. I don't care for chips with internal batteries, I don't like them in computers and I loath them in Tektronix test equipment - that is why my oscilloscope is a 547. There are lots of other Tek scopes that do not use a stupid chip with a battery but mine happens to be a 547. -- Richard Loken VE6BSV, Unix System Administrator : "Anybody can be a father Athabasca University : but you have to earn Athabasca, Alberta Canada : the title of 'daddy'" ** richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca ** : - Lynn Johnston From useddec at gmail.com Tue Jan 6 12:30:57 2015 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 12:30:57 -0600 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Rick, That's a good idea. It should load heads with no problem, but should not be able to read or write. I would suggest going through all of the servo adjustments in the PM procedure but would advise you NOT do a head alignment. Paul On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 11:10 AM, Rick Bensene wrote: > I have an RK05J drive that has been sitting around for a long time, and I > want to prepare it for going back into service on my PDP 8/e system. > > Here's what I've done so far: > > - I have replaced the foam that isolates the blower motor from the > housing, as it had started to deteriorate. > - I vacuumed out the entire drive very carefully > - I removed the head-lock that was put in when the drive was transported > from its original location to my location > - I ran the drive without a cartridge (and not connected to a system) for > about 6 hours with the old absolute filter in place > - I removed all of the circuit boards and cleaned the edge connectors and > sockets > - I tested all of the front panel lamps, and found all to be good > - I replaced the absolute filter and ran the drive for another few hours > to circulate air and get any last particles of stuff filtered out. > - I very carefully cleaned the heads... they were extremely clean. I used > a lint-free swap, and a commercial solution that I have that I've used for > floppy disk head cleaning that seems to work well. I used this solution on > the first RK05's heads, and it worked with no problems. However, the first > drive was in service on the PDP 8/e when I got it, and was running fine. > This second drive came off a PDP 11 system, and has been sitting for a very > long time (years). > > I plan on running the drive without a pack in it for about 2 hours before > I try loading a pack. > > I'm wondering if there is anything else that I should do before add the > drive to the chain (this would be the second drive on the system)? > > I am also wondering, that since I have very few PDP8-sectored RK05 packs, > and a ton of PDP-11 sectored packs, if , when I first power up the drive > after it has been connected up to the RK8E , I can put one of my PDP 11 > packs in there and spin it up, if the controller will be able to load the > heads? I'd much rather sacrifice one of these packs if there are > problems rather than risk one of my precious PDP-8 sectored packs. > > Thanks in advance for any suggestions/answers. > > Rick Bensene > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 6 13:32:00 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 19:32:00 +0000 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: > That's a good idea. It should load heads with no problem, but should not be > able to read or write. I would suggest going through all of the servo > adjustments in the PM procedure but would advise you NOT do a head > alignment. Can't some of the servo adjustments affect the exact point at which the servo locks? In other words you should really do a head alignment after adjusting them. Whatever you do don't put the alignment disk in as the first pack you try, for very obvious reasons!. But if you have an alignment disk I see no reason not to do the head alignment -- after you are sure the drive is OK. What I would do is to make sure it will spin up with a 12 sector pack (as those are common) and the heads fly, etc Then try a 'scratch' 16 sector pack. Format it (the RK05 does a true low-level format, of course), then read/write. If it has any problems, find out why, it is not head alignment Assuming it gets that far, then put the alignment disk in and check the head alignment. -tony From cramcram at gmail.com Tue Jan 6 15:36:51 2015 From: cramcram at gmail.com (Marc Howard) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 13:36:51 -0800 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I would definitely replace the foam around the squarish tube that supplies air to the pack. That's the worst place for a foam particle to break off. On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 10:59 AM, tony duell wrote: > > > > I am also wondering, that since I have very few PDP8-sectored RK05 > packs, and a ton of PDP-11 sectored > > packs, if , when I first power up the drive after it has been connected > up to the RK8E , I can put one of my PDP 11 > packs in there and spin it > up, if the controller will be able to load the heads? I'd much rather > sacrifice one of > > these packs if there are problems rather than risk one of my precious > PDP-8 sectored packs. > > An RK05 will spin up and load the heads without a controller. It is a darn > good idea to have a terminator > fitted (otherwise noise on the interface lines can do interesting things, > like cause write glitches, don't ask > how I found that out). > > It does need a pack with the slotted hub so that the drive electronics can > tell the drive is up to speed before > it tries to load the heads. But obviously a 12 sector (PDP11) pack will do > for that. > > So yes, you can use a PDP11 type of pack to see if the heads will fly even > though the drive is on an RK8/E > > -tony > From isking at uw.edu Tue Jan 6 18:58:27 2015 From: isking at uw.edu (Ian S. King) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 16:58:27 -0800 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Keep in mind that the drive has an internal selector for drive number. Something tells me that a competition between two drives would not be a pretty thing. On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 1:36 PM, Marc Howard wrote: > I would definitely replace the foam around the squarish tube that supplies > air to the pack. That's the worst place for a foam particle to break off. > > On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 10:59 AM, tony duell > wrote: > > > > > > > I am also wondering, that since I have very few PDP8-sectored RK05 > > packs, and a ton of PDP-11 sectored > > > packs, if , when I first power up the drive after it has been > connected > > up to the RK8E , I can put one of my PDP 11 > packs in there and spin it > > up, if the controller will be able to load the heads? I'd much rather > > sacrifice one of > > > these packs if there are problems rather than risk one of my precious > > PDP-8 sectored packs. > > > > An RK05 will spin up and load the heads without a controller. It is a > darn > > good idea to have a terminator > > fitted (otherwise noise on the interface lines can do interesting things, > > like cause write glitches, don't ask > > how I found that out). > > > > It does need a pack with the slotted hub so that the drive electronics > can > > tell the drive is up to speed before > > it tries to load the heads. But obviously a 12 sector (PDP11) pack will > do > > for that. > > > > So yes, you can use a PDP11 type of pack to see if the heads will fly > even > > though the drive is on an RK8/E > > > > -tony > > > -- Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS Ph.D. Candidate The Information School University of Washington An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees it half empty. An engineer sees it twice as large as it needs to be. From bear at typewritten.org Tue Jan 6 23:52:10 2015 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 21:52:10 -0800 Subject: Need AT&T 3B2/300 EPROM images to replace ones missing in my system Message-ID: <7A9CFC5B-1901-4AF4-8AE8-30C616985720@typewritten.org> Esteemed listmembers; I have started working on restoring a 3B2/300, and right away I've discovered the probable cause for the machine's catatonic state. Three of the system board EPROMs are missing. Anybody got a /300 they can dump the EPROMs on? For some reason the AATKL ROM (3/4) is still fitted, so technically speaking I only need images of the AATKJ (1/4), AATKK (2/4), and AATKM (4/4) EPROMs. I may also be after a copy of the AARAM (2/2) ROM from the NI (ethernet) board. My EPROM programmer can't get a good connection on pin 1 of that device and reads it as all zeros. It may still be okay in the socket on the board. ok bear. -- until further notice From bqt at update.uu.se Wed Jan 7 07:25:15 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 14:25:15 +0100 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: <001301d02a77$2e5631e0$1403a8c0@HHE8> References: <001301d02a77$2e5631e0$1403a8c0@HHE8> Message-ID: <54AD33BB.1050107@update.uu.se> The standard RK8E do a select using just one pin, meaning you can have at most 4 drives on the system. The RK11 have a binary unit number encoding, meaning you can have 8 drives. There was also a version of the RK8 controller which did a binary unit selection. I don't remember the designation of that controller off my head at the moment. More fun is that the same pins were used for both binary and 1ofN selection. I don't remember how on earth this was detected/handled by the drives, as I don't remember anything beyond the unit setting rotary switch on one of the boards of the RK05. Ans in theory, you could have gone to 16 drives, since you had 4 pins. But then again, I wonder if it wasn't some clever design using the 4th pin as a way of indicating that the other 3 pins were a binary unit number by making sure that you never had just one signal active... Johnny On 2015-01-07 13:40, David Humphries wrote: > Also the selection method is different between pdp8 and the 11, one used > 1 of n and the other 3 binary digits, cant remember which is which but > do remember I had a bit of a fiddle getting my ex 11 drive to correctly > select on my 8. > DavH > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ian S. King" > To: ; "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2015 12:58 AM > Subject: Re: Resurrecting RK05 > > >> Keep in mind that the drive has an internal selector for drive number. >> Something tells me that a competition between two drives would not be a >> pretty thing. >> >> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 1:36 PM, Marc Howard wrote: >> >>> I would definitely replace the foam around the squarish tube that >>> supplies >>> air to the pack. That's the worst place for a foam particle to break >>> off. >>> >>> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 10:59 AM, tony duell >>> wrote: >>> >>> > > >>> > > I am also wondering, that since I have very few PDP8-sectored RK05 >>> > packs, and a ton of PDP-11 sectored >>> > > packs, if , when I first power up the drive after it has been >>> connected >>> > up to the RK8E , I can put one of my PDP 11 > packs in there and >>> spin > it >>> > up, if the controller will be able to load the heads? I'd much > >>> rather >>> > sacrifice one of >>> > > these packs if there are problems rather than risk one of my >>> precious >>> > PDP-8 sectored packs. >>> > >>> > An RK05 will spin up and load the heads without a controller. It is a >>> darn >>> > good idea to have a terminator >>> > fitted (otherwise noise on the interface lines can do interesting > >>> things, >>> > like cause write glitches, don't ask >>> > how I found that out). >>> > >>> > It does need a pack with the slotted hub so that the drive electronics >>> can >>> > tell the drive is up to speed before >>> > it tries to load the heads. But obviously a 12 sector (PDP11) pack >>> will >>> do >>> > for that. >>> > >>> > So yes, you can use a PDP11 type of pack to see if the heads will fly >>> even >>> > though the drive is on an RK8/E >>> > >>> > -tony >>> > >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS >> Ph.D. Candidate >> The Information School >> University of Washington >> >> An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees it half empty. An >> engineer sees it twice as large as it needs to be. > -- 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 kylevowen at gmail.com Wed Jan 7 11:05:59 2015 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 11:05:59 -0600 Subject: Identifying a 16k by 16 core memory board Message-ID: Does anyone know what this board would go to? It's a California Data Processors board, ca. 1978. http://imgur.com/a/AEfWX It was found packaged in a Data 100 Corporation cardboard box, but I am not convinced it really belongs in there. Thanks, Kyle From david at hheng.plus.com Wed Jan 7 06:40:50 2015 From: david at hheng.plus.com (David Humphries) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 12:40:50 -0000 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 References: Message-ID: <001301d02a77$2e5631e0$1403a8c0@HHE8> Also the selection method is different between pdp8 and the 11, one used 1 of n and the other 3 binary digits, cant remember which is which but do remember I had a bit of a fiddle getting my ex 11 drive to correctly select on my 8. DavH ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ian S. King" To: ; "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2015 12:58 AM Subject: Re: Resurrecting RK05 > Keep in mind that the drive has an internal selector for drive number. > Something tells me that a competition between two drives would not be a > pretty thing. > > On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 1:36 PM, Marc Howard wrote: > >> I would definitely replace the foam around the squarish tube that >> supplies >> air to the pack. That's the worst place for a foam particle to break >> off. >> >> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 10:59 AM, tony duell >> wrote: >> >> > > >> > > I am also wondering, that since I have very few PDP8-sectored RK05 >> > packs, and a ton of PDP-11 sectored >> > > packs, if , when I first power up the drive after it has been >> connected >> > up to the RK8E , I can put one of my PDP 11 > packs in there and spin >> > it >> > up, if the controller will be able to load the heads? I'd much >> > rather >> > sacrifice one of >> > > these packs if there are problems rather than risk one of my precious >> > PDP-8 sectored packs. >> > >> > An RK05 will spin up and load the heads without a controller. It is a >> darn >> > good idea to have a terminator >> > fitted (otherwise noise on the interface lines can do interesting >> > things, >> > like cause write glitches, don't ask >> > how I found that out). >> > >> > It does need a pack with the slotted hub so that the drive electronics >> can >> > tell the drive is up to speed before >> > it tries to load the heads. But obviously a 12 sector (PDP11) pack will >> do >> > for that. >> > >> > So yes, you can use a PDP11 type of pack to see if the heads will fly >> even >> > though the drive is on an RK8/E >> > >> > -tony >> > >> > > > > -- > Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS > Ph.D. Candidate > The Information School > University of Washington > > An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees it half empty. An > engineer sees it twice as large as it needs to be. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 7 11:44:17 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 17:44:17 +0000 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: <54AD33BB.1050107@update.uu.se> References: <001301d02a77$2e5631e0$1403a8c0@HHE8>,<54AD33BB.1050107@update.uu.se> Message-ID: > > The standard RK8E do a select using just one pin, meaning you can have > at most 4 drives on the system. > The RK11 have a binary unit number encoding, meaning you can have 8 drives. The RK11-D (and I guess RKV11) use binary encoding on the select lines, so up to 8 drives on the cable. The RK11-C uses 1-of-n encoding (like the RK8E) and allows for 4 drives per cable. But the RK11-C has 2 cable connectors, so you can have 8 drives on it. The older RK02 and RK03 drives (Diablo model 30) used 1-of-n encoding only, and will not directly work with the RK11-D. I seem to remember a Plessey clone of the RK11-D which had an interface board in the disk cable slot which had a decoder IC on it to allow for 1-of-n selects. > More fun is that the same pins were used for both binary and 1ofN > selection. I don't remember how on earth this was detected/handled by > the drives, as I don't remember anything beyond the unit setting rotary > switch on one of the boards of the RK05. There was a pin on the drive interface connector which if high enabled 1-of-n selects (it was normally pulled high by the terminator). If pulled low (done by an RK11-D controller) the drive used binary selects. -tony From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jan 7 11:51:24 2015 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 17:51:24 +0000 Subject: Identifying a 16k by 16 core memory board In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54AD721C.4060401@dunnington.plus.com> On 07/01/2015 17:05, Kyle Owen wrote: > Does anyone know what this board would go to? It's a California Data > Processors board, ca. 1978. > > http://imgur.com/a/AEfWX > > It was found packaged in a Data 100 Corporation cardboard box, but I am not > convinced it really belongs in there. The shape, size and edge connector style match a hex-height Unibus card for a PDP-11, and a quick look at the edge connectors shows bus grant jumpering where I'd expect it, and what look like poer and ground connections seem to match too. So I believe it's for a Unibus PDP-11. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From jonathanelson at email.wustl.edu Wed Jan 7 12:17:35 2015 From: jonathanelson at email.wustl.edu (Jon Elson) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 12:17:35 -0600 Subject: Identifying a 16k by 16 core memory board In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54AD783F.3070903@email.wustl.edu> On 01/07/2015 11:05 AM, Kyle Owen wrote: > Does anyone know what this board would go to? It's a California Data > Processors board, ca. 1978. > > http://imgur.com/a/AEfWX > > It was found packaged in a Data 100 Corporation cardboard box, but I am not > convinced it really belongs in there. > > Thanks, > > Kyle > CalData made a PDP-11 emulator, totally unauthorized by DEC. A mediocre machine, but relatively affordable. We had a few of them at Washington University in St. Louis. DEC people would get hysterical when they saw it, and start backpedaling out of the room! Jon From useddec at gmail.com Wed Jan 7 14:11:28 2015 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 14:11:28 -0600 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: <001301d02a77$2e5631e0$1403a8c0@HHE8> <54AD33BB.1050107@update.uu.se> Message-ID: I nave 2 RK11-C backplanes, a Diablo drive, and a Plessey controller here if anyone is interested. Feel free to make me an offer off list. On Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 11:44 AM, tony duell wrote: > > > > The standard RK8E do a select using just one pin, meaning you can have > > at most 4 drives on the system. > > The RK11 have a binary unit number encoding, meaning you can have 8 > drives. > > The RK11-D (and I guess RKV11) use binary encoding on the select lines, so > up to > 8 drives on the cable. The RK11-C uses 1-of-n encoding (like the RK8E) and > allows > for 4 drives per cable. But the RK11-C has 2 cable connectors, so you can > have > 8 drives on it. > > The older RK02 and RK03 drives (Diablo model 30) used 1-of-n encoding only, > and will not directly work with the RK11-D. I seem to remember a Plessey > clone > of the RK11-D which had an interface board in the disk cable slot which > had a > decoder IC on it to allow for 1-of-n selects. > > > More fun is that the same pins were used for both binary and 1ofN > > selection. I don't remember how on earth this was detected/handled by > > the drives, as I don't remember anything beyond the unit setting rotary > > switch on one of the boards of the RK05. > > There was a pin on the drive interface connector which if high enabled > 1-of-n > selects (it was normally pulled high by the terminator). If pulled low > (done > by an RK11-D controller) the drive used binary selects. > > -tony > From alan at alanlee.org Wed Jan 7 16:35:29 2015 From: alan at alanlee.org (Alan Hightower) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 17:35:29 -0500 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs Message-ID: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> Does anyone have any past experience reverse engineering an existing de-populated PCB into a scan, netlist, or similar? Any lessons learned positive or negative? I have a AT&T 3B2 310/400 main board that is beyond salvaging into a working system. A previous owner has also removed the socketed parts including the Western Electric chip set. I'm unable to find working schematics of most of the 3B2 cards and main boards. So I'm considering bulk de-populating the remainder of the board in an oven and trying to derive a schematic from it. It's a fairly large board but appears to be 100% through hole. I roughly estimate it contains ~3500 through holes. And guessing it is 6-10 layers. Thus running it through a single vector x-ray machine would not be very useful. I've brain-stormed several ways it can be done from de-laminating the board, building a 2D bed of nails armature, mirroring the board holes on a new mated PCB with 3 dozen FPGAs, etc, etc. But I'm seeking advice from those who've done it already. Thanks, -Alan From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 7 16:55:52 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 14:55:52 -0800 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs In-Reply-To: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> Message-ID: <54ADB978.1060808@bitsavers.org> On 1/7/15 2:35 PM, Alan Hightower wrote: > > > I'm seeking advice > from those who've done it already. > I've used a circuit beeper or an ohmmeter lots of times. Tony has even more experience than me. Logically, you form a block diagram of the functional blocks and data paths, trace those, then begin filling in the clocks and address decoders. You can generally come up with a map of the buffers for the address and data buses pretty quickly, then trace back things like chip select decoders. You don't need to strip the board to do this. From useddec at gmail.com Wed Jan 7 20:13:10 2015 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 20:13:10 -0600 Subject: Stromberg/Carlson, Okuma, Benning, and Computer Autumation Docs Message-ID: I'm going through boxes of documentation and have a pile 3 or 4 feet high that I don't need. My plan is to try to list some several times a week until it's gone. It varies, but most print sets have manuals and repair notes with them. They came from a repair depot. The pile of Stromberg is 6 to 8 inches high. I keep finding more. i can go through specifics over the phone, but don't really want to type everything. Feel free to contact me off list if you have any interest. There will be a few foot pile of DEC items, but i want to finish this first. Thanks, Paul From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Wed Jan 7 21:37:32 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 22:37:32 -0500 Subject: Old Computer Logs! Message-ID: I got one for my birthday: https://plus.google.com/104356262816556231009/posts/3GF1d8nQGQD From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 7 23:57:01 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 05:57:01 +0000 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs In-Reply-To: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> Message-ID: > Does anyone have any past experience reverse engineering an existing > de-populated PCB into a scan, netlist, or similar? Any lessons learned > positive or negative? I've always done it by hand (and you don't need to depopulate the board). What you need is a continuity tester (which is not fooled by diode junctions), a pen and paper, and a lot of (pleasant) time. Start by removing anything that might fool the continuity tester. Switches, obviously, inductors, low value resistors, relays, etc. For 2-lead axial components, I just lift one end. Then make a list of all the ICs and sections on the board. So you end up with a list something like U1 a b c d e f '04 U2 6264 U3 '138 U4 6809E U5 a b c d '02 ... Now start from something that is either recognisable, or which is going to be used in one way. Obviously find power and ground first. Then, in the case of the above list of ICs, I would start with the 6809E CPU, since that will find address and data buses. Trace from there to the clock and reset circuits, on to bus buffers and memory. As you find each IC/section, cross it off the list so you don't do the same bit twice. Boards with recognisable LSI ICs (microprocessors, I/O devices, etc) are relatively easy in that such devices are used in essentially one way so you don't have too much to think about. Big boards of TTL or worse big boards of diodes/transistors are a lot worse. A 7400 NAND gate or a 2N3904 transistor can be used in so many different ways. I find that you get about 5 ICs (no matter what the complexity) on an A4 sheet of paper on average. It's relatively easy to trace connections (just buzz them out with the continuity tester), the trick is producing a readable schematic. This means (a) drawing bits so they are recognisable (a trivial example being a pair of cross-coupled NANDs making an SR flip-flop) and (b) using sensible names for signals. I find you have to really understand the unit to do this, which helps a lot with future repairs. So the time is invested rather than wasted. Anyway, when you have finished, feel free to make the schematic unreadable by redrawing it in a CAD system. -tony From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 00:33:53 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 04:33:53 -0200 Subject: Old Computer Logs! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ba-dum, tssss! :) On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 1:37 AM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > I got one for my birthday: > https://plus.google.com/104356262816556231009/posts/3GF1d8nQGQD > From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 7 12:40:40 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 10:40:40 -0800 Subject: Identifying a 16k by 16 core memory board In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54AD7DA8.4090604@bitsavers.org> On 1/7/15 9:05 AM, Kyle Owen wrote: > Does anyone know what this board would go to? It's a California Data > Processors board, ca. 1978. > > http://imgur.com/a/AEfWX > > It was found packaged in a Data 100 Corporation cardboard box, but I am not > convinced it really belongs in there. > > Thanks, > > Kyle > > It is for a Cal-Data PDP-11 clone. From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 7 12:44:56 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 10:44:56 -0800 Subject: Identifying a 16k by 16 core memory board In-Reply-To: <54AD7DA8.4090604@bitsavers.org> References: <54AD7DA8.4090604@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54AD7EA8.3070101@bitsavers.org> On 1/7/15 10:40 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/7/15 9:05 AM, Kyle Owen wrote: >> Does anyone know what this board would go to? It's a California Data >> Processors board, ca. 1978. >> >> http://imgur.com/a/AEfWX >> >> It was found packaged in a Data 100 Corporation cardboard box, but I am not >> convinced it really belongs in there. >> >> Thanks, >> >> Kyle >> >> > > It is for a Cal-Data PDP-11 clone. > > > > here's the manual http://bitsavers.org/pdf/calData/21518016_16kCoreMaint_Jun74.pdf From kylevowen at gmail.com Wed Jan 7 12:57:44 2015 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 12:57:44 -0600 Subject: Identifying a 16k by 16 core memory board In-Reply-To: <54AD7EA8.3070101@bitsavers.org> References: <54AD7DA8.4090604@bitsavers.org> <54AD7EA8.3070101@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > > here's the manual > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/calData/21518016_16kCoreMaint_Jun74.pdf Wonderful! Looking at page 24 in this PDF ( http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/calData/CalData_Brochures_1974.pdf), I guess it's safe to assume that I can in fact put it in a DEC-brand Unibus as well? That'd be quite nice. Kyle From simski at dds.nl Wed Jan 7 16:41:59 2015 From: simski at dds.nl (Simon Claessen) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 23:41:59 +0100 Subject: olivetti programma 101 repair In-Reply-To: <54916463.4050200@dds.nl> References: <548DC820.7000702@dds.nl> <54916463.4050200@dds.nl> Message-ID: <54ADB637.70400@dds.nl> well, Good news always has some bad news as well. After careful examining of the 952 (no, not 850...) pins, I found 52 broken ones. As they are made of a gold plated springy metal wire, I needed to find a replacement. Size: 0,5mm diameter. Guitar wires are out. They are way to flexible. I opted for fosfor bronze wire, but could not find it in the shops in Amsterdam. Then I stubled upon a shop selling beads and stuff to make bracelets and earrings. They sell "memory wire", A very tough silver coated wire of 0.6mm. I have no idea what the alloy is, but the mechanical characteristics are not bad. The first clip I made fitted surprisingly good. now to find some time to bend another 51... Oh well. On 17-12-14 12:09, Simon Claessen wrote: > Hey all, > > Good news! I've located the problems with the machine and already have > fixed the mechanical part. The elctrical problem is bad contacts in the > edge connectors (a mere 850 pins...) and I got my first calculating > results on paper in the form of the square root of 6. :-) > > So ignore my earlier post on the scope probe path > > updates of course on the blog. > > On 14-12-14 18:25, Simon Claessen wrote: >> hello all, >> >> I'm in the process of repairing our 101 but i hit a solid wall finding >> out whats wrong with it. are there people with a working copy who could >> do some measurements on their copy? >> >> Unfortunately i have no schematic of the electronics, only the mechanics >> and PSU. >> >> I have made a crappy video of the scope trace of the delay line input >> and i'm very interested in a video of a working machine's delay line. :-) >> >> The video is here: http://youtu.be/llpwjGeldt0 >> >> and a partially repairlog is here: >> https://hack42.nl/wiki/Repair_Olivetti_Programma_101 >> >> als scematics are welcome as well. :-) > -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 7 17:21:07 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 15:21:07 -0800 Subject: olivetti programma 101 repair In-Reply-To: <54ADB637.70400@dds.nl> References: <548DC820.7000702@dds.nl> <54916463.4050200@dds.nl> <54ADB637.70400@dds.nl> Message-ID: <54ADBF63.70704@sydex.com> On 01/07/2015 02:41 PM, Simon Claessen wrote: > well, > > Good news always has some bad news as well. After careful examining of > the 952 (no, not 850...) pins, I found 52 broken ones. As they are made > of a gold plated springy metal wire, I needed to find a replacement. > Size: 0,5mm diameter. > > Guitar wires are out. They are way to flexible. I opted for fosfor > bronze wire, but could not find it in the shops in Amsterdam. Then I > stubled upon a shop selling beads and stuff to make bracelets and > earrings. They sell "memory wire", A very tough silver coated wire of > 0.6mm. I have no idea what the alloy is, but the mechanical > characteristics are not bad. Drop in to a good musical instrument repair shop. Flutes, for instance, use phosphor bronze wire springs; clarinets tend to use stainless steel springs; dulcimer wire is typically phosphor bronze. I've even used harpsichord bronze wire to fashion pins to convert a SIMM to a SIPP. It solders well. An instrument repair shop is also an excellent place to fine flat blue steel springs. --Chuck From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Wed Jan 7 20:24:41 2015 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2015 21:24:41 -0500 Subject: Broken H724 power supply from PDP-8/e Message-ID: The H724 power supply in my PDP-8/e works OK for about 5 seconds and then the +5V output goes to about 3.0V. If I leave it on for a few more seconds it will blow the 20A fuse for the +5V output. I have the power supply partially disassembled and disconnected from the chassis. I don't see anything obviously fried. There are three ring terminals with two wires each connected to the + side of C205. Two of the wires get hot in just a few seconds. I have not disassembled the wire harness, but I suspect that they are the wires that go to the fuse holder. C205 is the output filter for +5V. The capacitor resistance goes above 3k Ohms if I leave the VOM connected for about 20 seconds, so the cap is not the 20A short. Should I just keep disassembling the power supply and tracing the warm wires? Anyone have experience repairing one of these power supplies? -- Michael Thompson From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 7 21:10:33 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 19:10:33 -0800 Subject: Broken H724 power supply from PDP-8/e In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54ADF529.5060907@bitsavers.org> On 1/7/15 6:24 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: > The H724 power supply in my PDP-8/e works OK for about 5 seconds and then > the +5V output goes to about 3.0V. If I leave it on for a few more seconds > it will blow the 20A fuse for the +5V output. > sounds like something is firing the crowbar (Q207) From marco at familie-rauhut.eu Wed Jan 7 22:58:23 2015 From: marco at familie-rauhut.eu (Marco Rauhut) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 05:58:23 +0100 Subject: Broken H724 power supply from PDP-8/e In-Reply-To: <54ADF529.5060907@bitsavers.org> References: <54ADF529.5060907@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4C87BF37-204A-4A95-8B7D-43C75CD568FB@familie-rauhut.eu> I think it is the Crowbar to... The voltage when it is fireingis adjustable. One time if i want to adjust 5V i adjusted the crowbar to less 5V ... And bang! 20A was blown... > Am 08.01.2015 um 04:10 schrieb Al Kossow : > >> On 1/7/15 6:24 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: >> The H724 power supply in my PDP-8/e works OK for about 5 seconds and then >> the +5V output goes to about 3.0V. If I leave it on for a few more seconds >> it will blow the 20A fuse for the +5V output. > > sounds like something is firing the crowbar (Q207) > From spacewar at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 02:53:36 2015 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 01:53:36 -0700 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs In-Reply-To: References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 10:57 PM, tony duell wrote: > and a lot of (pleasant) time. I don't find it all that pleasant, but at least there's a sense of accomplishment when I'm done. > Anyway, when you have finished, feel free to make the schematic unreadable by redrawing it in a CAD > system. I just did that for the PSE Pacer CPU card. Is it unreadable? http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/pse/pacer/pac-mp-001.pdf From pontus at update.uu.se Thu Jan 8 04:29:39 2015 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 11:29:39 +0100 Subject: Old Computer Logs! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54AE5C13.1020607@update.uu.se> On 01/08/2015 04:37 AM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > I got one for my birthday: > https://plus.google.com/104356262816556231009/posts/3GF1d8nQGQD har har. I do believe we have service logs for Updates DECSYSTEM-20s. /P From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Thu Jan 8 06:01:47 2015 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 12:01:47 +0000 (WET) Subject: Old Computer Logs! In-Reply-To: "Your message dated Wed, 07 Jan 2015 22:37:32 -0500" Message-ID: <01PH2PEDY36Y002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> > >I got one for my birthday: >https://plus.google.com/104356262816556231009/posts/3GF1d8nQGQD > Happy birthday. For me anyway, the link says: Join Google+ Share the right things with just the right people. Your browser configuration is not supported. Learn more Update to a more modern browser Dismiss Regards, Peter Coghlan. From david at attglobal.net Thu Jan 8 06:52:58 2015 From: david at attglobal.net (David Schmidt) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 07:52:58 -0500 Subject: Old Computer Logs! In-Reply-To: <01PH2PEDY36Y002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01PH2PEDY36Y002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <54AE7DAA.2040406@attglobal.net> On 1/8/2015 7:01 AM, Peter Coghlan wrote: >> I got one for my birthday: >> https://plus.google.com/104356262816556231009/posts/3GF1d8nQGQD > > Happy birthday. > > For me anyway, the link says: > > Join Google+ Share the right things with just the right people. > > Your browser configuration is not supported. Learn more Update to a more > modern browser Dismiss Try wgetting this: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T0_wpjVYELQ/VK29fWFGgSI/AAAAAAAAEv8/jBjELuZ-RAk/w565-h754-no/image%2B%281%29.jpg From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 07:05:48 2015 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 08:05:48 -0500 Subject: Broken H724 power supply from PDP-8/e Message-ID: > > From: Al Kossow > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Broken H724 power supply from PDP-8/e > > On 1/7/15 6:24 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: > > The H724 power supply in my PDP-8/e works OK for about 5 seconds and then > > the +5V output goes to about 3.0V. If I leave it on for a few more > seconds > > it will blow the 20A fuse for the +5V output. > > > > sounds like something is firing the crowbar (Q207) > Thanks Al and Marco. I saw Q207 when I inspected the power supply and wondered what that giant diode was for. I also saw it in the schematic and was surprised to see that the diode installed backwards. Now I see that it is an SCR, not a diode. R29 is easy to get to, so I will try raising the crowbar voltage a just little. It is also possible that the regulation of the +5V is not working correctly and the crowbar should be firing. -- Michael Thompson From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 07:10:22 2015 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 08:10:22 -0500 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 Message-ID: > > From: Johnny Billquist > Subject: Re: Resurrecting RK05 > > There was also a version of the RK8 controller which did a binary unit > selection. I don't remember the designation of that controller off my > head at the moment. > > Johnny > I believe that it is the RKS8 controller that can access 8 drives. -- Michael Thompson From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 8 07:20:15 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 14:20:15 +0100 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54AE840F.8020107@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-08 14:10, Michael Thompson wrote: >> >> From: Johnny Billquist >> Subject: Re: Resurrecting RK05 >> >> There was also a version of the RK8 controller which did a binary unit >> selection. I don't remember the designation of that controller off my >> head at the moment. >> >> Johnny >> > > I believe that it is the RKS8 controller that can access 8 drives. That don't sound right, but my memory is hazy. I thought it is something like RK8F or similar... (I just searched, and found at least one reference to RK8-F anyway.) Oh well. I'm sure someone Johnny From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 8 07:27:41 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 14:27:41 +0100 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: <54AE840F.8020107@update.uu.se> References: <54AE840F.8020107@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54AE85CD.7070506@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-08 14:20, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2015-01-08 14:10, Michael Thompson wrote: >>> >>> From: Johnny Billquist >>> Subject: Re: Resurrecting RK05 >>> >>> There was also a version of the RK8 controller which did a binary unit >>> selection. I don't remember the designation of that controller off my >>> head at the moment. >>> >>> Johnny >>> >> >> I believe that it is the RKS8 controller that can access 8 drives. > > That don't sound right, but my memory is hazy. > I thought it is something like RK8F or similar... > (I just searched, and found at least one reference to RK8-F anyway.) > > Oh well. I'm sure someone And of course, I then stumbled upon RK8-L as well. :-) Johnny From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jan 8 09:38:34 2015 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 15:38:34 +0000 Subject: Broken H724 power supply from PDP-8/e In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54AEA47A.1050202@dunnington.plus.com> On 08/01/2015 13:05, Michael Thompson wrote: > Thanks Al and Marco. > I saw Q207 when I inspected the power supply and wondered what that giant > diode was for. I also saw it in the schematic and was surprised to see that > the diode installed backwards. Now I see that it is an SCR, not a diode. > R29 is easy to get to, so I will try raising the crowbar voltage a just > little. It is also possible that the regulation of the +5V is not working > correctly and the crowbar should be firing. I had a similar problem when I converted a 110V version to 230V and tried to adjust the 5V regulator according to the PDP-8/E Maintenance Manual. Beware, for the later (ie, most common) version of the PSU the manual is wrong where it describes the location of the pots to adjust the voltages; it describes an early version of the regulators. As a result I adjusted the crowbar instead of the +5V and it took me a while to work out how to set the crowbar correctly as the manual only says it's a factory adjustment. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com Thu Jan 8 09:45:30 2015 From: dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com (Doug Ingraham) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 08:45:30 -0700 Subject: Answer: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150105) Message-ID: As many of you noted it is a phrase that contains every letter in the English language alphabet called a pangram. I first encountered this phrase in high school typing class. For me it became computer related when I was watching the Teletype repair man work on the KSR-35 attached to a PDP-8 sometime in 1974 or 75. I am sure it was something like that for many of you. Doug Ingraham PDP-8 S/N 1175 On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 9:04 AM, Doug Ingraham wrote: > Time for another trivia question. We will start off the year with an easy > one. This one is related to computers but not exclusive to computers. > > What is the significance of the phrase: > > The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. > > No fair looking it up on the internet. > > Doug Ingraham > PDP-8 S/N 1175 > From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Thu Jan 8 10:03:26 2015 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 16:03:26 +0000 (WET) Subject: Old Computer Logs! In-Reply-To: "Your message dated Thu, 08 Jan 2015 07:52:58 -0500" <54AE7DAA.2040406@attglobal.net> References: <01PH2PEDY36Y002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <01PH2XN41O6G002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> > >Try wgetting this: >https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T0_wpjVYELQ/VK29fWFGgSI/AAAAAAAAEv8/jBjELuZ-RAk/w565-h754-no/image%2B%281%29.jpg > Thanks! I don't have a https capable wget or equivelant handy right now but that link works just fine if I paste it into the browser. I guess Google would prefer I install something they can make better use of to advertise to me or track me or something instead of sending me directly to that link. Regards, Peter Coghlan. From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 10:41:16 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 11:41:16 -0500 Subject: Old Computer Logs! In-Reply-To: <01PH2XN41O6G002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01PH2PEDY36Y002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> <54AE7DAA.2040406@attglobal.net> <01PH2XN41O6G002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: Such insidious behaviour from these social media barons. What's the preferred way to post photos around here, anyway? On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 11:03 AM, Peter Coghlan wrote: > >> Try wgetting this: >> https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T0_wpjVYELQ/VK29fWFGgSI/ >> AAAAAAAAEv8/jBjELuZ-RAk/w565-h754-no/image%2B%281%29.jpg >> >> > Thanks! > > I don't have a https capable wget or equivelant handy right now but that > link > works just fine if I paste it into the browser. > > I guess Google would prefer I install something they can make better use of > to advertise to me or track me or something instead of sending me directly > to that link. > > Regards, > Peter Coghlan. > From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 8 10:50:33 2015 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 11:50:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Old Computer Logs! In-Reply-To: <01PH2XN41O6G002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01PH2PEDY36Y002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> <01PH2XN41O6G002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <201501081650.LAA01395@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> Try wgetting this: >> https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T0_wpjVYELQ/VK29fWFGgSI/AAAAAAAAEv8/jBjELuZ-RAk/w565-h754-no/image%2B%281%29.jpg > I don't have a https capable wget or equivelant handy right now but > that link works just fine if I paste it into the browser. It also works fine for me if I fetch it with HTTP instead of HTTPS. > I guess Google would prefer I install something they can make better > use of to advertise to me or track me or something instead of sending > me directly to that link. Certainly. As a friend of mine pointed out, Google is not in the search engine business or the app-making business, they are in the information gathering and advertising businesses. And if they can offer you all this stuff for no direct cost, apparently business is very, very good right now. You, the person trying to fetch something, are not Google's customer. You are (part of) Google's product, access to whom is being sold to Google's customers. Your happiness is relevant only in that you might leave entirely if you get too unhappy. It's discouraging how often people lose sight of that - or fail to realize it entirely. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From scaron at umich.edu Thu Jan 8 10:52:05 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 11:52:05 -0500 Subject: Old Computer Logs! In-Reply-To: References: <01PH2PEDY36Y002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> <54AE7DAA.2040406@attglobal.net> <01PH2XN41O6G002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: My personal favorite is just dropping a bunch of images in a directory and serving it up with Apache or some other HTTP server. Bonus points for HTML 3.2 thumbnail page fronting the whole thing. If a "cloud" service must be used... just speaking as a viewer... I find Flickr isn't too obnoxious. Even Instagram isn't horrible, ha ha. I'm probably not the only one here, but I don't use social media at all i.e. Facebook, Google Plus, etc. So for best accessibility, just anything that isn't behind one of these social media login-walls, please! Best, Sean On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 11:41 AM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > Such insidious behaviour from these social media barons. What's the > preferred way to post photos around here, anyway? > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 11:03 AM, Peter Coghlan > wrote: > > > > >> Try wgetting this: > >> https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T0_wpjVYELQ/VK29fWFGgSI/ > >> AAAAAAAAEv8/jBjELuZ-RAk/w565-h754-no/image%2B%281%29.jpg > >> > >> > > Thanks! > > > > I don't have a https capable wget or equivelant handy right now but that > > link > > works just fine if I paste it into the browser. > > > > I guess Google would prefer I install something they can make better use > of > > to advertise to me or track me or something instead of sending me > directly > > to that link. > > > > Regards, > > Peter Coghlan. > > > From tony.aiuto at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 10:29:48 2015 From: tony.aiuto at gmail.com (Tony Aiuto) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 16:29:48 +0000 Subject: Old Computer Logs! References: <01PH2PEDY36Y002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> <54AE7DAA.2040406@attglobal.net> <01PH2XN41O6G002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: One winter day after we moved into our house, my wife asked me if I had a log for the fireplace. The first thought inside my head was "She knows I'm a little detail crazy, but a log of that would be ridiculous". A few seconds later I figured it out. On Thu Jan 08 2015 at 11:25:07 AM Peter Coghlan wrote: > > > >Try wgetting this: > >https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T0_wpjVYELQ/VK29fWFGgSI/ > AAAAAAAAEv8/jBjELuZ-RAk/w565-h754-no/image%2B%281%29.jpg > > > > Thanks! > > I don't have a https capable wget or equivelant handy right now but that > link > works just fine if I paste it into the browser. > > I guess Google would prefer I install something they can make better use of > to advertise to me or track me or something instead of sending me directly > to that link. > > Regards, > Peter Coghlan. > From mikew at thecomputervalet.com Thu Jan 8 11:03:53 2015 From: mikew at thecomputervalet.com (Mike Whalen) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 11:03:53 -0600 Subject: Old Computer Logs! In-Reply-To: References: <01PH2PEDY36Y002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> <54AE7DAA.2040406@attglobal.net> <01PH2XN41O6G002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: On January 8, 2015 at 11:00:56 AM, Tony Aiuto (tony.aiuto at gmail.com) wrote: One winter day after we moved into our house, my wife asked me if I had a? log for the fireplace. The first thought inside my head was "She knows I'm? a little detail crazy, but a log of that would be ridiculous". A few? seconds later I figured it out.? A syslog server for your fireplace could be very useful! Logs put on. Log burn rate. Useful logs in percentages. Smoke content. Flue open/shut, etc. Cheers, m From tony.aiuto at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 11:12:49 2015 From: tony.aiuto at gmail.com (Tony Aiuto) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 17:12:49 +0000 Subject: Old Computer Logs! References: <01PH2PEDY36Y002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> <54AE7DAA.2040406@attglobal.net> <01PH2XN41O6G002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: When I want to publish content to the world, I skip Google+ (and Facebook) and put it in Google Drive. Then I share that folder or document through a link. For example: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5ASEpLy2sOeeDllczRXal9hdGc&usp=sharing and https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5ASEpLy2sOeeDllczRXal9hdGc&usp=sharing You can wget those directly, without any authentication. On Thu Jan 08 2015 at 12:04:04 PM Mike Whalen wrote: > On January 8, 2015 at 11:00:56 AM, Tony Aiuto (tony.aiuto at gmail.com) > wrote: > > One winter day after we moved into our house, my wife asked me if I had a > log for the fireplace. The first thought inside my head was "She knows I'm > a little detail crazy, but a log of that would be ridiculous". A few > seconds later I figured it out. > A syslog server for your fireplace could be very useful! Logs put on. Log > burn rate. Useful logs in percentages. Smoke content. Flue open/shut, etc. > > > > > Cheers, > > m > > > From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Thu Jan 8 12:08:16 2015 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 12:08:16 -0600 Subject: olivetti programma 101 repair Message-ID: > Message: 16 >Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 15:21:07 -0800 >From: Chuck Guzis cclist at sydex.com >On 01/07/2015 02:41 PM, Simon Claessen wrote: >> Guitar wires are out. They are way to flexible. I opted for fosfor >> bronze wire, but could not find it in the shops in Amsterdam. Then I >> stubled upon a shop selling beads and stuff to make bracelets and >> earrings. They sell "memory wire", A very tough silver coated wire of >> 0.6mm. I have no idea what the alloy is, but the mechanical >> characteristics are not bad. > >Drop in to a good musical instrument repair shop. Flutes, for instance, >use phosphor bronze wire springs; clarinets tend to use stainless steel >springs; dulcimer wire is typically phosphor bronze. I've even used >harpsichord bronze wire to fashion pins to convert a SIMM to a SIPP. It >solders well. > >An instrument repair shop is also an excellent place to fine flat blue >steel springs. > >--Chuck A good model railroad hobby shop should also have phosphor bronze wire. It is used to model overhead wire for trolleys/trams. Bob From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 8 13:34:15 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 19:34:15 +0000 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs In-Reply-To: References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> , Message-ID: > > and a lot of (pleasant) time. > > I don't find it all that pleasant, but at least there's a sense of > accomplishment > when I'm done. I find that this is the quickest way to really understand how a machine works, so yes, it's pleasany while I am doing it. > > Anyway, when you have finished, feel free to make the schematic unreadable by redrawing it in a CAD > > system. > I just did that for the PSE Pacer CPU card. Is it unreadable? > http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/pse/pacer/pac-mp-001.pdf I don't know why, but I find CAD diagrams with components one colour and wires a different colour to be very irritating. -tony From bobvines00 at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 09:23:42 2015 From: bobvines00 at gmail.com (Bob Vines) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 10:23:42 -0500 Subject: olivetti programma 101 repair Message-ID: On Wed, 07 Jan 2015 23:41:59 +0100, Simon Claessen wrote: > > well, > > Good news always has some bad news as well. After careful examining of > the 952 (no, not 850...) pins, I found 52 broken ones. As they are made > of a gold plated springy metal wire, I needed to find a replacement. > Size: 0,5mm diameter. > > Guitar wires are out. They are way to flexible. I opted for fosfor > bronze wire, but could not find it in the shops in Amsterdam. Then I > stubled upon a shop selling beads and stuff to make bracelets and > earrings. They sell "memory wire", A very tough silver coated wire of > 0.6mm. I have no idea what the alloy is, but the mechanical > characteristics are not bad. > > The first clip I made fitted surprisingly good. now to find some time to > bend another 51... > > Oh well. > [snip] Simon, "Memory wire" is also known as Nitinol, a nickel-titanium alloy . The Wikipedia page might give you the characteristics you may need. Bob From rickb at bensene.com Thu Jan 8 11:29:01 2015 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 09:29:01 -0800 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Marc Howard wrote: > > I would definitely replace the foam around the squarish tube that supplies > air to the pack. That's the worst place for a foam particle to break off. > Thanks, Marc, for this advice. I have fabricated a replacement for the foam that provides the coupling between the disk pack and the filtered air source. The original foam looked OK, but after a closer inspection, it was rather stiff, and probably wouldn't provide a good seal, not to mention the possibility a piece of it flaking off and getting into the clean space. If the stars align right, I am hoping to be able to get the drive cabled up and give it a try tonight. I will post and let the list know how things go when I get to this point. Thanks to all for the comments. -Rick From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 12:16:26 2015 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave G4UGM) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 18:16:26 -0000 Subject: Old Computer Logs! In-Reply-To: References: <01PH2PEDY36Y002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> <54AE7DAA.2040406@attglobal.net> <01PH2XN41O6G002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <003b01d02b6f$386c99f0$a945cdd0$@gmail.com> I doubt it. Laziness perhaps in that they don't want to support older browsers. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jacob > Ritorto > Sent: 08 January 2015 16:41 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Old Computer Logs! > > Such insidious behaviour from these social media barons. What's the > preferred way to post photos around here, anyway? > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 11:03 AM, Peter Coghlan > wrote: > > > > >> Try wgetting this: > >> https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T0_wpjVYELQ/VK29fWFGgSI/ > >> AAAAAAAAEv8/jBjELuZ-RAk/w565-h754-no/image%2B%281%29.jpg > >> > >> > > Thanks! > > > > I don't have a https capable wget or equivelant handy right now but > > that link works just fine if I paste it into the browser. > > > > I guess Google would prefer I install something they can make better > > use of to advertise to me or track me or something instead of sending > > me directly to that link. > > > > Regards, > > Peter Coghlan. > > From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 8 14:30:14 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 12:30:14 -0800 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs In-Reply-To: References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> , Message-ID: <54AEE8D6.5090805@sydex.com> On 01/08/2015 11:34 AM, tony duell wrote: > I don't know why, but I find CAD diagrams with components one colour and wires > a different colour to be very irritating. My personal gripe is with the schematic diagrams that look like visual netlists--ICs with terminal points marked, but no or few actual wires drawn. Downright hell trying to figure out how the thing works. Anent this, does anyone know of a good software package that converts netlists to honest schematics? I know that there's one for pSPICE, but I'd like one that can take a plain old test file and do the drawing. Sort of a troff for schematics... --Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 8 14:45:21 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 20:45:21 +0000 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs In-Reply-To: <54AEE8D6.5090805@sydex.com> References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> , , <54AEE8D6.5090805@sydex.com> Message-ID: > > My personal gripe is with the schematic diagrams that look like visual > netlists--ICs with terminal points marked, but no or few actual wires > drawn. Downright hell trying to figure out how the thing works. It's difficult. Long 'wires' that go from one side of the schematic to the other can be very hard to follow too. I think it helps if the schematic is drawn as a set of functional blocks with the inputs and outputs given sensible names. But anybody who draws an SR flip-flop as anything other than a pair of NANDs (or NORs) with the obvious cross coupling shown as wires is going to get a LART... (OK, a cross-coupled AND and OR is OK if applicable). Taste in schematics is obviously a very personal thing, but in general I find the modern CAD-produced schematics to be a lot harder to follow, for many reason than the older ones. -tony From mhs.stein at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 13:43:15 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 14:43:15 -0500 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> , Message-ID: <3B72589E5F164238BFAE43E06C99914A@310e2> ----- Original Message ----- From: "tony duell" Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2015 2:34 PM > > Anyway, when you have finished, feel free to make the schematic > > unreadable by redrawing it in a CAD > > system. > I just did that for the PSE Pacer CPU card. Is it unreadable? > http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/pse/pacer/pac-mp-001.pdf I don't know why, but I find CAD diagrams with components one colour and wires a different colour to be very irritating. -tony ----- Reply ----- +1 Also very hard to print on a B&W printer... From abuse at cabal.org.uk Thu Jan 8 15:00:44 2015 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 21:00:44 +0000 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs In-Reply-To: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> Message-ID: <20150108210044.GA19940@mooli.org.uk> On Wed, Jan 07, 2015 at 05:35:29PM -0500, Alan Hightower wrote: > Does anyone have any past experience reverse engineering an existing > de-populated PCB into a scan, netlist, or similar? Any lessons learned > positive or negative? Your many-layer board is far too complex for this wheeze, but back when I was actually doing electronics for a living, a board I needed to reverse-engineer was a two-layer affair and so I chucked it onto the office photocopier and cranked up the enlarger. After a few rounds of re-copying the empty board, I had several A3 sheets that had high contrast and were big enough to annotate with components (from inspecting a populated board) and their values. From there, it became reasonably simple to draw a proper schematic. From BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu Thu Jan 8 18:54:23 2015 From: BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu (Benjamin Huntsman) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 00:54:23 +0000 Subject: Novell NetDevice NAS? Message-ID: <5782C16A7C920E469B74E11B5608B8E768A6F94F@Kriegler.ntdom.cupdx> Any ex-NetWare guys on here? Anyone ever see or hear of a product called Novell NetDevice NAS? Ever used it? Thanks! -Ben From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jan 8 19:32:44 2015 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 17:32:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: Making Sergey's XT-CF-Lite board work Message-ID: I ordered a couple XT-CF-Lite boards as described in http://www.malinov.com/Home/sergeys-projects/xt-cf-lite. Has anyone else here built and used this? I have a problem with the BIOS. Either Sergey specified the wrong size EEPROM or provided the wrong BIOS image. The specified EEPROM holds 8192 bytes while the BIOS image is 32,768 bytes. I sent an email to Sergey, but I thought I'd ask here too. -- 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 lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Jan 8 20:01:51 2015 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 18:01:51 -0800 Subject: Novell NetDevice NAS? In-Reply-To: <5782C16A7C920E469B74E11B5608B8E768A6F94F@Kriegler.ntdom.cupdx> References: <5782C16A7C920E469B74E11B5608B8E768A6F94F@Kriegler.ntdom.cupdx> Message-ID: <20150108180151.2351b9b6@asrock.bcwi.net> On Fri, 9 Jan 2015 00:54:23 +0000 Benjamin Huntsman wrote: > Any ex-NetWare guys on here? > > Anyone ever see or hear of a product called Novell NetDevice NAS? Sure, a former "incarnation" of my company was a long time Novell VAR. Here's a good description of Novell NetDevice NAS from Novell marketing: http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=94433 > Ever used it? Nope. The concept was - create your own Server/NAS - but that's kinda what Novell always had been (after they moved away from providing hardware...) Lyle -- Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jan 8 20:06:21 2015 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 02:06:21 +0000 Subject: Making Sergey's XT-CF-Lite board work In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54AF379D.4070203@dunnington.plus.com> On 09/01/2015 01:32, David Griffith wrote: > > I ordered a couple XT-CF-Lite boards as described in > http://www.malinov.com/Home/sergeys-projects/xt-cf-lite. Has anyone > else here built and used this? I have a problem with the BIOS. Either > Sergey specified the wrong size EEPROM or provided the wrong BIOS > image. The specified EEPROM holds 8192 bytes while the BIOS image is > 32,768 bytes. I sent an email to Sergey, but I thought I'd ask here too. I downloaded it to look: only the first 8K is used. The rest is all 0xFF, ie blank. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From alan at alanlee.org Thu Jan 8 20:35:53 2015 From: alan at alanlee.org (Alan Hightower) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 21:35:53 -0500 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs In-Reply-To: References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> Message-ID: I appreciate all the input from folks. With 3600 though holes and at least 4 layers, I'm afraid I will make mistakes using any manual method like ohm tracing without a check or balance. With so many permutations and little personal knowledge about the WE chipset, I'm sure I will miss an occasional trace that shoots to the other side of the board. I'm also worried that I might generate a false positive keeping most of the components wired. Something akin to body diodes (yes I know this isn't CMOS). Here is a wiki photo of the board for reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3B_series_computers#mediaviewer/File:3b2-300-motherboard.jpg As I said the board isn't very useful in it's current state. So I will start by dropping the components off and removing the solder mask with a sanding pen. I've had good luck in the past photo transferring a scanned image of the board into eCAD with contrast enhancement. That will at least get me the top and bottom layers with good accuracy. If manual tracing of inner layers proves to laborious, I'll revisit automated methods. To add to Chuck's question, I've thought about that too. With the open nature of KiCAD and Eagle file formats, it should be straight forward to generate a schematic from a text netlist (or even IPC-D-356). Especially since both contain definitions for the referenced schematic symbols. eg you can synth a 'generic' DIP-16-U symbol to go with that yet to be defined part in any library. Thanks again. On 2015-01-08 03:53, Eric Smith wrote: > On Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 10:57 PM, tony duell wrote: > >> and a lot of (pleasant) time. > > I don't find it all that pleasant, but at least there's a sense of > accomplishment > when I'm done. > >> Anyway, when you have finished, feel free to make the schematic unreadable by redrawing it in a CAD system. > > I just did that for the PSE Pacer CPU card. Is it unreadable? > http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/pse/pacer/pac-mp-001.pdf [1] Links: ------ [1] http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/pse/pacer/pac-mp-001.pdf From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 20:47:41 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 00:47:41 -0200 Subject: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 Message-ID: Just in case someone is curious, there is another brazilian computer dissected, the CP200 (ZX81 clone) from Prologica www.tabalabs.com.br Greetings from Brazil! Alexandre From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jan 8 22:17:24 2015 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 20:17:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Found an EEPROM programmer that works with Linux Message-ID: I just thought I'd let everyone know, for the record, that I found an inexpensive USB-interfaced EEPROM programmer that works with Linux. This is the Model TL866CS which is often sold as "MiniPro Programmer". These can be found on Ebay for around $50. It feels substantial and solidly built. The software I used to control it can be found at https://github.com/vdudouyt/minipro. The software has some nits[1] but it does work. There's a QT-based front-end at https://github.com/wd5gnr/qtl866. That one has a potential showstopper bug in that it does not surround the device name with quotes when calling the minipro software. So, for those of you (like me) who have posted from time to time looking for a chipburner that works with Linux, here's a solution. [1] udev rules aren't installed in the right place. No option to emit a list of supported devices. -- 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 ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 9 00:06:02 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 06:06:02 +0000 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs In-Reply-To: References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> , Message-ID: > I appreciate all the input from folks. With 3600 though holes and at > least 4 layers, I'm afraid I will make mistakes using any manual method > like ohm tracing without a check or balance. With so many permutations > and little personal knowledge about the WE chipset, I'm sure I will miss > an occasional trace that shoots to the other side of the board. I'm also > worried that I might generate a false positive keeping most of the > components wired. Something akin to body diodes (yes I know this isn't > CMOS). Here is a wiki photo of the board for reference: It would actually worry me more if a computer was tracing the connections (as you suggest) rather than a person. A clueful person will spot obvious errors, like outputs linked together, lines with nothing driving them, circuits that could never be enabled, etc. I suspect a computer could be got to flag the more obvious ones, but not all. And you are much more likely to spot errors as you go than by looking over the diagrams afterwards. I mentioned using a good continuity tracer that is not fooled by diodes. This will handle any parasitic junctions in ICs, etc. If you get to know the instrument you will not have problems from false positives. -tony From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Thu Jan 8 17:58:10 2015 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 15:58:10 -0800 Subject: Proud owner of a SDK-86, now what Message-ID: I got this off of the auction site, listed as untested. It came in today, looks in beautiful condition, and powers up just fine, with the 86 1.1 message on the display. I have the 'Microcomputer Experiments With the SDK-86, Leventhal' book headed my way. I have not been able to find much else - any suggestions for fun projects with this? Randy From mhs20165 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 8 17:58:26 2015 From: mhs20165 at yahoo.com (Martin Smoot) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 15:58:26 -0800 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs Message-ID: <1420761506.5818.YahooMailBasic@web122101.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> google "instant input assembler" and you may find more information. the book was "16-bit microprocessor architecture" by Terry Dollhoff - written in 1979. google "16 bit microprocessor architecture" and you may find links. the book may be available on Amazon and other places. possibly interesting reference to the computer it was installed on at http://archive.org/stream/kilobaudmagazine-1979-07/Kilobaud_Microcomputing_1979_July_djvu.txt - look for "instant input" - they talk about the computer it came on. that company (Technico) has been out of business since sometime in the early 1980s. From computerdoc at sc.rr.com Thu Jan 8 23:16:18 2015 From: computerdoc at sc.rr.com (Kip Koon) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 00:16:18 -0500 Subject: DTSS Simulator BASIC Programming Contest - 2015 CoCoFEST Message-ID: <008c01d02bcb$668dd130$33a97390$@sc.rr.com> Hi Everyone! Here is a reminder that the Glenside Color Computer Club is holding a BASIC Programming Contest using the Dartmouth Time Sharing System Simulator honoring the Creation of the BASIC Computer Programming Language at the 2015 CoCoFEST this April 25-26, 2015 in Lombard, IL at the Heron Point Building. See the link below for details of the Contest and click on ?CoCoFEST? on the left for further details of the CoCoFEST itself. http://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/events.shtml I?m looking forward to seeing you at the CoCoFEST! Kip Koon computerdoc at sc.rr.com http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Kip_Koon From drlegendre at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 00:33:57 2015 From: drlegendre at gmail.com (drlegendre .) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 00:33:57 -0600 Subject: Found an EEPROM programmer that works with Linux In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for the tip, David - Linux-friendly hardware is always Good News! But might you provide a little more information? Searching eBay for "TL866CS", dozens of listings turn-up, each offering different combinations of adapters, cables and other ancillary items in addition to the chip burner itself. Could you offer a little more info on what's what, why one might select one set / sub-set / super-set of parts over another, and so forth? On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 10:17 PM, David Griffith wrote: > > I just thought I'd let everyone know, for the record, that I found an > inexpensive USB-interfaced EEPROM programmer that works with Linux. This > is the Model TL866CS which is often sold as "MiniPro Programmer". These > can be found on Ebay for around $50. It feels substantial and solidly > built. > > The software I used to control it can be found at > https://github.com/vdudouyt/minipro. The software has some nits[1] but > it does work. There's a QT-based front-end at https://github.com/wd5gnr/ > qtl866. That one has a potential showstopper bug in that it does not > surround the device name with quotes when calling the minipro software. > > So, for those of you (like me) who have posted from time to time looking > for a chipburner that works with Linux, here's a solution. > > [1] udev rules aren't installed in the right place. No option to emit a > list of supported devices. > > -- > 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 brain at jbrain.com Fri Jan 9 01:11:17 2015 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 01:11:17 -0600 Subject: Found an EEPROM programmer that works with Linux In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54AF7F15.7090900@jbrain.com> On 1/8/2015 10:17 PM, David Griffith wrote: > > > [1] udev rules aren't installed in the right place. No option to emit > a list of supported devices. DO you have a writeup on how to fix the issue? Jim -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Fri Jan 9 01:35:30 2015 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 23:35:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Found an EEPROM programmer that works with Linux In-Reply-To: <54AF7F15.7090900@jbrain.com> References: <54AF7F15.7090900@jbrain.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 9 Jan 2015, Jim Brain wrote: > On 1/8/2015 10:17 PM, David Griffith wrote: >> >> [1] udev rules aren't installed in the right place. No option to emit a >> list of supported devices. > DO you have a writeup on how to fix the issue? I made a pull-request, which was accepted, for some work on the manpage and emitting a list of supported devices. I'm monkeying around with the udev settings now. -- 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 aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 9 08:53:45 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 06:53:45 -0800 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs In-Reply-To: References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> Message-ID: <54AFEB79.3080706@bitsavers.org> On 1/8/15 6:35 PM, Alan Hightower wrote: > > > I appreciate all the input from folks. With 3600 though holes and at > least 4 layers, I'm afraid I will make mistakes using any manual method > like ohm tracing without a check or balance. With so many permutations > and little personal knowledge about the WE chipset, I'm sure I will miss > an occasional trace that shoots to the other side of the board. Looking at the picture, it isn't that hard to decompose what's there into functional blocks. At that density, the PC layout guy will have kept the parts that are closely related together. You have an expansion bus interface on the left with bus buffering, HD controller, UART, floppy interfaces and a DMA controller for it on the top, processor upper right, four eproms, so there is a 32 bit data bus, and some sort of memory interface coming out the bottom. Get the SYS V driver sources and headers from Seth, that will tell you what the interrupts and DMA channels are hooked to and where the peripherals are mapped. Start with the CPU and trace the address and data bus paths. You don't need to buzz out every pin, just identify what buffer is connected to what and start ticking off the ICs from the top board layout out through the peripherals, expansion bus, and memory bus. Once that's done, you'll have decoders, state machines and glue logic which should be functionally associated with one of the big blocks. It doesn't look like there are many bipolar proms or PLA/PALs I see one 82S153 sequencer near the CPU, but Signetics parts (82S100, 105, 153) don't have protection fuses. I have one document that I haven't put on line yet that I think describes the expansion bus, I'll try to get that uploaded today. Is there a description somewhere of what the various 3B2 CPU boards had on them or what the memory board looks like? It's a drag the guy on eBay wants so much for the docs they've listed. From mattislind at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 09:31:52 2015 From: mattislind at gmail.com (Mattis Lind) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 16:31:52 +0100 Subject: Found an EEPROM programmer that works with Linux In-Reply-To: References: <54AF7F15.7090900@jbrain.com> Message-ID: There is also this open source firmware and firmware updater tool for the TL866A / TL866CS: https://github.com/radiomanV/TL866. I have no idea how complete it is. There is also a reverse engineered schematic on it: https://github.com/radiomanV/TL866/blob/master/docs/TL866.pdf /Mattis 2015-01-09 8:35 GMT+01:00 David Griffith : > On Fri, 9 Jan 2015, Jim Brain wrote: > > On 1/8/2015 10:17 PM, David Griffith wrote: >> >>> >>> [1] udev rules aren't installed in the right place. No option to emit a >>> list of supported devices. >>> >> DO you have a writeup on how to fix the issue? >> > > I made a pull-request, which was accepted, for some work on the manpage > and emitting a list of supported devices. I'm monkeying around with the > udev settings now. > > > -- > 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 alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 08:28:28 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 12:28:28 -0200 Subject: Proud owner of a SDK-86, now what In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have one too, but never got it to work. I believe some of the 2104 memories are fried. Lazy as I am, I still need to make an adapter for a 6116 or something. On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Randy Dawson wrote: > I got this off of the auction site, listed as untested. It came in today, > looks in beautiful condition, and powers up just fine, with the 86 1.1 > message on the display. I have the 'Microcomputer Experiments With the > SDK-86, Leventhal' book headed my way. > > I have not been able to find much else - any suggestions for fun projects > with this? > > Randy > > From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 9 09:38:29 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 07:38:29 -0800 Subject: B & C Microsystems Message-ID: <54AFF5F5.2070201@bitsavers.org> Was digging though storage this week and found a B&C Proteus. Did anyone save the contents of their BBS? I see I scanned the manual for the 1409 at some point, but I don't seem to have any other docs or software from them. From alan at alanlee.org Fri Jan 9 10:12:34 2015 From: alan at alanlee.org (Alan Hightower) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 11:12:34 -0500 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs (wrt: 3B2 main board schematics) In-Reply-To: <54AFEB79.3080706@bitsavers.org> References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> <54AFEB79.3080706@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: There are actually twelve Signetics '153 PLAs, two registered 16R4s, and a custom 18-pin ASIC that doesn't have a part number at all. So some info will need to be derived through inference. Just the 12 combinatorial parts alone will need to be de-soldered to pull either fuses or an observed truth table. So much programmable logic on the board and the high density complicates functional level tracing. Memory is actually on the left and the expansion bus is on the bottom. Power comes down through the bottom back-plane from the PSU. Manual is doable. It's just time consuming. The nice thing is all components are layed out on a perfect 100 mil grid. I already have a perfect board layout in eCAD with correct offsets for 100% of the 4,009 holes, including 7 mounting holes, just by looking at the board. I was hoping to find someone on cctalk with a short-cut, beyond the traditional methods I had already considered and you have echoed, for doing the rest. I'm still looking at using a friend's home brew CNC step table and a couple pogo pins to automate net-list creation. But we'll see. I have a few more boards beyond the main board that I will trace in-circuit by hand before I do the main board; for practice. Most option cards are essentially complete 80186 PCs on each card! (PORTS, EPORTS, QIC TAPE, StarLAN NAU, etc). AT&T must have reused the 80186 design on everything for NRE cost reasons. There doesn't seem to be any archived copy of the AT&T 305-490 "3B2 Computer Technical Reference Manual" anywhere nor any indication if it included board schematics. Beyond that, I cannot find a hint of anything previously archived that would have schematic level information on any 3B2 computer. That's why I'm doing this. I know of Seth's work. I pulled ROM images for him which started me down this rabbit hole! Otherwise my 3B2s would be quietly rusting in the basement! Thanks for the feedback. On 2015-01-09 09:53, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/8/15 6:35 PM, Alan Hightower wrote: > >> I appreciate all the input from folks. With 3600 though holes and at least 4 layers, I'm afraid I will make mistakes using any manual method like ohm tracing without a check or balance. With so many permutations and little personal knowledge about the WE chipset, I'm sure I will miss an occasional trace that shoots to the other side of the board. > > Looking at the picture, it isn't that hard to decompose what's there into > functional blocks. At that density, the PC layout guy will have kept the > parts that are closely related together. You have an expansion bus interface > on the left with bus buffering, HD controller, UART, floppy interfaces and a > DMA controller for it on the top, processor upper right, four eproms, so there > is a 32 bit data bus, and some sort of memory interface coming out the bottom. > > Get the SYS V driver sources and headers from Seth, that will tell you what the > interrupts and DMA channels are hooked to and where the peripherals are mapped. > > Start with the CPU and trace the address and data bus paths. You don't need to > buzz out every pin, just identify what buffer is connected to what and start > ticking off the ICs from the top board layout out through the peripherals, > expansion bus, and memory bus. Once that's done, you'll have decoders, state > machines and glue logic which should be functionally associated with one of > the big blocks. It doesn't look like there are many bipolar proms or PLA/PALs > I see one 82S153 sequencer near the CPU, but Signetics parts (82S100, 105, 153) > don't have protection fuses. > > I have one document that I haven't put on line yet that I think describes the > expansion bus, I'll try to get that uploaded today. > > Is there a description somewhere of what the various 3B2 CPU boards had on them > or what the memory board looks like? > > It's a drag the guy on eBay wants so much for the docs they've listed. From scaron at umich.edu Fri Jan 9 09:53:14 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 10:53:14 -0500 Subject: Proud owner of a SDK-86, now what In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If it fires up OK, pretty much all you should need to get going is an ASM programmer's reference for the 8086 and some idea of what the memory map is on that SBC... you can probably find both floating around on Bitsavers or something. Intel did the H/W design on this one so you can just focus on writing software ;) If you are looking for more resources, I have a number of these books from Merrill Publishing... there is one about the 8086/8088 in particular, "8086/8088 Microprocessor: Architecture, Programming and Interfacing" by Brey, might be worth checking out... I don't own that particular title, but I own several other titles from the same publishing house and they are all pretty good. What you can do is limited only by your imagination! If I were you, I'd probably start out trying to interface a UART, get a little monitor running on a TTY, and go from there :) Best, Sean On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 9:28 AM, Alexandre Souza < alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > I have one too, but never got it to work. I believe some of the 2104 > memories are fried. Lazy as I am, I still need to make an adapter for a > 6116 or something. > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Randy Dawson > wrote: > > > I got this off of the auction site, listed as untested. It came in > today, > > looks in beautiful condition, and powers up just fine, with the 86 1.1 > > message on the display. I have the 'Microcomputer Experiments With the > > SDK-86, Leventhal' book headed my way. > > > > I have not been able to find much else - any suggestions for fun projects > > with this? > > > > Randy > > > > > From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 9 09:54:40 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 07:54:40 -0800 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs (wrt: 3B2 main board schematics) In-Reply-To: References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> <54AFEB79.3080706@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54AFF9C0.5000603@bitsavers.org> On 1/9/15 8:12 AM, Alan Hightower wrote: > There doesn't seem to be any archived copy of the AT&T 305-490 "3B2 > Computer Technical Reference Manual" anywhere nor any indication if it > included board schematics. Beyond that, I cannot find a hint of anything > previously archived that would have schematic level information on any > 3B2 computer. That's why I'm doing this. > In post-processing the I/O bus spec, I see there is a block diagram of the CPU board in there From scaron at umich.edu Fri Jan 9 09:58:34 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 10:58:34 -0500 Subject: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Cool! I really enjoy your site, even if I can't read Portuguese :) Good pics. Best, Sean On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:47 PM, Alexandre Souza < alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > Just in case someone is curious, there is another brazilian computer > dissected, the CP200 (ZX81 clone) from Prologica > > www.tabalabs.com.br > > Greetings from Brazil! > Alexandre > From scaron at umich.edu Fri Jan 9 09:55:37 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 10:55:37 -0500 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: <1420761506.5818.YahooMailBasic@web122101.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1420761506.5818.YahooMailBasic@web122101.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Thank you! Added to my Amazon wishlist for next time I do a big batch order. Best, Sean On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 6:58 PM, Martin Smoot wrote: > google "instant input assembler" and you may find more information. > > the book was "16-bit microprocessor architecture" by Terry Dollhoff - > written in 1979. > > google "16 bit microprocessor architecture" and you may find links. > > the book may be available on Amazon and other places. > > possibly interesting reference to the computer it was installed on at > > > http://archive.org/stream/kilobaudmagazine-1979-07/Kilobaud_Microcomputing_1979_July_djvu.txt > > - look for "instant input" - they talk about the computer it came on. > that company (Technico) has been out of business since sometime in the > early 1980s. > > > From scaron at umich.edu Fri Jan 9 10:32:42 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 11:32:42 -0500 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: References: <1420761506.5818.YahooMailBasic@web122101.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Ha. Just couldn't resist when it's less than $10 and bought it now. Looking forward to checking it out! Thanks again for the tip. Best, Sean On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 10:55 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > Thank you! Added to my Amazon wishlist for next time I do a big batch > order. > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 6:58 PM, Martin Smoot wrote: > >> google "instant input assembler" and you may find more information. >> >> the book was "16-bit microprocessor architecture" by Terry Dollhoff - >> written in 1979. >> >> google "16 bit microprocessor architecture" and you may find links. >> >> the book may be available on Amazon and other places. >> >> possibly interesting reference to the computer it was installed on at >> >> >> http://archive.org/stream/kilobaudmagazine-1979-07/Kilobaud_Microcomputing_1979_July_djvu.txt >> >> - look for "instant input" - they talk about the computer it came on. >> that company (Technico) has been out of business since sometime in the >> early 1980s. >> >> >> > From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 9 11:11:41 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 09:11:41 -0800 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs (wrt: 3B2 main board schematics) In-Reply-To: References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> <54AFEB79.3080706@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54B00BCD.6@bitsavers.org> On 1/9/15 8:12 AM, Alan Hightower wrote: > > > I was > hoping to find someone on cctalk with a short-cut, beyond the > traditional methods I had already considered and you have echoed Well, excuse the hell out of me for expressing interest. I'll get back to real work now. From alan at alanlee.org Fri Jan 9 12:13:40 2015 From: alan at alanlee.org (Alan Hightower) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 13:13:40 -0500 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs (wrt: 3B2 main board schematics) In-Reply-To: <54B00BCD.6@bitsavers.org> References: <835856974524345b990185346e8e8590@alanlee.org> <54AFEB79.3080706@bitsavers.org> <54B00BCD.6@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <9ea903eb6fcc88d1078176b4763aa780@alanlee.org> Did not mean to offend... sorry. On 2015-01-09 12:11, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/9/15 8:12 AM, Alan Hightower wrote: > >> I was hoping to find someone on cctalk with a short-cut, beyond the traditional methods I had already considered and you have echoed > > Well, excuse the hell out of me for expressing interest. > > I'll get back to real work now. From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 11:35:34 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:35:34 -0200 Subject: Proud owner of a SDK-86, now what In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Also, a good web site: http://www.intel-vintage.info/inteldevelopmenttools.htm On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 1:53 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > If it fires up OK, pretty much all you should need to get going is an ASM > programmer's reference for the 8086 and some idea of what the memory map is > on that SBC... you can probably find both floating around on Bitsavers or > something. Intel did the H/W design on this one so you can just focus on > writing software ;) > > If you are looking for more resources, I have a number of these books from > Merrill Publishing... there is one about the 8086/8088 in particular, > "8086/8088 Microprocessor: Architecture, Programming and Interfacing" by > Brey, might be worth checking out... I don't own that particular title, but > I own several other titles from the same publishing house and they are all > pretty good. > > What you can do is limited only by your imagination! If I were you, I'd > probably start out trying to interface a UART, get a little monitor running > on a TTY, and go from there :) > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 9:28 AM, Alexandre Souza < > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > > I have one too, but never got it to work. I believe some of the 2104 > > memories are fried. Lazy as I am, I still need to make an adapter for a > > 6116 or something. > > > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Randy Dawson > > wrote: > > > > > I got this off of the auction site, listed as untested. It came in > > today, > > > looks in beautiful condition, and powers up just fine, with the 86 1.1 > > > message on the display. I have the 'Microcomputer Experiments With the > > > SDK-86, Leventhal' book headed my way. > > > > > > I have not been able to find much else - any suggestions for fun > projects > > > with this? > > > > > > Randy > > > > > > > > > From silent700 at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 12:27:22 2015 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 12:27:22 -0600 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 Message-ID: Not mine, not near me, not known to me: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html From ggs at shiresoft.com Fri Jan 9 12:29:17 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 10:29:17 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9020CC7F-E433-4E13-82DB-1819315C9772@shiresoft.com> The "seller" is notoriously hard to get in touch with. :-( This is the 2nd time that he's posted these systems. I never received a response the first time he posted them. I'm waiting for a response this time. TTFN - Guy > On Jan 9, 2015, at 10:27 AM, Jason T wrote: > > Not mine, not near me, not known to me: > > http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 12:31:48 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 16:31:48 -0200 Subject: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: So bad it is so seldomly read, Sean. I hope I can get more pageviews. It is not for the money, but I hope all the work I have in photographing, creating the pages, etc...is useful for someone. On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > Cool! I really enjoy your site, even if I can't read Portuguese :) Good > pics. > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:47 PM, Alexandre Souza < > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > > Just in case someone is curious, there is another brazilian computer > > dissected, the CP200 (ZX81 clone) from Prologica > > > > www.tabalabs.com.br > > > > Greetings from Brazil! > > Alexandre > > > From lbickley at bickleywest.com Fri Jan 9 12:42:06 2015 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 10:42:06 -0800 Subject: Manuals Plus going out of business... Message-ID: <20150109104206.1e5c4762@asrock.bcwi.net> I got a letter a couple of weeks ago that "Manuals Plus" http://www.manualsplus.com/ is going out of business. I verified that by phone yesterday. They are having a "make me an offer" sale - and I understand they are being swamped with orders. If you need/want original service/op manuals for test equipment, etc., now is the time to buy. I've bought a lot of manuals from Manuals Plus - and I'm really sorry to see them go. Unfortunately, the owner of their building is raising their rent next month - and they can't afford to stay - or move... Lyle -- Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Fri Jan 9 12:43:48 2015 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 10:43:48 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> I believe these are the same ones advertised a year or so ago. Lyle and I went to see them and found a storage building piled to the ceiling with stuff. It was impossible to see what was actually there, though what could be seen had heavy water damage and looked to be in bad shape. At the time he was asking $5000 for it all so we just walked away. Might be a lot cheaper now. Bob On Friday, January 9, 2015 10:27 AM, Jason T wrote: > > >Not mine, not near me, not known to me: > >http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html > > > From classiccmp at crash.com Fri Jan 9 14:34:06 2015 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 12:34:06 -0800 Subject: Manuals Plus going out of business... In-Reply-To: <20150109104206.1e5c4762@asrock.bcwi.net> References: <20150109104206.1e5c4762@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: <54B03B3E.1020401@crash.com> On 01/09/2015 10:42 AM, Lyle Bickley wrote: > I got a letter a couple of weeks ago that "Manuals Plus" > http://www.manualsplus.com/ is going out of business. I verified that > by phone yesterday. Can anybody think of a hobbyist-friendly outfit we might try to pair them up with to make sure the trove goes to another business/organization that can keep it available? On the theory it doesn't hurt to ask... --S. From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 9 15:01:17 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:01:17 -0600 Subject: Manuals Plus going out of business... In-Reply-To: <54B03B3E.1020401@crash.com> References: <20150109104206.1e5c4762@asrock.bcwi.net> <54B03B3E.1020401@crash.com> Message-ID: <000001d02c4f$6a19d220$3e4d7660$@classiccmp.org> > I got a letter a couple of weeks ago that "Manuals Plus" > http://www.manualsplus.com/ is going out of business. I verified that > by phone yesterday. Couple thoughts, mostly serious ones... I'd be perfectly willing to host the content on the classiccmp server if the manuals are all in electronic format Or Would this be a good thing to merge in with bitsavers? (question for AEK) Or If they are closing their doors, I might consider taking over that business as far as orders, accounting, etc., but I would NOT want to house a warehouse of manuals.... J From francois.dion at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 15:01:06 2015 From: francois.dion at gmail.com (Francois Dion) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 13:01:06 -0800 Subject: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ooops! www.tabalabs.com.br -> http://www.hostinger.com.br/cpu_exceeded?tabalabs.com.br que coisa... Francois -- http://raspberry-python.blogspot.com - http://pyptug.org - @f_dion On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Alexandre Souza < alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > So bad it is so seldomly read, Sean. I hope I can get more pageviews. It is > not for the money, but I hope all the work I have in photographing, > creating the pages, etc...is useful for someone. > > On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > > > Cool! I really enjoy your site, even if I can't read Portuguese :) Good > > pics. > > > > Best, > > > > Sean > > > > > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:47 PM, Alexandre Souza < > > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > Just in case someone is curious, there is another brazilian computer > > > dissected, the CP200 (ZX81 clone) from Prologica > > > > > > www.tabalabs.com.br > > > > > > Greetings from Brazil! > > > Alexandre > > > > > > From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 15:08:18 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 19:08:18 -0200 Subject: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 References: Message-ID: Oh my :( My site appeared into a national magazine today, so bandwidth must have exceeded :( Thanks for telling me! --- Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Francois Dion" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 7:01 PM Subject: Re: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 > Ooops! www.tabalabs.com.br -> > http://www.hostinger.com.br/cpu_exceeded?tabalabs.com.br > > que coisa... > > Francois > -- > http://raspberry-python.blogspot.com - http://pyptug.org - @f_dion > > On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Alexandre Souza < > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > >> So bad it is so seldomly read, Sean. I hope I can get more pageviews. It >> is >> not for the money, but I hope all the work I have in photographing, >> creating the pages, etc...is useful for someone. >> >> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Sean Caron wrote: >> >> > Cool! I really enjoy your site, even if I can't read Portuguese :) Good >> > pics. >> > >> > Best, >> > >> > Sean >> > >> > >> > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:47 PM, Alexandre Souza < >> > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > > Just in case someone is curious, there is another brazilian computer >> > > dissected, the CP200 (ZX81 clone) from Prologica >> > > >> > > www.tabalabs.com.br >> > > >> > > Greetings from Brazil! >> > > Alexandre >> > > >> > >> From scaron at umich.edu Fri Jan 9 15:29:05 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 16:29:05 -0500 Subject: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: LOL! I guess that will help tick up the pageview count :O Best, Sean On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 4:08 PM, Alexandre Souza < alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > Oh my :( > > My site appeared into a national magazine today, so bandwidth must have > exceeded :( > > Thanks for telling me! > > --- > Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) > Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br > Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Francois Dion" < > francois.dion at gmail.com> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 7:01 PM > Subject: Re: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 > > > > Ooops! www.tabalabs.com.br -> >> http://www.hostinger.com.br/cpu_exceeded?tabalabs.com.br >> >> que coisa... >> >> Francois >> -- >> http://raspberry-python.blogspot.com - http://pyptug.org - @f_dion >> >> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Alexandre Souza < >> alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: >> >> So bad it is so seldomly read, Sean. I hope I can get more pageviews. It >>> is >>> not for the money, but I hope all the work I have in photographing, >>> creating the pages, etc...is useful for someone. >>> >>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Sean Caron wrote: >>> >>> > Cool! I really enjoy your site, even if I can't read Portuguese :) Good >>> > pics. >>> > >>> > Best, >>> > >>> > Sean >>> > >>> > >>> > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:47 PM, Alexandre Souza < >>> > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: >>> > >>> > > Just in case someone is curious, there is another brazilian computer >>> > > dissected, the CP200 (ZX81 clone) from Prologica >>> > > >>> > > www.tabalabs.com.br >>> > > >>> > > Greetings from Brazil! >>> > > Alexandre >>> > > >>> > >>> >>> > From mark at markesystems.com Fri Jan 9 16:27:44 2015 From: mark at markesystems.com (mark at markesystems.com) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 14:27:44 -0800 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2836F7163D754A5B918E3768904B872A@Daedalus> > From: Alan Hightower > > I appreciate all the input from folks. With 3600 though holes and at > least 4 layers, I'm afraid I will make mistakes using any manual method > like ohm tracing without a check or balance. With so many permutations If it is indeed a four-layer board, there's a pretty good chance that the inner two layers are power and ground; if so, your project just got a lot easier. You can just hold it up to a strong light source - if it's completely opaque, then the inner layers probably are power/ground planes. If not, then at least you can see the traces (although without knowing which layers they're on...). ~~ Mark Moulding From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 9 17:31:27 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 15:31:27 -0800 Subject: Excess Solutions BBQ Saturday In-Reply-To: <20150108142438.6c6a16fa@asrock.bcwi.net> References: <20150108142438.6c6a16fa@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: <54B064CF.9020504@bitsavers.org> For people in the SF Bay area Excess Solutions moved to 1555 7th, across from Spartan Stadium and I went down to see the new place. Mike told me he's having a grand opening BBQ tomorrow. From jws at jwsss.com Fri Jan 9 19:25:26 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 17:25:26 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> On 1/9/2015 10:43 AM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > I believe these are the same ones advertised a year or so ago. > Lyle and I went to see them and found a storage building piled > to the ceiling with stuff. It was impossible to see what was actually > there, though what could be seen had heavy water damage and > looked to be in bad shape. At the time he was asking $5000 for > it all so we just walked away. Might be a lot cheaper now. > > Bob > > > On Friday, January 9, 2015 10:27 AM, Jason T wrote: > > >> >> Not mine, not near me, not known to me: >> >> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html >> >> >> > I talked to the owner for quite a while tonight and got some information. He is very interested in moving it and is sending photos. He said someone is coming to take a look at it tomorrow in Freemont. I will post the photos he sends me tonight. I hope someone buys it for other than gold. I am not set up to address this sort of a deal myself, and am passing the info along to who may be able to. I told him about cctalk and ibm vintage lists, so if you are on that, that is the secret handshake as far as what I told him, vs. a scrap dealer. Thanks Jim From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 18:31:19 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 22:31:19 -0200 Subject: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 References: Message-ID: <63192081B6284785860E95516FBC57DB@deskjara> Site is back! :) --- Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sean Caron" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" ; "Sean Caron" Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 7:29 PM Subject: Re: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 > LOL! I guess that will help tick up the pageview count :O > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 4:08 PM, Alexandre Souza < > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> Oh my :( >> >> My site appeared into a national magazine today, so bandwidth must >> have >> exceeded :( >> >> Thanks for telling me! >> >> --- >> Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) >> Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br >> Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com >> >> >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Francois Dion" < >> francois.dion at gmail.com> >> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" >> >> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 7:01 PM >> Subject: Re: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 >> >> >> >> Ooops! www.tabalabs.com.br -> >>> http://www.hostinger.com.br/cpu_exceeded?tabalabs.com.br >>> >>> que coisa... >>> >>> Francois >>> -- >>> http://raspberry-python.blogspot.com - http://pyptug.org - @f_dion >>> >>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Alexandre Souza < >>> alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> So bad it is so seldomly read, Sean. I hope I can get more pageviews. >>> It >>>> is >>>> not for the money, but I hope all the work I have in photographing, >>>> creating the pages, etc...is useful for someone. >>>> >>>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Sean Caron wrote: >>>> >>>> > Cool! I really enjoy your site, even if I can't read Portuguese :) >>>> > Good >>>> > pics. >>>> > >>>> > Best, >>>> > >>>> > Sean >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:47 PM, Alexandre Souza < >>>> > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: >>>> > >>>> > > Just in case someone is curious, there is another brazilian >>>> > > computer >>>> > > dissected, the CP200 (ZX81 clone) from Prologica >>>> > > >>>> > > www.tabalabs.com.br >>>> > > >>>> > > Greetings from Brazil! >>>> > > Alexandre >>>> > > >>>> > >>>> >>>> >> From jws at jwsss.com Fri Jan 9 20:24:36 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 18:24:36 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> References: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <54B08D64.4070306@jwsss.com> On 1/9/2015 5:25 PM, jwsmobile wrote: > > On 1/9/2015 10:43 AM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: >> I believe these are the same ones advertised a year or so ago. >> Lyle and I went to see them and found a storage building piled >> to the ceiling with stuff. It was impossible to see what was actually >> there, though what could be seen had heavy water damage and >> looked to be in bad shape. At the time he was asking $5000 for >> it all so we just walked away. Might be a lot cheaper now. >> >> Bob >> >> >> On Friday, January 9, 2015 10:27 AM, Jason T >> wrote: >> >>> >>> Not mine, not near me, not known to me: >>> >>> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html >>> >>> >>> >> > I talked to the owner for quite a while tonight and got some > information. He is very interested in moving it and is sending > photos. He said someone is coming to take a look at it tomorrow in > Freemont. I will post the photos he sends me tonight. > > I hope someone buys it for other than gold. I am not set up to > address this sort of a deal myself, and am passing the info along to > who may be able to. > > I told him about cctalk and ibm vintage lists, so if you are on that, > that is the secret handshake as far as what I told him, vs. a scrap > dealer. > > Thanks > Jim > > here is an email I got from him with the photos. He also mentioned an idea, which is to take over the rent on the locker, so you can close on ownership now, and move over a longer timeframe than "immediate". Again, I hope someone gets this for the restoration, and not for making gold scrap. Jim Hi Jim Attached is a few pictures for the IBM Mainframe and the HP 3000 Series III. I will send you additional information if interested.. I am enclosing he bill of sale and the descriptions included as well. The systems have been in a warehouse and storage for many years so they need to be cleaned and restored. I paid $8500 for the IBM and $9000 for the HP 3000. I have had a few people who want to scavenge the computers for parts and I have refused to sell to them, Hope that you could help me and the computers to sell to a Collector. Allen From jws at jwsss.com Fri Jan 9 20:20:51 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 18:20:51 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> References: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <54B08C83.2010900@jwsss.com> On 1/9/2015 5:25 PM, jwsmobile wrote: > > On 1/9/2015 10:43 AM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: >> I believe these are the same ones advertised a year or so ago. >> Lyle and I went to see them and found a storage building piled >> to the ceiling with stuff. It was impossible to see what was actually >> there, though what could be seen had heavy water damage and >> looked to be in bad shape. At the time he was asking $5000 for >> it all so we just walked away. Might be a lot cheaper now. >> >> Bob >> >> >> On Friday, January 9, 2015 10:27 AM, Jason T >> wrote: >> >>> >>> Not mine, not near me, not known to me: >>> >>> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html >>> >>> >>> >> > I talked to the owner for quite a while tonight and got some > information. He is very interested in moving it and is sending > photos. He said someone is coming to take a look at it tomorrow in > Freemont. I will post the photos he sends me tonight. > > I hope someone buys it for other than gold. I am not set up to > address this sort of a deal myself, and am passing the info along to > who may be able to. > > I told him about cctalk and ibm vintage lists, so if you are on that, > that is the secret handshake as far as what I told him, vs. a scrap > dealer. > > Thanks > Jim > > here is a pdf file of photos and some paperwork that I got from the seller. I've already sent it to some possibly interested parties. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4AXJXpUCE-hMVpRS3R6R1lhZlk/view?usp=sharing From drlegendre at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 20:38:38 2015 From: drlegendre at gmail.com (drlegendre .) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 20:38:38 -0600 Subject: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 In-Reply-To: <63192081B6284785860E95516FBC57DB@deskjara> References: <63192081B6284785860E95516FBC57DB@deskjara> Message-ID: Hi Alex, Nice site, cool toys! I don't read Portuguese, but it looks like you +also+ had an SX-64 with a bad kernal ROM? What's the deal with those, did they use some kind of inferior part for the SX-64 ROM? It seems like they have a habit of just going "poof" one day. controllers What was your symptom - screen comes up, with the correct color & border - but no cursor or welcome message? That's what mine did. I also had one of the two 6522 CIAs go out, which made the floppy unable to read discs. I've heard that's also a common point of failure in the SX-64. -Bill On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 6:31 PM, Alexandre Souza < alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > Site is back! :) > > --- > Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) > Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br > Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sean Caron" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" < > cctalk at classiccmp.org>; "Sean Caron" > Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 7:29 PM > Subject: Re: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 > > > LOL! I guess that will help tick up the pageview count :O >> >> Best, >> >> Sean >> >> >> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 4:08 PM, Alexandre Souza < >> alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >>> Oh my :( >>> >>> My site appeared into a national magazine today, so bandwidth must >>> have >>> exceeded :( >>> >>> Thanks for telling me! >>> >>> --- >>> Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) >>> Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br >>> Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Francois Dion" < >>> francois.dion at gmail.com> >>> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" >>> >>> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 7:01 PM >>> Subject: Re: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 >>> >>> >>> >>> Ooops! www.tabalabs.com.br -> >>> >>>> http://www.hostinger.com.br/cpu_exceeded?tabalabs.com.br >>>> >>>> que coisa... >>>> >>>> Francois >>>> -- >>>> http://raspberry-python.blogspot.com - http://pyptug.org - @f_dion >>>> >>>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Alexandre Souza < >>>> alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> So bad it is so seldomly read, Sean. I hope I can get more pageviews. >>>> It >>>> >>>>> is >>>>> not for the money, but I hope all the work I have in photographing, >>>>> creating the pages, etc...is useful for someone. >>>>> >>>>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Sean Caron wrote: >>>>> >>>>> > Cool! I really enjoy your site, even if I can't read Portuguese :) > >>>>> Good >>>>> > pics. >>>>> > >>>>> > Best, >>>>> > >>>>> > Sean >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:47 PM, Alexandre Souza < >>>>> > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> > >>>>> > > Just in case someone is curious, there is another brazilian > > >>>>> computer >>>>> > > dissected, the CP200 (ZX81 clone) from Prologica >>>>> > > >>>>> > > www.tabalabs.com.br >>>>> > > >>>>> > > Greetings from Brazil! >>>>> > > Alexandre >>>>> > > >>>>> > >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>> > From lbickley at bickleywest.com Fri Jan 9 20:38:47 2015 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 18:38:47 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 Message-ID: <20150109183847.07153fc8@asrock.bcwi.net> On Fri, 09 Jan 2015 17:25:26 -0800 jwsmobile wrote: > > On 1/9/2015 10:43 AM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > > I believe these are the same ones advertised a year or so ago. > > Lyle and I went to see them and found a storage building piled > > to the ceiling with stuff. It was impossible to see what was > > actually there, though what could be seen had heavy water damage and > > looked to be in bad shape. At the time he was asking $5000 for > > it all so we just walked away. Might be a lot cheaper now. > > > > Bob > > > > > > On Friday, January 9, 2015 10:27 AM, Jason T > > wrote: > > > >> > >> Not mine, not near me, not known to me: > >> > >> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html > >> > >> > >> > > > I talked to the owner for quite a while tonight and got some > information. He is very interested in moving it and is sending > photos. He said someone is coming to take a look at it tomorrow in > Freemont. I will post the photos he sends me tonight. > > I hope someone buys it for other than gold. I am not set up to > address this sort of a deal myself, and am passing the info along to > who may be able to. > > I told him about cctalk and ibm vintage lists, so if you are on that, > that is the secret handshake as far as what I told him, vs. a scrap > dealer. When Bob and I initially talked to the owner, he told us that what he had was a major find for a collector. He spoke in glowing terms as to the condition of the 4341 and the HP mini (de-installed from a running environment and then stored for many years). So as you would expect, Bob and I were very anxious to see both systems. What we found was a serious disappointment. As Bob said, the 4341 and the HP mini were crammed into a storage unit with lots of other junk. It was impossible to see/determine what system components were actually there. There was no way to know how complete or what features either system had. Repeating what Bob said, everything was water damaged, rusty and in poor condition - and I do mean everything. We told him that his asking price was too high - and that the condition of the systems was so bad we wouldn't even make him an offer. Lyle -- Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From jws at jwsss.com Fri Jan 9 21:10:56 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 19:10:56 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <20150109183350.276a420e@asrock.bcwi.net> References: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> <20150109183350.276a420e@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: <54B09840.4090109@jwsss.com> On 1/9/2015 6:33 PM, Lyle Bickley wrote: > We told him that his asking price was too high - and that the condition > of the systems was so bad we wouldn't even make him an offer. I did recover a 4341 open to the elements with bird poop which was later made to run in Kansas City, Mo. Can't speak to the peripherals. They were lucky to run when they were on the floor originally. The terminals... I pulled 10 3278's out of a dumpster behind a walmart when they converted from using IBM comm gear to using PC's and dongles. Worked fine, and are still probably working. And they had crap on them and did more damage to the dumpster than the dumpster did to them. the 3420 is likely just spare parts. I cc'ed this to a fellow I gave 3420's to years ago, that i hope has my original datacenter in some sort of shape. The 4341 would run what he has there. Of course burrowing into the pile to see what shape this one is in would be the chore of the day. I suspect no one is going to find a shiny 4341 any time soon that is not in this condition for some reason. He did say he is under stress to move and get rid of it, so that can play into the decision anyone makes. Thanks Jim From pye at mactec.com.au Fri Jan 9 21:48:24 2015 From: pye at mactec.com.au (Chris Pye) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 03:48:24 +0000 Subject: Manuals Plus going out of business... In-Reply-To: <000001d02c4f$6a19d220$3e4d7660$@classiccmp.org> References: <20150109104206.1e5c4762@asrock.bcwi.net> <54B03B3E.1020401@crash.com> <000001d02c4f$6a19d220$3e4d7660$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On 10 Jan 2015, at 7:01 am, Jay West wrote: > but I would NOT want to house a > warehouse of manuals Isn?t that exactly what they do? From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 21:51:55 2015 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 22:51:55 -0500 Subject: Manuals Plus going out of business... In-Reply-To: <000001d02c4f$6a19d220$3e4d7660$@classiccmp.org> References: <20150109104206.1e5c4762@asrock.bcwi.net> <54B03B3E.1020401@crash.com> <000001d02c4f$6a19d220$3e4d7660$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: > If they are closing their doors, I might consider taking over that business > as far as orders, accounting, etc., but I would NOT want to house a > warehouse of manuals.... As someone that has been in this business, I can say that the good days are long gone. The manual business today is on its last legs. If he is lucky, someone will haul away the manuals for free. -- Will From ggs at shiresoft.com Fri Jan 9 22:15:28 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 20:15:28 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> References: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <54B0A760.5080104@shiresoft.com> I'm the one who's coming out tomorrow. ;-) So it won't be going for scrap. TTFN - Guy On 1/9/15 5:25 PM, jwsmobile wrote: > > On 1/9/2015 10:43 AM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: >> I believe these are the same ones advertised a year or so ago. >> Lyle and I went to see them and found a storage building piled >> to the ceiling with stuff. It was impossible to see what was actually >> there, though what could be seen had heavy water damage and >> looked to be in bad shape. At the time he was asking $5000 for >> it all so we just walked away. Might be a lot cheaper now. >> >> Bob >> >> >> On Friday, January 9, 2015 10:27 AM, Jason T >> wrote: >> >>> >>> Not mine, not near me, not known to me: >>> >>> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html >>> >>> >>> >> > I talked to the owner for quite a while tonight and got some > information. He is very interested in moving it and is sending > photos. He said someone is coming to take a look at it tomorrow in > Freemont. I will post the photos he sends me tonight. > > I hope someone buys it for other than gold. I am not set up to > address this sort of a deal myself, and am passing the info along to > who may be able to. > > I told him about cctalk and ibm vintage lists, so if you are on that, > that is the secret handshake as far as what I told him, vs. a scrap > dealer. > > Thanks > Jim From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 9 22:17:51 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 20:17:51 -0800 Subject: Manuals Plus going out of business... In-Reply-To: References: <20150109104206.1e5c4762@asrock.bcwi.net> <54B03B3E.1020401@crash.com> <000001d02c4f$6a19d220$3e4d7660$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54B0A7EF.4090606@sydex.com> On 01/09/2015 07:51 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> If they are closing their doors, I might consider taking over that business >> as far as orders, accounting, etc., but I would NOT want to house a >> warehouse of manuals.... > > As someone that has been in this business, I can say that the good > days are long gone. The manual business today is on its last legs. > > If he is lucky, someone will haul away the manuals for free. Somewhat on-topic, I've sometimes gone to http://clubdediagramas.com/ searching for a manual. Since it's Spanish language, it might be a worthwhile addition to one's bookmarks. --Chuck From ggs at shiresoft.com Fri Jan 9 22:18:54 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 20:18:54 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <20150109183847.07153fc8@asrock.bcwi.net> References: <20150109183847.07153fc8@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: <54B0A82E.5060605@shiresoft.com> On 1/9/15 6:38 PM, Lyle Bickley wrote: > When Bob and I initially talked to the owner, he told us that what he > had was a major find for a collector. He spoke in glowing terms as to > the condition of the 4341 and the HP mini (de-installed from a running > environment and then stored for many years). So as you would expect, > Bob and I were very anxious to see both systems. What we found was a > serious disappointment. As Bob said, the 4341 and the HP mini were > crammed into a storage unit with lots of other junk. It was impossible > to see/determine what system components were actually there. There was > no way to know how complete or what features either system had. > Repeating what Bob said, everything was water damaged, rusty and in > poor condition - and I do mean everything. We told him that his asking > price was too high - and that the condition of the systems was so bad > we wouldn't even make him an offer. Lyle Well that's a disappointment. I'm still going to take a look at it tomorrow...but I'm going to be prepared to walk away from it. TTFN - Guy From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 22:19:14 2015 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 23:19:14 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B0A760.5080104@shiresoft.com> References: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> <54B0A760.5080104@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: Take pictures! -- Will On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 11:15 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > I'm the one who's coming out tomorrow. ;-) So it won't be going for scrap. > > TTFN - Guy > > > On 1/9/15 5:25 PM, jwsmobile wrote: >> >> >> On 1/9/2015 10:43 AM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: >>> >>> I believe these are the same ones advertised a year or so ago. >>> Lyle and I went to see them and found a storage building piled >>> to the ceiling with stuff. It was impossible to see what was actually >>> there, though what could be seen had heavy water damage and >>> looked to be in bad shape. At the time he was asking $5000 for >>> it all so we just walked away. Might be a lot cheaper now. >>> >>> Bob >>> >>> >>> On Friday, January 9, 2015 10:27 AM, Jason T wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Not mine, not near me, not known to me: >>>> >>>> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >> I talked to the owner for quite a while tonight and got some information. >> He is very interested in moving it and is sending photos. He said someone >> is coming to take a look at it tomorrow in Freemont. I will post the >> photos he sends me tonight. >> >> I hope someone buys it for other than gold. I am not set up to address >> this sort of a deal myself, and am passing the info along to who may be able >> to. >> >> I told him about cctalk and ibm vintage lists, so if you are on that, that >> is the secret handshake as far as what I told him, vs. a scrap dealer. >> >> Thanks >> Jim > > From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 9 22:19:36 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 20:19:36 -0800 Subject: Manuals Plus going out of business... In-Reply-To: References: <20150109104206.1e5c4762@asrock.bcwi.net> <54B03B3E.1020401@crash.com> <000001d02c4f$6a19d220$3e4d7660$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54B0A858.10803@bitsavers.org> On 1/9/15 7:51 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > As someone that has been in this business, I can say that the good > days are long gone. The manual business today is on its last legs. > And only a fraction of it has been scanned, though no one but collectors care about old test equipment any more. There is an insane amount of old gear on the market. It much better built than what you can buy now but the race to the bottom has dried up interest in it. From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 20:43:10 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 00:43:10 -0200 Subject: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 In-Reply-To: References: <63192081B6284785860E95516FBC57DB@deskjara> Message-ID: Thanks Bill! The broken SX-64 was a loooong time ago, it wasn't even mine at that time (now it is! :oD). I don't know what happen, but ROM parts are more common to fail than EPROMs, this is well known. I don't remember exactely what happened, but was something around what you related, Screen comes up with some garbage but no cursor/welcome. 6522 are a pain in the back in Brazil, I have lots of friends with C64s without a good 6522 :( Oh my :( On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 12:38 AM, drlegendre . wrote: > Hi Alex, > > Nice site, cool toys! > > I don't read Portuguese, but it looks like you +also+ had an SX-64 with a > bad kernal ROM? What's the deal with those, did they use some kind of > inferior part for the SX-64 ROM? It seems like they have a habit of just > going "poof" one day. > controllers > What was your symptom - screen comes up, with the correct color & border - > but no cursor or welcome message? That's what mine did. I also had one of > the two 6522 CIAs go out, which made the floppy unable to read discs. I've > heard that's also a common point of failure in the SX-64. > > -Bill > > On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 6:31 PM, Alexandre Souza < > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > Site is back! :) > > > > --- > > Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) > > Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br > > Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sean Caron" > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" < > > cctalk at classiccmp.org>; "Sean Caron" > > Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 7:29 PM > > Subject: Re: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 > > > > > > LOL! I guess that will help tick up the pageview count :O > >> > >> Best, > >> > >> Sean > >> > >> > >> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 4:08 PM, Alexandre Souza < > >> alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > >> > >> > >>> Oh my :( > >>> > >>> My site appeared into a national magazine today, so bandwidth must > >>> have > >>> exceeded :( > >>> > >>> Thanks for telling me! > >>> > >>> --- > >>> Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) > >>> Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br > >>> Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Francois Dion" < > >>> francois.dion at gmail.com> > >>> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >>> > >>> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 7:01 PM > >>> Subject: Re: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Ooops! www.tabalabs.com.br -> > >>> > >>>> http://www.hostinger.com.br/cpu_exceeded?tabalabs.com.br > >>>> > >>>> que coisa... > >>>> > >>>> Francois > >>>> -- > >>>> http://raspberry-python.blogspot.com - http://pyptug.org - @f_dion > >>>> > >>>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Alexandre Souza < > >>>> alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > >>>> > >>>> So bad it is so seldomly read, Sean. I hope I can get more pageviews. > >>>> It > >>>> > >>>>> is > >>>>> not for the money, but I hope all the work I have in photographing, > >>>>> creating the pages, etc...is useful for someone. > >>>>> > >>>>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>> > Cool! I really enjoy your site, even if I can't read Portuguese :) > > > >>>>> Good > >>>>> > pics. > >>>>> > > >>>>> > Best, > >>>>> > > >>>>> > Sean > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:47 PM, Alexandre Souza < > >>>>> > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > Just in case someone is curious, there is another brazilian > > > >>>>> computer > >>>>> > > dissected, the CP200 (ZX81 clone) from Prologica > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > > www.tabalabs.com.br > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > > Greetings from Brazil! > >>>>> > > Alexandre > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>> > > > From drlegendre at gmail.com Fri Jan 9 22:47:24 2015 From: drlegendre at gmail.com (drlegendre .) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 22:47:24 -0600 Subject: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 In-Reply-To: References: <63192081B6284785860E95516FBC57DB@deskjara> Message-ID: The 6522 should be generally available, just about anywhere via eBay. In fact, the last batch I bought were Brazilian-made Rockwell chips, IIRC. It's the 6526 that's the bugger. Even in the USA, we have to salvage them from other C-64 machines, etc. eBay sellers often ask $25/each - you're better off finding a donor C-64! They are easy to blow-out, too. Very commonly they take a fatal blow when plugging a joystick, etc. They should have used buffers between the game ports and the ICs. Best, Bill On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 8:43 PM, Alexandre Souza < alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > Thanks Bill! The broken SX-64 was a loooong time ago, it wasn't even mine > at that time (now it is! :oD). I don't know what happen, but ROM parts are > more common to fail than EPROMs, this is well known. I don't remember > exactely what happened, but was something around what you related, Screen > comes up with some garbage but no cursor/welcome. 6522 are a pain in the > back in Brazil, I have lots of friends with C64s without a good 6522 :( Oh > my :( > > On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 12:38 AM, drlegendre . > wrote: > > > Hi Alex, > > > > Nice site, cool toys! > > > > I don't read Portuguese, but it looks like you +also+ had an SX-64 with a > > bad kernal ROM? What's the deal with those, did they use some kind of > > inferior part for the SX-64 ROM? It seems like they have a habit of just > > going "poof" one day. > > controllers > > What was your symptom - screen comes up, with the correct color & border > - > > but no cursor or welcome message? That's what mine did. I also had one of > > the two 6522 CIAs go out, which made the floppy unable to read discs. > I've > > heard that's also a common point of failure in the SX-64. > > > > -Bill > > > > On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 6:31 PM, Alexandre Souza < > > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > Site is back! :) > > > > > > --- > > > Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) > > > Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br > > > Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sean Caron" > > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" < > > > cctalk at classiccmp.org>; "Sean Caron" > > > Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 7:29 PM > > > Subject: Re: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 > > > > > > > > > LOL! I guess that will help tick up the pageview count :O > > >> > > >> Best, > > >> > > >> Sean > > >> > > >> > > >> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 4:08 PM, Alexandre Souza < > > >> alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > >> > > >> > > >>> Oh my :( > > >>> > > >>> My site appeared into a national magazine today, so bandwidth must > > >>> have > > >>> exceeded :( > > >>> > > >>> Thanks for telling me! > > >>> > > >>> --- > > >>> Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) > > >>> Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br > > >>> Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Francois Dion" < > > >>> francois.dion at gmail.com> > > >>> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > >>> > > >>> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 7:01 PM > > >>> Subject: Re: Brazilian computer dissected: CP200 > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> Ooops! www.tabalabs.com.br -> > > >>> > > >>>> http://www.hostinger.com.br/cpu_exceeded?tabalabs.com.br > > >>>> > > >>>> que coisa... > > >>>> > > >>>> Francois > > >>>> -- > > >>>> http://raspberry-python.blogspot.com - http://pyptug.org - @f_dion > > >>>> > > >>>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Alexandre Souza < > > >>>> alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > >>>> > > >>>> So bad it is so seldomly read, Sean. I hope I can get more > pageviews. > > >>>> It > > >>>> > > >>>>> is > > >>>>> not for the money, but I hope all the work I have in photographing, > > >>>>> creating the pages, etc...is useful for someone. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Sean Caron > wrote: > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > Cool! I really enjoy your site, even if I can't read Portuguese > :) > > > > > >>>>> Good > > >>>>> > pics. > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > Best, > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > Sean > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:47 PM, Alexandre Souza < > > >>>>> > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > > Just in case someone is curious, there is another brazilian > > > > >>>>> computer > > >>>>> > > dissected, the CP200 (ZX81 clone) from Prologica > > >>>>> > > > > >>>>> > > www.tabalabs.com.br > > >>>>> > > > > >>>>> > > Greetings from Brazil! > > >>>>> > > Alexandre > > >>>>> > > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>> > > > > > > From lbickley at bickleywest.com Fri Jan 9 20:33:50 2015 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 18:33:50 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> References: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <20150109183350.276a420e@asrock.bcwi.net> On Fri, 09 Jan 2015 17:25:26 -0800 jwsmobile wrote: > > On 1/9/2015 10:43 AM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > > I believe these are the same ones advertised a year or so ago. > > Lyle and I went to see them and found a storage building piled > > to the ceiling with stuff. It was impossible to see what was > > actually there, though what could be seen had heavy water damage and > > looked to be in bad shape. At the time he was asking $5000 for > > it all so we just walked away. Might be a lot cheaper now. > > > > Bob > > > > > > On Friday, January 9, 2015 10:27 AM, Jason T > > wrote: > > > >> > >> Not mine, not near me, not known to me: > >> > >> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html > >> > >> > >> > > > I talked to the owner for quite a while tonight and got some > information. He is very interested in moving it and is sending > photos. He said someone is coming to take a look at it tomorrow in > Freemont. I will post the photos he sends me tonight. > > I hope someone buys it for other than gold. I am not set up to > address this sort of a deal myself, and am passing the info along to > who may be able to. > > I told him about cctalk and ibm vintage lists, so if you are on that, > that is the secret handshake as far as what I told him, vs. a scrap > dealer. When Bob and I initially talked to the owner, he told us that what he had was a major find for a collector. He spoke in glowing terms as to the condition of the 4341 and the HP mini (de-installed from a running environment and then stored for many years). So as you would expect, Bob and I were very anxious to see both systems. What we found was a serious disappointment. As Bob said, the 4341 and the HP mini were crammed into a storage unit with lots of other junk. It was impossible to see/determine what system components were actually there. There was no way to know how complete or what features either system had. Repeating what Bob said, everything was water damaged, rusty and in poor condition - and I do mean everything. We told him that his asking price was too high - and that the condition of the systems was so bad we wouldn't even make him an offer. Lyle -- Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Sat Jan 10 00:52:11 2015 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 22:52:11 -0800 Subject: Proud owner of a SDK-86, now what (revisited) In-Reply-To: References: , , Message-ID: OK, I think I have a development environment, I found 8086tiny... to run an assembler under win 7 (using cygwin) and I have DOS prompt with 8086tiny, what a cool program! I will get the serial port and monitor talking next, to upload Intel hex files. I do not want to solder on this board, it is so pristine, but I hope to add what I want from the plug in bus pins and a connector to a proto board: 8087 math coprocessor is on the way from that auction site I will cheat and add a modern meg ram chip I have a 1771 FDC here, but thats an 8080/z80 part, I probably need the XT disc controller Video next The idea is to get it to boot DOS and a hard disk, build the IBM XT from scratch with the SDK-86 as the base. Franken-PC-XT, and having fun here. > Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 10:53:14 -0500 > Subject: Re: Proud owner of a SDK-86, now what > From: scaron at umich.edu > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org; scaron at umich.edu > > If it fires up OK, pretty much all you should need to get going is an ASM > programmer's reference for the 8086 and some idea of what the memory map is > on that SBC... you can probably find both floating around on Bitsavers or > something. Intel did the H/W design on this one so you can just focus on > writing software ;) > > If you are looking for more resources, I have a number of these books from > Merrill Publishing... there is one about the 8086/8088 in particular, > "8086/8088 Microprocessor: Architecture, Programming and Interfacing" by > Brey, might be worth checking out... I don't own that particular title, but > I own several other titles from the same publishing house and they are all > pretty good. > > What you can do is limited only by your imagination! If I were you, I'd > probably start out trying to interface a UART, get a little monitor running > on a TTY, and go from there :) > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 9:28 AM, Alexandre Souza < > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > > I have one too, but never got it to work. I believe some of the 2104 > > memories are fried. Lazy as I am, I still need to make an adapter for a > > 6116 or something. > > > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Randy Dawson > > wrote: > > > > > I got this off of the auction site, listed as untested. It came in > > today, > > > looks in beautiful condition, and powers up just fine, with the 86 1.1 > > > message on the display. I have the 'Microcomputer Experiments With the > > > SDK-86, Leventhal' book headed my way. > > > > > > I have not been able to find much else - any suggestions for fun projects > > > with this? > > > > > > Randy > > > > > > > > From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Sat Jan 10 00:52:11 2015 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 22:52:11 -0800 Subject: Proud owner of a SDK-86, now what (revisited) In-Reply-To: References: , , Message-ID: OK, I think I have a development environment, I found 8086tiny... to run an assembler under win 7 (using cygwin) and I have DOS prompt with 8086tiny, what a cool program! I will get the serial port and monitor talking next, to upload Intel hex files. I do not want to solder on this board, it is so pristine, but I hope to add what I want from the plug in bus pins and a connector to a proto board: 8087 math coprocessor is on the way from that auction site I will cheat and add a modern meg ram chip I have a 1771 FDC here, but thats an 8080/z80 part, I probably need the XT disc controller Video next The idea is to get it to boot DOS and a hard disk, build the IBM XT from scratch with the SDK-86 as the base. Franken-PC-XT, and having fun here. > Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 10:53:14 -0500 > Subject: Re: Proud owner of a SDK-86, now what > From: scaron at umich.edu > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org; scaron at umich.edu > > If it fires up OK, pretty much all you should need to get going is an ASM > programmer's reference for the 8086 and some idea of what the memory map is > on that SBC... you can probably find both floating around on Bitsavers or > something. Intel did the H/W design on this one so you can just focus on > writing software ;) > > If you are looking for more resources, I have a number of these books from > Merrill Publishing... there is one about the 8086/8088 in particular, > "8086/8088 Microprocessor: Architecture, Programming and Interfacing" by > Brey, might be worth checking out... I don't own that particular title, but > I own several other titles from the same publishing house and they are all > pretty good. > > What you can do is limited only by your imagination! If I were you, I'd > probably start out trying to interface a UART, get a little monitor running > on a TTY, and go from there :) > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 9:28 AM, Alexandre Souza < > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > > I have one too, but never got it to work. I believe some of the 2104 > > memories are fried. Lazy as I am, I still need to make an adapter for a > > 6116 or something. > > > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Randy Dawson > > wrote: > > > > > I got this off of the auction site, listed as untested. It came in > > today, > > > looks in beautiful condition, and powers up just fine, with the 86 1.1 > > > message on the display. I have the 'Microcomputer Experiments With the > > > SDK-86, Leventhal' book headed my way. > > > > > > I have not been able to find much else - any suggestions for fun projects > > > with this? > > > > > > Randy > > > > > > > > From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Sat Jan 10 08:15:06 2015 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 09:15:06 -0500 Subject: Broken H724 power supply from PDP-8/e In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 8:05 AM, Michael Thompson < michael.99.thompson at gmail.com> wrote: > From: Al Kossow >> To: cctech at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Re: Broken H724 power supply from PDP-8/e >> >> On 1/7/15 6:24 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: >> > The H724 power supply in my PDP-8/e works OK for about 5 seconds and >> then >> > the +5V output goes to about 3.0V. If I leave it on for a few more >> seconds >> > it will blow the 20A fuse for the +5V output. >> > >> >> sounds like something is firing the crowbar (Q207) > > You were correct Al, it is the crowbar firing. About 18ms after power on the +5V output gets to 6.4V and the crowbar fires. There is nothing obviously fried on the A2 regulator board. I have the schematics for the power supply and the IPB and BOM for the A2 regulator board. The IPB callouts don't include the individual reference designators so I need to reverse engineer it. It is just a simple single sided board so that should be easy. There is a 'scope image of the +5V output here: http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/dec-pdp-8e/pdp-8e-restoration-log/Broken_H724.jpg -- Michael Thompson From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Jan 10 08:29:35 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 09:29:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Manuals Plus going out of business... Message-ID: <20150110142935.5F93B18C0CE@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Lyle Bickley > I got a letter a couple of weeks ago that "Manuals Plus" .. is going out > of business. I verified that by phone yesterday. > They are having a "make me an offer" sale ... Interesting that nothing is on their Web site about it. Maybe they are prioritizing their past customers? Guess I'll have to call and see if I can make an offer on a few things... Noel From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jan 10 12:54:31 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 10:54:31 -0800 Subject: Manuals Plus going out of business... In-Reply-To: <20150110142935.5F93B18C0CE@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150110142935.5F93B18C0CE@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54B17567.3070703@bitsavers.org> On 1/10/15 6:29 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > Guess I'll have to call and see if I can make an offer on a few things... > They're answering emails at sales at manualsplus.com From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Sat Jan 10 15:58:56 2015 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 22:58:56 +0100 Subject: Anyone have a spare DECstation in europe for a developer? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: OK, may be a bit late to chime in but I didn't have time to go through my stuff and look it up earlier, so here goes: A DECstation 5000/200 with PMAG-B Framebuffer is available in southern Germany. I myself was given that machine several years ago and didn't get to try it out yet. Unfortunately I don't have the knowledge and resources available to put the machine online so it would have to be physically relocated. I would prefer putting it on an indefinite loan but might also be persuaded to trade or outright donate to this worthwile cause. Feel free to contact me if you think it might be of any help. Yours sincerely, Arno Kletzander > On 29 December 2014 at 00:31, emanuel stiebler wrote: > > > On 2014-12-28 14:56, David Brownlee wrote: > > >> > > >> Bj?rn Johannesson has been working on the VAX framebuffer and keyboard > > >> code in NetBSD to get X running on the LCG equipped machines (like the > > >> VAXstation 4000/VLC and 4000/60). > > >> > > >> He's expressed an interest in looking at some issues in the DECstation > > >> X11 code, but doesn't have access to an appropriate machine. > > > > > > which DECstation, and which Graphic adapter? > > > There where quite a few different ones on the TURBOChannel, > > > from the very dumb frame buffer to the 3d ones ... > > > > My initial thoughts would be a nice little 3100 or possibly a 2100 > > with the simple framebuffer, but obviously the goal would be to > > support whatever is available. > > > > At least VS3100 M38 and M76 don't work with NetBSD, we realized this approx > a year before. Martin got a machine from me to investigate further, but I > think nothing has happened in this reagard since then. > > Regards, > > Holm > -- > Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, > Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 > www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 6 > Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 11:47:55 +0100 > From: Johnny Billquist > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Anyone have a spare DECstation in europe for a developer? > Message-ID: <54A3D45B.4080307 at update.uu.se> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed > > On 2014-12-31 11:40, Holm Tiffe wrote: > > David Brownlee wrote: > > > >> On 29 December 2014 at 00:31, emanuel stiebler wrote: > >>> On 2014-12-28 14:56, David Brownlee wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Bj?rn Johannesson has been working on the VAX framebuffer and keyboard > >>>> code in NetBSD to get X running on the LCG equipped machines (like the > >>>> VAXstation 4000/VLC and 4000/60). > >>>> > >>>> He's expressed an interest in looking at some issues in the DECstation > >>>> X11 code, but doesn't have access to an appropriate machine. > >>> > >>> which DECstation, and which Graphic adapter? > >>> There where quite a few different ones on the TURBOChannel, > >>> from the very dumb frame buffer to the 3d ones ... > >> > >> My initial thoughts would be a nice little 3100 or possibly a 2100 > >> with the simple framebuffer, but obviously the goal would be to > >> support whatever is available. > >> > > > > At least VS3100 M38 and M76 don't work with NetBSD, we realized this approx > > a year before. Martin got a machine from me to investigate further, but I > > think nothing has happened in this reagard since then. > > Uh... Holm... He was talking about a DECstation 2100 or 3100 here... Not > a VAXstation. :-) > > 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 > > > End of cctalk Digest, Vol 2, Issue 31 > ************************************* > From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Jan 10 16:54:41 2015 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 16:54:41 -0600 Subject: Motorola Envoy PDA? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Anyone out there interested in a Motorola Envoy of the MagicCap era of personal devices, circa 1994? - John From evan at snarc.net Sat Jan 10 17:11:47 2015 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 18:11:47 -0500 Subject: Motorola Envoy PDA? In-Reply-To: <20150111045946.6FF9D2073EEA@huey.classiccmp.org> References: <20150111045946.6FF9D2073EEA@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54B1B1B3.1050102@snarc.net> > Anyone out there interested in a Motorola Envoy of the MagicCap era of personal devices, circa 1994? Interested as in buying, or interested as in a valid cctalk discussion subject? No to the former. Yes to the latter. From ggs at shiresoft.com Sat Jan 10 19:27:37 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 17:27:37 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> <54B0A760.5080104@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <54B1D189.7030305@shiresoft.com> I had planned to. Unfortunately the condition of everything was even worse than what Lyle had described. In addition to the water damage (chassis rusted on the CPU and at least one control unit), it was hard to see what all was there because of all of the junk (tables, A/C condensers, random other *heavy* junk) all piled *on top* of the CPU, terminals (a heavy table was being supported by a number of HP terminals...when I tried to move the table to get a better view of stuff you could hear things "crunch"). I did get enough stuff out of the way to at least glance at the 4341. It was really sad. 3 major cables had been cut. It looked like a side panel had been removed and what ever was plugged into it was not visible (may have been there but with out a major mining operation it was hard to tell). After about 20 minutes I thanked him and left. He had said that everything was operational before being put into storage. It looks like they just grabbed, cut and generally abused everything even before it went into storage before receiving the additional indignity of significant water damage. It's basically just scrap at this point. Very sad. TTFN - Guy On 1/9/15 8:19 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > Take pictures! > > -- > Will > > On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 11:15 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: >> I'm the one who's coming out tomorrow. ;-) So it won't be going for scrap. >> >> TTFN - Guy >> >> >> On 1/9/15 5:25 PM, jwsmobile wrote: >>> >>> On 1/9/2015 10:43 AM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: >>>> I believe these are the same ones advertised a year or so ago. >>>> Lyle and I went to see them and found a storage building piled >>>> to the ceiling with stuff. It was impossible to see what was actually >>>> there, though what could be seen had heavy water damage and >>>> looked to be in bad shape. At the time he was asking $5000 for >>>> it all so we just walked away. Might be a lot cheaper now. >>>> >>>> Bob >>>> >>>> >>>> On Friday, January 9, 2015 10:27 AM, Jason T wrote: >>>> >>>>> Not mine, not near me, not known to me: >>>>> >>>>> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>> I talked to the owner for quite a while tonight and got some information. >>> He is very interested in moving it and is sending photos. He said someone >>> is coming to take a look at it tomorrow in Freemont. I will post the >>> photos he sends me tonight. >>> >>> I hope someone buys it for other than gold. I am not set up to address >>> this sort of a deal myself, and am passing the info along to who may be able >>> to. >>> >>> I told him about cctalk and ibm vintage lists, so if you are on that, that >>> is the secret handshake as far as what I told him, vs. a scrap dealer. >>> >>> Thanks >>> Jim >> From ggs at shiresoft.com Sat Jan 10 19:53:31 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 17:53:31 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B1D189.7030305@shiresoft.com> References: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> <54B0A760.5080104@shiresoft.com> <54B1D189.7030305@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <54B1D79B.40003@shiresoft.com> The 4341 wasn't quite as bad as: http://www.shiresoft.com/pdp-11/rescue/index.html but the end result I think was worse. TTFN - Guy On 1/10/15 5:27 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > I had planned to. Unfortunately the condition of everything was even > worse than what Lyle had described. > > In addition to the water damage (chassis rusted on the CPU and at > least one control unit), it was hard to see what all was there because > of all of the junk (tables, A/C condensers, random other *heavy* junk) > all piled *on top* of the CPU, terminals (a heavy table was being > supported by a number of HP terminals...when I tried to move the table > to get a better view of stuff you could hear things "crunch"). I did > get enough stuff out of the way to at least glance at the 4341. It > was really sad. 3 major cables had been cut. It looked like a side > panel had been removed and what ever was plugged into it was not > visible (may have been there but with out a major mining operation it > was hard to tell). After about 20 minutes I thanked him and left. > > He had said that everything was operational before being put into > storage. It looks like they just grabbed, cut and generally abused > everything even before it went into storage before receiving the > additional indignity of significant water damage. > > It's basically just scrap at this point. Very sad. > > TTFN - Guy > > On 1/9/15 8:19 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> Take pictures! >> >> -- >> Will >> >> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 11:15 PM, Guy Sotomayor >> wrote: >>> I'm the one who's coming out tomorrow. ;-) So it won't be going for >>> scrap. >>> >>> TTFN - Guy >>> >>> >>> On 1/9/15 5:25 PM, jwsmobile wrote: >>>> >>>> On 1/9/2015 10:43 AM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: >>>>> I believe these are the same ones advertised a year or so ago. >>>>> Lyle and I went to see them and found a storage building piled >>>>> to the ceiling with stuff. It was impossible to see what was actually >>>>> there, though what could be seen had heavy water damage and >>>>> looked to be in bad shape. At the time he was asking $5000 for >>>>> it all so we just walked away. Might be a lot cheaper now. >>>>> >>>>> Bob >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Friday, January 9, 2015 10:27 AM, Jason T >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Not mine, not near me, not known to me: >>>>>> >>>>>> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> I talked to the owner for quite a while tonight and got some >>>> information. >>>> He is very interested in moving it and is sending photos. He said >>>> someone >>>> is coming to take a look at it tomorrow in Freemont. I will post the >>>> photos he sends me tonight. >>>> >>>> I hope someone buys it for other than gold. I am not set up to >>>> address >>>> this sort of a deal myself, and am passing the info along to who >>>> may be able >>>> to. >>>> >>>> I told him about cctalk and ibm vintage lists, so if you are on >>>> that, that >>>> is the secret handshake as far as what I told him, vs. a scrap dealer. >>>> >>>> Thanks >>>> Jim >>> > From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sat Jan 10 20:01:44 2015 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 21:01:44 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B1D189.7030305@shiresoft.com> References: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> <54B0A760.5080104@shiresoft.com> <54B1D189.7030305@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: So what was the guy like? Did he completely deflect any opinions on the condition? Did he acknowledge the mess? -- Will On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 8:27 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > I had planned to. Unfortunately the condition of everything was even worse > than what Lyle had described. > > In addition to the water damage (chassis rusted on the CPU and at least one > control unit), it was hard to see what all was there because of all of the > junk (tables, A/C condensers, random other *heavy* junk) all piled *on top* > of the CPU, terminals (a heavy table was being supported by a number of HP > terminals...when I tried to move the table to get a better view of stuff you > could hear things "crunch"). I did get enough stuff out of the way to at > least glance at the 4341. It was really sad. 3 major cables had been cut. > It looked like a side panel had been removed and what ever was plugged into > it was not visible (may have been there but with out a major mining > operation it was hard to tell). After about 20 minutes I thanked him and > left. > > He had said that everything was operational before being put into storage. > It looks like they just grabbed, cut and generally abused everything even > before it went into storage before receiving the additional indignity of > significant water damage. > > It's basically just scrap at this point. Very sad. > > TTFN - Guy > > > On 1/9/15 8:19 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> >> Take pictures! >> >> -- >> Will >> >> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 11:15 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: >>> >>> I'm the one who's coming out tomorrow. ;-) So it won't be going for >>> scrap. >>> >>> TTFN - Guy >>> >>> >>> On 1/9/15 5:25 PM, jwsmobile wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> On 1/9/2015 10:43 AM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: >>>>> >>>>> I believe these are the same ones advertised a year or so ago. >>>>> Lyle and I went to see them and found a storage building piled >>>>> to the ceiling with stuff. It was impossible to see what was actually >>>>> there, though what could be seen had heavy water damage and >>>>> looked to be in bad shape. At the time he was asking $5000 for >>>>> it all so we just walked away. Might be a lot cheaper now. >>>>> >>>>> Bob >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Friday, January 9, 2015 10:27 AM, Jason T >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Not mine, not near me, not known to me: >>>>>> >>>>>> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> I talked to the owner for quite a while tonight and got some >>>> information. >>>> He is very interested in moving it and is sending photos. He said >>>> someone >>>> is coming to take a look at it tomorrow in Freemont. I will post the >>>> photos he sends me tonight. >>>> >>>> I hope someone buys it for other than gold. I am not set up to address >>>> this sort of a deal myself, and am passing the info along to who may be >>>> able >>>> to. >>>> >>>> I told him about cctalk and ibm vintage lists, so if you are on that, >>>> that >>>> is the secret handshake as far as what I told him, vs. a scrap dealer. >>>> >>>> Thanks >>>> Jim >>> >>> > From ggs at shiresoft.com Sat Jan 10 20:09:52 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 18:09:52 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> <54B0A760.5080104@shiresoft.com> <54B1D189.7030305@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <54B1DB70.7010307@shiresoft.com> My impression...he's an idiot. He didn't really think it was in that bad shape. One quote was "I'm sure someone still makes these parts". Uh...no! TTFN - Guy On 1/10/15 6:01 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > So what was the guy like? > > Did he completely deflect any opinions on the condition? Did he > acknowledge the mess? > > -- > Will > > On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 8:27 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: >> I had planned to. Unfortunately the condition of everything was even worse >> than what Lyle had described. >> >> In addition to the water damage (chassis rusted on the CPU and at least one >> control unit), it was hard to see what all was there because of all of the >> junk (tables, A/C condensers, random other *heavy* junk) all piled *on top* >> of the CPU, terminals (a heavy table was being supported by a number of HP >> terminals...when I tried to move the table to get a better view of stuff you >> could hear things "crunch"). I did get enough stuff out of the way to at >> least glance at the 4341. It was really sad. 3 major cables had been cut. >> It looked like a side panel had been removed and what ever was plugged into >> it was not visible (may have been there but with out a major mining >> operation it was hard to tell). After about 20 minutes I thanked him and >> left. >> >> He had said that everything was operational before being put into storage. >> It looks like they just grabbed, cut and generally abused everything even >> before it went into storage before receiving the additional indignity of >> significant water damage. >> >> It's basically just scrap at this point. Very sad. >> >> TTFN - Guy >> >> >> On 1/9/15 8:19 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >>> Take pictures! >>> >>> -- >>> Will >>> >>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 11:15 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: >>>> I'm the one who's coming out tomorrow. ;-) So it won't be going for >>>> scrap. >>>> >>>> TTFN - Guy >>>> >>>> >>>> On 1/9/15 5:25 PM, jwsmobile wrote: >>>>> >>>>> On 1/9/2015 10:43 AM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: >>>>>> I believe these are the same ones advertised a year or so ago. >>>>>> Lyle and I went to see them and found a storage building piled >>>>>> to the ceiling with stuff. It was impossible to see what was actually >>>>>> there, though what could be seen had heavy water damage and >>>>>> looked to be in bad shape. At the time he was asking $5000 for >>>>>> it all so we just walked away. Might be a lot cheaper now. >>>>>> >>>>>> Bob >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Friday, January 9, 2015 10:27 AM, Jason T >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Not mine, not near me, not known to me: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/4837367667.html >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>> I talked to the owner for quite a while tonight and got some >>>>> information. >>>>> He is very interested in moving it and is sending photos. He said >>>>> someone >>>>> is coming to take a look at it tomorrow in Freemont. I will post the >>>>> photos he sends me tonight. >>>>> >>>>> I hope someone buys it for other than gold. I am not set up to address >>>>> this sort of a deal myself, and am passing the info along to who may be >>>>> able >>>>> to. >>>>> >>>>> I told him about cctalk and ibm vintage lists, so if you are on that, >>>>> that >>>>> is the secret handshake as far as what I told him, vs. a scrap dealer. >>>>> >>>>> Thanks >>>>> Jim >>>> From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Jan 10 20:09:58 2015 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 20:09:58 -0600 Subject: Motorola Envoy PDA? In-Reply-To: <54B1B1B3.1050102@snarc.net> References: <20150111045946.6FF9D2073EEA@huey.classiccmp.org> <54B1B1B3.1050102@snarc.net> Message-ID: At 05:11 PM 1/10/2015, Evan Koblentz wrote: >>Anyone out there interested in a Motorola Envoy of the MagicCap era of personal devices, circa 1994? > >Interested as in buying, or interested as in a valid cctalk discussion subject? >No to the former. Yes to the latter. A friend gave me one a few years ago. Pretty much new in box. I should get rid of it one way or another. Because I saw none on the eBays, I assumed it wasn't rare and valuable. - John From marc.verdiell at gmail.com Sat Jan 10 20:51:33 2015 From: marc.verdiell at gmail.com (Marc Verdiell) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 18:51:33 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> I talked to the owner maybe 6 months ago. It was a bizarre and difficult interaction. He refused to let me see the units, and insisted I give him an offer first. He would not even give me the list of the items he had. We went into a circular discussion: that I couldn't give him an offer if I didn't know nor see what the items were, to which he replied that if I were a serious buyer I would make him an offer beforehand, therefore I was not serious and he would not show me the items nor give me the list. So that was not very helpful. Then later on he sent me 3 or 4 close up pictures of only the name badges of some of the machines (one badge from HP, maybe two of IBM). I got the distinct impression that either something was fishy or that the guy had unreasonable expectations. Or maybe both. I just gave up. Looks like you are faring much better than me, so that's positive. I am interested in the IBM system, the tapes and tape controller units mainly, if you don't want them. Marc On 1/9/15 6:38 PM, Lyle Bickley wrote: > When Bob and I initially talked to the owner, he told us that what he > had was a major find for a collector. He spoke in glowing terms as to > the condition of the 4341 and the HP mini (de-installed from a running > environment and then stored for many years). So as you would expect, > Bob and I were very anxious to see both systems. What we found was a > serious disappointment. As Bob said, the 4341 and the HP mini were > crammed into a storage unit with lots of other junk. It was impossible > to see/determine what system components were actually there. There was > no way to know how complete or what features either system had. > Repeating what Bob said, everything was water damaged, rusty and in > poor condition - and I do mean everything. We told him that his asking > price was too high - and that the condition of the systems was so bad > we wouldn't even make him an offer. Lyle Well that's a disappointment. I'm still going to take a look at it tomorrow...but I'm going to be prepared to walk away from it. TTFN - Guy From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jan 10 20:53:07 2015 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 18:53:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Found an EEPROM programmer that works with Linux In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 9 Jan 2015, drlegendre . wrote: > Thanks for the tip, David - Linux-friendly hardware is always Good News! > But might you provide a little more information? > > Searching eBay for "TL866CS", dozens of listings turn-up, each offering > different combinations of adapters, cables and other ancillary items in > addition to the chip burner itself. > > Could you offer a little more info on what's what, why one might select one > set / sub-set / super-set of parts over another, and so forth? I chose this one (http://www.ebay.com/itm/301392380440) because it was in the US already, the price was right, and the adapters are ones that I think I might use. More adapters are available for very little money. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From ggs at shiresoft.com Sat Jan 10 21:41:28 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 19:41:28 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> Message-ID: <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> Yes, I tried to talk to him at about the same time and got nowhere. This time I made an actual offer but I needed to see it and might up it depending upon the condition. As you can see from my earlier posts today that because of the way it was put into storage and the way it was stored it's basically all just scrap now which is too bad. TTFN - Guy On 1/10/15 6:51 PM, Marc Verdiell wrote: > I talked to the owner maybe 6 months ago. It was a bizarre and difficult > interaction. He refused to let me see the units, and insisted I give him an > offer first. He would not even give me the list of the items he had. We went > into a circular discussion: that I couldn't give him an offer if I didn't > know nor see what the items were, to which he replied that if I were a > serious buyer I would make him an offer beforehand, therefore I was not > serious and he would not show me the items nor give me the list. So that was > not very helpful. Then later on he sent me 3 or 4 close up pictures of only > the name badges of some of the machines (one badge from HP, maybe two of > IBM). I got the distinct impression that either something was fishy or that > the guy had unreasonable expectations. Or maybe both. I just gave up. Looks > like you are faring much better than me, so that's positive. I am interested > in the IBM system, the tapes and tape controller units mainly, if you don't > want them. > Marc > > > On 1/9/15 6:38 PM, Lyle Bickley wrote: >> When Bob and I initially talked to the owner, he told us that what he >> had was a major find for a collector. He spoke in glowing terms as to >> the condition of the 4341 and the HP mini (de-installed from a running >> environment and then stored for many years). So as you would expect, >> Bob and I were very anxious to see both systems. What we found was a >> serious disappointment. As Bob said, the 4341 and the HP mini were >> crammed into a storage unit with lots of other junk. It was impossible >> to see/determine what system components were actually there. There was >> no way to know how complete or what features either system had. >> Repeating what Bob said, everything was water damaged, rusty and in >> poor condition - and I do mean everything. We told him that his asking >> price was too high - and that the condition of the systems was so bad >> we wouldn't even make him an offer. Lyle > Well that's a disappointment. I'm still going to take a look at it > tomorrow...but I'm going to be prepared to walk away from it. > > TTFN - Guy > > > > > > From linimon at lonesome.com Sat Jan 10 23:23:55 2015 From: linimon at lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 23:23:55 -0600 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B1D79B.40003@shiresoft.com> References: <1420829028.27258.YahooMailNeo@web180902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <54B07F86.8080501@jwsss.com> <54B0A760.5080104@shiresoft.com> <54B1D189.7030305@shiresoft.com> <54B1D79B.40003@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <20150111052355.GB25304@lonesome.com> On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 05:53:31PM -0800, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > The 4341 wasn't quite as bad as: > http://www.shiresoft.com/pdp-11/rescue/index.html but the end result > I think was worse. brrrrrrrrrr. /me has to go lie down mcl From nf6x at nf6x.net Sun Jan 11 00:11:29 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 22:11:29 -0800 Subject: Making Sergey's XT-CF-Lite board work In-Reply-To: <54AF379D.4070203@dunnington.plus.com> References: <54AF379D.4070203@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <913B35D1-C123-4472-BB86-8FCB77833A97@nf6x.net> > On Jan 8, 2015, at 18:06, Pete Turnbull wrote: > > On 09/01/2015 01:32, David Griffith wrote: >> >> I ordered a couple XT-CF-Lite boards as described in >> http://www.malinov.com/Home/sergeys-projects/xt-cf-lite. Has anyone >> else here built and used this? I have a problem with the BIOS. Either >> Sergey specified the wrong size EEPROM or provided the wrong BIOS >> image. The specified EEPROM holds 8192 bytes while the BIOS image is >> 32,768 bytes. I sent an email to Sergey, but I thought I'd ask here too. > > I downloaded it to look: only the first 8K is used. The rest is all 0xFF, ie blank. Yes, identical experience here: I was also confused by the oversized image, until I looked at it, tried it using only the first 8k, and found that it worked. I had some initial trouble with a batch of CF cards that ended up being incompatible for some reason, but now I can boot my IBM 5155 from the card. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From bobvines00 at gmail.com Sat Jan 10 09:11:21 2015 From: bobvines00 at gmail.com (Bob Vines) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 10:11:21 -0500 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs Message-ID: On Fri, 9 Jan 2015 06:06:02 +0000, Tony Duell wrote: > I mentioned using a good continuity tracer that is not fooled by diodes. This > will handle any parasitic junctions in ICs, etc. If you get to know the instrument > you will not have problems from false positives. > > -tony Tony, What continuity tracer do you use? Can you recommend a "good continuity tracer that is not fooled by diodes" that can be built/purchased for not a lot of money? Thanks, Bob From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 10 10:04:43 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 16:04:43 +0000 Subject: Reverse engineering vintage PCBs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > What continuity tracer do you use? Can you recommend a "good > continuity tracer that is not fooled by diodes" that can be > built/purchased for not a lot of money? Amazingly the diode test/beep range of a fairly cheap DMM works well (better in a lot of cases than the one on a more expensive DMM). The range applies a contant current through the probes and displays the voltage between them. The beeper is triggered by an analogue comparator set to less than the forward voltage of a silicon diode. This has an advantage of the scheme used on more expensive meters which compare the digital output of the ADC with some threshold value, meaning the beeper only triggers after an ADC conversion. This is a right pain in that it takes long enough that you can't stroke the probe along a line of pins and hope to find the one that is connected. And of course the treshold is low enough that a diode will not trigger the beep. -tony From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Sat Jan 10 18:53:58 2015 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 19:53:58 -0500 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM Message-ID: We did more debugging on the PDP-8/I today. The individual CLA and CMA instructions work OK, but the combined CLA CMA instruction does not set all of the AC bits to 1s. Tracing with a 'scope found that the AC ENABLE signal was not active during the combined CLA CMA instruction. Replacing the M160 in slot E30 fixed the missing AC ENABLE signals and fixed the combined CLA CMA instruction. The Instruction Test 1 and Instruction Test 2 diagnostics ran OK, so the processor is probably working fine. The TC01 DECtape diags did not run as expected so we need to read the manual before we try it again next week -- Michael Thompson From jws at jwsss.com Sun Jan 11 03:41:29 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 01:41:29 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54B24549.6020507@jwsss.com> On 1/10/2015 4:53 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: > We did more debugging on the PDP-8/I today. The individual CLA and CMA > instructions work OK, but the combined CLA CMA instruction does not set all > of the AC bits to 1s. Tracing with a 'scope found that the AC ENABLE signal > was not active during the combined CLA CMA instruction. Replacing the M160 > in slot E30 fixed the missing AC ENABLE signals and fixed the combined CLA > CMA instruction. The Instruction Test 1 and Instruction Test 2 diagnostics > ran OK, so the processor is probably working fine. The TC01 DECtape diags > did not run as expected so we need to read the manual before we try it > again next week > Stab in the dark from discussion with Sherman Foy last night. When instructions don't play nice together, the timing may be off. Apparently timing on the E at least worked in many cases because the speed of some of the IC's at the time they were new caused the timing to be different on old systems. Another client who was (and is) servicing old systems had him looking at the problem in systems which were remote and ran for years at a time. When turned off they frequently would not come up. Anyway the client actually found that the problem could also be fixed by the fact that the bypass caps were all old. He replaced the bypass caps on the timing board, and joy. I don't know if this will translate to any problem on the I you are looking for, but he found it by looking at the signals on a logic analyzer and noticing they were not the same with different timing boards. In the I the logic is probably on more boards, but older logic might have more problems if you replaced problem IC's with newer faster and less delay parts. Using older parts was not a full solution (to try to get similar timing to the older circuits.) Just tossing it out as a place to look thanks Jim From jwsmail at jwsss.com Sun Jan 11 03:50:09 2015 From: jwsmail at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 01:50:09 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> On 1/10/2015 7:41 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > Yes, I tried to talk to him at about the same time and got nowhere. > This time I made an actual > offer but I needed to see it and might up it depending upon the > condition. As you can see from > my earlier posts today that because of the way it was put into storage > and the way it was stored > it's basically all just scrap now which is too bad. > > TTFN - Guy > I talked to him at length and got a little more on the story. The path the systems took apparently was from a company where he worked, then idle. The company donated them to a local college where they were used in some capacity for a while then stored. The storage was not under his control, and though he'd had direct interaction when it was originally in production, he did admit that he thought some damage had occurred when the college had stored the units. I'm willing to say that my impression of the guy is that he had very high expectations of what he had stored, and has invested a lot in it, but doesn't get what is really required to make these things go. When you deal with people heavily invested in something they are not realistic, and will want more than an item should be priced at. He may or may not be at the end of his capability to store it or whatever where it is, he says he needs to sell it as he has imminent plans to move to NM, so that deadline is self imposed, and should not legitimately impact the negotiation. Just he should be and seems to be more open to negotiating now. I'm sad to hear it was damaged as badly as it was, had high hopes the 4341 had at least stayed closed and somewhat safe. I think the console controller is in the end chassis. The main swing outs have the main processor. Don't try to swing them one at a time, the thing will tip. Jim > On 1/10/15 6:51 PM, Marc Verdiell wrote: >> I talked to the owner maybe 6 months ago. It was a bizarre and difficult >> interaction. He refused to let me see the units, and insisted I give >> him an >> offer first. He would not even give me the list of the items he had. >> We went >> into a circular discussion: that I couldn't give him an offer if I >> didn't >> know nor see what the items were, to which he replied that if I were a >> serious buyer I would make him an offer beforehand, therefore I was not >> serious and he would not show me the items nor give me the list. So >> that was >> not very helpful. Then later on he sent me 3 or 4 close up pictures >> of only >> the name badges of some of the machines (one badge from HP, maybe two of >> IBM). I got the distinct impression that either something was fishy >> or that >> the guy had unreasonable expectations. Or maybe both. I just gave up. >> Looks >> like you are faring much better than me, so that's positive. I am >> interested >> in the IBM system, the tapes and tape controller units mainly, if you >> don't >> want them. >> Marc >> >> >> On 1/9/15 6:38 PM, Lyle Bickley wrote: >>> When Bob and I initially talked to the owner, he told us that what he >>> had was a major find for a collector. He spoke in glowing terms as to >>> the condition of the 4341 and the HP mini (de-installed from a running >>> environment and then stored for many years). So as you would expect, >>> Bob and I were very anxious to see both systems. What we found was a >>> serious disappointment. As Bob said, the 4341 and the HP mini were >>> crammed into a storage unit with lots of other junk. It was impossible >>> to see/determine what system components were actually there. There was >>> no way to know how complete or what features either system had. >>> Repeating what Bob said, everything was water damaged, rusty and in >>> poor condition - and I do mean everything. We told him that his asking >>> price was too high - and that the condition of the systems was so bad >>> we wouldn't even make him an offer. Lyle >> Well that's a disappointment. I'm still going to take a look at it >> tomorrow...but I'm going to be prepared to walk away from it. >> >> TTFN - Guy >> >> >> >> >> >> > > From bqt at update.uu.se Sun Jan 11 04:09:37 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 11:09:37 +0100 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <54B24549.6020507@jwsss.com> References: <54B24549.6020507@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <54B24BE1.7010906@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-11 10:41, jwsmobile wrote: > > On 1/10/2015 4:53 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: >> We did more debugging on the PDP-8/I today. The individual CLA and CMA >> instructions work OK, but the combined CLA CMA instruction does not >> set all >> of the AC bits to 1s. Tracing with a 'scope found that the AC ENABLE >> signal >> was not active during the combined CLA CMA instruction. Replacing the >> M160 >> in slot E30 fixed the missing AC ENABLE signals and fixed the combined >> CLA >> CMA instruction. The Instruction Test 1 and Instruction Test 2 >> diagnostics >> ran OK, so the processor is probably working fine. The TC01 DECtape diags >> did not run as expected so we need to read the manual before we try it >> again next week >> > Stab in the dark from discussion with Sherman Foy last night. When > instructions don't play nice together, the timing may be off. Apparently > timing on the E at least worked in many cases because the speed of some > of the IC's at the time they were new caused the timing to be different > on old systems. > > Another client who was (and is) servicing old systems had him looking at > the problem in systems which were remote and ran for years at a time. > When turned off they frequently would not come up. > > Anyway the client actually found that the problem could also be fixed by > the fact that the bypass caps were all old. He replaced the bypass caps > on the timing board, and joy. > > I don't know if this will translate to any problem on the I you are > looking for, but he found it by looking at the signals on a logic > analyzer and noticing they were not the same with different timing > boards. In the I the logic is probably on more boards, but older > logic might have more problems if you replaced problem IC's with newer > faster and less delay parts. Using older parts was not a full solution > (to try to get similar timing to the older circuits.) > > Just tossing it out as a place to look Re-read the post. They fixed the CPU. Their problem now is a DECtape controller. Johnny From jws at jwsss.com Sun Jan 11 04:52:21 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 02:52:21 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <54B24BE1.7010906@update.uu.se> References: <54B24549.6020507@jwsss.com> <54B24BE1.7010906@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54B255E5.2040100@jwsss.com> On 1/11/2015 2:09 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2015-01-11 10:41, jwsmobile wrote: >> >> On 1/10/2015 4:53 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: >>> We did more debugging on the PDP-8/I today. The individual CLA and CMA >>> instructions work OK, but the combined CLA CMA instruction does not >>> set all >>> of the AC bits to 1s. Tracing with a 'scope found that the AC ENABLE >>> signal >>> was not active during the combined CLA CMA instruction. Replacing the >>> M160 >>> in slot E30 fixed the missing AC ENABLE signals and fixed the combined >>> CLA >>> CMA instruction. The Instruction Test 1 and Instruction Test 2 >>> diagnostics >>> ran OK, so the processor is probably working fine. The TC01 DECtape >>> diags >>> did not run as expected so we need to read the manual before we try it >>> again next week >>> >> Stab in the dark from discussion with Sherman Foy last night. When >> instructions don't play nice together, the timing may be off. Apparently >> timing on the E at least worked in many cases because the speed of some >> of the IC's at the time they were new caused the timing to be different >> on old systems. >> >> Another client who was (and is) servicing old systems had him looking at >> the problem in systems which were remote and ran for years at a time. >> When turned off they frequently would not come up. >> >> Anyway the client actually found that the problem could also be fixed by >> the fact that the bypass caps were all old. He replaced the bypass caps >> on the timing board, and joy. >> >> I don't know if this will translate to any problem on the I you are >> looking for, but he found it by looking at the signals on a logic >> analyzer and noticing they were not the same with different timing >> boards. In the I the logic is probably on more boards, but older >> logic might have more problems if you replaced problem IC's with newer >> faster and less delay parts. Using older parts was not a full solution >> (to try to get similar timing to the older circuits.) >> >> Just tossing it out as a place to look > > Re-read the post. They fixed the CPU. Their problem now is a DECtape > controller. > > Johnny > > I see that now. From useddec at gmail.com Sun Jan 11 04:59:22 2015 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 04:59:22 -0600 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <54B255E5.2040100@jwsss.com> References: <54B24549.6020507@jwsss.com> <54B24BE1.7010906@update.uu.se> <54B255E5.2040100@jwsss.com> Message-ID: Hi Jim, That's still good info to know. Thanks, Paul On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 4:52 AM, jwsmobile wrote: > > On 1/11/2015 2:09 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> On 2015-01-11 10:41, jwsmobile wrote: >> >>> >>> On 1/10/2015 4:53 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: >>> >>>> We did more debugging on the PDP-8/I today. The individual CLA and CMA >>>> instructions work OK, but the combined CLA CMA instruction does not >>>> set all >>>> of the AC bits to 1s. Tracing with a 'scope found that the AC ENABLE >>>> signal >>>> was not active during the combined CLA CMA instruction. Replacing the >>>> M160 >>>> in slot E30 fixed the missing AC ENABLE signals and fixed the combined >>>> CLA >>>> CMA instruction. The Instruction Test 1 and Instruction Test 2 >>>> diagnostics >>>> ran OK, so the processor is probably working fine. The TC01 DECtape >>>> diags >>>> did not run as expected so we need to read the manual before we try it >>>> again next week >>>> >>>> Stab in the dark from discussion with Sherman Foy last night. When >>> instructions don't play nice together, the timing may be off. Apparently >>> timing on the E at least worked in many cases because the speed of some >>> of the IC's at the time they were new caused the timing to be different >>> on old systems. >>> >>> Another client who was (and is) servicing old systems had him looking at >>> the problem in systems which were remote and ran for years at a time. >>> When turned off they frequently would not come up. >>> >>> Anyway the client actually found that the problem could also be fixed by >>> the fact that the bypass caps were all old. He replaced the bypass caps >>> on the timing board, and joy. >>> >>> I don't know if this will translate to any problem on the I you are >>> looking for, but he found it by looking at the signals on a logic >>> analyzer and noticing they were not the same with different timing >>> boards. In the I the logic is probably on more boards, but older >>> logic might have more problems if you replaced problem IC's with newer >>> faster and less delay parts. Using older parts was not a full solution >>> (to try to get similar timing to the older circuits.) >>> >>> Just tossing it out as a place to look >>> >> >> Re-read the post. They fixed the CPU. Their problem now is a DECtape >> controller. >> >> Johnny >> >> >> I see that now. > From js at cimmeri.com Sun Jan 11 09:15:09 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 10:15:09 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> On 1/11/2015 4:50 AM, jim s wrote: > > I talked to him at length and got a little more on the story. ... > ... [snip] > I'm willing to say that my impression of the guy is that he had very > high expectations of what he had stored... > No wonder. As a buyer, the worst thing you can do with any seller is have a bunch of people calling up, expressing interest, and informing the seller that he has special items and that there are special groups of people out there who are interested. Now the seller's beliefs in a high value are confirmed. It's far better for a potential buyer that the seller thinks he has junk only a scrap dealer is interested in. Scrap dealers don't pay diddly squat. The more who call, the more the sellers hopes are raised. Why people who have no actual capability of purchasing these items are calling the seller up and taking up their time, is beyond me. All you do is raise the difficulty of negotiations for the actual guy who might end up buying the items. Any actual buyer is fully capable of getting all the answers they need without your interference. For the similar reasons, as a frequent buyer, it also highly annoys me when systems on eBay or Craiglist are found and rebroadcasted here. Now, my chance find has been made aware to a much wider audience, the competition shoots way up, and I have to pay more. Of course, there's sellers here too who benefit from the rebroadcasting. But I say, let them broadcast themselves. - J. From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jan 11 09:58:37 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 07:58:37 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <54B29DAD.6000208@bitsavers.org> On 1/11/15 7:15 AM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > Now, my chance find has been made aware to a much wider > audience, the competition shoots way up, and I have to pay more. It sure sucks to be you. From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jan 11 10:01:11 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 08:01:11 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B29DAD.6000208@bitsavers.org> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B29DAD.6000208@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54B29E47.4020803@bitsavers.org> On 1/11/15 7:58 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/11/15 7:15 AM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: >> Now, my chance find has been made aware to a much wider >> audience, the competition shoots way up, and I have to pay more. > > It sure sucks to be you. > And dealing with people like you is why I got out of hardware collecting. From scaron at umich.edu Sun Jan 11 10:34:45 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 11:34:45 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: Sheesh! Not so collegial! My take has always been, if you find a hidden gem, great, but if it gets blown up and the item's got buyers swarming and the price is shooting up, c'est la vie... Nobody owes us cheap additions to all our personal collections (though of course it's nice when it happens anyway). I do miss the "old days" when so much of this stuff was just generally available for the taking, nobody would have ever thought to fight over it! Best, Sean On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:15 AM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > On 1/11/2015 4:50 AM, jim s wrote: > >> >> I talked to him at length and got a little more on the story. ... >> ... [snip] >> I'm willing to say that my impression of the guy is that he had very high >> expectations of what he had stored... >> >> No wonder. As a buyer, the worst thing you can do with any seller is > have a bunch of people calling up, expressing interest, and informing the > seller that he has special items and that there are special groups of > people out there who are interested. Now the seller's beliefs in a high > value are confirmed. > > It's far better for a potential buyer that the seller thinks he has junk > only a scrap dealer is interested in. Scrap dealers don't pay diddly squat. > > The more who call, the more the sellers hopes are raised. > > Why people who have no actual capability of purchasing these items are > calling the seller up and taking up their time, is beyond me. All you do > is raise the difficulty of negotiations for the actual guy who might end up > buying the items. > > Any actual buyer is fully capable of getting all the answers they need > without your interference. > > For the similar reasons, as a frequent buyer, it also highly annoys me > when systems on eBay or Craiglist are found and rebroadcasted here. Now, > my chance find has been made aware to a much wider audience, the > competition shoots way up, and I have to pay more. > > Of course, there's sellers here too who benefit from the rebroadcasting. > But I say, let them broadcast themselves. > > - J. > From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jan 11 10:46:14 2015 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 11:46:14 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> Message-ID: >I am interested > in the IBM system, the tapes and tape controller units mainly, if you don't > want them. Do be too upset if the 3803 and 3420 get junked - they are still out in the wild. Don't wait too long, however, or they will all be gone. I suppose some of the Bay Area people will keep an eye on this guy. If someone does finally talk him down to Earth, please let us all know. I can use parts from the 3830 (the best thing in the pile). -- Will From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Sun Jan 11 11:15:22 2015 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave G4UGM) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 17:15:22 -0000 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <05c001d02dc2$2f1735e0$8d45a1a0$@gmail.com> Seems to me as several have viewed and walked away the price should be coming down not going up. I also bet the important things such as the MAPS and Hardware manuals are missing, He might have tape drives but does he have any tapes? So whilst I haven't seen it I can't comment on how salvageable this 4341 is, but even if it had been carefully removed, re-installing after 10 years in good storage would be a challenge. I had a 4361 installed in a lecture theatre in a local University. It was shipped by IBM from its previous location so it was well packed etc. It was a nightmare getting enough power to run the thing. We needed around 60amps 240v three phase. I just wish I had kept the Physical Planning Manuals. Given the condition reports I have seen I imagine it will go for scrap, I don't think there is much gold in a 4341 but there is a lot of steel... .. Reminds me of the case of the Blackpool Vulcan bomber sold on e-bay for ?15,000. Estimated cost of move ?20K + ?1k per week storage costs. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/4181657.stm it was eventually sold for scrap for ?4000. I don't know if the vendor was ever paid his money. I think probably not... .. the buyer now apparently has a Harrier Jump Jet instead.... Dave Wade G4UGM (When this happened ?1 was about $1.10) > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Sean > Caron > Sent: 11 January 2015 16:35 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 > > Sheesh! Not so collegial! My take has always been, if you find a hidden gem, > great, but if it gets blown up and the item's got buyers swarming and the > price is shooting up, c'est la vie... Nobody owes us cheap additions to all our > personal collections (though of course it's nice when it happens anyway). I do > miss the "old days" when so much of this stuff was just generally available for > the taking, nobody would have ever thought to fight over it! > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:15 AM, js at cimmeri.com > wrote: > > > On 1/11/2015 4:50 AM, jim s wrote: > > > >> > >> I talked to him at length and got a little more on the story. ... > >> ... [snip] > >> I'm willing to say that my impression of the guy is that he had very > >> high expectations of what he had stored... > >> > >> No wonder. As a buyer, the worst thing you can do with any seller is > > have a bunch of people calling up, expressing interest, and informing > > the seller that he has special items and that there are special groups of > > people out there who are interested. Now the seller's beliefs in a high > > value are confirmed. > > > > It's far better for a potential buyer that the seller thinks he has > > junk only a scrap dealer is interested in. Scrap dealers don't pay diddly > squat. > > > > The more who call, the more the sellers hopes are raised. > > > > Why people who have no actual capability of purchasing these items are > > calling the seller up and taking up their time, is beyond me. All you > > do is raise the difficulty of negotiations for the actual guy who > > might end up buying the items. > > > > Any actual buyer is fully capable of getting all the answers they need > > without your interference. > > > > For the similar reasons, as a frequent buyer, it also highly annoys me > > when systems on eBay or Craiglist are found and rebroadcasted here. > > Now, my chance find has been made aware to a much wider audience, the > > competition shoots way up, and I have to pay more. > > > > Of course, there's sellers here too who benefit from the rebroadcasting. > > But I say, let them broadcast themselves. > > > > - J. > > From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jan 11 11:29:37 2015 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 12:29:37 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <05c001d02dc2$2f1735e0$8d45a1a0$@gmail.com> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <05c001d02dc2$2f1735e0$8d45a1a0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: > Seems to me as several have viewed and walked away the price should be coming down not going up. I also bet the important things such as the MAPS and Hardware manuals are missing, He might have tape drives but does he have any tapes? Or the IMPL floppies for the 4341 or the 3830, for that matter. Originals are *required* or there will be no fun, as I think they are serial numbered to the specific machines. I do not know about the 4341, but don't think that you can just rewrite the IMPL to a new disk for the 3830, as it is one of those first generation 8 inch types. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jan 11 11:01:40 2015 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 12:01:40 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: > It's far better for a potential buyer that the seller thinks he has junk > only a scrap dealer is interested in. Scrap dealers don't pay diddly squat. The problem is that most collectors pay diddlier squat. -- Will From ggs at shiresoft.com Sun Jan 11 11:49:19 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 09:49:19 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <05c001d02dc2$2f1735e0$8d45a1a0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <54B2B79F.5050801@shiresoft.com> On 1/11/15 9:29 AM, William Donzelli wrote: >> Seems to me as several have viewed and walked away the price should be coming down not going up. I also bet the important things such as the MAPS and Hardware manuals are missing, He might have tape drives but does he have any tapes? > Or the IMPL floppies for the 4341 or the 3830, for that matter. > Originals are *required* or there will be no fun, as I think they are > serial numbered to the specific machines. I do not know about the > 4341, but don't think that you can just rewrite the IMPL to a new disk > for the 3830, as it is one of those first generation 8 inch types. Yea, that was one of the things that I specifically asked about and all I got was a blank stare. The reality is that if someone *really* needed some of the parts it might be worth it depending upon how much you really had to spend. What killed it for me was the fact that everything was buried and it would have taken at least 3-4 hours of digging (with a number of people...I wasn't going to be able to move some of the piled up junk by myself) just to figure out what was actually there. I might have felt differently if the 4341, etc were in better condition (from at least what I could see). But given the condition and not knowing what else was there it was really a pig-in-a-poke. TTFN - Guy From scaron at umich.edu Sun Jan 11 11:52:15 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 12:52:15 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: Just the nature of the beast? There are only so many Paul Allens. I mean, this is just fun for me, I'm not planning on it paying for my retirement in 40 years, LOL. It seems like most of the guys with the big money to burn are into cars or something ;) I look at it more, we're all doing a service to posterity by warehousing this stuff... it's a cost center, not a profit center. Just picking this stuff up and storing it in their own facilities, the buyer is incurring their own significant costs in storage space, packing, moving and trucking, etc. Does this mean a lot of good equipment that someone could have appreciated and enjoyed gets cut up for scrap? Definitely. But I don't think collectors are, on average, deliberately being cheap. Just, disposable income isn't what it once was for a lot of people; people make an inquiry or an offer... can't blame someone for asking. If we saw the reversal of 30 years worth of stagnant wages, I think we'd see prices shoot up on all kinds of stuff, vintage IT gear included. Best, Sean On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 12:01 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > > It's far better for a potential buyer that the seller thinks he has junk > > only a scrap dealer is interested in. Scrap dealers don't pay diddly > squat. > > The problem is that most collectors pay diddlier squat. > > -- > Will > From isking at uw.edu Sun Jan 11 11:54:38 2015 From: isking at uw.edu (Ian S. King) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 09:54:38 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: References: <54B24549.6020507@jwsss.com> <54B24BE1.7010906@update.uu.se> <54B255E5.2040100@jwsss.com> Message-ID: Once upon a time, I was troubleshooting an intermittent problem on the PDP-8/e on the LCM exhibit floor. What I discovered was that one of the double-shift instructions wasn't working (which wasn't intermittent - it failed whenever that instruction was part of the mix). I had to get the machine back in running condition since it was on the floor, so I swapped in a spare CPU and set the other boards aside for further analysis - and of course, that's where they still sit. :-) But this illustrates the point made here: the ICs do change in their timing characteristics over time, and some of these designs were right on the hairy edge of specs. Another illustration of that: a one-shot in the data-break controller (ISTR) that was being used (by design, per the engineering drawings) right at the lower edge of its timing range. On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 2:59 AM, Paul Anderson wrote: > Hi Jim, > > That's still good info to know. > > Thanks, Paul > > On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 4:52 AM, jwsmobile wrote: > > > > > On 1/11/2015 2:09 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > > > >> On 2015-01-11 10:41, jwsmobile wrote: > >> > >>> > >>> On 1/10/2015 4:53 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: > >>> > >>>> We did more debugging on the PDP-8/I today. The individual CLA and CMA > >>>> instructions work OK, but the combined CLA CMA instruction does not > >>>> set all > >>>> of the AC bits to 1s. Tracing with a 'scope found that the AC ENABLE > >>>> signal > >>>> was not active during the combined CLA CMA instruction. Replacing the > >>>> M160 > >>>> in slot E30 fixed the missing AC ENABLE signals and fixed the combined > >>>> CLA > >>>> CMA instruction. The Instruction Test 1 and Instruction Test 2 > >>>> diagnostics > >>>> ran OK, so the processor is probably working fine. The TC01 DECtape > >>>> diags > >>>> did not run as expected so we need to read the manual before we try it > >>>> again next week > >>>> > >>>> Stab in the dark from discussion with Sherman Foy last night. When > >>> instructions don't play nice together, the timing may be off. > Apparently > >>> timing on the E at least worked in many cases because the speed of some > >>> of the IC's at the time they were new caused the timing to be different > >>> on old systems. > >>> > >>> Another client who was (and is) servicing old systems had him looking > at > >>> the problem in systems which were remote and ran for years at a time. > >>> When turned off they frequently would not come up. > >>> > >>> Anyway the client actually found that the problem could also be fixed > by > >>> the fact that the bypass caps were all old. He replaced the bypass > caps > >>> on the timing board, and joy. > >>> > >>> I don't know if this will translate to any problem on the I you are > >>> looking for, but he found it by looking at the signals on a logic > >>> analyzer and noticing they were not the same with different timing > >>> boards. In the I the logic is probably on more boards, but older > >>> logic might have more problems if you replaced problem IC's with newer > >>> faster and less delay parts. Using older parts was not a full solution > >>> (to try to get similar timing to the older circuits.) > >>> > >>> Just tossing it out as a place to look > >>> > >> > >> Re-read the post. They fixed the CPU. Their problem now is a DECtape > >> controller. > >> > >> Johnny > >> > >> > >> I see that now. > > > -- Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS Ph.D. Candidate The Information School University of Washington An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees it half empty. An engineer sees it twice as large as it needs to be. From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jan 11 12:22:16 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 10:22:16 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> On 1/11/15 9:52 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > we're all doing a service > to posterity by warehousing this stuff No, you're not. You're being chumps. Museums aren't going to want it, and your family will take it to the dump when you croak. Think about it the next time you calculate how many thousands of dollars it has cost you to store your collections. From cctalk at fahimi.net Sun Jan 11 12:39:07 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 10:39:07 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <020001d02dcd$e3790850$aa6b18f0$@net> > The problem is that most collectors pay diddlier squat. > I don't know if that is true. The question is if the seller has something collectable for sale. If you have a beat up, rusted, gutted item buried under junk then it really has no collectable value. It is junk and yes the junk dealer will pay more for it. However, if you have a nicely cared for system that is just being disconnected from service (properly disconnected not just cutting wires because it is easier) in working condition a collector will definitely pay more than the junk dealers. This is true across all collectable items - comics, baseball cards, cars, whatever. No one will pay top dollar for a bunch of moldy, water damages, torn up comics - why should computers be any different? Problem is that most sellers are selling junk but want collectable prices. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 11 13:34:51 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 19:34:51 +0000 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> , <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > > we're all doing a service > > to posterity by warehousing this stuff > > No, you're not. You're being chumps. I disagree. I enjoy repairing, investigating and running classic computers, and that has to be a good reason for owning them. It's no more (or less) pointless than many other hobbies. > > Museums aren't going to want it, and your family will take it And I specifically do not want any part of my collection even to be offered to a museum > to the dump when you croak. That is what a will is for (and in my case, not having any close family it's pretty much essential). You name somebody (having given them warning of what to expect) who will know what to do with the machines, etc, and will appreciate them. And yes, I have made a will. -tony From emu at e-bbes.com Sun Jan 11 13:38:07 2015 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 12:38:07 -0700 Subject: hp16500c mainframes, denver Message-ID: <54B2D11F.1080807@e-bbes.com> Hi all, anybody in Denver Area looking for some? I have two I don't need anymore, and for a small fee, you can pick em up. Sorry, no shipping, no accessories ... From scaron at umich.edu Sun Jan 11 12:44:24 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 13:44:24 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: I don't know; I think it remains to be seen, whether or not there will be an enduring market, or even an interest, for historic computer gear in the long-term... I think the last 20 years have shown more than anything that there is an enduring interest for at least some small subset of the population... But I'm on your side, really; my implication was that an active collector is often providing a real service, something of value, just by offering to come and pick this stuff up, especially when it is heavy and oversize. Definite costs there. As well as in storing it (although I'd be paying my mortgage anyway) not to mention if you want to run it, repair it, keep spares, documentation. So quite the opposite; I think the seller is delusional if they expect to get anything much out of their pile of scrap, cash-wise. I have no illusion that my own collection is going to be worth much in terms of hard cash to anyone at all, but I'm not yet willing to rule out that I might be able to find someone interested to take it for free and continue to give it a good home, when I'm on my way out. I'll have fun with it in the mean-time. We all gotta have hobbies. Enduring interest remains in all kinds of old electronics... Radios, musical instruments, hi-fi equipment, heck, the eBay price on many HP RPN calculators exceeds that of the devices new, 20, 30 years down the line (discounting inflation, of course). Why not old computers? Sure, not every single old box of electronics will be of enduring interest, but I think a few will. And let me highlight my deliberate choice of the word interest, over a term such as cash value! Best, Sean On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 1:22 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/11/15 9:52 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > >> we're all doing a service >> to posterity by warehousing this stuff >> > > No, you're not. You're being chumps. > > Museums aren't going to want it, and your family will take it > to the dump when you croak. > > Think about it the next time you calculate how many thousands > of dollars it has cost you to store your collections. > > > > > From lists at loomcom.com Sun Jan 11 12:30:29 2015 From: lists at loomcom.com (Seth Morabito) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 12:30:29 -0600 Subject: Need AT&T 3B2/300 EPROM images to replace ones missing in my system In-Reply-To: <7A9CFC5B-1901-4AF4-8AE8-30C616985720@typewritten.org> References: <7A9CFC5B-1901-4AF4-8AE8-30C616985720@typewritten.org> Message-ID: <20150111183029.GA5089@loomcom.com> * On Tue, Jan 06, 2015 at 09:52:10PM -0800, r.stricklin wrote: > Esteemed listmembers; > > I have started working on restoring a 3B2/300, and right away I've > discovered the probable cause for the machine's catatonic state. > Three of the system board EPROMs are missing. Hello Bear, I'm very actively working on a 3B2 emulator, so tracking down ROMs was a primary concern for me. Two very generous list members were able to dump ROMs for me -- they came from a 310 and a 400, respectively. The only difference between the 310 and 400 ROMs appears to be the ROM serial number, which is encoded as a struct at the top of ROM. Otherwise they're identical. I sent them to Al Kossow, so I think the ROM images are probably on Bitsavers now (or will be soon), but I've also create a GitHub project for them because I wanted to disassemble and study the ROM contents. That's here: https://github.com/sethm/3b2_rom The only WE32100 tools I could find were written in pre-ANSI C and proved very tedious and difficult to port, so I decided to write my own very crappy WE32100 disassembler instead. I think it was faster than trying to get the AT&T tools to compile on my mac! Still, that means there may well be errors in the disassembly, so keep that in mind. None of these ROMs match your numbers, the ones I have are AAYYC, AAYYD, AAYYE, and AAYYF. These may work for you, it's worth a shot if you have some D2764A's lying around. -Seth From js at cimmeri.com Sun Jan 11 14:18:27 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 15:18:27 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <54B2DA93.8010803@cimmeri.com> My point is only that, why unnecessarily make it harder and/or more costly for the eventual real buyer? That's not collegiality either. Sellers with no knowledge of what they're selling are using "apparent interest" as their primary calculus on their pricing, so excessive interest that isn't even real, just inflates their expectations to beyond reasonable. I'm not talking about ripping anyone off. I'm talking about keeping things REASONABLE and win-win fair. Auctions are not collegial -- they're competitive, and since when is competition a negative? But one form of collegiality would be the non-serious people not making things harder for the serious people. - J. On 1/11/2015 11:34 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > Sheesh! Not so collegial! My take has always been, if you find a hidden > gem, great, but if it gets blown up and the item's got buyers swarming and > the price is shooting up, c'est la vie... Nobody owes us cheap additions to > all our personal collections (though of course it's nice when it happens > anyway). I do miss the "old days" when so much of this stuff was just > generally available for the taking, nobody would have ever thought to fight > over it! > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:15 AM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > >> On 1/11/2015 4:50 AM, jim s wrote: >> >>> I talked to him at length and got a little more on the story. ... >>> ... [snip] >>> I'm willing to say that my impression of the guy is that he had very high >>> expectations of what he had stored... >>> >>> No wonder. As a buyer, the worst thing you can do with any seller is >> have a bunch of people calling up, expressing interest, and informing the >> seller that he has special items and that there are special groups of >> people out there who are interested. Now the seller's beliefs in a high >> value are confirmed. >> >> It's far better for a potential buyer that the seller thinks he has junk >> only a scrap dealer is interested in. Scrap dealers don't pay diddly squat. >> >> The more who call, the more the sellers hopes are raised. >> >> Why people who have no actual capability of purchasing these items are >> calling the seller up and taking up their time, is beyond me. All you do >> is raise the difficulty of negotiations for the actual guy who might end up >> buying the items. >> >> Any actual buyer is fully capable of getting all the answers they need >> without your interference. >> >> For the similar reasons, as a frequent buyer, it also highly annoys me >> when systems on eBay or Craiglist are found and rebroadcasted here. Now, >> my chance find has been made aware to a much wider audience, the >> competition shoots way up, and I have to pay more. >> >> Of course, there's sellers here too who benefit from the rebroadcasting. >> But I say, let them broadcast themselves. >> >> - J. >> > From js at cimmeri.com Sun Jan 11 14:19:25 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 15:19:25 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <54B2DACD.2080707@cimmeri.com> On 1/11/2015 12:01 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> It's far better for a potential buyer that the seller thinks he has junk >> only a scrap dealer is interested in. Scrap dealers don't pay diddly squat. > The problem is that most collectors pay diddlier squat. > Excellent point. However, I'm not one of the diddlier squat buyers ... so hadn't considered from that angle. :-) - J. From js at cimmeri.com Sun Jan 11 14:24:50 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 15:24:50 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> On 1/11/2015 1:22 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/11/15 9:52 AM, Sean Caron wrote: >> we're all doing a service >> to posterity by warehousing this stuff > > No, you're not. You're being chumps. > > Museums aren't going to want it, and > your family will take it > to the dump when you croak. > > Think about it the next time you > calculate how many thousands > of dollars it has cost you to store > your collections. > Sad but true words, most likely... Unless these machines somehow come into a market as do vintage automobiles. Now, question to ponder, was the market for automobiles *created* and manipulated into existence by market makers and public relationists? Because old cars are a real damn bitch to take care of, restore, keep going, house, etc. Computers are MUCH easier and less costly.. and in some ways, in every way bit as fun (to me, anyway -- I have both vintage cars and vintage computers). If the auto market was guiled into existence, then someone, sometime, will create the buzz for such a thing in vintage computers as well.. because wherever there is money to be made, someone will eventually make it. - J. From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jan 11 14:50:05 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 14:50:05 -0600 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <005c01d02de0$2e365020$8aa2f060$@classiccmp.org> Actually.... I (as well as others here) have been known to take a system that was a pretty destroyed pile of rust/mouseHabitat and get it fairly displayable/running again. It takes a HUGE amount of work and time, but it can often be done. >From the pictures, I can tell both systems are probably in fairly far gone condition and would be at the top end of the "barely possible to restore" ranking. These systems have a smaller market for purchase because not "a majority" of the collectors around could easily restore them and get them running. Major Tough Project. That being said... I've always wanted a 43xx and an HP3K both, but I simply don't have the bandwidth to commit to that extensive of a restoration at this point. Hopefully someone else on the list does, or can at least house them till such a time as someone does. They are both sought-after systems, particularly by me. On the whole price debate.... given the condition these systems are in - they are fairly worthless. Scrap value at best. In moderate or fully restored condition, they are worth a lot. But the current owner needs to understand that someone is going to spend 10 times his asking price getting them restored and as such, he can't ask more than scrap for them. J From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Sun Jan 11 15:09:03 2015 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave G4UGM) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 21:09:03 -0000 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <005c01d02de0$2e365020$8aa2f060$@classiccmp.org> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <005c01d02de0$2e365020$8aa2f060$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <00e601d02de2$d4bb7c20$7e327460$@gmail.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West > Sent: 11 January 2015 20:50 > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: RE: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 > > > On the whole price debate.... given the condition these systems are in - they > are fairly worthless. Scrap value at best. In moderate or fully restored > condition, they are worth a lot. But the current owner needs to understand > that someone is going to spend 10 times his asking price getting them > restored and as such, he can't ask more than scrap for them. > > J > You see the same issues with collectible cars and motor cycles. Generally whilst it might be fun, and even mentally rewarding, to restore such an item, it will almost always be financially unrewarding. The cost of materials alone out weights the any increase in value. As for this pile of junk, I wonder if some crowd funding to restore and run this might be successful. > > > > From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Sun Jan 11 16:58:25 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 20:58:25 -0200 Subject: hp16500c mainframes, denver In-Reply-To: <54B2D11F.1080807@e-bbes.com> References: <54B2D11F.1080807@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: so bad you don't want to ship ;( Friends who offered me the power supply of 16500: I had some troubles in my email, I'll answer each of you later today. Very sorry! On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 5:38 PM, emanuel stiebler wrote: > Hi all, > anybody in Denver Area looking for some? > I have two I don't need anymore, and for a small fee, you can pick em up. > > Sorry, no shipping, no accessories ... > > From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jan 11 20:01:49 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 18:01:49 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> > Now, question to ponder, was the market for automobiles *created* and manipulated into existence by market makers and public relationists? Automobiles were used by individuals for four generations, the models are built to appeal to different personalities and social strata. A significant number of people in three of those four generations fixed their own cars, so they had some knowledge of how they worked. Consumer computers are commodities. You throw them out, and since their performance improves orders of magnitude over time most people could care less about trying to use an old one. A person in 2015 can pretty easily pick up how to drive a car from their great-grandfather. They might even remember the car their great-grandfather owned. If you could find one, only an expert who knew where to look would have the faintest idea how to use a computer from the 1950's or would want to try. Thanks to the net, in a few years your latest wizbang handheld device will be as useless as an analog cell phone from the 90's. Even if you wanted you use it, you wouldn't be able to because the network infrastructure that makes it function will be gone. Seen many working Web TV's or Danger Hiptops lately? So, no, there is very little in common with the base of people collecting cars and computers and there will never be a popular movement to preserve them other that as a platform for playing games. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 11 20:29:02 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 18:29:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20150111181655.C25213@shell.lmi.net> > > Now, question to ponder, was the market for automobiles *created* and > > manipulated into existence by market makers and public relationists? On Sun, 11 Jan 2015, Al Kossow wrote: > Automobiles were used by individuals for four generations, the models > are built to appeal to different personalities and social strata. > A significant number of people in three of those four generations fixed > their own cars, so they had some knowledge of how they worked. A "significant number" of people prior to PC fixed and programmed their own computers, so they had some knowledge of how they worked. > Consumer computers are commodities. You throw them out, and since their > performance improves orders of magnitude over time most people could > care less about trying to use an old one. Most current cars are commodities. (Kia, anyone?, YUGO???) You throw them out, and since their gas mileage and reliability improves magnitudes over time, most people could care less about trying to use an old one. > A person in 2015 can pretty easily pick up how to drive a car from their > great-grandfather. They might even remember the car their > great-grandfather owned. If you could find one, only an expert who knew > where to look would have the faintest idea how to use a computer from > the 1950's or would want to try. Besides me and you, . . . What percentage of current "drivers" know how to adjust ignition timing? What percentage of current "drivers" know how to use a manual choke? What percentage of current "drivers" know how to crank start? (and if they tried, they would probably recreate the apocryphal legend about WHY Kettering developed the starter motor) > if you wanted you use it, you wouldn't be able to because the network > infrastructure that makes it function will be gone. leaded gas, and some of the other early fules) are kinda hard to come by. > So, no, there is very little in common with the base of people > collecting cars and computers and there will never be a popular movement > to preserve them other that as a platform for playing games. Most obsolete cars and computers end up kept for nostalgia, or as ornaments and toys. Few, other than ARDs, use the really old ones for their daily driving. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From rickb at bensene.com Sun Jan 11 20:36:30 2015 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 18:36:30 -0800 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This afternoon I got the drive racked up, got the drive select set to drive 1, removed the terminator from drive 0 and plugged in the bus extension cable, routed it to drive 1 and plugged it into the drive. The second drive already had the terminator it in (nice, I now have a spare). I finished routing the cabling and power cable for the second drive, and then powered up the system. I left it all sit for about 30 minutes before I tried anything. I noted that there was no LOAD indication showing up on drive 1, so I investigated. There wasn't any bulb there, so I put one in, and it lit up. Drive 0 had an OS8 boot pack in it already, and I spun it up, and it went ready just fine (a relief). I started up my SerialDisk server, and turned off the HALT switch on the 8/e, hit CLEAR, then raised and lowered the SW switch. The machine proceeded to boot using the diode ROM bootstrap for the RK8E. It booted up just fine, and I was able to access the SerialDisk drive also. So, I loaded a RK05 pack that I had formatted on drive 0 into drive 1, and flicked the LOAD switch. Things were quiet for a moment, then I could hear that the pack was spinning up, and shortly thereafter, the drive went ready. I did a "DIR RKA1:", and got an empty directory with the appropriate number of free blocks. I then did a "COPY RKA1: References: Message-ID: <54B335F4.6060807@shiresoft.com> On 1/11/15 6:36 PM, Rick Bensene wrote: > This afternoon I got the drive racked up, got the drive select set to drive 1, removed the terminator from drive 0 and plugged in the bus extension cable, routed it to drive 1 and plugged it into the drive. > > The second drive already had the terminator it in (nice, I now have a spare). > > I finished routing the cabling and power cable for the second drive, and then powered up the system. I left it all sit for about 30 minutes before I tried anything. > > I noted that there was no LOAD indication showing up on drive 1, so I investigated. There wasn't any bulb there, so I put one in, and it lit up. > > Drive 0 had an OS8 boot pack in it already, and I spun it up, and it went ready just fine (a relief). I started up my SerialDisk server, and turned off the HALT switch on the 8/e, hit CLEAR, then raised and lowered the SW switch. The machine proceeded to boot using the diode ROM bootstrap for the RK8E. It booted up just fine, and I was able to access the SerialDisk drive also. > > So, I loaded a RK05 pack that I had formatted on drive 0 into drive 1, and flicked the LOAD switch. Things were quiet for a moment, then I could hear that the pack was spinning up, and shortly thereafter, the drive went ready. > > I did a "DIR RKA1:", and got an empty directory with the appropriate number of free blocks. > I then did a "COPY RKA1: > I did an RKCOPY command and copied the entirety of Drive 0 to Drive 1, with verify turned on, and it copied just fine. > > Spun down both drives, and swapped packs, and tried booting, and it succeeded. I was able to read and write files on drive 0 and drive 1 just fine, so the two drives seem (with only a little testing) seem to interchange packs OK. > > Thanks to all for the advice and discussion. Great! I've found that the RK05 is a pretty bulletproof drive. The vast majority of work that I've done on mine has been to clean the drive from disintegrated foam and replacing said foam (BTW I find that garage door weather stripping works *really* well for the task). It usually takes me 3-4 hours to go from a completely unknown drive to a working/tested drive (cleaning out & replacing the foam is the first step everything after that is dependent upon what I find while I'm doing that). I've worked on about a half dozen drives and they all work flawlessly. I have another 8 or so that I haven't done any serious work on yet mainly because I haven't had to. I'll get to them when I'm bored. ;-) TTFN - Guy From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Sun Jan 11 20:48:36 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 21:48:36 -0500 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: MAN -- feels great, doesn't it? Congrats and nice work. On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 9:36 PM, Rick Bensene wrote: > This afternoon I got the drive racked up, got the drive select set to > drive 1, removed the terminator from drive 0 and plugged in the bus > extension cable, routed it to drive 1 and plugged it into the drive. > > The second drive already had the terminator it in (nice, I now have a > spare). > > I finished routing the cabling and power cable for the second drive, and > then powered up the system. I left it all sit for about 30 minutes > before I tried anything. > > I noted that there was no LOAD indication showing up on drive 1, so I > investigated. There wasn't any bulb there, so I put one in, and it lit up. > > Drive 0 had an OS8 boot pack in it already, and I spun it up, and it went > ready just fine (a relief). I started up my SerialDisk server, and turned > off the HALT switch on the 8/e, hit CLEAR, then raised and lowered the SW > switch. The machine proceeded to boot using the diode ROM bootstrap for the > RK8E. It booted up just fine, and I was able to access the SerialDisk > drive also. > > So, I loaded a RK05 pack that I had formatted on drive 0 into drive 1, and > flicked the LOAD switch. Things were quiet for a moment, then I could > hear that the pack was spinning up, and shortly thereafter, the drive went > ready. > > I did a "DIR RKA1:", and got an empty directory with the appropriate > number of free blocks. > I then did a "COPY RKA1: drive 0 to the A side of the new drive), and let it run. It took a while, > but the copy succeeded just fine. I could run stuff off the new drive just > fine after the copy had finished. Seems all is good. > > I did an RKCOPY command and copied the entirety of Drive 0 to Drive 1, > with verify turned on, and it copied just fine. > > Spun down both drives, and swapped packs, and tried booting, and it > succeeded. I was able to read and write files on drive 0 and drive 1 just > fine, so the two drives seem (with only a little testing) seem to > interchange packs OK. > > Thanks to all for the advice and discussion. > > Rick Bensene > From kylevowen at gmail.com Sun Jan 11 20:56:46 2015 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 20:56:46 -0600 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Rick Bensene wrote: > > I did a "DIR RKA1:", and got an empty directory with the appropriate > number of free blocks. > I then did a "COPY RKA1: drive 0 to the A side of the new drive), and let it run. It took a while, > but the copy succeeded just fine. I could run stuff off the new drive just > fine after the copy had finished. Seems all is good. Glad to hear of your success with both the RK05s and SerialDisk! Nice to hear stories where things just come together. Kyle From linimon at lonesome.com Sun Jan 11 22:03:22 2015 From: linimon at lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 22:03:22 -0600 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150112040322.GB16097@lonesome.com> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 06:36:30PM -0800, Rick Bensene wrote: > I noted that there was no LOAD indication showing up on drive 1, so I > investigated. There wasn't any bulb there, so I put one in, and it > lit up. Don't you just hate it when it's the easy stuff that gives you the stomachache? :-) mcl From silent700 at gmail.com Sun Jan 11 22:05:18 2015 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 22:05:18 -0600 Subject: One for the Kaypro Kids Message-ID: I have scanned and uploaded 12 issues of "Kugram," the official newsletter of the Kaypro Users' Group: https://archive.org/search.php?query=kugram&sort=-publicdate It's really "K?gram," which I'd say as "K-microgram" but the limits of character sets and convenience probably turned it into "koo-gram." And they refer to themselves as "kuggers," not "K-microgrammers." :) One odd thing about these: there's no date on the covers, just Volume and Issue numbers. However, it looks like they started publishing in January 1983. Anyone got any more issues laying around that I can add to this collection? I will pay for postage to get them to me. You can have them back, but I will have chopped their spines for easy scanning. Also, anyone want the physical copies of the ones I've scanned? Pay the postage and I'll send them out (there are two copies of a few of them.) They are chopped as well. Enjoy! -j From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Sun Jan 11 22:13:02 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 23:13:02 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <20150111181655.C25213@shell.lmi.net> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> <20150111181655.C25213@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: heh, 1969 Volkswagen Bus for my daily. (I know, I know, it's not really "antique".) On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 9:29 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > Now, question to ponder, was the market for automobiles *created* and > > > manipulated into existence by market makers and public relationists? > > On Sun, 11 Jan 2015, Al Kossow wrote: > > Automobiles were used by individuals for four generations, the models > > are built to appeal to different personalities and social strata. > > A significant number of people in three of those four generations fixed > > their own cars, so they had some knowledge of how they worked. > A "significant number" of people prior to PC fixed and programmed their > own computers, so they had some knowledge of how they worked. > > > Consumer computers are commodities. You throw them out, and since their > > performance improves orders of magnitude over time most people could > > care less about trying to use an old one. > > Most current cars are commodities. (Kia, anyone?, YUGO???) You throw them > out, and since their gas mileage and reliability improves magnitudes over > time, most people could care less about trying to use an old one. > > > A person in 2015 can pretty easily pick up how to drive a car from their > > great-grandfather. They might even remember the car their > > great-grandfather owned. If you could find one, only an expert who knew > > where to look would have the faintest idea how to use a computer from > > the 1950's or would want to try. > > Besides me and you, . . . > What percentage of current "drivers" know how to adjust ignition timing? > What percentage of current "drivers" know how to use a manual choke? > What percentage of current "drivers" know how to crank start? > (and if they tried, they would probably recreate the apocryphal legend > about WHY Kettering developed the starter motor) > > > if you wanted you use it, you wouldn't be able to because the network > > infrastructure that makes it function will be gone. > leaded gas, and some of the other early fules) are kinda hard to come by. > > > > So, no, there is very little in common with the base of people > > collecting cars and computers and there will never be a popular movement > > to preserve them other that as a platform for playing games. > > Most obsolete cars and computers end up kept for nostalgia, or as > ornaments and toys. > Few, other than ARDs, use the really old ones for their daily driving. > > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > From drlegendre at gmail.com Mon Jan 12 00:46:21 2015 From: drlegendre at gmail.com (drlegendre .) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 00:46:21 -0600 Subject: One for the Kaypro Kids In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: For what it's worth, I just grabbed the first listing and it's dated "JAN-FEB 1986 Vol.4 No.1" on p.1 Thanks for the uploads, very neat. On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:05 PM, Jason T wrote: > I have scanned and uploaded 12 issues of "Kugram," the official > newsletter of the Kaypro Users' Group: > > https://archive.org/search.php?query=kugram&sort=-publicdate > > It's really "K?gram," which I'd say as "K-microgram" but the limits of > character sets and convenience probably turned it into "koo-gram." > And they refer to themselves as "kuggers," not "K-microgrammers." :) > > One odd thing about these: there's no date on the covers, just Volume > and Issue numbers. However, it looks like they started publishing in > January 1983. > > Anyone got any more issues laying around that I can add to this > collection? I will pay for postage to get them to me. You can have > them back, but I will have chopped their spines for easy scanning. > Also, anyone want the physical copies of the ones I've scanned? Pay > the postage and I'll send them out (there are two copies of a few of > them.) They are chopped as well. > > Enjoy! > > -j > From lbickley at bickleywest.com Mon Jan 12 00:49:22 2015 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 22:49:22 -0800 Subject: Resurrecting RK05 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150111224922.10156c9a@asrock.bcwi.net> On Sun, 11 Jan 2015 18:36:30 -0800 "Rick Bensene" wrote: > This afternoon I got the drive racked up, got the drive select set to > drive 1, removed the terminator from drive 0 and plugged in the bus > extension cable, routed it to drive 1 and plugged it into the drive. > > The second drive already had the terminator it in (nice, I now have a > spare). > > I finished routing the cabling and power cable for the second drive, > and then powered up the system. I left it all sit for about 30 > minutes before I tried anything. > > I noted that there was no LOAD indication showing up on drive 1, so I > investigated. There wasn't any bulb there, so I put one in, and it > lit up. > > Drive 0 had an OS8 boot pack in it already, and I spun it up, and it > went ready just fine (a relief). I started up my SerialDisk server, > and turned off the HALT switch on the 8/e, hit CLEAR, then raised and > lowered the SW switch. The machine proceeded to boot using the diode > ROM bootstrap for the RK8E. It booted up just fine, and I was able > to access the SerialDisk drive also. > > So, I loaded a RK05 pack that I had formatted on drive 0 into drive > 1, and flicked the LOAD switch. Things were quiet for a moment, > then I could hear that the pack was spinning up, and shortly > thereafter, the drive went ready. > > I did a "DIR RKA1:", and got an empty directory with the appropriate > number of free blocks. I then did a "COPY RKA1: everything from the SerialDisk drive 0 to the A side of the new > drive), and let it run. It took a while, but the copy succeeded just > fine. I could run stuff off the new drive just fine after the copy > had finished. Seems all is good. > > I did an RKCOPY command and copied the entirety of Drive 0 to Drive > 1, with verify turned on, and it copied just fine. > > Spun down both drives, and swapped packs, and tried booting, and it > succeeded. I was able to read and write files on drive 0 and drive 1 > just fine, so the two drives seem (with only a little testing) seem > to interchange packs OK. Nice work, Rick! Guy helped me with replacing the foam in my RK05. After that I had some debug work to do on the drive (including alignment). That was several years ago - and it's been working perfectly ever since. I've also had good long term success with several RL01s/2s that I have on a variety of systems. One thing I'm a fanatic about - whenever I get a new disk pack, I take it apart and clean all the surfaces of the pack (not just the oxide surfaces) in as close to a clean room environment as I can achieve. This also allows me to examine the oxide carefully for any crash marks or "dings". If I don't like the way a pack looks - I don't use it - period. By being careful, I've only had one head crash (RL02) ever in many years of collecting and restoring. BTW: That crash was not the result of a bad pack - but "operator" error. I somehow mounted the pack incorrectly - but good enough for the heads to load :( Cheers, Lyle -- Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From johannesthelen at hotmail.com Sun Jan 11 14:42:04 2015 From: johannesthelen at hotmail.com (Johannes Thelen) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 22:42:04 +0200 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <020001d02dcd$e3790850$aa6b18f0$@net> References: , <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop>, <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com>, <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com>, <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com>, , <020001d02dcd$e3790850$aa6b18f0$@net> Message-ID: I agree. I think these all Storage Hunters, Storage Wars and other Shit Collectors "reality" TV series, is what to blame here: "What is is?" "Looks like old door but it is just probably pile of shit!" "Man, you get AT LEAST 5000$ of it!" Oh, I can't wait episode when they find full IBM 360... If I'm serious, eBay prices are totally out of this planet. Like that PDP-8, which looks like seen nuclear war (probably twice), driven over Caterpillar D9 and covered manure, price tag: 4800$. Whoooaa! Some weeks ago there was little bit beaten up System/3 on auction, start price was something like 10 000 or more. I offered couple thousand of it, which I think should be quite fair price (at my point of view fair price, I have to pay another thousand of freight, toll and taxes), but seller refused my offer. Even I really like to own one, I'm not needing that bad I spend it more than my car. I think any realistic chance to get some really good stuff is another hobbyist or just pure luck to get donated some old good stuff. But another thing is collectors. Would be reasonable if we have just some machines, those what we really, really want, not hundreds and hundreds just for standing still and collecting dust? What is value for machine which nobody can come to see, nobody use and like Al said, machine which will be dumped to scrapyard by our childrens after our journey ends? Of cource it more than nice for all if somebody collect stuff and understand its (historical or emotional) value to others. I try to do that. If I see some computer which I'm not personally interested, but I can understand somebody other would love to get it, I'll take with me. I'm not that greed that I should take profit of it, just my own costs. I tried keep my collection in reasonable state, I sold and donate all my 80s (home) computers away around year ago. It is totally insane to stock items which not mean to you that much. I have never used some Spectum, so why have to own something like that? What for? When I gave those Commodores and MSXs I made over ten people happy, when they get their childhood computers (...or they just put computers to dark warehouse, waiting for scrapyard...) I think shared fun is better fun. What I want (for my whole lifetime) is just couple minicomputers and mainframes (first is coming!), so I can use all my efforts to bring those back to life, study them and show those to people fairs and etc. I have over 50 good years ahead, but still I have no time to study all computers on the world. I introduce myself later better, but quick version: I'm from Finland and I work automation business. Interested 60s and 70s minis and mains and all things what is related same eras automation and process control. And I'm not big fan of Storage Wars... Johannes ThelenFINLAND > From: cctalk at fahimi.net > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: RE: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 > Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 10:39:07 -0800 > > > The problem is that most collectors pay diddlier squat. > > > > I don't know if that is true. The question is if the seller has something collectable for sale. If you have a beat up, rusted, gutted item buried under junk then it really has no collectable value. It is junk and yes the junk dealer will pay more for it. However, if you have a nicely cared for system that is just being disconnected from service (properly disconnected not just cutting wires because it is easier) in working condition a collector will definitely pay more than the junk dealers. This is true across all collectable items - comics, baseball cards, cars, whatever. No one will pay top dollar for a bunch of moldy, water damages, torn up comics - why should computers be any different? > > Problem is that most sellers are selling junk but want collectable prices. > From tmfdmike at gmail.com Sun Jan 11 16:20:39 2015 From: tmfdmike at gmail.com (Mike Ross) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 17:20:39 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 1:22 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/11/15 9:52 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > >> we're all doing a service >> to posterity by warehousing this stuff >> > > No, you're not. You're being chumps. > Bloody hell Al, how to win friends and influence people - NOT. That was uncalled-for. Mike http://www.corestore.org 'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.' From craig at solomonson.net Sun Jan 11 17:21:59 2015 From: craig at solomonson.net (craig at solomonson.net) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 17:21:59 -0600 Subject: 1972 Univac 8008 Micro - an early 8-bit system Message-ID: <44599A23E2644F74965477900E500370@CraigPC> A few years ago I inquired about an early 8-bit micro in my collection that I did not know the background on. Recently I found out the background of the computer and thought I would share it with the history buffs here. It was built by the Univac R&D Division in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1972. They were carefully monitoring the developments at Intel with regard to their 4004 and 8008 microprocessors being developed. Part of their research was to construct actual computer systems to research and then build an application using the 8008. They started by building a 4-bit system similar to the one I have using the SIM4-01 and MP7-01 boards. That unit was completed and being demonstrated by March of 1972. They ordered the 8-bit system (SIM8-01 and MP7-02) when it was announced in April of 1972 and construction took place during the summer of 1972. Univac designed and built their own interfaces for these systems and used a Teletype for I/O. The Univac 8008 "8-Bit Micro Computer System" in my collection was complete and being demonstrated to various Univac divisions and military organizations by early fall of 1972. I visited with one of the Univac engineers that did some of the programming and he said that only very simple programs were used in demonstrations--like doing simple math operations or it asked for your name, you typed it in on the teletype and it printed some phrase using your name. Univac spared no expense in developing this system as seen in the construction and fabrication of the cases which are thick, deep red translucent plastic. Not only is it a very aesthetically designed, but it has to be one of the very first 8-bit computers fully assembled and operational. Here is a photo of the system: http://solomonson.net/computers/Univac.8008.TTY.jpg I have also done a You Tube video telling more about the system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KojS1ezQIY From silent700 at gmail.com Mon Jan 12 02:15:14 2015 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 02:15:14 -0600 Subject: One for the Kaypro Kids In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 12:46 AM, drlegendre . wrote: > For what it's worth, I just grabbed the first listing and it's dated > "JAN-FEB 1986 Vol.4 No.1" on p.1 Yep, now that I look at the rest, they must have started that sometime in Vol 3. I have no idea why Archive's browser starts certain docs a few - or many - pages into the doc, instead of on page one. Maybe something it's pulling from the PDF? I dunno. j From drlegendre at gmail.com Mon Jan 12 02:24:53 2015 From: drlegendre at gmail.com (drlegendre .) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 02:24:53 -0600 Subject: One for the Kaypro Kids In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Heh, and I thought that was just me.. So no, I don't know why they seem to drop you into a random page, either. But if you think about it, it does make some sense. Page 1 is usually just a cover.. maybe they'd rather give you a preview of the real content, rather than a simple cover sheet, which might even be blank? Or, it could be a bug. ;-) On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 2:15 AM, Jason T wrote: > On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 12:46 AM, drlegendre . > wrote: > > For what it's worth, I just grabbed the first listing and it's dated > > "JAN-FEB 1986 Vol.4 No.1" on p.1 > > Yep, now that I look at the rest, they must have started that sometime in > Vol 3. > > I have no idea why Archive's browser starts certain docs a few - or > many - pages into the doc, instead of on page one. Maybe something > it's pulling from the PDF? I dunno. > > j > From jws at jwsss.com Mon Jan 12 03:28:09 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 01:28:09 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: , <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop>, <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com>, <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com>, <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com>, , <020001d02dcd$e3790850$aa6b18f0$@net> Message-ID: <54B393A9.8070306@jwsss.com> On 1/11/2015 12:42 PM, Johannes Thelen wrote: > I think these all Storage Hunters, Storage Wars and other Shit Collectors "reality" TV series, is what to blame here: > "What is is?" "Looks like old door but it is just probably pile of shit!" "Man, you get AT LEAST 5000$ of it!" > Oh, I can't wait episode when they find full IBM 360... I was on an episode of storage wars this year and we did our best to point out that the computers were not scrap and had value to collectors. I appraised a sale high, but have sale info to back it up. I'm pretty sure the ones on Storage Hunters made no attempt to find someone to actually appraise the find before they destroyed it. Storage Wars did make a search. I don't think the TV programs have anything to do with it, it is a lot of Ebay dealers who are making at least the asking prices be astronomical. I also did point out that the price I found was a current sale, and that most sales were for a lower value. And that the amount was more than powdering the terminal and recovering the gold. The gold value was pointed out, but the intact value would frequently be higher. What would you rather have things move for? If they have no value no-one will bother trying to preserve and sell them. From pontus at Update.UU.SE Mon Jan 12 06:29:11 2015 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 13:29:11 +0100 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 06:01:49PM -0800, Al Kossow wrote: > > So, no, there is very little in common with the base of people > collecting cars and computers and there will never be a > popular movement to preserve them other that as a platform for > playing games. > Not popular or widespread perhaps, but globally there are quite a number of people who wouldn't mind sinking their teeth in restoring a rare mainframe. What I find bothersome is that the techniques for doing so isn't easy to learn. There are only a few with Tonys skill level and even fewer who cares about old electronics and yet fewer who document their knowledge, tools and tricks. >From time to time I see young people (18 or so) enter the classic compuer hobby) but they have an uphill battle getting into the restoration part. There seems to be lots and lots of books for restoring old cars and houses. Where are those books for computers? Tony, when will you write one? /P From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Mon Jan 12 07:00:23 2015 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 14:00:23 +0100 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <004401d02e67$bb4f7400$31ee5c00$@xs4all.nl> > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Pontus Pihlgren > Verzonden: maandag 12 januari 2015 13:29 > Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Onderwerp: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] > > On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 06:01:49PM -0800, Al Kossow wrote: > > > > So, no, there is very little in common with the base of people > > collecting cars and computers and there will never be a popular > > movement to preserve them other that as a platform for playing games. > > > > Not popular or widespread perhaps, but globally there are quite a number of > people who wouldn't mind sinking their teeth in restoring a rare mainframe. > > What I find bothersome is that the techniques for doing so isn't easy to learn. > There are only a few with Tonys skill level and even fewer who cares about old > electronics and yet fewer who document their knowledge, tools and tricks. > > From time to time I see young people (18 or so) enter the classic compuer > hobby) but they have an uphill battle getting into the restoration part. > > There seems to be lots and lots of books for restoring old cars and houses. > Where are those books for computers? > > Tony, when will you write one? > > /P He did wrote a lot of articles about fixing old HP equipment. But you have to be a member of the HPCC to read them. So don't hesitate and become a member.. -Rik From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 12 08:36:02 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 09:36:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Upgrading NatSemi NS23C QBUS memory Message-ID: <20150112143602.D1A0F18C08C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> So it turns out the NatSemi NS23C QBUS memory card can really, really easily be upgraded from 256KB to 1MB, as it has all the necessary traces, jumpers, etc for this capability built into the card - even though the NS23C documentation says nothing about this capability! I found out about this capability when I bought a group of QBUS cards which included two NS23C cards. Looking at the chips, trying to figure out how big the cards were (I didn't at that point know the card model), I saw one had 64Kx1 chips, the other had 256Kx1 - one was 256KB, the other 1MB! Later, looking at the prints, I noticed that the memory chips had all 9 address lines wired (unlike the very similar NS23M card), and there were a couple of jumpers that appeared to adapt the card to 1MB operation. So I tried upgrading the second card, and it worked! The chips are all in sockets, so pulling the 64Kx1's and replacing them with 256Kx1's was easy. There are three jumpers one has to remove/move; alas, they are in the PCB on the top surface, although there are jumper pins there - there's a trace running between the two pins - so you have to cut the traces. The first two jumpers one has to remove are W23 and W24 (right next to the other memory size jumpers), which allow one to increase the maximum memory size to 1MB. The other jumper one has to move, is to move the 'jumper' from W40 to W41; this moves the pickup point for the 'RS0' signal, which indicates which bank of chips (there are 2x18 banks, i.e. 16 data, and separate byte parity) to activate, from address line 17 to 19. (Parenthetically, the way the address logic works on the card is slightly odd; if the card is not on a 'natural' boundary [e.g. a 256KB boundary, if it's a 256KB card], the memory contents are scrambled; the low memory, in bus address terms, is at the top of the card, in chip terms, and the high memory, in bus terms, is at the bottom of the card. I understand why they did it that way, it's the most economical in logic/traces, etc but it's something one would have to remember when looking for a bad memory chip, if the card is set to an address which is not a multiple of its size.) Not sure if anyone else out there has any of these cards, but if so, I'd be interested to hear if anyone does this. Noel From dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com Mon Jan 12 10:10:40 2015 From: dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com (Doug Ingraham) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 09:10:40 -0700 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) Message-ID: This weeks question comes from Warren Stearns. It is a little obscure and specific to the PDP-8 family of computers. What is the source of the greatest latency in the interrupt system on a PDP-8. I have three answers, two of the answers depends on the options fitted to an 8. Why would this have been an important question? Interrupt latency would be extremely important in the field of data collection which was one of the principal early uses of these machines. My particular 8 was used for exactly this purpose in the Summer when it was hauled to a radar site and collected weather research data for the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences. I believe it was used for this from 1969 through 1972. I have several hundred DECTapes with some of this data. The surprising thing is we don't see any problems reading DECTapes that haven't been out of their box since the early 70's. Doug Ingraham PDP-8 S/N 1175 From scaron at umich.edu Mon Jan 12 10:10:44 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 11:10:44 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B393A9.8070306@jwsss.com> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <020001d02dcd$e3790850$aa6b18f0$@net> <54B393A9.8070306@jwsss.com> Message-ID: I mean, I "understand" the mindset of these sellers insofar as they think, oh, there's gotta be one big Fortune 500 company, or some government agency that is just so completely dependent on some legacy system; someday it will break down and they will need a part at any price and I WILL BE THERE! Unfortunately for them it usually doesn't work that way; especially with all the very clever emulation solutions out there, it's been possible to break the dependence of these legacy software systems, on their associated legacy hardware. So it just sits, and sits, and sits and eventually it just goes off to the scrap yard when they don't get any offers that meet their wild expectations. But that's just how it is, dealing with people who are in this as a business. They aren't going to do a deal because they want to see something historic get saved, or they want to see someone who could actually use it, enjoy it. They just want to see cash money on the table. That's fair. They're dealers, not collectors. That said, sometimes I have made an offer and noted "hey, I'm a hobbyist, not a business" and I think it's helped me win the day, so, there are vendors out there sensitive to the hobbyist community (once the inventory gets stale enough, maybe? LOL). I just like to see this stuff run, to have the opportunity to play with it; laying your hands on some real hardware if you can is just a whole different level of experience beyond an emulator, of course, I'm a "hardware guy". Al's post, it didn't bug me. Being in my line of work, I encounter lots of folks who are, ah, a bit blunt, or lacking in the social graces to one degree or another... just comes with the territory. It is, of course, food for thought. His line of thinking is definitely something we should have a cogent response for; my dad is similar in his thinking, he's had a long and successful engineering career and his general opinion is this historical preservation is a waste of time and money, "history is bunk", etc. and I've been trying to convince him of the historicity of his work personally and of all the various bits of ephemera accumulated over the course of his 40+ year career. Because I do believe this work, that was done on these computers, this software, is valuable and historically relevant... I don't believe EE/CS is uniquely "post-historic" and I think all practitioners in the field should consider the historical factors involved in their work... It's important to preserve this stuff; "you don't know where you're going until you know where you've been". Just as the architects and civil engineers have preserved strange old buildings, the aeronautical guys are preserving old aircraft, the mechanical guys are preserving old cars, locomotives, what have you... these are the artifacts of our field, our profession... why be so quick to relegate the entire historical record of computer engineering to the dustbin? Best, Sean On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 4:28 AM, jwsmobile wrote: > > On 1/11/2015 12:42 PM, Johannes Thelen wrote: > >> I think these all Storage Hunters, Storage Wars and other Shit Collectors >> "reality" TV series, is what to blame here: >> "What is is?" "Looks like old door but it is just probably pile of shit!" >> "Man, you get AT LEAST 5000$ of it!" >> Oh, I can't wait episode when they find full IBM 360... >> > I was on an episode of storage wars this year and we did our best to point > out that the computers were not scrap and had value to collectors. I > appraised a sale high, but have sale info to back it up. > > I'm pretty sure the ones on Storage Hunters made no attempt to find > someone to actually appraise the find before they destroyed it. Storage > Wars did make a search. > > I don't think the TV programs have anything to do with it, it is a lot of > Ebay dealers who are making at least the asking prices be astronomical. > > I also did point out that the price I found was a current sale, and that > most sales were for a lower value. And that the amount was more than > powdering the terminal and recovering the gold. The gold value was pointed > out, but the intact value would frequently be higher. > > What would you rather have things move for? If they have no value no-one > will bother trying to preserve and sell them. > From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jan 12 10:21:31 2015 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 11:21:31 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > Automobiles were used by individuals for four generations, the models are > built to appeal to different personalities and social strata. > A significant number of people in three of those four generations fixed > their own cars, so they had some knowledge of how they worked. Almost everyone can relate to autos. In many countries, learning to drive happens during the late teenage / early twenties, and tends to leave an indelible mark on people, as things tend to do at that stage of life. Raise your hand if you ever got laid on a 4341. -- Will From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Mon Jan 12 10:29:04 2015 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave G4UGM) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 16:29:04 -0000 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <00c201d02e84$e185fdc0$a491f940$@gmail.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of William > Donzelli > Sent: 12 January 2015 16:22 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 > > > Automobiles were used by individuals for four generations, the models > > are built to appeal to different personalities and social strata. > > A significant number of people in three of those four generations > > fixed their own cars, so they had some knowledge of how they worked. > > Almost everyone can relate to autos. In many countries, learning to drive > happens during the late teenage / early twenties, and tends to leave an > indelible mark on people, as things tend to do at that stage of life. > > Raise your hand if you ever got laid on a 4341. We did have a female operator at one place I worked who was rather "man hungry" but she never fancied me.... ... but that was a Honeywell DPS300.... > > -- > Will Dave G4UGM From js at cimmeri.com Mon Jan 12 10:35:21 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 11:35:21 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54B3F7C9.3010906@cimmeri.com> On 1/12/2015 11:21 AM, William Donzelli wrote: >> Automobiles were used by individuals for four generations, the models are >> built to appeal to different personalities and social strata. >> A significant number of people in three of those four generations fixed >> their own cars, so they had some knowledge of how they worked. > Almost everyone can relate to autos. In many countries, learning to > drive happens during the late teenage / early twenties, and tends to > leave an indelible mark on people, as things tend to do at that stage > of life. > > Raise your hand if you ever got laid on a 4341. > > -- > Will > Hahaha! I guess I was just hoping that the astonishing amount of genius and human achievement that went into these computers might push them towards more equal *status* with vintage autos. Of course, that would require a utopian outlook. Cars, despite their ubiquity, are relatively crude machines. - J. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jan 12 10:36:00 2015 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 11:36:00 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: > What I find bothersome is that the techniques for doing so isn't > easy to learn. There are only a few with Tonys skill level and > even fewer who cares about old electronics and yet fewer who > document their knowledge, tools and tricks. Isn't that the point of this list and the Vintage Computer Forum? -- Will From mtapley at swri.edu Mon Jan 12 10:45:21 2015 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Tapley, Mark) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 16:45:21 +0000 Subject: Value of classics: (was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000) In-Reply-To: <20150111181655.C25213@shell.lmi.net> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> <20150111181655.C25213@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: All, On Jan 11, 2015, at 8:29 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > Most obsolete cars and computers end up kept for nostalgia, or as > ornaments and toys. > Few, other than ARDs, use the really old ones for their daily driving. Drove my ?77 Datsun B210 to work today, and drove the ?68 Plymouth Sport Suburban (like a Fury III wagon) to pick up my daughter at orchestra practice yesterday. Those are actually my daily drivers. But, they are not orders of magnitude slower than the other cars on the road; they blend in nicely with traffic, have very similar brake and turn signals, etc.; that may be a differentiating factor from my ?classic? computing hardware, as Fred correctly points out. They are indeed less reliable, but not by any means orders of magnitude less reliable. On the subject of broadcasting offers; from a point of view of any individual collector, price is driven up and availability down, and I understand this is seen as a bad thing. From the point of view of the aritfact itself, and of maintaining it into the future, getting it into the hands of the person willing to pay the most for it seems to me to be a good thing. Any item for which someone has paid $1000 is less likely to be thrown out by estate managers than the same item if it cost only $100 or ?free for pickup?. So although I?ve personally missed out on some really nice systems that I was interested in because they were more widely publicized, I?m willing to grin and bear the loss, thinking that the systems found a home that?ll take even better care of them than I would have. From scaron at umich.edu Mon Jan 12 10:54:35 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 11:54:35 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <54B3F7C9.3010906@cimmeri.com> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> <54B3F7C9.3010906@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: I think it can... I mean, am I the only one where playing with these old machines, kept me good and busy, mentally occupied when I /wasn't/ getting laid all those years as an awkward, scruffy kid? LOL. For some subset of people... tech workers... EE/CS types ... I think an old computer can have similar status, as a sentimental object... Not to mention, the /great career/ and /success/ that resulted from playing with these old things when I was a kid... I don't want to be overly crude... but... I will say it worked for me... ;) I will always have some nostalgia for those bits of technology that really sparked the passion in me, got me where I am today. Others must feel similarly, no? Best, Sean On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 11:35 AM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > > > On 1/12/2015 11:21 AM, William Donzelli wrote: > >> Automobiles were used by individuals for four generations, the models are >>> built to appeal to different personalities and social strata. >>> A significant number of people in three of those four generations fixed >>> their own cars, so they had some knowledge of how they worked. >>> >> Almost everyone can relate to autos. In many countries, learning to >> drive happens during the late teenage / early twenties, and tends to >> leave an indelible mark on people, as things tend to do at that stage >> of life. >> >> Raise your hand if you ever got laid on a 4341. >> >> -- >> Will >> >> > Hahaha! > > I guess I was just hoping that the astonishing amount of genius and human > achievement that went into these computers might push them towards more > equal *status* with vintage autos. Of course, that would require a > utopian outlook. > > Cars, despite their ubiquity, are relatively crude machines. > > - J. > From vrs at msn.com Mon Jan 12 11:19:02 2015 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 09:19:02 -0800 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: From: Doug Ingraham: Monday, January 12, 2015 8:10 AM > What is the source of the greatest latency in the interrupt system on a > PDP-8. One answer might be "the skip chain". Since interrupts weren't vectored, it was necessary to query each device in priority order to see if it was currently requesting interrupt service. Another might be "disk I/O". Since most operating systems' device drivers ran with interrupts masked, this meant that when the buffer filled and had to be written, significant real time (milliseconds to seconds, depending on the device) could be involved. The alternative (interrupt driven mass storage) meant replicating significant O/S code, and meant you had to write your own drivers to change storage devices. Vince From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 12:10:50 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 19:10:50 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54B40E2A.4090600@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-12 17:10, Doug Ingraham wrote: > This weeks question comes from Warren Stearns. It is a little obscure and > specific to the PDP-8 family of computers. > > What is the source of the greatest latency in the interrupt system on a > PDP-8. > > I have three answers, two of the answers depends on the options fitted to > an 8. What do you mean by interrupt latency here? The latency before an interrupt is actually propagated to the CPU? The latency before the interrupt is reacted upon by the CPU (assuming interrupt are ON I hope...). The latency internal to a controller before it even might raise the interrupt request? > Why would this have been an important question? Interrupt latency would be > extremely important in the field of data collection which was one of the > principal early uses of these machines. My particular 8 was used for > exactly this purpose in the Summer when it was hauled to a radar site and > collected weather research data for the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences. > I believe it was used for this from 1969 through 1972. I have several > hundred DECTapes with some of this data. The surprising thing is we don't > see any problems reading DECTapes that haven't been out of their box since > the early 70's. Why are you surprised? DECtapes have excellent reliablilty. You can punch holes in them and they will still work. 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 update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 12:17:32 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 19:17:32 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-12 18:19, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: Doug Ingraham: Monday, January 12, 2015 8:10 AM >> What is the source of the greatest latency in the interrupt system on a >> PDP-8. > > One answer might be "the skip chain". Since interrupts weren't > vectored, it was necessary to query each device in priority order to see > if it was currently requesting interrupt service. Ah. Good point. I forget to include this in the possible interpretations of interrupt latency. > Another might be "disk I/O". Since most operating systems' device > drivers ran with interrupts masked, this meant that when the buffer > filled and had to be written, significant real time (milliseconds to > seconds, depending on the device) could be involved. The alternative > (interrupt driven mass storage) meant replicating significant O/S code, > and meant you had to write your own drivers to change storage devices. Uh? Disk I/O is normally DMA. It is not performed while you are in the device driver. The device generates an interrupt when it finishes, at which point you get back into the device driver. While the transfer is going on, you have interrupts enabled, and are running out in "user space" normally. Interrupt driven mass storage was (and is) pretty uncommon, because it requires so much CPU. But of course, for those who do, you transfer only at interrupt time, so you are not bound by the disk speed anyway. And of course, you also have things like OS/8, which runs with interrupts off at all times, to which the answer to the original question would be "OS/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 update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 12:21:55 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 19:21:55 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54B410C3.6030606@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-12 19:17, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2015-01-12 18:19, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >> From: Doug Ingraham: Monday, January 12, 2015 8:10 AM >>> What is the source of the greatest latency in the interrupt system on a >>> PDP-8. >> >> One answer might be "the skip chain". Since interrupts weren't >> vectored, it was necessary to query each device in priority order to see >> if it was currently requesting interrupt service. > > Ah. Good point. I forget to include this in the possible interpretations > of interrupt latency. Actually. This needs some correction. The interrupt skip chain itself is not the latency. The skip chain is just some extra time required to actually jump to the correct interrupt handler. The interrupts are (normally) off until the interrupt handler finishes. The skip chain is just a smaller part of that whole thing. And I assumed that the question was about when interrupts were enabled, which they are not at the point when the skip chain executes. Consider the skip chain just a part of the interrupt handler. It is no different from an external point of view. 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 vrs at msn.com Mon Jan 12 12:34:41 2015 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 10:34:41 -0800 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> Message-ID: From: Johnny Billquist: Monday, January 12, 2015 10:17 AM > Interrupt driven mass storage was (and is) pretty uncommon, because it > requires so much CPU. But of course, for those who do, you transfer only > at interrupt time, so you are not bound by the disk speed anyway. For other systems maybe, but for the PDP-8, not so much. > And of course, you also have things like OS/8, which runs with > interrupts off at all times, to which the answer to the original > question would be "OS/8". :-) Exactly :-) Vince From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 12:42:54 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 19:42:54 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54B415AE.7030408@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-12 19:34, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: Johnny Billquist: Monday, January 12, 2015 10:17 AM >> Interrupt driven mass storage was (and is) pretty uncommon, because it >> requires so much CPU. But of course, for those who do, you transfer >> only at interrupt time, so you are not bound by the disk speed anyway. > > For other systems maybe, but for the PDP-8, not so much. The one I can recall off my head (unless my brain is fooling me) is the RX8. And it's definitely true for that one. If you are thinking of the TD8E then you need to remember that this controller is not even interrupt driven. It is a purely polled controller. And that one is truly horrible, and difficult to even use in an interrupt driven system. It can be sortof made to work with the help of timers, calculations, and temporarily turning off interrupt when you want to do the actual transfers, as it cannot tolerate anything else interrupting the code while a transfer is in progress. >> And of course, you also have things like OS/8, which runs with >> interrupts off at all times, to which the answer to the original >> question would be "OS/8". :-) > > Exactly :-) But anything running constantly with the interrupts off should not be in the "competition". As it's hardly called latency when you just ignore the signal. 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 vrs at msn.com Mon Jan 12 12:43:29 2015 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 10:43:29 -0800 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: <54B410C3.6030606@update.uu.se> References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> <54B410C3.6030606@update.uu.se> Message-ID: From: Johnny Billquist: Monday, January 12, 2015 10:21 AM > On 2015-01-12 19:17, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> On 2015-01-12 18:19, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >>> One answer might be "the skip chain". Since interrupts weren't >>> vectored, it was necessary to query each device in priority order to see >>> if it was currently requesting interrupt service. >> >> Ah. Good point. I forget to include this in the possible interpretations >> of interrupt latency. > > Actually. This needs some correction. The interrupt skip chain itself is > not the latency. The skip chain is just some extra time required to > actually jump to the correct interrupt handler. The interrupts are > (normally) off until the interrupt handler finishes. They'd better be off until the last device is in service, or you'll get re-entry problems in the interrupt service routine. In practice, I've never seen interrupts on during a PDP-8 service routine. > The skip chain is just a smaller part of that whole thing. OK, but it is a significant overhead compared to later (vectored) interrupt system designs, and means it takes longer to get to where you're going. The un-vectored design also means more problems with re-entry, since all the interrupts call the same routine. And the JMS instruction design makes it a bear to write re-entrant code on a PDP-8. I think it comes back to the "what do we mean by latency" question. Vince From vrs at msn.com Mon Jan 12 12:48:50 2015 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 10:48:50 -0800 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: <54B415AE.7030408@update.uu.se> References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> <54B415AE.7030408@update.uu.se> Message-ID: From: Johnny Billquist: Monday, January 12, 2015 10:42 AM >>> And of course, you also have things like OS/8, which runs with >>> interrupts off at all times, to which the answer to the original >>> question would be "OS/8". :-) >> >> Exactly :-) > > But anything running constantly with the interrupts off should not be in > the "competition". As it's hardly called latency when you just ignore > the signal. What I've seen is systems that collect data with interrupts on, but do have to turn interrupts off when calling OS/8 services, or OS/8 will crash. AFAIK, all OS/8 services and drivers require this, even things like the RK05 driver. Vince From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 12:55:12 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 19:55:12 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> <54B410C3.6030606@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54B41890.9060009@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-12 19:43, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: Johnny Billquist: Monday, January 12, 2015 10:21 AM >> On 2015-01-12 19:17, Johnny Billquist wrote: >>> On 2015-01-12 18:19, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >>>> One answer might be "the skip chain". Since interrupts weren't >>>> vectored, it was necessary to query each device in priority order to >>>> see >>>> if it was currently requesting interrupt service. >>> >>> Ah. Good point. I forget to include this in the possible interpretations >>> of interrupt latency. >> >> Actually. This needs some correction. The interrupt skip chain itself >> is not the latency. The skip chain is just some extra time required to >> actually jump to the correct interrupt handler. The interrupts are >> (normally) off until the interrupt handler finishes. > > They'd better be off until the last device is in service, or you'll get > re-entry problems in the interrupt service routine. In practice, I've > never seen interrupts on during a PDP-8 service routine. A more correct statement would be that if you enable interrupts in your interrupt handler you must first save all the context of the current interrupt, so you can restore it before returning from the current interrupt. It's not really that hard. Essentially you must store the contents of address 0, and probably also make sure you do not get a second interrupt from the same device, since I doubt you want to write a reentrant interrupt handler. (But that is normally the case anyway, since most devices need some kind of operation to enable a new interrupt to be generated.) But if another device generates an interrupt, you'll be fine, unless you have some other pieces of code both interrupt handlers would share, in which case there are probably more things to deal with. (Essentially, unless you take special care, code isn't reentrant on a PDP8, but I assume you know this. It's just that unless you share code between interrupt handlers, the only thing needed to be stashed away before enabling interrupts is the return address.) >> The skip chain is just a smaller part of that whole thing. > > OK, but it is a significant overhead compared to later (vectored) > interrupt system designs, and means it takes longer to get to where > you're going. True. But the skip chain is still for most cases just a minor part of the whole execution time of an interrupt handler. > The un-vectored design also means more problems with re-entry, since all > the interrupts call the same routine. And the JMS instruction design > makes it a bear to write re-entrant code on a PDP-8. Yes. But it don't have anything to do with the vectored or not interrupts. In fact, there were some devices who generated vectored interrupts on the PDP-8. The KL8A comes to mind. It's all about the fact that the return address for interrupts is always stored in address 0. Makes no difference how you eventually locate the actual interrupt handler. > I think it comes back to the "what do we mean by latency" question. Yeah. That one I'm still not clear on. :-) 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 update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 12:57:32 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 19:57:32 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> <54B415AE.7030408@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54B4191C.6070409@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-12 19:48, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: Johnny Billquist: Monday, January 12, 2015 10:42 AM >>>> And of course, you also have things like OS/8, which runs with >>>> interrupts off at all times, to which the answer to the original >>>> question would be "OS/8". :-) >>> >>> Exactly :-) >> >> But anything running constantly with the interrupts off should not be >> in the "competition". As it's hardly called latency when you just >> ignore the signal. > > What I've seen is systems that collect data with interrupts on, but do > have to turn interrupts off when calling OS/8 services, or OS/8 will crash. > > AFAIK, all OS/8 services and drivers require this, even things like the > RK05 driver. Right. But it's not that things will crash in OS/8, but you will get interrupts as a result of OS/8 operations, which you most probably do not want, and might not even know how to deal with. And stealing the completion of an operation through an interrupt might mean OS/8 never notice that an operation completes. So you will get OS/8 hangs, and your interrupt system will get interrupts you never expected. 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 ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 12 13:33:09 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 19:33:09 +0000 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <004401d02e67$bb4f7400$31ee5c00$@xs4all.nl> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE>, <004401d02e67$bb4f7400$31ee5c00$@xs4all.nl> Message-ID: > > He did wrote a lot of articles about fixing old HP equipment. > But you have to be a member of the HPCC to read them. > So don't hesitate and become a member.. Actually, the series on the HP98x0 calculators and that on the HP9866A printer are available (reformatted, and in one 'manual') from the Australian HP museum site. Anyone can read them. Not that I want to put people off joining HPCC of course :-) -tony From vrs at msn.com Mon Jan 12 13:43:30 2015 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 11:43:30 -0800 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: <54B41890.9060009@update.uu.se> References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> <54B410C3.6030606@update.uu.se> <54B41890.9060009@update.uu.se> Message-ID: From: Johnny Billquist: Monday, January 12, 2015 10:55 AM > A more correct statement would be that if you enable interrupts in your > interrupt handler you must first save all the context of the current > interrupt, so you can restore it before returning from the current > interrupt. > It's not really that hard. Essentially you must store the contents of > address 0, and probably also make sure you do not get a second interrupt > from the same device, since I doubt you want to write a reentrant > interrupt handler. (But that is normally the case anyway, since most > devices need some kind of operation to enable a new interrupt to be > generated.) You've never tried to do it on a PDP-8, I expect. Since there's no stack, and static storage won't be reentrant, it's a nightmare. At a minimum, you'd need a routine to emulate "push"/"pop" and "call" type operations, and you'll have to remember to have interrupts off when you call them, unless you want to use MQ to store the return address or something. (Even then the stack routines will need to disable interrupts while they do their thing). Another way to view it is that interrupts effectively introduce a kind of multi-threading, with the attendant complexity. That's really incompatible with an "all static storage" machine like the PDP-8, as everyone's always stomping your variables (even temporaries and return addresses). Vince From pontus at update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 13:53:24 2015 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 20:53:24 +0100 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <54B42634.1000800@update.uu.se> On 01/12/2015 05:36 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> What I find bothersome is that the techniques for doing so isn't >> easy to learn. There are only a few with Tonys skill level and >> even fewer who cares about old electronics and yet fewer who >> document their knowledge, tools and tricks. > Isn't that the point of this list and the Vintage Computer Forum? > Certainly, and the mailing list and it's archives is invaluable. But as an introduction to the subject? not so much. It would be nice to hand someone a book which at least cursory explains capacitor reforming, how to read and write ROM's, how to repair corroded PCB's or what to do if the copper has lifted from the board. /P From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 12 13:53:41 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 19:53:41 +0000 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org>,<20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: > Not popular or widespread perhaps, but globally there are quite > a number of people who wouldn't mind sinking their teeth in > restoring a rare mainframe. Yes. me for one (I've never worked on a mainframe...) > > What I find bothersome is that the techniques for doing so isn't > easy to learn. There are only a few with Tonys skill level and Actually, a lot of things are not easy to learn. I fact I struggle to think of anything worthwhile that is. That said, nobody taught me how to understand and repair computers. I just started reading schematics and they started to make sense. What you need is a good understanding of digital electronics (and there are very few good books on this, amazingly) a good understanding of analogue electronics (ditto), and really, then just to spend many hours fiddling with classic computers, looking at things with the 'scope and logic analyser, and thinking about what you are doing. > even fewer who cares about old electronics and yet fewer who > document their knowledge, tools and tricks. I do try. > > From time to time I see young people (18 or so) enter the > classic compuer hobby) but they have an uphill battle getting > into the restoration part. Hang on.. When I started, there was no internet. There were no mailing lists like this one. There were no data sheets and service manuals available to download. I would have a schematic if I was lucky (otherwise I would have to trace it out), I would hopefully be able to get data sheets or at least pinouts of the main ICs. To be fair it is a _lot_ easier now. The main skill I see lacking now is the ability to reason logically. This has nothing to do with classic computer restoration per se, but it is obviously essential here. But I see it, in all areas, all the time. > > There seems to be lots and lots of books for restoring old cars > and houses. Where are those books for computers? > > Tony, when will you write one? Hang on. I post here. I write repair articles for HPCC. Every year I give a talk at HPCC on the internals of some old HP device (last time it was the HP11305 disk controller for the HP9830, something that it is not easy to find technical info on [1]). What more do you want? (Said with tongue firmly in cheek). [1] If you tell me you can download the schematics, well, where did they come from... More seriously, I have written repair information for specific machines, but it tends to assume you already know how a computer works, and need to know how _that_ computer works. In other words I'll describe the microcode sequencer of the 98x0 processor, but will assume you know what microcode is and how it is used in a processor control system I have often thought about writing a more general 'book' on classic computer repair but it either ends up far too trivial (explaining gates and flipflops and linear PSUs,) or very machine-specific. The problem is that in the time period we are talking about there was almost nothing that every machine did the same way. Even something as simple as a keyboard button could be a mechanical contact, or a change in capacitance (then think of both Keytronics and the IBM PC keyboard), or inductive coupling (GE/ICL Termiprinter) or inductive damping (HP9810/HP9820) or a magnetically saturated core (HP9845). Or even mechanical encoding to ASCII operating switch contacts (Teletype Model 33). To cover every way that, say, a processor was designed would take many books, and even then there would be something I'd missed out. -tony From js at cimmeri.com Mon Jan 12 13:59:04 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 14:59:04 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <54B42634.1000800@update.uu.se> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> <54B42634.1000800@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54B42788.3060108@cimmeri.com> On 1/12/2015 2:53 PM, Pontus wrote: > On 01/12/2015 05:36 PM, William > Donzelli wrote: >>> What I find bothersome is that the >>> techniques for doing so isn't >>> easy to learn. There are only a few >>> with Tonys skill level and >>> even fewer who cares about old >>> electronics and yet fewer who >>> document their knowledge, tools and >>> tricks. >> Isn't that the point of this list and >> the Vintage Computer Forum? >> > > Certainly, and the mailing list and > it's archives is invaluable. But as an > introduction to the subject? not so much. > > It would be nice to hand someone a > book which at least cursory explains > capacitor reforming, how to read and > write ROM's, how to repair corroded > PCB's or what to do if the copper has > lifted from the board. It'd be a massive undertaking, simply because there's so many different streams of arcane knowledge that one brings to bear on such tasks. Everyone will be a bit different, but for myself, I'm bringing a lifetime of experience of working with my hands to bear on a restoration type project... whether it's something my dad showed me when I was 12, to something I figured out later, to something I read about on the internet. Being a "restorer" is actually being a person who has mastered a craft, and who is never done learning that craft. - J. From pontus at update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 14:21:13 2015 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 21:21:13 +0100 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org>, <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <54B42CB9.8050009@update.uu.se> On 01/12/2015 08:53 PM, tony duell wrote: > Actually, a lot of things are not easy to learn. I fact I struggle to think > of anything worthwhile that is. Well, perhaps my choice of word wasn't the best. I certainly didn't mean to say that the subject matter should be made "easy". Computer restoration is challenging and difficult, I acknowledge that. What I wanted was to make the subject more approachable. > Hang on. I post here. I write repair articles for HPCC. Every year I give > a talk at HPCC on the internals of some old HP device (last time it > was the HP11305 disk controller for the HP9830, something that it is > not easy to find technical info on [1]). What more do you want? > (Said with tongue firmly in cheek). :) And I try to read (and understand) most of what you write, even if it's not directly related to what I collect. What is this HPCC that you > I have often thought about writing a more general 'book' on classic computer > repair but it either ends up far too trivial (explaining gates and flipflops and > linear PSUs,) or very machine-specific. When I think more about it. I think I want a book that guides me through restoration of computers from digital between 1970 and 1980, since that is my main interest. I realize that a book about restoring micros from 1980 and onwards would be a very different book. Still, I don't think either of those books exist. Regards, Pontus. From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 14:38:38 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 21:38:38 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> <54B410C3.6030606@update.uu.se> <54B41890.9060009@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54B430CE.4040301@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-12 20:43, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: Johnny Billquist: Monday, January 12, 2015 10:55 AM >> A more correct statement would be that if you enable interrupts in >> your interrupt handler you must first save all the context of the >> current interrupt, so you can restore it before returning from the >> current interrupt. >> It's not really that hard. Essentially you must store the contents of >> address 0, and probably also make sure you do not get a second >> interrupt from the same device, since I doubt you want to write a >> reentrant interrupt handler. (But that is normally the case anyway, >> since most devices need some kind of operation to enable a new >> interrupt to be generated.) > > You've never tried to do it on a PDP-8, I expect. Since there's no > stack, and static storage won't be reentrant, it's a nightmare. At a > minimum, you'd need a routine to emulate "push"/"pop" and "call" type > operations, and you'll have to remember to have interrupts off when you > call them, unless you want to use MQ to store the return address or > something. (Even then the stack routines will need to disable interrupts > while they do their thing). Of course I've done it. I suspect there is not much I have not done on a PDP-8. I've written programs on PDP-8 systems for over 30 years by now... No, you do not need a push/pop to have interrupts enabled while in an interrupt handler on a PDP-8. As long as you know the same interrupt will not trigger, all you need to do is store the return address from 0 somewhere else before ION, and then write it back to 0 after IOFF. Like I said, with the provisions that you do not reuse the same functions from different interrupt handlers, and you know that the same device don't interrupt again. > Another way to view it is that interrupts effectively introduce a kind > of multi-threading, with the attendant complexity. That's really > incompatible with an "all static storage" machine like the PDP-8, as > everyone's always stomping your variables (even temporaries > and return addresses). Yes. And some of the same issues are true no matter what architecture. 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 robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 12 15:03:16 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 21:03:16 -0000 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <54B42CB9.8050009@update.uu.se> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org>, <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> <54B42CB9.8050009@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <00d901d02eab$2fbf83f0$8f3e8bd0$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Pontus > Sent: 12 January 2015 20:21 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] > > On 01/12/2015 08:53 PM, tony duell wrote: > > Actually, a lot of things are not easy to learn. I fact I struggle to > > think of anything worthwhile that is. > > Well, perhaps my choice of word wasn't the best. I certainly didn't mean to say > that the subject matter should be made "easy". Computer restoration is > challenging and difficult, I acknowledge that. What I wanted was to make the > subject more approachable. > > > Hang on. I post here. I write repair articles for HPCC. Every year I > > give a talk at HPCC on the internals of some old HP device (last time > > it was the HP11305 disk controller for the HP9830, something that it > > is not easy to find technical info on [1]). What more do you want? > > (Said with tongue firmly in cheek). > > :) And I try to read (and understand) most of what you write, even if it's not > directly related to what I collect. What is this HPCC that you > > > I have often thought about writing a more general 'book' on classic > > computer repair but it either ends up far too trivial (explaining > > gates and flipflops and linear PSUs,) or very machine-specific. > > When I think more about it. I think I want a book that guides me through > restoration of computers from digital between 1970 and 1980, since that is my > main interest. I realize that a book about restoring micros from > 1980 and onwards would be a very different book. > > Still, I don't think either of those books exist. > > Regards, > Pontus. I know we are mostly old curmudgeons around here (including me!), and I very much like my printed books, but perhaps technology could come to the rescue here. It wouldn't be hard to create a wiki where this kind of information is collected, rather than distributed all over a mailing list. And, with many hands, the work is much lighter. Perhaps a bit idealistic, but the idea *could* fly if there was enough critical mass. I can imagine sections on general techniques and then on particular brands and machines, and there wouldn't need to be a restriction on subject matter in terms of periods in history or other dimensions, just whatever people are able to contribute. I can also imagine edit wars if there is disagreement about something (eg capacitor reforming), but we could try to be civilised and present the differing opinions in that case. Isn't there someone on the list who has been offering lots of server capacity? It could be hosted there. Regards Rob From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 12 15:29:32 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 21:29:32 +0000 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <54B42CB9.8050009@update.uu.se> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org>, <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> , <54B42CB9.8050009@update.uu.se> Message-ID: > > Well, perhaps my choice of word wasn't the best. I certainly didn't mean > to say that the subject matter should be made "easy". Computer > restoration is challenging and difficult, I acknowledge that. What I > wanted was to make the subject more approachable. The problem is that if you oversimplify things you can actually make them harder to understand. I never understood telephone exchanges until I finally found a book that explained the operation of an actual small exchange at the relay level, with complete schematics. It then all made a lot of sense. > :) And I try to read (and understand) most of what you write, even if > it's not directly related to what I collect. What is this HPCC that you HPCC is the 'Handheld and Portable Computer Club' (http://www.hpcc.org/) It is not a coincidence that 'Handheld and Portable' starts with the same letters as 'Hewlett Packard' :-). It started out as a club for users of the HP41, then covered the 71B, RPL machines, and so on. It has now diversified somewhat and it would be fair to describe it as a bunch of eccentrics that produces a little booklet 4 time a year (we hope!) with articles mostly relating to HP calculators. Some of the members meet once a month in London and discuss just about anything and everything. At the last meeting I found myself chatting about repairing the Model 33 ASR Teletype, programming the TRS80 Model 4, a detail of the memory control system of the HP9830, a detail of a certain classic car carburettor, and a lot more besides... > When I think more about it. I think I want a book that guides me through > restoration of computers from digital between 1970 and 1980, since that In other words you want a book that covers (at least) PDP8s, PDP10s, PDP11s, VAXen and all their peripherals. Given that DEC wrote technical and maintence manuals for those machines, and the total thickness of all such manuals would be 10s of feet at least, I don't think it's going to get covered in detail in one book. -tony From vrs at msn.com Mon Jan 12 15:34:40 2015 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 13:34:40 -0800 Subject: Reentrant PDP-8 code (was Re: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112)) In-Reply-To: <54B430CE.4040301@update.uu.se> References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> <54B410C3.6030606@update.uu.se> <54B41890.9060009@update.uu.se> <54B430CE.4040301@update.uu.se> Message-ID: From: Johnny Billquist: Monday, January 12, 2015 12:38 PM > Of course I've done it. I suspect there is not much I have not done on a > PDP-8. I've written programs on PDP-8 systems for over 30 years by now... > No, you do not need a push/pop to have interrupts enabled while in an > interrupt handler on a PDP-8. As long as you know the same interrupt > will not trigger, all you need to do is store the return address from 0 > somewhere else before ION, and then write it back to 0 after IOFF. Well, and the AC and flags and any other context that the ISR needs. Essentially, a "one deep stack" for the context, which is much easier to implement. > Like I said, with the provisions that you do not reuse the same > functions from different interrupt handlers, and you know that the same > device don't interrupt again. Yep. Generally, you can't share any storage between the various routines while the interrupts are on, and you have to also prevent re-entry of the routines you are already in. Vince From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 15:38:15 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 22:38:15 +0100 Subject: Reentrant PDP-8 code (was Re: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112)) In-Reply-To: References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> <54B410C3.6030606@update.uu.se> <54B41890.9060009@update.uu.se> <54B430CE.4040301@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54B43EC7.4080103@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-12 22:34, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: Johnny Billquist: Monday, January 12, 2015 12:38 PM >> Of course I've done it. I suspect there is not much I have not done on >> a PDP-8. I've written programs on PDP-8 systems for over 30 years by >> now... >> No, you do not need a push/pop to have interrupts enabled while in an >> interrupt handler on a PDP-8. As long as you know the same interrupt >> will not trigger, all you need to do is store the return address from >> 0 somewhere else before ION, and then write it back to 0 after IOFF. > > Well, and the AC and flags and any other context that the ISR needs. > Essentially, a "one deep stack" for the context, which is much easier > to implement. Every interrupt, even if not nested, needs to save the AC, link, and a bunch of other stuff. But yes, if you centralize that part, then it also needs to be stashed away before you allow another interrupt. It's two more words. >> Like I said, with the provisions that you do not reuse the same >> functions from different interrupt handlers, and you know that the >> same device don't interrupt again. > > Yep. Generally, you can't share any storage between the various > routines while the interrupts are on, and you have to also prevent > re-entry of the routines you are already in. Yep. 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 js at cimmeri.com Mon Jan 12 15:53:54 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 16:53:54 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <00d901d02eab$2fbf83f0$8f3e8bd0$@ntlworld.com> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org>, <20150112122911.GA29813@Update.UU.SE> <54B42CB9.8050009@update.uu.se> <00d901d02eab$2fbf83f0$8f3e8bd0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54B44272.2050902@cimmeri.com> On 1/12/2015 4:03 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: > I know we are mostly old curmudgeons around here (including me!), and > I very much like my printed books, but perhaps technology could come > to the rescue here. It wouldn't be hard to create a wiki where this > kind of information is collected, rather than distributed all over a > mailing list. And, with many hands, the work is much lighter. Perhaps > a bit idealistic, but the idea *could* fly if there was enough > critical mass. I can imagine sections on general techniques and then > on particular brands and machines, and there wouldn't need to be a > restriction on subject matter in terms of periods in history or other > dimensions, just whatever people are able to contribute. I can also > imagine edit wars if there is disagreement about something (eg > capacitor reforming), but we could try to be civilised and present the > differing opinions in that case. Isn't there someone on the list who > has been offering lots of server capacity? It could be hosted there. > Regards Rob It's not just information. It's more craft, skill, handmanship. Those are kinds of things are taught by apprenticeship.. not by book reading. The right information, in the right hands, produces restoration. - J. From dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com Mon Jan 12 17:57:41 2015 From: dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com (Doug Ingraham) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 16:57:41 -0700 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: <54B40E2A.4090600@update.uu.se> References: <54B40E2A.4090600@update.uu.se> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 11:10 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > What do you mean by interrupt latency here? > The latency before an interrupt is actually propagated to the CPU? The > latency before the interrupt is reacted upon by the CPU (assuming interrupt > are ON I hope...). The latency internal to a controller before it even > might raise the interrupt request? By latency I mean the time between when the interrupt source signals the presence of an interrupt and when the JMS Z 0 to field 0 takes place. Doug From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 18:20:13 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 01:20:13 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: References: <54B40E2A.4090600@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54B464BD.4030806@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-13 00:57, Doug Ingraham wrote: > On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 11:10 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> What do you mean by interrupt latency here? >> The latency before an interrupt is actually propagated to the CPU? The >> latency before the interrupt is reacted upon by the CPU (assuming interrupt >> are ON I hope...). The latency internal to a controller before it even >> might raise the interrupt request? > > > By latency I mean the time between when the interrupt source signals the > presence of an interrupt and when the JMS Z 0 to field 0 takes place. Ok. Assuming interrupts are on. The longest time would be if we have a data break going on at the same time, since that is done before the interrupt signal is sampled. And preferrably an instruction that takes a long time. Longest would (I think) be the EAE mode B DIV instruction. Without the EAE, an indirect memory reference would be the longest instruction I can think of. On top of that, you would also have one data break cycle. However, I wonder if the 3 cycle data break (what was it actually called - my memory is blank right now) actually do 3 DMAs during one instruction cycle. But that is possible, which would then definitely add a bunch of time. What that adds up to in time depends on the CPU... 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 rick at rickmurphy.net Mon Jan 12 20:19:58 2015 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 21:19:58 -0500 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <201501130220.t0D2K0UU007253@rickmurphy.net> At 01:17 PM 1/12/2015, Johnny Billquist wrote: >And of course, you also have things like OS/8, which runs with >interrupts off at all times, to which the answer to the original >question would be "OS/8". :-) The OS/8 FORTRAN runtime (FRTS) runs with interrupts enabled. OS/8 in general doesn't care if interrupts are on, which is how OS/78 (or was it OS/278?) symbionts worked. So, you can't blame OS/8 for getting into the way. There's nothing typically in OS/8 that requires interrupts to be disabled, but it's true that most of OS/8 doesn't do anything to handle interrrupts. Interrupt latency? Either you're looking for the length of the "skip chain", or interrupt blockers like CIF instructions. -Rick From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 20:36:11 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 03:36:11 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: <201501130220.t0D2K0UU007253@rickmurphy.net> References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> <201501130220.t0D2K0UU007253@rickmurphy.net> Message-ID: <54B4849B.7030901@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-13 03:19, Rick Murphy wrote: > At 01:17 PM 1/12/2015, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> And of course, you also have things like OS/8, which runs with >> interrupts off at all times, to which the answer to the original >> question would be "OS/8". :-) > > The OS/8 FORTRAN runtime (FRTS) runs with interrupts enabled. OS/8 in > general doesn't care if interrupts are on, which is how OS/78 (or was it > OS/278?) symbionts worked. So, you can't blame OS/8 for getting into the > way. There's nothing typically in OS/8 that requires interrupts to be > disabled, but it's true that most of OS/8 doesn't do anything to handle > interrrupts. Well, not entirely true. Yes, FRTS runs with interrupts enabled. But it disables them before jumping into OS/8, unless I remember wrong. It's been a very long time since I mucked around inside FRTS... But the problem is that if you have interrupt enabled, and OS/8 do some I/O, you will get the interrupt. Meanwhile the OS/8 device driver is sitting in a polling loop waiting for the interface to indicate it is finished. The problem is that whenever it is finished, you get the interrupt. The only way to dismiss the interrupt is to remove the finish flag, which means the OS/8 device driver will never see it set. And you "hang". The other potential problem being that you might get interrupts from whatever OS/8 is playing around with. Some of which you might not actually be prepared to handle. Although this is possibly less of a point, since there is a risk those devices might generate an interrupt as soon as you enable interrupts anyway. Depends on the device. > Interrupt latency? Either you're looking for the length of the "skip > chain", or interrupt blockers like CIF instructions. Continue reading the thread. Seems he's looking for the hardware response to the raising of the interrupt pin on the CPU, and I assume under the condition that interrupts are enabled. 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 update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 20:37:48 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 03:37:48 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: <201501130220.t0D2K0UU007253@rickmurphy.net> References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> <201501130220.t0D2K0UU007253@rickmurphy.net> Message-ID: <54B484FC.1070406@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-13 03:19, Rick Murphy wrote: > At 01:17 PM 1/12/2015, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> And of course, you also have things like OS/8, which runs with >> interrupts off at all times, to which the answer to the original >> question would be "OS/8". :-) > > The OS/8 FORTRAN runtime (FRTS) runs with interrupts enabled. OS/8 in > general doesn't care if interrupts are on, which is how OS/78 (or was it > OS/278?) symbionts worked. So, you can't blame OS/8 for getting into the > way. There's nothing typically in OS/8 that requires interrupts to be > disabled, but it's true that most of OS/8 doesn't do anything to handle > interrrupts. By the way. Thanks for reminding me about the OS/8 printer background job. I should go back and recheck how that actually did it, as a simple interrupt enabled setup will have problems, which I mentioned. I think it might have been OS/278 only, which also means there might be slushware required... 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 jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Mon Jan 12 20:50:00 2015 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 21:50:00 -0500 Subject: Some Bugs in RT-11 Message-ID: <54B487D8.70506@compsys.to> While this post is specifically for Tim Shoppa (as the only person that I can think of who can answer), if anyone else has the background, please reply. I believe that I have found a rather inconvenient bug in SDHX.SYS from version Y01.16 (from V05.06 of RT-11) that can cause RT-11 to crash. If I am not mistaken, the same bug is also present in the previous version V01.00 of SDHX.SYS from V05.05 of RT-11. Unfortunately, the bug can cause RT-11 to crash There also seems to be another bug which results in the extended memory status being displayed incorrectly, but otherwise does not cause an actual problem. I realize that RT-11 is rarely used these days and that SDHX.SYS is used even less frequently, but I suggest that these errors really need to be fixed. I would appreciate any suggestions as to how to proceed. Jerome Fine From rick at rickmurphy.net Mon Jan 12 21:20:21 2015 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 22:20:21 -0500 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: <54B4849B.7030901@update.uu.se> References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> <201501130220.t0D2K0UU007253@rickmurphy.net> <54B4849B.7030901@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <201501130320.t0D3KNDf010107@rickmurphy.net> At 09:36 PM 1/12/2015, Johnny Billquist wrote: >On 2015-01-13 03:19, Rick Murphy wrote: >>At 01:17 PM 1/12/2015, Johnny Billquist wrote: >>>And of course, you also have things like OS/8, which runs with >>>interrupts off at all times, to which the answer to the original >>>question would be "OS/8". :-) >> >>The OS/8 FORTRAN runtime (FRTS) runs with interrupts enabled. OS/8 in >>general doesn't care if interrupts are on, which is how OS/78 (or was it >>OS/278?) symbionts worked. So, you can't blame OS/8 for getting into the >>way. There's nothing typically in OS/8 that requires interrupts to be >>disabled, but it's true that most of OS/8 doesn't do anything to handle >>interrrupts. > >Well, not entirely true. Yes, FRTS runs with interrupts enabled. But >it disables them before jumping into OS/8, unless I remember wrong. Well, not entirely relevant. You recommended that I 'Read the thread' but I did. I'm responding to the misinformed statements that OS/8 always runs with interrupts disabled, which is false. FRTS basically requires that I/O drivers be set up before execution starts, so no OS/8 I/O handlers are called once the runtime gets running (assuming just FORTRAN source.) ADVENT does dynamic unit assignment, and wraps OS/8 USR calls to disable/enable interrupts. >It's been a very long time since I mucked around inside FRTS... It's been a few months or so for me :) And yes, OS/8 drivers can be called with interrupts enabled. >>Interrupt latency? Either you're looking for the length of the "skip >>chain", or interrupt blockers like CIF instructions. > >Continue reading the thread. Seems he's looking for the hardware >response to the raising of the interrupt pin on the CPU, and I assume >under the condition that interrupts are enabled. I've read the thread, which is why I brought up the CIF stall, since nobody else has mentioned it. Maybe that's not what's being asked here, but if you're asking what can cause latency with interrupts enabled once a device generates an interrupt, the fact that CIF instructions delay interrupts until the next JMP instruction seems to be what's being asked here. -Rick From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 12 22:09:14 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 05:09:14 +0100 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) In-Reply-To: <201501130320.t0D3KNDf010107@rickmurphy.net> References: <54B40FBC.1080309@update.uu.se> <201501130220.t0D2K0UU007253@rickmurphy.net> <54B4849B.7030901@update.uu.se> <201501130320.t0D3KNDf010107@rickmurphy.net> Message-ID: <54B49A6A.2010704@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-13 04:20, Rick Murphy wrote: > At 09:36 PM 1/12/2015, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> On 2015-01-13 03:19, Rick Murphy wrote: >>> At 01:17 PM 1/12/2015, Johnny Billquist wrote: >>>> And of course, you also have things like OS/8, which runs with >>>> interrupts off at all times, to which the answer to the original >>>> question would be "OS/8". :-) >>> >>> The OS/8 FORTRAN runtime (FRTS) runs with interrupts enabled. OS/8 in >>> general doesn't care if interrupts are on, which is how OS/78 (or was it >>> OS/278?) symbionts worked. So, you can't blame OS/8 for getting into the >>> way. There's nothing typically in OS/8 that requires interrupts to be >>> disabled, but it's true that most of OS/8 doesn't do anything to handle >>> interrrupts. >> >> Well, not entirely true. Yes, FRTS runs with interrupts enabled. But >> it disables them before jumping into OS/8, unless I remember wrong. > > Well, not entirely relevant. You recommended that I 'Read the thread' > but I did. I'm responding to the misinformed statements that OS/8 always > runs with interrupts disabled, which is false. FRTS basically requires > that I/O drivers be set up before execution starts, so no OS/8 I/O > handlers are called once the runtime gets running (assuming just FORTRAN > source.) This becomes nit-picking. But since it can be fun, and maybe someone else might find it interesting... You could argue that once a program starts, it has full control of the machine, and can of course turn on and off interrupts as much as it wants to, even though it was started from OS/8. Of course OS/8 don't mind, since OS/8 is not even aware, or active, or involved. OS/8 only comes into the picture if you actually call OS/8. At which point the question becomes relevant. Otherwise you could regard OS/8 just as a boot loader. > ADVENT does dynamic unit assignment, and wraps OS/8 USR calls to > disable/enable interrupts. Right. So, one of the situations where OS/8 gets called, and then interrupts must be off. >> It's been a very long time since I mucked around inside FRTS... > > It's been a few months or so for me :) And yes, OS/8 drivers can be > called with interrupts enabled. Some... Try it with the TTY driver if you want some fun. :-) >>> Interrupt latency? Either you're looking for the length of the "skip >>> chain", or interrupt blockers like CIF instructions. >> >> Continue reading the thread. Seems he's looking for the hardware >> response to the raising of the interrupt pin on the CPU, and I assume >> under the condition that interrupts are enabled. > > I've read the thread, which is why I brought up the CIF stall, since > nobody else has mentioned it. > > Maybe that's not what's being asked here, but if you're asking what can > cause latency with interrupts enabled once a device generates an > interrupt, the fact that CIF instructions delay interrupts until the > next JMP instruction seems to be what's being asked here. La la.... Sorry. I got stuck on the skip chain, and didn't properly read your next idea. Of course! CIF can block an interrupt indefinitely! Nice one! I totally forgot that one. That is the best suggestion I've seen so far. 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 chuck.mcmanis at gmail.com Mon Jan 12 23:13:13 2015 From: chuck.mcmanis at gmail.com (Chuck McManis) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 21:13:13 -0800 Subject: Excess Solutions BBQ Saturday In-Reply-To: <54B064CF.9020504@bitsavers.org> References: <20150108142438.6c6a16fa@asrock.bcwi.net> <54B064CF.9020504@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: For reasons I don't quite understand, this was held up as spam and I needed to approve it. I think Google pushed out some change to their groups product again and suddenly the gears seem to doing something. --Chuck On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 3:31 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > For people in the SF Bay area > > Excess Solutions moved to 1555 7th, across from Spartan Stadium and I > went down to see the new place. Mike told me he's having a grand opening > BBQ tomorrow. > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Bay Area Computer Collectors" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to baccl+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to baccl at googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/baccl. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. From mstaunton at roadrunner.com Mon Jan 12 21:27:30 2015 From: mstaunton at roadrunner.com (Matthew Staunton) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 19:27:30 -0800 Subject: San Diego: 1991 era AS400 Message-ID: <203CEC72-C209-464B-9A34-B3AFF9ECA947@roadrunner.com> hello all i just joined and am based in Carlsbad CA. I have several servers from the 1991 (yes they include fully functional CRTs and keyboard/mouse). After several conversions with JJ owner and curator for the San Diego Museum in Australia he suggested i contact this forum. Is anybody interested in these? I can also be reached at 760703096 From b4 at gewt.net Tue Jan 13 00:58:33 2015 From: b4 at gewt.net (Cory Smelosky) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 01:58:33 -0500 Subject: San Diego: 1991 era AS400 In-Reply-To: <203CEC72-C209-464B-9A34-B3AFF9ECA947@roadrunner.com> References: <203CEC72-C209-464B-9A34-B3AFF9ECA947@roadrunner.com> Message-ID: Pricing and if you'd ship any is a good starting point too Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 12, 2015, at 22:27, Matthew Staunton wrote: > > hello all > i just joined and am based in Carlsbad CA. I have several servers from the 1991 (yes they include fully functional CRTs and keyboard/mouse). > After several conversions with JJ owner and curator for the San Diego Museum in Australia he suggested i contact this forum. Is anybody interested in these? I can also be reached at 760703096 From b4 at gewt.net Tue Jan 13 00:58:33 2015 From: b4 at gewt.net (Cory Smelosky) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 01:58:33 -0500 Subject: San Diego: 1991 era AS400 In-Reply-To: <203CEC72-C209-464B-9A34-B3AFF9ECA947@roadrunner.com> References: <203CEC72-C209-464B-9A34-B3AFF9ECA947@roadrunner.com> Message-ID: Pricing and if you'd ship any is a good starting point too Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 12, 2015, at 22:27, Matthew Staunton wrote: > > hello all > i just joined and am based in Carlsbad CA. I have several servers from the 1991 (yes they include fully functional CRTs and keyboard/mouse). > After several conversions with JJ owner and curator for the San Diego Museum in Australia he suggested i contact this forum. Is anybody interested in these? I can also be reached at 760703096 From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Tue Jan 13 07:02:43 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 11:02:43 -0200 Subject: Looking for a free host for tabajara labs Message-ID: <003B267FFEE74089AB71C0EB914E7169@deskjara> Good things, bad things. I got in love with Hostinger, and uploaded my site (www.tabalabs.com.br) there. But seems that in the time I needed them most (my site was advertised into a famous brazilian site) they fell down...I have a (fairly) limitted number of pageviews in the free plan. Anyone that could (free!) host a retrocomputing site? Less than a GB. Thanks! --- Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com From scaron at umich.edu Tue Jan 13 09:26:53 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 10:26:53 -0500 Subject: Looking for a free host for tabajara labs In-Reply-To: <003B267FFEE74089AB71C0EB914E7169@deskjara> References: <003B267FFEE74089AB71C0EB914E7169@deskjara> Message-ID: I could help you out, I have the lowest speed grade of Comcast business Internet at home with plenty of static IPs if you need them. Let me know if you're interested and I can get you set up with an account, etc. Best, Sean On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 8:02 AM, Alexandre Souza < alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > Good things, bad things. > > I got in love with Hostinger, and uploaded my site (www.tabalabs.com.br) > there. But seems that in the time I needed them most (my site was > advertised into a famous brazilian site) they fell down...I have a (fairly) > limitted number of pageviews in the free plan. > > Anyone that could (free!) host a retrocomputing site? Less than a GB. > > Thanks! > > --- > Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) > Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br > Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com > > > > > From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 13 10:49:57 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 11:49:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 Message-ID: <20150113164957.08C1218C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: js > as a frequent buyer, it also highly annoys me when systems on eBay or > Craiglist are found and rebroadcasted here. Now, my chance find has > been made aware to a much wider audience, the competition shoots way > up, and I have to pay more. Since I'm one of the people who has been doing this (e.g. recent PDP-8 postings), I'd like to weigh in with a few thoughts on this topic. To begin, as to the point that it's costing you more money, I'm afraid I don't find that a big factor, for several reasons. First, as Mark Tapley explained down-thread: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2015-January/002533.html from the point of view of saving history, higher prices are better. If people start to think of these older machines as possibly collectable items of some value, they are less likely to toss them into the trash without further ado. (Yes, yes, I know, not all old computers are worth saving - just like not all old cars are, either. But unless you ask someone who knows, you don't know whether your old junker is a clunker or a jewel in the rough.) Second, you're only getting that item 'for cheap' because some other collector, to whom it might be even more emotionally important, doesn't know of it. I do have more sympathy with the point of view that says 'I spent a lot of time trawling through eBay, etc listings looking for that one diamond in a sea of pebbles; why should all my work be devalued by someone who just posts the listing so everyone can get on board?' I have some sympathy for that take (especially since I myself spend a fair amount of time looking through eBay for PDP-11 stuff :-), but for me it's out-weighed by the 'hey, I have this information, it's no use to me, I'd like to share it with people for whom it might be highly useful'. > Auctions are not collegial -- they're competitive, and since when is > competition a negative? I'm not sure of your point here (the second part seems to be at odds with the first), but I will say that I think widely-attended auctions, starting at a modest price, are desirable: they are the best way to set the _true_ value of something. Too many items on eBay have some incredibly high Buy-It-Now price, and they sit forever, until someone really desperate buys it - which just encourages other sellers to ask for un-realistic amounts. So I applaud the sellers who put things up for real auctions. Noel From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Tue Jan 13 13:56:23 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 19:56:23 -0000 Subject: Framing Core Memory Message-ID: <017901d02f6b$02502f80$06f08e80$@ntlworld.com> I have been given a tiny piece of core memory, about 1cmx1cm. It has obviously been cut from a larger piece and is almost certainly unusable. I would therefore like to frame it for display and to show to young people. Is there a recommended good way to mount the core for framing with the smallest amount of possible damage? Thanks Rob From scaron at umich.edu Tue Jan 13 09:59:43 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 10:59:43 -0500 Subject: San Diego: 1991 era AS400 In-Reply-To: References: <203CEC72-C209-464B-9A34-B3AFF9ECA947@roadrunner.com> Message-ID: I might be interested in one if they are on the smaller side and you'd be willing to palletize and ship to the dock at my office (at my expense, of course). Complete systems, right? I always wanted to play around with an AS/400. Can you offer more specifics as to what you've got on hand? No promises but my curiosity is piqued. Best, Sean On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 1:58 AM, Cory Smelosky wrote: > Pricing and if you'd ship any is a good starting point too > > Sent from my iPhone > > > On Jan 12, 2015, at 22:27, Matthew Staunton > wrote: > > > > hello all > > i just joined and am based in Carlsbad CA. I have several servers from > the 1991 (yes they include fully functional CRTs and keyboard/mouse). > > After several conversions with JJ owner and curator for the San Diego > Museum in Australia he suggested i contact this forum. Is anybody > interested in these? I can also be reached at 760703096 > From dj.taylor4 at verizon.net Tue Jan 13 14:32:58 2015 From: dj.taylor4 at verizon.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 15:32:58 -0500 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data Message-ID: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't work. I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit on a floppy. I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware. What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help? From sales at elecplus.com Tue Jan 13 14:57:40 2015 From: sales at elecplus.com (Electronics Plus) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:57:40 -0600 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> Message-ID: <006001d02f73$91b3f960$b51bec20$@com> You can attach the drive via the adapter cable to Linux, copy the files you want to USB flash drive, then put them on the computer of your choice. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Douglas Taylor Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2015 2:33 PM To: Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't work. I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit on a floppy. I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware. What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help? ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4800 / Virus Database: 4257/8923 - Release Date: 01/13/15 From scaron at umich.edu Tue Jan 13 14:58:06 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 15:58:06 -0500 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> Message-ID: I'm surprised you had any trouble with the USB to IDE, usually they work pretty seamlessly. One thing to check is, whether the drive is explicitly set to master? A lot of those branded PCs used drives set to Cable Select and then had a funky IDE cable with one of the pins crossed or something. Best, Sean On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 3:32 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote: > In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for > workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a > 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it to one > of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't work. > > I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit > on a floppy. > > I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start > WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware. > > What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help? > From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Jan 13 14:58:09 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:58:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, Douglas Taylor wrote: > In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for workgroups > 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a 420 MB > Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it to one of those > IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't work. > > I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit on > a floppy. > > I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start WIN3.1 > but exits because of some missing sound card hardware. > > What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help? > Just abort the AUTOEXEC.BAT processing. F8 I think. That'll allow you to abort the Windows start and hit a DOS prompt without interference. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 13 14:59:19 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:59:19 -0800 Subject: Framing Core Memory In-Reply-To: <017901d02f6b$02502f80$06f08e80$@ntlworld.com> References: <017901d02f6b$02502f80$06f08e80$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54B58727.1040604@sydex.com> On 01/13/2015 11:56 AM, Robert Jarratt wrote: > I have been given a tiny piece of core memory, about 1cmx1cm. It has > obviously been cut from a larger piece and is almost certainly unusable. I > would therefore like to frame it for display and to show to young people. Is > there a recommended good way to mount the core for framing with the smallest > amount of possible damage? Between two spaced players of perspex/plexiglass would seem to be the best. If it's strictly an exhibit, you might even pot it in clear polyester resin. --Chuck From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Jan 13 15:13:42 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 13:13:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <006001d02f73$91b3f960$b51bec20$@com> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> <006001d02f73$91b3f960$b51bec20$@com> Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, Electronics Plus wrote: > You can attach the drive via the adapter cable to Linux, copy the files > you want to USB flash drive, then put them on the computer of your > choice. The problem is that some of the more "modern" IDE to USB adapters don't like talking to the older drives. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From tots at matinino.com Tue Jan 13 15:17:24 2015 From: tots at matinino.com (Hector Saint-Prix) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:17:24 -0400 Subject: IBM System/36 Message-ID: <54B58B64.2060402@matinino.com> Hello everyone (new to this list), I have in a place I need to clear an IBM System/36 class mini-computer collecting dust. Before it ends up in scrap, I would like to make sure is not of any value for collector/hobbyist or a computer museum for parts or as a whole. Any lead will help. Thanks. IBM's System/36 page: https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/rochester/rochester_4018.html Hector From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Tue Jan 13 15:20:25 2015 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave G4UGM) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 21:20:25 -0000 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> Message-ID: <276201d02f76$bf9c1cb0$3ed45610$@gmail.com> Have you tried Disk2VHD from here:- http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx you may then be able to boot the disk in Virtual PC, VMWare or DOSBOX. You can also mount the VHD as a drive in Windows/7 from Disk Manager. Dave G4UGM -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Douglas Taylor Sent: 13 January 2015 20:33 To: Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't work. I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit on a floppy. I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware. What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help? From mhs.stein at gmail.com Tue Jan 13 15:23:13 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 16:23:13 -0500 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> Message-ID: <33202268FE474CFC9E0D2E453C340966@310e2> Many if not most IDE<>USB adapters have trouble with old drives that only know Cyl/Trk/Sec and not LBA. Once you get that old PC booted PKZIP or any of the 'split' programs will let you copy to multiple floppies if the PC is too old for a USB stick or networking of some sort. m ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas Taylor" To: "Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2015 3:32 PM Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data > In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for > workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a > 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it to > one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't > work. > > I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit > on a floppy. > > I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start > WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware. > > What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help? From ba600 at ncf.ca Tue Jan 13 15:24:22 2015 From: ba600 at ncf.ca (Mike) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 16:24:22 -0500 Subject: Framing Core Memory In-Reply-To: <017901d02f6b$02502f80$06f08e80$@ntlworld.com> References: <017901d02f6b$02502f80$06f08e80$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <9131811.Qs1xqUjqjY@linux-zlo2> On Tuesday, January 13, 2015 19:56:23 Robert Jarratt wrote: > I have been given a tiny piece of core memory, about 1cmx1cm. It has > obviously been cut from a larger piece and is almost certainly unusable. I > would therefore like to frame it for display and to show to young people. Is > there a recommended good way to mount the core for framing with the > smallest amount of possible damage? I have a piece that is fanfold about 4' tall and several folds wide that I'd like to section for display -- Collector of vintage computers http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600 From david at attglobal.net Tue Jan 13 15:32:14 2015 From: david at attglobal.net (David Schmidt) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 16:32:14 -0500 Subject: Framing Core Memory In-Reply-To: <54B58727.1040604@sydex.com> References: <017901d02f6b$02502f80$06f08e80$@ntlworld.com> <54B58727.1040604@sydex.com> Message-ID: <54B58EDE.3080902@attglobal.net> On 1/13/2015 3:59 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 01/13/2015 11:56 AM, Robert Jarratt wrote: >> I have been given a tiny piece of core memory, about 1cmx1cm. It has >> obviously been cut from a larger piece and is almost certainly >> unusable. I >> would therefore like to frame it for display and to show to young >> people. Is >> there a recommended good way to mount the core for framing with the >> smallest >> amount of possible damage? > > Between two spaced players of perspex/plexiglass would seem to be the > best. Seconded... I have one of Tony Cole's Cray-1 boards mounted that way. Looks great and is easy to dust. :-) From jon at jonworld.com Tue Jan 13 15:41:40 2015 From: jon at jonworld.com (Jonathan Katz) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:41:40 +0100 Subject: IBM System/36 In-Reply-To: <54B58B64.2060402@matinino.com> References: <54B58B64.2060402@matinino.com> Message-ID: <2E827E36-3CAA-4F7E-B0FC-5A5441E59F7A@jonworld.com> Letting us know where you are located could help greatly. Sent from my mobile device. Please pardon any brevity. > On Jan 13, 2015, at 22:17, Hector Saint-Prix wrote: > > Hello everyone (new to this list), > I have in a place I need to clear an IBM System/36 class mini-computer collecting dust. Before it ends up in scrap, I would like to make sure is not of any value for collector/hobbyist or a computer museum for parts or as a whole. > Any lead will help. > Thanks. > > IBM's System/36 page: > https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/rochester/rochester_4018.html > > Hector From francois.dion at gmail.com Tue Jan 13 15:44:05 2015 From: francois.dion at gmail.com (Francois Dion) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 16:44:05 -0500 Subject: IBM System/36 In-Reply-To: <2E827E36-3CAA-4F7E-B0FC-5A5441E59F7A@jonworld.com> References: <54B58B64.2060402@matinino.com> <2E827E36-3CAA-4F7E-B0FC-5A5441E59F7A@jonworld.com> Message-ID: I think he is in Martinique. I'd find a computer club to donate it to. On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 4:41 PM, Jonathan Katz wrote: > Letting us know where you are located could help greatly. > > Sent from my mobile device. Please pardon any brevity. > > > On Jan 13, 2015, at 22:17, Hector Saint-Prix wrote: > > > > Hello everyone (new to this list), > > I have in a place I need to clear an IBM System/36 class mini-computer > collecting dust. Before it ends up in scrap, I would like to make sure is > not of any value for collector/hobbyist or a computer museum for parts or > as a whole. > > Any lead will help. > > Thanks. > > > > IBM's System/36 page: > > > https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/rochester/rochester_4018.html > > > > Hector > From macro at linux-mips.org Tue Jan 13 16:01:06 2015 From: macro at linux-mips.org (Maciej W. Rozycki) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:01:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, Douglas Taylor wrote: > In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for workgroups > 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a 420 MB Conner. > I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it to one of those IDE/SATA to > USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't work. > > I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit on a > floppy. > > I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start WIN3.1 > but exits because of some missing sound card hardware. > > What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help? How old is "old PC", is it at least 80386? Do you have another IDE disk available that works with your IDE/SATA to USB bridge? Given that you mentioned Linux I infer you're prepared to use it and then I think the path of least resistance (for me at least, FWIW) would be to install Linux on that other disk to start it on the old PC and then copy data from the other disk there. The two disks should work just fine as a master and a slave with any IDE adapter (very old IDE disks occasionally had compatibility problems in a master/slave configuration with other drives, but that would be within the 40MB range rather than 400MB). You may have to find an old distribution to stay compatible with your old PC's processor, but that shouldn't be a problem (I have recently looked for RedHat 2.1 to check something there and it was still online). Beware of the old limitations though, often long forgotten, such as the need to put the boot partition within the first 508MB; other data may be anywhere. You may need to know the right C/H/S disk geometry too when installing the boot loader. Of course you can boot the kernel from a floppy instead since you have it; then you can ignore the limitations. Please note that support for the 80386 has been dropped from the Linux kernel a while ago and modern distributions may require a newer yet processor such as at least a P6-class one due to the instruction set selection made with package compilation options; to say nothing of memory size requirements, that is. Maciej From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 13 16:17:59 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:17:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20150113140425.B52872@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, Douglas Taylor wrote: > In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for > workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is > a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it > to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, > didn't work. > I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't > fit on a floppy. THAT is a soluble problem. > I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start > WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware. > What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help? You could try a recovery via Linux. What would you gain? You are already getting the capability of saving files to floppy. 1) can you install a bigger "floppy". Such as CDR, floptical, a second hard disk that is easier to work with, a USB flash drive, . . . What version of DOS is it? Official support of USB flash drives didn't really happen until Win98SE. If you can't install a bigger drive, . . . 2) Can you boot your Win3.11 in "safe mode" and disable the demand for sound card? Then you have a few more options. Got a network card? or a modem? and communications software? Dial-up internet will take a VERY long time. Z/XMODEM transfer will take a long time, but doesn't require much hardware. If communications are also out, . . . 3) you should be able to get additional software into the machine by putting it on floppy with another machine. PKZIP should be able to split large files. If not, there are other programs that can. BACKUP, which came with DOS can split files. You might then need to play SETVER games on another machine to run it there to read those split files back in. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 13 16:26:27 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:26:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Framing Core Memory In-Reply-To: <017901d02f6b$02502f80$06f08e80$@ntlworld.com> References: <017901d02f6b$02502f80$06f08e80$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20150113142431.M52872@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: > I have been given a tiny piece of core memory, about 1cmx1cm. It has > obviously been cut from a larger piece and is almost certainly unusable. I > would therefore like to frame it for display and to show to young people. Is > there a recommended good way to mount the core for framing with the smallest > amount of possible damage? howzbout mount it on a bit of perf-board, with standoffs and a piece of plex over it. Or just plex both sides. But the perf-board would give you an easier way to bring out connecting wires, and have some accessible terminals to poke at it with. From jws at jwsss.com Tue Jan 13 16:33:50 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:33:50 -0800 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> Message-ID: <54B59D4E.9090205@jwsss.com> On 1/13/2015 12:32 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote: > In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for > workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It > is a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching > it to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, > didn't work. > > I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't > fit on a floppy. > > I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start > WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware. > > What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help? > > I would look at other solution implementations of the USB dongle. I have some that work and some that do with various different IDE drives. Some of it could have been strict setting of master / slave settings. There were some drives that had master only and master on one drive, master on the other when there were two drives involved. Sometimes it worked fine in one system with those drives, but other controllers didn't like the setting if you moved the single drive. I also am suspicious of some of the power supplies that come in the kit with the IDE / USB dongles. I had some that worked if I left them in the original systems, but didn't work on the power supply that came with the USB dongle external to the system. The disk imaging is a good route to pursue, as windows 3.1 will run under vmware if you wish to do so. And it can run quite well with some driver work. Since it was a pile of stuff on top of Dos, you can play with the drivers quite a lot and not mess up the system. Jim From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 13 16:56:39 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:56:39 -0800 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> Message-ID: <54B5A2A7.5030102@sydex.com> On 01/13/2015 12:32 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote: > In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for > workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is > a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it > to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, > didn't work. > > I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't > fit on a floppy. > > I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start > WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware. > > What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help? Got another DOS machine? Boot both from floppy; use Laplink or Interlink to transfer your files. You could also try a comms package to transfer data via serial cable (e.g. try Procomm). If the original machine boots, there are many possibilities. I once did a linkup with a system with NO serial or parallel ports (and an utterly incompatible with anything floppy setup) by bit banging an LED on the console and picking the bits up with a phototransistor connected to some parallel port pins. --Chuck From cctalk at fahimi.net Tue Jan 13 17:01:22 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 15:01:22 -0800 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <54B5A2A7.5030102@sydex.com> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> <54B5A2A7.5030102@sydex.com> Message-ID: <03b801d02f84$db5f9f90$921edeb0$@net> > If the original machine boots, there are many possibilities. I once > did a linkup with a system with NO serial or parallel ports (and an > utterly incompatible with anything floppy setup) by bit banging an LED > on the console and picking the bits up with a phototransistor connected > to some parallel port pins. Chuck, I hate to think how long it would take to transfer a 400MB drive using that method... Of course if the data is valuable enough... From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Tue Jan 13 17:22:32 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 23:22:32 -0000 Subject: Framing Core Memory In-Reply-To: <20150113142431.M52872@shell.lmi.net> References: <017901d02f6b$02502f80$06f08e80$@ntlworld.com> <20150113142431.M52872@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <018601d02f87$ce8e7f40$6bab7dc0$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Fred Cisin > Sent: 13 January 2015 22:26 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Framing Core Memory > > On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > I have been given a tiny piece of core memory, about 1cmx1cm. It has > > obviously been cut from a larger piece and is almost certainly > > unusable. I would therefore like to frame it for display and to show > > to young people. Is there a recommended good way to mount the core for > > framing with the smallest amount of possible damage? > > howzbout mount it on a bit of perf-board, with standoffs and a piece of plex > over it. Or just plex both sides. > But the perf-board would give you an easier way to bring out connecting wires, > and have some accessible terminals to poke at it with. I do like the idea of mounting it on perf-board, making it possible to attempt to use the memory somehow for demonstration purposes, but the piece is probably too small, the wires are too short at the edges of the piece, and just too fine for my level of dexterity. A couple of suggestions for perspex/plexiglass, I am guessing basically a "box" made of perspex/plexiglass so that the memory isn't glued to anything. Actually, looking on ebay there appear to be some small display boxes available that would probably do the trick. That sounds like the best approach. Thanks Rob From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Tue Jan 13 17:29:33 2015 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 18:29:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <03b801d02f84$db5f9f90$921edeb0$@net> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> <54B5A2A7.5030102@sydex.com> <03b801d02f84$db5f9f90$921edeb0$@net> Message-ID: <201501132329.SAA05180@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> If the original machine boots, there are many possibilities. I once >> did a linkup with a system with NO serial or parallel ports ([...]) >> by bit banging an LED on the console and picking the bits up with a >> phototransistor connected to some parallel port pins. > I hate to think how long it would take to transfer a 400MB drive using that $ Don't forget, with a technique like that there is no need to limit it to (eg) serial-port speeds; the limitations will be the software on each end, the response time of the LED, and the response time of the phototransistor; these might well permit megabit-plus rates. 420MB at one megabit, unrealistically assuming no framing or error loss (ECC, retransmit, whatever), is under an hour. Cut the speed to 100Kb and double the data for framing and error loss, and my calculation says 19.57+ hours, still less than a day. I don't know about the original poster, but I wouldn't consider that out of the question at all. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From bqt at softjar.se Tue Jan 13 17:40:02 2015 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 00:40:02 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS Message-ID: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally announce a more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. This is the result of over 20 years of development. Needless to say, I've been doing a lot of things over the years, and this code have been through four reimplementations over the years. What I now release is something that I believe is a nice and useful piece of software. I am aware of the fact that most people do not use these machines any longer, but if someone actually wants to talk to me about support for this or other RSX software, let me know. Also, feel free to spread this information to anyone who might be interested, anywhere. So - what is in this release? It is a complete implementation of ARP, IP, UDP, and TCP for RSX-11M-PLUS. It has been tested on RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6, but should work on any V4 release. There might be some small tweaks or fixes required, but nothing major. It do require a system with split I/D-space, or else at least the TCP part will not fit. For Unibus machines, it should be possible to run without any additional software except what is in a base RSX distribution. For Q-bus machines, DECnet is required for ethernet networking. The TCP/IP stack can co-exist with DECnet. Some utilities also utilize RMS for file access. A bunch of tools, utilities and libraries are also included. These include: . IFCONFIG network configuration tool. . NETSTAT network information tool. . PING . TRACEROUTE . DNS client . FTP daemon . FTP client . HTTP server . TELNET client (rudimentary) . TFTP client . TFTP server . INET server that can do SINK, ECHO, DAYTIME, QUOTE, and IDENT . NTP client . LPR client that sits in the queue manager (rudimentary) . FORTRAN-77 library . BASIC+2 library . PDP-11 C library The implementation fulfills most of the requirements put forth in RFC 1122. There are a few limitations because of restrictions in the PDP-11, but none of them should really cause any problems. Documentation is still on the thin side, but example configs are also provided, along with installation scripts. A bunch of test programs and example programs are also included, as well as the sources of all tools and libraries. The TCP/IP stack itself only comes in binary form. All tools are also included precompiled in the distribution, so an installation only have to build the stack itself for your system, and then you should be ready to go. The API only have a slight resemblance to the Unix sockets API. However, if someone sits down to write code to use TCP/IP under RSX, I'm sure they will discover that it is extremely easy to use the libraries, or the basic functions. The TCP/IP implementation is mostly written as device drivers. This also have some other interesting implications, such as it is possible to access TCP as a normal file. You can, for instance do something similar to the Unix netcat command by issuing the MCR command: > PIP TI:=TC:"foo.com";4711 which would open a connection to foo.com, on port 4711, and any data sent from that machine will be shown on the terminal. The resources used by TCP/IP are modest. A memory area (size selectable at generation/startup) is used internally. The amount of memory in the private pool limits the amount of data that can be buffered. Normal pool is used in a small quantity for each TCP port that is open. People are welcome to play around with this, and make improvements. Contributions of code is most welcome. There are still lots of things to do. The programs marked as rudimentary should be rewritten. The most obvious thing still missing is a telnet daemon, which probably is my next step. However, the reason for now announcing the release is that it can finally be distributed natively from an RSX host. The main locations to download the TCP/IP for RSX are: Madame.Update.UU.SE (anonymous ftp). This is one of my development systems for this software. It runs under E11, and if things are down, I blame E11. :-) When connected, you are already in the right directory. There is both an RL02 disk image there, which can be downloaded by anyone. If you happen to have an RSX system which you are conneting from, you can also try getting the BQTCP.TAP tape image. Such an image will not transport cleanly to a non-RSX system, however. Sorry. ftp.Update.UU.SE (anonymous ftp) - /pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip The disk image is normally duplicated to ftp.update.uu.se as well, so the same file can be found there. I hope some people will find this useful/amusing. :-) Johnny Billquist -- 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 jws at jwsss.com Tue Jan 13 18:04:55 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 16:04:55 -0800 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <201501132329.SAA05180@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> <54B5A2A7.5030102@sydex.com> <03b801d02f84$db5f9f90$921edeb0$@net> <201501132329.SAA05180@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <54B5B2A7.2050701@jwsss.com> Depending on the BIOS, you could attach a drive with an IDE (host facing) to SATA connector and a small drive to the system. This probably would have to go to a second IDE port, so both could be independent of each other. Image the 420mb drive to the SATA drive, and remove it. Jim On 1/13/2015 3:29 PM, Mouse wrote: >>> If the original machine boots, there are many possibilities. I once >>> did a linkup with a system with NO serial or parallel ports ([...]) >>> by bit banging an LED on the console and picking the bits up with a >>> phototransistor connected to some parallel port pins. >> I hate to think how long it would take to transfer a 400MB drive using that $ > Don't forget, with a technique like that there is no need to limit it > to (eg) serial-port speeds; the limitations will be the software on > each end, the response time of the LED, and the response time of the > phototransistor; these might well permit megabit-plus rates. > > 420MB at one megabit, unrealistically assuming no framing or error > loss (ECC, retransmit, whatever), is under an hour. Cut the speed to > 100Kb and double the data for framing and error loss, and my > calculation says 19.57+ hours, still less than a day. > > I don't know about the original poster, but I wouldn't consider that > out of the question at all. > > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > > From tothwolf at concentric.net Tue Jan 13 18:07:40 2015 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 18:07:40 -0600 (CST) Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <33202268FE474CFC9E0D2E453C340966@310e2> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> <33202268FE474CFC9E0D2E453C340966@310e2> Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, Mike Stein wrote: > Many if not most IDE<>USB adapters have trouble with old drives that > only know Cyl/Trk/Sec and not LBA. > > Once you get that old PC booted PKZIP or any of the 'split' programs > will let you copy to multiple floppies if the PC is too old for a USB > stick or networking of some sort. Those sort of USB<->ATA adapters also only work with later ATA drives which report their CHS values /and/ which were formatted using their default (not manually selected) CHS values. A CFA420A would have been new right around the time ATA drives began reporting their CHS so they could be autoconfigured in CMOS setup, but many motherboard and PC manufacturers still didn't support autoconfiguration until later. Many name brand PC manufacturers also didn't even have a user definable drive type available, so the end user would often have to select a /close/ drive from a table of predefined drive types, which probably wouldn't have the same CHS values as the drive. If I were to guess, it is quite possible the Packard Bell machine the CFA420A drive had been installed in was one of these systems that did not support drive autoconfiguration and probably didn't have a user definable drive type. Getting one of these drives to work 100% error-free with a different motherboard is often a trial and error sort of thing, but it can be done. Given the small size of the drive, I'd probably just use a SCSI connected ZIP drive to do the transfer. From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Tue Jan 13 18:17:36 2015 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave G4UGM) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 00:17:36 -0000 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <54B5B2A7.2050701@jwsss.com> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> <54B5A2A7.5030102@sydex.com> <03b801d02f84$db5f9f90$921edeb0$@net> <201501132329.SAA05180@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <54B5B2A7.2050701@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <0cba01d02f8f$803d8a90$80b89fb0$@gmail.com> What about using a CF Card adaptor and CF Card? Would that work? Alternatively stick an ISA network card in the machine (NE2000 clone preferably, and I think some of these come with 10BaseT) and then boot the DOS TCP/IP client. If the machine will boot from floppy it is also possible to make a bootable GHOST disk that will make a ghost image over the network. Failing that you could use the KA9Q TCP/IP software and FTP the files across. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of jwsmobile Sent: 14 January 2015 00:05 To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Recovering Win3.1 Data Depending on the BIOS, you could attach a drive with an IDE (host facing) to SATA connector and a small drive to the system. This probably would have to go to a second IDE port, so both could be independent of each other. Image the 420mb drive to the SATA drive, and remove it. Jim On 1/13/2015 3:29 PM, Mouse wrote: >>> If the original machine boots, there are many possibilities. I once >>> did a linkup with a system with NO serial or parallel ports ([...]) >>> by bit banging an LED on the console and picking the bits up with a >>> phototransistor connected to some parallel port pins. >> I hate to think how long it would take to transfer a 400MB drive >> using that $ > Don't forget, with a technique like that there is no need to limit it > to (eg) serial-port speeds; the limitations will be the software on > each end, the response time of the LED, and the response time of the > phototransistor; these might well permit megabit-plus rates. > > 420MB at one megabit, unrealistically assuming no framing or error > loss (ECC, retransmit, whatever), is under an hour. Cut the speed to > 100Kb and double the data for framing and error loss, and my > calculation says 19.57+ hours, still less than a day. > > I don't know about the original poster, but I wouldn't consider that > out of the question at all. > > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > > From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 13 18:24:19 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 16:24:19 -0800 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <03b801d02f84$db5f9f90$921edeb0$@net> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> <54B5A2A7.5030102@sydex.com> <03b801d02f84$db5f9f90$921edeb0$@net> Message-ID: <54B5B733.6000701@sydex.com> On 01/13/2015 03:01 PM, Ali wrote: > I hate to think how long it would take to transfer a 400MB drive using that method... Of course if the data is valuable enough... ZIP-ing the data up helps. Start it up, go to bed. If you use a parallel LL cable (I've got a carton full of them, if anyone needs one), it goes much faster. Or use a ZIP drive, if you've got one; if you've got a CD burner, do it that way. You get the idea. Skinning cats and such... :) --Chuck From linimon at lonesome.com Tue Jan 13 19:05:13 2015 From: linimon at lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 19:05:13 -0600 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <54B2BF58.8080405@bitsavers.org> <54B2DC12.7010804@cimmeri.com> <54B32B0D.9040806@bitsavers.org> <54B3F7C9.3010906@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <20150114010513.GC14460@lonesome.com> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 11:54:35AM -0500, Sean Caron wrote: > I will always have some nostalgia for those bits of technology that really > sparked the passion in me, got me where I am today. Others must feel > similarly, no? No. No, we don't. That's why everyone should just, um, give up, and, say, send their PDP-11s to me. I'll take them off your hands. Really. I don't want you to suffer. Especially a PDP-11/20. I'll even pay shipping for one. Trust me. Your well-being is my only concern. mcl From linimon at lonesome.com Tue Jan 13 19:14:40 2015 From: linimon at lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 19:14:40 -0600 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <020001d02dcd$e3790850$aa6b18f0$@net> Message-ID: <20150114011440.GD14460@lonesome.com> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:42:04PM +0200, Johannes Thelen wrote: > I think these all Storage Hunters, Storage Wars and other Shit Collectors > "reality" TV series, is what to blame here: "What is is?" "Looks like old > door but it is just probably pile of shit!" "Man, you get AT LEAST 5000$ > for it!" I'm not sure they are to blame, but they are kind of funny :-) I remember seeing one where one of the buyers I had considered "serious" up to then, picked up a 24-port 1U switch: "Oh, that's worth $100". Um. A 10/100 switch. And it's not 1999 anymore :-) I don't know about anyone else, but I think the only use for such a thing, is, "Throw it at the nearest Politician." mcl From elson at pico-systems.com Tue Jan 13 20:52:14 2015 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 20:52:14 -0600 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> Message-ID: <54B5D9DE.2060606@pico-systems.com> On 01/13/2015 02:32 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote: > In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran > Windows for workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, > but I saved the disk. It is a 420 MB Conner. I recently > tried to recover the data by attaching it to one of those > IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't > work. > > I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to > save won't fit on a floppy. > > I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it > tries to start WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing > sound card hardware. > > What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any > help? > Yes, Linux will be able to easily read the disk. Once you have a Linux system up, plug in the drive. it MIGHT automatically mount the drive as /media/ or you might have to manually mount it if it doesn't automatically detect the file system type. the commands would be something like : If you don't know what partition is the user data one, do this: sudo fdisk /dev/sdb p lists out the partitions on the drive, and the file system types q /dev/sdb would be the second drive on the system, which could be the CD, if so, the added drive might be /dev/sdc ls /dev/sd* will show the various drives as /dev/sd and available partitions as /dev/sd mkdir /mnt/disk sudo mount -t msdos /dev/sd /mnt/disk now, the disk should be mounted under /mnt/disk, and you can list it, copy files, etc. Jon From jws at jwsss.com Tue Jan 13 21:45:26 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 19:45:26 -0800 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <20150114011440.GD14460@lonesome.com> References: <99E8E975D1114369AC978A0CD0EC6B12@workshop> <54B1F0E8.4080503@shiresoft.com> <54B24751.90101@jwsss.com> <54B2937D.4090805@cimmeri.com> <020001d02dcd$e3790850$aa6b18f0$@net> <20150114011440.GD14460@lonesome.com> Message-ID: <54B5E656.9080208@jwsss.com> On 1/13/2015 5:14 PM, Mark Linimon wrote: > On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:42:04PM +0200, Johannes Thelen wrote: >> I think these all Storage Hunters, Storage Wars and other Shit Collectors >> "reality" TV series, is what to blame here: "What is is?" "Looks like old >> door but it is just probably pile of shit!" "Man, you get AT LEAST 5000$ >> for it!" > I'm not sure they are to blame, but they are kind of funny :-) > > I remember seeing one where one of the buyers I had considered "serious" > up to then, picked up a 24-port 1U switch: "Oh, that's worth $100". Um. > A 10/100 switch. And it's not 1999 anymore :-) > > I don't know about anyone else, but I think the only use for such a thing, > is, "Throw it at the nearest Politician." > > mcl FWIW the only Storage Wars show I've see anything computer related on, they put a price on an ABC DB-25 switch of $5, and a network switch of $10. The Storage Wars people seem to call around a lot to get appraisals As with anything, this stuff will sit on the store shelves or in the online inventory of the people on the SW shows and they will mark it down if it doesn't sell. Just like anything in a junk store. They aren't setting the prices for this stuff. If anything they hopefully make the point that some of the older stuff is worth more than just metal scrap. The Storage Hunters did damage, I think because they tried to wing it on their own, and didn't get any input from someone. I'm not sure how to get out the word about the other component of collecting which is that this stuff won't survive being handled by Barry (on Storage Wars) who tends to throw things from the back of the unit into the hallway. Heavier pieces in the Storage Hunters show I saw where they mangled a nice DEC stash, they trashed the removable media, which possibly was the most valuable thing in the unit. Jim From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jan 13 22:01:02 2015 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane Healy) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 20:01:02 -0800 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> Message-ID: <131FF12A-4703-49B8-A6DB-ED559EC4A048@aracnet.com> On Jan 13, 2015, at 3:40 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally announce a more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. > I hope some people will find this useful/amusing. :-) I don't find it amusing, I find it amazingly cool! This is fantastic news! The HTTP server and LPR client sound especially interesting. Now we have a freely available TCP/IP stack for both RT-11 and RSX-11M-PLUS. I just wish there was one for RSTS/E, but as far as I know, it has never even had a commercial stack. Zane From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Jan 13 22:10:30 2015 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 20:10:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Compaq Portable knob Message-ID: Does anyone here have a contrast knob from a Compaq Portable or good-looking substitute? -- 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 toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 13 22:38:38 2015 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 23:38:38 -0500 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <131FF12A-4703-49B8-A6DB-ED559EC4A048@aracnet.com> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> <131FF12A-4703-49B8-A6DB-ED559EC4A048@aracnet.com> Message-ID: <54B5F2CE.3050901@telegraphics.com.au> On 13/01/15 11:01 PM, Zane Healy wrote: > > On Jan 13, 2015, at 3:40 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally announce a more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. > > > >> I hope some people will find this useful/amusing. :-) > > I don't find it amusing, I find it amazingly cool! This is fantastic news! The HTTP server and LPR client sound especially interesting. Now we have a freely available TCP/IP stack for both RT-11 and RSX-11M-PLUS. I just wish there was one for RSTS/E, but as far as I know, it has never even had a commercial stack. > > Zane > > > > I agree, very impressive. You said that contributions are welcome, but the TCP/IP stack is binary - will you be open sourcing it at any point? --Toby From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jan 14 00:03:22 2015 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:03:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: Restoring a Compaq Portable Message-ID: In my further adventures in restoring a Compaq Portable, I have these problems: 1) Missing brightness knob. Solution: I posted earlier about this. A few people in #classiccmp think they may have one. 2) Capacitive disks under the keys are rotten. Solution: http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/sol_keys.html sounds good, except I'll use 3M 77 spray. 3) I can't get the keyboard to respond at all. I tried touching the capacitive pads with bare fingers, anti-static bag material, etc. Nothing works. Solution: I don't know. I suspect the scan driver and/or the sense amp chips may be bad. These are Exar 22-950-3B (sense driver) and 22-908-93A (sense amp). Does anyone here know a decent source of these and/or data sheets? -- 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 mstaunton at roadrunner.com Tue Jan 13 19:48:52 2015 From: mstaunton at roadrunner.com (Matthew Staunton) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:48:52 -0800 Subject: San Diego: 1991 era AS400 In-Reply-To: References: <203CEC72-C209-464B-9A34-B3AFF9ECA947@roadrunner.com> Message-ID: pricing is open as for shipping we would include in pricing. These systems with CRT are well over 200lbs each. I will post specs this weekend. Sent from my iPad On Jan 12, 2015, at 10:58 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote: > Pricing and if you'd ship any is a good starting point too > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Jan 12, 2015, at 22:27, Matthew Staunton wrote: >> >> hello all >> i just joined and am based in Carlsbad CA. I have several servers from the 1991 (yes they include fully functional CRTs and keyboard/mouse). >> After several conversions with JJ owner and curator for the San Diego Museum in Australia he suggested i contact this forum. Is anybody interested in these? I can also be reached at 760703096 From mstaunton at roadrunner.com Tue Jan 13 19:48:52 2015 From: mstaunton at roadrunner.com (Matthew Staunton) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:48:52 -0800 Subject: San Diego: 1991 era AS400 In-Reply-To: References: <203CEC72-C209-464B-9A34-B3AFF9ECA947@roadrunner.com> Message-ID: pricing is open as for shipping we would include in pricing. These systems with CRT are well over 200lbs each. I will post specs this weekend. Sent from my iPad On Jan 12, 2015, at 10:58 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote: > Pricing and if you'd ship any is a good starting point too > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Jan 12, 2015, at 22:27, Matthew Staunton wrote: >> >> hello all >> i just joined and am based in Carlsbad CA. I have several servers from the 1991 (yes they include fully functional CRTs and keyboard/mouse). >> After several conversions with JJ owner and curator for the San Diego Museum in Australia he suggested i contact this forum. Is anybody interested in these? I can also be reached at 760703096 From mstaunton at roadrunner.com Tue Jan 13 19:48:52 2015 From: mstaunton at roadrunner.com (Matthew Staunton) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:48:52 -0800 Subject: San Diego: 1991 era AS400 In-Reply-To: References: <203CEC72-C209-464B-9A34-B3AFF9ECA947@roadrunner.com> Message-ID: pricing is open as for shipping we would include in pricing. These systems with CRT are well over 200lbs each. I will post specs this weekend. Sent from my iPad On Jan 12, 2015, at 10:58 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote: > Pricing and if you'd ship any is a good starting point too > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Jan 12, 2015, at 22:27, Matthew Staunton wrote: >> >> hello all >> i just joined and am based in Carlsbad CA. I have several servers from the 1991 (yes they include fully functional CRTs and keyboard/mouse). >> After several conversions with JJ owner and curator for the San Diego Museum in Australia he suggested i contact this forum. Is anybody interested in these? I can also be reached at 760703096 From mstaunton at roadrunner.com Tue Jan 13 19:52:24 2015 From: mstaunton at roadrunner.com (Matthew Staunton) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:52:24 -0800 Subject: San Diego: 1991 era AS400 In-Reply-To: References: <203CEC72-C209-464B-9A34-B3AFF9ECA947@roadrunner.com> Message-ID: <32ADC8F6-EFC7-4E85-84BE-AF21C7A755A4@roadrunner.com> These systems are full size servers and have CRT based screens. Total weight approx 200lbs Sent from my iPad On Jan 13, 2015, at 7:59 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > I might be interested in one if they are on the smaller side and you'd be > willing to palletize and ship to the dock at my office (at my expense, of > course). Complete systems, right? I always wanted to play around with an > AS/400. Can you offer more specifics as to what you've got on hand? No > promises but my curiosity is piqued. > > Best, > > Sean > > > On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 1:58 AM, Cory Smelosky wrote: > >> Pricing and if you'd ship any is a good starting point too >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On Jan 12, 2015, at 22:27, Matthew Staunton >> wrote: >>> >>> hello all >>> i just joined and am based in Carlsbad CA. I have several servers from >> the 1991 (yes they include fully functional CRTs and keyboard/mouse). >>> After several conversions with JJ owner and curator for the San Diego >> Museum in Australia he suggested i contact this forum. Is anybody >> interested in these? I can also be reached at 760703096 >> From mstaunton at roadrunner.com Tue Jan 13 19:54:29 2015 From: mstaunton at roadrunner.com (Matthew Staunton) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:54:29 -0800 Subject: San Diego: 1991 era AS400 In-Reply-To: References: <203CEC72-C209-464B-9A34-B3AFF9ECA947@roadrunner.com> Message-ID: just noticed my phone is not correct 760-703-0986 Sent from my iPad On Jan 13, 2015, at 5:48 PM, Matthew Staunton wrote: > pricing is open as for shipping we would include in pricing. These systems with CRT are well over 200lbs each. I will post specs this weekend. > > Sent from my iPad > > On Jan 12, 2015, at 10:58 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote: > >> Pricing and if you'd ship any is a good starting point too >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On Jan 12, 2015, at 22:27, Matthew Staunton wrote: >>> >>> hello all >>> i just joined and am based in Carlsbad CA. I have several servers from the 1991 (yes they include fully functional CRTs and keyboard/mouse). >>> After several conversions with JJ owner and curator for the San Diego Museum in Australia he suggested i contact this forum. Is anybody interested in these? I can also be reached at 760703096 From mstaunton at roadrunner.com Tue Jan 13 19:54:29 2015 From: mstaunton at roadrunner.com (Matthew Staunton) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:54:29 -0800 Subject: San Diego: 1991 era AS400 In-Reply-To: References: <203CEC72-C209-464B-9A34-B3AFF9ECA947@roadrunner.com> Message-ID: just noticed my phone is not correct 760-703-0986 Sent from my iPad On Jan 13, 2015, at 5:48 PM, Matthew Staunton wrote: > pricing is open as for shipping we would include in pricing. These systems with CRT are well over 200lbs each. I will post specs this weekend. > > Sent from my iPad > > On Jan 12, 2015, at 10:58 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote: > >> Pricing and if you'd ship any is a good starting point too >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On Jan 12, 2015, at 22:27, Matthew Staunton wrote: >>> >>> hello all >>> i just joined and am based in Carlsbad CA. I have several servers from the 1991 (yes they include fully functional CRTs and keyboard/mouse). >>> After several conversions with JJ owner and curator for the San Diego Museum in Australia he suggested i contact this forum. Is anybody interested in these? I can also be reached at 760703096 From tmfdmike at gmail.com Tue Jan 13 22:54:39 2015 From: tmfdmike at gmail.com (Mike Ross) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 17:54:39 +1300 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 12:40 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally announce a > more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. > Amazing and very cool! Gives me immediate motivation to build an 11/70 with one of my QED boardsets. Goal: webserver running proper DEC OS with proper blinkenlights :-) > The TCP/IP stack itself only comes in binary form. > Ahhh. That will give a lot of people pause for thought, and, some will probably say, might be a distraction from the achievement itself. I trust you know what you're doing :-) Mike http://www.corestore.org 'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.' From bqt at update.uu.se Wed Jan 14 02:35:58 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:35:58 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <131FF12A-4703-49B8-A6DB-ED559EC4A048@aracnet.com> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> <131FF12A-4703-49B8-A6DB-ED559EC4A048@aracnet.com> Message-ID: <54B62A6E.1050309@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-14 05:01, Zane Healy wrote: > > On Jan 13, 2015, at 3:40 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally announce a more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. > > > >> I hope some people will find this useful/amusing. :-) > > I don't find it amusing, I find it amazingly cool! This is fantastic news! The HTTP server and LPR client sound especially interesting. Now we have a freely available TCP/IP stack for both RT-11 and RSX-11M-PLUS. I just wish there was one for RSTS/E, but as far as I know, it has never even had a commercial stack. Not that the LPR client actually talks PCL. I wanted to hook up a printer I have on my local network. So that is what it is geared towards. But it's written in C, so people should probably not find it to hard to modify. 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 update.uu.se Wed Jan 14 02:39:42 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:39:42 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <54B5F2CE.3050901@telegraphics.com.au> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> <131FF12A-4703-49B8-A6DB-ED559EC4A048@aracnet.com> <54B5F2CE.3050901@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <54B62B4E.8080407@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-14 05:38, Toby Thain wrote: > On 13/01/15 11:01 PM, Zane Healy wrote: >> >> On Jan 13, 2015, at 3:40 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> >>> Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally >>> announce a more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. >> >> >> >>> I hope some people will find this useful/amusing. :-) >> >> I don't find it amusing, I find it amazingly cool! This is fantastic >> news! The HTTP server and LPR client sound especially interesting. >> Now we have a freely available TCP/IP stack for both RT-11 and >> RSX-11M-PLUS. I just wish there was one for RSTS/E, but as far as I >> know, it has never even had a commercial stack. >> >> Zane >> >> >> >> > > > I agree, very impressive. > > You said that contributions are welcome, but the TCP/IP stack is binary > - will you be open sourcing it at any point? Well, my initial thinking was that there are so many tools, utilities, daemons and clients waiting to be written, as well as improving on the ones I've done, that I was hoping for contributions there. The stack itself can also be improved, I'm sure. It's just way more complex to modify, since that piece is device drivers in RSX. Any changes there needs to be done understanding the whole environment of it. But yes, I'm fine with getting the source to that part out too. But be warned. It will not be easy to work on it. In addition, the built system is less forgiving and less flexible. Can't promise that you'll be able to even built it with some fiddling of your own. I'll try and make a script to screate a source kit soon. 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 update.uu.se Wed Jan 14 02:44:07 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:44:07 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> Message-ID: <54B62C57.4060905@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-14 05:54, Mike Ross wrote: > On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 12:40 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally announce a >> more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. >> > > Amazing and very cool! Gives me immediate motivation to build an 11/70 with > one of my QED boardsets. Goal: webserver running proper DEC OS with proper > blinkenlights :-) Yes. We actually have that at Update, in form of a real PDP-11/70 with this code installed. However, the machine is down much of the time at the moment because of the cooling system needing to be fixed. (It's been this way for years, but we are making slow progress on it.) >> The TCP/IP stack itself only comes in binary form. >> > > Ahhh. That will give a lot of people pause for thought, and, some will > probably say, might be a distraction from the achievement itself. I trust > you know what you're doing :-) Well, you already have most of the sources, as everything except the device drivers comes with sources. But I'm going to make the last bits available as well, but it's not going to be super easy for someone to work on, or modify those parts. It will be more like a snapshot of my build system. And building the whole distribution takes about 1.5h on a real 11/93 with modern disks. But for people who actually wants to read several hundred K of MACRO-11... Here is your chance... :-) 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 jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 14 08:21:32 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:21:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS Message-ID: <20150114142132.CA52D18C089@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Johnny Billquist > But for people who actually wants to read several hundred K of > MACRO-11... Here is your chance... :-) Ah. Was going to ask what the TCP/IP itself was written in. Well, at least it's an 8-bit machine - think about writing a TCP/IP in PDP-10 MACRO... :-) Noel From bqt at softjar.se Wed Jan 14 08:42:18 2015 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:42:18 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <20150114142132.CA52D18C089@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150114142132.CA52D18C089@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <706FF153-C0D0-4C44-969A-E5F846586CDA@softjar.se> jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu skrev: (14 januari 2015 15:21:32 CET) > > From: Johnny Billquist > > > But for people who actually wants to read several hundred K of > > MACRO-11... Here is your chance... :-) > >Ah. Was going to ask what the TCP/IP itself was written in. Well, at >least >it's an 8-bit machine - think about writing a TCP/IP in PDP-10 MACRO... >:-) Well, in all honesty - you also got gobs more memory on those big machines... And tcp/ip already exists. At least on TOPS-20. Johnny > > Noel -- Skickat fr?n min Android-telefon med K-9 E-post. Urs?kta min f?ordighet. From geneb at deltasoft.com Wed Jan 14 09:01:29 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 07:01:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Compaq Portable knob In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, David Griffith wrote: > > Does anyone here have a contrast knob from a Compaq Portable or good-looking > substitute? > If you can get me good reference pics and dimensions, I'd be happy to print you one. :) For those interested, I print a pretty mean ASR-33 platen knob as well. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net Wed Jan 14 09:03:19 2015 From: john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net (John Many Jars) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:03:19 +0000 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <706FF153-C0D0-4C44-969A-E5F846586CDA@softjar.se> References: <20150114142132.CA52D18C089@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <706FF153-C0D0-4C44-969A-E5F846586CDA@softjar.se> Message-ID: On 14 January 2015 at 14:42, Johnny Billquist wrote: > > > > > Well, in all honesty - you also got gobs more memory on those big > machines... And tcp/ip already exists. At least on TOPS-20. > > Johnny > > Wow. What a cool project. Now if someone would just write one for RSTS/E (: -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." -- Jonathan Swift From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Wed Jan 14 10:10:14 2015 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:10:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> Message-ID: <201501141610.LAA21821@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally > announce a more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. This is very impressive. Even for bqt@, this is very impressive. > If you happen to have an RSX system which you are conneting from, you > can also try getting the BQTCP.TAP tape image. Such an image will not > transport cleanly to a non-RSX system, however. I'm curious: why wouldn't it? Do the FTP client and server recognize one another, or is it more "will not transport cleanly to a system not implementing $OBSCURE_FTP_FEATURE", or what? > I hope some people will find this useful/amusing. :-) I won't find it useful personally, at least not in the near future; I'm not running RSX. And I wouldn't call it amusing. I'd call it other things, such as "impressive" or "awesome". I'm tempted to pick up the code just to read it over, as I'm sure there's a lot I could learn from it, but I doubt I'll have the leisure to indulge that inclination anytime soon. :-( /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From pontus at Update.UU.SE Wed Jan 14 10:55:54 2015 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 17:55:54 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <20150114142132.CA52D18C089@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150114142132.CA52D18C089@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <20150114165554.GA27719@Update.UU.SE> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 09:21:32AM -0500, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Johnny Billquist > > > But for people who actually wants to read several hundred K of > > MACRO-11... Here is your chance... :-) > > Ah. Was going to ask what the TCP/IP itself was written in. Well, at least > it's an 8-bit machine - think about writing a TCP/IP in PDP-10 MACRO... :-) > > Noel Do you mean to say that bytes are 8-bit wide on PDP-11? Why would PDP-10 be so much harder? /P From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Wed Jan 14 12:08:33 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 13:08:33 -0500 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 6:40 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: First of all, thank you, Johnny!! This project is a beautiful thing that I've personally been holding my breath waiting on since you announced you were starting work on it twenty years ago when I was still using pdp11s in my daily work. Your efforts here will likely result in my rededicating one of my unix pdp11s back to rsx. Documentation is still on the thin side, but example configs are also > provided, along with installation scripts. I can't get any of my things to read the .doc file. Any chance of a runoff or ascii version? I'll offer to do the reformatting work if it pleases you and would be viewed as helpful (assuming I find a way to read it). As to sources, if you decide to get it all out there, would it be cool if I put it on github? And, while at it, I hate to bring up silly stuff, but do you have a license in mind? Thank you _so_ much again! jake From bqt at softjar.se Wed Jan 14 12:13:56 2015 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 19:13:56 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> Message-ID: <8768BC65-003D-466F-84CC-28A57ED2F63E@softjar.se> The documentation is a plain ascii file. Generated from runoff. ? Jacob Ritorto skrev: (14 januari 2015 19:08:33 CET) >On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 6:40 PM, Johnny Billquist >wrote: > >First of all, thank you, Johnny!! This project is a beautiful thing >that >I've personally been holding my breath waiting on since you announced >you >were starting work on it twenty years ago when I was still using pdp11s >in >my daily work. Your efforts here will likely result in my rededicating >one >of my unix pdp11s back to rsx. > >Documentation is still on the thin side, but example configs are also >> provided, along with installation scripts. > > > I can't get any of my things to read the .doc file. Any chance of a >runoff or ascii version? I'll offer to do the reformatting work if it >pleases you and would be viewed as helpful (assuming I find a way to >read >it). > > >As to sources, if you decide to get it all out there, would it be cool >if >I put it on github? And, while at it, I hate to bring up silly stuff, >but >do you have a license in mind? > > >Thank you _so_ much again! > >jake -- Skickat fr?n min Android-telefon med K-9 E-post. Urs?kta min f?ordighet. From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 14 13:02:55 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:02:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS Message-ID: <20150114190255.71DC418C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Johnny Billquist > And tcp/ip already exists. At least on TOPS-20. There are at least two TCP/IP's for PDP-10's - the other, written by Ken Harrenstien, is the one for ITS. I'm not sure how closely related the TWENEX one is the TENEX one done at BBN - I vaguely seem to recall that DEC re-wrote it extensively, but I don't know much about that code. > From: Pontus Pihlgren > Do you mean to say that bytes are 8-bit wide on PDP-11? Why would > PDP-10 be so much harder?3 TCP/IP header fields are all multiples of 8 bits. So anytime you want to read/write one on a PDP-10, you have to start LDB'ing and DPB'ing through byte pointers/descriptors all over the place. Which I'm sure is no biggie for most experienced PDP-10 coders, but it would drive me bonkers. Noel From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 14 13:16:27 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:16:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] Message-ID: <20150114191627.1229E18C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Robert Jarratt > It wouldn't be hard to create a wiki where this kind of information is > collected > ... > Isn't there someone on the list who has been offering lots of server > capacity? It could be hosted there. Umm, that might have been me - I have offered to host things on a number of occasions, and do in fact host the older ClassicComputers archives (the newer ones are^H^H^Hwere at www.classiccmp.org). I'm not sure I can help in this case, though. I do have access to a lot of space (so hosting the archives is not a big deal), _but_ i) I'm a guest on this machine, and hosting active content like a wiki would be something I'd have to get OK'd, and ii) technically, hosting a wiki is a whole different ball of wax from hosting static content (which I can just put in place, and forget), and I'm not sure I have the time/energy. If someone did, that would be great, because I think a wiki about restoring old computers would be a really powerful resource. Not for detailed technical content (as someone already pointed out, we have the manuals), but for: - Articles laying out how to start, where to get stuff, what you need to know (with lists of recommended books/etc in fields such as digital logic, etc, etc) - Articles on what tools/etc it's useful to to have, and recommendations for manufacturers, models etc (e.g. an oscilloscope is pretty much a must), and where to find them cheap - Lists of which systems are good targets (because they're easy to find, have good documentation available, parts availability is good, etc, etc) - Articles on specific topics which aren't covered in literature (e.g. the whole discussion about capacitor reforming; the heat soak for old tapes/floppies, etc) - Etc, etc, etc. All stuff that's not really written down anywhere, but which a beginning collector (especially one who didn't work on these things 'back in the day') would find invaluable. Noel From scaron at umich.edu Wed Jan 14 13:23:41 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:23:41 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <20150114191627.1229E18C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150114191627.1229E18C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: This, too, is something I'd be willing potentially to host gratis, given the same caveats that I offered Alexandre... I have Comcast business grade cable Internet to my home and I'm already hosting my own personal site and sites for a few other folks; no data caps; plenty of static IPs; not terribly slow; everything's protected with a Liebert double-conversion UPS... not totally a commercial datacenter in terms of available bandwidth or backup power capacity but nevertheless my uptimes are decent. I wouldn't have a problem supporting Mediawiki or common back-end technologies in general i.e. PHP, MySQL... I can host DNS if someone wanted to get a domain name for it... E-mail. Full service in-house, LOL. Just throwing it out here. Happy to share the extra capacity I've got for projects german to classic computing or telephony. Best, Sean On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 2:16 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Robert Jarratt > > > It wouldn't be hard to create a wiki where this kind of information > is > > collected > > ... > > Isn't there someone on the list who has been offering lots of server > > capacity? It could be hosted there. > > Umm, that might have been me - I have offered to host things on a number of > occasions, and do in fact host the older ClassicComputers archives (the > newer > ones are^H^H^Hwere at www.classiccmp.org). > > I'm not sure I can help in this case, though. I do have access to a lot of > space (so hosting the archives is not a big deal), _but_ i) I'm a guest on > this machine, and hosting active content like a wiki would be something I'd > have to get OK'd, and ii) technically, hosting a wiki is a whole different > ball of wax from hosting static content (which I can just put in place, and > forget), and I'm not sure I have the time/energy. > > > If someone did, that would be great, because I think a wiki about restoring > old computers would be a really powerful resource. Not for detailed > technical > content (as someone already pointed out, we have the manuals), but for: > > - Articles laying out how to start, where to get stuff, what you need to > know (with lists of recommended books/etc in fields such as digital > logic, etc, etc) > - Articles on what tools/etc it's useful to to have, and recommendations > for > manufacturers, models etc (e.g. an oscilloscope is pretty much a > must), and where to find them cheap > - Lists of which systems are good targets (because they're easy to find, > have good documentation available, parts availability is good, > etc, etc) > - Articles on specific topics which aren't covered in literature (e.g. the > whole discussion about capacitor reforming; the heat soak for old > tapes/floppies, etc) > - Etc, etc, etc. > > All stuff that's not really written down anywhere, but which a beginning > collector (especially one who didn't work on these things 'back in the > day') > would find invaluable. > > Noel > From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 14 13:33:41 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:33:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] Message-ID: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Sean Caron > This, too, is something I'd be willing potentially to host gratis, > given the same caveats that I offered Alexandre... Please do! I will volunteer to start contributing content as soon as it's up. > not totally a commercial datacenter in terms of available bandwidth I can't imagine a wiki on the topic of classic computers would draw _that_ much traffic? :-) > I wouldn't have a problem supporting Mediawiki or common back-end > technologies in general i.e. PHP, MySQL... Please get yourself totally up to speed to run a wiki, then! :-) > I can host DNS if someone wanted to get a domain name for it... Why do we need a new domain name? Why not call it "wiki.classiccmp.org"? Pick out one of your statics, let Jay know it, and if he can update the DNS config file for the classiccmp.org zone we're done! Noel From scaron at umich.edu Wed Jan 14 13:37:24 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:37:24 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: Oh, yeah, good point; we can just piggyback off of *.classiccmp.org. I work with MediaWiki all the time at the office... I'll try to sit down when I get home tonight and spin up a little virtual host for it. Ask and you shall receive :) Best, Sean On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 2:33 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Sean Caron > > > This, too, is something I'd be willing potentially to host gratis, > > given the same caveats that I offered Alexandre... > > Please do! I will volunteer to start contributing content as soon as it's > up. > > > not totally a commercial datacenter in terms of available bandwidth > > I can't imagine a wiki on the topic of classic computers would draw _that_ > much traffic? :-) > > > I wouldn't have a problem supporting Mediawiki or common back-end > > technologies in general i.e. PHP, MySQL... > > Please get yourself totally up to speed to run a wiki, then! :-) > > > I can host DNS if someone wanted to get a domain name for it... > > Why do we need a new domain name? Why not call it "wiki.classiccmp.org"? > Pick > out one of your statics, let Jay know it, and if he can update the DNS > config > file for the classiccmp.org zone we're done! > > Noel > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 14 13:42:18 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 19:42:18 +0000 Subject: Restoring a Compaq Portable In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > 3) I can't get the keyboard to respond at all. I tried touching the > capacitive pads with bare fingers, anti-static bag material, etc. > Nothing works. Solution: I don't know. I suspect the scan driver and/or > the sense amp chips may be bad. These are Exar 22-950-3B (sense driver) > and 22-908-93A (sense amp). Does anyone here know a decent source of > these and/or data sheets? These seem to be custom ICs used in most Keytronics keyboards. Your best bet is to find another keyboard to raid if you are _sure_ they are the problem. I have never seen data sheets for them. Many machines used such keyboards. The TRS-80 Model 2 (TechRef available from archive.org) did, there is a schematic of the keyboard in said manual, but with no real data on the ICs. The driver takes in a 4 bit value (to select a 'column' and a strobe pulse, the sense amplifier outputs 8 bits for the selected rows. Given the TRS-80 M2 diagram it should be possible to see if the column select value and strobe are doing anything (if not, then the keyboard microcontroller isn't running, I guess), if there is any activity on the column outputs, and if there is any activity on the sense amplifier outputs when you simulate a keypress. -tony From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 14 13:47:21 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:47:21 -0800 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> On 1/14/15 11:33 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > Why do we need a new domain name? Why not call it "wiki.classiccmp.org"? There are significant system security issues around hosting wikis. I'd talk to Jay directly before suggesting classiccmp host one. As far as I know, there are no machines in the classiccmp.org domain that are not hosted by Jay. From scaron at umich.edu Wed Jan 14 14:05:05 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:05:05 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: The Wiki would be hosted directly on one of my personal machines; the only thing relating it to classiccmp.org would be an A record in DNS. Please explain what significant system security issues you believe follow from hosting a MediaWiki? I wrangle many of them so I'm always interested in hearing criticism of the software. Best, Sean On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 2:47 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/14/15 11:33 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > Why do we need a new domain name? Why not call it "wiki.classiccmp.org"? >> > > There are significant system security issues around hosting wikis. I'd > talk to Jay directly before suggesting classiccmp host one. > > As far as I know, there are no machines in the classiccmp.org domain that > are not hosted by Jay. > > > > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 14:18:05 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:18:05 -0600 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <002101d03037$3515a590$9f40f0b0$@classiccmp.org> Someone wrote.... > Why do we need a new domain name? Why not call it "wiki.classiccmp.org"? To which AEK replied... ----- There are significant system security issues around hosting wikis. I'd talk to Jay directly before suggesting classiccmp host one. As far as I know, there are no machines in the classiccmp.org domain that are not hosted by Jay. ----- I own the domain, and no, there are no machines in that domain that I don't host. I will post to the list shortly re-iterating how to get free hosting for any and all web content. Best, Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 14:30:12 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:30:12 -0600 Subject: Free hosting for all classiccmp sites Message-ID: <004901d03038$e68cbfb0$b3a63f10$@classiccmp.org> Sean wrote.... ------------ I have Comcast business grade cable Internet to my home and I'm already hosting my own personal site and sites for a few other folks; no data caps; plenty of static IPs; not terribly slow; everything's protected with a Liebert double-conversion UPS... not totally a commercial datacenter in terms of available bandwidth or backup power capacity but nevertheless my uptimes are decent. ------------ I have said many times in the past, but as new list members pop on they are probably not aware of this. I host the classiccmp server (which is not just the classiccmp mailing list, but a growing truckload of user websites that are classiccmp related) gratis. I do not host it on a "Comcast business grade cable internet" connection (there's a contradiction in terms in and of itself...) This is not something I "run out of my home". One of the companies that I own is a hosting provider. We have a rather large-ish datacenter and I have dedicated a set of resources to classiccmp. Our bandwidth is many orders of magnitude greater than a "home or business connection". Not to mention, it's managed bandwidth with load balanced connections to multiple carriers. Our infrastructure is all xenserver based, so spinning up new VM's is a mouseclick. We have quite a few SAN's so storage is not a problem at all. Full HVAC monitoring & control, power backups (oh, and we have two separate powerstations from Ameren UE ON SITE). This infrastructure is professionally managed by my company 24x7. Long story short... it's not a "home" connection. More to the point, since I own the company, rest assured that hosting your site here is not a "till the boss finds out" or "my wife accidentally turned off the computer" type of situation. As a result - I'm happy to host any website, ftp site, wiki, etc. etc. that is classic computer related. As long as it meets that criteria, you can host your site with us for no charge. Best, J From scaron at umich.edu Wed Jan 14 14:24:29 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:24:29 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <002101d03037$3515a590$9f40f0b0$@classiccmp.org> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <002101d03037$3515a590$9f40f0b0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: Hey, if you want to monopolize hosting anything under *.classiccmp.org, I assume that's your domain so that's certainly your right. Won't keep me from offering my services to the public, though. Maybe I could just register a new domain, classcmpwiki.org or something and we could all use that. Best, Sean On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 3:18 PM, Jay West wrote: > Someone wrote.... > > Why do we need a new domain name? Why not call it "wiki.classiccmp.org"? > > To which AEK replied... > ----- > There are significant system security issues around hosting wikis. I'd talk > to Jay directly before suggesting classiccmp host one. > > As far as I know, there are no machines in the classiccmp.org domain that > are not hosted by Jay. > ----- > > I own the domain, and no, there are no machines in that domain that I don't > host. > > I will post to the list shortly re-iterating how to get free hosting for > any > and all web content. > > Best, > > Jay > > > > > > From scaron at umich.edu Wed Jan 14 14:27:11 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:27:11 -0500 Subject: Free hosting for all classiccmp sites In-Reply-To: <004901d03038$e68cbfb0$b3a63f10$@classiccmp.org> References: <004901d03038$e68cbfb0$b3a63f10$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: C-l-a-s-s-y. Best, Sean On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 3:30 PM, Jay West wrote: > > Sean wrote.... > ------------ > I have Comcast business grade cable Internet to my home and I'm already > hosting my own personal site and sites for a few other folks; no data caps; > plenty of static IPs; not terribly slow; everything's protected with a > Liebert double-conversion UPS... not totally a commercial datacenter in > terms of available bandwidth or backup power capacity but nevertheless my > uptimes are decent. > ------------ > > I have said many times in the past, but as new list members pop on they > are probably not aware of this. > > I host the classiccmp server (which is not just the classiccmp mailing > list, but a growing truckload of user websites that are classiccmp related) > gratis. I do not host it on a "Comcast business grade cable internet" > connection (there's a contradiction in terms in and of itself...) > > This is not something I "run out of my home". One of the companies that I > own is a hosting provider. We have a rather large-ish datacenter and I have > dedicated a set of resources to classiccmp. > > Our bandwidth is many orders of magnitude greater than a "home or business > connection". Not to mention, it's managed bandwidth with load balanced > connections to multiple carriers. Our infrastructure is all xenserver > based, so spinning up new VM's is a mouseclick. We have quite a few SAN's > so storage is not a problem at all. Full HVAC monitoring & control, power > backups (oh, and we have two separate powerstations from Ameren UE ON > SITE). This infrastructure is professionally managed by my company 24x7. > Long story short... it's not a "home" connection. > > More to the point, since I own the company, rest assured that hosting your > site here is not a "till the boss finds out" or "my wife accidentally > turned off the computer" type of situation. > > As a result - I'm happy to host any website, ftp site, wiki, etc. etc. > that is classic computer related. As long as it meets that criteria, you > can host your site with us for no charge. > > Best, > > J > > > > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 14:42:34 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:42:34 -0600 Subject: Knowledge Base (was RE: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] Message-ID: <004a01d0303a$a11eefa0$e35ccee0$@classiccmp.org> So.. about this "knowledgebase" of restoration techniques. Apparently new folks don't know and some older listmembers don't remember... We did start a "wiki" for people to post restoration tips, repair tips, etc. This was done about 8 years ago. When I first brought up the idea there was a lot of discussion on the list as to if it was a good idea or not. Many people had very good thoughts as to why it would be wonderful, and many other people had equally good thoughts as to why it would not be wonderful. In any case, I set it up. We found that there was an initial flurry of posting, and then virtually nothing. Statistics showed it was not used very much at all. There were a handful of issues as I recall (not my implementation of it, but in the general idea of a repair/troubleshooting/restoration "wiki"). I only remember one of them at the moment... and that was that someone would post an article without really having detailed expertise in that given area and then someone that DID have expertise in that area would (for lack of a better term) contramand that article or write a separate one with conflicting info which made it hard for a novice to really sift through the information. In short, everyone has an opinion and at times the articles directly conflicted with another and someone seeking knowledge wouldn't know who to believe. That being said, if people really want to give this another try, I would be happy to turn on the old classiccmp knowledge base (I'm 99% sure it's stored but just not turned on), or I could easily have one of my support staff dump a wiki installation to a folder there (under classiccmp) and we could give it a try again. I'm all for it, but for it to be successful - it has to be due to contribution/acceptance by the membership at large. My proclivity at this point would be to install a new wiki and then pull articles already posted in the old "wiki" into it. And yes, if it's to be in the classiccmp.org domain, I'd have to host it. I have not yet seen a scenario where we'd be willing to point an a-record off-site (but that's not to say some future situation might get a different response). Best, J From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 14:53:46 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:53:46 -0600 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> Sean wrote... Please explain what significant system security issues you believe follow from hosting a MediaWiki? I wrangle many of them so I'm always interested in hearing criticism of the software. ------ how about google "Mediawiki security vulnerabilities". Most anyone that even touches mediawiki in a cursory fashion is aware there are frequent issues with it. Better yet, go to CVE and see the current list of exploits? We do host hundreds of mediawiki sites, so we're up on the issues and how to prevent them. It helps to have a staff dedicated to this. J From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 15:01:01 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:01:01 -0600 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <002101d03037$3515a590$9f40f0b0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <009501d0303d$346d21d0$9d476570$@classiccmp.org> Sean wrote... Hey, if you want to monopolize hosting anything under *.classiccmp.org, I assume that's your domain so that's certainly your right. Won't keep me from offering my services to the public, though. Maybe I could just register a new domain, classcmpwiki.org or something and we could all use that. ------ O.O Monopolizing my own domain? This is not a response I'd expect for a service I provide gratis. But regardless, you are certainly free to monopolize your domain, servers, and bandwidth. Wish the sentiment was bidirectional. But let me be clear... I fully support you offering (free) hosting services for vintage computer stuff. I am glad there are people out there besides just me willing to host classic computer related sites. I will also continue to offer commercial grade hosting to any classic computer related website for free. I do think it's a nice benefit that many of the classic computer related repositories (bitsavers, cpmarchive, trs80, etc) are hosting on the classiccmp server where they are all backed up together and such. J From spacewar at gmail.com Wed Jan 14 15:16:27 2015 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:16:27 -0700 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <009501d0303d$346d21d0$9d476570$@classiccmp.org> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <002101d03037$3515a590$9f40f0b0$@classiccmp.org> <009501d0303d$346d21d0$9d476570$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 2:01 PM, Jay West wrote: > I will also continue to offer commercial grade hosting to any classic computer related website for free. I do think it's a nice benefit that many of the classic computer related repositories (bitsavers, cpmarchive, trs80, etc) are hosting on the classiccmp server where they are all backed up together and such. Yes it is! Thank you *very* much for providing so much support to the community all these years! From scaron at umich.edu Wed Jan 14 15:18:24 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:18:24 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: You must be having a bad day? If the impression of these statements is to make people think you're a big guy, I think they're having the opposite effect. I mean, using your personal resources to blow away a hobbyist offering to help another hobbyist, wow, impressive. If you really want to crush it, why don't I set up a Mediawiki from scratch and your staff, or even better, you personally can own me? Root shell. Up for it? Best, Sean On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 3:53 PM, Jay West wrote: > Sean wrote... > Please explain what significant system security issues you believe follow > from hosting a MediaWiki? I wrangle many of them so I'm always interested > in hearing criticism of the software. > ------ > > how about google "Mediawiki security vulnerabilities". Most anyone that > even touches mediawiki in a cursory fashion is aware there are frequent > issues with it. > > Better yet, go to CVE and see the current list of exploits? > > We do host hundreds of mediawiki sites, so we're up on the issues and how > to prevent them. It helps to have a staff dedicated to this. > > J > > > > From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Wed Jan 14 15:24:37 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 19:24:37 -0200 Subject: Free hosting for all classiccmp sites In-Reply-To: <004901d03038$e68cbfb0$b3a63f10$@classiccmp.org> References: <004901d03038$e68cbfb0$b3a63f10$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: Still waiting for your hosting answer :) enviado do meu telemovel Em 14/01/2015 18:21, "Jay West" escreveu: > > Sean wrote.... > ------------ > I have Comcast business grade cable Internet to my home and I'm already > hosting my own personal site and sites for a few other folks; no data caps; > plenty of static IPs; not terribly slow; everything's protected with a > Liebert double-conversion UPS... not totally a commercial datacenter in > terms of available bandwidth or backup power capacity but nevertheless my > uptimes are decent. > ------------ > > I have said many times in the past, but as new list members pop on they > are probably not aware of this. > > I host the classiccmp server (which is not just the classiccmp mailing > list, but a growing truckload of user websites that are classiccmp related) > gratis. I do not host it on a "Comcast business grade cable internet" > connection (there's a contradiction in terms in and of itself...) > > This is not something I "run out of my home". One of the companies that I > own is a hosting provider. We have a rather large-ish datacenter and I have > dedicated a set of resources to classiccmp. > > Our bandwidth is many orders of magnitude greater than a "home or business > connection". Not to mention, it's managed bandwidth with load balanced > connections to multiple carriers. Our infrastructure is all xenserver > based, so spinning up new VM's is a mouseclick. We have quite a few SAN's > so storage is not a problem at all. Full HVAC monitoring & control, power > backups (oh, and we have two separate powerstations from Ameren UE ON > SITE). This infrastructure is professionally managed by my company 24x7. > Long story short... it's not a "home" connection. > > More to the point, since I own the company, rest assured that hosting your > site here is not a "till the boss finds out" or "my wife accidentally > turned off the computer" type of situation. > > As a result - I'm happy to host any website, ftp site, wiki, etc. etc. > that is classic computer related. As long as it meets that criteria, you > can host your site with us for no charge. > > Best, > > J > > > > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 15:34:12 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:34:12 -0600 Subject: front panel LED help sought Message-ID: <00b701d03041$d722bd50$856837f0$@classiccmp.org> Yep, I'm still working on "restoration" of the Microdata Reality. I say "restoration", because due to another restoration project that actually has a deadline, I only have time to clean up the microdata and repair just obvious visual brokenness, not actually start testing/repairing it electronically. That will come after the "deadline project" J As most know, schematics and detailed documentation are nonexistent for this machine. I've done the rack, the disc drive, the tape drive, and the power supply. On to the last item, the front panel. Virtually all of the LED's on the front panel board had so much mouse pee that the leads on the LEDS actually corroded through, so I need to replace them all. Without schematics, can anyone suggest how I might go about determining a suitable replacement LED from an electrical perspective? Pictures at www.ezwind.net/microdata/restoration Best, J From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Wed Jan 14 15:28:01 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 19:28:01 -0200 Subject: front panel LED help sought Message-ID: Jay, leds hasn't changed much from years ago. Electronicaly, i believe any led of same size/format/color will fit. Of course i can dig deeper if you want enviado do meu telemovel Em 14/01/2015 19:25, "Jay West" escreveu: Yep, I'm still working on "restoration" of the Microdata Reality. I say "restoration", because due to another restoration project that actually has a deadline, I only have time to clean up the microdata and repair just obvious visual brokenness, not actually start testing/repairing it electronically. That will come after the "deadline project" J As most know, schematics and detailed documentation are nonexistent for this machine. I've done the rack, the disc drive, the tape drive, and the power supply. On to the last item, the front panel. Virtually all of the LED's on the front panel board had so much mouse pee that the leads on the LEDS actually corroded through, so I need to replace them all. Without schematics, can anyone suggest how I might go about determining a suitable replacement LED from an electrical perspective? Pictures at www.ezwind.net/microdata/restoration Best, J From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 15:37:43 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:37:43 -0600 Subject: Free hosting for all classiccmp sites In-Reply-To: References: <004901d03038$e68cbfb0$b3a63f10$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <00c701d03042$54edcdb0$fec96910$@classiccmp.org> Alexandre: I did get your email at 7:15pm last night. The space for you content is being set up today, I'd expect it to be ready tonight/tomorrow. Give me a day to respond man ;) Best, J -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Alexandre Souza Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 3:25 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Re: Free hosting for all classiccmp sites Still waiting for your hosting answer :) enviado do meu telemovel Em 14/01/2015 18:21, "Jay West" escreveu: > > Sean wrote.... > ------------ > I have Comcast business grade cable Internet to my home and I'm > already hosting my own personal site and sites for a few other folks; > no data caps; plenty of static IPs; not terribly slow; everything's > protected with a Liebert double-conversion UPS... not totally a > commercial datacenter in terms of available bandwidth or backup power > capacity but nevertheless my uptimes are decent. > ------------ > > I have said many times in the past, but as new list members pop on > they are probably not aware of this. > > I host the classiccmp server (which is not just the classiccmp mailing > list, but a growing truckload of user websites that are classiccmp > related) gratis. I do not host it on a "Comcast business grade cable internet" > connection (there's a contradiction in terms in and of itself...) > > This is not something I "run out of my home". One of the companies > that I own is a hosting provider. We have a rather large-ish > datacenter and I have dedicated a set of resources to classiccmp. > > Our bandwidth is many orders of magnitude greater than a "home or > business connection". Not to mention, it's managed bandwidth with load > balanced connections to multiple carriers. Our infrastructure is all > xenserver based, so spinning up new VM's is a mouseclick. We have > quite a few SAN's so storage is not a problem at all. Full HVAC > monitoring & control, power backups (oh, and we have two separate > powerstations from Ameren UE ON SITE). This infrastructure is professionally managed by my company 24x7. > Long story short... it's not a "home" connection. > > More to the point, since I own the company, rest assured that hosting > your site here is not a "till the boss finds out" or "my wife > accidentally turned off the computer" type of situation. > > As a result - I'm happy to host any website, ftp site, wiki, etc. etc. > that is classic computer related. As long as it meets that criteria, > you can host your site with us for no charge. > > Best, > > J > > > > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 15:40:24 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:40:24 -0600 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> Sean wrote.... ---- You must be having a bad day? If the impression of these statements is to make people think you're a big guy, I think they're having the opposite effect. I mean, using your personal resources to blow away a hobbyist offering to help another hobbyist, wow, impressive. If you really want to crush it, why don't I set up a Mediawiki from scratch and your staff, or even better, you personally can own me? Root shell. Up for it? ---- Someone is accusing ME of trying to blow away or crush a classic computer hobbyist? That's just.... wow. You MUST be new here. *PLONK* From js at cimmeri.com Wed Jan 14 15:35:37 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:35:37 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> What does *PLONK* mean? I keep seeing that here. On 1/14/2015 4:40 PM, Jay West wrote: > Sean wrote.... > ---- > You must be having a bad day? If the impression of these statements is to make people think you're a big guy, I think they're having the opposite effect. I mean, using your personal resources to blow away a hobbyist offering to help another hobbyist, wow, impressive. If you really want to crush it, why don't I set up a Mediawiki from scratch and your staff, or even better, you personally can own me? Root shell. Up for it? > ---- > > Someone is accusing ME of trying to blow away or crush a classic computer hobbyist? That's just.... wow. You MUST be new here. > > *PLONK* > > > > From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Wed Jan 14 15:42:40 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:42:40 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: it is the sound of something (or someone) bouncing off the bottom of the bit bucket. alas, needless carnage. On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 4:35 PM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > > What does *PLONK* mean? I keep seeing that here. > > > > On 1/14/2015 4:40 PM, Jay West wrote: > >> Sean wrote.... >> ---- >> You must be having a bad day? If the impression of these statements is to >> make people think you're a big guy, I think they're having the opposite >> effect. I mean, using your personal resources to blow away a hobbyist >> offering to help another hobbyist, wow, impressive. If you really want to >> crush it, why don't I set up a Mediawiki from scratch and your staff, or >> even better, you personally can own me? Root shell. Up for it? >> ---- >> >> Someone is accusing ME of trying to blow away or crush a classic computer >> hobbyist? That's just.... wow. You MUST be new here. >> >> *PLONK* >> >> >> >> >> From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 14 15:42:14 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 21:42:14 +0000 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: <00b701d03041$d722bd50$856837f0$@classiccmp.org> References: <00b701d03041$d722bd50$856837f0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: > > Virtually all of the LED's on the front panel board had so much mouse pee > that the leads on the LEDS actually corroded through, so I need to replace > them all. > > > > Without schematics, can anyone suggest how I might go about determining a > suitable replacement LED from an electrical perspective? Long answer : Trace out the circuit for one LED and its driver. Most of the time such LEDs have a series resistor. The +ve side of the combination goes to a supply line, the -ve side to the collector of a driver transistor, the emitter of which is grounded (this may be an open-collector gate like a 7406 or 7407). From that you can estimate the voltage across the LED+resistor (= supply voltage - saturation voltage of the driver transistor (say 0.5V)). Then the current through the thing is (that voltage - forward voltage of LED)/series resistor. Substitute the forward voltage of some possible replacement LEDs and see if the current is sensible (compare to the maximum current on that LED's data sheet). Short answer : Go and get some standard (not high brightness, high efficiency, or anything fancy like that) red 0.2" (5mm, whatever) LEDs. Solder them in. I will bet it will work fine. -tony From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Wed Jan 14 15:48:51 2015 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:48:51 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54B6E443.4050005@sbcglobal.net> On 01/14/2015 04:18 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > You must be having a bad day? If the impression of these statements is to > make people think you're a big guy, I think they're having the opposite > effect. I mean, using your personal resources to blow away a hobbyist > offering to help another hobbyist, wow, impressive. If you really want to > crush it, why don't I set up a Mediawiki from scratch and your staff, or > even better, you personally can own me? Root shell. Up for it? > > Best, > > Sean Sean, what is your beef? Jay is just trying to be a nice guy. And he usually succeeds. However, you are coming across as an a-hole. > On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 3:53 PM, Jay West wrote: > >> Sean wrote... >> Please explain what significant system security issues you believe follow >> from hosting a MediaWiki? I wrangle many of them so I'm always interested >> in hearing criticism of the software. >> ------ >> >> how about google "Mediawiki security vulnerabilities". Most anyone that >> even touches mediawiki in a cursory fashion is aware there are frequent >> issues with it. >> >> Better yet, go to CVE and see the current list of exploits? >> >> We do host hundreds of mediawiki sites, so we're up on the issues and how >> to prevent them. It helps to have a staff dedicated to this. >> >> J -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ Registered Linux user number 464583 "Computers have lots of memory but no imagination." "The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back." - from some guy on the internet. From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Wed Jan 14 15:50:15 2015 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:50:15 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54B6E497.7050306@sbcglobal.net> On 01/14/2015 04:40 PM, Jay West wrote: > Sean wrote.... > ---- > You must be having a bad day? If the impression of these statements is to make people think you're a big guy, I think they're having the opposite effect. I mean, using your personal resources to blow away a hobbyist offering to help another hobbyist, wow, impressive. If you really want to crush it, why don't I set up a Mediawiki from scratch and your staff, or even better, you personally can own me? Root shell. Up for it? > ---- > > Someone is accusing ME of trying to blow away or crush a classic computer hobbyist? That's just.... wow. You MUST be new here. That's what I was thinking.... > *PLONK* > > -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ Registered Linux user number 464583 "Computers have lots of memory but no imagination." "The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back." - from some guy on the internet. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 14 15:49:38 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 21:49:38 +0000 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: <00b701d03041$d722bd50$856837f0$@classiccmp.org> References: <00b701d03041$d722bd50$856837f0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: > > Without schematics, can anyone suggest how I might go about determining a > suitable replacement LED from an electrical perspective? Or, if you can find even one working LED on the original panel, remove it and connected it (correct way round) with a 330 Ohm or 470 Ohm (or so) resistor in series to an adjustable bench supply. Turn up the supply until the LED is glowing at what you consider to be normal brightness (this will be 5-10V I would guess). Now measure the voltage across the LED itself and the current through it (or deduce the latter from the voltage across the series resistor and the known value of that resistor). Try to find an LED that matches those values for forward voltage and operating current. Or as I said, just stick in standard red LEDs. I've replaced LEDs many times without thinking what I am fitting. -tony From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 14 15:51:34 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 13:51:34 -0800 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <54B6E4E6.9000707@bitsavers.org> On 1/14/15 1:35 PM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > > What does *PLONK* mean? I keep seeing that here. > From USENET. The sound of a message hitting the trash can, normally implying any further messages from the sender will receive the same treatment. From bqt at update.uu.se Wed Jan 14 15:54:29 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:54:29 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: References: <20150114142132.CA52D18C089@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <706FF153-C0D0-4C44-969A-E5F846586CDA@softjar.se> Message-ID: <54B6E595.8090606@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-14 16:03, John Many Jars wrote: > On 14 January 2015 at 14:42, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> Well, in all honesty - you also got gobs more memory on those big >> machines... And tcp/ip already exists. At least on TOPS-20. >> >> Johnny >> > Wow. What a cool project. Now if someone would just write one for RSTS/E > (: I'll leave that to someone else. While I know of one person who started such a project, I don't know of anyone who have finished it. And I don't know how feasible it would be to do under RSTS/E. I played with lots of tricks and used a lot of RSX capabilities to manage it in my case, and it will not run on plain 11M. 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 jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 16:03:53 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:03:53 -0600 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: References: <00b701d03041$d722bd50$856837f0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <014201d03045$fc79ecf0$f56dc6d0$@classiccmp.org> Tony wrote... Or, if you can find even one working LED on the original panel, remove it and connected {snip} That is probably the way I'll go. Thanks (as always) Tony!!! J From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 14 15:56:52 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 13:56:52 -0800 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54B6E624.9070608@bitsavers.org> On 1/14/15 1:40 PM, Jay West wrote: > If the impression of these statements is to make people think you're a big guy Jay IS a big guy, and has spent a lot of his own resources doing things like supporting compute and bandwidth requirements of bitsavers, which are non-trival, which I am grateful for after the original spies.com host downsized in the early '00s. From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 16:08:27 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:08:27 -0600 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <015901d03046$a02b2350$e08169f0$@classiccmp.org> JS wrote... What does *PLONK* mean? I keep seeing that here. ------ So... is that "You don't know", or.. "You do know and you're commenting about it being seen HERE an unusually large amount" *GRIN* In the context in which I meant it..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plonk_%28Usenet%29 J From bqt at update.uu.se Wed Jan 14 16:01:55 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 23:01:55 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <201501141610.LAA21821@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> <201501141610.LAA21821@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <54B6E753.7030802@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-14 17:10, Mouse wrote: >> Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally >> announce a more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. > > This is very impressive. Even for bqt@, this is very impressive. Thanks. >> If you happen to have an RSX system which you are conneting from, you >> can also try getting the BQTCP.TAP tape image. Such an image will not >> transport cleanly to a non-RSX system, however. > > I'm curious: why wouldn't it? Do the FTP client and server recognize > one another, or is it more "will not transport cleanly to a system not > implementing $OBSCURE_FTP_FEATURE", or what? Nah. The problem is simpler than that. It all relates to the fact that files under RSX are very different than under Unix. File in RSX are organized in different ways. And virtual tapes are of variable sized records. So, how would I communicate that across FTP? And the actual length of those records? Essentially any binary file under RSX cannot be transferred over FTP, with a couple of exceptions: Fixed length record files under RSX will transfer all the content of the file over the link. You will of course not know what the record length was, but that you could reconstruct after the fact. Binary files where the record lengths are irrelevant. These will also work just fine. When the FTP client under RSX talks to another RSX machines FTP server, it detects this fact, and do transfer a bunch of metadata about the file in addition to the actual file content, so that all stuff gets preserved. This also means that you can FTP indexed files over FTP between RSX machines. I have a plan to extend this to also work against VMS machines. I just need a little more time. >> I hope some people will find this useful/amusing. :-) > > I won't find it useful personally, at least not in the near future; I'm > not running RSX. And I wouldn't call it amusing. I'd call it other > things, such as "impressive" or "awesome". I'm tempted to pick up the > code just to read it over, as I'm sure there's a lot I could learn from > it, but I doubt I'll have the leisure to indulge that inclination > anytime soon. :-( It will take a lot of time to browse through the thing. The basic ARP, IP, UDP, TCP, and a couple of tools alone are about 500K of MACRO-11. 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 cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 14 16:07:16 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:07:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <20150114140134.U70444@shell.lmi.net> > What does *PLONK* mean? I keep seeing > that here. If the current flamewar over hosting continues, I will drink a box of plonk. From bqt at update.uu.se Wed Jan 14 16:08:23 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 23:08:23 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <20150114165554.GA27719@Update.UU.SE> References: <20150114142132.CA52D18C089@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <20150114165554.GA27719@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <54B6E8D7.6070409@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-14 17:55, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 09:21:32AM -0500, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> > From: Johnny Billquist >> >> > But for people who actually wants to read several hundred K of >> > MACRO-11... Here is your chance... :-) >> >> Ah. Was going to ask what the TCP/IP itself was written in. Well, at least >> it's an 8-bit machine - think about writing a TCP/IP in PDP-10 MACRO... :-) >> >> Noel > > Do you mean to say that bytes are 8-bit wide on PDP-11? Why > would PDP-10 be so much harder? There are lots of things that becomes complex and/or odd when you are on a machine with a word size that is not evenly divisible by 8. You need to manipulate bitfields inside a word, and depending on how things work, you might either span word boundaries, placing half of an octet in one word and the other half in the second, or else have four extra bits sitting around that you should ignore in every word. All arithmetic are done on 16- or 32-bit quantities, which you must take into consideration. The IP checksum is an odd beast that do ones complement addition. So spillover from the 16-bit additions are added back at the bottom. Everything is of course doable, but there will be a whole lot of bit fiddling and juggling doing TCP/IP on a PDP-10. 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 update.uu.se Wed Jan 14 16:15:29 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 23:15:29 +0100 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <54B6EA81.1000900@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-14 22:35, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > > What does *PLONK* mean? I keep seeing that here. It means people put you in their spam filters so they don't have to see any mails/posts from you any more. Johnny > > > On 1/14/2015 4:40 PM, Jay West wrote: >> Sean wrote.... >> ---- >> You must be having a bad day? If the impression of these statements is >> to make people think you're a big guy, I think they're having the >> opposite effect. I mean, using your personal resources to blow away a >> hobbyist offering to help another hobbyist, wow, impressive. If you >> really want to crush it, why don't I set up a Mediawiki from scratch >> and your staff, or even better, you personally can own me? Root shell. >> Up for it? >> ---- >> >> Someone is accusing ME of trying to blow away or crush a classic >> computer hobbyist? That's just.... wow. You MUST be new here. >> >> *PLONK* >> >> >> >> -- 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 mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Wed Jan 14 16:21:49 2015 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 17:21:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <54B6E753.7030802@update.uu.se> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> <201501141610.LAA21821@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <54B6E753.7030802@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <201501142221.RAA13355@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >>> If you happen to have an RSX system which you are conneting from, >>> you can also try getting the BQTCP.TAP tape image. Such an image >>> will not transport cleanly to a non-RSX system, however. >> I'm curious: why wouldn't it? [...] > Nah. The problem is simpler than that. It all relates to the fact > that files under RSX are very different than under Unix. File in RSX > are organized in different ways. And virtual tapes are of variable > sized records. So, how would I communicate that across FTP? And the > actual length of those records? FTP has a lot of capabilities many people are totally unaware of; see RFC 959. (Admittedly, depressingly many people are unaware FTP even _exists_....) For what you sketch, I'd suggest record structure (STRU R) and block mode (MODE B). > Essentially any binary file under RSX cannot be transferred over FTP, > [...] Sounds to me as though the truth is more like, cannot be transferred to or from typical "everything is a bag of bytes" Unix-mindset FTP implementations. Unless there's something particularly arcane you haven't hinted at, I don't see anything that would prevent transferring them over standard FTP, given a server and client that actually understand that FTP is more than a bag-of-bytes transfer tool. >> I'm tempted to pick up the code just to read it over, as I'm sure >> there's a lot I could learn from it, but I doubt I'll have the >> leisure to indulge that inclination anytime soon. :-( > It will take a lot of time to browse through the thing. The basic > ARP, IP, UDP, TCP, and a couple of tools alone are about 500K of > MACRO-11. I'm not surprised. It will definitely be a while until I have the leisure to give it a read-through. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Wed Jan 14 16:24:06 2015 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 17:24:06 -0500 Subject: Dan Tumey Message-ID: <059801d03048$cf789870$6e69c950$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Is he on this list? The University of Iowa's PDP-8 restoration site says he is producing beautiful replacement Teletype hammer pads: http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/UI-8/log.shtml I'd love to get a few for my tty. Bill S. From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Wed Jan 14 16:25:34 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:25:34 -0000 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: References: <00b701d03041$d722bd50$856837f0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <021201d03049$03e26960$0ba73c20$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony duell > Sent: 14 January 2015 21:50 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: front panel LED help sought > > > > > Without schematics, can anyone suggest how I might go about > > determining a suitable replacement LED from an electrical perspective? > > Or, if you can find even one working LED on the original panel, remove it and > connected it (correct way round) with a 330 Ohm or 470 Ohm (or so) resistor in > series to an adjustable bench supply. Turn up the supply until the LED is glowing > at what you consider to be normal brightness (this will be 5-10V I would guess). > Now measure the voltage across the LED itself and the current through it (or > deduce the latter from the voltage across the series resistor and the known > value of that resistor). Try to find an LED that matches those values for forward > voltage and operating current. > > Or as I said, just stick in standard red LEDs. I've replaced LEDs many times > without thinking what I am fitting. "without thinking" is that an impostor pretending to be Tony? :-) :-) Regards Rob From bqt at update.uu.se Wed Jan 14 16:30:32 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 23:30:32 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <201501142221.RAA13355@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> <201501141610.LAA21821@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <54B6E753.7030802@update.uu.se> <201501142221.RAA13355@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <54B6EE08.3060509@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-14 23:21, Mouse wrote: >>>> If you happen to have an RSX system which you are conneting from, >>>> you can also try getting the BQTCP.TAP tape image. Such an image >>>> will not transport cleanly to a non-RSX system, however. >>> I'm curious: why wouldn't it? [...] >> Nah. The problem is simpler than that. It all relates to the fact >> that files under RSX are very different than under Unix. File in RSX >> are organized in different ways. And virtual tapes are of variable >> sized records. So, how would I communicate that across FTP? And the >> actual length of those records? > > FTP has a lot of capabilities many people are totally unaware of; see > RFC 959. (Admittedly, depressingly many people are unaware FTP even > _exists_....) For what you sketch, I'd suggest record structure > (STRU R) and block mode (MODE B). Oh how I wish. Have you tried giving those command in an ftp client under Unix? :-) Essentially, for transfer to/from Unix systems, you are stuck with STRU F, MODE S Since the struct and mode abilities in the FTP protocol will not easily cover enough anyway, I decided to do a similar trick I noticed VMS is doing. So I support a "STRU O RSX" command, will will enable the extra bells and whistles needed to transfer files properly between RSX systems. >> Essentially any binary file under RSX cannot be transferred over FTP, >> [...] > > Sounds to me as though the truth is more like, cannot be transferred to > or from typical "everything is a bag of bytes" Unix-mindset FTP > implementations. Unless there's something particularly arcane you > haven't hinted at, I don't see anything that would prevent transferring > them over standard FTP, given a server and client that actually > understand that FTP is more than a bag-of-bytes transfer tool. No, you are right. And that is what I do when talking between a properly able FTP server and FTP client. Since that essentially boils down to an RSX system talking to an RSX system, I did it with an extension that makes it easy for me. The effect when talking to other systems are the same. Using the existing stuff in RFC 959 would only mean I would have problems transferring between RSX systems, and still not able to transfer to anything else anyway. So it's nothing really arcane. It's just that I will not be able to transfer something like a binary native RSX file to a non-RSX system. But that was almost expected 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 robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Wed Jan 14 16:36:06 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:36:06 -0000 Subject: Dan Tumey In-Reply-To: <54b6ec9a.466b320a.2920.ffff8642SMTPIN_ADDED_BROKEN@mx.google.com> References: <54b6ec9a.466b320a.2920.ffff8642SMTPIN_ADDED_BROKEN@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <021601d0304a$7cd37390$767a5ab0$@ntlworld.com> It is David Tumey and he is on the Greenkeys list. Regards Rob > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bill > Sudbrink > Sent: 14 January 2015 22:24 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Dan Tumey > > Is he on this list? The University of Iowa's PDP-8 restoration site says he is > producing beautiful replacement Teletype hammer pads: > > http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/UI-8/log.shtml > > I'd love to get a few for my tty. > > Bill S. From geneb at deltasoft.com Wed Jan 14 16:44:39 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:44:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: Free hosting for all classiccmp sites In-Reply-To: <00c701d03042$54edcdb0$fec96910$@classiccmp.org> References: <004901d03038$e68cbfb0$b3a63f10$@classiccmp.org> <00c701d03042$54edcdb0$fec96910$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2015, Jay West wrote: > Alexandre: I did get your email at 7:15pm last night. The space for you > content is being set up today, I'd expect it to be ready > tonight/tomorrow. Give me a day to respond man ;) Ideally you'll get it down to the point where you're replying four minutes before the request arrives. :D g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From geneb at deltasoft.com Wed Jan 14 16:47:16 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:47:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2015, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > > What does *PLONK* mean? I keep seeing that here. > It's the sound an email address makes when it strikes the inside of the killfile. :) A killfile is a thing that holds email addresses. When an inbound email finds a match in the killfile, it's simply dropped on the floor and never delivered. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From jws at jwsss.com Wed Jan 14 17:24:39 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:24:39 -0800 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: <014201d03045$fc79ecf0$f56dc6d0$@classiccmp.org> References: <00b701d03041$d722bd50$856837f0$@classiccmp.org> <014201d03045$fc79ecf0$f56dc6d0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54B6FAB7.6040906@jwsss.com> Jay, there are no issues with the LED's that I know of other than they do have a load resistor in series with them, so they need no internal dropping resistor to work across +5. they have long leads as well, as there is a 1" (or there bouts) stiffening board to keep the leads from shorting out, and to position them in a line to poke thru the front panel. There are other solutions to allow for long leads, but they just used a long circuit board. Jim On 1/14/2015 2:03 PM, Jay West wrote: > Tony wrote... > Or, if you can find even one working LED on the original panel, remove it > and connected {snip} > > > That is probably the way I'll go. Thanks (as always) Tony!!! > > J > > > From doug at doughq.com Wed Jan 14 17:41:50 2015 From: doug at doughq.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 10:41:50 +1100 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: <54B6FAB7.6040906@jwsss.com> References: <00b701d03041$d722bd50$856837f0$@classiccmp.org> <014201d03045$fc79ecf0$f56dc6d0$@classiccmp.org> <54B6FAB7.6040906@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <54B6FEBE.3020804@doughq.com> One thing to be careful about is that modern LEDs are *much* more effecient than old LEDs. I recently replaced a LED on my IMSAI front panel. The new LED stuck out like a sore thumb, it was insanely bright. From memory, I replaced the resistor with about a 1k2. Doug On 15/01/2015 10:24 AM, jwsmobile wrote: > Jay, > there are no issues with the LED's that I know of other than they do > have a load resistor in series with them, so they need no internal > dropping resistor to work across +5. > > they have long leads as well, as there is a 1" (or there bouts) > stiffening board to keep the leads from shorting out, and to position > them in a line to poke thru the front panel. There are other > solutions to allow for long leads, but they just used a long circuit > board. > > Jim > > On 1/14/2015 2:03 PM, Jay West wrote: >> Tony wrote... >> Or, if you can find even one working LED on the original panel, >> remove it >> and connected {snip} >> >> >> That is probably the way I'll go. Thanks (as always) Tony!!! >> >> J >> >> >> > > > From dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com Wed Jan 14 17:50:21 2015 From: dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com (Doug Ingraham) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:50:21 -0700 Subject: Answer: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150112) Message-ID: More discussion ensued than was expected for this question. On a minimal 4k machine (no extended memory and no EAE) and no data break devices operating the longest latency would be that of a memory reference instruction with a defer (indirect address) cycle. On a Straight 8 this would be 4.5 microseconds. A single cycle data break device could have delayed the interrupt indefinitely although I know of no such devices. A three cycle break could extend the delay by an additional three memory cycles (4.5 microseconds) for a total of 9 microseconds. If the machine was equipped with an EAE then the Division instruction would have delayed entry of the interrupt service routine by up to 35 microseconds (on a straight 8). I believe this was a 9 microsecond instruction on the 8/e EAE. If the machine is equipped with extended memory then there is the CIF induced delay. CIF is the Change Instruction Field instruction. This instruction only schedules the change. The actual change does not take place until the next JMP I or JMS I instruction. The interrupts are masked by the CIF until the conclusion of the indirect branch. This is because the interrupt handler would not be able to restore the instruction field correctly in this instance. I have been unable to think of a reason why you would ever want to delay the indirect branch although you certainly could do so. That means the sequence CIF followed by a JMS I would only see the additional delay from the JMS I which is the same as the delay from a memory reference instruction with a defer. The JMP I variant would only be 3 microseconds. And the greatest source of interrupt latency on a straight 8 would have been due to the Option 189 which is the low cost A/D converter. This option added the ability to do 6 to 12 bit A/D conversions as a CPU instruction (6004). It performed a typical successive approximation conversion using the MB and AC registers. When 12 bit conversion were selected this instruction would take 56.6 microseconds to execute according to the manual. I don't have a 189 for my straight 8 but I am planning on hunting down the cards I don't have. And the answer Mr Stearns gave for this question was "No matter what it is faster than Windows." On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 9:10 AM, Doug Ingraham wrote: > This weeks question comes from Warren Stearns. It is a little obscure and > specific to the PDP-8 family of computers. > > What is the source of the greatest latency in the interrupt system on a > PDP-8. > > I have three answers, two of the answers depends on the options fitted to > an 8. > > Why would this have been an important question? Interrupt latency would > be extremely important in the field of data collection which was one of the > principal early uses of these machines. My particular 8 was used for > exactly this purpose in the Summer when it was hauled to a radar site and > collected weather research data for the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences. > I believe it was used for this from 1969 through 1972. I have several > hundred DECTapes with some of this data. The surprising thing is we don't > see any problems reading DECTapes that haven't been out of their box since > the early 70's. > > Doug Ingraham > PDP-8 S/N 1175 > From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 14 17:55:33 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 18:55:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: front panel LED help sought Message-ID: <20150114235533.3DF4018C098@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Robert Jarratt >> I've replaced LEDs many times without thinking what I am fitting. > "without thinking" is that an impostor pretending to be Tony? :-) :-) Foolish novice! Please consult: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan#Enlightenment for enlightenment. :-) Noel From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 18:18:32 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 18:18:32 -0600 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: <54B6FAB7.6040906@jwsss.com> References: <00b701d03041$d722bd50$856837f0$@classiccmp.org> <014201d03045$fc79ecf0$f56dc6d0$@classiccmp.org> <54B6FAB7.6040906@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <023601d03058$cc5d0d50$651727f0$@classiccmp.org> JS wrote.... ---- they have long leads as well, as there is a 1" (or there bouts) stiffening board to keep the leads from shorting out, and to position them in a line to poke thru the front panel. There are other solutions to allow for long leads, but they just used a long circuit board. ---- Yep. A picture of what you describe (stiffening board and long leads): http://www.ezwind.net/microdata/restoration/frontpanel/IMG_0299.JPG J From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Wed Jan 14 18:21:02 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:21:02 -0200 Subject: Free hosting for all classiccmp sites In-Reply-To: References: <004901d03038$e68cbfb0$b3a63f10$@classiccmp.org> <00c701d03042$54edcdb0$fec96910$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: Hey, sorry! I just though my email got lost into a spam filter :) On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 8:44 PM, geneb wrote: > On Wed, 14 Jan 2015, Jay West wrote: > > Alexandre: I did get your email at 7:15pm last night. The space for you >> content is being set up today, I'd expect it to be ready tonight/tomorrow. >> Give me a day to respond man ;) >> > > Ideally you'll get it down to the point where you're replying four minutes > before the request arrives. :D > > g. > > -- > Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 > http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. > http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. > Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. > > ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment > A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. > http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! > From scaron at umich.edu Wed Jan 14 18:33:07 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 19:33:07 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: Wha? All I did was offer up some free space, bandwidth and static IPs when various people expressed a need. I didn't realize that Jay was the only person allowed to respond to those kind of requests here so I'll say no more when such threads come up and I'll leave it to him. I don't understand why my just offering up some free hosting got Jay so worked up where he needs to come in here and basically say, hey, everything you are running is a joke, waste of time... and, I mean, fine, you can have your own opinion of my home network, but I felt his messages ran deeper as a personal attack against me and my level of skill as a professional sysadmin. If this list were running on my machines, the first thing I'd tell you is that you don't owe me a darn thing for doing it. I will leave if asked, after all, I guess it's Jay's sandbox. Best, Sean On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 5:47 PM, geneb wrote: > On Wed, 14 Jan 2015, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > > >> What does *PLONK* mean? I keep seeing that here. >> >> It's the sound an email address makes when it strikes the inside of the > killfile. :) > > A killfile is a thing that holds email addresses. When an inbound email > finds a match in the killfile, it's simply dropped on the floor and never > delivered. > > g. > > > -- > Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 > http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. > http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. > Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. > > ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment > A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. > http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 19:23:53 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 19:23:53 -0600 Subject: NTP on classiccmp Message-ID: <000001d03061$ed806500$c8812f00$@classiccmp.org> I just noticed that NTP on classiccmp stopped, it has been restarted. My apologies, but you?ll probably want to scroll back ? day to catch any unread messages if you didn?t notice it! J From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Wed Jan 14 19:19:57 2015 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 20:19:57 -0500 Subject: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <54B715BD.7020508@sbcglobal.net> On 1/14/2015 7:33 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > Wha? All I did was offer up some free space, bandwidth and static IPs when > various people expressed a need. Nothing wrong with the offer > I didn't realize that Jay was the only person allowed to respond to those > kind of requests here so I'll say no more when such threads come up and > I'll leave it to him. Maybe you need to bone up on your comprehension skills. Please show me _exactly_ where Jay said he was the only person allowed to respond. > I don't understand why my just offering up some free hosting got Jay so > worked up where he needs to come in here and basically say, hey, everything > you are running is a joke, waste of time... Again, where was this said? > ... and, I mean, fine, you can have > your own opinion of my home network, but I felt his messages ran deeper as > a personal attack against me and my level of skill as a professional > sysadmin. A bit touchy? > If this list were running on my machines, the first thing I'd tell you is > that you don't owe me a darn thing for doing it. Which is what he's said for years. He's always said he'd host a classic computing related site gratis. He merely reiterated his standing offer, while adding that he has real business class infrastructure to host it on. > I will leave if asked, after all, I guess it's Jay's sandbox. I can't, and won't, ask you to leave; but I won't stop you either. > Best, > > Sean > > > > > On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 5:47 PM, geneb wrote: > >> On Wed, 14 Jan 2015, js at cimmeri.com wrote: >> >> >>> What does *PLONK* mean? I keep seeing that here. >>> >>> It's the sound an email address makes when it strikes the inside of the >> killfile. :) >> >> A killfile is a thing that holds email addresses. When an inbound email >> finds a match in the killfile, it's simply dropped on the floor and never >> delivered. >> >> g. -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech -http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst -http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ Registered Linux user number 464583 "Computers have lots of memory but no imagination." "The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back." - from some guy on the internet. From drlegendre at gmail.com Wed Jan 14 20:44:25 2015 From: drlegendre at gmail.com (drlegendre .) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 20:44:25 -0600 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Howdy gents, On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 3:28 PM, Alexandre Souza < alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > Jay, leds hasn't changed much from years ago. Electronicaly, i believe any > led of same size/format/color will fit. As one who has recently rebuilt an early 70s Altair 8800, I can inform you that a great deal has changed, in the LED world. The very inexpensive 'standard' red LEDs which I obtained to replace the failed units in the Altair were magnitudes brighter than the original parts, when fed from the same power sources. I ended up having to increase the value of the series resistors by hundreds or even thousands of ohms, just to maintain a similar level of brightness vs. the old LEDs. I'd have to take a look inside, but I believe the values jumped from 300R to several K in most cases. The new tech is so much more efficient than the stuff kicked-out in the 70s! From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Wed Jan 14 20:53:41 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:53:41 -0200 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: drlegendre, he will change ALL of the leds, by what he said. So he doesn't need to worry about how bright they will be. Also, there are hi-bright leds and lo-bright leds, I believe he will use the least expensive, less bright ones by default. On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 12:44 AM, drlegendre . wrote: > Howdy gents, > > On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 3:28 PM, Alexandre Souza < > alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: > > > Jay, leds hasn't changed much from years ago. Electronicaly, i believe > any > > led of same size/format/color will fit. > > > As one who has recently rebuilt an early 70s Altair 8800, I can inform you > that a great deal has changed, in the LED world. > > The very inexpensive 'standard' red LEDs which I obtained to replace the > failed units in the Altair were magnitudes brighter than the original > parts, when fed from the same power sources. I ended up having to increase > the value of the series resistors by hundreds or even thousands of ohms, > just to maintain a similar level of brightness vs. the old LEDs. > > I'd have to take a look inside, but I believe the values jumped from 300R > to several K in most cases. The new tech is so much more efficient than the > stuff kicked-out in the 70s! > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 14 21:02:45 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 21:02:45 -0600 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002d01d0306f$bd567f50$38037df0$@classiccmp.org> Drlegendre wrote... The very inexpensive 'standard' red LEDs which I obtained to replace the failed units in the Altair were magnitudes brighter than the original parts, when fed from the same power sources. I ended up having to increase the value of the series resistors by hundreds or even thousands of ohms, just to maintain a similar level of brightness vs. the old LEDs. I'd have to take a look inside, but I believe the values jumped from 300R to several K in most cases. The new tech is so much more efficient than the stuff kicked-out in the 70s! ------ In my case, I'm not replacing just a few LEDs, I'm replacing every one of them. As a result I have a much wider tolerance aesthetically as to the brightness. That being said, I don't want to blast the room and hurt my eyes looking at them ;) The ones I'm going to be looking for have axial leads at least 1.5" long, and the bulb diameter is 4.6 or 4.7mm (with the slightly wider collar at the bottom). I'm hunting.... Thanks! J From drlegendre at gmail.com Wed Jan 14 22:08:25 2015 From: drlegendre at gmail.com (drlegendre .) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:08:25 -0600 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: <002d01d0306f$bd567f50$38037df0$@classiccmp.org> References: <002d01d0306f$bd567f50$38037df0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: Ah, OK - my mistake! Sorry, gents.. I wasn't following closely enough, and had the impression that he was trying to mix old & new LEDs.. Thank you for replying and correcting my misunderstanding(s). On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 9:02 PM, Jay West wrote: > Drlegendre wrote... > The very inexpensive 'standard' red LEDs which I obtained to replace the > failed units in the Altair were magnitudes brighter than the original > parts, when fed from the same power sources. I ended up having to increase > the value of the series resistors by hundreds or even thousands of ohms, > just to maintain a similar level of brightness vs. the old LEDs. > > I'd have to take a look inside, but I believe the values jumped from 300R > to several K in most cases. The new tech is so much more efficient than the > stuff kicked-out in the 70s! > ------ > In my case, I'm not replacing just a few LEDs, I'm replacing every one of > them. As a result I have a much wider tolerance aesthetically as to the > brightness. That being said, I don't want to blast the room and hurt my > eyes looking at them ;) > > The ones I'm going to be looking for have axial leads at least 1.5" long, > and the bulb diameter is 4.6 or 4.7mm (with the slightly wider collar at > the bottom). I'm hunting.... > > Thanks! > > J > > > From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jan 14 23:02:01 2015 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 21:02:01 -0800 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3932C8D8-6F53-48A2-BE4D-F2DF358729D6@cs.ubc.ca> On 2015-Jan-14, at 6:53 PM, Alexandre Souza wrote: > On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 12:44 AM, drlegendre . wrote: >> Howdy gents, >> >> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 3:28 PM, Alexandre Souza < >> alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Jay, leds hasn't changed much from years ago. Electronicaly, i believe >> any >>> led of same size/format/color will fit. >> >> >> As one who has recently rebuilt an early 70s Altair 8800, I can inform you >> that a great deal has changed, in the LED world. >> >> The very inexpensive 'standard' red LEDs which I obtained to replace the >> failed units in the Altair were magnitudes brighter than the original >> parts, when fed from the same power sources. I ended up having to increase >> the value of the series resistors by hundreds or even thousands of ohms, >> just to maintain a similar level of brightness vs. the old LEDs. >> >> I'd have to take a look inside, but I believe the values jumped from 300R >> to several K in most cases. The new tech is so much more efficient than the >> stuff kicked-out in the 70s! >> > > drlegendre, he will change ALL of the leds, by what he said. So he doesn't > need to worry about how bright they will be. Also, there are hi-bright leds > and lo-bright leds, I believe he will use the least expensive, less bright > ones by default. Nonetheless, even 'normal' modern LEDs can be much more efficient than LEDs of the early-mid-70s, and even if replacing all of them for uniformity they might look out of character or non-original if not adjusted for brightness. The target current for an LED in the 70s would typically be 20mA as I recall, while 10mA or less will generally do today. A few months ago when that television series about the PC-era compatibles-vs-IBM story was being mentioned on the list, I went off to watch the preview on youtube. There was a scene where the engineer was hacking over the IBM-PC to get ROM-dumps or some such and had a bunch of breadboards filled with blinken LEDs. Being in critic/pedant mode, as soon as I saw the lit LEDs I immediately thought "LEDs didn't look like that in 1983". From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 14 23:55:55 2015 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:55:55 -0500 Subject: Mauchly video uploaded Message-ID: <54B7566B.5000005@snarc.net> Cctalk'rs, Very exciting news to share tonight. Al Katz and Sol Libes, who co-founded the Trenton Computer Festival based on Roger Amidon's idea, gave we "MARCHins" permission to publish their video of ENIAC's John Mauchly keynoting the 1977 show. It was the first TCF keynote: there wasn't one at the 1976 show. Claude Kagan (a Western Electric engineer who also ran a 1960s/1970s high school computer club here in central New Jersey) gave the introduction. There are also remarks by Kay Mauchly, who was an ENIAC programmer, followed by some audience Q&A. A few minutes of the video are choppy due to the original source. Please share this far and wide! Video is in two parts so here's the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_e5fSxflvrxXO5Ddh9ZXX-cli94zF3Pc From pontus at Update.UU.SE Wed Jan 14 23:59:30 2015 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 06:59:30 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <54B6E753.7030802@update.uu.se> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> <201501141610.LAA21821@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <54B6E753.7030802@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <20150115055930.GA8213@Update.UU.SE> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 11:01:55PM +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote: > > Nah. The problem is simpler than that. It all relates to the fact > that files under RSX are very different than under Unix. File in RSX > are organized in different ways. And virtual tapes are of variable > sized records. So, how would I communicate that across FTP? And the > actual length of those records? > Is there some kind of backup/archiving tool on rsx which you could wrap files and metadata in? Before transfer to bag-of-bytes systems? /P From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 15 00:08:58 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 06:08:58 +0000 Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: <021201d03049$03e26960$0ba73c20$@ntlworld.com> References: <00b701d03041$d722bd50$856837f0$@classiccmp.org> , <021201d03049$03e26960$0ba73c20$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: > > > Or as I said, just stick in standard red LEDs. I've replaced LEDs many > > times > > without thinking what I am fitting. > > "without thinking" is that an impostor pretending to be Tony? :-) :-) No, it's much the same way that I breathe without thinking. It is something that doesn't need thought. The 'bog standard' LEDs I get from Farnell, etc don't seem ridiculously bright when used with the same series resistors I was using 30 years ago (say 330 Ohms for an LED from a TTL output to +5V, giving a current of around 10mA). I suspect others are right and they would look odd if mixed with old LEDs on the same panel, but if you are replacing the lot it won't matter. As regards the long lead issue, you can of course solder extensions to shorter LED leads. And if you find you need more series resistance, one of the extensions could probably be a resistor. -tony From mhs.stein at gmail.com Thu Jan 15 01:02:52 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 02:02:52 -0500 Subject: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> What Jay said: "I'm happy to host any website, ftp site, wiki, etc. etc. that is classic computer related. As long as it meets that criteria, you can host your site with us for no charge." and "I fully support you offering (free) hosting services for vintage computer stuff. I am glad there are people out there besides just me willing to host classic computer related sites" And for newcomers he offered some background on the system which hosts this list and a number of related web sites, mainly to reassure us that we don't have to worry about uptime, speed, capacity or it disappearing any time soon as so many other sites are doing these days. At least that's what I read; where did you read anything like what you're replying to below? ... "Jay's the only person allowed to respond" ?? ... "everything you are running is a joke, waste of time" ?? ... "personal attack against me and my level of skill" ?? ... "I will leave if asked" ?? Huh? As a matter of fact I can't think of any time when someone has not been "allowed to respond" to anything on this list, not even I when I've gone on too long with some rant or another (like this one ;). Where does this come from? Why are some people so ready and almost determined to see /personal/ attacks where nothing of the sort is intended and that no one else reading the thread can see, especially when the original post is actually meant in a positive sense? I was recently banned from another list, apparently because a moderator inexplicably took offence at a post of mine thanking him for expanding on a reply from another member to a question I'd asked; I was gratified to receive a number of emails off-list from members just as puzzled as I as to what my 'crime' had been. (BTW, in case you're interested: the /V(erify) option in DOS copy commands really does NOT actually verify that the file has been correctly copied, just that there were no write errors ;) We're all in this to help and respect each other, so let's read/think twice before deciding that we've been attacked or insulted and responding inappropriately. And while I'm at it, let me thank Jay, Chuck, Al, Tony, Terry and all the other folks whom I've inadvertently overlooked for the (computer) time, knowledge, hard- and software, documentation etc. etc that they've freely donated and shared with the rest of our little community. Thanks!! m ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sean Caron" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" ; "Sean Caron" Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 7:33 PM Subject: Re: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] > Wha? All I did was offer up some free space, bandwidth and static IPs when > various people expressed a need. > > I didn't realize that Jay was the only person allowed to respond to those > kind of requests here so I'll say no more when such threads come up and > I'll leave it to him. > > I don't understand why my just offering up some free hosting got Jay so > worked up where he needs to come in here and basically say, hey, > everything > you are running is a joke, waste of time... and, I mean, fine, you can > have > your own opinion of my home network, but I felt his messages ran deeper as > a personal attack against me and my level of skill as a professional > sysadmin. > > If this list were running on my machines, the first thing I'd tell you is > that you don't owe me a darn thing for doing it. > > I will leave if asked, after all, I guess it's Jay's sandbox. > > Best, > > Sean > > > > > On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 5:47 PM, geneb wrote: > >> On Wed, 14 Jan 2015, js at cimmeri.com wrote: >> >> >>> What does *PLONK* mean? I keep seeing that here. >>> >>> It's the sound an email address makes when it strikes the inside of the >> killfile. :) >> >> A killfile is a thing that holds email addresses. When an inbound email >> finds a match in the killfile, it's simply dropped on the floor and never >> delivered. >> >> g. >> >> >> -- >> Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 >> http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. >> http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. >> Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. >> >> ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment >> A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. >> http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! >> From mhs.stein at gmail.com Thu Jan 15 01:17:49 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 02:17:49 -0500 Subject: front panel LED help sought References: <3932C8D8-6F53-48A2-BE4D-F2DF358729D6@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <9A4790703AB744CBAB1A29809902BECC@310e2> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brent Hilpert" Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 12:02 AM > ... even 'normal' modern LEDs can be much more efficient than LEDs of the > early-mid-70s, and even if replacing all of them for uniformity they might > look out of character or non-original if not adjusted for brightness. ----- Reply ----- Just in case someone /does/ want to match up some existing ones I have a few bags of LEDs from 30 or 40 years ago, both new and pulls; ya never know... m From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 15 03:42:11 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 10:42:11 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <20150115055930.GA8213@Update.UU.SE> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> <201501141610.LAA21821@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <54B6E753.7030802@update.uu.se> <20150115055930.GA8213@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <54B78B73.9010009@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-15 06:59, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 11:01:55PM +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> >> Nah. The problem is simpler than that. It all relates to the fact >> that files under RSX are very different than under Unix. File in RSX >> are organized in different ways. And virtual tapes are of variable >> sized records. So, how would I communicate that across FTP? And the >> actual length of those records? >> > > Is there some kind of backup/archiving tool on rsx which you > could wrap files and metadata in? > > Before transfer to bag-of-bytes systems? Yes. I could certainly do that. However, that means someone would need to write an unpacking tool from this format, and to then write some "userful" output under a Unix system. But this would definitely be doable. But it's not some kind of backup/archive tool that is needed. Any such tool would have the same "problematic" output file. But I've written a tool in the past that can encode binary files in a text file format. Similar to uuencode/uudecode. And then you have a text file which still preserves all the metadata of the original file. 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 lars at nocrew.org Thu Jan 15 05:41:01 2015 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 12:41:01 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <54B6E8D7.6070409@update.uu.se> (Johnny Billquist's message of "Wed\, 14 Jan 2015 23\:08\:23 +0100") References: <20150114142132.CA52D18C089@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <20150114165554.GA27719@Update.UU.SE> <54B6E8D7.6070409@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <8561c8i84y.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Johnny Billquist wrote: > Pontus Pihlgren wrote: >> Why would PDP-10 be so much harder? > > Everything is of course doable, but there will be a whole lot of bit > fiddling and juggling doing TCP/IP on a PDP-10. If you just use the "natural" 8-bite byte packing for a word (i.e. what IBP does, and also the subset the one-word global byte pointers support), I don't see that it would be so much harder. The PDP-10 byte instructions are quite convenient for bit fidding. From tsg at bonedaddy.net Thu Jan 15 07:11:05 2015 From: tsg at bonedaddy.net (Todd Goodman) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 08:11:05 -0500 Subject: Dan Tumey In-Reply-To: <021601d0304a$7cd37390$767a5ab0$@ntlworld.com> References: <54b6ec9a.466b320a.2920.ffff8642SMTPIN_ADDED_BROKEN@mx.google.com> <021601d0304a$7cd37390$767a5ab0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20150115131105.GB14268@ns1.bonedaddy.net> He also has excellent reproduction Teletype front panels too. They look really great! Todd * Robert Jarratt [150114 17:36]: > It is David Tumey and he is on the Greenkeys list. > > Regards > > Rob > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bill > > Sudbrink > > Sent: 14 January 2015 22:24 > > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > Subject: Dan Tumey > > > > Is he on this list? The University of Iowa's PDP-8 restoration site says > he is > > producing beautiful replacement Teletype hammer pads: > > > > http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/UI-8/log.shtml > > > > I'd love to get a few for my tty. > > > > Bill S. From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 15 07:29:27 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 14:29:27 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <8561c8i84y.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> References: <20150114142132.CA52D18C089@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <20150114165554.GA27719@Update.UU.SE> <54B6E8D7.6070409@update.uu.se> <8561c8i84y.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: <54B7C0B7.1030709@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-15 12:41, Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > Johnny Billquist wrote: >> Pontus Pihlgren wrote: >>> Why would PDP-10 be so much harder? >> >> Everything is of course doable, but there will be a whole lot of bit >> fiddling and juggling doing TCP/IP on a PDP-10. > > If you just use the "natural" 8-bite byte packing for a word > (i.e. what IBP does, and also the subset the one-word global byte > pointers support), I don't see that it would be so much harder. The > PDP-10 byte instructions are quite convenient for bit fidding. They are. But you also have to, sometimes, do calculations to create your byte pointers, as the byte you want to start looking at might not be at the beginning of a word. And the same is true for some 16- or 32-bit quantities. And you need to do arithmetic on 16- and 32-bit with the correct byte ordering, which might mean you have to move bytes around, and truncate things. The story goes on. Like I said, it is definitely doable, but it do require some fiddling. The devil is in the details. Once you actually start coding, you'll discover all the small annoyances. 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 pontus at Update.UU.SE Thu Jan 15 07:48:47 2015 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 14:48:47 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <54B78B73.9010009@update.uu.se> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> <201501141610.LAA21821@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <54B6E753.7030802@update.uu.se> <20150115055930.GA8213@Update.UU.SE> <54B78B73.9010009@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <20150115134846.GA17477@Update.UU.SE> On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 10:42:11AM +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2015-01-15 06:59, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > > > >Is there some kind of backup/archiving tool on rsx which you > >could wrap files and metadata in? > > > >Before transfer to bag-of-bytes systems? > > Yes. I could certainly do that. However, that means someone would > need to write an unpacking tool from this format, and to then write > some "userful" output under a Unix system. But this would definitely > be doable. > Of course, I was under the impression that the target was another RSX system and the unix system was just an intermediate step. But I might have dreamt that part :) /P From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 15 08:14:32 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 15:14:32 +0100 Subject: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <20150115134846.GA17477@Update.UU.SE> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> <201501141610.LAA21821@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <54B6E753.7030802@update.uu.se> <20150115055930.GA8213@Update.UU.SE> <54B78B73.9010009@update.uu.se> <20150115134846.GA17477@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <54B7CB48.8050302@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-15 14:48, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 10:42:11AM +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> On 2015-01-15 06:59, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: >>> >>> Is there some kind of backup/archiving tool on rsx which you >>> could wrap files and metadata in? >>> >>> Before transfer to bag-of-bytes systems? >> >> Yes. I could certainly do that. However, that means someone would >> need to write an unpacking tool from this format, and to then write >> some "userful" output under a Unix system. But this would definitely >> be doable. >> > > Of course, I was under the impression that the target was > another RSX system and the unix system was just an intermediate > step. But I might have dreamt that part :) I'm not entirely clear what the purpose was. I pointed out that transferring the tape file over ftp to a different type of system was not possible, as information is lost. If you want to just store intermediately on another system, then my encoding/decoding program is perfect. But most of the time, if you are going to transfer between two RSX systems, you can just do it directly instead, and FTP will do it right already. 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 scaron at umich.edu Thu Jan 15 10:23:05 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 11:23:05 -0500 Subject: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] In-Reply-To: <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> Message-ID: Look, I basically let this go yesterday night. All I did was (1) call out some specious hand-waving about how insecure Mediawiki is and my perceived implication in that statement that, by endorsing Mediawiki or administering a Mediawiki I am not a security-conscious admin and (2) offer up free Wiki and static-Web hosting services to other hobbyists on this list. You can read yourself all the threads and decide for yourself, if they were being written to you, would you find them offensive? I know I wasn't the only one who found it a little bit over the top. Jay had many literary mechanisms available that he could have used to make his points; I found the ones he selected in particular to be offensive. I will absolutely rise to it if someone wants to come at me, I guess if that makes me thin-skinned, so be it, I will wear that badge. I learned how to deal with bullies long ago. If I had responded to someone else like Jay responded to me, I would have been pilloried. He doesn't get a free pass with me just by being the list owner although it's well within his rights to ask me to leave or kick of me off (neither have happened, so, hey, good sports, I guess). Last response from me regarding any of this nastiness from yesterday. If you or anyone else wants to chat further regarding this topic you're welcome to shoot me a personal e-mail. Best, Sean On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 2:02 AM, Mike Stein wrote: > What Jay said: > > "I'm happy to host any website, ftp site, wiki, etc. etc. that is classic > computer related. As long as it meets that criteria, you can host your site > with us for no charge." and "I fully support you offering (free) hosting > services for vintage computer stuff. I am glad there are people out there > besides just me willing to host classic computer related sites" > > And for newcomers he offered some background on the system which hosts this > list and a number of related web sites, mainly to reassure us that we don't > have to worry about uptime, speed, capacity or it disappearing any time > soon > as so many other sites are doing these days. > > At least that's what I read; where did you read anything like what you're > replying to below? > > ... "Jay's the only person allowed to respond" ?? > ... "everything you are running is a joke, waste of time" ?? > ... "personal attack against me and my level of skill" ?? > ... "I will leave if asked" ?? > > Huh? > > As a matter of fact I can't think of any time when someone has not been > "allowed to respond" to anything on this list, not even I when I've gone on > too long with some rant or another (like this one ;). > > Where does this come from? Why are some people so ready and almost > determined to see /personal/ attacks where nothing of the sort is intended > and that no one else reading the thread can see, especially when the > original post is actually meant in a positive sense? > > I was recently banned from another list, apparently because a moderator > inexplicably took offence at a post of mine thanking him for expanding on a > reply from another member to a question I'd asked; I was gratified to > receive a number of emails off-list from members just as puzzled as I as to > what my 'crime' had been. > > (BTW, in case you're interested: the /V(erify) option in DOS copy commands > really does NOT actually verify that the file has been correctly copied, > just that there were no write errors ;) > > We're all in this to help and respect each other, so let's read/think twice > before deciding that we've been attacked or insulted and responding > inappropriately. > > And while I'm at it, let me thank Jay, Chuck, Al, Tony, Terry and all the > other folks whom I've inadvertently overlooked for the (computer) time, > knowledge, hard- and software, documentation etc. etc that they've freely > donated and shared with the rest of our little community. > > Thanks!! > > m > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sean Caron" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > ; "Sean Caron" > Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 7:33 PM > Subject: Re: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] > > > Wha? All I did was offer up some free space, bandwidth and static IPs when >> various people expressed a need. >> >> I didn't realize that Jay was the only person allowed to respond to those >> kind of requests here so I'll say no more when such threads come up and >> I'll leave it to him. >> >> I don't understand why my just offering up some free hosting got Jay so >> worked up where he needs to come in here and basically say, hey, >> everything >> you are running is a joke, waste of time... and, I mean, fine, you can >> have >> your own opinion of my home network, but I felt his messages ran deeper as >> a personal attack against me and my level of skill as a professional >> sysadmin. >> >> If this list were running on my machines, the first thing I'd tell you is >> that you don't owe me a darn thing for doing it. >> >> I will leave if asked, after all, I guess it's Jay's sandbox. >> >> Best, >> >> Sean >> >> >> >> >> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 5:47 PM, geneb wrote: >> >> On Wed, 14 Jan 2015, js at cimmeri.com wrote: >>> >>> >>> What does *PLONK* mean? I keep seeing that here. >>>> >>>> It's the sound an email address makes when it strikes the inside of the >>>> >>> killfile. :) >>> >>> A killfile is a thing that holds email addresses. When an inbound email >>> finds a match in the killfile, it's simply dropped on the floor and never >>> delivered. >>> >>> g. >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 >>> http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. >>> http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. >>> Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. >>> >>> ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment >>> A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. >>> http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! >>> >>> > From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 15 10:28:04 2015 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 11:28:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] In-Reply-To: <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> Message-ID: <201501151628.LAA04735@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > What Jay said: [...] > And for newcomers he offered some background [...] > At least that's what I read; where did you read anything like what > you're replying to below? I have a suspicion I may have some idea what happened. I don't for a moment think this is what Jay intended. But what he wrote did strike me as being rather like "my server is bigger than your server, so shut up" - that is to say, while I've been here long enough to know that is (shall we say) extremely unlikely to be what Jay meant, the text was rather like what would have resulted if that _had_ been what he'd meant, and most of the differences were things Jay didn't say. And a lot of people find it hard to notice unsaid things. So, while Jay didn't outright say (and, I repeat, I don't believe he meant) anything like any of > ... "Jay's the only person allowed to respond" ?? > ... "everything you are running is a joke, waste of time" ?? > ... "personal attack against me and my level of skill" ?? > ... "I will leave if asked" ?? I have no trouble seeing how someone new(ish) to the list could read any or all of those as subtext below what Jay did write. > Where does this come from? I don't know. I speculate that it comes from having been on the net long enough to have run into plenty of cases of "well _my_ $THING is $BETTER than _your_ $THING" (which are depressingly common) and developed reflexive reactions to them, combined with not having been here long enough to have learnt that that's not something Jay would say. Or maybe even just having been tired or stressed enough to have failed to suppress the reflexive reaction. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From scaron at umich.edu Thu Jan 15 10:34:05 2015 From: scaron at umich.edu (Sean Caron) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 11:34:05 -0500 Subject: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] In-Reply-To: <201501151628.LAA04735@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> <201501151628.LAA04735@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: You nailed it. Thank you for understanding. Best, Sean On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 11:28 AM, Mouse wrote: > > What Jay said: [...] > > > And for newcomers he offered some background [...] > > > At least that's what I read; where did you read anything like what > > you're replying to below? > > I have a suspicion I may have some idea what happened. > > I don't for a moment think this is what Jay intended. But what he > wrote did strike me as being rather like "my server is bigger than your > server, so shut up" - that is to say, while I've been here long enough > to know that is (shall we say) extremely unlikely to be what Jay meant, > the text was rather like what would have resulted if that _had_ been > what he'd meant, and most of the differences were things Jay didn't > say. And a lot of people find it hard to notice unsaid things. > > So, while Jay didn't outright say (and, I repeat, I don't believe he > meant) anything like any of > > > ... "Jay's the only person allowed to respond" ?? > > ... "everything you are running is a joke, waste of time" ?? > > ... "personal attack against me and my level of skill" ?? > > ... "I will leave if asked" ?? > > I have no trouble seeing how someone new(ish) to the list could read > any or all of those as subtext below what Jay did write. > > > Where does this come from? > > I don't know. I speculate that it comes from having been on the net > long enough to have run into plenty of cases of "well _my_ $THING is > $BETTER than _your_ $THING" (which are depressingly common) and > developed reflexive reactions to them, combined with not having been > here long enough to have learnt that that's not something Jay would > say. Or maybe even just having been tired or stressed enough to have > failed to suppress the reflexive reaction. > > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 15 10:38:51 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 08:38:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] In-Reply-To: References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> <201501151628.LAA04735@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <20150115083748.H86039@shell.lmi.net> I have plenty of plastic cups if anybody wants to share the next box of plonk. From tothwolf at concentric.net Thu Jan 15 10:59:40 2015 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 10:59:40 -0600 (CST) Subject: front panel LED help sought In-Reply-To: <023601d03058$cc5d0d50$651727f0$@classiccmp.org> References: <00b701d03041$d722bd50$856837f0$@classiccmp.org> <014201d03045$fc79ecf0$f56dc6d0$@classiccmp.org> <54B6FAB7.6040906@jwsss.com> <023601d03058$cc5d0d50$651727f0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2015, Jay West wrote: > JS wrote.... > ---- > they have long leads as well, as there is a 1" (or there bouts) stiffening > board to keep the leads from shorting out, and to position them in a line to > poke thru the front panel. There are other solutions to allow for long > leads, but they just used a long circuit board. > ---- > > Yep. A picture of what you describe (stiffening board and long leads): > http://www.ezwind.net/microdata/restoration/frontpanel/IMG_0299.JPG I had wondered if you had finished the Microdata... I can't remember for certain now if I ever followed up, but I did check my stash of old Allen-Bradley resistor networks and I couldn't find any that were the same value and bus configuration as the ones the mouse pee ruined on your board. From tothwolf at concentric.net Thu Jan 15 11:17:29 2015 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 11:17:29 -0600 (CST) Subject: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] In-Reply-To: <201501151628.LAA04735@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> <201501151628.LAA04735@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: On Thu, 15 Jan 2015, Mouse wrote: >> What Jay said: [...] > >> And for newcomers he offered some background [...] > >> At least that's what I read; where did you read anything like what >> you're replying to below? > > I have a suspicion I may have some idea what happened. > > I don't for a moment think this is what Jay intended. But what he > wrote did strike me as being rather like "my server is bigger than your > server, so shut up" - that is to say, while I've been here long enough > to know that is (shall we say) extremely unlikely to be what Jay meant, > the text was rather like what would have resulted if that _had_ been > what he'd meant, and most of the differences were things Jay didn't > say. And a lot of people find it hard to notice unsaid things. > > So, while Jay didn't outright say (and, I repeat, I don't believe he > meant) anything like any of > >> ... "Jay's the only person allowed to respond" ?? >> ... "everything you are running is a joke, waste of time" ?? >> ... "personal attack against me and my level of skill" ?? >> ... "I will leave if asked" ?? > > I have no trouble seeing how someone new(ish) to the list could read > any or all of those as subtext below what Jay did write. > >> Where does this come from? > > I don't know. I speculate that it comes from having been on the net > long enough to have run into plenty of cases of "well _my_ $THING is > $BETTER than _your_ $THING" (which are depressingly common) and > developed reflexive reactions to them, combined with not having been > here long enough to have learnt that that's not something Jay would > say. Or maybe even just having been tired or stressed enough to have > failed to suppress the reflexive reaction. I think Mouse pretty much hit the nail on the here here. Sean, MediaWiki hosting, specifically the server administration aspects, tends to be an absolute nightmare. It is one of those things where the maintenance of the underlying MediaWiki software is best left to a dedicated hosting provider who is always going to be on top of all the security patches (I'd also place something like WordPress in this category for the same reasons). I've worked with MediaWiki extensively in the past, including handling the server admin side of it, and it was a right pain in the rear to deal with. From mtapley at swri.edu Thu Jan 15 11:18:37 2015 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Tapley, Mark) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 17:18:37 +0000 Subject: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] In-Reply-To: References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> <201501151628.LAA04735@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <3D9ED231-31D5-4C22-973D-4191C99BDD90@swri.edu> On Jan 15, 2015, at 11:17 AM, Tothwolf wrote: > I think Mouse pretty much hit the nail on the here here. Bravo, Head, head! :-) - Mark From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 15 11:35:02 2015 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (Dave Woyciesjes) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 12:35:02 -0500 Subject: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] In-Reply-To: <3D9ED231-31D5-4C22-973D-4191C99BDD90@swri.edu> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> <201501151628.LAA04735@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <3D9ED231-31D5-4C22-973D-4191C99BDD90@swri.edu> Message-ID: <54B7FA46.7060003@sbcglobal.net> On 01/15/2015 12:18 PM, Tapley, Mark wrote: > On Jan 15, 2015, at 11:17 AM, Tothwolf wrote: > >> I think Mouse pretty much hit the nail on the here here. > > Bravo, Head, head! > > :-) > > - Mark > I'll just disagree. :) But let's let it drop here & now. -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ Registered Linux user number 464583 "Computers have lots of memory but no imagination." "The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back." - from some guy on the internet. From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 15 12:24:19 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 12:24:19 -0600 Subject: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] In-Reply-To: References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> Message-ID: <007401d030f0$7b0abd10$71203730$@classiccmp.org> It was written.... ---- Look, I basically let this go yesterday night. ---- Apparently not. ---- All I did was (1) call out some specious hand-waving about how insecure Mediawiki is ---- As other listmembers pointed out, concerns about the security of Mediawiki are not "specious hand-waving". There are real issues there that have to be addressed. Not knowing that is probably considered by many to be "unusual". ----- and my perceived implication in that statement that, by endorsing Mediawiki or administering a Mediawiki I am not a security-conscious admin ----- See above. ----- I know I wasn't the only one who found it a little bit over the top. Jay had many literary mechanisms available that he could have used to make his points; I found the ones he selected in particular to be offensive. ----- I doubt that. But If you found it offensive, I would have appreciated an email off-list but I suspect you were more interested in public drama or concern that your "geekdom" (affectionate term, not a slam) was being challenged. ---- it's well within his rights to ask me to leave or kick of me off (neither have happened, so, hey, good sports, I guess). ---- Not yet anyways. This thread needs to die. ---- Last response from me regarding any of this nastiness from yesterday. ---- Yes, it is. I would love to go into the reasons for the exact literary mechanisms I chose for my initial post in detail, but I will not (I did however, send those to Sean off-list, and will gladly share them with anyone who wishes - offlist). Most here that are long-timers I'm sure were able to read between the lines and unfortunately you could not. Suffice it to say that my post was based on custodial reasons, looking out for what was best for the hobby as much as is possible/reasonable. You made it personal, and it was not. Again, perhaps contacting the "offending" poster off-list to resolve amicably would have been better than public drama. Let's kill this thread please. J From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Thu Jan 15 12:21:03 2015 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 19:21:03 +0100 Subject: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM4341 and HP3000]] In-Reply-To: <007401d030f0$7b0abd10$71203730$@classiccmp.org> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> <007401d030f0$7b0abd10$71203730$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <1f0f13507040ee55de13f2d5df8c470f@smtp-cloud3.xs4all.net> PLONK ? -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: "Jay West" Verzonden: ?15-?1-?2015 19:15 Aan: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" Onderwerp: RE: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM4341 and HP3000]] It was written.... ---- Look, I basically let this go yesterday night. ---- Apparently not. ---- All I did was (1) call out some specious hand-waving about how insecure Mediawiki is ---- As other listmembers pointed out, concerns about the security of Mediawiki are not "specious hand-waving". There are real issues there that have to be addressed. Not knowing that is probably considered by many to be "unusual". ----- and my perceived implication in that statement that, by endorsing Mediawiki or administering a Mediawiki I am not a security-conscious admin ----- See above. ----- I know I wasn't the only one who found it a little bit over the top. Jay had many literary mechanisms available that he could have used to make his points; I found the ones he selected in particular to be offensive. ----- I doubt that. But If you found it offensive, I would have appreciated an email off-list but I suspect you were more interested in public drama or concern that your "geekdom" (affectionate term, not a slam) was being challenged. ---- it's well within his rights to ask me to leave or kick of me off (neither have happened, so, hey, good sports, I guess). ---- Not yet anyways. This thread needs to die. ---- Last response from me regarding any of this nastiness from yesterday. ---- Yes, it is. I would love to go into the reasons for the exact literary mechanisms I chose for my initial post in detail, but I will not (I did however, send those to Sean off-list, and will gladly share them with anyone who wishes - offlist). Most here that are long-timers I'm sure were able to read between the lines and unfortunately you could not. Suffice it to say that my post was based on custodial reasons, looking out for what was best for the hobby as much as is possible/reasonable. You made it personal, and it was not. Again, perhaps contacting the "offending" poster off-list to resolve amicably would have been better than public drama. Let's kill this thread please. J From mhs.stein at gmail.com Thu Jan 15 12:34:32 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 13:34:32 -0500 Subject: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> Message-ID: <5F8AE48ADC72476D97616D5D8B77B4BC@310e2> From: "Sean Caron" Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 11:23 AM Subject: Re: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] > You can read yourself all the threads and decide for yourself, if they > were > being written to you, would you find them offensive? No. It is always *our* choice how to interpret and feel about things we read and hear and whether to make the effort to understand rather than just react. All Jay said is that his setup, collective experience etc. is perhaps more suited to this sort of thing than yours but he welcomes you and anyone who wants to add to the resources available to this community. What does offend me is your Straw Man arguments and name calling; Jay a "bully" ? --- Description of Straw Man The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. --- 'nuff said. m From mhs.stein at gmail.com Thu Jan 15 12:38:17 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 13:38:17 -0500 Subject: Fw: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] Message-ID: Sorry; meant to send that privately. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Stein" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 1:34 PM Subject: Re: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] > From: "Sean Caron" > Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 11:23 AM > Subject: Re: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: > IBM 4341 and HP3000]] > >> You can read yourself all the threads and decide for yourself, if they >> were >> being written to you, would you find them offensive? > > No. > > It is always *our* choice how to interpret and feel about things we read > and hear and whether to make the effort to understand rather than just > react. > > All Jay said is that his setup, collective experience etc. is perhaps more > suited to this sort of thing than yours but he welcomes you and anyone who > wants to add to the resources available to this community. > > What does offend me is your Straw Man arguments and name calling; Jay a > "bully" ? > > --- > Description of Straw Man > > The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's > actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented > version of that position. > --- > > 'nuff said. > > m From tots at matinino.com Thu Jan 15 17:20:37 2015 From: tots at matinino.com (Hector Saint-Prix) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 19:20:37 -0400 Subject: IBM System/36 follow up Message-ID: <54B84B45.4070008@matinino.com> Hi everyone, Back to you guys with a small gallery of pictures of the machine via Dropbox. It is a 5360 system ( 1m? / 700 pounds), with french labeled panel. I have not tried to open its guts yet. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fiyipqf9p92mery/AACAXjdASRhVNHM9sPCzh6DVa?dl=0 The system is located in Martinique (French West Indies). It had only one owner, a Medical Laboratory that bought it between 1985-1987 I think and used it on a network with at least 4 maybe 5 terminals and a printer. The system used a software sold by a Paris based company that still exist and keeps on selling software solutions on AS/400 architecture. The Laboratory migrated to new hardware. Later it moved and left the 5360 in the old place. I have no clue about the configuration but I know it had a hard drive and it supported floppy disk banks. From what I've been told, there is no way it can shipped by boat to North America. Simply because you have to fill up a container to be able to make a cargo shipment, and very very few stuff goes this direction so it would take a long while before fullfilling the requirement. The only easy shipping option to North-America is by airplane which is quite a proposition for a 1m? / 320kg box. To send it as a whole to Europe instead is quite easy. There is freight boarding every week and containers are on heavy rotation. Shipping to the main port destination which is "Le Havre, France" would in the vinicity of 500 euros, though some taxes in arrival are to be expected (20% on the items value). I will search the place so more, maybe I can find some documentation. Truly Yours, Hector From bqt at softjar.se Thu Jan 15 21:47:58 2015 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 04:47:58 +0100 Subject: [HECnet] Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> Message-ID: <54B889EE.4050807@softjar.se> There have been lots of positive comments, and obviously some people have even tested using the software. Of course, a bug was also found. A really weird corner case with severely loading the network stack and having a socket in listen state programatically could trigger a corruption of kernel memory. So I've cut a new release with the bug fixed. While I'm at it I also realize that I forgot to mention that included in the distribution is also a simple IRC client as well as a simple IRC robot. I've also taken a little time to slightly improve the documentation, and the documentation is now also available directly by ftp from Madame.Update.UU.SE, so you do not need to get the whole distribution and unpack it to just read something. So - same as before. Disk image and tape image are available at Madame.Update.UU.SE. Use anonymous ftp. Disk image is also available at ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip. The disk image is a virtual RL02 disk. Can be used with any emulator, or also directly inside RSX if you have virtual devices available. Happy hacking. Johnny On 2015-01-14 00:40, Johnny Billquist wrote: > Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally announce a > more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. > > This is the result of over 20 years of development. Needless to say, > I've been doing a lot of things over the years, and this code have been > through four reimplementations over the years. > What I now release is something that I believe is a nice and useful > piece of software. I am aware of the fact that most people do not use > these machines any longer, but if someone actually wants to talk to me > about support for this or other RSX software, let me know. > > Also, feel free to spread this information to anyone who might be > interested, anywhere. > > So - what is in this release? > It is a complete implementation of ARP, IP, UDP, and TCP for > RSX-11M-PLUS. It has been tested on RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6, but should work > on any V4 release. There might be some small tweaks or fixes required, > but nothing major. > It do require a system with split I/D-space, or else at least the TCP > part will not fit. > For Unibus machines, it should be possible to run without any additional > software except what is in a base RSX distribution. > For Q-bus machines, DECnet is required for ethernet networking. > The TCP/IP stack can co-exist with DECnet. > Some utilities also utilize RMS for file access. > > A bunch of tools, utilities and libraries are also included. These include: > . IFCONFIG network configuration tool. > . NETSTAT network information tool. > . PING > . TRACEROUTE > > . DNS client > . FTP daemon > . FTP client > . HTTP server > . TELNET client (rudimentary) > . TFTP client > . TFTP server > . INET server that can do SINK, ECHO, DAYTIME, QUOTE, and IDENT > . NTP client > . LPR client that sits in the queue manager (rudimentary) > > . FORTRAN-77 library > . BASIC+2 library > . PDP-11 C library > > The implementation fulfills most of the requirements put forth in RFC > 1122. There are a few limitations because of restrictions in the PDP-11, > but none of them should really cause any problems. > > Documentation is still on the thin side, but example configs are also > provided, along with installation scripts. > > A bunch of test programs and example programs are also included, as well > as the sources of all tools and libraries. > > The TCP/IP stack itself only comes in binary form. > > All tools are also included precompiled in the distribution, so an > installation only have to build the stack itself for your system, and > then you should be ready to go. > > The API only have a slight resemblance to the Unix sockets API. However, > if someone sits down to write code to use TCP/IP under RSX, I'm sure > they will discover that it is extremely easy to use the libraries, or > the basic functions. > > The TCP/IP implementation is mostly written as device drivers. This also > have some other interesting implications, such as it is possible to > access TCP as a normal file. You can, for instance do something similar > to the Unix netcat command by issuing the MCR command: > > > PIP TI:=TC:"foo.com";4711 > > which would open a connection to foo.com, on port 4711, and any data > sent from that machine will be shown on the terminal. > > The resources used by TCP/IP are modest. A memory area (size selectable > at generation/startup) is used internally. The amount of memory in the > private pool limits the amount of data that can be buffered. Normal pool > is used in a small quantity for each TCP port that is open. > > People are welcome to play around with this, and make improvements. > Contributions of code is most welcome. > > There are still lots of things to do. The programs marked as rudimentary > should be rewritten. > The most obvious thing still missing is a telnet daemon, which probably > is my next step. > > However, the reason for now announcing the release is that it can > finally be distributed natively from an RSX host. > > The main locations to download the TCP/IP for RSX are: > > Madame.Update.UU.SE (anonymous ftp). > > This is one of my development systems for this software. It runs under > E11, and if things are down, I blame E11. :-) > When connected, you are already in the right directory. There is both an > RL02 disk image there, which can be downloaded by anyone. If you happen > to have an RSX system which you are conneting from, you can also try > getting the BQTCP.TAP tape image. Such an image will not transport > cleanly to a non-RSX system, however. Sorry. > > ftp.Update.UU.SE (anonymous ftp) - /pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip > The disk image is normally duplicated to ftp.update.uu.se as well, so > the same file can be found there. > > I hope some people will find this useful/amusing. :-) > > Johnny Billquist > -- 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 tothwolf at concentric.net Thu Jan 15 22:22:59 2015 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 22:22:59 -0600 (CST) Subject: Thin skins [Was: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000]] In-Reply-To: <3D9ED231-31D5-4C22-973D-4191C99BDD90@swri.edu> References: <20150114193342.00D2518C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54B6C7C9.7080204@bitsavers.org> <007b01d0303c$30d809a0$92881ce0$@classiccmp.org> <00c801d03042$b5368bd0$1fa3a370$@classiccmp.org> <54B6E129.7030300@cimmeri.com> <2660E2D374A64F97812EDE385EBDA084@310e2> <201501151628.LAA04735@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <3D9ED231-31D5-4C22-973D-4191C99BDD90@swri.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, 15 Jan 2015, Tapley, Mark wrote: > On Jan 15, 2015, at 11:17 AM, Tothwolf wrote: > >> I think Mouse pretty much hit the nail on the here here. > > Bravo, Head, head! > > :-) Note to self: caffeine before spellcheck. :P From BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu Thu Jan 15 22:36:25 2015 From: BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu (Benjamin Huntsman) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 04:36:25 +0000 Subject: Netware/IP 1.1 Message-ID: <5782C16A7C920E469B74E11B5608B8E768A7FF68@Kriegler.ntdom.cupdx> Just curious, anyone on here ever work with Netware/IP 1.1? Don't laugh, but anyone still have an old copy for sale? :) Thanks! From kylevowen at gmail.com Thu Jan 15 22:39:33 2015 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 22:39:33 -0600 Subject: SimH Help, was Re: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 9:47 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > There have been lots of positive comments, and obviously some people have > even tested using the software. > I shall echo the sentiments of others; thanks for releasing this! So - same as before. Disk image and tape image are available at > Madame.Update.UU.SE. Use anonymous ftp. > Disk image is also available at ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip > . > The disk image is a virtual RL02 disk. Can be used with any emulator, or > also directly inside RSX if you have virtual devices available. Johnny, you mentioned you're running under E11. Has anyone tried it under SimH yet? I put together an 11/70 1MB system under the PDP-11 emulator (built with Ethernet support under OS X 10.9) and have installed RSX-11M-PLUS 4.6. When I was installing, SYSGEN reported 512k of RAM instead of 1M, which alarmed me. I went into manual mode and told it explicitly 1M. That's been my only hiccup so far, and that's about where I'm at. If anyone has any suggestions for a newcomer to RSX, I'd certainly appreciate it. I'd be more than willing to write up a tutorial if someone can help me the rest of the way. Thanks, Kyle From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 15 22:44:03 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 05:44:03 +0100 Subject: SimH Help, was Re: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54B89713.6040102@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-16 05:39, Kyle Owen wrote: > On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 9:47 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> There have been lots of positive comments, and obviously some people have >> even tested using the software. >> > > I shall echo the sentiments of others; thanks for releasing this! > > So - same as before. Disk image and tape image are available at >> Madame.Update.UU.SE. Use anonymous ftp. >> Disk image is also available at ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip >> . >> The disk image is a virtual RL02 disk. Can be used with any emulator, or >> also directly inside RSX if you have virtual devices available. > > > Johnny, you mentioned you're running under E11. Has anyone tried it under > SimH yet? I put together an 11/70 1MB system under the PDP-11 emulator > (built with Ethernet support under OS X 10.9) and have installed > RSX-11M-PLUS 4.6. When I was installing, SYSGEN reported 512k of RAM > instead of 1M, which alarmed me. I went into manual mode and told it > explicitly 1M. That's been my only hiccup so far, and that's about where > I'm at. If anyone has any suggestions for a newcomer to RSX, I'd certainly > appreciate it. I'd be more than willing to write up a tutorial if someone > can help me the rest of the way. I've done development and testing on three different machines. 1) E11 - Emulating an 11/74 - to make sure the code also works on multiprocessor PDP-11s. 2) Simh - Emulating a 11/94. 3) A real PDP-11/93. As for memory, I hope you are aware that RSX reports memory in kilowords, not kilobytes. :-) But anyway, why not go for a fully loaded machine when you have the chance? Slightly less than 4MB, or 2MW. 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 update.uu.se Thu Jan 15 22:46:03 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 05:46:03 +0100 Subject: SimH Help, was Re: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54B8978B.8030905@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-16 05:39, Kyle Owen wrote: > On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 9:47 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> There have been lots of positive comments, and obviously some people have >> even tested using the software. >> > > I shall echo the sentiments of others; thanks for releasing this! > > So - same as before. Disk image and tape image are available at >> Madame.Update.UU.SE. Use anonymous ftp. >> Disk image is also available at ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip >> . >> The disk image is a virtual RL02 disk. Can be used with any emulator, or >> also directly inside RSX if you have virtual devices available. > > > Johnny, you mentioned you're running under E11. Has anyone tried it under > SimH yet? I put together an 11/70 1MB system under the PDP-11 emulator > (built with Ethernet support under OS X 10.9) and have installed > RSX-11M-PLUS 4.6. When I was installing, SYSGEN reported 512k of RAM > instead of 1M, which alarmed me. I went into manual mode and told it > explicitly 1M. That's been my only hiccup so far, and that's about where > I'm at. If anyone has any suggestions for a newcomer to RSX, I'd certainly > appreciate it. I'd be more than willing to write up a tutorial if someone > can help me the rest of the way. By the way - as far as newcomers go. I hope you are aware that the full manual set is available on bitsavers. It's a lot to read, but start with a few simple manuals like "Introduction to RSX", which is really basic. And then some manuals about utilities and system management. Of course, you can also just ask, and I'll try and answer. :-) 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 kylevowen at gmail.com Thu Jan 15 22:58:29 2015 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 22:58:29 -0600 Subject: SimH Help, was Re: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <54B89713.6040102@update.uu.se> References: <54B89713.6040102@update.uu.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 10:44 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > > I've done development and testing on three different machines. > > 1) E11 - Emulating an 11/74 - to make sure the code also works on > multiprocessor PDP-11s. > 2) Simh - Emulating a 11/94. > 3) A real PDP-11/93. > Very cool. I only have a PDP-11/73 in my personal collection (not currently booting), but an 11/20 and 11/34 are right down the street. Someday (maybe soon) I'll get those fired up again. As for memory, I hope you are aware that RSX reports memory in kilowords, > not kilobytes. :-) > Doh...! No, I wasn't aware of that. In which case, SYSGEN apparently had no problem detecting how much RAM was in the system! Thanks for that tidbit. But anyway, why not go for a fully loaded machine when you have the chance? > Slightly less than 4MB, or 2MW. Well, I suppose if it's as easy as changing the config file and re-running SYSGEN, I'll do it. I'll check out that documentation pronto (Intro to RSX sounds like a great start). Right now, I've been working on punched card reading on the PDP-8, as well as emulating a VC8E. Sounds like I need to catch up on the 16-bit realm for a change! Thanks again, Kyle From marc.verdiell at gmail.com Fri Jan 16 03:02:05 2015 From: marc.verdiell at gmail.com (Marc Verdiell) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 01:02:05 -0800 Subject: Subject: Knowledge Base (was RE: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20B9B521-D9E5-4947-81A9-016F4FCD0F08@gmail.com> I am relatively new here but joining this mailing list has helped me almost immediately. Thank you Jay and others for doing this and contributing a professional grade infrastructure. The wiki is an idea, but an alternative that I wish would exist is a repository for restoration logs. Something that you could follow and comment on, and that allows attachment of slightly richer media to posts (photos, docs) in the context of someone's specific restoration project. You learn so much from these. I know people already do it individually, but not in a centralized searchable place (you have to chance upon them), and often in an annoying reverse chronology "blog" format that's ill adapted for this usage. Or a museum style static website that does not relate the problem solving path (including things that fail) that a restoration is. In other "build oriented" groups I belong to, we do this very successfully by encouraging individual build log threads in a Forum format. That's in addition to a catch-all "string of consciousness" mailing list like this one. Is that anything that could be considered? Marc > Message: 21 > Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:42:34 -0600 > From: "Jay West" > To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" > > Subject: Knowledge Base (was RE: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay > Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] > Message-ID: <004a01d0303a$a11eefa0$e35ccee0$@classiccmp.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > So.. about this "knowledgebase" of restoration techniques. > > Apparently new folks don't know and some older listmembers don't remember... > > We did start a "wiki" for people to post restoration tips, repair tips, etc. > This was done about 8 years ago. When I first brought up the idea there was > a lot of discussion on the list as to if it was a good idea or not. Many > people had very good thoughts as to why it would be wonderful, and many > other people had equally good thoughts as to why it would not be wonderful. > > In any case, I set it up. We found that there was an initial flurry of > posting, and then virtually nothing. Statistics showed it was not used very > much at all. There were a handful of issues as I recall (not my > implementation of it, but in the general idea of a > repair/troubleshooting/restoration "wiki"). I only remember one of them at > the moment... and that was that someone would post an article without really > having detailed expertise in that given area and then someone that DID have > expertise in that area would (for lack of a better term) contramand that > article or write a separate one with conflicting info which made it hard for > a novice to really sift through the information. In short, everyone has an > opinion and at times the articles directly conflicted with another and > someone seeking knowledge wouldn't know who to believe. > > That being said, if people really want to give this another try, I would be > happy to turn on the old classiccmp knowledge base (I'm 99% sure it's stored > but just not turned on), or I could easily have one of my support staff dump > a wiki installation to a folder there (under classiccmp) and we could give > it a try again. I'm all for it, but for it to be successful - it has to be > due to contribution/acceptance by the membership at large. My proclivity at > this point would be to install a new wiki and then pull articles already > posted in the old "wiki" into it. > > And yes, if it's to be in the classiccmp.org domain, I'd have to host it. I > have not yet seen a scenario where we'd be willing to point an a-record > off-site (but that's not to say some future situation might get a different > response). > > Best, > J From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Fri Jan 16 03:47:26 2015 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave G4UGM) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 09:47:26 -0000 Subject: Restoration Best Practice RE: Subject: Knowledge Base (was RE: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] Message-ID: <0bf001d03171$6fc8a3f0$4f59ebd0$@gmail.com> I try and blog my restorations here:- http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/blog.php?18268-g4ugm but I often forget. Actually recording what you have done is really important and is often forgotten or over looked. The last thing you want to do when you wife drags you away from the home workshop is write up what you have done mot it is really important. I also try and change things in a reversible manner. If I replace capacitors I keep and record where they came from. I don't suppose this will ever be of interest to any one else, but it might be... Dave G4UGM -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Marc Verdiell Sent: 16 January 2015 09:02 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Subject: Knowledge Base (was RE: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] I am relatively new here but joining this mailing list has helped me almost immediately. Thank you Jay and others for doing this and contributing a professional grade infrastructure. The wiki is an idea, but an alternative that I wish would exist is a repository for restoration logs. Something that you could follow and comment on, and that allows attachment of slightly richer media to posts (photos, docs) in the context of someone's specific restoration project. You learn so much from these. I know people already do it individually, but not in a centralized searchable place (you have to chance upon them), and often in an annoying reverse chronology "blog" format that's ill adapted for this usage. Or a museum style static website that does not relate the problem solving path (including things that fail) that a restoration is. In other "build oriented" groups I belong to, we do this very successfully by encouraging individual build log threads in a Forum format. That's in addition to a catch-all "string of consciousness" mailing list like this one. Is that anything that could be considered? Marc > Message: 21 > Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 14:42:34 -0600 > From: "Jay West" > To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" > > Subject: Knowledge Base (was RE: Restoration technique [Was: Re: Bay > Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000] > Message-ID: <004a01d0303a$a11eefa0$e35ccee0$@classiccmp.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > So.. about this "knowledgebase" of restoration techniques. > > Apparently new folks don't know and some older listmembers don't remember... > > We did start a "wiki" for people to post restoration tips, repair tips, etc. > This was done about 8 years ago. When I first brought up the idea > there was a lot of discussion on the list as to if it was a good idea > or not. Many people had very good thoughts as to why it would be > wonderful, and many other people had equally good thoughts as to why it would not be wonderful. > > In any case, I set it up. We found that there was an initial flurry of > posting, and then virtually nothing. Statistics showed it was not used > very much at all. There were a handful of issues as I recall (not my > implementation of it, but in the general idea of a > repair/troubleshooting/restoration "wiki"). I only remember one of > them at the moment... and that was that someone would post an article > without really having detailed expertise in that given area and then > someone that DID have expertise in that area would (for lack of a > better term) contramand that article or write a separate one with > conflicting info which made it hard for a novice to really sift > through the information. In short, everyone has an opinion and at > times the articles directly conflicted with another and someone seeking knowledge wouldn't know who to believe. > > That being said, if people really want to give this another try, I > would be happy to turn on the old classiccmp knowledge base (I'm 99% > sure it's stored but just not turned on), or I could easily have one > of my support staff dump a wiki installation to a folder there (under > classiccmp) and we could give it a try again. I'm all for it, but for > it to be successful - it has to be due to contribution/acceptance by > the membership at large. My proclivity at this point would be to > install a new wiki and then pull articles already posted in the old "wiki" into it. > > And yes, if it's to be in the classiccmp.org domain, I'd have to host > it. I have not yet seen a scenario where we'd be willing to point an > a-record off-site (but that's not to say some future situation might > get a different response). > > Best, > J From bqt at update.uu.se Fri Jan 16 06:32:33 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 13:32:33 +0100 Subject: SimH Help, was Re: Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: References: <54B89713.6040102@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54B904E1.1070105@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-16 05:58, Kyle Owen wrote: > On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 10:44 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> As for memory, I hope you are aware that RSX reports memory in kilowords, >> not kilobytes. :-) >> > > Doh...! No, I wasn't aware of that. In which case, SYSGEN apparently had no > problem detecting how much RAM was in the system! Thanks for that tidbit. Yep. :-) >> But anyway, why not go for a fully loaded machine when you have the chance? >> Slightly less than 4MB, or 2MW. > > > Well, I suppose if it's as easy as changing the config file and re-running > SYSGEN, I'll do it. No need to SYSGEN. The system will pick the memory size at boot. > I'll check out that documentation pronto (Intro to RSX sounds like a great > start). Right now, I've been working on punched card reading on the PDP-8, > as well as emulating a VC8E. Sounds like I need to catch up on the 16-bit > realm for a change! Have fun! :-) Johnny From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 16 07:32:32 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 07:32:32 -0600 Subject: Subject: Knowledge Base Message-ID: <008401d03190$e2309230$a691b690$@classiccmp.org> Marc wrote.... ---- [snip] Thank you Jay and others for doing this and contributing a professional grade infrastructure. ---- Most welcome - but it's not just me. There's a lot of folks who help. ---- The wiki is an idea, but an alternative that I wish would exist is a repository for restoration logs. [snip] ---- The conversation makes things come back to me from old memory :) Now that I think about it - that was the primary "con" thought that most listmembers had about a "wiki". It basically competed with the mailing list as a resource and many of the folks here weren't going to go "graphical" so it would just result in a fracture/fork and dilution of the community. As a result, we went with a "Knowledge Base" package for pretty much the exact reasons you list in your post. The one we had used was "Andy's PHP Knowledge Base". I would be happy to try it again if listmembers would agree to substantially contribute. The only thing worse than not having one is having one that doesn't really have great content (and I'm positive the listmembers have great content to contribute). The only criteria I'd have from my side is that it be php/mysql based. We do have a flock of windows servers in the infrastructure, but I'd prefer if it was FAMP based. I haven't seen where the development of Andy's package has gone over the years, so I'd appreciate any suggestions folks may have as to a good php/mysql knowledge base type of package. I personally like the idea of a knowledgebase, but as Marc says - it'd be nice to have a place for people to post their restoration logs. Many people do this on their own sites and it's a great thing but I'm sure many people (me included) generally don't have the time to create an entire site to post the progress of each restoration project. Maybe if something in this site would allow easy subsection creation ("John Smiths PDP7 restoration project") that could be of help to both restorers and interested people wanting to learn. There is a site for people restoring/customizing Jon boats that I've spent a lot of time on where each person can create their own section documenting their restoration project. That type of thing would be a great resource here in addition to a "knowledge base". Let me know if there's interest. Thoughts? J From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 16 07:28:34 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 11:28:34 -0200 Subject: Subject: Knowledge Base In-Reply-To: <008401d03190$e2309230$a691b690$@classiccmp.org> References: <008401d03190$e2309230$a691b690$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: I'm in. But instead of repair/restoration logs, I'd like to also contribute with specific knowledge (e.g.: how to properly neutralize alkali from batteries on a PCB) which I believe to be more searcheable and a better contribuition than just logs. On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 11:32 AM, Jay West wrote: > Marc wrote.... > ---- > [snip] Thank you Jay and others for doing this and contributing a > professional grade infrastructure. > ---- > Most welcome - but it's not just me. There's a lot of folks who help. > > ---- > The wiki is an idea, but an alternative that I wish would exist is a > repository for restoration logs. [snip] > ---- > The conversation makes things come back to me from old memory :) Now that I > think about it - that was the primary "con" thought that most listmembers > had about a "wiki". It basically competed with the mailing list as a > resource and many of the folks here weren't going to go "graphical" so it > would just result in a fracture/fork and dilution of the community. As a > result, we went with a "Knowledge Base" package for pretty much the exact > reasons you list in your post. The one we had used was "Andy's PHP > Knowledge > Base". > > I would be happy to try it again if listmembers would agree to > substantially > contribute. The only thing worse than not having one is having one that > doesn't really have great content (and I'm positive the listmembers have > great content to contribute). > > The only criteria I'd have from my side is that it be php/mysql based. We > do > have a flock of windows servers in the infrastructure, but I'd prefer if it > was FAMP based. > > I haven't seen where the development of Andy's package has gone over the > years, so I'd appreciate any suggestions folks may have as to a good > php/mysql knowledge base type of package. > > I personally like the idea of a knowledgebase, but as Marc says - it'd be > nice to have a place for people to post their restoration logs. Many people > do this on their own sites and it's a great thing but I'm sure many people > (me included) generally don't have the time to create an entire site to > post > the progress of each restoration project. Maybe if something in this site > would allow easy subsection creation ("John Smiths PDP7 restoration > project") that could be of help to both restorers and interested people > wanting to learn. There is a site for people restoring/customizing Jon > boats > that I've spent a lot of time on where each person can create their own > section documenting their restoration project. That type of thing would be > a > great resource here in addition to a "knowledge base". > > Let me know if there's interest. Thoughts? > > J > > > > > > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 16 07:50:42 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 07:50:42 -0600 Subject: Paging Mouse@rodents-montreal Message-ID: <009e01d03193$6bfd99c0$43f8cd40$@classiccmp.org> Mouse; I've tried to send you an email off-list, but both of the mail server infrastructures here (one unix, one windows) can't seem to get through to your mail server. More to the point, I recall seeing a notice or two over time that the classiccmp mail server has trouble getting to you and disables your subscription automatically and I re-enable it any time I notice it. Can you email me a different email address for you that's on a different server perhaps? J From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 16 09:23:36 2015 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 10:23:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Paging Mouse@rodents-montreal In-Reply-To: <009e01d03193$6bfd99c0$43f8cd40$@classiccmp.org> References: <009e01d03193$6bfd99c0$43f8cd40$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <201501161523.KAA14270@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > Mouse; > I've tried to send you an email off-list, but both of the mail server > infrastructures here (one unix, one windows) can't seem to get > through to your mail server. That's odd; list mail seems to work fine. Is it emerging from a different IP or something? Do you have the rejection message? I'd like to find the failures in my logs, assuming of course that they got far enough I have log entries here. > More to the point, I recall seeing a notice or two over time that the > classiccmp mail server has trouble getting to you and disables your > subscription automatically and I re-enable it any time I notice it. That's odd; my scripts should auto-reenable when the subscription auto-suspends. But if it's not working for some reason then perhaps I should take the other option. I have a standing offer to listowners and postmasters for lists I'm on to make list mail that would normally be rejected just silently vanish instead. (Admittedly, I have no non-human-layer mechanism in place to make such people aware of that offer.) > Can you email me a different email address for you that's on a > different server perhaps? Well, you could try mouse at netbsd.org and/or mouse at openface.ca. But for the list, I'd rather stick with mouse at rodents-montreal.org and just do as I sketched above: make list mail that would normally be rejected just silently vanish instead. I'll get started on that; it should be in place within the next few hours at most. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From ggs at shiresoft.com Fri Jan 16 10:39:24 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 08:39:24 -0800 Subject: Subject: Knowledge Base In-Reply-To: <008401d03190$e2309230$a691b690$@classiccmp.org> References: <008401d03190$e2309230$a691b690$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <7FDB1AE1-89F2-4F15-B00D-1939C55D889E@shiresoft.com> > On Jan 16, 2015, at 5:32 AM, Jay West wrote: > > > > I personally like the idea of a knowledgebase, but as Marc says - it'd be > nice to have a place for people to post their restoration logs. Many people > do this on their own sites and it's a great thing but I'm sure many people > (me included) generally don't have the time to create an entire site to post > the progress of each restoration project. Maybe if something in this site > would allow easy subsection creation ("John Smiths PDP7 restoration > project") that could be of help to both restorers and interested people > wanting to learn. There is a site for people restoring/customizing Jon boats > that I've spent a lot of time on where each person can create their own > section documenting their restoration project. That type of thing would be a > great resource here in addition to a "knowledge base". > > Let me know if there's interest. Thoughts? I'm in. ;-) I've tried to do "blog-like" updates on my own website and it's a pain. ;-) I'd really like to have something where I can just do simple posts (hopefully with the ability to post pictures). One that I've been following recently is Carl Claunch's blog on restoring the IBM 1130 that he rescued. He's actually been pretty active on posting to the blog each day (some what jealous that I don't have that much time to "play"). ;-) TTFN - Guy From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 16 10:48:22 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 08:48:22 -0800 Subject: Subject: Knowledge Base In-Reply-To: <7FDB1AE1-89F2-4F15-B00D-1939C55D889E@shiresoft.com> References: <008401d03190$e2309230$a691b690$@classiccmp.org> <7FDB1AE1-89F2-4F15-B00D-1939C55D889E@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <54B940D6.5060906@bitsavers.org> On 1/16/15 8:39 AM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > One that I've been following recently is Carl Claunch's blog on restoring the > IBM 1130 that he rescued. http://rescue1130.blogspot.com/ He mentioned on the 1401 list that he's come up with a mod to the Documation card readers to read right-notched cards. I was hoping he might have posted what he'd done somewhere as I tried it by cutting a trace to ignore the top edge sensor on the trailing edge of a card scan, but that didn't work. From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Fri Jan 16 12:09:02 2015 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 13:09:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Subject: Knowledge Base In-Reply-To: <54B940D6.5060906@bitsavers.org> References: <008401d03190$e2309230$a691b690$@classiccmp.org> <7FDB1AE1-89F2-4F15-B00D-1939C55D889E@shiresoft.com> <54B940D6.5060906@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2015, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/16/15 8:39 AM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > >> One that I've been following recently is Carl Claunch's blog on restoring >> the >> IBM 1130 that he rescued. > > http://rescue1130.blogspot.com/ > > He mentioned on the 1401 list that he's come up with a mod to the > Documation card readers to read right-notched cards. I was hoping he > might have posted what he'd done somewhere as I tried it by cutting a > trace to ignore the top edge sensor on the trailing edge of a card scan, > but that didn't work. Please pass that on if you find out what it is. I have the same setup. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From holm at freibergnet.de Fri Jan 16 13:02:23 2015 From: holm at freibergnet.de (Holm Tiffe) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 20:02:23 +0100 Subject: Paging Mouse@rodents-montreal In-Reply-To: <201501161523.KAA14270@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <009e01d03193$6bfd99c0$43f8cd40$@classiccmp.org> <201501161523.KAA14270@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <20150116190223.GA89161@beast.freibergnet.de> Mouse wrote: > > Mouse; > > > I've tried to send you an email off-list, but both of the mail server > > infrastructures here (one unix, one windows) can't seem to get > > through to your mail server. > > That's odd; list mail seems to work fine. Is it emerging from a > different IP or something? Do you have the rejection message? I'd > like to find the failures in my logs, assuming of course that they got > far enough I have log entries here. > > > More to the point, I recall seeing a notice or two over time that the > > classiccmp mail server has trouble getting to you and disables your > > subscription automatically and I re-enable it any time I notice it. > > That's odd; my scripts should auto-reenable when the subscription > auto-suspends. But if it's not working for some reason then perhaps I > should take the other option. I have a standing offer to listowners > and postmasters for lists I'm on to make list mail that would normally > be rejected just silently vanish instead. (Admittedly, I have no > non-human-layer mechanism in place to make such people aware of that > offer.) > > > Can you email me a different email address for you that's on a > > different server perhaps? > > Well, you could try mouse at netbsd.org and/or mouse at openface.ca. But for > the list, I'd rather stick with mouse at rodents-montreal.org and just do > as I sketched above: make list mail that would normally be rejected > just silently vanish instead. I'll get started on that; it should be > in place within the next few hours at most. > > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B Are the rejected Mails from germans on that list? Mouse you are rejecting mails from an entire country b'cause of the decision of the german nic (DeNic) to block whois queries.. (I'm not lucky with that decision but I can't change it..) Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 16 13:28:27 2015 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 14:28:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: Paging Mouse@rodents-montreal In-Reply-To: <20150116190223.GA89161@beast.freibergnet.de> References: <009e01d03193$6bfd99c0$43f8cd40$@classiccmp.org> <201501161523.KAA14270@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <20150116190223.GA89161@beast.freibergnet.de> Message-ID: <201501161928.OAA02628@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > Are the rejected Mails from germans on that list? They shouldn't be - or, at least, if they are it should be for other reasons. See below. > Mouse you are rejecting mails from an entire country b'cause of the > decision of the german nic (DeNic) to block whois queries.. Not quite. To block whois queries that don't include a magic denic-specific option. Provide that option - which some whois clients even do automatically - and they will cheerfully hand out the info. (At least, back when I looked at it. If they've blocked it entirely now, even worse.) The German government has chosen to present an actively antisocial face to the net. (I count making it gratuitously difficult to track down abusers as antisocial.) That it's a whole country that's chosen to act so antisocially is sad, but being large doesn't get them a free pass on such behaviour with me. If anything, the opposite; large entities need to be held to stricter, not laxer, standards of behaviour than small. List mail should not be affected by this. The test is applied to the host which is trying to hand the mail to me; for list mail, this is always the classiccmp list host. (There are other tests which might trip, but in those cases the listmember's nationality is irrelevant; it's things like mislabeling Windows-1252 text as being ISO-8859-1 I'm talking about here.) And, now, they shouldn't be bothering Jay at all. I (think I) have what I mentioned upthread in place: list mail that would normally be rejected should now instead be accepted and silently dropped. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 16 13:53:35 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 19:53:35 +0000 Subject: Paper tape standard Message-ID: I hadn't spotted this before, and it may be of interest to some here : http://www.polyomino.org.uk/computer/ECMA-10/ It's the ECMA standard for paper tape. -tony From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 16 13:54:29 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 17:54:29 -0200 Subject: Tabajara Labs working again Message-ID: So, the site is back :) I'd like to Thank Jay West for the kind offer of space for my site. Saved my bacon! Hope you all can enjoy www.tabalabs.com.br - it is mostly in portuguese, but google translator is your friend, and the pics are nice :) Also, there are lots of brazilian hardware pictured there, for the curious Greetings from Brazil! Alexandre Souza --- Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 16 13:58:24 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 17:58:24 -0200 Subject: Paper tape standard References: Message-ID: <7542EF2ED1C944E7973EA70B6C9F7511@deskjara> OBA! I'm crazy for creating a paper reader/perfurator! :D This is an old dream of mine, although I have no specific computers who use it, nor any specimen of perfored tape around. But I find it to be just beautiful :) --- Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "tony duell" To: Sent: Friday, January 16, 2015 5:53 PM Subject: Paper tape standard I hadn't spotted this before, and it may be of interest to some here : http://www.polyomino.org.uk/computer/ECMA-10/ It's the ECMA standard for paper tape. -tony = From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 16 14:08:56 2015 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 15:08:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: FTGH: Pioneer DRM-602X 6-CD changer Message-ID: <201501162008.PAA09635@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> I have this six-disc CD changer by Pioneer which I do not expect to have further use for - or, more precisely, the chance of future use is small enough I don't consider it worth the space it takes to store it. It's a SCSI device. I hooked it up and it showed up as six drives at ID 6, one at each LUN from 0 through 5, and accessing two of the drives gave me the contents of the two discs I put in the magazine, so it seems to work at least minimally. (IIRC there's a switch which controls the ID.) The box trumpets it as "THE ONLY SIX-DISC DOUBLE-SPEED CD-ROM CHANGER", which may give some idea of its age. Here's what autoconfig printed for it: probe(esp0:6:0): max sync rate 8.33Mb/s scsipi_inqmatch: 2/5/1 <, , > cd0 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 0: SCSI2 5/cdrom removable scsipi_inqmatch: 2/5/1 <, , > cd1 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 1: SCSI2 5/cdrom removable scsipi_inqmatch: 2/5/1 <, , > cd2 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 2: SCSI2 5/cdrom removable scsipi_inqmatch: 2/5/1 <, , > cd3 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 3: SCSI2 5/cdrom removable scsipi_inqmatch: 2/5/1 <, , > cd4 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 4: SCSI2 5/cdrom removable scsipi_inqmatch: 2/5/1 <, , > cd5 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 5: SCSI2 5/cdrom removable I have the box, interior packing foam, and one 6-disc magazine for it. I don't think I have anything else that may have come with it (maybe a rudimentary user's guide, not sure). The box has a sticker on it saying it includes a "PC SCSI Interface" and "SIX EXCITING CD-ROM TITLES"; none of those are actually present any longer. It's in /earth/northamerica/canada/ontario/ottawa. The box is moderately large, about 11 by 15 by 22 inches, and is somewhat beat-up (scuffs, small tears) but basically intact. Free to a good home. Pick-up preferred; I could probably wrap another layer of paper around this and ship it, but the bother factor is high enough it would take some persuading. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 16 14:09:32 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 20:09:32 +0000 Subject: Paper tape standard In-Reply-To: <7542EF2ED1C944E7973EA70B6C9F7511@deskjara> References: , <7542EF2ED1C944E7973EA70B6C9F7511@deskjara> Message-ID: > OBA! I'm crazy for creating a paper reader/perfurator! :D This is an old > dream of mine, although I have no specific computers who use it, nor any > specimen of perfored tape around. But I find it to be just beautiful :) The reader is relatively easy to make at home, at least if you are happy with a photoelectric one. If you trigger off the feed holes, you don't need a sprocket drive, a capstan and pnch roller is fine. This is the sort of thing you can make in a good home workshop. The punch is a lot harder. Making the punch pins and die block, and then correctly grinding and hardening the former is not going to be easy. Mechanically the rest may not look too hard (the Facit 4070 used a set of rotary solenoids and linkages, one per pin), but it is still a major project. -tony From mark at wickensonline.co.uk Fri Jan 16 14:13:02 2015 From: mark at wickensonline.co.uk (Mark Wickens) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 20:13:02 +0000 Subject: Paper tape standard In-Reply-To: References: <7542EF2ED1C944E7973EA70B6C9F7511@deskjara> Message-ID: I had a dream of creating a paper tape with a program I wrote on it for the Pegasus computer at the Science Museum. If they ever turn it on again, or another one crops up, I might not have any excuses left... On 16 January 2015 at 20:09, tony duell wrote: > > > OBA! I'm crazy for creating a paper reader/perfurator! :D This is an > old > > dream of mine, although I have no specific computers who use it, nor any > > specimen of perfored tape around. But I find it to be just beautiful :) > > The reader is relatively easy to make at home, at least if you are happy > with a > photoelectric one. If you trigger off the feed holes, you don't need a > sprocket > drive, a capstan and pnch roller is fine. This is the sort of thing you > can make > in a good home workshop. > > The punch is a lot harder. Making the punch pins and die block, and then > correctly grinding and hardening the former is not going to be easy. > Mechanically the rest may not look too hard (the Facit 4070 used a set > of rotary solenoids and linkages, one per pin), but it is still a major > project. > > -tony > From sales at elecplus.com Fri Jan 16 14:31:53 2015 From: sales at elecplus.com (Electronics Plus) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 14:31:53 -0600 Subject: the old VHS series on the history of computing Message-ID: <029801d031cb$773d90f0$65b8b2d0$@com> http://waxy.org/2008/06/the_machine_that_changed_the_world/ He found all 5 episodes, digitized them, and uploaded them. Cindy Croxton From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 16 14:47:18 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 14:47:18 -0600 Subject: HP Interex Message-ID: <006301d031cd$9ea3b550$dbeb1ff0$@classiccmp.org> I had posted to the list a while back that I had saved the HP/Interex and HP1000 CSL site before it went dark and put them up on the classiccmp server. Just got an email from the folks in the HP/DSD alumni group that they are enjoying that content being available again. That REALLY makes me feel good J WOOHOO! Along those lines, the copy of the Interex/CSL that I saved originally included not just the files, but also the html and jpg that made up the site itself. Over years, I lost the html and jpg files. Not a huge concern as the data files that the site served up are all present. But.. If anyone happens to have the .html, .jpg, etc files (and if it doesn't infringe) I'd be happy to add them back so it has the original "look & feel". J From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Fri Jan 16 14:50:59 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 20:50:59 -0000 Subject: Paper tape standard In-Reply-To: References: <7542EF2ED1C944E7973EA70B6C9F7511@deskjara> Message-ID: <001201d031ce$22329a30$6697ce90$@ntlworld.com> Perhaps not quite the same, but when I bring my Teletype Model 33, connected to a DECSYSTEM-20 emulation, to DEC Legacy in April you can save a program on paper tape if you like. Regards Rob > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mark > Wickens > Sent: 16 January 2015 20:13 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Paper tape standard > > I had a dream of creating a paper tape with a program I wrote on it for the > Pegasus computer at the Science Museum. If they ever turn it on again, or > another one crops up, I might not have any excuses left... > > On 16 January 2015 at 20:09, tony duell wrote: > > > > > > OBA! I'm crazy for creating a paper reader/perfurator! :D This > > > is an > > old > > > dream of mine, although I have no specific computers who use it, nor > > > any specimen of perfored tape around. But I find it to be just > > > beautiful :) > > > > The reader is relatively easy to make at home, at least if you are > > happy with a photoelectric one. If you trigger off the feed holes, you > > don't need a sprocket drive, a capstan and pnch roller is fine. This > > is the sort of thing you can make in a good home workshop. > > > > The punch is a lot harder. Making the punch pins and die block, and > > then correctly grinding and hardening the former is not going to be easy. > > Mechanically the rest may not look too hard (the Facit 4070 used a set > > of rotary solenoids and linkages, one per pin), but it is still a > > major project. > > > > -tony > > From lbickley at bickleywest.com Fri Jan 16 15:43:48 2015 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 13:43:48 -0800 Subject: Updated Spacewar for the PDP-8/I, 8/E, etc.... Message-ID: <20150116134348.7367ad3f@asrock.bcwi.net> I just updated D.E. Wrege's Spacewar as follows: 1. Correctly supports slow monitors attached to a VC8/E interface by correcting mistakes made in the VC8/E driver code. The code now follows DEC's recommended method of waiting on the VC8/E. 2. Starts up with spaceships (as opposed to UFO's) per the original Spacewar! by Steve Russell. 3. Now supports the DK8-EC Crystal Clock Items 1 & 2 were released by me previously - but support for the DK8-EC is brand new. The new source and listing can be picked up via anonymous FTP to bickleywest.com and the pdp8_spcwar directory. Most browsers (not IE) will support this: ftp://bickleywest.com/pdp8_spcwar/ Cheers, Lyle -- Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From jws at jwsss.com Fri Jan 16 16:24:51 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 14:24:51 -0800 Subject: FTGH: Pioneer DRM-602X 6-CD changer In-Reply-To: <201501162008.PAA09635@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <201501162008.PAA09635@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <54B98FB3.8030402@jwsss.com> On 1/16/2015 12:08 PM, Mouse wrote: > I have this six-disc CD changer by Pioneer I am interested in your changer. Jim This is probably what Jay got back. >>> mouse at rodents-montreal.org (reading BANNER): 550-Not interested in mail from somewhere whose webmail system 550-doesn't record the client IP address in a proper 550-Received: from $IPADDR ... with HTTP Sorry to bother the list, but I've never gotten email thru to Mouse, and I'm interested in his changer. Perhaps you can open a gmail throwaway account? Not sure what your means are. I have several in case I need to get around problems like this. And Google does allow you to use your email client via pop and imap. thanks. jim From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 16 16:26:28 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 14:26:28 -0800 Subject: Convergent NGEN storage hardware manuals Message-ID: <54B99014.3040407@bitsavers.org> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/convergent/ngen/hardware uploaded yesterday This is the first time that I've come across any real hardware documentation on the NGEN. It's already helped the guy working on the simulation in MESS. From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Fri Jan 16 16:44:49 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 22:44:49 -0000 Subject: Testing VT101 Power Supply Message-ID: <003401d031de$08dc7230$1a955690$@ntlworld.com> I am looking to test the power supply board of my VT101 before connecting it all up and switching it on. Reading to the Pocket Service Manual it seems to suggest that you can check the outputs of the power supply board with the terminal controller board and the video monitor board both disconnected. This would mean no load on the power supply. Does this seem wise? Regards Rob From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Fri Jan 16 16:57:06 2015 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave G4UGM) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 22:57:06 -0000 Subject: Paper tape standard In-Reply-To: References: <7542EF2ED1C944E7973EA70B6C9F7511@deskjara> Message-ID: <037101d031df$c34e6ff0$49eb4fd0$@gmail.com> There is a Pegasus emulator here:- http://sw.ccs.bcs.org/CCs/simulate.htm it can be configured to output the tape output to the printer port, so whilst you can't run a program on a real Pegasus you should be able to get paper tape out if you had a paper tape punch. I was hoping to be able to feed the tape from this program into the original Creed 6S paper tape reader, and hence print it on the Creed printer from the Pegasus at MOSI Manchester. Sadly, MOSI have decided they want to re-use the gallery the Pegasus is displayed on so the project has been suspended. I don't expect it to restart. I had got as far as printing from paper tape. Dave Wade G4UGM -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: 16 January 2015 20:13 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Paper tape standard I had a dream of creating a paper tape with a program I wrote on it for the Pegasus computer at the Science Museum. If they ever turn it on again, or another one crops up, I might not have any excuses left... On 16 January 2015 at 20:09, tony duell wrote: > > > OBA! I'm crazy for creating a paper reader/perfurator! :D This > > is an > old > > dream of mine, although I have no specific computers who use it, nor > > any specimen of perfored tape around. But I find it to be just > > beautiful :) > > The reader is relatively easy to make at home, at least if you are > happy with a photoelectric one. If you trigger off the feed holes, you > don't need a sprocket drive, a capstan and pnch roller is fine. This > is the sort of thing you can make in a good home workshop. > > The punch is a lot harder. Making the punch pins and die block, and > then correctly grinding and hardening the former is not going to be easy. > Mechanically the rest may not look too hard (the Facit 4070 used a set > of rotary solenoids and linkages, one per pin), but it is still a > major project. > > -tony > From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Fri Jan 16 17:11:24 2015 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave G4UGM) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 23:11:24 -0000 Subject: Paper tape standard In-Reply-To: <001201d031ce$22329a30$6697ce90$@ntlworld.com> References: <7542EF2ED1C944E7973EA70B6C9F7511@deskjara> <001201d031ce$22329a30$6697ce90$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <06c701d031e1$c004b140$400e13c0$@gmail.com> Some time in the future I would like to build an FPGA emulation of the Pegasus, complete with console switches, tape readers, tape punches and Creed Teleprinter. I have some of the parts including a Creed Teleprinter and Creed Paper Tape reader, Post Office Switches for the console. I can't find a Creed 25 high speed punch so I will have to improvise and use one of my other punches....... ... if its ever completed I would be glad to run your program.... Dave -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Robert Jarratt Sent: 16 January 2015 20:51 To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Paper tape standard Perhaps not quite the same, but when I bring my Teletype Model 33, connected to a DECSYSTEM-20 emulation, to DEC Legacy in April you can save a program on paper tape if you like. Regards Rob > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mark > Wickens > Sent: 16 January 2015 20:13 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Paper tape standard > > I had a dream of creating a paper tape with a program I wrote on it > for the Pegasus computer at the Science Museum. If they ever turn it > on again, or another one crops up, I might not have any excuses left... > > On 16 January 2015 at 20:09, tony duell wrote: > > > > > > OBA! I'm crazy for creating a paper reader/perfurator! :D This > > > is an > > old > > > dream of mine, although I have no specific computers who use it, > > > nor any specimen of perfored tape around. But I find it to be just > > > beautiful :) > > > > The reader is relatively easy to make at home, at least if you are > > happy with a photoelectric one. If you trigger off the feed holes, > > you don't need a sprocket drive, a capstan and pnch roller is fine. > > This is the sort of thing you can make in a good home workshop. > > > > The punch is a lot harder. Making the punch pins and die block, and > > then correctly grinding and hardening the former is not going to be easy. > > Mechanically the rest may not look too hard (the Facit 4070 used a > > set of rotary solenoids and linkages, one per pin), but it is still > > a major project. > > > > -tony > > From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 16 17:35:38 2015 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 18:35:38 -0500 (EST) Subject: FTGH: Pioneer DRM-602X 6-CD changer In-Reply-To: <54B98FB3.8030402@jwsss.com> References: <201501162008.PAA09635@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <54B98FB3.8030402@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <201501162335.SAA06533@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> I have this six-disc CD changer by Pioneer > I am interested in your changer. Doh! I should have given the +1 613 482 0910 phone number as an alternative way to reach me. > This is probably what Jay got back. > >>> mouse at rodents-montreal.org (reading BANNER): 550-Not interested in mail from somewhere whose webmail system > 550-doesn't record the client IP address in a proper > 550-Received: from $IPADDR ... with HTTP Maybe. (That's actually missing at least one line, note.) Do you know, do you use the same provider Jay does? Looking at the records, there are some half-dozen providers that could be what's behind that. Could you, maybe, try mouse at netbsd.org and/or mouse at openface.ca, or the phone? > Perhaps you can open a gmail throwaway account? Gmail has the dubious distinction of being the sender that has earned the most stringent blocking I've ever put up. (ftp.rodents-montreal.org:/mouse/misc/google-block.txt has the story in case anyone's interested.) Not that that's directly relevant to the question, except to the extent it indicates the high regard in which I don't hold them. > Not sure what your means are. I have several in case I need to get > around problems like this. And Google does allow you to use your > email client via pop and imap. But (a) it still means being willing to tolerate Google, and (b) even if it permits use of POP and/or IMAP to fetch mail, it still requires use of some God-damned Web crap to set it up. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From phil at viscom.net Fri Jan 16 15:42:03 2015 From: phil at viscom.net (phil at viscom.net) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 15:42:03 -0600 (CST) Subject: Lanier Model 103 Word Processor Message-ID: <4741.209.62.192.56.1421444523.squirrel@home.viscom.net> All, Recently picked me up a new project ($0 projects are the best), a Lanier Model 103 word processing system, complete with printer, but void of any diskettes. I'm going to have a rummage around here at work, but it would appear that AES used hard-sectored 5.25" floppies in the machine. Apparently it'll boot the AES word processing suite, or alternatively CP/M (It's an 8080 based machine). Something had eaten(!) the ceramic suppression caps off the video card, so I replaced those and the tantalum beads for good measure. Now when I power it up I get a raster instead of a horizontal line. It's a bit stretched vertically, so I've got the video circuitry module out to redo the electrolytics in that next. Unfortunately none of the adjustments on the board are marked as to their function. I'm going to take a few guesses as to what's what, and experiment a little. I need to get me a hex tool for what I'm guessing is the width coil. There are 2 adjustable inductors and 4 variable resistors. A question- being as I currently do not have any discs for it, does anyone: 1) Know what this should display if you power it up without a floppy in? (If anything at all, would be useful to see if the thing even has a sane heartbeat in some fashion). 2) Have a service manual for one? 3) Know of a source of discs (either AES, copies, or even just CP/M)? I know 3 is a hugely long shot. It's not a badly built machine, and it would be nice to get repaired and be able to use it to write things on. --Phil From chrise at pobox.com Fri Jan 16 19:05:26 2015 From: chrise at pobox.com (Chris Elmquist) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 19:05:26 -0600 Subject: Paper tape standard In-Reply-To: References: , <7542EF2ED1C944E7973EA70B6C9F7511@deskjara> Message-ID: <8E2B7DB1-7F76-4E9B-AB0F-8E28E8C417C0@pobox.com> Couldn't you make the punch these days with a row of lasers? or maybe a single laser that sweeps across the tape laterally? Bonus because there wouldn't be any of that messy chad left. It'd just be up in smoke, so to speak :-) Chris On January 16, 2015 2:09:32 PM CST, tony duell wrote: > >> OBA! I'm crazy for creating a paper reader/perfurator! :D This is >an old >> dream of mine, although I have no specific computers who use it, nor >any >> specimen of perfored tape around. But I find it to be just beautiful >:) > >The reader is relatively easy to make at home, at least if you are >happy with a >photoelectric one. If you trigger off the feed holes, you don't need a >sprocket >drive, a capstan and pnch roller is fine. This is the sort of thing you >can make >in a good home workshop. > >The punch is a lot harder. Making the punch pins and die block, and >then >correctly grinding and hardening the former is not going to be easy. >Mechanically the rest may not look too hard (the Facit 4070 used a set >of rotary solenoids and linkages, one per pin), but it is still a major > >project. > >-tony -- Chris Elmquist From classiccmp at crash.com Fri Jan 16 19:50:05 2015 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 17:50:05 -0800 Subject: Paper tape standard In-Reply-To: <8E2B7DB1-7F76-4E9B-AB0F-8E28E8C417C0@pobox.com> References: , <7542EF2ED1C944E7973EA70B6C9F7511@deskjara> <8E2B7DB1-7F76-4E9B-AB0F-8E28E8C417C0@pobox.com> Message-ID: <54B9BFCD.2070008@crash.com> On 01/16/2015 05:05 PM, Chris Elmquist wrote: > Couldn't you make the punch these days with a row of lasers? "... with a row of _frickin'_ lasers?" Fixed that for you. :D With no apologies to Mike Meyers... --S. From marc.verdiell at gmail.com Fri Jan 16 20:21:37 2015 From: marc.verdiell at gmail.com (Marc Verdiell) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 18:21:37 -0800 Subject: Subject: Knowledge Base In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <90155409D4A4454FAB950BF257675B67@workshop> > I'm in. But instead of repair/restoration logs, I'd like to also contribute > with specific knowledge which I believe to be more searcheable and a better > contribution than just logs. Maybe we could have both (logs and knowledge base)? They serve different purposes. In my other group we have a mail list, a wiki for basic knowledge and a build logs threads in a Forum based package. The build logs are searchable. It works really well. The least frequently contributed to is the wiki, however it's the most helpful for new members. But it's a lot of work and makes things more complicated. Just food for thoughts, as I said the current mailing list is simple yet immensely useful, nothing wrong with it. And God bless bitsavers. From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 16 20:34:42 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 20:34:42 -0600 Subject: Subject: Knowledge Base In-Reply-To: <90155409D4A4454FAB950BF257675B67@workshop> References: <90155409D4A4454FAB950BF257675B67@workshop> Message-ID: <005f01d031fe$267c02e0$737408a0$@classiccmp.org> It was written... Maybe we could have both (logs and knowledge base)? ---- Yep. That was my thought. Just food for thoughts, as I said the current mailing list is simple yet immensely useful, nothing wrong with it. ---- Yes, these things would be in addition to the list, definitely not replacing it. The list isn't going anywhere :) And God bless bitsavers. ----- DITTO. J From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Fri Jan 16 20:47:09 2015 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 21:47:09 -0500 Subject: the old VHS series on the history of computing In-Reply-To: <029801d031cb$773d90f0$65b8b2d0$@com> References: <029801d031cb$773d90f0$65b8b2d0$@com> Message-ID: <54B9CD2D.4050901@compsys.to> >Electronics Plus wrote: >http://waxy.org/2008/06/the_machine_that_changed_the_world/ > >He found all 5 episodes, digitized them, and uploaded them. > >Cindy Croxton > Check From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Jan 16 23:41:35 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 03:41:35 -0200 Subject: Diablo disk unit Message-ID: Can anyone shed a light on this? http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-616158449-diablo-series-unidade-de-disco-30-_JM Thanks! Alexandre From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 17 00:15:03 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 06:15:03 +0000 Subject: Diablo disk unit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > Can anyone shed a light on this? > http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-616158449-diablo-series-unidade-de-disco-30-_JM It appears to be a standard Diablo model 30 disk drive. This is a front loading hard disk, similar to an RK05, in fact it was used on the PDP11 with the RK11-C (but not RK11-D [1]) controller. There are 2 versions, low and high density, which DEC badged as the RK02 and RK03. The latter is format-compatible with the RK05, the former (which is much less useful) has half the bit rate. It needs an external +/-15V power supply (I can't remember if it needs +5V too). [1] It uses 1-of-n selects, not the binary select scheme used by the RK11-D. It is possible to kludge in a decoder to get the high density model working on an RK11D. AFAIK the RK11-C supports both data rates, the RK11-D doesn't, so the low density version is pretty much RK11-C only. One oddity is the head positioner. It's a permanent magnet commutator type motor with a rack and pinion mechanism. -tony From marco at familie-rauhut.eu Sat Jan 17 01:24:59 2015 From: marco at familie-rauhut.eu (Marco Rauhut) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 08:24:59 +0100 Subject: Testing VT101 Power Supply In-Reply-To: <003401d031de$08dc7230$1a955690$@ntlworld.com> References: <003401d031de$08dc7230$1a955690$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <6605AF16-6C9D-417E-80F4-0D36EBB0B4FD@familie-rauhut.eu> In my case of vt100 powersupply test (i hope that i remember corretly) i need to load 5V with a small load. With nothing connected, some voltages fail. Marco > Am 16.01.2015 um 23:44 schrieb Robert Jarratt : > > I am looking to test the power supply board of my VT101 before connecting it > all up and switching it on. > > > > Reading to the Pocket Service Manual it seems to suggest that you can check > the outputs of the power supply board with the terminal controller board and > the video monitor board both disconnected. This would mean no load on the > power supply. Does this seem wise? > > > > Regards > > > > Rob From useddec at gmail.com Sat Jan 17 01:36:02 2015 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 01:36:02 -0600 Subject: Diablo disk unit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have a few RK11-C backplanes and a RK03 if anyone is interested. Feel free to contact me offlist. Thanks, Paul On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 12:15 AM, tony duell wrote: > > > > Can anyone shed a light on this? > > > http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-616158449-diablo-series-unidade-de-disco-30-_JM > > It appears to be a standard Diablo model 30 disk drive. This is a front > loading hard disk, similar > to an RK05, in fact it was used on the PDP11 with the RK11-C (but not > RK11-D [1]) controller. > > There are 2 versions, low and high density, which DEC badged as the RK02 > and RK03. The latter > is format-compatible with the RK05, the former (which is much less useful) > has half the bit > rate. It needs an external +/-15V power supply (I can't remember if it > needs +5V too). > > [1] It uses 1-of-n selects, not the binary select scheme used by the > RK11-D. It is possible > to kludge in a decoder to get the high density model working on an RK11D. > AFAIK the > RK11-C supports both data rates, the RK11-D doesn't, so the low density > version is pretty > much RK11-C only. > > One oddity is the head positioner. It's a permanent magnet commutator type > motor > with a rack and pinion mechanism. > > -tony > From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 16 18:18:55 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 16:18:55 -0800 Subject: Lanier Model 103 Word Processor In-Reply-To: <4741.209.62.192.56.1421444523.squirrel@home.viscom.net> References: <4741.209.62.192.56.1421444523.squirrel@home.viscom.net> Message-ID: <54B9AA6F.8060305@sydex.com> On 01/16/2015 01:42 PM, phil at viscom.net wrote: > I know 3 is a hugely long shot. It's not a badly built machine, and it would be > nice to get repaired and be able to use it to write things on. I look through my files, but I'm doubtful. The good news is that these were very common; the USG used them quite a bit as did many law offices. So there could well be some disks still out there. --Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jan 17 09:17:46 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 07:17:46 -0800 Subject: Diablo disk unit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54BA7D1A.1060302@bitsavers.org> On 1/16/15 9:41 PM, Alexandre Souza wrote: > Can anyone shed a light on this? > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/diablo/81502A_Series_30_Disk_Drives_Product_Description_Sep75.pdf From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 17 10:53:30 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 16:53:30 +0000 Subject: Testing VT101 Power Supply In-Reply-To: <6605AF16-6C9D-417E-80F4-0D36EBB0B4FD@familie-rauhut.eu> References: <003401d031de$08dc7230$1a955690$@ntlworld.com>, <6605AF16-6C9D-417E-80F4-0D36EBB0B4FD@familie-rauhut.eu> Message-ID: > In my case of vt100 powersupply test (i hope that i remember corretly) i need to load 5V with a small load. > With nothing connected, some voltages fail. >From what I remember, the VT100 and VT101 PSUs are very different. The former is a fairly conventional SMPSU, albeit one which (as was typical for DEC at the time) has the control circuitry on the output side of the isolation barrier and a little linear startup PSU. The VT101 has a large mains transformer and a regulator board, I think some of those regulators are switchers, but they run from a lowish input voltage (not mains) and the isolation is provided by the big transformer. I don't know about running them with no load, although I could well believe the VT101 PSU will work correctly like that. -tony From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Jan 17 11:09:33 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 12:09:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shipping antique computers Message-ID: <20150117170933.16E6E18C099@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> So, I've recently shipped an antique computer across-country (in the USA), and for those who need to do this, I can point out the shipper (well, technically, a broker - they work with a range of companies who actually do the work) which/whom I used: Shiphawk 805-335-2432 http://shiphawk.com Having learned (with me :-) a number of lessons about the potholes and pitfalls of shipping antique computers, they should be pretty well up to speed if someone else needs to do some shipping of same. Key point: shipping of largish things is much cheaper if the item is palletized. There are two kinds of shippers: cargo/freight people (I forget the exact term), who only deal in palletized things, and so-called 'white glove' shippers, who will move anything (they usually do furniture, hence the name). I know palletization's not cheap, but you'll probably save more in shipping than you spend on the preparation. Noel From nf6x at nf6x.net Sat Jan 17 11:18:59 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 09:18:59 -0800 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: <20150117170933.16E6E18C099@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150117170933.16E6E18C099@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: For palletized freight, I've used FreightQuote (a broker) a few times to ship larger computer purchases. Since I live on a rough, unpaved rural road, I specified that I'd pick up from the local terminal of whatever shipper I selected (based on price). I live fairly close to Ontario, CA, which is a major shipping hub, so I get lots of competitive quotes instead of being stuck with one trucking company with a local terminal. Very roughly, I've generally spent around $300 to move a pallet across the country. I haven't tried any "white glove" or "padded van" shippers yet. I learned of their existence back when I was contemplating getting a VAX-11/780. I ended up getting a nice, fits-on-two-pallets 11/730 system instead. :) -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Sat Jan 17 11:35:35 2015 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 11:35:35 -0600 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: <20150117170933.16E6E18C099@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150117170933.16E6E18C099@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54BA9D67.6060409@gmail.com> On 01/17/2015 11:09 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > I know palletization's not cheap What's not cheap about it? Do you mean the prep-work, or the actual shipping? Pallets seem to be readily obtainable in the US (unlike other countries, where companies like to re-use them rather than treat them as a waste item), so I'm surprised that a person can't acquire one, load it up securely*, and then call a freight company to have it moved. * except that do guidelines for this exist? Maximum heights, type and number of straps required etc.? cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Sat Jan 17 11:45:03 2015 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 11:45:03 -0600 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: References: <20150117170933.16E6E18C099@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54BA9F9F.6090109@gmail.com> On 01/17/2015 11:18 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: > For palletized freight, I've used FreightQuote (a broker) a few times to > ship larger computer purchases. Since I live on a rough, unpaved rural > road, I specified that I'd pick up from the local terminal of whatever > shipper I selected (based on price). I live fairly close to Ontario, CA, > which is a major shipping hub, so I get lots of competitive quotes > instead of being stuck with one trucking company with a local terminal. > Very roughly, I've generally spent around $300 to move a pallet across > the country. > > I haven't tried any "white glove" or "padded van" shippers yet. I > learned of their existence back when I was contemplating getting a > VAX-11/780. I ended up getting a nice, fits-on-two-pallets 11/730 system > instead. :) That's a big problem I've found with trying to work out how to ship the part of my collection that's still in the UK to the US - UK shippers seem to go extremely quiet when they find out that I live miles inland in the middle of nowhere; they can take on getting stuff to a sea port, but that doesn't really help when it's still more than a thousand miles from the desired destination. I have a nasty feeling that I'll have to go with one of the "white glove" companies at many times the cost, just because they'll be the only ones who will handle the full journey. The other option would be to split it, dealing with one company for the overseas freight, another to get my stuff somewhere vaguely-close, then to hire a van and do the last few hundred miles myself - but even thinking about the logistics of that (such that stuff isn't sitting around for any length of time, which probably involves huge fines) gives me a headache! cheers Jules From ggs at shiresoft.com Sat Jan 17 12:07:53 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 10:07:53 -0800 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: <54BA9F9F.6090109@gmail.com> References: <20150117170933.16E6E18C099@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54BA9F9F.6090109@gmail.com> Message-ID: <54BAA4F9.8040104@shiresoft.com> On 1/17/15 9:45 AM, Jules Richardson wrote: > On 01/17/2015 11:18 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: >> For palletized freight, I've used FreightQuote (a broker) a few times to >> ship larger computer purchases. Since I live on a rough, unpaved rural >> road, I specified that I'd pick up from the local terminal of whatever >> shipper I selected (based on price). I live fairly close to Ontario, CA, >> which is a major shipping hub, so I get lots of competitive quotes >> instead of being stuck with one trucking company with a local terminal. >> Very roughly, I've generally spent around $300 to move a pallet across >> the country. >> >> I haven't tried any "white glove" or "padded van" shippers yet. I >> learned of their existence back when I was contemplating getting a >> VAX-11/780. I ended up getting a nice, fits-on-two-pallets 11/730 system >> instead. :) > > That's a big problem I've found with trying to work out how to ship > the part of my collection that's still in the UK to the US - UK > shippers seem to go extremely quiet when they find out that I live > miles inland in the middle of nowhere; they can take on getting stuff > to a sea port, but that doesn't really help when it's still more than > a thousand miles from the desired destination. > > I have a nasty feeling that I'll have to go with one of the "white > glove" companies at many times the cost, just because they'll be the > only ones who will handle the full journey. The other option would be > to split it, dealing with one company for the overseas freight, > another to get my stuff somewhere vaguely-close, then to hire a van > and do the last few hundred miles myself - but even thinking about the > logistics of that (such that stuff isn't sitting around for any length > of time, which probably involves huge fines) gives me a headache! > Having moved my entire collection this past year (by myself with help from friends), I can attest to having stuff palletized makes the job a whole lot easier. The only things that I didn't palletize where the big (heavy) items that already had casters (of sorts). In the end I think I moved 30 pallets. Here in the US they're not particularly expensive. I found a local manufacturer of pallets and was able to get them for < $6 each. I would load 8-10 on my truck to take them to where I was packaging everything. Along the way I had also acquired a pallet jack so it wasn't hard to move stuff around (even with 1000-1500lbs of stuff on a pallet). All the "small" stuff was wrapped and put into boxes and those boxes were put on the pallet. Once a pallet was sufficiently "full", I used shipping strapping to secure everything and then wrapped everything in "shrink wrap". I used the plastic strapping with a manual tool but for really heavy loads, you probably want to use steel and a much more expensive tensioner and crimper. Loading and unloading the truck once everything was palletized was a breeze. The trick with palletizing heavier gear is getting it on/off the pallet. The biggest stuff I put on a pallet were my Symbolics 3640s. For those I used my equipment lift (sort of a hand operated fork lift). Also all of my loose RK05, RL01/2 and Fujitsu Eagles were all loaded on pallets this way. Here are some pictures of the stuff after I've moved it into my new shop but still on the pallets: http://www.shiresoft.com/new-shop/Shiresoft/Almost_moved.html. By the time I was done, the entire downstairs of the new shop was filled with pallets...then I started to unpack. ;-) However, getting back to the original question. I've shipped stuff with both "white glove" movers and just regular freight companies. I've had reasonable success with both. It all depends upon what you're moving and how it's packed for shipping. If you don't have it packed/packaged, then "white glove" is the way to go especially if it's just "big stuff". However, if you have lots of "little" stuff that you can pack into boxes, then putting them on a pallet and just using freight is probably cheaper. TTFN - Guy From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sat Jan 17 12:09:42 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 18:09:42 -0000 Subject: Testing VT101 Power Supply In-Reply-To: References: <003401d031de$08dc7230$1a955690$@ntlworld.com>, <6605AF16-6C9D-417E-80F4-0D36EBB0B4FD@familie-rauhut.eu> Message-ID: <00be01d03280$c4aeff30$4e0cfd90$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony duell > Sent: 17 January 2015 16:54 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: Testing VT101 Power Supply > > > In my case of vt100 powersupply test (i hope that i remember corretly) i need > to load 5V with a small load. > > With nothing connected, some voltages fail. > > From what I remember, the VT100 and VT101 PSUs are very different. The > former is a fairly conventional SMPSU, albeit one which (as was typical for DEC > at the time) has the control circuitry on the output side of the isolation barrier > and a little linear startup PSU. The VT101 has a large mains transformer and a > regulator board, I think some of those regulators are switchers, but they run > from a lowish input voltage (not mains) and the isolation is provided by the big > transformer. Yes, that is right. There is a big transformer and the outputs are 10V and 18V (the service guide for latter shows 20V on the diagram and says 16V in the text!). > > I don't know about running them with no load, although I could well believe the > VT101 PSU will work correctly like that. In the end I created a dummy load. The outputs all look fine and there is no ripple. So I am very pleased with the state of the PSU. I am replacing a couple of caps on the monitor control board, one because it has high ESR and one (C439) because this page (https://trmm.net/VT100) says it is underrated. Then I am going to have to bite the bullet and connect it up, hoping the monitor control board is OK and isn't going to damage the flyback or something else. Regards Rob From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Jan 17 12:28:53 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 13:28:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shipping antique computers Message-ID: <20150117182853.262A418C099@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Guy Sotomayor > http://www.shiresoft.com/new-shop/Shiresoft/Almost_moved.html Doesn't work (for me) as a deep link; I had to go through: http://www.shiresoft.com/new-shop/Shiresoft/New_Shop.html first. I have to say, you've probably made 99.9% of the list green with envy with those photos... :-) > I've shipped stuff with both "white glove" movers and just regular > freight companies. ... It all depends upon what you're moving and how > it's packed for shipping. If you don't have it packed/packaged, then > "white glove" is the way to go especially if it's just "big stuff". More importantly, I'm not sure the commercial people will _take_ stuff unless it's on a pallet. I originally tried to ship a group of DEC corporate cabinets (with stuff in them - ~400 lbs per) via non-white-glove people. (I didn't care if things got dinged a bit during shipping, and hey, it was on wheels, right? And although I didn't have a loading dock, they said they could send a lift-gate truck, and I was happy with kerb-side delivery.) Then they found out it wasn't on pallets, and they wouldn't take it; I then had to switch to a white-glove firm. And that's when I got the bad news - it cost twice as much, for the same volume/weight. (They send a team, not just one driver.) So white-glove has a major downside, IMO. Noel From nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com Sat Jan 17 13:23:08 2015 From: nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com (David Williams) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 13:23:08 -0600 Subject: HP 9836 Available in the Houston TX area Message-ID: <006401d0328b$07507260$15f15720$@com> Anyone here interested in an HP 9836? One of the keys is broken off but present. It boots up but reports some memory issue. I've had it for a long time but don't have the time nor interest any more to work with it. Heavy box so local pickup preferred but if you want to arrange and pay for shipping we can try. Located in Houston TX. David Williams www.trailingedge.com From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 17 15:21:40 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 13:21:40 -0800 Subject: FTGH: Pioneer DRM-602X 6-CD changer In-Reply-To: <201501162008.PAA09635@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <201501162008.PAA09635@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <54BAD264.1020008@sydex.com> On 01/16/2015 12:08 PM, Mouse wrote: > I have this six-disc CD changer by Pioneer which I do not expect to > have further use for - or, more precisely, the chance of future use is > small enough I don't consider it worth the space it takes to store it. > I had a couple of those--I don't remember the brands--both were standard half-height devices. One was SCSI, the other ATAPI. 2X devices. There's very little software out there that knows to take advantage of the changer feature. One gave up the ghost with 3 CDs inside--it wasn't simple to get them out. They eventually joined a bunch of other CD-ROM readers and were recycled when I went to CD-RW type devices, which were also much faster. To the best of my recollection, both were purchased via the old OnSale auction site. --Chuck From derschjo at gmail.com Sat Jan 17 19:22:24 2015 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 17:22:24 -0800 Subject: Info about Scenic Computer Systems Corp. Model One Message-ID: <54BB0AD0.4030702@gmail.com> Hi all -- Was given this machine today, it's a Scenic Comptuer Systems Corporation Model One. It's a 68000 based machine with a custom (I assume) 44-pin bus with two 8" dual-sided floppies and four serial ports. And it was built right here in Seattle, WA :). The serial number on the CPU board is 9, which makes me wonder how many of these were produced. I powered it up after giving it an examination and I get a boot monitor prompt out of it. I can't find much information at all on this machine, a brief writeup in an Infoworld magazine from '83 indicates that it was a UCSD Pascal machine, but that's about all I know. Anyone have any info on this thing? Better yet, anyone know of any surviving software? (Well, I can dream...) Thanks as always, Josh From evan at snarc.net Sat Jan 17 19:57:07 2015 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 20:57:07 -0500 Subject: Another VCF East update - Wes Clark Message-ID: <54BB12F3.1020803@snarc.net> There are still three months until VCF East (April 17-19), but we are charging toward it at full steam! What's going on at the show? - There will be 16 technical classes on Friday. - We're at 18 exhibits and counting (30-ish expected) - We have four very special events planned: 1. Restored Straight-8 debut (Friday lunchtime); 2. Ted Nelson lecture (Saturday morning); 3. Just announced: Wes Clark lecture (Saturday night dinner -- very limited tickets available); and 4. Bob Frankston lecture (Sunday morning). From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Sat Jan 17 21:53:00 2015 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (jbdigriz) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 22:53:00 -0500 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: <54A8357C.6090908@bitsavers.org> References: <54A810EE.4000903@bitsavers.org> <54A8357C.6090908@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20150117225300.04242b00@hn03.lan> On Sat, 03 Jan 2015 10:31:24 -0800 Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/3/15 9:25 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > > I've never seen a TI > > 990 system in the wild, and only a few folks are displaying 990 > > architecture SBCs or actual TI-990 systems so the obscurity factor > > is there a little bit. > > I have at least 6 990s (/4 /10 /12) and several truckloads of > boards/documentation/software that no one here has expressed any > interest in after talking about them a couple of times over the > years. Dave Pitts has several and has written an emulator that runs > most of the OSes for them http://www.cozx.com/~dpitts/ti990.html > Too bad they are 3000 miles away from me; shipping would be a killer :^(. Can't count the times I had 990 stuff lined up to get, and, well, stuff happened. C'est la vie, etc. Still have my /10 and BS1500, though, incredibly, and most of my 4A and Geneve stuff, although not all in the best condition, now. Hanging on to it all through a lot of trials, trauma, and general BS turned me into a bit of an antisocial jerk for a while, but I'm still glad that I did. For Caron: I followed this thread with interest, because lately I've been considering some 9900/9995/99000-based projects, and/or add-on cards for 990's and even 4a's, or maybe a homebrew, so the chipsets on Ebay look promising. Look like some kind of 9900 and 9995-based MSX2+ SBC's, like a souped-up Tomy Tutor or something. Those Altera chips would be the key to system, but I don't see any mention of documentation, schematics, etc. Presumably these are hot hobbyist items in Japan or the MSX community, and are well-documented somewhere, but I'm not familiar with them. The 9902 is not present in the 99/4A console. You need an RS/232 peripheral or card for that. Readily available from any of sources, though, like Al says. From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Sat Jan 17 22:09:43 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 02:09:43 -0200 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs References: <54A810EE.4000903@bitsavers.org> <54A8357C.6090908@bitsavers.org> <20150117225300.04242b00@hn03.lan> Message-ID: > documentation, schematics, etc. Presumably these are hot hobbyist items > in Japan or the MSX community, and are well-documented somewhere, but > I'm not familiar with them. Need anything MSX? Here I am :) From drlegendre at gmail.com Sat Jan 17 23:11:30 2015 From: drlegendre at gmail.com (drlegendre .) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 23:11:30 -0600 Subject: Mystery ICs - AB 36D1024 Message-ID: Can't search up any data on these chips, they're marked with the Allen Bradley logo, and the code is 36D1024. Date codes are mid-1974. I have about 30 pcs. of them. But what are they? From tothwolf at concentric.net Sun Jan 18 01:15:25 2015 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 01:15:25 -0600 (CST) Subject: FTGH: Pioneer DRM-602X 6-CD changer In-Reply-To: <54BAD264.1020008@sydex.com> References: <201501162008.PAA09635@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <54BAD264.1020008@sydex.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 17 Jan 2015, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 01/16/2015 12:08 PM, Mouse wrote: > >> I have this six-disc CD changer by Pioneer which I do not expect to >> have further use for - or, more precisely, the chance of future use is >> small enough I don't consider it worth the space it takes to store it. > > I had a couple of those--I don't remember the brands--both were standard > half-height devices. One was SCSI, the other ATAPI. 2X devices. > There's very little software out there that knows to take advantage of > the changer feature. > > One gave up the ghost with 3 CDs inside--it wasn't simple to get them > out. > > They eventually joined a bunch of other CD-ROM readers and were recycled > when I went to CD-RW type devices, which were also much faster. > > To the best of my recollection, both were purchased via the old OnSale > auction site. These Pioneer cdrom changers are extremely well made. I own quite a number of them and have serviced tons of them over the years. The outer metal cover slides off after removing 6 screws and the pc board hinges up to allow for servicing of the changer's mechanical parts. They are quite complex and have a lot of moving parts, but they are 100% serviceable. These particular changers present themselves to the system as one SCSI id with multiple LUNs, which most OS will then map as 6 individual drives. The changer will automatically switch discs when you attempt to access a different drive. One major limitation (intentionally done by Pioneer as a halfbaked scheme to help prevent music piracy) is that these changers cannot do digital audio extraction or digital audio playback (analog audio playback works fine). I seem to remember Pioneer eventually released a firmware update (2 physical EPROM chips) for the 624X and maybe 604X to allow CDDA, but I don't know about the earlier models. Always, always, always eject the 6-disc magazine before moving or shipping these changers. They originally had a bright yellow warning label on top of the changer indicating this, but a lot of people would peel it off. If you don't eject the magazine, one of the disc trays will almost certainly swing out and damage the optics. I received a number of changers damaged just this way, including a DRM-600 where a disc tray shattered part of the support structure (the 602X, 604X and later were designed differently but the optics can still be damaged). I'm not sure if the service manuals are still available from Pioneer, but I still have original hardcopies of the 604X and 624X manuals. [I would like to find a set of Pioneer DRM-5004X service manuals if someone reading this in the future happens across any.] From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 18 01:18:08 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 23:18:08 -0800 Subject: Mystery ICs - AB 36D1024 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54BB5E30.8010800@sydex.com> On 01/17/2015 09:11 PM, drlegendre . wrote: > Can't search up any data on these chips, they're marked with the Allen > Bradley logo, and the code is 36D1024. > > Date codes are mid-1974. I have about 30 pcs. of them. > > But what are they? Resistor networks. Easy enough to take out your ohmmeter and figure out what's inside. --Chuck From tothwolf at concentric.net Sun Jan 18 01:20:32 2015 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 01:20:32 -0600 (CST) Subject: Mystery ICs - AB 36D1024 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 17 Jan 2015, drlegendre . wrote: > Can't search up any data on these chips, they're marked with the Allen > Bradley logo, and the code is 36D1024. > > Date codes are mid-1974. I have about 30 pcs. of them. > > But what are they? Could they possibly be DIP format resistor networks? From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 18 04:12:41 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 10:12:41 -0000 Subject: VT100 Monitor Alignment Tool Message-ID: <00d201d03307$4b752360$e25f6a20$@ntlworld.com> The horizontal width on my VT101 needs adjusting, so I am in need of a monitor alignment tool (PN 29-23190-00). I have tried searching the web to see if I can found out what they look like so that I can improvise something but I have failed to find a picture of the DEC one. Does anyone have a picture of one? Is it just a long thin screwdriver? Is it the same as a generic monitor alignment tool like this one: http://eu.suzohapp.com/product/H92-0196-00/universal-monitor-alignment-tool- kit? Even so the picture on that site makes it hard for me to tell what I need to improvise something. Regards Rob PS The VT101 is partly working, I think the monitor control side is fine, but the terminal controller board seems to have problems, I only get random characters displayed when I power it up and it does not respond to any keys, not even SETUP L From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Sun Jan 18 04:37:30 2015 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave G4UGM) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 10:37:30 -0000 Subject: VT100 Monitor Alignment Tool In-Reply-To: <00d201d03307$4b752360$e25f6a20$@ntlworld.com> References: <00d201d03307$4b752360$e25f6a20$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <0d4701d0330a$c3094ac0$491be040$@gmail.com> Rob, I can't see what the core type is in the coil, but it will be a tool like a screwdriver or hex key that fits snugly in the end of the core. Don't be tempted to use a screwdriver as you can split the core. Some examples here:- http://www.minute-man.com/acatalog/TV_and_Radio_Alignment_Tools.html if anyone can tell me if it's a slot or a hex key then I may have something suitable. Dave -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Robert Jarratt Sent: 18 January 2015 10:13 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: VT100 Monitor Alignment Tool The horizontal width on my VT101 needs adjusting, so I am in need of a monitor alignment tool (PN 29-23190-00). I have tried searching the web to see if I can found out what they look like so that I can improvise something but I have failed to find a picture of the DEC one. Does anyone have a picture of one? Is it just a long thin screwdriver? Is it the same as a generic monitor alignment tool like this one: http://eu.suzohapp.com/product/H92-0196-00/universal-monitor-alignment-tool- kit? Even so the picture on that site makes it hard for me to tell what I need to improvise something. Regards Rob PS The VT101 is partly working, I think the monitor control side is fine, but the terminal controller board seems to have problems, I only get random characters displayed when I power it up and it does not respond to any keys, not even SETUP L From djg at pdp8online.com Sat Jan 17 13:11:52 2015 From: djg at pdp8online.com (David Gesswein) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 14:11:52 -0500 Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 Message-ID: <20150117191152.GA3324@hugin2.pdp8online.com> Someone was using my MFM reader to read a Maxtor XT-2190 and was having problems. From the looks of it the heads are out of alignment. Does anyone know if this drive has a microstep mode like some Seagates have? I didn't find any mention in the manuals I could find. Some heads are mostly unreadable, some heads are mostly ok and some were unreadable on cylinder 0 and on other cylinders the header says they are one cylinder less than where it stepped to. Some of the other heads headers said the cylinder is what was expected. From mhs.stein at gmail.com Sat Jan 17 13:40:52 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 14:40:52 -0500 Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 References: <20150117191152.GA3324@hugin2.pdp8online.com> Message-ID: <00215A7D4919421C88314FA413E3737C@310e2> Sometimes trying different orientations to take up any slack and/or the old trick of cooling it in the freezer for a little while can make some unreadable cylinders readable; might be worth a try. Also, make sure the power supply is up to the task; these things take a lot of power and I've had intermittent errors when using a slightly inadequate power supply that cleared up totally with a more substantial one. Good luck. m ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Gesswein" To: Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2015 2:11 PM Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 > Someone was using my MFM reader to read a Maxtor XT-2190 and was having > problems. From the looks of it the heads are out of alignment. Does > anyone know if this drive has a microstep mode like some Seagates have? > I didn't find any mention in the manuals I could find. > > Some heads are mostly unreadable, some heads are mostly ok and some > were unreadable on cylinder 0 and on other cylinders the header says they > are one cylinder less than where it stepped to. Some of the other heads > headers > said the cylinder is what was expected. > From snhirsch at gmail.com Sat Jan 17 18:29:10 2015 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 19:29:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 In-Reply-To: <20150117191152.GA3324@hugin2.pdp8online.com> References: <20150117191152.GA3324@hugin2.pdp8online.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 17 Jan 2015, David Gesswein wrote: > Someone was using my MFM reader to read a Maxtor XT-2190 and was having > problems. From the looks of it the heads are out of alignment. Does > anyone know if this drive has a microstep mode like some Seagates have? > I didn't find any mention in the manuals I could find. Hi, David. That drive has a dedicated servo surface (thus the odd number of heads). Not sure there's any concept of microstepping in that arrangement. I'll also second the comment about hefty power requirements. Mine just about dim the lights in the room on spin-up. -- From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Sat Jan 17 22:22:03 2015 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 20:22:03 -0800 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: <20150117225300.04242b00@hn03.lan> References: , <54A810EE.4000903@bitsavers.org>, , <54A8357C.6090908@bitsavers.org>, <20150117225300.04242b00@hn03.lan> Message-ID: I loved the 9900! it was screaming fast compared to x86 in 1980 or so. I bought one of their SBCs, the TI 990 'University Board', it came with a 200+ page course and tutorials on the processor. Later found their video chip 9918 and adapter board from Eyring Research. Other than the 99/4 these parts had little use. TI did make another stab at video chip coprocessors that ended up in the Truevision (AT&T) AT-VISTA framegrabber boards. Some trivia: The TI processors had lots of use in TI's industrial PLCs, the PM520 and PM550. I was in a design meeting with these guys, when management said 'What can we do with the PLC line to compete with Allen Bradley?' One of the more vocal TI engineers stood up, and said, 'Don't force us to use TI processors.' Their next gen PLC, the 560, was a standard bus, VME and 68000 based. I think it still ships today under the Siemens brand, TI sold off the PLC group and got out of programmable logic controllers altogether. > Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 22:53:00 -0500 > From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs > > On Sat, 03 Jan 2015 10:31:24 -0800 > Al Kossow wrote: > > > On 1/3/15 9:25 AM, Sean Caron wrote: > > > I've never seen a TI > > > 990 system in the wild, and only a few folks are displaying 990 > > > architecture SBCs or actual TI-990 systems so the obscurity factor > > > is there a little bit. > > > > I have at least 6 990s (/4 /10 /12) and several truckloads of > > boards/documentation/software that no one here has expressed any > > interest in after talking about them a couple of times over the > > years. Dave Pitts has several and has written an emulator that runs > > most of the OSes for them http://www.cozx.com/~dpitts/ti990.html > > > > Too bad they are 3000 miles away from me; shipping would be a > killer :^(. Can't count the times I had 990 stuff lined up to get, and, > well, stuff happened. C'est la vie, etc. Still have my /10 and BS1500, > though, incredibly, and most of my 4A and Geneve stuff, although not > all in the best condition, now. Hanging on to it all through a lot of > trials, trauma, and general BS turned me into a bit of an antisocial > jerk for a while, but I'm still glad that I did. > > For Caron: I followed this thread with interest, because > lately I've been considering some 9900/9995/99000-based projects, > and/or add-on cards for 990's and even 4a's, or maybe a homebrew, so > the chipsets on Ebay look promising. Look like some kind of 9900 and > 9995-based MSX2+ SBC's, like a souped-up Tomy Tutor or something. Those > Altera chips would be the key to system, but I don't see any mention of > documentation, schematics, etc. Presumably these are hot hobbyist items > in Japan or the MSX community, and are well-documented somewhere, but > I'm not familiar with them. > > The 9902 is not present in the 99/4A console. You need an RS/232 > peripheral or card for that. Readily available from any of sources, > though, like Al says. > From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jan 18 09:06:06 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 07:06:06 -0800 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: <20150117225300.04242b00@hn03.lan> References: <54A810EE.4000903@bitsavers.org> <54A8357C.6090908@bitsavers.org> <20150117225300.04242b00@hn03.lan> Message-ID: <54BBCBDE.7080107@bitsavers.org> On 1/17/15 7:53 PM, jbdigriz wrote: > Still have my /10 and BS1500, > It would be nice to get firmware dumps and pictures of the BS1500 Not many of those have turned up. From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Sun Jan 18 09:22:20 2015 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 10:22:20 -0500 (EST) Subject: FTGH: Pioneer DRM-602X 6-CD changer In-Reply-To: References: <201501162008.PAA09635@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <54BAD264.1020008@sydex.com> Message-ID: <201501181522.KAA12822@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >>> I have this six-disc CD changer by Pioneer [...] Oh, one addendum: since the first posting I've found five more magazines for it. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Sun Jan 18 10:07:38 2015 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 10:07:38 -0600 Subject: Restoring a Compaq Portable In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54BBDA4A.5060708@gmail.com> On 01/14/2015 12:03 AM, David Griffith wrote: > 3) I can't get the keyboard to respond at all. I tried touching the > capacitive pads with bare fingers, anti-static bag material, etc. Nothing > works. Solution: I don't know. I suspect the scan driver and/or the sense > amp chips may be bad. These are Exar 22-950-3B (sense driver) and > 22-908-93A (sense amp). Does anyone here know a decent source of these > and/or data sheets? I know they're more or less a straight IBM PC clone, but is the keyboard link portion compatible at the hardware level, such that you could hook up a PC XT keyboard just to verify that the system is responding to a keyboard at all? cheers Jules From js at cimmeri.com Sun Jan 18 11:05:43 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 12:05:43 -0500 Subject: Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000 In-Reply-To: <20150113164957.08C1218C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150113164957.08C1218C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54BBE7E7.4060007@cimmeri.com> On 1/13/2015 11:49 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: js > > > as a frequent buyer, it also highly annoys me when systems on eBay or > > Craiglist are found and rebroadcasted here. Now, my chance find has > > been made aware to a much wider audience, the competition shoots way > > up, and I have to pay more. > > Since I'm one of the people who has been doing this (e.g. recent PDP-8 > postings), I'd like to weigh in with a few thoughts on this topic. > > To begin, as to the point that it's costing you more money, I'm afraid I > don't find that a big factor, for several reasons. First, as Mark Tapley > explained down-thread: > > http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2015-January/002533.html > > from the point of view of saving history, higher prices are better. If people > start to think of these older machines as possibly collectable items of some > value, they are less likely to toss them into the trash without further ado. ** That's true... but what makes those prices go higher more than anything are demand and rarity. So someone's got to want the machine to begin with, and then the harder it is to fine, to more of a price it can command. From that angle, sometimes it's good when machines are recycled. It increases the rarity of those left... but with the caveat that we don't want them all to be thrown out. I It's a difficult question to answer, as to, "how many of any machine example do we need to save?" And will humans feel it necessary to keep saving examples of all the machines they ever make, ad infinitum? Perhaps at some point, we'll need to examine our materialistic values a bit more soberly. > (Yes, yes, I know, not all old computers are worth saving - just like not all > old cars are, either. But unless you ask someone who knows, you don't know > whether your old junker is a clunker or a jewel in the rough.) Second, you're > only getting that item 'for cheap' because some other collector, to whom it > might be even more emotionally important, doesn't know of it. > > I do have more sympathy with the point of view that says 'I spent a lot of > time trawling through eBay, etc listings looking for that one diamond in a > sea of pebbles; why should all my work be devalued by someone who just posts > the listing so everyone can get on board?' I have some sympathy for that take > (especially since I myself spend a fair amount of time looking through eBay > for PDP-11 stuff :-) ** Yes, that is the point I was making, about the frustration of time spent and potentially lost. > but for me it's out-weighed by the 'hey, I have this > information, it's no use to me, I'd like to share it with people for whom it > might be highly useful'. ** Ok, but part of the the fun is the treasure hunt itself, and it can be argued that you're short circuiting that for the people who really are out there looking. Of course, some will be grateful that you've saved them the time... as they might not be in it for the treasure hunt. > > Auctions are not collegial -- they're competitive, and since when is > > competition a negative? > > I'm not sure of your point here (the second part seems to be at odds with the > first), but I will say that I think widely-attended auctions, starting at a > modest price, are desirable: they are the best way to set the _true_ value of > something. ** Agreed. > Too many items on eBay have some incredibly high Buy-It-Now price, and they > sit forever, until someone really desperate buys it - which just encourages > other sellers to ask for un-realistic amounts. So I applaud the sellers who > put things up for real auctions. ** Agreed. - JS From marc.verdiell at gmail.com Sun Jan 18 11:23:52 2015 From: marc.verdiell at gmail.com (Marc Verdiell) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 09:23:52 -0800 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <36BA6914-5896-4560-9851-6A2C07C3DB74@gmail.com> Actually I need to learn more about this. What do they exactly do when they "palletize" things? Does that include wrapping/protecting the item and lifting/anchoring it on the pallet? How small and how large an item can they deal with? How much does the service cost? How do you "unpalletize it" at the other end? Do you need a forklift or a hydraulic pallet moving thingy on the receiving end? Marc >> On 01/17/2015 11:09 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> I know palletization's not cheap From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Sun Jan 18 11:47:32 2015 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (jbdigriz) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 12:47:32 -0500 Subject: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs In-Reply-To: <54BBCBDE.7080107@bitsavers.org> References: <54A810EE.4000903@bitsavers.org> <54A8357C.6090908@bitsavers.org> <20150117225300.04242b00@hn03.lan> <54BBCBDE.7080107@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20150118124732.164e1c90@hn03.lan> On Sun, 18 Jan 2015 07:06:06 -0800 Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/17/15 7:53 PM, jbdigriz wrote: > > Still have my /10 and BS1500, > > > > It would be nice to get firmware dumps and pictures of the BS1500 > Not many of those have turned up. > > > Point taken. I'm updating my website and will put something up. jbdigriz From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 18 12:55:29 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 18:55:29 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault Message-ID: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> The terminal controller board on my VT101 is not working, if it displays anything it is random characters. I have used my scope to check the 8085 CPU. It has power, it is outputting a valid clock, but there is no activity on the RD,WR and ALE pins. I am guessing the 8085 is bad, but before I go replacing it I wanted to check if anyone knew of anything else that might cause the 8085 to misbehave (ie am I seeing symptoms or a cause?). It looks to be easy to get 8085s, if I replace it I will socket it at the same time, but would rather avoid having to desolder it if the problem is elsewhere. Any advice gratefully received. Thanks Rob PS Just to check that the rest of the terminal works, I substituted the terminal controller board with one from a VT102 and it worked perfectly. So the problem is definitely on the terminal controller board. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 18 13:15:46 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 19:15:46 +0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: > > The terminal controller board on my VT101 is not working, if it displays > anything it is random characters. I have used my scope to check the 8085 > CPU. It has power, it is outputting a valid clock, but there is no activity > on the RD,WR and ALE pins. I am guessing the 8085 is bad, but before I go > replacing it I wanted to check if anyone knew of anything else that might > cause the 8085 to misbehave (ie am I seeing symptoms or a cause?). What is the state of the reset input to the 8085? In other words, is the CPU being held reset all the time? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 18 13:26:17 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 19:26:17 +0000 Subject: Mystery ICs - AB 36D1024 In-Reply-To: <54BB5E30.8010800@sydex.com> References: , <54BB5E30.8010800@sydex.com> Message-ID: > Resistor networks. Easy enough to take out your ohmmeter and figure out > what's inside. I have come across some custom DIP resistor networks in HP machines where it's not just isolated resistors or resistors from the pins to a common pin (the common standard configurations). With those, simple pin-pin resistance measurements are not enough ( I forget if it's enough in theory, but in practice if the resistors are wildly different values you won't do it). I seem to remember working out a method where you (a) measure resistance from each pin to all other pins strapped and (b) make a potential divider using one pin as the input, another as the output and all others strapped as the common. Repeat for all combinations of pins. Here, I think is how it works out. Suppose in (b) you apply the input to pin x and take the output from pin y. Suppose that there is a resistor r between x and y, and the parallel combination of all other resistors on pin Y has resistance R. Then the division ratio is clearly R/(r+R) Now think of (a) using pin y (the pin that was the output of the potential divider). Resistor (r) is now included in the parallel combination, so the resistance from pin y to all others strapped is (R.r)/(R+r). Dividing one by the other will give you the value of r. Repeating for all pin combinations will give you the resistor between each pair of pins -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 18 13:31:36 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 19:31:36 +0000 Subject: VT100 Monitor Alignment Tool In-Reply-To: <00d201d03307$4b752360$e25f6a20$@ntlworld.com> References: <00d201d03307$4b752360$e25f6a20$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: > The horizontal width on my VT101 needs adjusting, so I am in need of a > monitor alignment tool (PN 29-23190-00). I have tried searching the web to > see if I can found out what they look like so that I can improvise something > but I have failed to find a picture of the DEC one. Does anyone have a > picture of one? Is it just a long thin screwdriver? Is it the same as a > generic monitor alignment tool like this one: > http://eu.suzohapp.com/product/H92-0196-00/universal-monitor-alignment-tool- > kit? Even so the picture on that site makes it hard for me to tell what I > need to improvise something. Never try to adjust a ferrite core with a metal tool. You _will_ (not may) end up cracking it and causing more problems. Not to mention of course, the fact that the metal tool will affect the inductance anyway [1]. IIRC the width coil on the VT100 has a hexagonal hole in it. The tool is a plastic rod with a hexagonal end (there are only a few common sizes). There is nothing AFAIK special about the DEC one. People have made them by filing plastic rod from a model shop or a plastic knitting needle, but I think you can get the right tool [1] At one time there was a tool which consisted of a plastic rod with a ferrite slug on one end and a copper slug on the other. Putting the ferrite slug into a coil increased the inductance, putting the copper slug in decreased it. So you tried each end in turn in a coil if there was improvement you knew the coil was off-tune and which way to tweak it. -tony From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 18 14:07:30 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 20:07:30 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> No, I checked that and it isn't. It is an active low signal and it is high. Regards Rob > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony duell > Sent: 18 January 2015 19:16 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > > > > The terminal controller board on my VT101 is not working, if it > > displays anything it is random characters. I have used my scope to > > check the 8085 CPU. It has power, it is outputting a valid clock, but > > there is no activity on the RD,WR and ALE pins. I am guessing the 8085 > > is bad, but before I go replacing it I wanted to check if anyone knew > > of anything else that might cause the 8085 to misbehave (ie am I seeing > symptoms or a cause?). > > What is the state of the reset input to the 8085? In other words, is the CPU > being held reset all the time? > > -tony > = From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Sun Jan 18 14:11:07 2015 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 12:11:07 -0800 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> On 1/18/2015 12:07 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: > No, I checked that and it isn't. It is an active low signal and it is high. > > Regards > > Rob What about the READY pin? Stuck low? Bob >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony > duell >> Sent: 18 January 2015 19:16 >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >> >>> The terminal controller board on my VT101 is not working, if it >>> displays anything it is random characters. I have used my scope to >>> check the 8085 CPU. It has power, it is outputting a valid clock, but >>> there is no activity on the RD,WR and ALE pins. I am guessing the 8085 >>> is bad, but before I go replacing it I wanted to check if anyone knew >>> of anything else that might cause the 8085 to misbehave (ie am I seeing >> symptoms or a cause?). >> >> What is the state of the reset input to the 8085? In other words, is the > CPU >> being held reset all the time? >> >> -tony >> = > -- Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it. I've been practising it for years. -Prince Philip From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 18 14:11:23 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 12:11:23 -0800 Subject: Mystery ICs - AB 36D1024 In-Reply-To: References: , <54BB5E30.8010800@sydex.com> Message-ID: <54BC136B.50306@sydex.com> On 01/18/2015 11:26 AM, tony duell wrote: > >> Resistor networks. Easy enough to take out your ohmmeter and figure out >> what's inside. > > I have come across some custom DIP resistor networks in HP machines where > it's not just isolated resistors or resistors from the pins to a common pin (the > common standard configurations). With those, simple pin-pin resistance > measurements are not enough ( I forget if it's enough in theory, but in > practice if the resistors are wildly different values you won't do it). Nope, these are resistor networks-I've got some 36Cxxxx AB parts. From what I recall, the first 2 or three numbers indicates the configuration and the trailing numbers indicate the value. Sadly, I don't have an old catalog to interpret the part numbers. --Chuck From tsg at bonedaddy.net Sun Jan 18 14:33:56 2015 From: tsg at bonedaddy.net (Todd Goodman) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 15:33:56 -0500 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: <36BA6914-5896-4560-9851-6A2C07C3DB74@gmail.com> References: <36BA6914-5896-4560-9851-6A2C07C3DB74@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150118203355.GG4901@ns1.bonedaddy.net> * Marc Verdiell [150118 12:24]: > Actually I need to learn more about this. What do they exactly do when they "palletize" things? Does that include wrapping/protecting the item and lifting/anchoring it on the pallet? How small and how large an item can they deal with? How much does the service cost? How do you "unpalletize it" at the other end? Do you need a forklift or a hydraulic pallet moving thingy on the receiving end? > > Marc I've palletized and shipped computer stuff as well as pinball machines as well as received both on pallets. Usually the shipper does the palletizing (unless they pay a pack and ship type place to do it for them.) You put the item or items on the pallet and usually band them to the pallet (there are all different kinds of bands you can use. Plastic bands with an S-clasp are easy to use but there are metal bands you crimp a clasp onto too as well as all kinds of others I'm sure.) I usually shrink wrap the items too. Often with cardboard around them. Sometimes crate them with a plywood box around the whole pallet. None of these will stop a forklift fork from going through but help with scuffs from pallets getting moved around. I've received pallets with just shrinkwrap holding items on the pallet. They've made it to me but the items tend to shift when moved around a lot. All the shipping I've done is based on the cubic size of the pallet with items on top. I believe if you go over the "standard"-ish sized pallets most probably have an additional charge (I've received some pallet shipments that required longer forks for the forklift than standard.) On the receiving end they can send a lift gate truck for a charge. Most freight companies want to know if it's coming and going to a residential or business address. By business address they usually mean a place that has a forklift or loading dock to unload. Residential usually means they'll send it on a lift gate truck and usually will call to arrange a delivery date and time (if it's a business delivery and they show up during business hours to deliver and no one is there there's usually a "redelivery" charge.) Amost all the freight companies I've dealt with will not go down a residential driveway (mine is 1/2 mile long so they definitely won't go down it.) Most send a tractor trailer to deliver. I meet them at the road with either a tractor with forks or my pickup truck (if they have a liftgate.) I've rented telehandlers (rough terrain telescoping boom forklifts) before too (wish I could get myself one of those!) The driver will have a pallet jack (a wheeled tool with two forks to go into/under the pallet and hydraulics that can lift it off the ground an inch or so to move the palleted items around. All freight companies I've dealt with will either get the pallets to the edge of the back of the truck (for business delivery) or onto the liftgate and onto the ground. Then it's up to the receiver to take it from there. To unpalletize it yourself it depends what it is. If it's really heavy then I'd move it close to it's location and then use a hoist or lift to get it off. Obviously if it's smaller items (maybe multiple boxes of items on the pallet) then it can just be pulled off one at a time. As other people have said palletizing stuff is *really* convenient for moving it around and isn't too hard to do. Around here there are many places that offer free pallets or for little money (though around here some people burn wood pallets so there's some competition to get them.) Most "chain" stores around here return their pallets so won't give them away but plumbing and heating, computer recyclers, and other places will often give them away. Places like uline.com (among many others) sell banding and shrinkwrap supplies that will last a lifetime if you're only shipping occasionally. Just my experience with it. Todd From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 18 14:37:06 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 20:37:06 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> No stuck, high. Regards Rob > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bob > Rosenbloom > Sent: 18 January 2015 20:11 > To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off- > Topic Posts > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On 1/18/2015 12:07 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > No, I checked that and it isn't. It is an active low signal and it is high. > > > > Regards > > > > Rob > > What about the READY pin? Stuck low? > > Bob > > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony > > duell > >> Sent: 18 January 2015 19:16 > >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > >> Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > >> > >>> The terminal controller board on my VT101 is not working, if it > >>> displays anything it is random characters. I have used my scope to > >>> check the 8085 CPU. It has power, it is outputting a valid clock, > >>> but there is no activity on the RD,WR and ALE pins. I am guessing > >>> the 8085 is bad, but before I go replacing it I wanted to check if > >>> anyone knew of anything else that might cause the 8085 to misbehave > >>> (ie am I seeing > >> symptoms or a cause?). > >> > >> What is the state of the reset input to the 8085? In other words, is > >> the > > CPU > >> being held reset all the time? > >> > >> -tony > >> = > > > > > -- > Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it. > I've been practising it for years. > -Prince Philip From bqt at update.uu.se Sun Jan 18 14:48:53 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 21:48:53 +0100 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-18 21:37, Robert Jarratt wrote: > No stuck, high. Is there any activity on any of the address pins? If those also are dead, either the whole CPU is dead, or else it is disabled by something. If those are showing activity then the RD pin is either dead, or shorted somewhere, I'd guess. I hope you are checking the right pins... :-) Johnny > > Regards > > Rob > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bob >> Rosenbloom >> Sent: 18 January 2015 20:11 >> To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off- >> Topic Posts >> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >> >> On 1/18/2015 12:07 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: >>> No, I checked that and it isn't. It is an active low signal and it is > high. >>> >>> Regards >>> >>> Rob >> >> What about the READY pin? Stuck low? >> >> Bob >> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony >>> duell >>>> Sent: 18 January 2015 19:16 >>>> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >>>> Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >>>> >>>>> The terminal controller board on my VT101 is not working, if it >>>>> displays anything it is random characters. I have used my scope to >>>>> check the 8085 CPU. It has power, it is outputting a valid clock, >>>>> but there is no activity on the RD,WR and ALE pins. I am guessing >>>>> the 8085 is bad, but before I go replacing it I wanted to check if >>>>> anyone knew of anything else that might cause the 8085 to misbehave >>>>> (ie am I seeing >>>> symptoms or a cause?). >>>> >>>> What is the state of the reset input to the 8085? In other words, is >>>> the >>> CPU >>>> being held reset all the time? >>>> >>>> -tony >>>> = >>> >> >> >> -- >> Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot > in it. >> I've been practising it for years. >> -Prince Philip > -- 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 robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 18 15:12:22 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 21:12:22 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Johnny > Billquist > Sent: 18 January 2015 20:49 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On 2015-01-18 21:37, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > No stuck, high. > > Is there any activity on any of the address pins? If those also are dead, either > the whole CPU is dead, or else it is disabled by something. > Yes there is, but it looks odd, and very different to when I checked the address pins on the working one. It looked like the voltage might be spiking upwards, but it is hard to tell because I don't have a working logic analyser. > If those are showing activity then the RD pin is either dead, or shorted > somewhere, I'd guess. RD and WR are active low, and they are both high, so I suppose they could be shorted high, but I don't know. > > I hope you are checking the right pins... :-) Me too, although I have checked multiple times. I am using this page to give me the pinout: http://scanftree.com/microprocessor/Pin-Diagram-of-8085-and-Pin-description-of-8085 > > Johnny > > > > > Regards > > > > Rob > > > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bob > >> Rosenbloom > >> Sent: 18 January 2015 20:11 > >> To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and > >> Off- Topic Posts > >> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > >> > >> On 1/18/2015 12:07 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: > >>> No, I checked that and it isn't. It is an active low signal and it > >>> is > > high. > >>> > >>> Regards > >>> > >>> Rob > >> > >> What about the READY pin? Stuck low? > >> > >> Bob > >> > >>>> -----Original Message----- > >>>> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of > >>>> tony > >>> duell > >>>> Sent: 18 January 2015 19:16 > >>>> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > >>>> Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > >>>> > >>>>> The terminal controller board on my VT101 is not working, if it > >>>>> displays anything it is random characters. I have used my scope to > >>>>> check the 8085 CPU. It has power, it is outputting a valid clock, > >>>>> but there is no activity on the RD,WR and ALE pins. I am guessing > >>>>> the 8085 is bad, but before I go replacing it I wanted to check if > >>>>> anyone knew of anything else that might cause the 8085 to > >>>>> misbehave (ie am I seeing > >>>> symptoms or a cause?). > >>>> > >>>> What is the state of the reset input to the 8085? In other words, > >>>> is the > >>> CPU > >>>> being held reset all the time? > >>>> > >>>> -tony > >>>> = > >>> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your > >> foot > > in it. > >> I've been practising it for years. > >> -Prince Philip > > > > > -- > 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 update.uu.se Sun Jan 18 15:32:41 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:32:41 +0100 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-18 22:12, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Johnny >> Billquist >> Sent: 18 January 2015 20:49 >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >> >> On 2015-01-18 21:37, Robert Jarratt wrote: >>> No stuck, high. >> >> Is there any activity on any of the address pins? If those also are dead, either >> the whole CPU is dead, or else it is disabled by something. >> > > Yes there is, but it looks odd, and very different to when I checked the address pins on the working one. It looked like the voltage might be spiking upwards, but it is hard to tell because I don't have a working logic analyser. All power pins are ok to the CPU? I wouldn't care much for a logic analyzer at this point. A good scope will tell you more. Nice sharp edges to signals when they shift. Times that look reasonable... Steady levels, and correct levels. >> If those are showing activity then the RD pin is either dead, or shorted >> somewhere, I'd guess. > > > RD and WR are active low, and they are both high, so I suppose they could be shorted high, but I don't know. That will be very hard to verify without disconnecting the pins. So let's focus on other things for the moment. >> I hope you are checking the right pins... :-) > > Me too, although I have checked multiple times. I am using this page to give me the pinout: http://scanftree.com/microprocessor/Pin-Diagram-of-8085-and-Pin-description-of-8085 Well, I can't offer any more help on that one. Just a reflection. Johnny > > >> >> Johnny >> >>> >>> Regards >>> >>> Rob >>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bob >>>> Rosenbloom >>>> Sent: 18 January 2015 20:11 >>>> To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and >>>> Off- Topic Posts >>>> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >>>> >>>> On 1/18/2015 12:07 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: >>>>> No, I checked that and it isn't. It is an active low signal and it >>>>> is >>> high. >>>>> >>>>> Regards >>>>> >>>>> Rob >>>> >>>> What about the READY pin? Stuck low? >>>> >>>> Bob >>>> >>>>>> -----Original Message----- >>>>>> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of >>>>>> tony >>>>> duell >>>>>> Sent: 18 January 2015 19:16 >>>>>> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >>>>>> Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >>>>>> >>>>>>> The terminal controller board on my VT101 is not working, if it >>>>>>> displays anything it is random characters. I have used my scope to >>>>>>> check the 8085 CPU. It has power, it is outputting a valid clock, >>>>>>> but there is no activity on the RD,WR and ALE pins. I am guessing >>>>>>> the 8085 is bad, but before I go replacing it I wanted to check if >>>>>>> anyone knew of anything else that might cause the 8085 to >>>>>>> misbehave (ie am I seeing >>>>>> symptoms or a cause?). >>>>>> >>>>>> What is the state of the reset input to the 8085? In other words, >>>>>> is the >>>>> CPU >>>>>> being held reset all the time? >>>>>> >>>>>> -tony >>>>>> = >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your >>>> foot >>> in it. >>>> I've been practising it for years. >>>> -Prince Philip >>> >> >> >> -- >> 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 > -- 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 robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 18 15:47:35 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 21:47:35 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Johnny > Billquist > Sent: 18 January 2015 21:33 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On 2015-01-18 22:12, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > > > > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of > >> Johnny Billquist > >> Sent: 18 January 2015 20:49 > >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > >> > >> On 2015-01-18 21:37, Robert Jarratt wrote: > >>> No stuck, high. > >> > >> Is there any activity on any of the address pins? If those also are > >> dead, either the whole CPU is dead, or else it is disabled by something. > >> > > > > Yes there is, but it looks odd, and very different to when I checked the address > pins on the working one. It looked like the voltage might be spiking upwards, > but it is hard to tell because I don't have a working logic analyser. > > All power pins are ok to the CPU? I checked Vcc and Vss and they appeared to be fine (5V and 0V respectively). > I wouldn't care much for a logic analyzer at this point. A good scope will tell > you more. Nice sharp edges to signals when they shift. Times that look > reasonable... Steady levels, and correct levels. It will never be steady with a scope because the address lines won't be a regular waveform. That said they looked very different on the faulty board to how they looked on the good board. > > >> If those are showing activity then the RD pin is either dead, or > >> shorted somewhere, I'd guess. > > > > > > RD and WR are active low, and they are both high, so I suppose they could be > shorted high, but I don't know. > > That will be very hard to verify without disconnecting the pins. So let's focus on > other things for the moment. I have a desoldering gun now, so desoldering is no longer the problem it once was for me, but I would still prefer to avoid this if possible. I am not sure what else to check though. > > >> I hope you are checking the right pins... :-) > > > > Me too, although I have checked multiple times. I am using this page > > to give me the pinout: > > http://scanftree.com/microprocessor/Pin-Diagram-of-8085-and-Pin-descri > > ption-of-8085 > > Well, I can't offer any more help on that one. Just a reflection. > > Johnny > > > > > > >> > >> Johnny > >> > >>> > >>> Regards > >>> > >>> Rob > >>> > >>>> -----Original Message----- > >>>> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of > >>>> Bob Rosenbloom > >>>> Sent: 18 January 2015 20:11 > >>>> To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and > >>>> Off- Topic Posts > >>>> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > >>>> > >>>> On 1/18/2015 12:07 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: > >>>>> No, I checked that and it isn't. It is an active low signal and it > >>>>> is > >>> high. > >>>>> > >>>>> Regards > >>>>> > >>>>> Rob > >>>> > >>>> What about the READY pin? Stuck low? > >>>> > >>>> Bob > >>>> > >>>>>> -----Original Message----- > >>>>>> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of > >>>>>> tony > >>>>> duell > >>>>>> Sent: 18 January 2015 19:16 > >>>>>> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > >>>>>> Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > >>>>>> > >>>>>>> The terminal controller board on my VT101 is not working, if it > >>>>>>> displays anything it is random characters. I have used my scope > >>>>>>> to check the 8085 CPU. It has power, it is outputting a valid > >>>>>>> clock, but there is no activity on the RD,WR and ALE pins. I am > >>>>>>> guessing the 8085 is bad, but before I go replacing it I wanted > >>>>>>> to check if anyone knew of anything else that might cause the > >>>>>>> 8085 to misbehave (ie am I seeing > >>>>>> symptoms or a cause?). > >>>>>> > >>>>>> What is the state of the reset input to the 8085? In other words, > >>>>>> is the > >>>>> CPU > >>>>>> being held reset all the time? > >>>>>> > >>>>>> -tony > >>>>>> = > >>>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> -- > >>>> Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your > >>>> foot > >>> in it. > >>>> I've been practising it for years. > >>>> -Prince Philip > >>> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> 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 > > > > > -- > 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 db at db.net Sun Jan 18 16:04:30 2015 From: db at db.net (Diane Bruce) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 17:04:30 -0500 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 09:47:35PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > ... > > you more. Nice sharp edges to signals when they shift. Times that look > > reasonable... Steady levels, and correct levels. > > It will never be steady with a scope because the address lines won't be a regular waveform. That said they looked very different on the faulty board to how they looked on the good board. > A remote possibility is the boot ROM is b0rked and it's simply running around like a chicken without a head. That is something a good logic analyser could tell you. Diane -- - db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 18 16:21:28 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:21:28 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> Message-ID: <016601d0336d$1ab5ac70$50210550$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Diane Bruce > Sent: 18 January 2015 22:05 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 09:47:35PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > > ... > > > you more. Nice sharp edges to signals when they shift. Times that > > > look reasonable... Steady levels, and correct levels. > > > > It will never be steady with a scope because the address lines won't be a > regular waveform. That said they looked very different on the faulty board to > how they looked on the good board. > > > > A remote possibility is the boot ROM is b0rked and it's simply running around > like a chicken without a head. > That is something a good logic analyser could tell you. > If I had one.... I did buy a cheap Thurlby LA160 recently. It is the type that uses your scope for its screen. It seems to work fine except that many of the membrane keys don't respond :-( Regards Rob From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 18 16:23:01 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:23:01 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> Message-ID: <016701d0336d$525b4770$f711d650$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Diane Bruce > Sent: 18 January 2015 22:05 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 09:47:35PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > > ... > > > you more. Nice sharp edges to signals when they shift. Times that > > > look reasonable... Steady levels, and correct levels. > > > > It will never be steady with a scope because the address lines won't be a > regular waveform. That said they looked very different on the faulty board to > how they looked on the good board. > > > > A remote possibility is the boot ROM is b0rked and it's simply running around > like a chicken without a head. > That is something a good logic analyser could tell you. > I would have thought that unlikely as I would expect to at least see some activity on the RD and WR pins, but I don't. I mean even if the ROM is bad it would execute *something*. Regards Rob From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 18 16:37:10 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 14:37:10 -0800 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <016601d0336d$1ab5ac70$50210550$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <016601d0336d$1ab5ac70$50210550$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54BC3596.7060004@sydex.com> On 01/18/2015 02:21 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: > I did buy a cheap Thurlby LA160 recently. It is the type that uses your > scope for its screen. It seems to work fine except that many of the membrane > keys don't respond :-( If you've got a PC with a printer port, there (I believe) is a Logic Analyzer hookup to the printer port with software here: http://jwasys.home.xs4all.nl/old/diy2.html I've tried it, and it works remarkably well for what it is. I ran it from a 450Mhz K6-equipped ancient PC. --Chuck From bqt at update.uu.se Sun Jan 18 16:51:46 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 23:51:46 +0100 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54BC3902.4020203@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-18 22:47, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Johnny >> Billquist >> Sent: 18 January 2015 21:33 >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >> >> On 2015-01-18 22:12, Robert Jarratt wrote: >>> >>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of >>>> Johnny Billquist >>>> Sent: 18 January 2015 20:49 >>>> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >>>> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >>>> >>>> On 2015-01-18 21:37, Robert Jarratt wrote: >>>>> No stuck, high. >>>> >>>> Is there any activity on any of the address pins? If those also are >>>> dead, either the whole CPU is dead, or else it is disabled by something. >>>> >>> >>> Yes there is, but it looks odd, and very different to when I checked the address >> pins on the working one. It looked like the voltage might be spiking upwards, >> but it is hard to tell because I don't have a working logic analyser. >> >> All power pins are ok to the CPU? > > I checked Vcc and Vss and they appeared to be fine (5V and 0V respectively). I can't remember (and haven't checked), but make sure that chip isn't one of those funny one that requires several clocks or power levels. >> I wouldn't care much for a logic analyzer at this point. A good scope will tell >> you more. Nice sharp edges to signals when they shift. Times that look >> reasonable... Steady levels, and correct levels. > > It will never be steady with a scope because the address lines won't be a regular waveform. That said they looked very different on the faulty board to how they looked on the good board. It should be steady between clocks. You should essentially run up the frequency of the scope so that you can see each clock phase nice and wide. Checking address pins you should then also have the same nice long bits. You might see some initial ring when moving to a different level, but that should be very small and short. After that it should be level for the rest of the clock cycle. Ie. You need to look closer. Just just "it's some kind of activity going on". >>>> If those are showing activity then the RD pin is either dead, or >>>> shorted somewhere, I'd guess. >>> >>> >>> RD and WR are active low, and they are both high, so I suppose they could be >> shorted high, but I don't know. >> >> That will be very hard to verify without disconnecting the pins. So let's focus on >> other things for the moment. > > > I have a desoldering gun now, so desoldering is no longer the problem it once was for me, but I would still prefer to avoid this if possible. I am not sure what else to check though. That do help. :-) But I understand you. Not much point in replacing components that turns out to be fine. Especially since it still might be destructive to remove them. Johnny > > >> >>>> I hope you are checking the right pins... :-) >>> >>> Me too, although I have checked multiple times. I am using this page >>> to give me the pinout: >>> http://scanftree.com/microprocessor/Pin-Diagram-of-8085-and-Pin-descri >>> ption-of-8085 >> >> Well, I can't offer any more help on that one. Just a reflection. >> >> Johnny >> >>> >>> >>>> >>>> Johnny >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Regards >>>>> >>>>> Rob >>>>> >>>>>> -----Original Message----- >>>>>> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of >>>>>> Bob Rosenbloom >>>>>> Sent: 18 January 2015 20:11 >>>>>> To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and >>>>>> Off- Topic Posts >>>>>> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >>>>>> >>>>>> On 1/18/2015 12:07 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: >>>>>>> No, I checked that and it isn't. It is an active low signal and it >>>>>>> is >>>>> high. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Regards >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Rob >>>>>> >>>>>> What about the READY pin? Stuck low? >>>>>> >>>>>> Bob >>>>>> >>>>>>>> -----Original Message----- >>>>>>>> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of >>>>>>>> tony >>>>>>> duell >>>>>>>> Sent: 18 January 2015 19:16 >>>>>>>> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >>>>>>>> Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> The terminal controller board on my VT101 is not working, if it >>>>>>>>> displays anything it is random characters. I have used my scope >>>>>>>>> to check the 8085 CPU. It has power, it is outputting a valid >>>>>>>>> clock, but there is no activity on the RD,WR and ALE pins. I am >>>>>>>>> guessing the 8085 is bad, but before I go replacing it I wanted >>>>>>>>> to check if anyone knew of anything else that might cause the >>>>>>>>> 8085 to misbehave (ie am I seeing >>>>>>>> symptoms or a cause?). >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> What is the state of the reset input to the 8085? In other words, >>>>>>>> is the >>>>>>> CPU >>>>>>>> being held reset all the time? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> -tony >>>>>>>> = >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your >>>>>> foot >>>>> in it. >>>>>> I've been practising it for years. >>>>>> -Prince Philip >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> 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 >>> >> >> >> -- >> 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 > -- 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 update.uu.se Sun Jan 18 16:53:27 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 23:53:27 +0100 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> Message-ID: <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-18 23:04, Diane Bruce wrote: > On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 09:47:35PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: >> > ... >>> you more. Nice sharp edges to signals when they shift. Times that look >>> reasonable... Steady levels, and correct levels. >> >> It will never be steady with a scope because the address lines won't be a regular waveform. That said they looked very different on the faulty board to how they looked on the good board. >> > > A remote possibility is the boot ROM is b0rked and it's simply running > around like a chicken without a head. > That is something a good logic analyser could tell you. If the RD pin never gets active, the contents of the ROM will not even be presented to the CPU, so while it's possible the ROM is borked, that is not the problem we're trying to fix right now. 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 djg at pdp8online.com Sun Jan 18 12:06:01 2015 From: djg at pdp8online.com (David Gesswein) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 13:06:01 -0500 Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150118180601.GA18425@hugin2.pdp8online.com> On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 07:29:10PM -0500, Steven Hirsch wrote: > On Sat, 17 Jan 2015, David Gesswein wrote: > > That drive has a dedicated servo surface (thus the odd number of > heads). Not sure there's any concept of microstepping in that > arrangement. > The Seagate ST-4096 is also a servo drive and has the ability to move the heads a partial track for read error recovery. I assume its adding an offset into the servo loop to vary the head position. From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jan 18 12:16:44 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 10:16:44 -0800 Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 In-Reply-To: <20150118180601.GA18425@hugin2.pdp8online.com> References: <20150118180601.GA18425@hugin2.pdp8online.com> Message-ID: <54BBF88C.7060800@bitsavers.org> On 1/18/15 10:06 AM, David Gesswein wrote: > On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 07:29:10PM -0500, Steven Hirsch wrote: >> On Sat, 17 Jan 2015, David Gesswein wrote: >> >> That drive has a dedicated servo surface (thus the odd number of >> heads). Not sure there's any concept of microstepping in that >> arrangement. >> > The Seagate ST-4096 is also a servo drive and has the ability to move > the heads a partial track for read error recovery. I assume its adding an > offset into the servo loop to vary the head position. > > I did some digging and I don't have any schematics scanned for Maxtor. Are there any patent numbers on the drive? It may be worth digging around for Maxtor patents from the mid-80's. From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jan 18 12:27:01 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 10:27:01 -0800 Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 In-Reply-To: <54BBF88C.7060800@bitsavers.org> References: <20150118180601.GA18425@hugin2.pdp8online.com> <54BBF88C.7060800@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54BBFAF5.3080203@bitsavers.org> On 1/18/15 10:16 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > I did some digging and I don't have any schematics scanned for Maxtor. > Are there any patent numbers on the drive? It may be worth digging around > for Maxtor patents from the mid-80's. > 4937689 is a place to start to see if any of the parts are similar From marc.verdiell at gmail.com Sun Jan 18 17:51:36 2015 From: marc.verdiell at gmail.com (Marc Verdiell) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 15:51:36 -0800 Subject: Shipping antique computers Message-ID: <000b01d03379$b32d6360$19882a20$@gmail.com> Wow. Nice collection in a nice setting. I love the view of your commute. Where is your new shop located, still near Silicon Valley (near me ;-) )? Marc >Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 10:07:53 -0800 >From: Guy Sotomayor >Here are some pictures of the stuff after I've moved it into my new shop but still on the pallets: >http://www.shiresoft.com/new-shop/Shiresoft/Almost_moved.html. > >TTFN - Guy From ggs at shiresoft.com Sun Jan 18 17:51:45 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 15:51:45 -0800 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: <000b01d03379$b32d6360$19882a20$@gmail.com> References: <000b01d03379$b32d6360$19882a20$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <54BC4711.9050008@shiresoft.com> Thanks. We're on 10ac (so obviously not in Silicon Valley)...we moved from San Jose. We're near Grass Valley (Sierra Foothills). TTFN - Guy On 1/18/15 3:51 PM, Marc Verdiell wrote: > Wow. Nice collection in a nice setting. I love the view of your commute. > Where is your new shop located, still near Silicon Valley (near me ;-) )? > Marc > >> Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 10:07:53 -0800 >> From: Guy Sotomayor >> Here are some pictures of the stuff after I've moved it into my new shop > but still on the pallets: >> http://www.shiresoft.com/new-shop/Shiresoft/Almost_moved.html. >> >> TTFN - Guy > > > From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 18 18:00:22 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 00:00:22 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Johnny > Billquist > Sent: 18 January 2015 22:53 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On 2015-01-18 23:04, Diane Bruce wrote: > > On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 09:47:35PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > >> > > ... > >>> you more. Nice sharp edges to signals when they shift. Times that > >>> look reasonable... Steady levels, and correct levels. > >> > >> It will never be steady with a scope because the address lines won't be a > regular waveform. That said they looked very different on the faulty board to > how they looked on the good board. > >> > > > > A remote possibility is the boot ROM is b0rked and it's simply running > > around like a chicken without a head. > > That is something a good logic analyser could tell you. > > If the RD pin never gets active, the contents of the ROM will not even be > presented to the CPU, so while it's possible the ROM is borked, that is not the > problem we're trying to fix right now. > I just found something interesting, the pin activity on the address lines, RD, WR, ALE etc appears normal for a bit, and only after a few seconds does it all become inactive. Perhaps this really is an indication that the ROM is bad, if it is getting into some kind of loop where it does no external activity. I don?t really know the 8085 to know whether that is possible. Regards Rob From kylevowen at gmail.com Sun Jan 18 18:02:22 2015 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 19:02:22 -0500 Subject: SimH PDP-8 ttox device help Message-ID: I've been attempting to interface with SimH in the least invasive way possible, by connecting two programs together via a pseudo-TTY created by socat connected to one of the telnet ports of a TTIX device. Something like this: TTIX -> telnet port -> socat -> /dev/ttyPDP (pty) This works fine for the console port. I personally like having minicom pulled up for the serial terminal but keep the other window cluttered with SimH backend commands. I have been able to manipulate EDIT.SV with a simple C program to transfer text files, character by character, which is neat. I wanted to extend this to a VC8-E emulator, again in the simplest way possible. I am sending out the X- and Y-coordinates for the point over TTOX0, but seem to be encountering some problems. I noticed that it likes to get hung up on a TSF (6411) instruction, causing it to keep looping even in single-step mode! Assuming everything is buffered, I would be under the assumption that TSF would almost always skip with a successful device send. [...] Step expired, PC: 00313 (IOT 411) \ a lot more of these (~50) Step expired, PC: 00314 (JMP 313) / Step expired, PC: 00313 (IOT 411) Step expired, PC: 00314 (JMP 313) Step expired, PC: 00313 (IOT 411) Step expired, PC: 00314 (JMP 313) Step expired, PC: 00313 (IOT 411) Step expired, PC: 00315 (IOT 416) <- finally skips! By the way, I am initializing the device with a CLA; TLS (6416) at the beginning of the program. I noticed David Gesswein opened up a somewhat related issue, now marked as closed, in October 2013. https://github.com/simh/simh/issues/85 Once I'm back to the real hardware, I intend to try it there to verify. I am running V3.9-0, by the way. Any insight into what might be holding TSF up would be much appreciated. Thanks, Kyle From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 18 18:05:10 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 00:05:10 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <016f01d0337b$97956a10$c6c03e30$@ntlworld.com> Does anyone know the whereabouts of an online copy of the field maintenance print set for the VT101? It's part number is MP-01066. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Johnny > Billquist > Sent: 18 January 2015 22:53 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On 2015-01-18 23:04, Diane Bruce wrote: > > On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 09:47:35PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > >> > > ... > >>> you more. Nice sharp edges to signals when they shift. Times that > >>> look reasonable... Steady levels, and correct levels. > >> > >> It will never be steady with a scope because the address lines won't be a > regular waveform. That said they looked very different on the faulty board to > how they looked on the good board. > >> > > > > A remote possibility is the boot ROM is b0rked and it's simply running > > around like a chicken without a head. > > That is something a good logic analyser could tell you. > > If the RD pin never gets active, the contents of the ROM will not even be > presented to the CPU, so while it's possible the ROM is borked, that is not the > problem we're trying to fix right now. > > 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 robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sun Jan 18 18:05:55 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 00:05:55 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54BC3596.7060004@sydex.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <016601d0336d$1ab5ac70$50210550$@ntlworld.com> <54BC3596.7060004@sydex.com> Message-ID: <017001d0337b$b1f82cd0$15e88670$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis > Sent: 18 January 2015 22:37 > To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off- > Topic Posts > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On 01/18/2015 02:21 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > > I did buy a cheap Thurlby LA160 recently. It is the type that uses > > your scope for its screen. It seems to work fine except that many of > > the membrane keys don't respond :-( > > If you've got a PC with a printer port, there (I believe) is a Logic Analyzer > hookup to the printer port with software here: > > http://jwasys.home.xs4all.nl/old/diy2.html > > I've tried it, and it works remarkably well for what it is. I ran it from a 450Mhz > K6-equipped ancient PC. > > --Chuck > > That isn't a bad idea. I may have the wherewithal to set that up if necessary. Thanks Rob From drlegendre at gmail.com Sun Jan 18 18:19:35 2015 From: drlegendre at gmail.com (drlegendre .) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 18:19:35 -0600 Subject: Mystery ICs - AB 36D1024 In-Reply-To: <54BC136B.50306@sydex.com> References: <54BB5E30.8010800@sydex.com> <54BC136B.50306@sydex.com> Message-ID: Resistor networks.. AB should have been the tip-off. Thanks for the help, everyone. But I can't say that I have any use for the things.. anyone need a few? Would be helpful if we had a catalog or some kind of literature.. On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 2:11 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 01/18/2015 11:26 AM, tony duell wrote: > >> >> Resistor networks. Easy enough to take out your ohmmeter and figure out >>> what's inside. >>> >> >> I have come across some custom DIP resistor networks in HP machines where >> it's not just isolated resistors or resistors from the pins to a common >> pin (the >> common standard configurations). With those, simple pin-pin resistance >> measurements are not enough ( I forget if it's enough in theory, but in >> practice if the resistors are wildly different values you won't do it). >> > > Nope, these are resistor networks-I've got some 36Cxxxx AB parts. From > what I recall, the first 2 or three numbers indicates the configuration and > the trailing numbers indicate the value. Sadly, I don't have an old > catalog to interpret the part numbers. > > --Chuck > > > From db at db.net Sun Jan 18 18:31:07 2015 From: db at db.net (Diane Bruce) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 19:31:07 -0500 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> References: <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se> <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20150119003107.GA70393@night.db.net> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 12:00:22AM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > ... > > > > > > A remote possibility is the boot ROM is b0rked and it's simply running > > > around like a chicken without a head. > > > That is something a good logic analyser could tell you. > > > > If the RD pin never gets active, the contents of the ROM will not even be > > presented to the CPU, so while it's possible the ROM is borked, that is not the > > problem we're trying to fix right now. > > > > I just found something interesting, the pin activity on the address lines, RD, WR, ALE etc appears normal for a bit, and only after a few seconds does it all become inactive. > > Perhaps this really is an indication that the ROM is bad, if it is getting into some kind of loop where it does no external activity. I don?t really know the 8085 to know whether that is possible. > > Regards If the VT-100 used an EPROM and not a masked ROM I'd suspect bit rot. A quick glance at this http://tkc8800.com/images/vt100/VT100_Technical_Manual.pdf makes no mention of EPROM vs. masked ROM, but it looking at this manual it is possible you have bad ram as well. In that case, the LEDs should signal this. > > Rob > > -- - db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db From bqt at update.uu.se Sun Jan 18 18:55:39 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 01:55:39 +0100 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se> <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54BC560B.6030901@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-19 01:00, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Johnny >> Billquist >> Sent: 18 January 2015 22:53 >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >> >> On 2015-01-18 23:04, Diane Bruce wrote: >>> On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 09:47:35PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: >>>> >>> ... >>>>> you more. Nice sharp edges to signals when they shift. Times that >>>>> look reasonable... Steady levels, and correct levels. >>>> >>>> It will never be steady with a scope because the address lines won't be a >> regular waveform. That said they looked very different on the faulty board to >> how they looked on the good board. >>>> >>> >>> A remote possibility is the boot ROM is b0rked and it's simply running >>> around like a chicken without a head. >>> That is something a good logic analyser could tell you. >> >> If the RD pin never gets active, the contents of the ROM will not even be >> presented to the CPU, so while it's possible the ROM is borked, that is not the >> problem we're trying to fix right now. >> > > I just found something interesting, the pin activity on the address lines, RD, WR, ALE etc appears normal for a bit, and only after a few seconds does it all become inactive. > > Perhaps this really is an indication that the ROM is bad, if it is getting into some kind of loop where it does no external activity. I don?t really know the 8085 to know whether that is possible. No. That should not be possible. The RD line comes from the CPU and is used to fetch data. The CPU should continue to fetch data unless it has halted. A borked ROM giving bad data do not stop the CPU from running. Normally all kind of data is executed, but it might cause funny results... And if it is halted, more things should be at a standstill... Unless you have dynamic memory refresh coming from the CPU, in which case I'm not sure how the signals will behave. But I don't even know if you can halt that CPU... But the fact that there is some activity just at the start is interesting. This might become a case where you need to understand how CPUs work at low levels. I hope you are comfortable on that subject. :-) 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 cubexyz at gmail.com Sun Jan 18 19:04:09 2015 From: cubexyz at gmail.com (Mark Longridge) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 20:04:09 -0500 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 Message-ID: After trying to get Unix v5 to understand dates beyond the year 2000 I had to wonder if any of the older operating systems from the 1970s or older could do this. So, did any operating system programmers from this time period have the foresight to use 4 digits for the year? I just checked APL/360 and it seems that it does not. Mark L From bqt at update.uu.se Sun Jan 18 19:07:10 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 02:07:10 +0100 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54BC58BE.9050005@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-19 02:04, Mark Longridge wrote: > After trying to get Unix v5 to understand dates beyond the year 2000 I > had to wonder if any of the older operating systems from the 1970s or > older could do this. > > So, did any operating system programmers from this time period have > the foresight to use 4 digits for the year? I just checked APL/360 and > it seems that it does not. TOPS-20? VMS? Actually RSX internally also handles it fine, but there were bugs in various code that displayed dates, that assumed that the year would never go beyond 99. :-) 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 mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Sun Jan 18 19:28:58 2015 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 20:28:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54BC560B.6030901@update.uu.se> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se> <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> <54BC560B.6030901@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <201501190128.UAA29251@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> Perhaps this really is an indication that the ROM is bad, if it is getting $ > No. That should not be possible. > The RD line comes from the CPU and is used to fetch data. The CPU > should continue to fetch data unless it has halted. I'm probably just exposing my ignorance of the 8085 here, but did it have anything like the prefix opcodes x86 has (repne et al)? I'm wondering if it could be stuck doing something like (to admittedly try to use syntax I don't really know) "repne cmp %ax,%ax" that would never occur normally but might compute forever without fetching anything further. Or, does it have a instruction prefetch buffer? (My guess would be it's too old for that, but I don't really know.) If so, a very tight loop might execute entirely out of the prefetch buffer.... /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 18 20:43:32 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 18:43:32 -0800 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <201501190128.UAA29251@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se> <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> <54BC560B.6030901@update.uu.se> <201501190128.UAA29251@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <54BC6F54.8080400@sydex.com> On 01/18/2015 05:28 PM, Mouse wrote: > I'm probably just exposing my ignorance of the 8085 here, but did it > have anything like the prefix opcodes x86 has (repne et al)? I'm > wondering if it could be stuck doing something like (to admittedly try > to use syntax I don't really know) "repne cmp %ax,%ax" that would never > occur normally but might compute forever without fetching anything > further. Or, does it have a instruction prefetch buffer? (My guess > would be it's too old for that, but I don't really know.) If so, a > very tight loop might execute entirely out of the prefetch buffer.... None of that. Think of it as an 8080 with a few extra instructions, a bit-bang serial I/O facility, and some extra vectored interrupt lines and a TRAP interrupt--and +5 volt operation. Really, not even as complex as a Z80. --Chuck From spacewar at gmail.com Sun Jan 18 20:49:12 2015 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 19:49:12 -0700 Subject: TMS9918 (was Re: Seeking... TI TMS9902 ICs) Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 9:22 PM, Randy Dawson wrote: > Later found their video chip 9918 Speaking of which, does anyone have the data sheet and/or user manual for the original TMS9918, *NOT* the improved 9918A? All my internet searches that turn up 9918 without an A suffix are in fact actually for the A part. From jdbryan at acm.org Sun Jan 18 21:51:42 2015 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:51:42 -0500 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sunday, January 18, 2015 at 20:04, Mark Longridge wrote: > So, did any operating system programmers from this time period have > the foresight to use 4 digits for the year? It's just outside of your time frame (circa 1980), but the HP 64000 operating system allowed years up to 2157 (dates were stored as the number of days since January 1, 1976) and accepted years of either two or four digits. Unusually for an American product, it required dates to be entered in D/M/Y format. -- Dave From useddec at gmail.com Sun Jan 18 22:43:41 2015 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:43:41 -0600 Subject: more documentation... Message-ID: I just looking for offers + shipping. Please contact me off list for more info or questions. I told Al he could have whatever he wants for free and I would pay shipping. Al, I hate typing, please take it all... NCR 801-0009975 801-0009981 powertec inc for GDI 3m lups module crt Buscher 0l400-3015r/4015r fisher controls type cp250 model sps-1878a allen-bradley 635344 ps cdc 83322310 54359803, maybe others... computer products (unipower) pwr div 800w multiple sc001-1442 MISC PWR SUPPLIES: tryger electronics uaro lear siegler GE century data condor Thanks, Paul From kylevowen at gmail.com Sun Jan 18 23:39:49 2015 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 00:39:49 -0500 Subject: Sending 0377 via KL8JA Message-ID: I am noticing something odd in SimH when sending a 0377 (all ones) character. It seems to be duplicating the byte. I haven't read anything regarding this behavior. I'm away from my hardware PDP-8 at the moment, so I can't confirm that this is not the behavior that I would experience on the real thing. Here's how I reproduced it: test.pal: *200 CLA OSR JMS SEND JMP 200 SEND, 0 6416 6411 JMP .-1 CLA JMP I SEND $ pdp8.ini: at ttix 2222 set ttox0 8b load test.bin br 200 d sr 0377 Run 'nc localhost 2222 | od -to1' in a terminal, then 'go 200' and repeatedly press 'c', seeing how many times it takes to generate a line of characters in 'od'. Then, 'd sr 0376' and confirm that it takes twice as many presses, indicating half as many characters being sent per TLS instruction with the latter. Can anyone else confirm this for me? Thanks, Kyle From mta at umich.edu Mon Jan 19 01:07:59 2015 From: mta at umich.edu (Mike Alexander) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 02:07:59 -0500 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <86F92389834E31519EAEA969@bayswater.msalexander.com> --On January 18, 2015 at 8:04:09 PM -0500 Mark Longridge wrote: > So, did any operating system programmers from this time period have > the foresight to use 4 digits for the year? I just checked APL/360 and > it seems that it does not. MTS will work ok until the original IBM TOD clock overflows in 2042. I think there were a few minor bugs that had to be fixed in 2000, but most everything worked. I run MTS every now and then and haven't noticed problems. Fixing it for 2042 will be a bigger problem if anyone who cares is still around. Since STCK is a non-privileged instruction finding and fixing the problems will be challenging. Mike From dj.taylor4 at verizon.net Sun Jan 18 17:41:58 2015 From: dj.taylor4 at verizon.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 18:41:58 -0500 Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data In-Reply-To: <54B5D9DE.2060606@pico-systems.com> References: <54B580FA.5010600@verizon.net> <54B5D9DE.2060606@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: <54BC44C6.7020208@verizon.net> On 1/13/2015 9:52 PM, Jon Elson wrote: > On 01/13/2015 02:32 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote: >> In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for >> workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It >> is a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by >> attaching it to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it >> under Windows7, didn't work. >> >> I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't >> fit on a floppy. >> >> I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to >> start WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware. >> >> What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help? >> > Yes, Linux will be able to easily read the disk. Once you have a > Linux system up, > plug in the drive. it MIGHT automatically mount the drive as > /media/ or you might have to manually mount it > if it doesn't automatically detect the file system type. > > the commands would be something like : > > If you don't know what partition is the user data one, do this: > sudo fdisk /dev/sdb > > p > > lists out the partitions on the drive, and the file system types > q > > /dev/sdb would be the second drive on the system, which could be the CD, > if so, the added drive might be /dev/sdc > ls /dev/sd* will show the various drives as /dev/sd > and available partitions as /dev/sd > > mkdir /mnt/disk > sudo mount -t msdos /dev/sd /mnt/disk > > now, the disk should be mounted under /mnt/disk, and you can > list it, copy files, etc. > > Jon > You guys move a lot faster than I do.... Some of the files I copied to floppy were MS Word files from that era. My win7 machine wouldn't open them under Office 2007 because the antivirus (Symmantec) had set a registry bit. Hmm. .. However, office on the Linux system would open them (Debian). But, Debian didn't understand the disk. Disk Utility reported it as a Conner disk but said the size was 2.2 TB. I thought Debian would be the path of least resistance, back to the drawing board. From digitgraph at gmail.com Sun Jan 18 21:30:33 2015 From: digitgraph at gmail.com (John Kaur) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 20:30:33 -0700 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: <54BC58BE.9050005@update.uu.se> References: <54BC58BE.9050005@update.uu.se> Message-ID: Believe is you use 1972, that is the folding point for the calendar to get weeks and months correct. Older versions of RSTS did not do it past about mid 2000. John> On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 6:07 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2015-01-19 02:04, Mark Longridge wrote: > >> After trying to get Unix v5 to understand dates beyond the year 2000 I >> had to wonder if any of the older operating systems from the 1970s or >> older could do this. >> >> So, did any operating system programmers from this time period have >> the foresight to use 4 digits for the year? I just checked APL/360 and >> it seems that it does not. >> > > TOPS-20? VMS? > Actually RSX internally also handles it fine, but there were bugs in > various code that displayed dates, that assumed that the year would never > go beyond 99. :-) > > 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 ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 19 02:04:48 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 08:04:48 +0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se>, <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: > > I just found something interesting, the pin activity on the address lines, RD, WR, ALE etc appears normal for a bit, > and only after a few seconds does it all become inactive. > > Perhaps this really is an indication that the ROM is bad, if it is getting into some kind of loop where it does no > external activity. I don?t really know the 8085 to know whether that is possible. What if (due to ROM or RAM problems maybe) the 8085 executed a HLT instruction? -tony From wilson at dbit.com Mon Jan 19 02:05:04 2015 From: wilson at dbit.com (John Wilson) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 03:05:04 -0500 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: <86F92389834E31519EAEA969@bayswater.msalexander.com> References: <86F92389834E31519EAEA969@bayswater.msalexander.com> Message-ID: <20150119080504.GA15577@dbit.dbit.com> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 02:07:59AM -0500, Mike Alexander wrote: >MTS will work ok until the original IBM TOD clock overflows in 2042. I always liked how the March 1/1900 starting point sidestepped the leap-year ugliness. >Fixing it for 2042 will be a bigger problem if >anyone who cares is still around. Since STCK is a non-privileged >instruction finding and fixing the problems will be challenging. The great thing about emulation is that you can make an instruction be as thorny as you want, temporarily, to flush out stuff like this. John Wilson, ETS4 D Bit From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 19 03:07:28 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 09:07:28 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se>, <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <018001d033c7$594d48d0$0be7da70$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony duell > Sent: 19 January 2015 08:05 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > > > > I just found something interesting, the pin activity on the address > > lines, RD, WR, ALE etc appears normal for a bit, and only after a few seconds > does it all become inactive. > > > > Perhaps this really is an indication that the ROM is bad, if it is > > getting into some kind of loop where it does no external activity. I don't really > know the 8085 to know whether that is possible. > > What if (due to ROM or RAM problems maybe) the 8085 executed a HLT > instruction? > > -tony > = Good point. The S signals seem to tell you if it is halted, I will check this evening. I was trying to identify the chips on the board to see if I can identify the ROMs but I can't find some of the numbers. The only socketed component is marked CN55004N 8232 DEC TP03 23-028E4-00, could that be it? Anyone have a datasheet for it? It would be good to try to read its contents. Regards Rob From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 19 03:37:04 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 09:37:04 -0000 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: <20150119080504.GA15577@dbit.dbit.com> References: <86F92389834E31519EAEA969@bayswater.msalexander.com> <20150119080504.GA15577@dbit.dbit.com> Message-ID: <018401d033cb$7bf229b0$73d67d10$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of John Wilson > Sent: 19 January 2015 08:05 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year > 2000 > > On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 02:07:59AM -0500, Mike Alexander wrote: > >MTS will work ok until the original IBM TOD clock overflows in 2042. > > I always liked how the March 1/1900 starting point sidestepped the leap-year > ugliness. > > >Fixing it for 2042 will be a bigger problem if anyone who cares is > >still around. Since STCK is a non-privileged instruction finding and > >fixing the problems will be challenging. > > The great thing about emulation is that you can make an instruction be as > thorny as you want, temporarily, to flush out stuff like this. > > John Wilson, ETS4 > D Bit When I tried an early date with Ultrix to make the day of the week correct it said the date wasn't possible because it was before Ultrix was released. I found a suitable date in 1998. Regards Rob From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Mon Jan 19 06:23:30 2015 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 12:23:30 +0000 (WET) Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 Message-ID: <01PHI1M4AHAG005MPE@beyondthepale.ie> > >> After trying to get Unix v5 to understand dates beyond the year 2000 I >> had to wonder if any of the older operating systems from the 1970s or >> older could do this. >> >> So, did any operating system programmers from this time period have >> the foresight to use 4 digits for the year? I just checked APL/360 and >> it seems that it does not. >> > > TOPS-20? VMS? > It was very near the end of the 1970s but VMS made a really good effort to handle times and dates well from the beginning. A single 64 bit time format is used throughout the operating system and operating system routines are provided to manipulate it and convert to and from well chosen standardised display formats with no ambiguities such as two digit years or easily mixed up numbers for days and months. Everything [*] displays and accepts the same time and date formats and shortcuts such as YESTERDAY, TODAY and TOMORROW. No messing about trying to figure out what format a particular utility wants the date specified in and no wondering whether a unitless time displayed by something is days, hours or minutes. The areas where I think it could have been done better still are to have stored the time internally in UTC rather than local time while displaying local time and to have chosen an earlier base date than 17 November 1858. Also, there was originally a rule that time differences could not be larger than 10000 days which was poorly enforced and eventually had to be scrapped - this should have been handled much more gracefully. [*] A few system parameters are specified in seconds and TIMEPROMPTWAIT is specified in microfortnights with tongue in cheek. Regards, Peter Coghlan. From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Mon Jan 19 06:52:26 2015 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 12:52:26 +0000 (WET) Subject: Sending 0377 via KL8JA Message-ID: <01PHI3Q1YEKI005MPE@beyondthepale.ie> > >I am noticing something odd in SimH when sending a 0377 (all ones) >character. It seems to be duplicating the byte. I haven't read anything >regarding this behavior. I'm away from my hardware PDP-8 at the moment, so >I can't confirm that this is not the behavior that I would experience on >the real thing. > It's not really that clear whether a telnet type connection is in use here but could it be something that does telnet negotiation is sending data to something which is not telnet negotiation aware? 0377 octal (FF hex) corresponds to IAC which would get sent as IAC IAC. Maybe monitoring the data on the network would confirm? > >Run 'nc localhost 2222 | od -to1' in a terminal, then 'go 200' and >repeatedly press 'c', seeing how many times it takes to generate a line of >characters in 'od'. Then, 'd sr 0376' and confirm that it takes twice as >many presses, indicating half as many characters being sent per TLS >instruction with the latter. > >Can anyone else confirm this for me? > Sorry - I don't follow that at all and figuring it out is probably above my pay grade :-) Regards, Peter Coghlan. From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 19 07:03:42 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:03:42 +0100 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: References: <54BC58BE.9050005@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54BD00AE.6060304@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-19 04:30, John Kaur wrote: > Believe is you use 1972, that is the folding point for the calendar to get > weeks and months correct. > Older versions of RSTS did not do it past about mid 2000. > John RSTS/E have some weird internal format that is really not very good, and which soon will have problems again. It already did have problems, but it was extended by explicitly saying that the date was unsigned. (The date format is pretty much ((year-1972)*1000)+day within year. Which obviously waste a lot of the values, as there are only 365 or 366 days in a year. And of course, they hit problems 32 years after the start year, which was 2004.) I don't know what is special about 1972. I always assumed they used that base because that's the year RSTS-11 first showed up. Johnny > > On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 6:07 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> On 2015-01-19 02:04, Mark Longridge wrote: >> >>> After trying to get Unix v5 to understand dates beyond the year 2000 I >>> had to wonder if any of the older operating systems from the 1970s or >>> older could do this. >>> >>> So, did any operating system programmers from this time period have >>> the foresight to use 4 digits for the year? I just checked APL/360 and >>> it seems that it does not. >>> >> >> TOPS-20? VMS? >> Actually RSX internally also handles it fine, but there were bugs in >> various code that displayed dates, that assumed that the year would never >> go beyond 99. :-) >> >> 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 >> -- 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 update.uu.se Mon Jan 19 07:04:47 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:04:47 +0100 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54BD00EF.8060802@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-19 04:51, J. David Bryan wrote: > On Sunday, January 18, 2015 at 20:04, Mark Longridge wrote: > >> So, did any operating system programmers from this time period have >> the foresight to use 4 digits for the year? > > It's just outside of your time frame (circa 1980), but the HP 64000 > operating system allowed years up to 2157 (dates were stored as the number > of days since January 1, 1976) and accepted years of either two or four > digits. Unusually for an American product, it required dates to be entered > in D/M/Y format. I think pretty much all DEC OSes normally used dd-mmm-yy, but some of them could accept input in various format. 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 update.uu.se Mon Jan 19 07:05:59 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:05:59 +0100 Subject: Sending 0377 via KL8JA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54BD0137.5060105@update.uu.se> This sounds like a typical TCP/IP telnet issue. The telnet protocol (there actually is one) requires that all 377(8) be doubled. More properly I should perhaps say the NVT protocol used by telnet. Johnny On 2015-01-19 06:39, Kyle Owen wrote: > I am noticing something odd in SimH when sending a 0377 (all ones) > character. It seems to be duplicating the byte. I haven't read anything > regarding this behavior. I'm away from my hardware PDP-8 at the moment, so > I can't confirm that this is not the behavior that I would experience on > the real thing. > > Here's how I reproduced it: > > test.pal: > *200 > CLA OSR > JMS SEND > JMP 200 > SEND, 0 > 6416 > 6411 > JMP .-1 > CLA > JMP I SEND > $ > > pdp8.ini: > at ttix 2222 > set ttox0 8b > load test.bin > br 200 > d sr 0377 > > Run 'nc localhost 2222 | od -to1' in a terminal, then 'go 200' and > repeatedly press 'c', seeing how many times it takes to generate a line of > characters in 'od'. Then, 'd sr 0376' and confirm that it takes twice as > many presses, indicating half as many characters being sent per TLS > instruction with the latter. > > Can anyone else confirm this for me? > > Thanks, > > Kyle > -- 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 update.uu.se Mon Jan 19 07:07:08 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:07:08 +0100 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se>, <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54BD017C.9090301@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-19 09:04, tony duell wrote: >> >> I just found something interesting, the pin activity on the address lines, RD, WR, ALE etc appears normal for a bit, >> and only after a few seconds does it all become inactive. >> >> Perhaps this really is an indication that the ROM is bad, if it is getting into some kind of loop where it does no >> external activity. I don?t really know the 8085 to know whether that is possible. > > What if (due to ROM or RAM problems maybe) the 8085 executed a HLT instruction? I didn't know it had a halt instruction, which is why I speculated (negatively) about that in a previous reply. But if it do indeed have a halt, then this would be a very possible explanation. 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 update.uu.se Mon Jan 19 07:15:38 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:15:38 +0100 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: <01PHI1M4AHAG005MPE@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01PHI1M4AHAG005MPE@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <54BD037A.5080402@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-19 13:23, Peter Coghlan wrote: >> >>> After trying to get Unix v5 to understand dates beyond the year 2000 I >>> had to wonder if any of the older operating systems from the 1970s or >>> older could do this. >>> >>> So, did any operating system programmers from this time period have >>> the foresight to use 4 digits for the year? I just checked APL/360 and >>> it seems that it does not. >>> >> >> TOPS-20? VMS? >> > > It was very near the end of the 1970s but VMS made a really good effort to > handle times and dates well from the beginning. A single 64 bit time format > is used throughout the operating system and operating system routines are > provided to manipulate it and convert to and from well chosen standardised > display formats with no ambiguities such as two digit years or easily mixed up > numbers for days and months. Everything [*] displays and accepts the same > time and date formats and shortcuts such as YESTERDAY, TODAY and TOMORROW. > No messing about trying to figure out what format a particular utility wants > the date specified in and no wondering whether a unitless time displayed by > something is days, hours or minutes. Agreed. But VMS was released in 1977. Possibly realy 1978, so it wasn't "very near the end of the 70s" I think. > The areas where I think it could have been done better still are to have stored > the time internally in UTC rather than local time while displaying local time > and to have chosen an earlier base date than 17 November 1858. Also, there was > originally a rule that time differences could not be larger than 10000 days > which was poorly enforced and eventually had to be scrapped - this should have > been handled much more gracefully. The local time problem is a serious miss that VMS did. The 10000 day limit was a problem that hit the C runtime library, since C programs like to, and expect code, to express time as an offset from the epoch, which is Jan 1, 1970. Of course, VMS used delta times for this, and that hit 10000 days a little while ago, which barfed things up. I don't remember offhand exactly what the solution looked like. Nothing else normally ever had any issues with that limit, but I think it was rather arbitrary, so I don't expect any programs had problems with raising the limit either. > [*] A few system parameters are specified in seconds and TIMEPROMPTWAIT is > specified in microfortnights with tongue in cheek. :-) 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 jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 19 07:28:05 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 07:28:05 -0600 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair Message-ID: <000b01d033eb$c2b000f0$481002d0$@classiccmp.org> I?m in the process of building another HP2000/Access TSB system. I pulled a 7970E tape drive out of a shipping container (I had not opened the shipping container since I bought it about 8 years ago). When I got the unit on the bench to give it a going over, while it looked pristine ? someone had dropped something very heavy (heavy enough to severely deform ?? steel) on the top of the unit. My thought (given there?s not a shortage of open space inside the chassis) was to put a car jack inside and jack it up thus pushing out the top. My concern there was that there would be an ?equal and opposite reaction?). Perhaps a 2x4 that goes side to side under the jack would alleviate this. But on freenode #classiccmp (where I hang out pretty much every night), PJustice and Sark both had similar ideas for an alternative approach that took advantage of the fact that the top of the chassis has a lot of vent holes on top. I implemented their approach and it worked very well so I thought I?d document it with pictures and post here. I should note that this approach only works because the angle iron I used was 14ga. Anything less would just bend itself. If I had facilities to cut the angle iron, I would have put a piece on top and on the bottom but I don?t. Failing that, I just had to pick specific spots on top to ?pull out? more carefully. As you know when steel bends it stretches so it would be impossible to get it back 100% perfect but I?m pretty pleased with the results. If you want to use this method and don?t have convenient holes already present from the manufacturer, you could always drill one or two holes to make it work. Note that without the wood blocks you can pull it straight but it might bend back (albeit less so), but with the wood blocks you can pull it further than straight so it bounces back ?mostly straight?. http://www.ezwind.net/hp2000/7970E/ And if you want to follow the build of the 2000/Access IO-rack (which holds tape, terminal controller and bulkhead, and disk controller subsystem): http://www.ezwind.net/hp2000/IO-Rack/ THANKS SARK AND PJUSTICE J J From db at db.net Mon Jan 19 08:16:34 2015 From: db at db.net (Diane Bruce) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 09:16:34 -0500 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54BD017C.9090301@update.uu.se> References: <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se> <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> <54BD017C.9090301@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <20150119141634.GA77956@night.db.net> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 02:07:08PM +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2015-01-19 09:04, tony duell wrote: > >> > >> I just found something interesting, the pin activity on the address lines, RD, WR, ALE etc appears normal for a bit, > >> and only after a few seconds does it all become inactive. http://tkc8800.com/images/vt100/VT100_Technical_Manual.pdf Look in section 4.2.8 The POWER-Up adn Self-Test section. I linked this pdf before ;) "Assuming there are no hard logic failures present on the board, " And yes the 8085 has a HLT instruction. Are the keyboard lights lighting up at all? If it *is* the ROM which is unlikely if it is a masked ROM, it might simply be lose in the socket you mentioned. It may be sufficient to wiggle the ROM slightly to break any oxide on the pins. Some sockets are notorious for allowing the chip to wiggle up due to heat and cooling down. Your ROM may simply be lose. > >> > >> Perhaps this really is an indication that the ROM is bad, if it is getting into some kind of loop where it does no > >> external activity. I don?t really know the 8085 to know whether that is possible. > > > > What if (due to ROM or RAM problems maybe) the 8085 executed a HLT instruction? > > I didn't know it had a halt instruction, which is why I speculated > (negatively) about that in a previous reply. > But if it do indeed have a halt, then this would be a very possible > explanation. > > 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 > Diane -- - db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 19 09:11:56 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:11:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 Message-ID: <20150119151156.6EE6218C085@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Mark Longridge > I had to wonder if any of the older operating systems from the 1970s or > older could do this. > So, did any operating system programmers from this time period have > the foresight to use 4 digits for the year? It's probably worth distinguishing between the internal clock, the ability to set dates > 1999, the ability to print dates > 1999, etc. For instance, both Multics and Unix had an internal clock that ran correctly past the century end. (Although they do run out / roll over not too much later - in Multics' case, in 2039. For the Multics one, see here: http://www.multicians.org/jhs-clock.html for more.) However, in the case of Unix, both date setting and the canonical routine for date printing (separate code) didn't handle dates after 1999; for input, the year was only two digits, and for output, the first two digits were hard-coded to '19'. However, for calculating dates (which returned a vector of numbers), that part did theoretically work correctly for years after 1999 (it returned [$YEAR-1970]), but... There was a separate bug that caused the year calculation to fail in the closing months of 1999. Whether the person who wrote the code knew of the bug - it's a fairly simple one, an overflow of a short integer - I don't know, but it's possible they did, and on calculating when it would happen, decided that the fact that it would coincidentally also happen at century end meant it could be ignored at that point. However, once that was fixed, the date calcuation routine returned the correct year (without needing to change the interface). I don't know whether date input/calculation/output on Multics had similar issues: if you google "Multics leap year" it shows the source code for a couple of routines dealing with dates, but alas it's all in 645/6180 assembler, so I can't really grok it! It looks like it _might_ work, though (it seems to calculate the number of years since Multics' epoch - 1901 - and add that to 1901). If I had more time to expend, I could look at ITS too... :-( Noel From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 19 09:18:19 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 15:18:19 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <20150119141634.GA77956@night.db.net> References: <014101d0335e$868f3920$93adab60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC1C35.7070704@update.uu.se> <015301d03363$73c31cd0$5b495670$@ntlworld.com> <54BC2679.5090701@update.uu.se> <015c01d03368$5ebfd530$1c3f7f90$@ntlworld.com> <20150118220430.GA69004@night.db.net> <54BC3967.4070204@update.uu.se> <016e01d0337a$eb825bc0$c2871340$@ntlworld.com> <54BD017C.9090301@update.uu.se> <20150119141634.GA77956@night.db.net> Message-ID: <020e01d033fb$27d32020$77796060$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Diane Bruce > Sent: 19 January 2015 14:17 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 02:07:08PM +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote: > > On 2015-01-19 09:04, tony duell wrote: > > >> > > >> I just found something interesting, the pin activity on the address > > >> lines, RD, WR, ALE etc appears normal for a bit, and only after a few > seconds does it all become inactive. > > http://tkc8800.com/images/vt100/VT100_Technical_Manual.pdf > > Look in section 4.2.8 > The POWER-Up adn Self-Test section. > > I linked this pdf before ;) Sorry, I know, but the terminal controller board appears to be significantly different to the VT100, the VT100 does not use the 8085. I will have a read of the sections you indicate though. > > "Assuming there are no hard logic failures present on the board, " > And yes the 8085 has a HLT instruction. > Are the keyboard lights lighting up at all? Some do, but not all, and I don't hear the beep from the keyboard. HLT is looking likely. > > If it *is* the ROM which is unlikely if it is a masked ROM, it might simply be > lose in the socket you mentioned. It may be sufficient to wiggle the ROM > slightly to break any oxide on the pins. Some sockets are notorious for allowing > the chip to wiggle up due to heat and cooling down. > Your ROM may simply be lose. > > I will reseat the only socketed chip on the board to make sure. Thanks for the suggestion. Regards Rob From emu at e-bbes.com Mon Jan 19 09:34:12 2015 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 08:34:12 -0700 Subject: the old VHS series on the history of computing In-Reply-To: <029801d031cb$773d90f0$65b8b2d0$@com> References: <029801d031cb$773d90f0$65b8b2d0$@com> Message-ID: <54BD23F4.6030300@e-bbes.com> On 2015-01-16 13:31, Electronics Plus wrote: > http://waxy.org/2008/06/the_machine_that_changed_the_world/ > He found all 5 episodes, digitized them, and uploaded them. Thanks for the link! I watched it in the 90's, and was looking for it since ;-) From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 19 10:18:42 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 08:18:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: <018401d033cb$7bf229b0$73d67d10$@ntlworld.com> References: <86F92389834E31519EAEA969@bayswater.msalexander.com> <20150119080504.GA15577@dbit.dbit.com> <018401d033cb$7bf229b0$73d67d10$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20150119080755.N51680@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 19 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: > When I tried an early date with Ultrix to make the day of the week correct > it said the date wasn't possible because it was before Ultrix was released. > I found a suitable date in 1998. Well, there are only 14 different calendars for the years - 7 different ones for each starting day, and another 7 for leap years. Between 1901 and 2099, there is always a repeat every 28 years. But there are numerous more. For THIS year (2105), you can get away with 1981, 1987, 1998, 2009, . . . (Note that 1900 and 2100 are not leap years because they are divisible by 100, but 2000 WAS a leap year, due to being divisible by 400.) But, be careful when you reuse old wall calendars! One of the first steps in a simple field sanity check is to ask the person whether they know what the date is. One glance at my wall, with a 1981 calendar and computers and computer books and magazines that happen to be from that time period, and they know that I don't. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From kylevowen at gmail.com Mon Jan 19 10:24:01 2015 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 11:24:01 -0500 Subject: Sending 0377 via KL8JA In-Reply-To: <54BD0137.5060105@update.uu.se> References: <54BD0137.5060105@update.uu.se> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 8:05 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > This sounds like a typical TCP/IP telnet issue. > > The telnet protocol (there actually is one) requires that all 377(8) be > doubled. More properly I should perhaps say the NVT protocol used by telnet. Looks like that's it. Thankfully, that's an easy enough fix: either send a different character that's not 0xFF, or wait for two 0xFFs to come in by ignoring one of them. Thanks for the help! Kyle From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 19 10:32:38 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 08:32:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: <54BD00AE.6060304@update.uu.se> References: <54BC58BE.9050005@update.uu.se> <54BD00AE.6060304@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <20150119083036.W51680@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 19 Jan 2015, Johnny Billquist wrote: > I don't know what is special about 1972. I always assumed they used that > base because that's the year RSTS-11 first showed up. That anniversary is as good a reason as any other. 1972 is one full cycle (28 years) before 2000. 1973's calendar matches (days of the week) with 2001, 1974 matches with 2002, 1975 matches with 2003, etc. From wilson at dbit.com Mon Jan 19 11:10:33 2015 From: wilson at dbit.com (John Wilson) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 12:10:33 -0500 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: <54BD00AE.6060304@update.uu.se> References: <54BC58BE.9050005@update.uu.se> <54BD00AE.6060304@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <20150119171033.GA31216@dbit.dbit.com> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 02:03:42PM +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote: >I don't know what is special about 1972. I always assumed they used >that base because that's the year RSTS-11 first showed up. Actually it's 1970 (but RT-11 uses 1972), and it's inherited from DOS/BATCH which I think everyone knew was a stopgap, like most systems at the time ... so it didn't plan ahead very well, even enough to multiply by 366. instead of 1000. But yeah 1970 is pretty much the beginning of time as far as PDP-11s in general (including DOS/BATCH) are concerned. At least this shows more foresight than OS/8! I think at the time the culture really must have been that computer architectures have a lifespan well under a decade, just because that had largely been true so far. The S/360 was an anomaly. John Wilson D Bit From wilson at dbit.com Mon Jan 19 11:13:54 2015 From: wilson at dbit.com (John Wilson) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 12:13:54 -0500 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: <54BD037A.5080402@update.uu.se> References: <01PHI1M4AHAG005MPE@beyondthepale.ie> <54BD037A.5080402@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <20150119171354.GB31216@dbit.dbit.com> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 02:15:38PM +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote: >The 10000 day limit was a problem that hit the C runtime library, >since C programs like to, and expect code, to express time as an >offset from the epoch, which is Jan 1, 1970. >Of course, VMS used delta times for this, and that hit 10000 days a >little while ago, which barfed things up. I don't remember offhand >exactly what the solution looked like. I don't either, but I do remember an *awesome* cover letter that DEC sent out with the fix, assuring everyone that the libraries were now good internally until some crazy year like 31078, but there was still formatting code that assumed years fit in four digits so there would be Y10K bugs; but don't worry, DEC will issue a patch to VMS at that time. John Wilson D Bit From wilson at dbit.com Mon Jan 19 11:18:24 2015 From: wilson at dbit.com (John Wilson) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 12:18:24 -0500 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: <20150119151156.6EE6218C085@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150119151156.6EE6218C085@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <20150119171824.GC31216@dbit.dbit.com> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 10:11:56AM -0500, Noel Chiappa wrote: >If I had more time to expend, I could look at ITS too... :-( My recollection is that the year is a 9-bit field and starts at 1900, so it bombs out in 2412. But I forget whether I'm talking about the disk format or the OS internal clock. I liked whichever memo described the KS10 internal hardware clock (4.1 MHz x 72 bits maybe? I forget) which wraps around "every four million years", or something like that. SOME number of millions of years. Not that it becomes useless then, but just that it wraps around for the first of many times, so keep an eye open when the time comes. John Wilson D Bit From steemer at dslextreme.com Mon Jan 19 13:37:52 2015 From: steemer at dslextreme.com (sandy hamlet) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 11:37:52 -0800 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: Using a scope, look at the address lines and/or data lines at power up, just after system reset. The pulses will probably vary in width but should all be the same amplitude. If you see something like stair stepping: where a pulse starts out at 5 volts and drops, for example to 3 volts and then drops to 0 volts, then you might have two devices trying to access the same line at the same time. Devices on the same line may include a ram, rom, I/O ports, etc. This could cause the processor to "hang up" and act erratic. A schematic of the board would be helpfull if you have one. Sandy On 1/18/15, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > On 1/18/2015 12:07 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: >> No, I checked that and it isn't. It is an active low signal and it is >> high. >> >> Regards >> >> Rob > > What about the READY pin? Stuck low? > > Bob > >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony >> duell >>> Sent: 18 January 2015 19:16 >>> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >>> Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >>> >>>> The terminal controller board on my VT101 is not working, if it >>>> displays anything it is random characters. I have used my scope to >>>> check the 8085 CPU. It has power, it is outputting a valid clock, but >>>> there is no activity on the RD,WR and ALE pins. I am guessing the 8085 >>>> is bad, but before I go replacing it I wanted to check if anyone knew >>>> of anything else that might cause the 8085 to misbehave (ie am I seeing >>> symptoms or a cause?). >>> >>> What is the state of the reset input to the 8085? In other words, is the >> CPU >>> being held reset all the time? >>> >>> -tony >>> = >> > > > -- > Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in > it. > I've been practising it for years. > -Prince Philip > > From lists at loomcom.com Mon Jan 19 13:45:16 2015 From: lists at loomcom.com (Seth Morabito) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 13:45:16 -0600 Subject: Still seeking 3B2 information Message-ID: <20150119194516.GA9021@loomcom.com> Hi everyone, I've made tremendous progress on my 3B2 emulator. It's being implemented under the SIMH simulator platform, which has been a huge help. My WE32100 core is getting closer to being complete. I'd consider it alpha quality right now, but it has enough instruction coverage to pass the 3B2's power-on self tests and to (barely) run some of the 3B2 firmware mode tools. Implementing the WE32100 core has been thanks to the processor manual and assembly language manuals that are available on BitSavers, but outside of the CPU, virtually all of my understanding of the 3B2's architecture has come from studying the ROMs and the SYSVR3 source code. I've also been helped by having remote access to a running 3B2 so I can assemble and disassemble code using the real AT&T tools. Beyond that, I have found precious little documentation. I'm at the point now where I'm pretty well stuck until I can find more information. I understand large chunks of the memory map now and should be able to do things like simulate the floppy and hard disk controller, but there are large gaps in my understanding. There are many undocumented registers that are used by the firmware, but don't appear in the SYSV source code anywhere. What they mean and what they're for is anybody's guess. I've just stubbed them out for now. If anybody has access to schematics, architecture docs, or other memory map information, I'd be eternally grateful if you could share it! -Seth From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jan 19 14:03:46 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 12:03:46 -0800 Subject: Still seeking 3B2 information In-Reply-To: <20150119194516.GA9021@loomcom.com> References: <20150119194516.GA9021@loomcom.com> Message-ID: <54BD6322.60503@bitsavers.org> On 1/19/15 11:45 AM, Seth Morabito wrote: > Implementing the WE32100 core has been thanks to the processor manual > and assembly language manuals that are available on BitSavers, but > outside of the CPU, virtually all of my understanding of the 3B2's > architecture has come from studying the ROMs and the SYSVR3 source > code. What about the two documents I just uploaded? http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/att/3b2_hardware/ From lists at loomcom.com Mon Jan 19 14:14:28 2015 From: lists at loomcom.com (Seth Morabito) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:14:28 -0600 Subject: Still seeking 3B2 information In-Reply-To: <54BD6322.60503@bitsavers.org> References: <20150119194516.GA9021@loomcom.com> <54BD6322.60503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20150119201428.GA12162@loomcom.com> * On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 12:03:46PM -0800, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/19/15 11:45 AM, Seth Morabito wrote: > > >Implementing the WE32100 core has been thanks to the processor manual > >and assembly language manuals that are available on BitSavers, but > >outside of the CPU, virtually all of my understanding of the 3B2's > >architecture has come from studying the ROMs and the SYSVR3 source > >code. > > What about the two documents I just uploaded? > http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/att/3b2_hardware/ Oh yes! Sorry Al, I should have mentioned those two as well, you sent them along to me a couple of weeks ago and I never thanked you. They provided very useful details about the bus autoconfiguration. My most critical need right now is for more about the internals of the main system board, I hope something will be dug up at some point. Best wishes, -Seth From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 19 14:48:04 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 20:48:04 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of sandy > hamlet > Sent: 19 January 2015 19:38 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > Using a scope, look at the address lines and/or data lines at power up, just after > system reset. > The pulses will probably vary in width but should all be the same amplitude. > If you see something like stair stepping: where a pulse starts out at > 5 volts and drops, for example to 3 volts and then drops to 0 volts, then you > might have two devices trying to access the same line at the same time. > Devices on the same line may include a ram, rom, I/O ports, etc. > This could cause the processor to "hang up" and act erratic. > A schematic of the board would be helpfull if you have one. > Sadly, that is the one thing that does not seem to be available. If anyone does know of a print set for the VT101 please let me know. Thanks Rob From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 19 15:26:57 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:26:57 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> In my latest tests I found that the CPU does indeed seem to HALT, according to S1 and S0 (both go low). Sometimes this is immediate, other times it happens after 15-20 seconds. When it goes for longer it displays more random characters on the screen and lights more lights on the keyboard. But it never lights all the lights and it does not sound the bell. This happened even after reseating the only socketed chip, which is marked CN55004N 8232, DEC TP03, 23-028E4-00, I have no idea what it is as I can't find any info on it. The random nature of the halt is a concern. If it was bad ROM I would expect it to always fail in the same place, unless the ROM is somehow marginal and gives different results every time. Regards Rob > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Robert > Jarratt > Sent: 19 January 2015 20:48 > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of sandy > > hamlet > > Sent: 19 January 2015 19:38 > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > > > Using a scope, look at the address lines and/or data lines at power > > up, just after system reset. > > The pulses will probably vary in width but should all be the same amplitude. > > If you see something like stair stepping: where a pulse starts out at > > 5 volts and drops, for example to 3 volts and then drops to 0 volts, > > then you might have two devices trying to access the same line at the same > time. > > Devices on the same line may include a ram, rom, I/O ports, etc. > > This could cause the processor to "hang up" and act erratic. > > A schematic of the board would be helpfull if you have one. > > > > Sadly, that is the one thing that does not seem to be available. If anyone does > know of a print set for the VT101 please let me know. > > Thanks > > Rob From db at db.net Mon Jan 19 15:28:42 2015 From: db at db.net (Diane Bruce) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 16:28:42 -0500 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20150119212842.GA82412@night.db.net> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 08:48:04PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of sandy > > hamlet > > Sent: 19 January 2015 19:38 > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > ... > > might have two devices trying to access the same line at the same time. > > Devices on the same line may include a ram, rom, I/O ports, etc. > > This could cause the processor to "hang up" and act erratic. > > A schematic of the board would be helpfull if you have one. Something like https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_decterminachematicFeb82_6949589 ? Diane -- - db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db From wilson at dbit.com Mon Jan 19 15:39:30 2015 From: wilson at dbit.com (John Wilson) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 16:39:30 -0500 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 09:26:57PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: >In my latest tests I found that the CPU does indeed seem to HALT, >according to S1 and S0 (both go low). What ever happened to in-circuit emulators? I used an 8085A ICE in a microprocessors class at Boston U. in the 1980s and it was *magic*. I always wondered how they worked -- is it just an 8085A with a doctored clock, or some complete re-implementation of it, or what? Physically it was a 40-pin DIP plug with a thick cable leading off to a mass of electronics. It's just the kind of thing that would turn up on eBay, but only if you didn't need it. John Wilson D Bit From db at db.net Mon Jan 19 15:45:40 2015 From: db at db.net (Diane Bruce) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 16:45:40 -0500 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> Message-ID: <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 04:39:30PM -0500, John Wilson wrote: > On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 09:26:57PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > >In my latest tests I found that the CPU does indeed seem to HALT, > >according to S1 and S0 (both go low). > > What ever happened to in-circuit emulators? I used an 8085A ICE in > a microprocessors class at Boston U. in the 1980s and it was *magic*. > I always wondered how they worked -- is it just an 8085A with a doctored > clock, or some complete re-implementation of it, or what? Physically > it was a 40-pin DIP plug with a thick cable leading off to a mass of > electronics. It's just the kind of thing that would turn up on eBay, > but only if you didn't need it. His problem is he will have to unsolder the 8085 first. I'd suspect RAM since the ROM is (I assume) masked ROM. > > John Wilson > D Bit > Diane -- - db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db From johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 19 15:58:03 2015 From: johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk (John Wallace) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:58:03 +0000 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1421704683.21510.YahooMailBasic@web171802.mail.ir2.yahoo.com> "an *awesome* cover letter that DEC sent out with the fix, assuring everyone that the libraries were now good internally until some crazy year like 31078, but there was still formatting code that assumed years fit in four digits so there would be Y10K bugs; but don't worry, DEC will issue a patch to VMS at that time." Sounds a little bit like (but maybe not identical with?) the well known Stan Rabinowicz Leap Year Software Performance Report (SPR) response in 1983 for VMS V3.2? Stashed in various places which search engines should find, currently including HP's website and http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/joke/decly.htm Have a lot of fun John From isking at uw.edu Mon Jan 19 16:08:30 2015 From: isking at uw.edu (Ian S. King) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:08:30 -0800 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: <20150118203355.GG4901@ns1.bonedaddy.net> References: <36BA6914-5896-4560-9851-6A2C07C3DB74@gmail.com> <20150118203355.GG4901@ns1.bonedaddy.net> Message-ID: I have a fair amount of experience with this, too. When acquiring a system, often there are a few large cabinets and a bunch of loose items like cables, media and documentation. Put the loose things into boxes, which can then be stacked on the pallet and shrink-wrapped to keep them secure. There's also a pallet called a 'gaylord' that's a cardboard box with a pallet base, which is good for loose items. Depending on the condition of the large cabinets, I would usually ask for cardboard under shrink-wrap. If there are protruding switches, I would either remove those switch panels, wrap them liberally in bubble wrap and put them in the gaylord, or if they couldn't be removed I'd use a thick block of styrofoam, sometimes carved out a bit, taped and shrink-wrapped to the cabinet. One thing to ask: will the cabinets be upright the entire time? With a PDP-15 I had shipped, it was far cheaper if they could ship it on its side. So the seller used styrofoam to ensure that the Flip Chips stayed in place, and got a commitment that it would be shipped on one particular side, i.e. not rotated (he was worried about the power supplies ripping loose). It got to Seattle in fine condition. There are two things about doing your own prep vs. having the shippers do it. For one, if you do it you pay less money (but there is your time). If they do it, there is the question of whether they are competent and/or open to your input. I stopped using MoveIt when I got a crew that didn't give a wet slap about my instructions - it was the first time I received items with e.g., broken casters. (They denied responsibility because of the age of the equipment!) After that I used EMOtrans pretty exclusively, and they were great whether the job was from CA to WA or from Western Australia. Just my random neural firings?. -- Ian On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 12:33 PM, Todd Goodman wrote: > * Marc Verdiell [150118 12:24]: > > Actually I need to learn more about this. What do they exactly do when > they "palletize" things? Does that include wrapping/protecting the item and > lifting/anchoring it on the pallet? How small and how large an item can > they deal with? How much does the service cost? How do you "unpalletize it" > at the other end? Do you need a forklift or a hydraulic pallet moving > thingy on the receiving end? > > > > Marc > > > I've palletized and shipped computer stuff as well as pinball machines > as well as received both on pallets. > > Usually the shipper does the palletizing (unless they pay a pack and > ship type place to do it for them.) You put the item or items on the > pallet and usually band them to the pallet (there are all different > kinds of bands you can use. Plastic bands with an S-clasp are easy to > use but there are metal bands you crimp a clasp onto too as well as all > kinds of others I'm sure.) I usually shrink wrap the items too. Often > with cardboard around them. Sometimes crate them with a plywood box > around the whole pallet. None of these will stop a forklift fork from > going through but help with scuffs from pallets getting moved around. > > I've received pallets with just shrinkwrap holding items on the pallet. > They've made it to me but the items tend to shift when moved around a > lot. > > All the shipping I've done is based on the cubic size of the pallet with > items on top. I believe if you go over the "standard"-ish sized pallets > most probably have an additional charge (I've received some pallet > shipments that required longer forks for the forklift than standard.) > > On the receiving end they can send a lift gate truck for a charge. Most > freight companies want to know if it's coming and going to a residential > or business address. By business address they usually mean a place > that has a forklift or loading dock to unload. Residential usually > means they'll send it on a lift gate truck and usually will call to > arrange a delivery date and time (if it's a business delivery and they show > up during business hours to deliver and no one is there there's usually > a "redelivery" charge.) > > Amost all the freight companies I've dealt with will not go down a > residential driveway (mine is 1/2 mile long so they definitely won't go > down it.) Most send a tractor trailer to deliver. I meet them at the > road with either a tractor with forks or my pickup truck (if they have a > liftgate.) I've rented telehandlers (rough terrain telescoping boom > forklifts) before too (wish I could get myself one of those!) > > The driver will have a pallet jack (a wheeled tool with two forks to go > into/under the pallet and hydraulics that can lift it off the ground an > inch or so to move the palleted items around. > > All freight companies I've dealt with will either get the pallets to the > edge of the back of the truck (for business delivery) or onto the > liftgate and onto the ground. Then it's up to the receiver to take it > from there. > > To unpalletize it yourself it depends what it is. If it's really heavy > then I'd move it close to it's location and then use a hoist or lift to > get it off. Obviously if it's smaller items (maybe multiple boxes of > items on the pallet) then it can just be pulled off one at a time. > > As other people have said palletizing stuff is *really* convenient for > moving it around and isn't too hard to do. Around here there are many > places that offer free pallets or for little money (though around here > some people burn wood pallets so there's some competition to get them.) > Most "chain" stores around here return their pallets so won't give them > away but plumbing and heating, computer recyclers, and other places will > often give them away. > > Places like uline.com (among many others) sell banding and shrinkwrap > supplies that will last a lifetime if you're only shipping occasionally. > > Just my experience with it. > > Todd > -- Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS Ph.D. Candidate The Information School University of Washington An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees it half empty. An engineer sees it twice as large as it needs to be. From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 19 16:11:20 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:11:20 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <20150119212842.GA82412@night.db.net> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <20150119212842.GA82412@night.db.net> Message-ID: <025f01d03434$dae3f2a0$90abd7e0$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Diane Bruce > Sent: 19 January 2015 21:29 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 08:48:04PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of > > > sandy hamlet > > > Sent: 19 January 2015 19:38 > > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > > > ... > > > might have two devices trying to access the same line at the same time. > > > Devices on the same line may include a ram, rom, I/O ports, etc. > > > This could cause the processor to "hang up" and act erratic. > > > A schematic of the board would be helpfull if you have one. > > Something like > https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_decterminachematicFeb82_6949589 ? Unfortunately not. I already have that print set, but it is for the VT100, this is a VT101 and the terminal controller board is different. Looking more closely at the VT100 basic video board, some of the ROM part numbers are similar to the ROM I have, but not the same. On the VT100 they seem to be 8316s which are mask programmable. I don't know if that applies to the ones used in the VT101. If they are mask programmed then there won't be much I can do if the ROM is bad, unless it is possible to find pin-compatible programmable parts and a ROM image from somewhere. Regards Rob From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 19 16:12:27 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:12:27 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> Message-ID: <026001d03435$02a9ae10$07fd0a30$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of John Wilson > Sent: 19 January 2015 21:40 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 09:26:57PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > >In my latest tests I found that the CPU does indeed seem to HALT, > >according to S1 and S0 (both go low). > > What ever happened to in-circuit emulators? I used an 8085A ICE in a > microprocessors class at Boston U. in the 1980s and it was *magic*. > I always wondered how they worked -- is it just an 8085A with a doctored clock, > or some complete re-implementation of it, or what? Physically it was a 40-pin > DIP plug with a thick cable leading off to a mass of electronics. It's just the kind > of thing that would turn up on eBay, but only if you didn't need it. > Quite. That or a logic analyser. Regards Rob From db at db.net Mon Jan 19 16:28:47 2015 From: db at db.net (Diane Bruce) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 17:28:47 -0500 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <025f01d03434$dae3f2a0$90abd7e0$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <20150119212842.GA82412@night.db.net> <025f01d03434$dae3f2a0$90abd7e0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20150119222847.GA83039@night.db.net> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 10:11:20PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > ... > > Something like > > https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_decterminachematicFeb82_6949589 ? > > > Unfortunately not. I already have that print set, but it is for the VT100, http://www.vaxhaven.com/images/6/6c/EK-VT101-PS-001.pdf Diane -- - db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 19 16:43:49 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:43:49 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <20150119222847.GA83039@night.db.net> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <20150119212842.GA82412@night.db.net> <025f01d03434$dae3f2a0$90abd7e0$@ntlworld.com> <20150119222847.GA83039@night.db.net> Message-ID: <026401d03439$645533b0$2cff9b10$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Diane Bruce > Sent: 19 January 2015 22:29 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 10:11:20PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > > ... > > > Something like > > > https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_decterminachematicFeb82_6949589 ? > > > > > > Unfortunately not. I already have that print set, but it is for the VT100, > > http://www.vaxhaven.com/images/6/6c/EK-VT101-PS-001.pdf > Sadly, I already have that too :-( It doesn't have the print set, but it has been very useful. Thanks for all the pointers though, I do appreciate you taking time to look :-) Regards Rob From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 19 16:51:19 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:51:19 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> Message-ID: <026501d0343a$70d18070$52748150$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Diane Bruce > Sent: 19 January 2015 21:46 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 04:39:30PM -0500, John Wilson wrote: > > On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 09:26:57PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > >In my latest tests I found that the CPU does indeed seem to HALT, > > >according to S1 and S0 (both go low). > > > > What ever happened to in-circuit emulators? I used an 8085A ICE in a > > microprocessors class at Boston U. in the 1980s and it was *magic*. > > I always wondered how they worked -- is it just an 8085A with a > > doctored clock, or some complete re-implementation of it, or what? > > Physically it was a 40-pin DIP plug with a thick cable leading off to > > a mass of electronics. It's just the kind of thing that would turn up > > on eBay, but only if you didn't need it. > > His problem is he will have to unsolder the 8085 first. > I'd suspect RAM since the ROM is (I assume) masked ROM. > I suppose again it is likely that a logic analyser would help. I have just skip-read the power up and self-test section from the VT100 manual you linked for me, and realise it halts the processor if it detects a ROM checksum error or an error in the RAM. I am not sure if this explains why I get random characters displayed, but the halt is consistent with a RAM failure as you suggest. When I next get the chance I will probe the RAM chips to see if their behaviour looks OK, but I only have a scope so it won't be a very comprehensive test. It will be the weekend before I get the next opportunity. Regards Rob From wilson at dbit.com Mon Jan 19 17:03:18 2015 From: wilson at dbit.com (John Wilson) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 18:03:18 -0500 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <025f01d03434$dae3f2a0$90abd7e0$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <20150119212842.GA82412@night.db.net> <025f01d03434$dae3f2a0$90abd7e0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20150119230318.GA8202@dbit.dbit.com> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 10:11:20PM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: >Unfortunately not. I already have that print set, but it is for the VT100, >this is a VT101 and the terminal controller board is different. My mind's gone blank but I got the impression that some of the later-than-VT100 terminals might use the same PCB but stuffed different ways. Like maybe at least the VT102? The VT132 prints on bitsavers don't look right (it's still an 8080A like the VT100, not an 8085) but my point is, maybe there's another source. I forget how the VT131 differs from any of the others. John Wilson D Bit From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 19 17:07:13 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 15:07:13 -0800 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54BD8E21.1020705@sydex.com> On 01/19/2015 12:48 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote: > Sadly, that is the one thing that does not seem to be available. If you can swap in an EPROM for the ROM, you might try coding a small program to use the RIM/SIM instructions to give you some sort of indicator of operation--you could even code a bit-bang serial interface. --Chuck From matt at 9track.net Mon Jan 19 17:22:54 2015 From: matt at 9track.net (Matt Burke) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 23:22:54 +0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> Message-ID: <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> On 19/01/2015 21:45, Diane Bruce wrote: > I'd suspect RAM since the ROM is (I assume) masked ROM. The masked ROM could be faulty. My VT100 character generator ROM failed with one of the data lines floating because (I think) one of the internal wires had became detached from the die. I replaced it with an EPROM but had to add a few jumper wires to the legs of the chip to get the select lines in the right combination. Matt From RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org Mon Jan 19 17:28:51 2015 From: RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org (Rich Alderson) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 23:28:51 +0000 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: <01PHI1M4AHAG005MPE@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01PHI1M4AHAG005MPE@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA01A9D70784@505MBX2.corp.vnw.com> From: Peter Coghlan Sent: Monday, January 19, 2015 4:24 AM [failing to cite the previous posters, Mark Longridge and Johnny Bilquist] ML: >>> After trying to get Unix v5 to understand dates beyond the year 2000 I >>> had to wonder if any of the older operating systems from the 1970s or >>> older could do this. >>> So, did any operating system programmers from this time period have >>> the foresight to use 4 digits for the year? I just checked APL/360 and >>> it seems that it does not. JB: >> TOPS-20? VMS? > It was very near the end of the 1970s but VMS made a really good effort to > handle times and dates well from the beginning. Borrowing from TOPS-20 in the process, in spite of the VMS NIH mandate^Whabit. > The areas where I think it could have been done better still are to have > stored the time internally in UTC rather than local time while > displaying local time and to have chosen an earlier base date than 17 > November 1858. The use of the modified Julian date (2,400,000.5 dates less than the Julian date) dates to 1957, when the Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory adopted it to track Sputnik in 18 bits on a 36-bit IBM computer. (Julian dates, being used by astronomers, begin and end at noon rather than midnight.) Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computer Museum 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From linimon at lonesome.com Mon Jan 19 18:05:41 2015 From: linimon at lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 18:05:41 -0600 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: References: <36BA6914-5896-4560-9851-6A2C07C3DB74@gmail.com> <20150118203355.GG4901@ns1.bonedaddy.net> Message-ID: <20150120000541.GA29753@lonesome.com> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 02:08:30PM -0800, Ian S. King wrote: > With a PDP-15 I had shipped [...] coooooooool. mcl From linimon at lonesome.com Mon Jan 19 18:08:09 2015 From: linimon at lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 18:08:09 -0600 Subject: Still seeking 3B2 information In-Reply-To: <20150119194516.GA9021@loomcom.com> References: <20150119194516.GA9021@loomcom.com> Message-ID: <20150120000809.GB29753@lonesome.com> The company I worked for back in the late 1980s at one point was building a VMEbus-based 32100 computer. I don't know what documentation I still retain, OTOH I'm a packrat and it is probably around somewhere. I've already made a committment that whatever I have of the System V/VME manuals are going to Silicon Valley. But I guess at some point I have to list what I've got before I send it ... mcl From lbickley at bickleywest.com Mon Jan 19 18:30:13 2015 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 16:30:13 -0800 Subject: IBM Mainframe/Peripherals on eBay... Message-ID: <20150119163013.1d46b645@asrock.bcwi.net> There's what looks to be a nice collection of IBM Mainframe goodies on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-IBM-Computer-Mainframe-Lot-with-2-printers-displays-keyboards-/161566683205?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item259e1ff045 or Item #161566683205 Local Pickup, Huntington, New York NOT my listing - just "stumbled" across it today Cheers, Lyle -- Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From cctalk at fahimi.net Mon Jan 19 18:40:12 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 16:40:12 -0800 Subject: IBM Mainframe/Peripherals on eBay... In-Reply-To: <20150119163013.1d46b645@asrock.bcwi.net> References: <20150119163013.1d46b645@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: <00ef01d03449$a844c300$f8ce4900$@net> > > There's what looks to be a nice collection of IBM Mainframe goodies on > eBay: > > Local Pickup, Huntington, New York > FYI: The seller had everything (and more) listed before but most of it did not sell. I contacted him to see if he would be willing to ship some smaller items and he told me he would not be relisting because he has a local buyer who told him he was selling the items for too "cheap". Mind you the items did not sell at all but whatever.... I guess the local buyer either disappeared or was not the retirement golden egg the seller was expecting. From jws at jwsss.com Mon Jan 19 19:05:20 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 17:05:20 -0800 Subject: IBM Mainframe/Peripherals on eBay... In-Reply-To: <00ef01d03449$a844c300$f8ce4900$@net> References: <20150119163013.1d46b645@asrock.bcwi.net> <00ef01d03449$a844c300$f8ce4900$@net> Message-ID: <54BDA9D0.80306@jwsss.com> On 1/19/2015 4:40 PM, Ali wrote: > >There's what looks to be a nice collection of IBM Mainframe goodies on He listed the bays as "9309" which is the part number for the bays. I sent back that he needed to get the actual panels back up and photograph them. I just saw a bunch of DASD, and a storage director. By my recollection the box with the numbers and DXX number on it is a storage director for some number of strings of DASD. The actual mainframe lurking inside is most likely 9370, or 9221 type systems. I also alerted him to be very careful to preserve the extra 'pc" systems as they would be HMC consoles for the system. Many scrapped Z systems were rendered much harder to get going because someone would swipe the Thinkpad out of the back that did the same thing for later boxes. Jim From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jan 19 19:11:12 2015 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 20:11:12 -0500 Subject: IBM Mainframe/Peripherals on eBay... In-Reply-To: <54BDA9D0.80306@jwsss.com> References: <20150119163013.1d46b645@asrock.bcwi.net> <00ef01d03449$a844c300$f8ce4900$@net> <54BDA9D0.80306@jwsss.com> Message-ID: > I just saw a bunch of DASD, and a storage director. By my recollection the > box with the numbers and DXX number on it is a storage director for some > number of strings of DASD. > > The actual mainframe lurking inside is most likely 9370, or 9221 type > systems. I think the CPU is gone. At some point soonb, I am supposed to go down and look at this stuff. -- Will From brain at jbrain.com Mon Jan 19 22:17:35 2015 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:17:35 -0600 Subject: RF Shield for the A1200 Needed In-Reply-To: <12cc273dc45c670d73c1044be397a0c3@store.go4retro.com> References: <12cc273dc45c670d73c1044be397a0c3@store.go4retro.com> Message-ID: <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> ANyone have a part like this: "you might have the item i am looking for (from your vast collection of parts) which is the RF Shield for the A1200. Looking for only the UPPER or even UPPER/LOWER." I don't have Amiga parts, but would like to help this person. From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Mon Jan 19 22:22:27 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 02:22:27 -0200 Subject: RF Shield for the A1200 Needed In-Reply-To: <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> References: <12cc273dc45c670d73c1044be397a0c3@store.go4retro.com> <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> Message-ID: Hi there Brains, I have, but I live in Brazil. Does it helps? :) On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 2:17 AM, Jim Brain wrote: > ANyone have a part like this: > > "you might have the item i am looking for (from your vast collection of > parts) which is the RF Shield for the A1200. Looking for only the UPPER or > even UPPER/LOWER." > > I don't have Amiga parts, but would like to help this person. > From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 19 23:06:02 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 05:06:02 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> Message-ID: <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Matt Burke > Sent: 19 January 2015 23:23 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On 19/01/2015 21:45, Diane Bruce wrote: > > I'd suspect RAM since the ROM is (I assume) masked ROM. > > The masked ROM could be faulty. My VT100 character generator ROM failed > with one of the data lines floating because (I think) one of the internal wires > had became detached from the die. I replaced it with an EPROM but had to add > a few jumper wires to the legs of the chip to get the select lines in the right > combination. > I like the idea of swapping the ROM for an EPROM (whether to write my own test code, or just to replace with a fresh ROM image - assuming I can find one). I'll probe the ROM pins at the weekend to see if it appears to be OK. Do you recall what EPROM you used and how its pinout differed from the ROM you were replacing? As far as I can tell there is only one ROM on the board, could it be both the character ROM and the firmware? Regards Rob From mhs.stein at gmail.com Mon Jan 19 23:15:46 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 00:15:46 -0500 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: ROM replacement is a common issue in the vintage home computer area and there are various pin-out adapters available for the more common ROMs (once you figure out what type you have); for example, maybe one of these will work for you: http://store.go4retro.com/adapters/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Jarratt" To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 12:06 AM Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Matt > Burke >> Sent: 19 January 2015 23:23 >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >> >> On 19/01/2015 21:45, Diane Bruce wrote: >> > I'd suspect RAM since the ROM is (I assume) masked ROM. >> >> The masked ROM could be faulty. My VT100 character generator ROM failed >> with one of the data lines floating because (I think) one of the internal > wires >> had became detached from the die. I replaced it with an EPROM but had to > add >> a few jumper wires to the legs of the chip to get the select lines in the > right >> combination. >> > > I like the idea of swapping the ROM for an EPROM (whether to write my own > test code, or just to replace with a fresh ROM image - assuming I can find > one). I'll probe the ROM pins at the weekend to see if it appears to be > OK. > > Do you recall what EPROM you used and how its pinout differed from the ROM > you were replacing? As far as I can tell there is only one ROM on the > board, > could it be both the character ROM and the firmware? > > Regards > > Rob > > From ggs at shiresoft.com Mon Jan 19 23:27:59 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:27:59 -0800 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> References: <12cc273dc45c670d73c1044be397a0c3@store.go4retro.com> <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <54BDE75F.2070501@shiresoft.com> As some of you know I've been working (on and off again) a multi-function Unibus board that contains all of the more difficult items to allow a PDP-11/20 to run Unix V1 entirely within the CPU chassis. Other than the CPU and the RK11-D controller, everything else will be on the MEM11 board. Here's the background on what the MEM11 is and the current progress. What's on the board is the following: * Up to 124KW of non-volatile memory * Console Emulator ROM * 4 Boot ROMs selected from 32 images on the board * 2 DL11 SLUs * RF11 controller with non-volatile memory emulating 8 RS11 drives * KE11 EAE * KW11K * KW11L * KW11P * KW11W I know I went overboard with the KW11s as only the KW11L (line-time clock) is needed. Early on, because of the number of devices and trying to fit all of this on a SPC-sized board so it can fit in the 11/20 chassis (can't fit in hex sized cards) I decided to "soft" configure everything. That is, all of the configuration of the MEM11 will be done over one of the serial ports. To get everything to fit on a board that small, I would need to have a reasonable level of integration. This meant that I would be using an FPGA and with a few exceptions all components will be SMT (sorry folks, no kits on this one). I originally thought I would do everything in Verilog with no microprocessor (for a whole host of reasons). I quickly realized that my Verilog coding skills were not up to a task that large so I put the project on hold while I regrouped. I figured that I would have to integrate some sort of microprocessor core into the FPGA but was not happy with any that I was finding. They were either very simple cores with poor tools support or very complex (ie big) cores that had reasonable tools. About 18 months ago, I came across a paper by James Bowman titled "J1: a small Forth core for FPGAs". Best of all it was implemented in about 200 lines of Verilog (ie it was incredibly small). Also available was a complete cross environment (written in Forth of course). It produced very tight code. I spent a while trying to understand the J1, the cross build environment and getting familiar with Forth again. I got serious in November 2014 in laying out the structure of how to put everything together. I decided that the J1 would be fast enough (should see ~100MIPs on the FPGA I plan to use) to actually do most of the device emulation code in Forth with only enough Verilog to offload some of the more performance critical bits. For example, the J1 is fast enough to actually receive the Unibus transaction, read a word from the FRAM and complete the Unibus transaction and still be close to maximum Unibus throughput. I've spent most of my time writing Forth code to implement the emulation of the devices and the configuration UI. I decided that by writing the Forth code first, I would have a pretty good idea of how everything will go together. What the H/W will look like will fall out from that and if I do have to change the H/W interface only small changes will need to be made to the S/W. Forth lends itself to building up from a very low level to a high level where the high level is isolated from many of the low level details. I've been coding furiously. As of tonight I have ~60% of the emulation code written and 100% of the configuration UI (and it all builds). I'll be working on finishing off the emulation code and then starting on the Verilog. Since I want to get familiar with running the J1 in a real FPGA, I'll be building code and testing the configuration UI on one of my FPGA development boards. This also has the advantage of having (mostly) tested code when I actually have real MEM11 hardware. A few comments on the capabilities. Everything is configurable through the configuration UI (ie you'll be able to change everything regarding what devices are enabled, what they're base addresses are, the interrupt vector, priority, frequency of the line clock, etc, etc). Basically, as I've been reading up on the devices, if there's a jumper or option on the device, there will be a way to set it through the configuration UI. I also decided that to upload/download ROM images, memory images, etc that I would provide XMODEM capabilities. One thing that I decided on was that I wanted to be able to send code updates to folks and not require them to have a JTAG probe in order to perform an update (and hence the desire for XMODEM). So the code in the FPGA is basically just a boot-loader that loads an image from an area of non-volatile memory on the board. I'm allowing for 4 J1 images (16KB each...the code address space for the J1) plus a "safe" boot image that no matter how screwed up everything is, you'll be able to fall back to that image. As I was competing the configuration UI, I found that I couldn't have both the configuration UI and the emulation code both fit in 16K (strings take up a lot of space). By the time I was done with the configuration UI I was hitting up against the 16K limit (presently there's about 200 bytes free and there's a bit more refactoring that I could do if I need to get really aggressive). So my insight in having a boot loader and organizing along those lines paid off. ;-) I'm sure there are a number of folks who will want one and are eager to know what it'll cost. ;-) I have a basic BOM for the MEM11, but I haven't cost it out in a while so while I *think* I know what it'll cost to produce, I'm not going to give out pricing (even though a few folks know what my target is) until after I have a prototype built and working. Also, since there will be a high level of integration, I'm only going to offer this only as a fully assembled and tested unit with all of the FPGA programming, ROM emulation images, J1 code images and a reasonable configuration setup. As I said, as of tonight, I've finished the configuration UI. I'll be working on finishing up the emulation code. This is the biggest risk since I won't really be able to test the emulation code until I have an actual prototype board built. Once all of the code is written, I'll be working on the Verilog. During all of this, I'll be doing some testing on my FPGA evaluation board. Given my progress so far, I'm hoping (fingers crossed) to be testing a prototype some time in June/July 2015. Once I have the prototype tested, I'll have a good idea of the remaining work that needs to be done. At that point, I'll let folks know what the cost will be and will start to take orders. Once I have a reasonable number of (committed) orders, I'll do a production run. Ok, so this has been much longer than I expected. ;-) I'll update folks as the project progresses. TTFN - Guy From t.gardner at computer.org Mon Jan 19 12:43:45 2015 From: t.gardner at computer.org (Tom Gardner) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:43:45 -0800 Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 In-Reply-To: <20150118180601.GA18425@hugin2.pdp8online.com> References: <20150118180601.GA18425@hugin2.pdp8online.com> Message-ID: <005701d03417$dbfc6db0$93f54910$@computer.org> FWIW, microstepping goes back to at least the CDC SMD of the mid-70s and even some stepper motor drives were microstepped. So there is no question the XT2190 can do it. The XT-2000 OEM spec, http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/maxtor/1014286A_XT1000_2000_OEM.pdf, has no mention of microstepping nor does an Mini-Micro Systems article on the earlier XT-1000. If you are a tinkerer, u can try injecting an offset voltage into the servo error amp :-), Tom -----Original Message----- From: David Gesswein [mailto:djg at pdp8online.com] Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2015 10:06 AM To: cctech at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Maxtor XT-2190 On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 07:29:10PM -0500, Steven Hirsch wrote: > On Sat, 17 Jan 2015, David Gesswein wrote: > > That drive has a dedicated servo surface (thus the odd number of > heads). Not sure there's any concept of microstepping in that > arrangement. > The Seagate ST-4096 is also a servo drive and has the ability to move the heads a partial track for read error recovery. I assume its adding an offset into the servo loop to vary the head position. From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jan 19 13:12:02 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 11:12:02 -0800 Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 In-Reply-To: <20150117191152.GA3324@hugin2.pdp8online.com> References: <20150117191152.GA3324@hugin2.pdp8online.com> Message-ID: <54BD5702.4030608@bitsavers.org> On 1/17/15 11:11 AM, David Gesswein wrote: > Does > anyone know if this drive has a microstep mode like some Seagates have? > Continuing to dig on this. I don't think you're going to find any embedded servo drives capable of doing this from the edge connector. I had never even heard of this mode on MFM drives before you mentioned it. So far, the only drives that seem to support microstepping if you assert pin 16 (recovery mode) on the 34 pin connector and jumper 3-4 is active are the ST225 and ST250 I was able to pick up a XT2190 and XT1085 at a surplus place this weekend, and I see that the 2190 uses a pair of Z8s. It wouldn't surprise me if there is a diagnostic mode buried inside the one that controls the servo. It is also curious at the level of interest Russian sites seem to have on how disk drives work, and how little of that information exists on the web in the US. Bill Maddox gave me about a dozen boxes of paper to go through over Christmas, and besides several hardware documents for the NGEN, which I did the Snoopy Dance over when I discovered them, are a bunch of MFM hard drive schematics from a bunch of vendors. These is as scarce as hen's teeth, so I'll try to get those uploaded today. Unfortunately, nothing there from Maxtor. From marc.verdiell at gmail.com Tue Jan 20 01:57:07 2015 From: marc.verdiell at gmail.com (Marc Verdiell) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 23:57:07 -0800 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <29A0B6020F514FC698A6141D7DA5693D@workshop> Thank you Todd. Very useful info. Marc >From: Todd Goodman >Subject: Re: Shipping antique computers >Message-ID: <20150118203355.GG4901 at ns1.bonedaddy.net> >I've palletized and shipped computer stuff as well as pinball machines >as well as received both on pallets. >[...] >Just my experience with it. >Todd From marc.verdiell at gmail.com Tue Jan 20 02:04:57 2015 From: marc.verdiell at gmail.com (Marc Verdiell) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 00:04:57 -0800 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "Nice rack", as they say. I have an HP 7970E and was wondering what to put it into. That is the right solution... I've seen in pictures that HP also had some special desk-like looking furniture to put the early 7970's in, with a slanted panel in which the tape drive would go. Never seen one of these in the flesh. Marc >From: "Jay West" >And if you want to follow the build of the 2000/Access IO-rack (which holds >tape, terminal controller and bulkhead, and disk controller subsystem): >http://www.ezwind.net/hp2000/IO-Rack/ >J From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Tue Jan 20 03:54:42 2015 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 10:54:42 +0100 (CET) Subject: Sending 0377 via KL8JA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2015, Kyle Owen wrote: > Run 'nc localhost 2222 | od -to1' in a terminal, then 'go 200' and > repeatedly press 'c', seeing how many times it takes to generate a line of > characters in 'od'. Then, 'd sr 0376' and confirm that it takes twice as > many presses, indicating half as many characters being sent per TLS > instruction with the latter. Of course this is normal behaviour. You need to use a client that *correctly* implements the TELNET protocol. In your case, sending 377 as a data byte needs duplication because a single 377 is the TELNET IAC escape character. This is handled by the TELNET server implemented in SIMH. Note: netcat (or nc) has never correctly implemented the TELNET protocol. It fails when using binary mode. And curl has problems, too (in some cases it loses NULL bytes etc.). The only client that doesn't have any problems with TELNET is C-Kermit. Christian From hachti at hachti.de Tue Jan 20 04:17:58 2015 From: hachti at hachti.de (Philipp Hachtmann) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 11:17:58 +0100 Subject: Data Products 2230 manual? Message-ID: <54BE2B56.7000006@hachti.de> Hi folks, my Data Products 2230 drum printer recently stopped working. The trouble began a few years ago: Startup went wrong from time to time so that the printer control logic was stuck after power on. Repowering helped. But now it does not help anymore. I found the DP2230 service manual 2 on bitsavers. It contains the machine's schematics. That already helped me to trace the problem - a bit. It looks like the buffer/interface logic does mad stuff. At this point it gets quite difficult to understand the logic without any explanation. Does anyone have the service manual part ONE? I assume that this contains info about state machines, test points and procedures, explanations etc. A (probably pdf) copy of that manual would help me a lot. I would very much appreciate to get hold of it. Kind regards Philipp :-) From tmfdmike at gmail.com Tue Jan 20 01:10:09 2015 From: tmfdmike at gmail.com (Mike Ross) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 20:10:09 +1300 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <54BDE75F.2070501@shiresoft.com> References: <12cc273dc45c670d73c1044be397a0c3@store.go4retro.com> <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> <54BDE75F.2070501@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: Splendid news Guy! I presume this won't be restricted to just the 11/20, and just Unix V1.0? It will, tweaked as necessary, have more general utility? If so, the question won't be 'if?', it'll be 'how many can I afford??!!' :-) Mike On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 6:27 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > > As some of you know I've been working (on and off again) a multi-function > Unibus board that contains all of the more difficult items to allow a > PDP-11/20 to run Unix V1 entirely within the CPU chassis. Other than the > CPU and the RK11-D controller, everything else will be on the MEM11 board. > Here's the background on what the MEM11 is and the current progress. > > What's on the board is the following: > > * Up to 124KW of non-volatile memory > * Console Emulator ROM > * 4 Boot ROMs selected from 32 images on the board > * 2 DL11 SLUs > * RF11 controller with non-volatile memory emulating 8 RS11 drives > * KE11 EAE > * KW11K > * KW11L > * KW11P > * KW11W > > I know I went overboard with the KW11s as only the KW11L (line-time clock) > is needed. > > Early on, because of the number of devices and trying to fit all of this > on a SPC-sized board so it can fit in the 11/20 chassis (can't fit in hex > sized cards) I decided to "soft" configure everything. That is, all of the > configuration of the MEM11 will be done over one of the serial ports. To > get everything to fit on a board that small, I would need to have a > reasonable level of integration. This meant that I would be using an FPGA > and with a few exceptions all components will be SMT (sorry folks, no kits > on this one). > > I originally thought I would do everything in Verilog with no > microprocessor (for a whole host of reasons). I quickly realized that my > Verilog coding skills were not up to a task that large so I put the project > on hold while I regrouped. I figured that I would have to integrate some > sort of microprocessor core into the FPGA but was not happy with any that I > was finding. They were either very simple cores with poor tools support or > very complex (ie big) cores that had reasonable tools. > > About 18 months ago, I came across a paper by James Bowman titled "J1: a > small Forth core for FPGAs". Best of all it was implemented in about 200 > lines of Verilog (ie it was incredibly small). Also available was a > complete cross environment (written in Forth of course). It produced very > tight code. I spent a while trying to understand the J1, the cross build > environment and getting familiar with Forth again. > > I got serious in November 2014 in laying out the structure of how to put > everything together. I decided that the J1 would be fast enough (should > see ~100MIPs on the FPGA I plan to use) to actually do most of the device > emulation code in Forth with only enough Verilog to offload some of the > more performance critical bits. For example, the J1 is fast enough to > actually receive the Unibus transaction, read a word from the FRAM and > complete the Unibus transaction and still be close to maximum Unibus > throughput. > > I've spent most of my time writing Forth code to implement the emulation > of the devices and the configuration UI. I decided that by writing the > Forth code first, I would have a pretty good idea of how everything will go > together. What the H/W will look like will fall out from that and if I do > have to change the H/W interface only small changes will need to be made to > the S/W. Forth lends itself to building up from a very low level to a high > level where the high level is isolated from many of the low level details. > > I've been coding furiously. As of tonight I have ~60% of the emulation > code written and 100% of the configuration UI (and it all builds). I'll be > working on finishing off the emulation code and then starting on the > Verilog. Since I want to get familiar with running the J1 in a real FPGA, > I'll be building code and testing the configuration UI on one of my FPGA > development boards. This also has the advantage of having (mostly) tested > code when I actually have real MEM11 hardware. > > A few comments on the capabilities. Everything is configurable through > the configuration UI (ie you'll be able to change everything regarding what > devices are enabled, what they're base addresses are, the interrupt vector, > priority, frequency of the line clock, etc, etc). Basically, as I've been > reading up on the devices, if there's a jumper or option on the device, > there will be a way to set it through the configuration UI. I also decided > that to upload/download ROM images, memory images, etc that I would provide > XMODEM capabilities. > > One thing that I decided on was that I wanted to be able to send code > updates to folks and not require them to have a JTAG probe in order to > perform an update (and hence the desire for XMODEM). So the code in the > FPGA is basically just a boot-loader that loads an image from an area of > non-volatile memory on the board. I'm allowing for 4 J1 images (16KB > each...the code address space for the J1) plus a "safe" boot image that no > matter how screwed up everything is, you'll be able to fall back to that > image. > > As I was competing the configuration UI, I found that I couldn't have both > the configuration UI and the emulation code both fit in 16K (strings take > up a lot of space). By the time I was done with the configuration UI I was > hitting up against the 16K limit (presently there's about 200 bytes free > and there's a bit more refactoring that I could do if I need to get really > aggressive). So my insight in having a boot loader and organizing along > those lines paid off. ;-) > > I'm sure there are a number of folks who will want one and are eager to > know what it'll cost. ;-) > > I have a basic BOM for the MEM11, but I haven't cost it out in a while so > while I *think* I know what it'll cost to produce, I'm not going to give > out pricing (even though a few folks know what my target is) until after I > have a prototype built and working. > > Also, since there will be a high level of integration, I'm only going to > offer this only as a fully assembled and tested unit with all of the FPGA > programming, ROM emulation images, J1 code images and a reasonable > configuration setup. > > As I said, as of tonight, I've finished the configuration UI. I'll be > working on finishing up the emulation code. This is the biggest risk since > I won't really be able to test the emulation code until I have an actual > prototype board built. Once all of the code is written, I'll be working on > the Verilog. During all of this, I'll be doing some testing on my FPGA > evaluation board. > > Given my progress so far, I'm hoping (fingers crossed) to be testing a > prototype some time in June/July 2015. Once I have the prototype tested, > I'll have a good idea of the remaining work that needs to be done. At that > point, I'll let folks know what the cost will be and will start to take > orders. Once I have a reasonable number of (committed) orders, I'll do a > production run. > > Ok, so this has been much longer than I expected. ;-) > > I'll update folks as the project progresses. > > TTFN - Guy > > > -- http://www.corestore.org 'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.' From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Tue Jan 20 06:49:59 2015 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 07:49:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jan 2015, Marc Verdiell wrote: >> From: "Jay West" >> And if you want to follow the build of the 2000/Access IO-rack (which holds >> tape, terminal controller and bulkhead, and disk controller subsystem): >> http://www.ezwind.net/hp2000/IO-Rack/ > > "Nice rack", as they say. I have an HP 7970E and was wondering what to put > it into. That is the right solution... I've seen in pictures that HP also > had some special desk-like looking furniture to put the early 7970's in, > with a slanted panel in which the tape drive would go. Never seen one of > these in the flesh. > Marc I have a 7970E in a 7971A rack, which can take two 7970E drives. I elected to mount a 2109E and a 9895A underneath the 7970E. http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/VCF-East2014/G_IMG_3359.jpg I've also worked on a 7970E in the slanted "low boy" cabinet. There's a lot of wasted space in there. http://www.hpmuseum.net/images/7970ETouched-37.jpg Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From alan at alanlee.org Tue Jan 20 07:24:34 2015 From: alan at alanlee.org (Alan Hightower) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 08:24:34 -0500 Subject: Still seeking 3B2 information In-Reply-To: <54BD6322.60503@bitsavers.org> References: <20150119194516.GA9021@loomcom.com> <54BD6322.60503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Yes thank you Al. Those have been a huge help in understanding the Common I/O design most of the peripheral cards were built around. To shadow Seth's request, I'm looking for a few card ROMs I do not have. Specifically if anyone has ROMs for the following 3B2 cards: CM195A NI Network Interface (10Mb Ethernet AUI) CM195AE SPSC Gen. Purpose Synchronous Controller CM195W SCSI SCSI controller CM195T ISC Intelligent Serial Controller CM195K XDC Expansion Disk Controller FXM Fiber eXpansion Module CM195AC/AD DKIT "Datakit" fiber-optic card I would really appreciate a dump. One of my goals is to work towards a hardware emulation project of one or more of those cards. eg NI -> WiFi or 100BaseT, SCSI, XDC, or CTC to SD card or USB host, PORTS/EPORTS to USB virtual com port. I'm been staring at 80186 ROM dumps from the CTC, PORTS, EPORTS, and NAU over that last few days. Even though they are all based on the same (horrible) software framework, it would be nice to have a few more for comparison. Thanks. On 2015-01-19 15:03, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/19/15 11:45 AM, Seth Morabito wrote: > >> Implementing the WE32100 core has been thanks to the processor manual and assembly language manuals that are available on BitSavers, but outside of the CPU, virtually all of my understanding of the 3B2's architecture has come from studying the ROMs and the SYSVR3 source code. > > What about the two documents I just uploaded? > http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/att/3b2_hardware/ [1] Links: ------ [1] http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/att/3b2_hardware/ From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 20 07:30:11 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 07:30:11 -0600 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00b901d034b5$37cab1e0$a76015a0$@classiccmp.org> Marc wrote... ------- "Nice rack", as they say. I have an HP 7970E and was wondering what to put it into. That is the right solution... I've seen in pictures that HP also had some special desk-like looking furniture to put the early 7970's in, with a slanted panel in which the tape drive would go. Never seen one of these in the flesh. ------- Slanted model - me neither. Note that the 7970 (for vertical mount, not the slanted horizontal mount you refer to) came with a special bracket to mount in the "rather unique" post design of HP racks of the period. The 3 mounting holes on the right side of the drive should be able to bolt in to most any rack. However, the mounting holes on the left of the drive are on the INSIDE of the back metal chassis, not on the front like the ones on the right are. It may be non-trivial to try to mount one if you don't have the HP mounting bracket. For this installation, I have 2 of the 3 special shims that go on the right behind the bolt flanges. I'm going to have to be creative with something to work similarly, maybe a couple washers glued on the back will suffice, but that offends my sensibilities. I might try to fabricate a replacement. The special mounting bracket mounts on the left and bolts in from the front. It provides a lip to set the tape drive on while you bolt the right side. It also provides the 4 nuts embedded into the bracket on the left, further back inside the rack, that 4 bolts from the inside of the chassis can mate with. At 130#, it's probably not a one-man job. As best as I can tell, you have to set the tape drive in the rack with the front hinged section fully open. That's asking for damage ;) What I may do if I can't schedule a helper, is use those angle iron brackets to set the tape in place and hold it steady, then remove them afterwards. To do that, you'd have to mount the angle brackets with the flat surface up, not down, or you couldn't remove the bolts. So if you don't have the HP 7970 mounting bracket, the only thing I can think of is using "angle iron" brackets that HP often supplied for test equipment and later cpu models so that the drive can sit on those, and then at least be able to bolt in the right side. That said, it might move slightly whenever you tilt open the front. I got rid of several empty HP racks back around 7 or so years ago and now I find myself wishing I hadn't :) I had yet another 7970E, but it has disappeared from the basement. I *KNEW* there was a miniature black hole down there somewhere. J From ggs at shiresoft.com Tue Jan 20 07:32:47 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 05:32:47 -0800 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: References: <12cc273dc45c670d73c1044be397a0c3@store.go4retro.com> <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> <54BDE75F.2070501@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <54BE58FF.9090705@shiresoft.com> Yes, it'll be useful for anything you want and will work in any Unibus PDP-11. The original motivation was to allow Unix V1 to run on an 11/20 without requiring an expansion chassis or trying to find unobtainium devices (how may RF11/RS11s have you come across?). TTFN - Guy On 1/19/15 11:10 PM, Mike Ross wrote: > Splendid news Guy! > > I presume this won't be restricted to just the 11/20, and just Unix V1.0? > It will, tweaked as necessary, have more general utility? > > If so, the question won't be 'if?', it'll be 'how many can I afford??!!' :-) > > Mike > > On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 6:27 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > >> As some of you know I've been working (on and off again) a multi-function >> Unibus board that contains all of the more difficult items to allow a >> PDP-11/20 to run Unix V1 entirely within the CPU chassis. Other than the >> CPU and the RK11-D controller, everything else will be on the MEM11 board. >> Here's the background on what the MEM11 is and the current progress. >> >> What's on the board is the following: >> >> * Up to 124KW of non-volatile memory >> * Console Emulator ROM >> * 4 Boot ROMs selected from 32 images on the board >> * 2 DL11 SLUs >> * RF11 controller with non-volatile memory emulating 8 RS11 drives >> * KE11 EAE >> * KW11K >> * KW11L >> * KW11P >> * KW11W >> >> I know I went overboard with the KW11s as only the KW11L (line-time clock) >> is needed. >> >> Early on, because of the number of devices and trying to fit all of this >> on a SPC-sized board so it can fit in the 11/20 chassis (can't fit in hex >> sized cards) I decided to "soft" configure everything. That is, all of the >> configuration of the MEM11 will be done over one of the serial ports. To >> get everything to fit on a board that small, I would need to have a >> reasonable level of integration. This meant that I would be using an FPGA >> and with a few exceptions all components will be SMT (sorry folks, no kits >> on this one). >> >> I originally thought I would do everything in Verilog with no >> microprocessor (for a whole host of reasons). I quickly realized that my >> Verilog coding skills were not up to a task that large so I put the project >> on hold while I regrouped. I figured that I would have to integrate some >> sort of microprocessor core into the FPGA but was not happy with any that I >> was finding. They were either very simple cores with poor tools support or >> very complex (ie big) cores that had reasonable tools. >> >> About 18 months ago, I came across a paper by James Bowman titled "J1: a >> small Forth core for FPGAs". Best of all it was implemented in about 200 >> lines of Verilog (ie it was incredibly small). Also available was a >> complete cross environment (written in Forth of course). It produced very >> tight code. I spent a while trying to understand the J1, the cross build >> environment and getting familiar with Forth again. >> >> I got serious in November 2014 in laying out the structure of how to put >> everything together. I decided that the J1 would be fast enough (should >> see ~100MIPs on the FPGA I plan to use) to actually do most of the device >> emulation code in Forth with only enough Verilog to offload some of the >> more performance critical bits. For example, the J1 is fast enough to >> actually receive the Unibus transaction, read a word from the FRAM and >> complete the Unibus transaction and still be close to maximum Unibus >> throughput. >> >> I've spent most of my time writing Forth code to implement the emulation >> of the devices and the configuration UI. I decided that by writing the >> Forth code first, I would have a pretty good idea of how everything will go >> together. What the H/W will look like will fall out from that and if I do >> have to change the H/W interface only small changes will need to be made to >> the S/W. Forth lends itself to building up from a very low level to a high >> level where the high level is isolated from many of the low level details. >> >> I've been coding furiously. As of tonight I have ~60% of the emulation >> code written and 100% of the configuration UI (and it all builds). I'll be >> working on finishing off the emulation code and then starting on the >> Verilog. Since I want to get familiar with running the J1 in a real FPGA, >> I'll be building code and testing the configuration UI on one of my FPGA >> development boards. This also has the advantage of having (mostly) tested >> code when I actually have real MEM11 hardware. >> >> A few comments on the capabilities. Everything is configurable through >> the configuration UI (ie you'll be able to change everything regarding what >> devices are enabled, what they're base addresses are, the interrupt vector, >> priority, frequency of the line clock, etc, etc). Basically, as I've been >> reading up on the devices, if there's a jumper or option on the device, >> there will be a way to set it through the configuration UI. I also decided >> that to upload/download ROM images, memory images, etc that I would provide >> XMODEM capabilities. >> >> One thing that I decided on was that I wanted to be able to send code >> updates to folks and not require them to have a JTAG probe in order to >> perform an update (and hence the desire for XMODEM). So the code in the >> FPGA is basically just a boot-loader that loads an image from an area of >> non-volatile memory on the board. I'm allowing for 4 J1 images (16KB >> each...the code address space for the J1) plus a "safe" boot image that no >> matter how screwed up everything is, you'll be able to fall back to that >> image. >> >> As I was competing the configuration UI, I found that I couldn't have both >> the configuration UI and the emulation code both fit in 16K (strings take >> up a lot of space). By the time I was done with the configuration UI I was >> hitting up against the 16K limit (presently there's about 200 bytes free >> and there's a bit more refactoring that I could do if I need to get really >> aggressive). So my insight in having a boot loader and organizing along >> those lines paid off. ;-) >> >> I'm sure there are a number of folks who will want one and are eager to >> know what it'll cost. ;-) >> >> I have a basic BOM for the MEM11, but I haven't cost it out in a while so >> while I *think* I know what it'll cost to produce, I'm not going to give >> out pricing (even though a few folks know what my target is) until after I >> have a prototype built and working. >> >> Also, since there will be a high level of integration, I'm only going to >> offer this only as a fully assembled and tested unit with all of the FPGA >> programming, ROM emulation images, J1 code images and a reasonable >> configuration setup. >> >> As I said, as of tonight, I've finished the configuration UI. I'll be >> working on finishing up the emulation code. This is the biggest risk since >> I won't really be able to test the emulation code until I have an actual >> prototype board built. Once all of the code is written, I'll be working on >> the Verilog. During all of this, I'll be doing some testing on my FPGA >> evaluation board. >> >> Given my progress so far, I'm hoping (fingers crossed) to be testing a >> prototype some time in June/July 2015. Once I have the prototype tested, >> I'll have a good idea of the remaining work that needs to be done. At that >> point, I'll let folks know what the cost will be and will start to take >> orders. Once I have a reasonable number of (committed) orders, I'll do a >> production run. >> >> Ok, so this has been much longer than I expected. ;-) >> >> I'll update folks as the project progresses. >> >> TTFN - Guy >> >> >> > From tsg at bonedaddy.net Tue Jan 20 07:36:00 2015 From: tsg at bonedaddy.net (Todd Goodman) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 08:36:00 -0500 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: References: <36BA6914-5896-4560-9851-6A2C07C3DB74@gmail.com> <20150118203355.GG4901@ns1.bonedaddy.net> Message-ID: <20150120133600.GD12906@ns1.bonedaddy.net> Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that if you specify top load only (that they can't stack things on top of it) then there's sometimes an extra charge for that too. They make cardboard pyramids to tape to the top too to keep them from stacking on top without flattening it (though I've never had problems with just a label on each side saying "top load only" Todd * Ian S. King [150119 17:08]: > I have a fair amount of experience with this, too. When acquiring a > system, often there are a few large cabinets and a bunch of loose items > like cables, media and documentation. Put the loose things into boxes, > which can then be stacked on the pallet and shrink-wrapped to keep them > secure. There's also a pallet called a 'gaylord' that's a cardboard box > with a pallet base, which is good for loose items. Depending on the > condition of the large cabinets, I would usually ask for cardboard under > shrink-wrap. If there are protruding switches, I would either remove those > switch panels, wrap them liberally in bubble wrap and put them in the > gaylord, or if they couldn't be removed I'd use a thick block of styrofoam, > sometimes carved out a bit, taped and shrink-wrapped to the cabinet. > > One thing to ask: will the cabinets be upright the entire time? With a > PDP-15 I had shipped, it was far cheaper if they could ship it on its > side. So the seller used styrofoam to ensure that the Flip Chips stayed in > place, and got a commitment that it would be shipped on one particular > side, i.e. not rotated (he was worried about the power supplies ripping > loose). It got to Seattle in fine condition. > > There are two things about doing your own prep vs. having the shippers do > it. For one, if you do it you pay less money (but there is your time). If > they do it, there is the question of whether they are competent and/or open > to your input. I stopped using MoveIt when I got a crew that didn't give a > wet slap about my instructions - it was the first time I received items > with e.g., broken casters. (They denied responsibility because of the age > of the equipment!) After that I used EMOtrans pretty exclusively, and they > were great whether the job was from CA to WA or from Western Australia. > > Just my random neural firings?. -- Ian > > On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 12:33 PM, Todd Goodman wrote: > > > * Marc Verdiell [150118 12:24]: > > > Actually I need to learn more about this. What do they exactly do when > > they "palletize" things? Does that include wrapping/protecting the item and > > lifting/anchoring it on the pallet? How small and how large an item can > > they deal with? How much does the service cost? How do you "unpalletize it" > > at the other end? Do you need a forklift or a hydraulic pallet moving > > thingy on the receiving end? > > > > > > Marc > > > > > > I've palletized and shipped computer stuff as well as pinball machines > > as well as received both on pallets. > > > > Usually the shipper does the palletizing (unless they pay a pack and > > ship type place to do it for them.) You put the item or items on the > > pallet and usually band them to the pallet (there are all different > > kinds of bands you can use. Plastic bands with an S-clasp are easy to > > use but there are metal bands you crimp a clasp onto too as well as all > > kinds of others I'm sure.) I usually shrink wrap the items too. Often > > with cardboard around them. Sometimes crate them with a plywood box > > around the whole pallet. None of these will stop a forklift fork from > > going through but help with scuffs from pallets getting moved around. > > > > I've received pallets with just shrinkwrap holding items on the pallet. > > They've made it to me but the items tend to shift when moved around a > > lot. > > > > All the shipping I've done is based on the cubic size of the pallet with > > items on top. I believe if you go over the "standard"-ish sized pallets > > most probably have an additional charge (I've received some pallet > > shipments that required longer forks for the forklift than standard.) > > > > On the receiving end they can send a lift gate truck for a charge. Most > > freight companies want to know if it's coming and going to a residential > > or business address. By business address they usually mean a place > > that has a forklift or loading dock to unload. Residential usually > > means they'll send it on a lift gate truck and usually will call to > > arrange a delivery date and time (if it's a business delivery and they show > > up during business hours to deliver and no one is there there's usually > > a "redelivery" charge.) > > > > Amost all the freight companies I've dealt with will not go down a > > residential driveway (mine is 1/2 mile long so they definitely won't go > > down it.) Most send a tractor trailer to deliver. I meet them at the > > road with either a tractor with forks or my pickup truck (if they have a > > liftgate.) I've rented telehandlers (rough terrain telescoping boom > > forklifts) before too (wish I could get myself one of those!) > > > > The driver will have a pallet jack (a wheeled tool with two forks to go > > into/under the pallet and hydraulics that can lift it off the ground an > > inch or so to move the palleted items around. > > > > All freight companies I've dealt with will either get the pallets to the > > edge of the back of the truck (for business delivery) or onto the > > liftgate and onto the ground. Then it's up to the receiver to take it > > from there. > > > > To unpalletize it yourself it depends what it is. If it's really heavy > > then I'd move it close to it's location and then use a hoist or lift to > > get it off. Obviously if it's smaller items (maybe multiple boxes of > > items on the pallet) then it can just be pulled off one at a time. > > > > As other people have said palletizing stuff is *really* convenient for > > moving it around and isn't too hard to do. Around here there are many > > places that offer free pallets or for little money (though around here > > some people burn wood pallets so there's some competition to get them.) > > Most "chain" stores around here return their pallets so won't give them > > away but plumbing and heating, computer recyclers, and other places will > > often give them away. > > > > Places like uline.com (among many others) sell banding and shrinkwrap > > supplies that will last a lifetime if you're only shipping occasionally. > > > > Just my experience with it. > > > > Todd > > > > > > -- > Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS > Ph.D. Candidate > The Information School > University of Washington > > An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees it half empty. An > engineer sees it twice as large as it needs to be. From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 20 07:56:53 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 07:56:53 -0600 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> Mike wrote... ---- I have a 7970E in a 7971A rack, which can take two 7970E drives. I elected to mount a 2109E and a 9895A underneath the 7970E. ---- Nice rig. You have one of the "newer" style racks which have a more (industry) standard post/mounting setup. I had one or two of those, but got rid of them in favor of standardizing on the older style racks which I had more of (02940-90306). Plus my dual 2100-based Access system is in the "correct" rack, which was the dual bay with the front "running board" (29404B). HP rack docs for the stuff I use insist on the cpu's and most other devices going in one rack and the tape drives in a separate rack. I'd suspect for power distribution reasons (each rack held 20A). The HP specs for 2000/Access systems (as factory delivered at the time of printing at least) called for rack1 to hold the 2 cpus, rack2 to hold the tape and 13037 (disc) subsystem box, and all disk drives to be installed in one drive per "low boy" rack (29425A) ie. racks3-10 for a maximum config. I have two of the 29425A racks, one is actively in use (7906) and the other is waiting to be restored. I hope to use that one for this build but it will need a new formica top which probably won't be cheap to obtain. Not sure if I have all the skins/doors for it so I may have to just use the one already restored/running. So this system build will have 3 racks, two 2940's (one for two cpus, one for tape & 13037), and one of the 29425A's with a 7906. ---- I've also worked on a 7970E in the slanted "low boy" cabinet. There's a lot of wasted space in there. ---- Very cool. I've always wanted one of those, just cause they look so neat. But like Marc, I have never seen one in the wild. J From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 20 08:02:42 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 08:02:42 -0600 Subject: Still seeking 3B2 information In-Reply-To: References: <20150119194516.GA9021@loomcom.com> <54BD6322.60503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <00e701d034b9$c258d4a0$470a7de0$@classiccmp.org> Seth and Alan; Years ago I delivered a few 3b2's to Dan Cohoe. You might try pinging him to see if he has said cards with those roms... J From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 20 08:09:59 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 09:09:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: MEM11 Status Update Message-ID: <20150120140959.494E518C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Guy Sotomayor > a multi-function Unibus board that contains all of the more difficult > items to allow a PDP-11/20 to run Unix V1 entirely within the CPU > chassis. Other than the CPU and the RK11-D controller, everything else > will be on the MEM11 board. > ... > What's on the board is the following: > ... > RF11 controller with non-volatile memory emulating 8 RS11 drives What form is the NVM in - an SD card, or just a chip, or what? I assume it's flash memory of some kind? (What's the limit on the number of write cycles with current flash memory, I wonder...) BTW, a removable card would be great - that would provide a way to get bits into the machine, other than loading them all in over a serial line. I'm kind of curious about your decision to only have an RF11, given the capacity of contemporary flash memory chips/cards. Why not an RK11 too? (You may have plenty of RK controllers/drives, but some of the rest of us aren't so lucky... :-) Is there not enough room in the 16K code block to do that too? And how about an RP11 too, for those of us running these cards in later PDP-11's? :-) (Oh, speaking of the 16K limit - any way to increase the size? Probably not without munging the J1 architecture, I would guess - I need to go grab it and read it. But limited addresses spaces always turn out to bit you where it hurts... :-) > As I was competing the configuration UI, I found that I couldn't have > both the configuration UI and the emulation code both fit in 16K > (strings take up a lot of space). I seem to recall this problem from my days of writing packet switches for PDP-11's... :-) The code was famous for log messages that left out all the vowels, to save space.. :-) Please, make the UI as cryptic as needed to make all the features (e.g. more disk controllers :-) fit - documentation can explain what all the cryptic names are. (Or perhaps even a front-end running on a PC which is connected to the MEM11 over the serial line.) Don't take any of this to mean I don't think this is really, really neat, and very impressive - it's both! Needless (perhaps) to say, I'll be buying a stack of these when they are ready! :-) Noel From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Tue Jan 20 08:38:03 2015 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 09:38:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> References: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jan 2015, Jay West wrote: > > Mike wrote... > ---- > I have a 7970E in a 7971A rack, which can take two 7970E drives. I elected > to mount a 2109E and a 9895A underneath the 7970E. > ---- > Nice rig. You have one of the "newer" style racks which have a more > (industry) standard post/mounting setup. I had one or two of those, but got > rid of them in favor of standardizing on the older style racks which I had > more of (02940-90306). Plus my dual 2100-based Access system is in the > "correct" rack, which was the dual bay with the front "running board" > (29404B). Those 7971A cabinets are HEAVY, even without the 7970E! I'm very limited by space and rack availability. The 7970 came in the 7971. I took the whole rig to VCF East last year, along with a 2645A, a 2647A and a PC to run the HPDrive emulator, with RTE-6/VM. This year I'm exhibiting a TRS-80 Model 4. :-) > So this system build will have 3 racks, two 2940's (one for two cpus, one > for tape & 13037), and one of the 29425A's with a 7906. Nice setup. I'd like to find a 7906H, if such a thing exists in the wild any more. > ---- > I've also worked on a 7970E in the slanted "low boy" cabinet. There's a lot > of wasted space in there. > ---- > Very cool. I've always wanted one of those, just cause they look so neat. > But like Marc, I have never seen one in the wild. As I mentioned, not very space efficient. That was actually the first thing I worked on when I reported to work at Atlantic Tech Services in Gaithersburg, MD in 1986. They rolled out the 7970E and said, "Here, fix it". :-) "Okay, I need the service manual, a scope, and something to run the diagnostics on." They pointed me to a Tektronix scope sitting in a cabinet, and told me "Here's the scope, but we don't know how to use it." ATS was a 3rd party HP maintenance shop just getting started, but things ramped up very quickly. I really like the looks of the desk systems, like the 3000 Series 48. Space-wise though, I'm the lookout for a reasonably priced Series 42. There's been one on Ebay for months for $1,725 but I consider that excessive. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 20 09:05:00 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 09:05:00 -0600 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: References: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <010c01d034c2$76fc4b50$64f4e1f0$@classiccmp.org> Mike wrote... ---- Those 7971A cabinets are HEAVY, even without the 7970E! I'm very limited by space and rack availability. The 7970 came in the 7971. I took the whole rig to VCF East last year, along with a 2645A, a 2647A and a PC to run the HPDrive emulator, with RTE-6/VM. This year I'm exhibiting a TRS-80 Model 4. :-) ---- HP->TRS80 (due to weight/bulk) I SO get where you're coming from lol My last exhibit at VCFMW was single board computers, for that same reason! I'm not 100% sure yet, but my plan/hope is to bring all three bays to VCFMW and exhibit a running 2000/Access installation. I'm dreading the carriage and may still back out, but I'm still shooting for it. We'll see. Maybe. Perhaps if another collector wants to meet me in St. Louis to help load, and ride with up to VCFMW that would make it more palatable. I dunno. I've never been quite set up correctly to focus on RTE (due to TSB and RTE wanting different hardware configs), but after this particular build (and hopefully the exhibit), I'll add some things to allow me to easily run RTE. How did that HPDrive work out? I haven't done that yet. If I was to mount a PC in one of my HP racks with a 2100 or 21MX, I just don't think I could sleep at night. ---- I'd like to find a 7906H, if such a thing exists in the wild any more. ---- I've been able to find a pretty fair number of 7906's. Because my (current) os of choice is TSB, the H version (HPIB) is not an option. So any H's that I got, I converted to D's (swapping one board and some cable assemblies). If you want to spend cash, I know several commercial folks that are still selling the 7906's (either flavor). ---- I really like the looks of the desk systems, like the 3000 Series 48. Space-wise though, I'm on the lookout for a reasonably priced Series 42. There's been one on Ebay for months for $1,725 but I consider that excessive. ---- Yeah, I've been eyeing the same one. I would LOVE to have it... but in my (few) more sane moments I realize I just don't have the time/focus to take on another architecture these days. Best, J From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 20 09:14:39 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 09:14:39 -0600 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <010c01d034c2$76fc4b50$64f4e1f0$@classiccmp.org> References: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> <010c01d034c2$76fc4b50$64f4e1f0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <010d01d034c3$cf64a110$6e2de330$@classiccmp.org> Er, no. The one I've been eyeing on ebay is a 3000 series 58 (item 191476657165) But way too rich for my blood, and no time to dilute what little time I have for classiccmp :\ J From ggs at shiresoft.com Tue Jan 20 09:27:15 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 07:27:15 -0800 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <20150120140959.494E518C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150120140959.494E518C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54BE73D3.5080900@shiresoft.com> On 1/20/15 6:09 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Guy Sotomayor > > > a multi-function Unibus board that contains all of the more difficult > > items to allow a PDP-11/20 to run Unix V1 entirely within the CPU > > chassis. Other than the CPU and the RK11-D controller, everything else > > will be on the MEM11 board. > > ... > > What's on the board is the following: > > ... > > RF11 controller with non-volatile memory emulating 8 RS11 drives > > What form is the NVM in - an SD card, or just a chip, or what? I assume it's > flash memory of some kind? (What's the limit on the number of write cycles > with current flash memory, I wonder...) BTW, a removable card would be great > - that would provide a way to get bits into the machine, other than loading > them all in over a serial line. I'm using FRAM. They have unlimited write cycles and are accessed just like SRAM. I didn't want to have any sort of removable media as that bring its own sets of challenges. > > I'm kind of curious about your decision to only have an RF11, given the > capacity of contemporary flash memory chips/cards. Why not an RK11 too? (You > may have plenty of RK controllers/drives, but some of the rest of us aren't so > lucky... :-) Is there not enough room in the 16K code block to do that too? > And how about an RP11 too, for those of us running these cards in later > PDP-11's? :-) The RF11 is because it's "fixed" so I knew what the maximum size would be and didn't have to come up with a UI to allow for pack changes. Various disk emulators is another project. ;-) > > (Oh, speaking of the 16K limit - any way to increase the size? Probably not > without munging the J1 architecture, I would guess - I need to go grab it and > read it. But limited addresses spaces always turn out to bit you where it > hurts... :-) I looked at it but it's driven by the instruction encoding (all instructions are 16-bits). One cool thing is that the load immediate allows you to load 15 bits of data in one instruction so there's a bit of "fudging" to make constants not be a full 16-bits. ;-) Full 16-bit constants are possible, it's just that they take 3 instructions. ;-) > > > > As I was competing the configuration UI, I found that I couldn't have > > both the configuration UI and the emulation code both fit in 16K > > (strings take up a lot of space). > > I seem to recall this problem from my days of writing packet switches for > PDP-11's... :-) The code was famous for log messages that left out all the > vowels, to save space.. :-) The UI doesn't currently have any sort of "help" which makes me sad. However, I've been thinking about it and I still have plenty of space in the primary FRAM, so I may put all of the HELP text in there an have the HELP command just know where to look for the text. > > Please, make the UI as cryptic as needed to make all the features (e.g. more > disk controllers :-) fit - documentation can explain what all the cryptic > names are. (Or perhaps even a front-end running on a PC which is connected to > the MEM11 over the serial line.) That was my original thought (command front end) but that would mean writing/supporting a bunch of different programs for different OS/platforms and I want the MEM11 to pretty much stand on its own (which is why I'm unhappy about not having HELP...but I may have solved that one). I intentionally didn't make the UI cryptic. It's all command line driven and somewhat verbose (ie SET DL11 0 BASE-ADDRESS 777540). > > > Don't take any of this to mean I don't think this is really, really neat, and > very impressive - it's both! Needless (perhaps) to say, I'll be buying a stack > of these when they are ready! :-) I plan on producing as many as folks want (including a few for myself) but the realistic limit will be on the Unibus interface ICs. I have (at last inventory) enough for ~25 boards. After that I'll have to see if I can either source additional parts or re-design that part of the board to use something else. TTFN - Guy From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 20 10:03:10 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 10:03:10 -0600 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <54BE73D3.5080900@shiresoft.com> References: <20150120140959.494E518C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54BE73D3.5080900@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <013801d034ca$96d56530$c4802f90$@classiccmp.org> My hope is to drop one of these boards in my 11/45. The only issue is I'm afraid even though it will give the /45 maximum memory (as I understand it, Guys board includes the MMU) that it won't be enough to run my favored OS on that platform which is RT-11 (for about 10 seconds, yes, I know that will fit) and then TSX+ v5x (which I'm not sure will fit). I think the minimum memory for TSX+ is 256kb... but that's the minimum and I think Guys board would take the /45 to 128kw (256kb). Anyone know for sure if TSX+ will run on a /45 with 128kw? I think I have too many pdp11 racks and it could be time to thin the herd before too long. Or maybe I just need to get more space. Yah, that's the ticket! J From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 20 10:02:44 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 11:02:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: MEM11 Status Update Message-ID: <20150120160244.85CA018C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Guy Sotomayor > I'm using FRAM. They have unlimited write cycles Although I hear the latest flash have very, very large numbers of write cycles. But if you can get large enough FRAMs, yeah, they seem like a better alternative. > I didn't want to have any sort of removable media as that bring its own > sets of challenges. Oh well, back to loading all the bits in over a serial line (although I suppose if one has some other removable media drive, e.g. a RX02, one could get the bits in that way). >> (Or perhaps even a front-end running on a PC which is connected to >> the MEM11 over the serial line.) > That was my original thought (command front end) but that would mean > writing/supporting a bunch of different programs for different > OS/platforms Well, probably only at most two (Windoze and Linux), and maybe only one (since there are Windows emulation packages for Linux). Although if one stuck to a line-oriented interface, something like CygWin would allow one to have only one version. > and I want the MEM11 to pretty much stand on its own Oh, I agree that that's a worthy goal - the front-end would only be to make it 'user-friendly', instead of cryptic and terse. > the realistic limit will be on the Unibus interface ICs. I have (at > last inventory) enough for ~25 boards. After that I'll have to see if I > can either source additional parts or re-design that part of the board > to use something else. Yes, that _is_ a problem... Noel From b4 at gewt.net Tue Jan 20 10:20:23 2015 From: b4 at gewt.net (Cory Smelosky) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 11:20:23 -0500 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <013801d034ca$96d56530$c4802f90$@classiccmp.org> References: <20150120140959.494E518C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54BE73D3.5080900@shiresoft.com> <013801d034ca$96d56530$c4802f90$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: Can you upload your TSX+ images? The only ones I have are corrupted. Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 20, 2015, at 11:03, Jay West wrote: > > My hope is to drop one of these boards in my 11/45. The only issue is I'm > afraid even though it will give the /45 maximum memory (as I understand it, > Guys board includes the MMU) that it won't be enough to run my favored OS on > that platform which is RT-11 (for about 10 seconds, yes, I know that will > fit) and then TSX+ v5x (which I'm not sure will fit). > > I think the minimum memory for TSX+ is 256kb... but that's the minimum and I > think Guys board would take the /45 to 128kw (256kb). Anyone know for sure > if TSX+ will run on a /45 with 128kw? > > I think I have too many pdp11 racks and it could be time to thin the herd > before too long. Or maybe I just need to get more space. Yah, that's the > ticket! > > J > > From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 20 10:24:06 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 11:24:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: MEM11 Status Update Message-ID: <20150120162406.3043D18C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Jay West > My hope is to drop one of these boards in my 11/45. The only issue is > I'm afraid even though it will give the /45 maximum memory Well, there is that board (by Able?) that allowed a /45 to have up to 2MB of main memory. I know they exist[ed], we had one on our 11/45 at MIT 'BITD'. It didn't require any mods, it was a simple plugin - although my memory doesn't recall how the bus from the board to the memory worked, whether it used an over-the-back connector, or if the expansion board, and memory, plugged into a custom backplane (I have this vague memory that it could use Extended UNIBUS memory, a la 11/44, so maybe it was a custom backplane). I do recall that it had a whole separate set of mapping registers, to map the entire 'outbound' (from the CPU) UNIBUS to the larger memory, and also a UNIBUS map for the 'inbound' UNIBUS (from the devices) to map into the memory - i.e., it did not have access to the CPU mode/space signals, so it didn't have K/S/I PARs. One had to set up the mapping registers in the 11 as well. We used a static mapping where User I and D went to fixed chunks of address space in the 'outbound' UNIBUS, and the expansion MMU then mapped those chunks (variably) into the larger main memory. IIRC, we just changed the definition of the address of the User PAR registers (but kept the User PDRs), and the UNIBUS map registers (although maybe those were at the same locations as those in the 11/70), and then re-compiled the affected kernel modules. (The assembler startup required a bunch of changes, too.) I should have all that code on my backup tapes... That might not have supported I+D for K, S and I (since together they need 128KB*3 bytes, more than a complete UNIBUS address space), but it worked OK for the early Unix we were running. > I think I have too many pdp11 racks and it could be time to thin the > herd before too long. Or maybe I just need to get more space. Yah, > that's the ticket! Please put me on the list for an -11 stuff you get rid of... ;-) Noel From abs at absd.org Tue Jan 20 10:37:56 2015 From: abs at absd.org (David Brownlee) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:37:56 +0000 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <54BE73D3.5080900@shiresoft.com> References: <20150120140959.494E518C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54BE73D3.5080900@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: On 20 January 2015 at 15:27, Guy Sotomayor wrote: >> Please, make the UI as cryptic as needed to make all the features (e.g. >> more >> disk controllers :-) fit - documentation can explain what all the cryptic >> names are. (Or perhaps even a front-end running on a PC which is connected >> to >> the MEM11 over the serial line.) > > That was my original thought (command front end) but that would mean > writing/supporting a > bunch of different programs for different OS/platforms and I want the MEM11 > to pretty much > stand on its own (which is why I'm unhappy about not having HELP...but I may > have solved that > one). I intentionally didn't make the UI cryptic. It's all command line > driven and somewhat > verbose (ie SET DL11 0 BASE-ADDRESS 777540). One possible random thought - you could have a supporting program which just provides an enhanced CLI interface, with all the help, TAB for commandline completion etc, command history, plus local commands to load/save the config to a file and an xmodem implementation. It should be _relatively_ easy to keep it OS agnostic with small per OS methods for opening the serial port and reading characters from the CLI. The base system would still be completely standalone, but the enhanced UI would be easy to spin up for those who like a plush armchair CLI experience :) From abs at absd.org Tue Jan 20 10:38:39 2015 From: abs at absd.org (David Brownlee) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:38:39 +0000 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 In-Reply-To: <54BC58BE.9050005@update.uu.se> References: <54BC58BE.9050005@update.uu.se> Message-ID: On 19 January 2015 at 01:07, Johnny Billquist wrote: > TOPS-20? VMS? > Actually RSX internally also handles it fine, but there were bugs in various > code that displayed dates, that assumed that the year would never go beyond > 99. :-) IIRC there was a bug filed against VMS to the effect that dates past 9999 were not supported. Have to be impressed by that belief in future engineering :) I quite liked that the Gould UTC/32 system we used in 1987 had 32bit padding around any stored filesystem timestamp to allow for moving to 64bit time, ahh ECL systems... From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Tue Jan 20 10:44:15 2015 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 17:44:15 +0100 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <54BDE75F.2070501@shiresoft.com> References: <12cc273dc45c670d73c1044be397a0c3@store.go4retro.com> <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> <54BDE75F.2070501@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- From: Guy Sotomayor Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 6:27 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: MEM11 Status Update As some of you know I've been working (on and off again) a multi-function Unibus board that contains all of the more difficult items to allow a PDP-11/20 to run Unix V1 entirely within the CPU chassis. Other than the CPU and the RK11-D controller, everything else will be on the MEM11 board. Here's the background on what the MEM11 is and the current progress. TTFN - Guy Awesome Guy, excellent job! Looking forward to see some documentation. Having read the responses, these are my thoughts. Your current implemented device list is "good enough" for me, although I can understand that people would like simulated RK05 drives. But I do have an RK11 ... but RP11 will never be possible, isn't that MASSBUSS!? A real RX01 is not too difficult to obtain and would go nice with the /20. BTW, the RX01 emulator would also fit, giving you an emulated RX floppy drive on a PC connected via the LPT: port ... I'm rambling ... ;-) Ahhh, the "old story" of correct PDP-11 bus receivers/transceivers ... If you install the MEM11 "option", how much additional bus loading will you ever do? I can see an RK11 or RX11, but what else? So, wouldn't it be possible to use the TTL "replacements"? IIRC 7439 or something with those numbers. If I can afford the MEM11, I am in for one ... probably have to get my 11/20 CPU back in working order first though ! A stupid idea just came to me, forgive me. If there is room left on the PCB, would it be possible to add two 8-bit DACs? One connects to address lines 0~7, and the other to 8~15. If you add an old-style TEK scope (the one with the rectangular CRT in the middle and at both sides one plug-in unit) and connect the DAC outputs to X and Y, you can see "where in the memory" the CPU is fetching/storing data. I saw that "screen output device" once on a picture :-) Thanks for this great effort, looking forward to read/see more! - Henk, PA8PDP From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 20 11:04:04 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 12:04:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: MEM11 Status Update Message-ID: <20150120170404.2FAB918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Henk Gooijen > but RP11 will never be possible, isn't that MASSBUSS!? Maybe you're thinking of the RH70, the MASSBUS <-> PDP-11/70 memory bus interface? But there was also the RH11, a MASSBUS <-> UNIBUS interface, which supported all the same devices (RP04-6, etc) as the RH70, but plugged into a UNIBUS. (The two were programming-wise almost identical, the RH70 had an extra register for the extended memory address bits, plus a 'CSR3'.) But I was speaking of the RP11, a UNIBUS interface for the RP03 (different beast from the RH11, although very similar). Noel From abuse at cabal.org.uk Tue Jan 20 11:21:43 2015 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 17:21:43 +0000 Subject: RF Shield for the A1200 Needed In-Reply-To: <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> References: <12cc273dc45c670d73c1044be397a0c3@store.go4retro.com> <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <20150120172143.GA11698@mooli.org.uk> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 10:17:35PM -0600, Jim Brain wrote: > ANyone have a part like this: > "you might have the item i am looking for (from your vast collection of > parts) which is the RF Shield for the A1200. Looking for only the UPPER or > even UPPER/LOWER." The RF shield is completely redundant and is not necessary for correct operation of the machine. The retention tabs brittle and it's prone to corrosion, so the whole thing tends to get thrown away the first time one needs to poke around inside the machine. The original purpose of the shield is presumably to satisfy 1980s-era FCC emissions rules preventing stomping over HF, but that boat has *long* sailed and HF is just a wasteground now. (Here in EU-land, we never needed to give a damn about FCC regulations even back then.) It's also not a weird or obscure part, but just a thin sheet of steel that is cut and folded to fit the case. One could just take an existing shield and use it as a template to make a copy, and it's the sort of thing that any hackspace should be able to do easily. > I don't have Amiga parts, but would like to help this person. I've got two intact sets but they're still in machines, and I'm guessing that your buyer wouldn't make it worth my while to extract and post them. From wilson at dbit.com Tue Jan 20 11:35:57 2015 From: wilson at dbit.com (John Wilson) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 12:35:57 -0500 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <54BE73D3.5080900@shiresoft.com> References: <20150120140959.494E518C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54BE73D3.5080900@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <20150120173557.GA31803@dbit.dbit.com> On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 07:27:15AM -0800, Guy Sotomayor wrote: >I'm using FRAM. They have unlimited write cycles and are accessed >just like SRAM. I didn't >want to have any sort of removable media as that bring its own sets >of challenges. Aw sweet! I was going to jump in and suggest FRAM (it's the only part of my on-paper RF08/RS08 emulator that I've actually built) but you're way ahead of me. It's such cool stuff -- the parallel version might even make sense for an Omnibus RAM board, if we didn't already have new ones of those recently. I love the fact that a whole string of RS08s fits on a daughterboard that's about 2" square (with the serial version), and the write durability is way above a real RS08. This sounds like an unbelievably awesome project. Nice going! John Wilson D Bit From tmfdmike at gmail.com Tue Jan 20 08:05:05 2015 From: tmfdmike at gmail.com (Mike Ross) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 03:05:05 +1300 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <54BE58FF.9090705@shiresoft.com> References: <12cc273dc45c670d73c1044be397a0c3@store.go4retro.com> <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> <54BDE75F.2070501@shiresoft.com> <54BE58FF.9090705@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: RF11s? None. But I have an RP11 and RP02s :-) Put me down for three or four, and as beta tester if needed! Mike On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 2:32 AM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > Yes, it'll be useful for anything you want and will work in any Unibus > PDP-11. The original motivation was to allow Unix V1 to run on an 11/20 > without requiring an expansion chassis or trying to find unobtainium > devices (how may RF11/RS11s have you come across?). > > TTFN - Guy > > > On 1/19/15 11:10 PM, Mike Ross wrote: > >> Splendid news Guy! >> >> I presume this won't be restricted to just the 11/20, and just Unix V1.0? >> It will, tweaked as necessary, have more general utility? >> >> If so, the question won't be 'if?', it'll be 'how many can I afford??!!' >> :-) >> >> Mike >> >> On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 6:27 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: >> >> As some of you know I've been working (on and off again) a multi-function >>> Unibus board that contains all of the more difficult items to allow a >>> PDP-11/20 to run Unix V1 entirely within the CPU chassis. Other than the >>> CPU and the RK11-D controller, everything else will be on the MEM11 >>> board. >>> Here's the background on what the MEM11 is and the current progress. >>> >>> What's on the board is the following: >>> >>> * Up to 124KW of non-volatile memory >>> * Console Emulator ROM >>> * 4 Boot ROMs selected from 32 images on the board >>> * 2 DL11 SLUs >>> * RF11 controller with non-volatile memory emulating 8 RS11 drives >>> * KE11 EAE >>> * KW11K >>> * KW11L >>> * KW11P >>> * KW11W >>> >>> I know I went overboard with the KW11s as only the KW11L (line-time >>> clock) >>> is needed. >>> >>> Early on, because of the number of devices and trying to fit all of this >>> on a SPC-sized board so it can fit in the 11/20 chassis (can't fit in hex >>> sized cards) I decided to "soft" configure everything. That is, all of >>> the >>> configuration of the MEM11 will be done over one of the serial ports. To >>> get everything to fit on a board that small, I would need to have a >>> reasonable level of integration. This meant that I would be using an >>> FPGA >>> and with a few exceptions all components will be SMT (sorry folks, no >>> kits >>> on this one). >>> >>> I originally thought I would do everything in Verilog with no >>> microprocessor (for a whole host of reasons). I quickly realized that my >>> Verilog coding skills were not up to a task that large so I put the >>> project >>> on hold while I regrouped. I figured that I would have to integrate some >>> sort of microprocessor core into the FPGA but was not happy with any >>> that I >>> was finding. They were either very simple cores with poor tools support >>> or >>> very complex (ie big) cores that had reasonable tools. >>> >>> About 18 months ago, I came across a paper by James Bowman titled "J1: a >>> small Forth core for FPGAs". Best of all it was implemented in about 200 >>> lines of Verilog (ie it was incredibly small). Also available was a >>> complete cross environment (written in Forth of course). It produced >>> very >>> tight code. I spent a while trying to understand the J1, the cross build >>> environment and getting familiar with Forth again. >>> >>> I got serious in November 2014 in laying out the structure of how to put >>> everything together. I decided that the J1 would be fast enough (should >>> see ~100MIPs on the FPGA I plan to use) to actually do most of the device >>> emulation code in Forth with only enough Verilog to offload some of the >>> more performance critical bits. For example, the J1 is fast enough to >>> actually receive the Unibus transaction, read a word from the FRAM and >>> complete the Unibus transaction and still be close to maximum Unibus >>> throughput. >>> >>> I've spent most of my time writing Forth code to implement the emulation >>> of the devices and the configuration UI. I decided that by writing the >>> Forth code first, I would have a pretty good idea of how everything will >>> go >>> together. What the H/W will look like will fall out from that and if I >>> do >>> have to change the H/W interface only small changes will need to be made >>> to >>> the S/W. Forth lends itself to building up from a very low level to a >>> high >>> level where the high level is isolated from many of the low level >>> details. >>> >>> I've been coding furiously. As of tonight I have ~60% of the emulation >>> code written and 100% of the configuration UI (and it all builds). I'll >>> be >>> working on finishing off the emulation code and then starting on the >>> Verilog. Since I want to get familiar with running the J1 in a real >>> FPGA, >>> I'll be building code and testing the configuration UI on one of my FPGA >>> development boards. This also has the advantage of having (mostly) >>> tested >>> code when I actually have real MEM11 hardware. >>> >>> A few comments on the capabilities. Everything is configurable through >>> the configuration UI (ie you'll be able to change everything regarding >>> what >>> devices are enabled, what they're base addresses are, the interrupt >>> vector, >>> priority, frequency of the line clock, etc, etc). Basically, as I've >>> been >>> reading up on the devices, if there's a jumper or option on the device, >>> there will be a way to set it through the configuration UI. I also >>> decided >>> that to upload/download ROM images, memory images, etc that I would >>> provide >>> XMODEM capabilities. >>> >>> One thing that I decided on was that I wanted to be able to send code >>> updates to folks and not require them to have a JTAG probe in order to >>> perform an update (and hence the desire for XMODEM). So the code in the >>> FPGA is basically just a boot-loader that loads an image from an area of >>> non-volatile memory on the board. I'm allowing for 4 J1 images (16KB >>> each...the code address space for the J1) plus a "safe" boot image that >>> no >>> matter how screwed up everything is, you'll be able to fall back to that >>> image. >>> >>> As I was competing the configuration UI, I found that I couldn't have >>> both >>> the configuration UI and the emulation code both fit in 16K (strings take >>> up a lot of space). By the time I was done with the configuration UI I >>> was >>> hitting up against the 16K limit (presently there's about 200 bytes free >>> and there's a bit more refactoring that I could do if I need to get >>> really >>> aggressive). So my insight in having a boot loader and organizing along >>> those lines paid off. ;-) >>> >>> I'm sure there are a number of folks who will want one and are eager to >>> know what it'll cost. ;-) >>> >>> I have a basic BOM for the MEM11, but I haven't cost it out in a while so >>> while I *think* I know what it'll cost to produce, I'm not going to give >>> out pricing (even though a few folks know what my target is) until after >>> I >>> have a prototype built and working. >>> >>> Also, since there will be a high level of integration, I'm only going to >>> offer this only as a fully assembled and tested unit with all of the FPGA >>> programming, ROM emulation images, J1 code images and a reasonable >>> configuration setup. >>> >>> As I said, as of tonight, I've finished the configuration UI. I'll be >>> working on finishing up the emulation code. This is the biggest risk >>> since >>> I won't really be able to test the emulation code until I have an actual >>> prototype board built. Once all of the code is written, I'll be working >>> on >>> the Verilog. During all of this, I'll be doing some testing on my FPGA >>> evaluation board. >>> >>> Given my progress so far, I'm hoping (fingers crossed) to be testing a >>> prototype some time in June/July 2015. Once I have the prototype tested, >>> I'll have a good idea of the remaining work that needs to be done. At >>> that >>> point, I'll let folks know what the cost will be and will start to take >>> orders. Once I have a reasonable number of (committed) orders, I'll do a >>> production run. >>> >>> Ok, so this has been much longer than I expected. ;-) >>> >>> I'll update folks as the project progresses. >>> >>> TTFN - Guy >>> >>> >>> >>> >> > -- http://www.corestore.org 'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.' From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 20 11:47:31 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 09:47:31 -0800 Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 In-Reply-To: <005701d03417$dbfc6db0$93f54910$@computer.org> References: <20150118180601.GA18425@hugin2.pdp8online.com> <005701d03417$dbfc6db0$93f54910$@computer.org> Message-ID: <54BE94B3.5000506@bitsavers.org> On 1/19/15 10:43 AM, Tom Gardner wrote: > FWIW, microstepping goes back to at least the CDC SMD of the mid-70s and > even some stepper motor drives were microstepped. So there is no question > the XT2190 can do it. > Obviously, though with the limited documentation it would take some reverse engineering of the Maxtor servo system to do it. There is no way provided to do it from the 34 pin edge connector that I can see. Know anyone that has any Maxtor schematics squirreled away? Someone on Eric's board just asked if ESDI was backwards compatible to ST412 like it incorrectly states on Wikipedia, which got me to re-read the ESDI spec http://bitsavers.org/pdf/micropolis/ESDI_spec_X3.170-90.pdf and the good news is there were commands added to microposition the heads there. Doesn't help with the immediate problem, thought. This is all an interesting rathole, but I'm down too many others right now. I looked at an early ESDI spec in the CDC/discs directory, and there was a step-mode defined which was backwards compatbile, but I have no idea if any drives actually implemented it, since you still have separate clock and data on the 20-pin connnector so what's the point? From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Tue Jan 20 12:10:24 2015 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 13:10:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <010d01d034c3$cf64a110$6e2de330$@classiccmp.org> References: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> <010c01d034c2$76fc4b50$64f4e1f0$@classiccmp.org> <010d01d034c3$cf64a110$6e2de330$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jan 2015, Jay West wrote: > Er, no. The one I've been eyeing on ebay is a 3000 series 58 (item > 191476657165) > But way too rich for my blood, and no time to dilute what little time I have > for classiccmp :\ I've seen that one too, but it's WAY over my budget, not to mention being on the wrong coast. Oh hey, it's on sale! :-) Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Tue Jan 20 12:20:53 2015 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 19:20:53 +0100 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <20150120170404.2FAB918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150120170404.2FAB918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- From: Noel Chiappa Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 6:04 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Re: MEM11 Status Update > From: Henk Gooijen > but RP11 will never be possible, isn't that MASSBUSS!? Maybe you're thinking of the RH70, the MASSBUS <-> PDP-11/70 memory bus interface? But there was also the RH11, a MASSBUS <-> UNIBUS interface, which supported all the same devices (RP04-6, etc) as the RH70, but plugged into a UNIBUS. (The two were programming-wise almost identical, the RH70 had an extra register for the extended memory address bits, plus a 'CSR3'.) But I was speaking of the RP11, a UNIBUS interface for the RP03 (different beast from the RH11, although very similar). Noel Ahhh, thanks Noel. My goof up. I associate anything "RP" with MASSBUS devices. I even wrote "BUS" with double S. Clearly a case of finger movement on the keyboard before enabled brain activity ;-) I have both RH11 (on my 11/35) and RH70 interfaces on my /70, but I never saw any RPxx drive in real life :-/ - Henk, PA8PDP From chrise at pobox.com Tue Jan 20 12:53:25 2015 From: chrise at pobox.com (Chris Elmquist) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 12:53:25 -0600 Subject: RF Shield for the A1200 Needed In-Reply-To: <20150120172143.GA11698@mooli.org.uk> References: <12cc273dc45c670d73c1044be397a0c3@store.go4retro.com> <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> <20150120172143.GA11698@mooli.org.uk> Message-ID: <20150120185325.GA13173@n0jcf.net> On Tuesday (01/20/2015 at 05:21PM +0000), Peter Corlett wrote: > The original purpose of the shield is > presumably to satisfy 1980s-era FCC emissions rules preventing stomping over > HF, but that boat has *long* sailed and HF is just a wasteground now. Ummm. No. Speaking as both an Extra Class amateur operator active on HF and an electrical engineer developing embedded system products that must comply with the law, the boat has not sailed and HF is not a wasteground by any stretch of the imagination. > (Here in EU-land, we never needed to give a damn about FCC regulations > even back then.) Effectiveness of the shield being discussed aside, FCC part 15 absolutely still requires testing across the HF spectrum and up to 1 GHz. If the device will be used in a residential environment then you must submit your test results from a certified test house to the FCC for filing. In the EU, unintentional radiator emissions are governed by IEC, TC77, CISPR and ISO and devices need CE certification and labeling. The rules are far more strict than those in the US. See eg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_EMC_directives So, quite a number of people still care. Chris N0JCF -- Chris Elmquist From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 20 13:15:01 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 11:15:01 -0800 Subject: RF Shield for the A1200 Needed In-Reply-To: <20150120185325.GA13173@n0jcf.net> References: <12cc273dc45c670d73c1044be397a0c3@store.go4retro.com> <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> <20150120172143.GA11698@mooli.org.uk> <20150120185325.GA13173@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: <54BEA935.1020609@sydex.com> On 01/20/2015 10:53 AM, Chris Elmquist wrote: >> (Here in EU-land, we never needed to give a damn about FCC regulations >> even back then.) > > Effectiveness of the shield being discussed aside, FCC part 15 absolutely > still requires testing across the HF spectrum and up to 1 GHz. If the > device will be used in a residential environment then you must submit your > test results from a certified test house to the FCC for filing. Even in the evil old pre-EU days, it was prudent if one intended to market a device in West Germany, to ensure conformance with VDE specs. And VDE was tougher, as I recall, than FCC Part 15. --Chuck From bqt at update.uu.se Tue Jan 20 13:21:10 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 20:21:10 +0100 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <20150120170404.2FAB918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150120170404.2FAB918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54BEAAA6.5060704@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-20 18:04, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Henk Gooijen > > > but RP11 will never be possible, isn't that MASSBUSS!? > > Maybe you're thinking of the RH70, the MASSBUS <-> PDP-11/70 memory bus > interface? But there was also the RH11, a MASSBUS <-> UNIBUS interface, which > supported all the same devices (RP04-6, etc) as the RH70, but plugged into a > UNIBUS. (The two were programming-wise almost identical, the RH70 had an extra > register for the extended memory address bits, plus a 'CSR3'.) > > But I was speaking of the RP11, a UNIBUS interface for the RP03 (different > beast from the RH11, although very similar). Correct. One also needs to remember that the Massbus is a pure I/O bus. It's never a CPU bus. So you always needs to have a bus adapter if you are hooking up a Massbus drive to a machine. And of course, from the CPU point of view, you then talk to the bus adapter. So really, emulating any Massbus device on a PDP-11 is not a problem. You essentially emulate the Massbus adapter, and whatever sits behind that. And yes, for PDP-11s you had the RH11 that was the adapter, except for the 11/70 which used the RH70. Software downwards compatible, but the RH70 is more capable, in that it can do direct DMA to the whole memory space of the 11/70, without using the Unibus map. It's also a whole lot faster than the RH11, which means it can run some devices that the RH11 did not support. RP07, RM03, RM05 are the ones that comes to mind. Probably also the TU78. Johnny From spereira1952 at comcast.net Tue Jan 20 12:27:04 2015 From: spereira1952 at comcast.net (spereira1952 at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 18:27:04 +0000 (UTC) Subject: IMSAI PCS-80/15 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <847252792.4658917.1421778424491.JavaMail.zimbra@comcast.net> Hello from a lurker here, I am looking for a pointer to where I might be able to obtain the assembly / reference / user manual for the IMSAI PCS-80/15. Printed form or electronic copy, either way will be fine with me. Thanks very much, in advance, for your attention, and, hopefully, positive response! smp - - - Stephen Pereira Bedford, NH 03110 KB1SXE From djg at pdp8online.com Tue Jan 20 16:01:54 2015 From: djg at pdp8online.com (David Gesswein) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 17:01:54 -0500 Subject: SimH PDP-8 ttox device help In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150120220154.GA10513@hugin2.pdp8online.com> On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 07:02:22PM -0500, Kyle Owen wrote: > > I wanted to extend this to a VC8-E emulator, again in the simplest way > possible. I am sending out the X- and Y-coordinates for the point over > TTOX0, but seem to be encountering some problems. I noticed that it likes > to get hung up on a TSF (6411) instruction, causing it to keep looping even > in single-step mode! Assuming everything is buffered, I would be under the > assumption that TSF would almost always skip with a successful device send. > > I noticed David Gesswein opened up a somewhat related issue, now marked as > closed, in October 2013. https://github.com/simh/simh/issues/85 > SIMH has some delays to better match real hardware behavior. From my memory on when I was looking at this it still doesn't instantly raise the flag though allows much faster transfers than a real serial port. https://github.com/simh/simh/issues/86. The delay is in cycles not real time so single step still needs to execute the same number of cycles/instructions. From djg at pdp8online.com Tue Jan 20 16:08:52 2015 From: djg at pdp8online.com (David Gesswein) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 17:08:52 -0500 Subject: Sending 0377 via KL8JA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150120220852.GB10513@hugin2.pdp8online.com> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 12:39:49AM -0500, Kyle Owen wrote: > I am noticing something odd in SimH when sending a 0377 (all ones) > character. It seems to be duplicating the byte. I haven't read anything > regarding this behavior. I'm away from my hardware PDP-8 at the moment, so > I can't confirm that this is not the behavior that I would experience on > the real thing. > As others have commented this is a telnet thing. You can disable telnet and get a raw connection. For console I use set console telnet=2222;notelnet set tto 8b For other port I use att ttix 2222;notelnet set ttox 8b From matt at 9track.net Tue Jan 20 17:19:46 2015 From: matt at 9track.net (Matt Burke) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 23:19:46 +0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54BEE292.5040805@9track.net> On 20/01/2015 05:06, Robert Jarratt wrote: > Do you recall what EPROM you used and how its pinout differed from the ROM > you were replacing? As far as I can tell there is only one ROM on the board, > could it be both the character ROM and the firmware? > I used a 2716, but you will probably need a 2764 for the ROM in question. If you look at the four ROMs on the VT100 schematic you will see that the chip select pins are different for each one. Mask ROMs can be manufactured with any combination of chip select required whereas EPROMs are fixed. This means that the four mask ROMs can be installed in any order. There should be a separate ROM on the board for the character generator. The part number will be something like 23-018E2-00. It's usually soldered in. Matt From ggs at shiresoft.com Tue Jan 20 18:57:27 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:57:27 -0800 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <20150120160244.85CA018C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150120160244.85CA018C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54BEF977.70706@shiresoft.com> On 1/20/15 8:02 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Guy Sotomayor > > > I'm using FRAM. They have unlimited write cycles > > Although I hear the latest flash have very, very large numbers of write > cycles. But if you can get large enough FRAMs, yeah, they seem like a better > alternative. > > > I didn't want to have any sort of removable media as that bring its own > > sets of challenges. > > Oh well, back to loading all the bits in over a serial line (although I > suppose if one has some other removable media drive, e.g. a RX02, one could > get the bits in that way). It's not all that bad! ;-) When in UI mode, it'll support 115200 bps. When in emulation mode you'll be limited to 19200. Since the J1 has to process each character as it comes in from the UART, that takes time from emulation of other Unibus requests (so memory latency will go up slightly). Going too much faster and it would probably be noticeable and besides the PDP-11 probably won't keep up (at least and do very much with the characters). > > > >> (Or perhaps even a front-end running on a PC which is connected to > >> the MEM11 over the serial line.) > > > That was my original thought (command front end) but that would mean > > writing/supporting a bunch of different programs for different > > OS/platforms > > Well, probably only at most two (Windoze and Linux), and maybe only one (since > there are Windows emulation packages for Linux). Although if one stuck to a > line-oriented interface, something like CygWin would allow one to have only > one version. I do everything on a Mac. :-P Having ported "Unix" programs between Unix/Linux on various occasions, it's the details (like where header files live) that cause problems. I'll leave it up to someone else to do that. ;-) Oh, and one last thing that I forgot to mention. I'm building a "LED" board that attaches to the MEM11. The LED board will display all of the indicators for the RF11 controller in a layout similar to what was on a real RF11. I couldn't resist more blinkin lights. ;-) It's optional and will connect to the MEM11 with a small cable (I plan on using RS485 drivers for the cable) so the LED board can be a fair distance away. It'll fit as a 19" rack panel (I haven't looked at doing an overlay to make it look pretty) but it'll be somewhat generic (4 rows of 36 LEDs). TTFN - Guy From kspt.tor at gmail.com Tue Jan 20 20:12:47 2015 From: kspt.tor at gmail.com (Tor Arntsen) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 03:12:47 +0100 Subject: Operating systems of the 1970s handling dates beyond the year 2000 Message-ID: On 20 January 2015 at 17:38, David Brownlee wrote: > IIRC there was a bug filed against VMS to the effect that dates past > 9999 were not supported. Have to be impressed by that belief in future > engineering :) There are, or were, some other forward-thinking people out there.. from Wikipedia: "St. James's Gate Brewery (Irish: Gr?dlann Gheata Naomh S?amuis) is a brewery founded in 1759 in Dublin, Ireland, by Arthur Guinness. [..] The main product of the brewery is Guinness Draught.[..] Originally leased in 1759 to Arthur Guinness at ?45 per year for 9,000 years" (So although it looks like our decendants may run out of Guinness before VMS runs into date problems, no worries, they've since bought out the originally leased property. But good thinking still.) -Tor From ggs at shiresoft.com Tue Jan 20 18:48:59 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:48:59 -0800 Subject: MEM11 Status Update (Guy Sotomayor) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54BEF77B.6030008@shiresoft.com> On 1/20/15 4:42 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: >> Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:27:59 -0800 >> From: Guy Sotomayor >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: MEM11 Status Update >> >> As some of you know I've been working (on and off again) a >> multi-function Unibus board that contains all of the more difficult >> items to allow a PDP-11/20 to run Unix V1 entirely within the CPU >> chassis. Other than the CPU and the RK11-D controller, everything else >> will be on the MEM11 board. Here's the background on what the MEM11 is >> and the current progress. >> >> What's on the board is the following: >> >> * Up to 124KW of non-volatile memory >> * Console Emulator ROM >> * 4 Boot ROMs selected from 32 images on the board >> * 2 DL11 SLUs >> * RF11 controller with non-volatile memory emulating 8 RS11 drives >> * KE11 EAE >> * KW11K >> * KW11L >> * KW11P >> * KW11W >> >> >> TTFN - Guy >> >> ****************** >> > I am working on a similar project for the Omnibus. I am connecting a > Microsemi SmartFusion FPGA to the Omnibus, and doing the peripheral > emulation in a combination of the FPGA and Linux running on the ARM > Cortex-M3 hard core in the FPGA. Anything with timing restrictions goes in > the FPGA. Everything else goes in Linux as a combination of a device driver > and an application. > > For simplicity, I am starting with programmed I/O devices, with the paper > tape reader/punch first. I should be able to add serial ports, printer > ports, analog I/O, diskettes, card reader, and maybe DECtape. Later I will > add data break (DMA) and add disks and mag tape. I am planning to keep the > disk images in flash, load them into RAM and run from there, and save them > back to flash if the processor is halted. > > The MI8E bootloader wiggles the same Omnibus signals as the front panel. I > could have the FPGA do the same, and load any one of a selection of > bootloaders. > > I am not adding memory, because a nice 32kW RAM board already exists. An Omnibus version of the MEM11 (slightly different device set obviously) is also on my list of things to do too...I have a long list of projects like this. Just not enough time to get them done right now. You know, that whole work thing where you get paid. ;-) I avoided ARM because I wanted the "firmware" to be really lean and mean. What I have on the MEM11 isn't much leaner. ;-) TTFN - Guy From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Tue Jan 20 18:42:14 2015 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 19:42:14 -0500 Subject: MEM11 Status Update (Guy Sotomayor) Message-ID: > > Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:27:59 -0800 > From: Guy Sotomayor > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: MEM11 Status Update > > As some of you know I've been working (on and off again) a > multi-function Unibus board that contains all of the more difficult > items to allow a PDP-11/20 to run Unix V1 entirely within the CPU > chassis. Other than the CPU and the RK11-D controller, everything else > will be on the MEM11 board. Here's the background on what the MEM11 is > and the current progress. > > What's on the board is the following: > > * Up to 124KW of non-volatile memory > * Console Emulator ROM > * 4 Boot ROMs selected from 32 images on the board > * 2 DL11 SLUs > * RF11 controller with non-volatile memory emulating 8 RS11 drives > * KE11 EAE > * KW11K > * KW11L > * KW11P > * KW11W > > > TTFN - Guy > > ****************** > I am working on a similar project for the Omnibus. I am connecting a Microsemi SmartFusion FPGA to the Omnibus, and doing the peripheral emulation in a combination of the FPGA and Linux running on the ARM Cortex-M3 hard core in the FPGA. Anything with timing restrictions goes in the FPGA. Everything else goes in Linux as a combination of a device driver and an application. For simplicity, I am starting with programmed I/O devices, with the paper tape reader/punch first. I should be able to add serial ports, printer ports, analog I/O, diskettes, card reader, and maybe DECtape. Later I will add data break (DMA) and add disks and mag tape. I am planning to keep the disk images in flash, load them into RAM and run from there, and save them back to flash if the processor is halted. The MI8E bootloader wiggles the same Omnibus signals as the front panel. I could have the FPGA do the same, and load any one of a selection of bootloaders. I am not adding memory, because a nice 32kW RAM board already exists. -- Michael Thompson From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 20 19:07:27 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 19:07:27 -0600 Subject: MEM11 Status Update (Guy Sotomayor) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005701d03516$a0478a20$e0d69e60$@classiccmp.org> It was written... ---- I am working on a similar project for the Omnibus. ---- Please, keep us posted as to progress. I will want one for sure. ---- I am not adding memory, because a nice 32kW RAM board already exists. ---- Yep, it?s a great board (the 32kw) one. I have it assembled, but haven't installed yet as the three bay 8e is currently quite buried :) J From mstaunton at roadrunner.com Tue Jan 20 20:20:01 2015 From: mstaunton at roadrunner.com (Matthew Staunton) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 18:20:01 -0800 Subject: San Diego, CA: 1991 ERA AS400 Message-ID: Sorry got really sick. Below is the model numbers. I will supply more info if anybody is interested Pricing is open due to shipping weight is included CRT monitors working with cables HP A4033A 65lbs HP A45764 75lbs servers/workstations HP Visualize C180 30lbs HP Apollo 400 MOD#A2193A 90lbs Mentor Graphics HLN5065W 100lbs I clan also be contacted via cell 7607030986 From tmfdmike at gmail.com Tue Jan 20 21:16:09 2015 From: tmfdmike at gmail.com (Mike Ross) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 16:16:09 +1300 Subject: MEM11 Status Update (Guy Sotomayor) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 1:42 PM, Michael Thompson < michael.99.thompson at gmail.com> wrote: > > I am not adding memory, because a nice 32kW RAM board already exists. > > -- > Michael Thompson > Which board would that be? I should probably stock up on some! Mike http://www.corestore.org 'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.' From b4 at gewt.net Wed Jan 21 01:03:58 2015 From: b4 at gewt.net (Cory Smelosky) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 02:03:58 -0500 Subject: San Diego, CA: 1991 ERA AS400 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7D9CB56D-AC31-47C5-BE5F-C83126F303C6@gewt.net> Id love the Apollo. List a starting price. Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 20, 2015, at 21:20, Matthew Staunton wrote: > > Sorry got really sick. Below is the model numbers. I will supply more info if anybody is interested > Pricing is open due to shipping weight is included > > CRT monitors working with cables > HP A4033A 65lbs > HP A45764 75lbs > > servers/workstations > HP Visualize C180 30lbs > HP Apollo 400 MOD#A2193A 90lbs > Mentor Graphics HLN5065W 100lbs > I clan also be contacted via cell 7607030986 > From abuse at cabal.org.uk Wed Jan 21 07:04:41 2015 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 13:04:41 +0000 Subject: RF Shield for the A1200 Needed In-Reply-To: <20150120185325.GA13173@n0jcf.net> References: <12cc273dc45c670d73c1044be397a0c3@store.go4retro.com> <54BDD6DF.6000806@jbrain.com> <20150120172143.GA11698@mooli.org.uk> <20150120185325.GA13173@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: <20150121130441.GA32100@mooli.org.uk> On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 12:53:25PM -0600, Chris Elmquist wrote: > On Tuesday (01/20/2015 at 05:21PM +0000), Peter Corlett wrote: >> The original purpose of the shield is presumably to satisfy 1980s-era FCC >> emissions rules preventing stomping over HF, but that boat has *long* sailed >> and HF is just a wasteground now. > Ummm. No. Speaking as both an Extra Class amateur operator active on HF and > an electrical engineer developing embedded system products that must comply > with the law, the boat has not sailed and HF is not a wasteground by any > stretch of the imagination. The bellyaching from British hams about dodgy ADSL and powerline kit stomping over HF must be a complete figment of my imagination then. >> (Here in EU-land, we never needed to give a damn about FCC regulations even >> back then.) > Effectiveness of the shield being discussed aside, FCC part 15 absolutely > still requires testing across the HF spectrum and up to 1 GHz. If the device > will be used in a residential environment then you must submit your test > results from a certified test house to the FCC for filing. > In the EU, unintentional radiator emissions are governed by IEC, TC77, CISPR > and ISO and devices need CE certification and labeling. The rules are far > more strict than those in the US. I have but a lay understanding of the various rules regarding CE marking, but it's still ultimately a self-certification scheme that doesn't seem to see much enforcement in the UK. Occasionally there's a news story about Trading Standards doing a bust on counterfeit and mismarked goods, but it's like drug busts in that it's newsworthy because its a rare occurence, and supply mostly continues unabated. In particular, OFCOM is the government department whose job it is to police the radio spectrum, and enforcement is slow and spotty. Given I could probably stand outside of their office with a FM radio and pick up a half-dozen pirate radio stations, this is very much a department that needs a boot up its arse. Long gone are the days of the Radiocommunications Agency whose officers had much the same search and seizure powers as Customs and tax officials, but without the cheerful and forgiving nature. From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Wed Jan 21 07:55:47 2015 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 08:55:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <010c01d034c2$76fc4b50$64f4e1f0$@classiccmp.org> References: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> <010c01d034c2$76fc4b50$64f4e1f0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jan 2015, Jay West wrote: > I've never been quite set up correctly to focus on RTE (due to TSB and RTE > wanting different hardware configs), but after this particular build (and > hopefully the exhibit), I'll add some things to allow me to easily run RTE. > How did that HPDrive work out? I haven't done that yet. If I was to mount a > PC in one of my HP racks with a 2100 or 21MX, I just don't think I could > sleep at night. HPDrive works well for RTE-6/VM. I had it set up to emulate a 7925H, and loaded it up with some additional software and games (everyone wants to play games, even on a mini). I had 3 login sessions going, one each on the 2645A, the 2647A and on the PC running QCTerm through a serial port. I had the PC hidden under the table. :-) Someone needs to come up with the hardware equivalent of HPDrive so we don't need to dedicate an entire Windoze system just to emulate a drive. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 21 08:11:53 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 08:11:53 -0600 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: References: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> <010c01d034c2$76fc4b50$64f4e1f0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <002401d03584$3567ba90$a0372fb0$@classiccmp.org> Mike wrote... ---- HPDrive works well for RTE-6/VM. I had it set up to emulate a 7925H, and loaded it up with some additional software and games (everyone wants to play games, even on a mini). I had 3 login sessions going, one each on the 2645A, the 2647A and on the PC running QCTerm through a serial port. ---- I found a reseller offering "tested working 7925's in quantity". I just may pick up a couple, but not cheap. Need more room to put them though. ---- I had the PC hidden under the table. :-) ---- Good call :) ---- Someone needs to come up with the hardware equivalent of HPDrive so we don't need to dedicate an entire Windoze system just to emulate a drive. ---- I am not 100% positive, but I think this was already done. Didn't Bob Shannon build up an HP<->IDEdrive rig? Not sure if he did it just for himself, or something that was available to the community. Bob isn't really active in the classiccmp community at the moment but might be again "some day". I think one issue is that half the folks insist on using an HPIB interface which is of no use to the HP2000 folks (currently, that may change). I don't recall if the drive was identical to one RTE supported or if it needed a unique driver to support it. A modern board with a couple 7925's in FRAM would be rather nice ;) I can think of at least one other interface cardset that would be "helpful" in such a product *grin* J From hachti at hachti.de Wed Jan 21 08:13:46 2015 From: hachti at hachti.de (Philipp Hachtmann) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 15:13:46 +0100 Subject: Data Products 2230 manual - desperation.... Message-ID: <54BFB41A.1030406@hachti.de> Hi again, no one has that manual part one?!? I'm getting depressed :-( Nobody has an idea who could have it? Regards Philipp From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 21 08:35:34 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 08:35:34 -0600 Subject: HP modern peripherals (was RE: HP tape drive novel repair Message-ID: <001b01d03587$84992330$8dcb6990$@classiccmp.org> Mike wrote... ---- Someone needs to come up with the hardware equivalent of HPDrive so we don't need to dedicate an entire Windoze system just to emulate a drive. ---- To which I replied... ---- I am not 100% positive, but I think this was already done [snip] ---- Here is the magic: http://newton.freehostia.com/hp/ Note that this implementation uses a standard off the shelf dup reg board. That choice has major pluses, but the downside means you have to write a driver for any OS you want to use it with (RTE, HP2K, etc.). Maybe it's a starting point anyways.... J From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Wed Jan 21 08:43:09 2015 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 09:43:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <002401d03584$3567ba90$a0372fb0$@classiccmp.org> References: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> <010c01d034c2$76fc4b50$64f4e1f0$@classiccmp.org> <002401d03584$3567ba90$a0372fb0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <201501211443.JAA27120@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > I think one issue is that half the folks insist on using an HPIB > interface [...] I don't suppose there's anything like HPdrive in the open-source world? I've had building something to act like an HPIB disk as a blue-sky project for some years, and, while I may still do it, if someone has already done it I would love to find out about it. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Wed Jan 21 09:21:45 2015 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 10:21:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <201501211443.JAA27120@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> <010c01d034c2$76fc4b50$64f4e1f0$@classiccmp.org> <002401d03584$3567ba90$a0372fb0$@classiccmp.org> <201501211443.JAA27120@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: On Wed, 21 Jan 2015, Mouse wrote: > Jay West wrote: >> I think one issue is that half the folks insist on using an HPIB >> interface [...] I'm one of those folks. I'm more interested in later OS, and HPIB peripherals are what I worked with on the HP 3000 systems. Plus, I wouldn't need a 13037C to control a 7925M. :-) > I don't suppose there's anything like HPdrive in the open-source world? > I've had building something to act like an HPIB disk as a blue-sky > project for some years, and, while I may still do it, if someone has > already done it I would love to find out about it. Anders Gustafsson has designed a GPIB disk emulator that currently emulates several Amigo and SS/80 drives: 9121D, 9122D and 9134D: http://www.dalton.ax/hpdisk/ If someone had the time, it should be possible to extend the firmware to support bigger drives like the 7925H or 7935. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From j at ckrubin.us Wed Jan 21 09:38:46 2015 From: j at ckrubin.us (Jack Rubin) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 15:38:46 +0000 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? Message-ID: This seems like some pretty cool stuff that might be useful in restoration work. Has anyone tried it? http://sugru.com/about From ik at yvanj.me Wed Jan 21 10:11:55 2015 From: ik at yvanj.me (Yvan Janssens) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 16:11:55 +0000 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've used it in the past, and it's particularly useful for e.g. modern day Apple PSUs to prevent the power cable from breaking when stowing it away, or on headphones with way to flimsy joints between the connector and the cable. It's fairly easy to use, and doesn't leave a huge mess when you use it. 2015-01-21 15:38 GMT+00:00 Jack Rubin : > This seems like some pretty cool stuff that might be useful in restoration > work. Has anyone tried it? > > http://sugru.com/about > -- Kind regards, Yvan Janssens Sent using CompuServe 1.22 From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 21 11:29:08 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 12:29:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: MEM11 Status Update Message-ID: <20150121172908.D86C218C098@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Guy Sotomayor > I'm building a "LED" board that attaches to the MEM11. ... I couldn't > resist more blinkin lights. Oh frabjous day! Das blinken-litz!! Excellent!!! Now I'm _really_ going to want a stack of these... :-) > The LED board will display all of the indicators for the RF11 > controller in a layout similar to what was on a real RF11. ... > It's optional and will connect to the MEM11 with a small cable (I plan > on using RS485 drivers for the cable) so the LED board can be a fair > distance away. Hmm. Looking at the original RF11 display panel, some of it may be impossible to really emulate; e.g. it displays the contents of the shift register used to assemble words from the bit stream being read from the disk; it's probably not feasible to emulate that... And of course, many of the error bits only make sense with an actual disk (e.g. the various Timing Track errors). How much bandwidth will you have from the board to the display panel anyway? I assume there will be latches on the display panel, and one sends commands down the link to turn given latches on/off? Looking at the original display panel, although it had the extended memory bits, it didn't show the memory address (it does have the disk address). Maybe we could put that where the shift register display used to be? (And speaking of the original display, I couldn't find a picture of one - does someone have one, or, better yet, an actual RF11, so as to copy the look of it as closely as possible?) > (I haven't looked at doing an overlay to make it look pretty) Oh, yes, please do!!! > it'll be somewhat generic (4 rows of 36 LEDs). I counted up (no doubt you did the same :-), and on the longest row (at the top), there are 30 lights, plus 4 empty spaces for the gaps between blocks, so 36 is good. Will you be grouping them in 3's, with slightly larger gaps between each group of 3? That would really maximize the ability to look just like the old RF11 display panel. And warm white LED's, please (of course :-). I'm really going to have to get going on my UNIBUS PDP-11's. I've mostly been working on the QBUS ones, but if I can have blinking lights... :-) I'm already planning on how I can put /, /bin and the pipe device on separate RF platters, so I can watch the lights and see what the machine is up to.. :-) Noel From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 21 11:29:56 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 11:29:56 -0600 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: References: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> <010c01d034c2$76fc4b50$64f4e1f0$@classiccmp.org> <002401d03584$3567ba90$a0372fb0$@classiccmp.org> <201501211443.JAA27120@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <004801d0359f$e0bae000$a230a000$@classiccmp.org> Mike wrote... ---- I'm one of those folks. I'm more interested in later OS, and HPIB peripherals are what I worked with on the HP 3000 systems. ---- And therein lies the issue making it a more daunting task. If someone designs a replacement that is HPIB, the 2000/Access people are left out. If someone designs a replacement that is for the prior generation (7905, 06, 25M, etc.) then the HP-IB users are left out which makes the target "market" smaller (in either scenario) and less people contributing to the "kit". BUT... asking someone to design one that handles BOTH probably makes it a far more daunting task and thus leaves those with the skillset to do it less interested! ---- Plus, I wouldn't need a 13037C to control a 7925M. :-) ---- Mike, I have a spare 13037C or two... come, to the dark side... LOL J From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 21 11:54:30 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 09:54:30 -0800 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <004801d0359f$e0bae000$a230a000$@classiccmp.org> References: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> <010c01d034c2$76fc4b50$64f4e1f0$@classiccmp.org> <002401d03584$3567ba90$a0372fb0$@classiccmp.org> <201501211443.JAA27120@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <004801d0359f$e0bae000$a230a000$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54BFE7D6.4070908@bitsavers.org> On 1/21/15 9:29 AM, Jay West wrote: > If > someone designs a replacement that is for the prior generation (7905, 06, > 25M, etc.) then the HP-IB users are left out which makes the target "market" > smaller They are fundamentally different problems. You want a dumb little box with an HPIB connector that does not require new drivers in the SS80/CS80 space and a single 2100 form factor card with compatible CTL logic for 2100s and 1000s, similar what is being done for Omnibus and Unibus. I was disappointed when HPDrive sources were never released, because I spent a considerable amount of time and money to collect the CS80 peripherals that were needed to acquire all of the IDENT information it now uses. At least (so far) he is still distributing that information in cleartext. From tshoppa at wmata.com Wed Jan 21 12:01:54 2015 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 18:01:54 +0000 Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 Message-ID: <303A17BD5F8FA34DA45EEC245271AC0BB7409FCF@JGEX2K10MBX2.wmata.local> Al writes: > On 1/19/15 10:43 AM, Tom Gardner wrote: >> FWIW, microstepping goes back to at least the CDC SMD of the mid-70s >> and even some stepper motor drives were microstepped. So there is no >> question the XT2190 can do it. > Obviously, though with the limited documentation it would take some reverse engineering of the Maxtor servo system to do it. There is no way provided to do it from the 34 pin edge connector that I can see. My belief (perhaps unfounded) always was that when a XT2190 begins emitting "squeals and beeps" it is because the MFM interface has asserted "recovery mode" and it is microstepping. Oh, 20 years I was abandoning XT2190's whenever I could! I dreaded walking into the lab to find the RD54's emitting squeaks and beeps indicating problems reading them. Are the squeals and beeps from the head positioner, or is there a separate piezo element for those? It was really loud and obvious and would not be surprised if there was a piezo beeper just for making them. Then again firmware in the drive may have known how to make the head positioner squeal too. Perhaps the squeals and beeps were not recovery mode but simply re-calibrating on track zero. From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 21 12:01:52 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 10:01:52 -0800 Subject: Genrad/Futuredata and HP 64000/64700 documentation Message-ID: <54BFE990.6020504@bitsavers.org> Thanks to Lyle mentioning Manuals Plus, I acquired all of the docs that they still had on the Futuredata 2300, which is now up under http://bitsavers.org/pdf/futuredata If anyone still has a 2300, 01, or 02 I would like to archive the prom and floppies from them. I've also been working through or rescanning at a higher resolution, 64100/110 docs. Information on the 64120/64000-UX system would be interesting to find. In addition I've made progress on the 64700A/B. There is very little information on the earlier 64700A on line. Surviving software for those emulators would be good to find. I did pick up a B3763-14604 CD from 1997 which appears to have the PC version of the software (and the flash files). We'll see what happens when I try to get a 68030 pod working on a 64700B that had a 68332 pod on it. From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 21 12:13:49 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 12:13:49 -0600 Subject: Genrad/Futuredata and HP 64000/64700 documentation In-Reply-To: <54BFE990.6020504@bitsavers.org> References: <54BFE990.6020504@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <009901d035a6$01b58160$05208420$@classiccmp.org> Al - as usual, "THANKS" just isn't enough. THANKS*1000 - still not enough. Thanks! J From mhs.stein at gmail.com Wed Jan 21 12:23:42 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 13:23:42 -0500 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair References: <00ba01d034b8$f30d0d10$d9272730$@classiccmp.org> <010c01d034c2$76fc4b50$64f4e1f0$@classiccmp.org> <002401d03584$3567ba90$a0372fb0$@classiccmp.org> <201501211443.JAA27120@Stone.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <004801d0359f$e0bae000$a230a000$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <2959AD043FEE48F3B620E42AA853A6E6@310e2> And what about us HP-IL folks ? JK ;-) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: ; "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2015 12:29 PM Subject: RE: HP tape drive novel repair > Mike wrote... > ---- > I'm one of those folks. I'm more interested in later OS, and HPIB > peripherals are what I worked with on the HP 3000 systems. > ---- > And therein lies the issue making it a more daunting task. If someone > designs a replacement that is HPIB, the 2000/Access people are left out. > If > someone designs a replacement that is for the prior generation (7905, 06, > 25M, etc.) then the HP-IB users are left out which makes the target > "market" > smaller (in either scenario) and less people contributing to the "kit". > BUT... asking someone to design one that handles BOTH probably makes it a > far more daunting task and thus leaves those with the skillset to do it > less > interested! > > ---- > Plus, I wouldn't need a 13037C to control a 7925M. :-) > ---- > Mike, I have a spare 13037C or two... come, to the dark side... LOL > > J > > From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 21 12:58:21 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 10:58:21 -0800 Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 In-Reply-To: <303A17BD5F8FA34DA45EEC245271AC0BB7409FCF@JGEX2K10MBX2.wmata.local> References: <303A17BD5F8FA34DA45EEC245271AC0BB7409FCF@JGEX2K10MBX2.wmata.local> Message-ID: <54BFF6CD.4060405@bitsavers.org> On 1/21/15 10:01 AM, Shoppa, Tim wrote: > My belief (perhaps unfounded) always was that when a XT2190 begins emitting "squeals and beeps" it is because the MFM interface has asserted "recovery mode" and it is microstepping. > > Are the squeals and beeps from the head positioner > The patent I pointed to talks about their track positioning algorithm. I think what you're hearing is the voice coil acceleration ramps reflected in the mechanics of the arm. I tried powering up the $10 as-is 2190 I bought. The positioner is trying to move but it sure doesn't sound healthy. I re-read the OEM manual http://bitsavers.org/pdf/maxtor/1014286A_XT1000_2000_OEM.pdf and there is no "recovery mode" pin on the edge connector. Pin 16 of the 34 pin connector is jumpered to pin 7 of the 20 pin connector to provide an indication that both cables are plugged into the drive. From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 21 18:48:28 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 18:48:28 -0600 Subject: equipment available Message-ID: <000601d035dd$2399f040$6acdd0c0$@classiccmp.org> I received the offer below, contact me off-list if interested. J I have two MicroPDP 11/73 computers I would like to sell. Last time I checked (5 years ago) they were working just fine. They have hard drives, no tape drives and were running DCL. I have no manuals and no console terminal. They are very heavy, so shipping is not an option. I am located in Eastern Pennsylvania, between Allentown and Philadelphia. From shumaker at att.net Wed Jan 21 20:57:28 2015 From: shumaker at att.net (steve shumaker) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 18:57:28 -0800 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> On 1/21/2015 7:38 AM, Jack Rubin wrote: > This seems like some pretty cool stuff that might be useful in restoration work. Has anyone tried it? > > http://sugru.com/about > > instructables.com has a long list of projects that use this stuff. Lots of tips, suggestions and ideas. Steve From tony.aiuto at gmail.com Wed Jan 21 21:46:56 2015 From: tony.aiuto at gmail.com (Tony Aiuto) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 22:46:56 -0500 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> Message-ID: great stuff. the problem is that it gets expensive pretty quickly unless you have enough projects to use a packet at a time. Shelf life after opening is really short. On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 9:57 PM, steve shumaker wrote: > On 1/21/2015 7:38 AM, Jack Rubin wrote: > >> This seems like some pretty cool stuff that might be useful in >> restoration work. Has anyone tried it? >> >> http://sugru.com/about >> >> >> > instructables.com has a long list of projects that use this stuff. Lots > of tips, suggestions and ideas. > > Steve > From ggs at shiresoft.com Wed Jan 21 22:20:08 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 20:20:08 -0800 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <20150121172908.D86C218C098@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150121172908.D86C218C098@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54C07A78.6080701@shiresoft.com> On 1/21/15 9:29 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Guy Sotomayor > > > I'm building a "LED" board that attaches to the MEM11. ... I couldn't > > resist more blinkin lights. > > Oh frabjous day! Das blinken-litz!! Excellent!!! > > Now I'm _really_ going to want a stack of these... :-) > > > The LED board will display all of the indicators for the RF11 > > controller in a layout similar to what was on a real RF11. ... > > It's optional and will connect to the MEM11 with a small cable (I plan > > on using RS485 drivers for the cable) so the LED board can be a fair > > distance away. > > Hmm. Looking at the original RF11 display panel, some of it may be impossible > to really emulate; e.g. it displays the contents of the shift register used > to assemble words from the bit stream being read from the disk; it's probably > not feasible to emulate that... And of course, many of the error bits only > make sense with an actual disk (e.g. the various Timing Track errors). No, it'll be close and look similar but won't have all of the bits that are on the original RF11. But it will have other stuff (such as the memory address) so I think the same number of bits will actually be used. > > How much bandwidth will you have from the board to the display panel anyway? > I assume there will be latches on the display panel, and one sends commands > down the link to turn given latches on/off? No, the way that it works is that 144 bits will be shifted out and then all latched at once. > > Looking at the original display panel, although it had the extended memory > bits, it didn't show the memory address (it does have the disk address). > Maybe we could put that where the shift register display used to be? Yea, I'll do something like that as I mentioned above. > > (And speaking of the original display, I couldn't find a picture of one - does > someone have one, or, better yet, an actual RF11, so as to copy the look of it > as closely as possible?) There's a pretty good diagram in the RF11/RS11 System Manual (on bitsavers of course) that shows the layout. > > > (I haven't looked at doing an overlay to make it look pretty) > > Oh, yes, please do!!! Eventually. ;-) > > > it'll be somewhat generic (4 rows of 36 LEDs). > > I counted up (no doubt you did the same :-), and on the longest row (at the > top), there are 30 lights, plus 4 empty spaces for the gaps between blocks, > so 36 is good. Will you be grouping them in 3's, with slightly larger gaps > between each group of 3? That would really maximize the ability to look just > like the old RF11 display panel. No, it'll be just like the DEC panels. All of the LEDs (in this case) will be evenly spaced. The overlay masked the bulbs that weren't used. The original display panel that DEC produced was generic and used for a bunch of different controllers. It was what it was plugged into (parallel connections) and the overlay that determined what it was. > > And warm white LED's, please (of course :-). I'll probably make that an option. ;-) > > I'm really going to have to get going on my UNIBUS PDP-11's. I've mostly been > working on the QBUS ones, but if I can have blinking lights... :-) Blinking lights are *good*. ;-) > > I'm already planning on how I can put /, /bin and the pipe device on separate > RF platters, so I can watch the lights and see what the machine is up to.. :-) ;-) TTFN - Guy From dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com Thu Jan 22 00:27:37 2015 From: dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com (Doug Ingraham) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 23:27:37 -0700 Subject: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150121) Message-ID: Many of us on this list are collectors of one sort of computer or another. I don't think of myself as a collector so much as a caretaker of my PDP-8. Of the things it has been fairly easy to get in recent years are the CPU and its related cards for the models that were produced in fairly large numbers. What is not easy to get are peripherals for these machines. So here is a question relating to the Type 750 high speed paper tape reader found on the early models. A few years back we were working on getting the CPU back in good working order. We needed to read in the diagnostic paper tapes but the reader was not reliable. Went through the tuning procedure and found that it was trying to read the tape at nearly 450 cps. After tuning it up the full speed now sits at 342 cps. The question is how many frames does it have to read before it reaches full speed? A) 1 B) 10 C) 50 D) 100 This is probably a somewhat squishy number and would depend somewhat on tuning. I wrote a couple of programs to determine this so I could add correct delays to my emulator. I was able to obtain a 3 microsecond resolution count of the delay. How that was accomplished might make for another trivia question. From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 22 00:52:44 2015 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 22:52:44 -0800 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <54C07A78.6080701@shiresoft.com> References: <20150121172908.D86C218C098@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C07A78.6080701@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <54C09E3C.4000203@sbcglobal.net> On 1/21/2015 8:20 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > > On 1/21/15 9:29 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> > From: Guy Sotomayor >> >> > I'm building a "LED" board that attaches to the MEM11. ... I >> couldn't >> > resist more blinkin lights. >> >> Oh frabjous day! Das blinken-litz!! Excellent!!! snipped.. I have an indicator panel that's labeled "Peripheral Indicator Panel 5406458A" No overlays or anything to indicate what it was used for. Is it possibly the disk indicator panel? Photos up here: http://www.dvq.com/dec-panels/ Bob From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 21 09:05:02 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 07:05:02 -0800 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <54BEF977.70706@shiresoft.com> References: <20150120160244.85CA018C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54BEF977.70706@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <54BFC01E.5010002@bitsavers.org> On 1/20/15 4:57 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > > It'll fit as a 19" rack panel (I haven't looked at doing > an overlay to make it look pretty) but it'll be somewhat generic (4 rows of 36 LEDs). > I can see several interesting applications for that, like hooking it onto the km11 paddle card(s). RK11D with an RK11C light panel... I assume the same spacing on the lights as the DEC panel? From CyndeM at livingcomputermuseum.org Wed Jan 21 09:35:32 2015 From: CyndeM at livingcomputermuseum.org (Cynde Moya) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 15:35:32 +0000 Subject: Data Products 2230 manual - desperation.... In-Reply-To: <54BFB41A.1030406@hachti.de> References: <54BFB41A.1030406@hachti.de> Message-ID: <36231E40F3E3184D93FB4EE26950501FE646DD44@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> I have a .pdf of "Model 2230 line printer technical manual : Volume 1 , (Order no. DPC241735H) /?Dataproducts Corporation, 1979." General description -- installation -- Controls and indicators -- Operating procedures -- Theory of operation -- Maintenance and adjustments -- Options -- Logic diagrams -- Parts lists and drawings. This technical manual describes the Model 2230 Line Printer manufactured by Dataproducts corporation. The printer is designed to produce a hard-copy printout when operated on-line with a digital data system. Reliable and high quality impact line printing is provided at 300 lines per minute in 136 columns. Scan and printout from fiche. Scan is not in page number order. Rough but usable. Reply with a good email address to cyndem at livingcomputermuseum.org and I'll send it to you. Cynde Cynde Moya, MLIS, PhD Librarian/Archivist Living Computer Museum http://www.livingcomputermuseum.org Vulcan Inc. 206-342-2385 -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Philipp Hachtmann Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2015 6:14 AM To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion@ Subject: Data Products 2230 manual - desperation.... Hi again, no one has that manual part one?!? I'm getting depressed :-( Nobody has an idea who could have it? Regards Philipp From simski at dds.nl Wed Jan 21 11:36:58 2015 From: simski at dds.nl (Simon Claessen) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 18:36:58 +0100 Subject: found 8"floppies Message-ID: <54BFE3BA.3080809@dds.nl> hello all, received a box with a shugart 800-2 drive and some 8" floppies containing IBM system/1 software and one from intel with ISIS-II is this already online available or should I try to make images of them? ibm disks: rps pascal (2 of 2 ptf 5719-pc6-brg1 (2of 2) s1-IWSRPS-RPS-VOL (1 of 1) rps data entry system (5 of 5) s/1 rps realtime pgmm sys v6 (1 of 1) rps index acces method v2 (2of2) s/1 rps realtime pgmm sys v6 (disks 21-24 of 24) refresh-01-sm1 (1of1) rps pgm preparation subsys v (disk 24 of 28) the isis-II is version 3.4 -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 21 11:46:38 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 09:46:38 -0800 Subject: found 8"floppies In-Reply-To: <54BFE3BA.3080809@dds.nl> References: <54BFE3BA.3080809@dds.nl> Message-ID: <54BFE5FE.3030008@bitsavers.org> On 1/21/15 9:36 AM, Simon Claessen wrote: > hello all, > > received a box with a shugart 800-2 drive and some 8" floppies containing IBM system/1 software and one from intel with ISIS-II > > is this already online available or should I try to make images of them? > > ibm disks: > > rps pascal (2 of 2 > ptf 5719-pc6-brg1 (2of 2) > s1-IWSRPS-RPS-VOL (1 of 1) > rps data entry system (5 of 5) > s/1 rps realtime pgmm sys v6 (1 of 1) > rps index acces method v2 (2of2) > s/1 rps realtime pgmm sys v6 (disks 21-24 of 24) > refresh-01-sm1 (1of1) > rps pgm preparation subsys v (disk 24 of 28) > > the isis-II is version 3.4 Imaging of the Series 1 stuff would be good. Please scan the labels as well ISIS-II will be difficult because it is M2FM encoded. From leec2124 at gmail.com Wed Jan 21 11:56:37 2015 From: leec2124 at gmail.com (Lee Courtney) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 09:56:37 -0800 Subject: Releasing Cover Off of Nashua RL02 Pack? Message-ID: I have a couple of Nashua brand third-party RL02 packs I'd like to remove the cover from, shown here: https://plus.google.com/photos/104239531634140817575/albums/6106851955753108865 The DEC RL02 packs have a slider release on the handle that one can use to remove the bottom cover before inserting the pack in the RL02 drive. However, the Nashua packs are missing this mechanism, and just lifting the handle does not release the bottom cover. Any hints on how to release the bottom cover off these packs? Thanks! Lee Courtney From ggs at shiresoft.com Wed Jan 21 12:04:05 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 10:04:05 -0800 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <54BFC01E.5010002@bitsavers.org> References: <20150120160244.85CA018C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54BEF977.70706@shiresoft.com> <54BFC01E.5010002@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > On Jan 21, 2015, at 7:05 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > > On 1/20/15 4:57 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: >> >> It'll fit as a 19" rack panel (I haven't looked at doing >> an overlay to make it look pretty) but it'll be somewhat generic (4 rows of 36 LEDs). >> > > I can see several interesting applications for that, like hooking it onto the km11 paddle > card(s). RK11D with an RK11C light panel... I assume the same spacing on the lights as the > DEC panel? Yes, that's the plan. ;-) But it won't be compatible with the DEC version since I'm going to be using a very simple serial protocol to get the data over to the LED board. The drivers that I'm using will actually latch the data. They're also constant current so there's only one resistor (to set the current) per driver package (there'll be 9 packages). TTFN - Guy From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 21 12:27:54 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 10:27:54 -0800 Subject: found 8"floppies In-Reply-To: <54BFE5FE.3030008@bitsavers.org> References: <54BFE3BA.3080809@dds.nl> <54BFE5FE.3030008@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54BFEFAA.1030502@sydex.com> On 01/21/2015 09:46 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > Imaging of the Series 1 stuff would be good. Please scan the labels as well > > ISIS-II will be difficult because it is M2FM encoded. Only if it's double-density. ISIS-II was also distributed on SSSD media. But reading the M2FM stuff isn't particularly difficult using something like a Catweasel--the format is well-documented. --Chuck From roeapeterson at gmail.com Wed Jan 21 12:36:37 2015 From: roeapeterson at gmail.com (Roe Peterson) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 12:36:37 -0600 Subject: Releasing Cover Off of Nashua RL02 Pack? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <83902DF6-A57F-466D-8320-3A66BC5D8DD4@gmail.com> Just a dumb idea. Press down on the square bit while lifting the handle? > On Jan 21, 2015, at 11:56 AM, Lee Courtney wrote: > > I have a couple of Nashua brand third-party RL02 packs I'd like to remove > the cover from, shown here: > https://plus.google.com/photos/104239531634140817575/albums/6106851955753108865 > > The DEC RL02 packs have a slider release on the handle that one can use to > remove the bottom cover before inserting the pack in the RL02 drive. > However, the Nashua packs are missing this mechanism, and just lifting the > handle does not release the bottom cover. Any hints on how to release the > bottom cover off these packs? > > Thanks! > > Lee Courtney From bqt at update.uu.se Wed Jan 21 12:40:27 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 19:40:27 +0100 Subject: Releasing Cover Off of Nashua RL02 Pack? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54BFF29B.5070500@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-21 18:56, Lee Courtney wrote: > I have a couple of Nashua brand third-party RL02 packs I'd like to remove > the cover from, shown here: > https://plus.google.com/photos/104239531634140817575/albums/6106851955753108865 > > The DEC RL02 packs have a slider release on the handle that one can use to > remove the bottom cover before inserting the pack in the RL02 drive. > However, the Nashua packs are missing this mechanism, and just lifting the > handle does not release the bottom cover. Any hints on how to release the > bottom cover off these packs? I suspect you pull at the handle at some point, unless the center part actually can be manipulated. Johnny From earl at retrobits.com Wed Jan 21 12:51:48 2015 From: earl at retrobits.com (Earl Evans) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 10:51:48 -0800 Subject: Releasing Cover Off of Nashua RL02 Pack? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 9:56 AM, Lee Courtney wrote: > I have a couple of Nashua brand third-party RL02 packs I'd like to remove > the cover from, shown here: > > https://plus.google.com/photos/104239531634140817575/albums/6106851955753108865 > > The DEC RL02 packs have a slider release on the handle that one can use to > remove the bottom cover before inserting the pack in the RL02 drive. > However, the Nashua packs are missing this mechanism, and just lifting the > handle does not release the bottom cover. Any hints on how to release the > bottom cover off these packs? > > Thanks! > > Lee Courtney > Hi Lee, Lifting the handle should work. I have the exact Nashua pack you show in your picture, and just now verified that lifting the handle (without pressing any other mechanism) does indeed release the bottom cover. It appears to be a magnetic release, like the DEC-branded packs, but without the requirement to slide a locking device. Perhaps it's just a bit stuck? - Earl From leec2124 at gmail.com Wed Jan 21 13:16:03 2015 From: leec2124 at gmail.com (Lee Courtney) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 11:16:03 -0800 Subject: Releasing Cover Off of Nashua RL02 Pack? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks Earl, that was the problem. The bottom cover on the Nashua RL02 pack is held on with 4 magnets inside the cover, no mechanical locking mechanism at all. I just used a bit more force and the cover came right off. Lee C. On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 10:51 AM, Earl Evans wrote: > > > On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 9:56 AM, Lee Courtney wrote: > >> I have a couple of Nashua brand third-party RL02 packs I'd like to remove >> the cover from, shown here: >> >> https://plus.google.com/photos/104239531634140817575/albums/6106851955753108865 >> >> The DEC RL02 packs have a slider release on the handle that one can use to >> remove the bottom cover before inserting the pack in the RL02 drive. >> However, the Nashua packs are missing this mechanism, and just lifting the >> handle does not release the bottom cover. Any hints on how to release the >> bottom cover off these packs? >> >> Thanks! >> >> Lee Courtney >> > > Hi Lee, > > Lifting the handle should work. I have the exact Nashua pack you show in > your picture, and just now verified that lifting the handle (without > pressing any other mechanism) does indeed release the bottom cover. It > appears to be a magnetic release, like the DEC-branded packs, but without > the requirement to slide a locking device. > > Perhaps it's just a bit stuck? > > - Earl > > -- Lee Courtney +1-650-704-3934 cell From tmfdmike at gmail.com Wed Jan 21 15:50:27 2015 From: tmfdmike at gmail.com (Mike Ross) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:50:27 +1300 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <54BFC01E.5010002@bitsavers.org> References: <20150120160244.85CA018C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54BEF977.70706@shiresoft.com> <54BFC01E.5010002@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 4:05 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/20/15 4:57 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > >> >> It'll fit as a 19" rack panel (I haven't looked at doing >> an overlay to make it look pretty) but it'll be somewhat generic (4 rows >> of 36 LEDs). >> >> > I can see several interesting applications for that, like hooking it onto > the km11 paddle > card(s). RK11D with an RK11C light panel... I assume the same spacing on > the lights as the > DEC panel? > > You know, in nearly 25 years of knocking around DEC collecting I've never seen an RK11C or known anyone who had one. Are any still extant? Any pics on on the net? I haven't been able to find any; I presume it's similar in general arrangement to the TC08, RP11, and RP15 controllers which I do have; a rack, a backplane, a bunch of M-series logic, and an indicator panel at the rack top? I'd love to find one! Mike http://www.corestore.org 'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.' From ggs at shiresoft.com Wed Jan 21 15:56:41 2015 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 13:56:41 -0800 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: References: <20150120160244.85CA018C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54BEF977.70706@shiresoft.com> <54BFC01E.5010002@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4BF4B807-91A1-4013-B30D-4F1C50E44684@shiresoft.com> > On Jan 21, 2015, at 1:50 PM, Mike Ross wrote: > > On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 4:05 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > >> On 1/20/15 4:57 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: >> >>> >>> It'll fit as a 19" rack panel (I haven't looked at doing >>> an overlay to make it look pretty) but it'll be somewhat generic (4 rows >>> of 36 LEDs). >>> >>> >> I can see several interesting applications for that, like hooking it onto >> the km11 paddle >> card(s). RK11D with an RK11C light panel... I assume the same spacing on >> the lights as the >> DEC panel? >> >> > You know, in nearly 25 years of knocking around DEC collecting I've never > seen an RK11C or known anyone who had one. Are any still extant? Any pics > on on the net? I haven't been able to find any; I presume it's similar in > general arrangement to the TC08, RP11, and RP15 controllers which I do > have; a rack, a backplane, a bunch of M-series logic, and an indicator > panel at the rack top? I'd love to find one! I did have one for a while...another collector has it now. ;-) I just didn't have the time to get it all working (and given the number of RK11-D controllers that I have, I didn't see the need for it). TTFN - Guy From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 21 22:52:43 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 04:52:43 +0000 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: References: <20150120160244.85CA018C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54BEF977.70706@shiresoft.com> <54BFC01E.5010002@bitsavers.org>, Message-ID: > > You know, in nearly 25 years of knocking around DEC collecting I've never > seen an RK11C or known anyone who had one. Are any still extant? Any pics Yes, I have one. AFAIK it is still operational (I haven't got it all set up since the move), if not, it will be easy to fix. > on on the net? I haven't been able to find any; I presume it's similar in > general arrangement to the TC08, RP11, and RP15 controllers which I do > have; a rack, a backplane, a bunch of M-series logic, and an indicator > panel at the rack top? I'd love to find one! It's 4 rows of flip-chip cards (some of which may well be specific to the RK11-C) and an H720 PSU. Some of the backplane connectors are used for Unibus in and out and for the drive cable (2 cables, 4 drives on each) There are also a couple of connectors (linked with that flexible DEC ribbon cable to connectors on the wire-wrap side) for KM11 test boards and 4 slots for the cables from the panel. The panel may well have been optional, mine came without it, and there is no mention of it really in the printset. I have a couple of the lights panels (came with my DX11s) and I may well move one onto the RK11-C. -tony Mike http://www.corestore.org 'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.' From computerdoc at sc.rr.com Thu Jan 22 01:53:38 2015 From: computerdoc at sc.rr.com (Kip Koon) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 02:53:38 -0500 Subject: Building an 8008 SBC with modern components Message-ID: <003501d03618$8895ad50$99c107f0$@sc.rr.com> Hi Guys, Has anyone ever built an 8008 SBC using modern components like CPLDs and/or FPGAs in place of the ancient hard to get parts used in the first 8008 based microcomputer? I'm looking at trying to do it on a small PCB, but obviously not sure of the exact size yet. Any ideas, thoughts anyone? Kip Koon computerdoc at sc.rr.com http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Kip_Koon From computerdoc at sc.rr.com Thu Jan 22 01:53:38 2015 From: computerdoc at sc.rr.com (Kip Koon) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 02:53:38 -0500 Subject: Building an 8008 SBC with modern components Message-ID: <003501d03618$8895ad50$99c107f0$@sc.rr.com> Hi Guys, Has anyone ever built an 8008 SBC using modern components like CPLDs and/or FPGAs in place of the ancient hard to get parts used in the first 8008 based microcomputer? I'm looking at trying to do it on a small PCB, but obviously not sure of the exact size yet. Any ideas, thoughts anyone? Kip Koon computerdoc at sc.rr.com http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Kip_Koon From aswood at t-online.de Thu Jan 22 03:36:36 2015 From: aswood at t-online.de (aswood at t-online.de) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:36:36 +0100 Subject: HP16500B Logicanalyzator on ebay Message-ID: <1YEEBo-3aXn1c0@fwd37.aul.t-online.de> http://www.ebay.de/itm/HP-Agilent-16500B-Modular-Logic-Analysis-System-Mainframe-HPIB-16501A-Module-/151561709548?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2349c827ec Wrong side of the pond. Seller is also offering a lot of Tek scopes, Kaypro and some other interesting equipment. Had a Convex SPP1200CD - also wrong side of the pond - I'd have love to get the board, even the Vicor DC-DC converter on the boards.... -- Andreas From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Thu Jan 22 04:22:42 2015 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 11:22:42 +0100 (CET) Subject: Building an 8008 SBC with modern components In-Reply-To: <003501d03618$8895ad50$99c107f0$@sc.rr.com> References: <003501d03618$8895ad50$99c107f0$@sc.rr.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 22 Jan 2015, Kip Koon wrote: > Has anyone ever built an 8008 SBC using modern components like CPLDs and/or > FPGAs in place of the ancient hard to get parts used in the first 8008 based > microcomputer? I'm looking at trying to do it on a small PCB, but obviously > not sure of the exact size yet. Any ideas, thoughts anyone? Come on, a 8008 isn't too complex to interface. What about something like our EMUF-08? http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dev_en/emuf08/emuf08_1.html Fits on a Eurocard inclusive 14k RAM, 1.5k EPROM and serial interface (and is btw. already 25 years old, built 1990 ..., wow) Christian From snhirsch at gmail.com Thu Jan 22 06:40:01 2015 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 07:40:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: found 8"floppies In-Reply-To: <54BFE3BA.3080809@dds.nl> References: <54BFE3BA.3080809@dds.nl> Message-ID: On Wed, 21 Jan 2015, Simon Claessen wrote: > is this already online available or should I try to make images of them? > > ibm disks: > > rps pascal (2 of 2 > ptf 5719-pc6-brg1 (2of 2) > s1-IWSRPS-RPS-VOL (1 of 1) > rps data entry system (5 of 5) > s/1 rps realtime pgmm sys v6 (1 of 1) > rps index acces method v2 (2of2) > s/1 rps realtime pgmm sys v6 (disks 21-24 of 24) > refresh-01-sm1 (1of1) > rps pgm preparation subsys v (disk 24 of 28) > > the isis-II is version 3.4 If you want to send them to the states, I'll be glad to image the M2FM diskettes. -- From simski at dds.nl Thu Jan 22 07:00:07 2015 From: simski at dds.nl (Simon Claessen) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 14:00:07 +0100 Subject: found 8"floppies In-Reply-To: References: <54BFE3BA.3080809@dds.nl> Message-ID: <54C0F457.3040507@dds.nl> thanks for the offer, but i have a cryoflux nearby. seems like a good oportunity to start the beast up. we already have several boxes of 8" floppies waiting but we did not have a spare drive until now. simon On 22-01-15 13:40, Steven Hirsch wrote: > On Wed, 21 Jan 2015, Simon Claessen wrote: > >> is this already online available or should I try to make images of them? >> >> ibm disks: >> >> rps pascal (2 of 2 >> ptf 5719-pc6-brg1 (2of 2) >> s1-IWSRPS-RPS-VOL (1 of 1) >> rps data entry system (5 of 5) >> s/1 rps realtime pgmm sys v6 (1 of 1) >> rps index acces method v2 (2of2) >> s/1 rps realtime pgmm sys v6 (disks 21-24 of 24) >> refresh-01-sm1 (1of1) >> rps pgm preparation subsys v (disk 24 of 28) >> >> the isis-II is version 3.4 > > If you want to send them to the states, I'll be glad to image the M2FM > diskettes. > -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 22 07:04:18 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 08:04:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: MEM11 Status Update Message-ID: <20150122130418.CC5CC18C09D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Guy Sotomayor > the way that it works is that 144 bits will be shifted out and then > all latched at once. Ah. That will limit the rate at which you can update the lights, though, right? I mean, you won't (be able to) update the panel after every word, will you? Although I suppose even if you only do it after each transfer, that's probably still going to give much the same visual effect. > Will you be grouping them in 3's, with slightly larger gaps between > each group of 3? That would really maximize the ability to look just > like the old RF11 display panel. > No, it'll be just like the DEC panels. All of the LEDs (in this case) > will be evenly spaced. The overlay masked the bulbs that weren't used. Ah, I was faked out by the illustration (not a picture, alas!) in the RF11 manual, it looked like they were grouped. I wasn't sure if the larger spaces between various fields were just bulbs they didn't wire up, or if they were also masked by the overlay; I just looked at some of my KA-11 overlays (now _there's_ a machine with blinking lights! :-), and they are indeed blanked in the overlay, so I would guess/asssume they did the same on the RF11. > From: Bob Rosenbloom > I have an indicator panel that's labeled "Peripheral Indicator Panel > 5406458A" > No overlays or anything to indicate what it was used for. Is it > possibly the disk indicator panel? That sure looks like it. Too bad you don't have the overlay... Now that I think about it, I wonder if that panel was originally used on the KA? The 36 bits are certainly suggestive... I'll have to see if I can find a picture of the disk/tape controller display panel from the KA and see if that could have been it. Noel From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 22 07:39:25 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 07:39:25 -0600 Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... Message-ID: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> Need input from anyone that has a HP7970 tape drive mounted in a rack. Fortunately, all my 7970's have come with the special mounting bracket. This is not a part of the 7970 itself. It is a long flat metal bar that mounts on the left of the rack. It bolts in from the front, and provides threaded holes on the side further back in the rack. While the right side of the 7970 is bolted into the rack from the front, on the left side - you open the chassis and bolt from inside the chassis on the left wall into the threaded holes provided by this mounting bracket. Given that, it would appear to me that mounting a 7970 WITHOUT that special mounting bracket would not be easily done. I'd like to know if anyone has mounted a 7970 in a rack without said bracket and if so - how did they do it? Since I've always used HP racks and the special 7970 mounting bracket my experience is probably blinded, but I don't see a way to do it without the bracket. Best, J From snhirsch at gmail.com Thu Jan 22 07:48:57 2015 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 08:48:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: found 8"floppies In-Reply-To: <54C0F457.3040507@dds.nl> References: <54BFE3BA.3080809@dds.nl> <54C0F457.3040507@dds.nl> Message-ID: On Thu, 22 Jan 2015, Simon Claessen wrote: > thanks for the offer, but i have a cryoflux nearby. seems like a good > oportunity to start the beast up. we already have several boxes of 8" > floppies waiting but we did not have a spare drive until now. Does Kryoflux now have the ability to create a sector image from M2FM encoding? I haven't kept up with it since my disappointing initial experiences. -- From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 22 09:22:20 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 07:22:20 -0800 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <54C09E3C.4000203@sbcglobal.net> References: <20150121172908.D86C218C098@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C07A78.6080701@shiresoft.com> <54C09E3C.4000203@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <54C115AC.1060101@bitsavers.org> On 1/21/15 10:52 PM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > I have an indicator panel that's labeled "Peripheral Indicator Panel 5406458A" > No overlays or anything to indicate what it was used for. Is it possibly the disk > indicator panel? > It is the generic bulb panel they used for all of the 8/11/15 panels on the top of the racks. From js at cimmeri.com Thu Jan 22 09:29:22 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:29:22 -0500 Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... In-Reply-To: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> References: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54C11752.1070903@cimmeri.com> On 1/22/2015 8:39 AM, Jay West wrote: > Need input from anyone that has a HP7970 tape drive mounted in a rack. > > > ... > > I don't see a way to do it without the bracket. Me neither. I got the bracket for mine. - J. From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 22 09:37:33 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:37:33 -0600 Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... In-Reply-To: <54C11752.1070903@cimmeri.com> References: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> <54C11752.1070903@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> It was written... ----- Me neither. I got the bracket for mine. ---- Ok, just making sure there wasn't some way to do it without the bracket that I was overlooking. While I do have brackets for all mine, I am sure that at some point I will get a unit I don't have a bracket for so I was investigating having "modern brackets" made as a "just in case". If there was in fact no obvious other way to mount them - I figured people may want me to get more than one made. Speak up quickly if you need one.... J From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 22 09:58:29 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:58:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: MEM11 Status Update Message-ID: <20150122155829.7B15B18C08E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Al Kossow > It is the generic bulb panel they used for all of the 8/11/15 panels on > the top of the racks. I think for the -10, too (and that was possibly the initial use, given the 36 wide lamp array - or, at least, they had the -10 usage in mind when they did it). I looked at my DECsystem-10 manual, and I suspect that at least the DF10 (channel), RP10 and TM10 controllers used it (4 rows of 36 lights, in the same aspect ratio), and maybe some of the memory cabinets (MB10, MD10) too - they have the right size, etc but have 4 switches in the lower left corner. Noel From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 22 10:25:17 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:25:17 -0600 Subject: equipment available In-Reply-To: <000601d035dd$2399f040$6acdd0c0$@classiccmp.org> References: <000601d035dd$2399f040$6acdd0c0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <01e501d03660$02908390$07b18ab0$@classiccmp.org> The "two 11/73 machines" deal has been claimed. If the person I passed it to can consummate the deal - great. If not, I'll offer it to the next person who responded already. Best, J From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 22 10:31:26 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 17:31:26 +0100 Subject: MEM11 Status Update In-Reply-To: <20150122155829.7B15B18C08E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150122155829.7B15B18C08E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54C125DE.8080600@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-22 16:58, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Al Kossow > > > It is the generic bulb panel they used for all of the 8/11/15 panels on > > the top of the racks. > > I think for the -10, too (and that was possibly the initial use, given the 36 > wide lamp array - or, at least, they had the -10 usage in mind when they did > it). > > I looked at my DECsystem-10 manual, and I suspect that at least the DF10 > (channel), RP10 and TM10 controllers used it (4 rows of 36 lights, in the > same aspect ratio), and maybe some of the memory cabinets (MB10, MD10) too - > they have the right size, etc but have 4 switches in the lower left corner. The KI10, which is the one that pops into my mind here, have a different panel, as the cabinets are wider. Johnny From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 22 10:34:15 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 11:34:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: equipment available Message-ID: <20150122163415.9CDA218C09B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Jay West > The "two 11/73 machines" deal has been claimed. Just out of interest, what kind of disks did the machines have? Noel From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Thu Jan 22 10:41:35 2015 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 17:41:35 +0100 Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... In-Reply-To: <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> References: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> <54C11752.1070903@cimmeri.com> <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <7a099d9535bc906263fd7f73cd7644e4@smtp-cloud6.xs4all.net> I think I've one without a bracket, but I have to check it when I 'm at home this weekend. -Rik -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: "Jay West" Verzonden: ?22-?1-?2015 16:37 Aan: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" Onderwerp: RE: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... It was written... ----- Me neither. I got the bracket for mine. ---- Ok, just making sure there wasn't some way to do it without the bracket that I was overlooking. While I do have brackets for all mine, I am sure that at some point I will get a unit I don't have a bracket for so I was investigating having "modern brackets" made as a "just in case". If there was in fact no obvious other way to mount them - I figured people may want me to get more than one made. Speak up quickly if you need one.... J From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 22 10:41:23 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:41:23 -0600 Subject: equipment available In-Reply-To: <20150122163415.9CDA218C09B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150122163415.9CDA218C09B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <020801d03662$427e6920$c77b3b60$@classiccmp.org> Noel wrote.... ---- Just out of interest, what kind of disks did the machines have? ---- I have no clue. My interest/task is getting the opportunity into someone's hands to pursue. I post all the info I get initially from the owner to the list, and I don't go back and forth to do further research (other than location, which often helps in assigning the deal to someone). Whoever takes on the deal can work with the owner directly for any additional info. :) If I hear what the config is, I'll let you know. J From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 22 10:44:14 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 11:44:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: MEM11 Status Update Message-ID: <20150122164414.0662218C09B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Johnny Billquist > The KI10, which is the one that pops into my mind here, have a > different panel, as the cabinets are wider. The KA10 had a mixture of narrow and wide cabinets. The two main CPU bays were wide (as were the display panels at the top - the one I have is 48 lights wide), as was the MA10 (I think) and MF10 (pretty sure about that one). Other bays (such as the DF10) were narrower (I think standard 19"). I didn't see much of KI10's, so I can't say for sure, but I suspect the same was true of them: I'm pretty sure they used the same DF10, etc as the KA10. Noel PS: Speaking of KI10's, does anyone know the story behind the bizarro images of the 'KI10 Indicator Panels' in the DECsystem-10 System Reference Manual (DEC-10-XSRMA-A-D; 3rd Edition, August 1974 - although other editions may have them too), pg. F1-5? Were those just placeholders that got by editorial control, or was that some sort of complicated in-joke? From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 22 10:44:04 2015 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 08:44:04 -0800 Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... In-Reply-To: <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> References: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> <54C11752.1070903@cimmeri.com> <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54C128D4.1020309@sbcglobal.net> On 1/22/2015 7:37 AM, Jay West wrote: > It was written... > ----- > Me neither. I got the bracket for mine. > ---- > > Ok, just making sure there wasn't some way to do it without the bracket that > I was overlooking. While I do have brackets for all mine, I am sure that at > some point I will get a unit I don't have a bracket for so I was > investigating having "modern brackets" made as a "just in case". If there > was in fact no obvious other way to mount them - I figured people may want > me to get more than one made. Speak up quickly if you need one.... > > J > I could use two brackets. I have three 7970's but only one has the bracket. Bob -- Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it. I've been practising it for years. -Prince Philip From simski at dds.nl Thu Jan 22 10:47:07 2015 From: simski at dds.nl (Simon Claessen) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 17:47:07 +0100 Subject: found 8"floppies In-Reply-To: References: <54BFE3BA.3080809@dds.nl> <54C0F457.3040507@dds.nl> Message-ID: <54C1298B.3070804@dds.nl> for what I know, cryoflux just grabs the flux changes and everything is done afterwards. On 22-01-15 14:48, Steven Hirsch wrote: > On Thu, 22 Jan 2015, Simon Claessen wrote: > >> thanks for the offer, but i have a cryoflux nearby. seems like a good >> oportunity to start the beast up. we already have several boxes of 8" >> floppies waiting but we did not have a spare drive until now. > > Does Kryoflux now have the ability to create a sector image from M2FM > encoding? I haven't kept up with it since my disappointing initial > experiences. > > -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl From bqt at softjar.se Thu Jan 22 10:47:48 2015 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 17:47:48 +0100 Subject: [HECnet] Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS In-Reply-To: <54B889EE.4050807@softjar.se> References: <54B5ACD2.7080804@softjar.se> <54B889EE.4050807@softjar.se> Message-ID: <54C129B4.8080902@softjar.se> I just thought I'd make yet an announcement. (Maybe I should find a better forum for this?) The last week I've been busy with FTP improvements and performance, and I've managed to improve this a lot. Enough that it is worth sending information out that people should upgrade if they have installed this. The FTP client and server have improved performance and some additional features. Along with this I also changed the protocol format for RSX special mode transfers. This is not backwards compatible, and due to an initial design miss, the old ftp client/server will not reliably detect this incompatibility, resulting in broken files if RSX mode is used between the old and new version. This will not be a problem going forward. If you run FTP from RSX to fetch the new package, use BLOCK mode instead of RSX mode, and fetch the disk image and not the tape image, and you'll be fine. Once upgraded, RSX mode is definitely the recommended mode for the future. For all kind of files. TCP itself increased the receive buffer size, which also improves performance for everything that would be interested in higher throughput. I've also gone over the distribution and installation scripts and fixed a few minor details. As usual, the distribution is available from: ftp://madame.update.uu.se/bqtcp.dsk ftp://madame.update.uu.se/bqtcp.tap ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip/tcpip.dsk The documentation is also available through ftp on Madame, or also at http://madame.update.uu.se/tcpipdoc Johnny All in all, On 2015-01-16 04:47, Johnny Billquist wrote: > There have been lots of positive comments, and obviously some people > have even tested using the software. > > Of course, a bug was also found. A really weird corner case with > severely loading the network stack and having a socket in listen state > programatically could trigger a corruption of kernel memory. > > So I've cut a new release with the bug fixed. > > While I'm at it I also realize that I forgot to mention that included in > the distribution is also a simple IRC client as well as a simple IRC robot. > > I've also taken a little time to slightly improve the documentation, and > the documentation is now also available directly by ftp from > Madame.Update.UU.SE, so you do not need to get the whole distribution > and unpack it to just read something. > > So - same as before. Disk image and tape image are available at > Madame.Update.UU.SE. Use anonymous ftp. > Disk image is also available at ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip. > The disk image is a virtual RL02 disk. Can be used with any emulator, or > also directly inside RSX if you have virtual devices available. > > Happy hacking. > > Johnny > > > On 2015-01-14 00:40, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally announce a >> more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. >> >> This is the result of over 20 years of development. Needless to say, >> I've been doing a lot of things over the years, and this code have been >> through four reimplementations over the years. >> What I now release is something that I believe is a nice and useful >> piece of software. I am aware of the fact that most people do not use >> these machines any longer, but if someone actually wants to talk to me >> about support for this or other RSX software, let me know. >> >> Also, feel free to spread this information to anyone who might be >> interested, anywhere. >> >> So - what is in this release? >> It is a complete implementation of ARP, IP, UDP, and TCP for >> RSX-11M-PLUS. It has been tested on RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6, but should work >> on any V4 release. There might be some small tweaks or fixes required, >> but nothing major. >> It do require a system with split I/D-space, or else at least the TCP >> part will not fit. >> For Unibus machines, it should be possible to run without any additional >> software except what is in a base RSX distribution. >> For Q-bus machines, DECnet is required for ethernet networking. >> The TCP/IP stack can co-exist with DECnet. >> Some utilities also utilize RMS for file access. >> >> A bunch of tools, utilities and libraries are also included. These >> include: >> . IFCONFIG network configuration tool. >> . NETSTAT network information tool. >> . PING >> . TRACEROUTE >> >> . DNS client >> . FTP daemon >> . FTP client >> . HTTP server >> . TELNET client (rudimentary) >> . TFTP client >> . TFTP server >> . INET server that can do SINK, ECHO, DAYTIME, QUOTE, and IDENT >> . NTP client >> . LPR client that sits in the queue manager (rudimentary) >> >> . FORTRAN-77 library >> . BASIC+2 library >> . PDP-11 C library >> >> The implementation fulfills most of the requirements put forth in RFC >> 1122. There are a few limitations because of restrictions in the PDP-11, >> but none of them should really cause any problems. >> >> Documentation is still on the thin side, but example configs are also >> provided, along with installation scripts. >> >> A bunch of test programs and example programs are also included, as well >> as the sources of all tools and libraries. >> >> The TCP/IP stack itself only comes in binary form. >> >> All tools are also included precompiled in the distribution, so an >> installation only have to build the stack itself for your system, and >> then you should be ready to go. >> >> The API only have a slight resemblance to the Unix sockets API. However, >> if someone sits down to write code to use TCP/IP under RSX, I'm sure >> they will discover that it is extremely easy to use the libraries, or >> the basic functions. >> >> The TCP/IP implementation is mostly written as device drivers. This also >> have some other interesting implications, such as it is possible to >> access TCP as a normal file. You can, for instance do something similar >> to the Unix netcat command by issuing the MCR command: >> >> > PIP TI:=TC:"foo.com";4711 >> >> which would open a connection to foo.com, on port 4711, and any data >> sent from that machine will be shown on the terminal. >> >> The resources used by TCP/IP are modest. A memory area (size selectable >> at generation/startup) is used internally. The amount of memory in the >> private pool limits the amount of data that can be buffered. Normal pool >> is used in a small quantity for each TCP port that is open. >> >> People are welcome to play around with this, and make improvements. >> Contributions of code is most welcome. >> >> There are still lots of things to do. The programs marked as rudimentary >> should be rewritten. >> The most obvious thing still missing is a telnet daemon, which probably >> is my next step. >> >> However, the reason for now announcing the release is that it can >> finally be distributed natively from an RSX host. >> >> The main locations to download the TCP/IP for RSX are: >> >> Madame.Update.UU.SE (anonymous ftp). >> >> This is one of my development systems for this software. It runs under >> E11, and if things are down, I blame E11. :-) >> When connected, you are already in the right directory. There is both an >> RL02 disk image there, which can be downloaded by anyone. If you happen >> to have an RSX system which you are conneting from, you can also try >> getting the BQTCP.TAP tape image. Such an image will not transport >> cleanly to a non-RSX system, however. Sorry. >> >> ftp.Update.UU.SE (anonymous ftp) - /pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip >> The disk image is normally duplicated to ftp.update.uu.se as well, so >> the same file can be found there. >> >> I hope some people will find this useful/amusing. :-) >> >> Johnny Billquist >> > > From david at attglobal.net Thu Jan 22 11:52:18 2015 From: david at attglobal.net (David Schmidt) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:52:18 -0500 Subject: found 8"floppies In-Reply-To: <54C1298B.3070804@dds.nl> References: <54BFE3BA.3080809@dds.nl> <54C0F457.3040507@dds.nl> <54C1298B.3070804@dds.nl> Message-ID: <54C138D2.5060608@attglobal.net> On 1/22/2015 11:47 AM, Simon Claessen wrote: > for what I know, [k]ryoflux just grabs the flux changes and everything is > done afterwards. Right, but that's the point... has the flux transition interpretation software gotten smart enough to do M2FM is the question. From snhirsch at gmail.com Thu Jan 22 11:55:23 2015 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:55:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: found 8"floppies In-Reply-To: <54C1298B.3070804@dds.nl> References: <54BFE3BA.3080809@dds.nl> <54C0F457.3040507@dds.nl> <54C1298B.3070804@dds.nl> Message-ID: On Thu, 22 Jan 2015, Simon Claessen wrote: > for what I know, cryoflux just grabs the flux changes and everything is done > afterwards. Capturing the flux transitions is mechanical. Interpreting those flux transitions to create a sector image is where the work comes in, and I fear you may find that is not supported. If it is, please let us know? > On 22-01-15 14:48, Steven Hirsch wrote: >> On Thu, 22 Jan 2015, Simon Claessen wrote: >> >>> thanks for the offer, but i have a cryoflux nearby. seems like a good >>> oportunity to start the beast up. we already have several boxes of 8" >>> floppies waiting but we did not have a spare drive until now. >> >> Does Kryoflux now have the ability to create a sector image from M2FM >> encoding? I haven't kept up with it since my disappointing initial >> experiences. -- From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 22 15:20:38 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 15:20:38 -0600 Subject: Equipment Available (more) Message-ID: <028101d03689$4597f370$d0c7da50$@classiccmp.org> Just received the following "equipment available" email.. Vax 8600 MicroVax II 8mm & 4mm SCSI tape drives 6250 tape drive Dec 64 bit unix first DEC PC (Rainbow) with graphics card (1984) a lot of manuals an IBM AIX box too Location is Houston, TX. DO NOT EMAIL ME ASKING FOR MORE SPECIFICS. If you are interested in *ALL* of the gear, contact me off list and I'll put you in direct contact with the owner. If you want just PART of the gear, do not email me. Email whoever winds up getting the gear and work it out with them. Best, J From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 22 16:08:15 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 23:08:15 +0100 Subject: Equipment Available (more) In-Reply-To: <028101d03689$4597f370$d0c7da50$@classiccmp.org> References: <028101d03689$4597f370$d0c7da50$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54C174CF.6020900@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-22 22:20, Jay West wrote: > Just received the following "equipment available" email.. > > > > Vax 8600 > > MicroVax II > > 8mm & 4mm SCSI tape drives > > 6250 tape drive > > Dec 64 bit unix > > first DEC PC (Rainbow) with graphics card (1984) > > a lot of manuals > > > > an IBM AIX box too > > > > Location is Houston, TX. > > > > DO NOT EMAIL ME ASKING FOR MORE SPECIFICS. If you are interested in *ALL* of > the gear, contact me off list and I'll put you in direct contact with the > owner. > > If you want just PART of the gear, do not email me. Email whoever winds up > getting the gear and work it out with them. Just as a warning: a VAX 8600 is *heavy*. You will need a truck with a tailgate lift, and be at least two, if not three people to move it. You will not be able to lift it by hand, even if you are plenty of people. (And yes, I'd like to get the memory boards and other small bits of it, but I doubt anyone will pick it up to start with, and even less that anyone would part things out if they did indeed pick it up.) 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 jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Jan 22 16:54:44 2015 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 16:54:44 -0600 Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) Message-ID: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> I picked up a little Atari 800XL bundle the other day (system, pair of 1050 drives, and an 850 expansion box) - cheap because it was missing cables and power supplies. 1) When hooking this up to a TV via the RF input - is there any "magic" involved, or will a suitable braided co-ax TV cable with a phono connector added at the Atari end do? I know it "works" because I lashed one up quickly (and I do mean quickly, no soldering involved) and ran the machine from a stray +5V PSU, which obviously resulted in a fuzzy picture - but then when it came to making a good one, I got to thinking about those little antenna switch boxes that US machines often seemed to come with, and wondering if there were a bunch of passive components in there which make a difference to the signal quality. 2) Does anyone have any spare I/O cables, or know of a source of the connectors so I can make my own? (I suppose while I'm here I may as well ask if anyone just happens to know what voltage power supplies the 1050's and 850 need, but I'm sure I can dig the answers to that up online if needed) cheers Jules From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Thu Jan 22 17:09:53 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 21:09:53 -0200 Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) References: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4D086DDC85774C14B37B26C28CA0847D@deskjara> > 1) When hooking this up to a TV via the RF input - is there any "magic" > involved, or will a suitable braided co-ax TV cable with a phono connector > added at the Atari end do? I know it "works" because I lashed one up > quickly (and I do mean quickly, no soldering involved) and ran the machine > from a stray +5V PSU, which obviously resulted in a fuzzy picture - but > then when it came to making a good one, I got to thinking about those > little antenna switch boxes that US machines often seemed to come with, > and wondering if there were a bunch of passive components in there which > make a difference to the signal quality. Forget the RF output, use the composite monitor connection, there are schematics for the cable on the web. Anyways, a proper 75 ohms coaxial cable from the computer to the tv (with adequated connectors) should work > 2) Does anyone have any spare I/O cables, or know of a source of the > connectors so I can make my own? Mostly impossible to find the connectors alone. Best electronics.ca has the cables at a fair price. Or you could use ebay. > (I suppose while I'm here I may as well ask if anyone just happens to know > what voltage power supplies the 1050's and 850 need, but I'm sure I can > dig the answers to that up online if needed) Sure :) While you're on google, get the schematics and build a SIO2SD device, you'll need it! ;o) From james at slor.net Thu Jan 22 17:13:41 2015 From: james at slor.net (James) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 18:13:41 -0500 Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) In-Reply-To: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> References: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <01ac01d03699$10040720$300c1560$@slor.net> Hey Jules - a great place to start for various questions is the official Atari 8-bit FAQ: http://faqs.cs.uu.nl/na-dir/atari-8-bit/faq.html You should find port pinouts, PSU info, etc. for each model. One thing you'll notice right away is that, besides the coax RF hookup, there is also a monitor port with 5 pins. You will get better picture and sound using the composite video and audio outputs from that port on the 800xl. >From the various vendors, I recommend a couple specifically: B&C ComputerVisions http://www.myatari.com/ Best Electronics http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/ With some looking and contacting, you may find a lot of things you want. Of course, eBay will have lots of stuff. Also, check and use the marketplace forum on AtariAge. The folks in the 8-bit forum will also provide a wealth of knowledge for future questions. http://atariage.com/forums/ It's possible I might have spares of some of the things you'll be looking for, so feel free to contact me offlist if you like to go into any detail. James > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules > Richardson > Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2015 5:55 PM > To: and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) > > > > I picked up a little Atari 800XL bundle the other day (system, pair of 1050 > drives, and an 850 expansion box) - cheap because it was missing cables and > power supplies. > > 1) When hooking this up to a TV via the RF input - is there any "magic" > involved, or will a suitable braided co-ax TV cable with a phono connector > added at the Atari end do? I know it "works" because I lashed one up quickly > (and I do mean quickly, no soldering involved) and ran the machine from a > stray +5V PSU, which obviously resulted in a fuzzy picture - but then when it > came to making a good one, I got to thinking about those little antenna > switch boxes that US machines often seemed to come with, and wondering > if there were a bunch of passive components in there which make a > difference to the signal quality. > > 2) Does anyone have any spare I/O cables, or know of a source of the > connectors so I can make my own? > > (I suppose while I'm here I may as well ask if anyone just happens to know > what voltage power supplies the 1050's and 850 need, but I'm sure I can dig > the answers to that up online if needed) > > cheers > > Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Jan 22 18:14:41 2015 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 18:14:41 -0600 Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) In-Reply-To: <4D086DDC85774C14B37B26C28CA0847D@deskjara> References: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> <4D086DDC85774C14B37B26C28CA0847D@deskjara> Message-ID: <54C19271.8090402@gmail.com> On 01/22/2015 05:09 PM, Alexandre Souza wrote: > Forget the RF output, use the composite monitor connection, there are > schematics for the cable on the web. Anyways, a proper 75 ohms coaxial > cable from the computer to the tv (with adequated connectors) should work Yes, I think it will possibly work with my Commodore 1702, but I'm not sure if I have a suitable spare connector in the junk pile at the moment - plus it feels a bit weird using a Commodore display with an Atari :-) >> 2) Does anyone have any spare I/O cables, or know of a source of the >> connectors so I can make my own? > > Mostly impossible to find the connectors alone. Yeah, I figured it would be! If finding the genuine cables turns into a big deal, I suppose I could run some 13-way IDC cable out of the system/drive/850 cases and use DA15 connectors (there's enough clearance around the existing connectors to do so without harming anything), but it would be nice to find at least one real cable first and verify that my drives work. >> (I suppose while I'm here I may as well ask if anyone just happens to >> know what voltage power supplies the 1050's and 850 need, but I'm sure I >> can dig the answers to that up online if needed) > > Sure :) While you're on google, get the schematics and build a SIO2SD > device, you'll need it! ;o) ;-) I like using real floppies for as long as I can, though! One of the 1050 drives has some kind of speed-doubler widget fitted internally, so although I heard that the drives can be slow, that one might not be too bad. J. From fozztexx at fozztexx.com Thu Jan 22 19:06:50 2015 From: fozztexx at fozztexx.com (Chris Osborn) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 17:06:50 -0800 Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) In-Reply-To: <54C19271.8090402@gmail.com> References: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> <4D086DDC85774C14B37B26C28CA0847D@deskjara> <54C19271.8090402@gmail.com> Message-ID: <969F9CA4-9F63-4FA2-BA90-2BC9E6150D3F@fozztexx.com> > Yeah, I figured it would be! If finding the genuine cables turns into a big deal, I suppose I could run some 13-way IDC cable out of the system/drive/850 cases and use DA15 connectors (there's enough clearance around the existing connectors to do so without harming anything), but it would be nice to find at least one real cable first and verify that my drives work. I bought some of the SIO cables off eBay a few months back, intending to cut them and stick DA-15 connectors on them. Before I did that, I took apart the connectors to look at how they were made to see if I could come up with any ideas for reproducing them. The design is fairly simple and I think the shell could be easily reproduced on a 3D printer or hobby CNC. Instead of hacking up the cables that I bought I ended up making a brand new cable using the original shell and I used 0.156 crimp pins as a substitute. They were just a little tight, but I had no problems fitting them into the original housing. Here?s some photos: http://imgur.com/a/F0WUD -- Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Thu Jan 22 20:09:10 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 00:09:10 -0200 Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) References: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> <4D086DDC85774C14B37B26C28CA0847D@deskjara> <54C19271.8090402@gmail.com> Message-ID: > Yes, I think it will possibly work with my Commodore 1702, but I'm not > sure if I have a suitable spare connector in the junk pile at the moment - > plus it feels a bit weird using a Commodore display with an Atari :-) If it works, you're lucky (and use it)! :D >> Mostly impossible to find the connectors alone. > Yeah, I figured it would be! If finding the genuine cables turns into a > big deal, I suppose I could run some 13-way IDC cable out of the > system/drive/850 cases and use DA15 connectors (there's enough clearance > around the existing connectors to do so without harming anything), but it > would be nice to find at least one real cable first and verify that my > drives work. That is what I do here. I cut the SIO cable in half and use DA15 connectors to connect to a SIO2SD (or other devices, but hardly someone uses anything beyond a SIO2SD in Brazil. > ;-) I like using real floppies for as long as I can, though! One of the > 1050 drives has some kind of speed-doubler widget fitted internally, so > although I heard that the drives can be slow, that one might not be too > bad. Well, some people pay to suffer :oD Kidding aside, it is great to use disks! But in Brazil, 5 1/4 disks are rare and expensive now. I still use them, but only in my Apple II :) And if someday you will to leave your 850 unit know a (too much) sunny place called Brazil, let me know :D From mark at markesystems.com Thu Jan 22 20:34:18 2015 From: mark at markesystems.com (mark at markesystems.com) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 18:34:18 -0800 Subject: Apple Lisas on Craigslist Message-ID: <2CED4C4284724FD18341F4BEB4821A95@Daedalus> I don?t really do Apple, but this seems like a pretty good trade for someone. I emailed the seller (trader?), and he responded, so I think it?s a real deal... http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/sop/4845748625.html ~~ Mark Moulding From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 22 23:47:46 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 05:47:46 +0000 Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) In-Reply-To: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> References: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> Message-ID: > 1) When hooking this up to a TV via the RF input - is there any "magic" > involved, or will a suitable braided co-ax TV cable with a phono connector > added at the Atari end do? I know it "works" because I lashed one up Maybe... The modulator output is nominally 75 ohm, and should be linked to such a piece of coax. European TVs have a 75 ohm aerial input, often on what we call a 'Belling-Lee coax socket', so it's just a cable. US TVs, I am told, may have either a 75 ohm coax input, often on an F connector, or a 300 ohm balanced input (for parallel twin feeder cable) on a pair of screw terminals. For the former, just connect it up. For the latter you may need a matching transformer, aka a 'balun' (BALanced to UNbalanced converter). I am pretty sure you can buy these, but it must be possible to wind one if you can get a suitable core The European switch box is just a switch. The US one I have somewhere has screw terminals for the aerial input, a bit of twin feeder for the output and IIRC a phono socket for the computer RF input. There is a balun inside. The switch is special too. It is designed to minimise RF leakage from the computer to the aerial, since linking an aerial to the computer modulator output would make a very low power TV transmitter. How far it would be detectable I do not know, but the FCC (or whoever) take a dim view of such things. -tony From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Fri Jan 23 00:34:49 2015 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 22:34:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) In-Reply-To: References: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 23 Jan 2015, tony duell wrote: > >> 1) When hooking this up to a TV via the RF input - is there any "magic" >> involved, or will a suitable braided co-ax TV cable with a phono connector >> added at the Atari end do? I know it "works" because I lashed one up > > Maybe... The modulator output is nominally 75 ohm, and should be linked to > such a piece of coax. European TVs have a 75 ohm aerial input, often on what > we call a 'Belling-Lee coax socket', so it's just a cable. US TVs, I am told, may have > either a 75 ohm coax input, often on an F connector, or a 300 ohm balanced input > (for parallel twin feeder cable) on a pair of screw terminals. For the former, just > connect it up. For the latter you may need a matching transformer, aka a 'balun' > (BALanced to UNbalanced converter). I am pretty sure you can buy these, but > it must be possible to wind one if you can get a suitable core > > The European switch box is just a switch. The US one I have somewhere has > screw terminals for the aerial input, a bit of twin feeder for the output and > IIRC a phono socket for the computer RF input. There is a balun inside. > > The switch is special too. It is designed to minimise RF leakage from the > computer to the aerial, since linking an aerial to the computer modulator > output would make a very low power TV transmitter. How far it would be > detectable I do not know, but the FCC (or whoever) take a dim view of > such things. Doing such a thing would have an appreciable chance of causing damage to the modulator because it's feeding into something that's probably not tuned to precisely the right frequency. Antennas designed only to receive tend to be very poor for transmitting. -- 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 marc.verdiell at gmail.com Fri Jan 23 01:54:26 2015 From: marc.verdiell at gmail.com (Marc Verdiell) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 23:54:26 -0800 Subject: HP16500B Logicanalyzator on ebay In-Reply-To: <1YEEBo-3aXn1c0@fwd37.aul.t-online.de> References: <1YEEBo-3aXn1c0@fwd37.aul.t-online.de> Message-ID: <6786A77E458743D8BAA0A21C90091172@workshop> I can speak for the seller SVC, they are local to me and I have visited them several times. I have bought quite a bit from them, including HP equipment (my HP8566 spectrum analyzer in particular). They are a real, rather large business, very professional, reasonably priced, not your average ebay seller. They will accept reasonable best offers (all of mine have been accepted). All I have had from them was in superior condition and worked. I have no affiliation with them. Just a satisfied repeat customer. Marc -----Original Message----- From: aswood at t-online.de [mailto:aswood at t-online.de] Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2015 1:37 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: HP16500B Logicanalyzator on ebay http://www.ebay.de/itm/HP-Agilent-16500B-Modular-Logic-Analysis-System-Mainf rame-HPIB-16501A-Module-/151561709548?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2349c82 7ec Wrong side of the pond. Seller is also offering a lot of Tek scopes, Kaypro and some other interesting equipment. Had a Convex SPP1200CD - also wrong side of the pond - I'd have love to get the board, even the Vicor DC-DC converter on the boards.... -- Andreas From marc.verdiell at gmail.com Fri Jan 23 02:32:34 2015 From: marc.verdiell at gmail.com (Marc Verdiell) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 00:32:34 -0800 Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... In-Reply-To: <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> References: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> <54C11752.1070903@cimmeri.com> <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <0173ED8ACB574FFE8B88CB6172E1888F@workshop> Gee, my 7970E is still on a dolly. And definitely no bracket came with mine. I hadn't realized I needed one. Looking at this monster drive, there is a lip on the right side that you can access only if you swivel out the whole front panel that holds the tape mechanism, as if you were servicing the unit. That lip has the holes for mounting on the rack. So far so good. On the left side though, there is just the hinges that allows the aforementioned panel to swivel out. Right where the rack mounting holes should be. No access there to screw anything! How the hell does the darn bracket work? You'd attach the bracket first to the rack, then slide in the drive and screw it in to the bracket *from the inside* of the opened unit, while delicately balancing 130 pounds of tape drive? Yikes! I think I am just saying I might need one bracket ;-) Marc -----Original Message----- From: Jay West [mailto:jwest at classiccmp.org] Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2015 7:38 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... Ok, just making sure there wasn't some way to do it without the bracket that I was overlooking. While I do have brackets for all mine, I am sure that at some point I will get a unit I don't have a bracket for so I was investigating having "modern brackets" made as a "just in case". If there was in fact no obvious other way to mount them - I figured people may want me to get more than one made. Speak up quickly if you need one.... J From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Fri Jan 23 05:19:59 2015 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 11:19:59 +0000 (WET) Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) Message-ID: <01PHNLIOIKXE002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> > > > 1) When hooking this up to a TV via the RF input - is there any "magic" > > involved, or will a suitable braided co-ax TV cable with a phono connector > > added at the Atari end do? I know it "works" because I lashed one up > > Maybe... The modulator output is nominally 75 ohm, and should be linked to > such a piece of coax. European TVs have a 75 ohm aerial input, often on what > we call a 'Belling-Lee coax socket', so it's just a cable. US TVs, I am told, may have > either a 75 ohm coax input, often on an F connector, or a 300 ohm balanced input > (for parallel twin feeder cable) on a pair of screw terminals. For the former, just > connect it up. For the latter you may need a matching transformer, aka a 'balun' > (BALanced to UNbalanced converter). I am pretty sure you can buy these, but > it must be possible to wind one if you can get a suitable core > I don't know whether some US televisions do this too but I have a Japanese radio that has two screw terminals for a 300 Ohm balanced feeder and alternatively allows a 75 Ohm unbalanced feeder to be connected between one of those terminals and a ground terminal which is also provided. Regards, Peter Coghlan. From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 23 06:26:21 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 06:26:21 -0600 Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... In-Reply-To: <0173ED8ACB574FFE8B88CB6172E1888F@workshop> References: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> <54C11752.1070903@cimmeri.com> <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> <0173ED8ACB574FFE8B88CB6172E1888F@workshop> Message-ID: <005201d03707$cc53ff20$64fbfd60$@classiccmp.org> Marc wrote... ---- [snip] How the hell does the darn bracket work? You'd attach the bracket first to the rack, then slide in the drive and screw it in to the bracket *from the inside* of the opened unit, while delicately balancing 130 pounds of tape drive? Yikes! ---- Yep. Fortunately, the one that I am actively using was already mounted in its final rack when I got it. For expediency, I've just been moving the cable to different systems as I need it. But for the current system build, I have to mount one "from scratch" so am going to go through the process you describe soon. I'm betting the rack wheels need to be chocked. "Delicately balancing"... hah. I was going to mount the drive yesterday but then decided I should check into having more brackets made so I'm sending my bracket off for measurement/duplication (to see if it's even possible, it may not be). The bracket has a lip that the drive sets on while you do the bolting so it may not be "that bad". If the bracket can be duplicated, I'll wait till copies are made. If not, once I get my bracket back, I'll go through the process and let you know how it goes and if there's any tips I discover/share to make it easier. In the event that the lip doesn't help, my thought was to mount a couple of the HP angle-iron rails (flat surface up!). That way the tape could sit on this while you wrangle the bolts and then remove the angle-iron rails. Here is a link to pictures of the bracket, in case someone has it laying around but doesn't realize "this is what that's for"... www.ezwind.net/hp2000/7970E/ The bracket is pictures 0520 through 0525 ---- I think I am just saying I might need one bracket ;-) ---- You're added to the list, qty 1 J From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 23 08:13:56 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 06:13:56 -0800 Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... In-Reply-To: <005201d03707$cc53ff20$64fbfd60$@classiccmp.org> References: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> <54C11752.1070903@cimmeri.com> <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> <0173ED8ACB574FFE8B88CB6172E1888F@workshop> <005201d03707$cc53ff20$64fbfd60$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54C25724.3000000@bitsavers.org> On 1/23/15 4:26 AM, Jay West wrote: > Marc wrote... > ---- > [snip] How the hell does the darn bracket work? You'd attach the bracket > first to the rack, then slide in the drive and screw it in to the bracket > *from the inside* of the opened unit, while delicately balancing 130 pounds > of tape drive? Yikes! > ---- > Yep. This is exactly the way that Kennedy 9000 tape drives mount as well. I wonder who copied who. Pertec is similar WRT hanging from pegs, but they are castings which have the nasty habit of cracking. From richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca Fri Jan 23 09:55:21 2015 From: richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca (Richard Loken) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 08:55:21 -0700 (MST) Subject: Equipment Available (really VAX 8600) In-Reply-To: <028101d03689$4597f370$d0c7da50$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On Thu, 22 Jan 2015, Jay West wrote: > Just received the following "equipment available" email.. ... > Vax 8600 ... > MicroVax II ... Coinicidently, my employer purchased a VAX 8600 (running VMS) and a VAX-11/785 running Ultrix in 1985 and I was reading the tender for its purchase last week. In 1985 an educational institution could get a VAX 8600, VAX/VMS 4.7, umpteen layered products, and a three years hardware/software support agreement for CDN$1,034,000.00 and a VAX-11/785 with Ultrix and layered products for around $400,000.00. The purchase All-In-One was $35,000.00!!! Coo Lummey! Four years later the 8600 (now an 8650) was replaced by a VAX 8820 for an additional $1.2 million. The VAX 8820 ran a MicroVAX II as its boot/management console but I cannot remember what did that job for the 8600. Was it a MicroVAX II? If so, then anybody wishing to haul away the 8600 will also want the MicroVAX II... -- Richard Loken VE6BSV, Unix System Administrator : "Anybody can be a father Athabasca University : but you have to earn Athabasca, Alberta Canada : the title of 'daddy'" ** richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca ** : - Lynn Johnston From bqt at update.uu.se Fri Jan 23 10:21:24 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 17:21:24 +0100 Subject: Equipment Available (really VAX 8600) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54C27504.4090702@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-23 16:55, Richard Loken wrote: > On Thu, 22 Jan 2015, Jay West wrote: > >> Just received the following "equipment available" email.. > ... >> Vax 8600 > ... >> MicroVax II > ... > > Coinicidently, my employer purchased a VAX 8600 (running VMS) and a > VAX-11/785 running Ultrix in 1985 and I was reading the tender for its > purchase last week. > > In 1985 an educational institution could get a VAX 8600, VAX/VMS 4.7, > umpteen layered products, and a three years hardware/software support > agreement for CDN$1,034,000.00 and a VAX-11/785 with Ultrix and layered > products for around $400,000.00. > > The purchase All-In-One was $35,000.00!!! Coo Lummey! > > Four years later the 8600 (now an 8650) was replaced by a VAX 8820 for > an additional $1.2 million. Thanks for that information. Pretty cool. Lots of money... > The VAX 8820 ran a MicroVAX II as its boot/management console but I cannot > remember what did that job for the 8600. Was it a MicroVAX II? If so, then > anybody wishing to haul away the 8600 will also want the MicroVAX II... No. The 86x0 machines have a built-in PDP-11 for the front end. This PDP-11 has its own Q-bus inside the VAX, and on that sits a RLV12 controller, with the FE RL02 disk pack, on which all microcode, diagnostics, tools, and the FE console handling software resides. (It is actually a specially tailored RT-11 system.) If anyone, anywhere, plans on running an 86x0, please contact me. Unless you really know what you are doing, chances are that you will not manage to get the machine running, or that you'll break it in short order. Important things to know: The machine *really* needs 3-phase. And the phases have to be ordered right. The blowers are 3-phase motors, and they create a small storm behind the machine. The machine is all ECL, and really need the cooling, or else it will break. The RL02 is critical for operation of the machine. All the microcode is loaded at boot time from the PDP-11 into the VAX. The VAX have a battery back unit for RTC. Chances are that the batteries have gone bad if the machine have been in storage. They are 12V lead batteries. Without healthy batteries the machine will not start up. There is a jumper you can install to get around this, but it's not documented anywhere. All that said, it is my favorite model of all time (although maybe a VAX 9000 would beat it, if I ever would have a chance to play with one...) Johnny From js at cimmeri.com Fri Jan 23 10:22:37 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 11:22:37 -0500 Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... In-Reply-To: <005201d03707$cc53ff20$64fbfd60$@classiccmp.org> References: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> <54C11752.1070903@cimmeri.com> <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> <0173ED8ACB574FFE8B88CB6172E1888F@workshop> <005201d03707$cc53ff20$64fbfd60$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54C2754D.6080703@cimmeri.com> On 1/23/2015 7:26 AM, Jay West wrote: > In the event that the lip doesn't help, It's a two person job, but the lip definitely helps. The hardest part is just lifting the machine up. - J. From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Fri Jan 23 10:25:14 2015 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 11:25:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... In-Reply-To: <54C2754D.6080703@cimmeri.com> References: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> <54C11752.1070903@cimmeri.com> <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> <0173ED8ACB574FFE8B88CB6172E1888F@workshop> <005201d03707$cc53ff20$64fbfd60$@classiccmp.org> <54C2754D.6080703@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 23 Jan 2015, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > On 1/23/2015 7:26 AM, Jay West wrote: >> In the event that the lip doesn't help, > It's a two person job, but the lip definitely helps. The hardest part is > just lifting the machine up. I can attest that it can be done by one person, but I don't recommend it. :-) Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 23 10:14:49 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 08:14:49 -0800 Subject: Equipment Available (really VAX 8600) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54C27379.1090503@bitsavers.org> On 1/23/15 7:55 AM, Richard Loken wrote: > The VAX 8820 ran a MicroVAX II as its boot/management console but I cannot > remember what did that job for the 8600. Was it a MicroVAX II? pro 350 From bqt at update.uu.se Fri Jan 23 10:22:43 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 17:22:43 +0100 Subject: Equipment Available (really VAX 8600) In-Reply-To: <54C27379.1090503@bitsavers.org> References: <54C27379.1090503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54C27553.8040500@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-23 17:14, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/23/15 7:55 AM, Richard Loken wrote: > >> The VAX 8820 ran a MicroVAX II as its boot/management console but I >> cannot >> remember what did that job for the 8600. Was it a MicroVAX II? > > pro 350 Nope. The 86x0 machines have a built-in PDP-11. Some 8000 machines did have PROs, though. Johnny From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Jan 23 11:30:26 2015 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 11:30:26 -0600 Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) In-Reply-To: References: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <54C28532.1060804@gmail.com> On 01/22/2015 11:47 PM, tony duell wrote: > >> 1) When hooking this up to a TV via the RF input - is there any "magic" >> involved, or will a suitable braided co-ax TV cable with a phono connector >> added at the Atari end do? I know it "works" because I lashed one up > > Maybe... The modulator output is nominally 75 ohm, and should be linked to > such a piece of coax. European TVs have a 75 ohm aerial input, often on what > we call a 'Belling-Lee coax socket', so it's just a cable. US TVs, I am told, may have > either a 75 ohm coax input, often on an F connector, or a 300 ohm balanced input > (for parallel twin feeder cable) on a pair of screw terminals. For the former, just > connect it up. For the latter you may need a matching transformer... Aha, thanks. I think that whatever equipment I might ever want to connect the machine to will be using an F connector, so straight-through will do the job. I did find a lead at a shop yesterday though with DIN connectors at the end (original purpose unknown), so I can butcher that and make myself up a composite lead. Oddly, I never saw a TV switch box in the UK back in the day - everyone I knew with any kind of machine that used a TV for a display simply unplugged the regular antenna and plugged the computer in when they wanted to use it. > (BALanced to UNbalanced converter). I am pretty sure you can buy these, but > it must be possible to wind one if you can get a suitable core I do see ones for old video game consoles every once in a while, I've just never picked one up as I have monitors (CBM, Apple etc.) that will work with the other machines I have over here. Maybe I'll grab one at some point, just in case I ever need it for some reason. cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Jan 23 11:38:47 2015 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 11:38:47 -0600 Subject: Wanted: Apple II Plus escape key Message-ID: <54C28727.2030608@gmail.com> I have an Apple II Plus at home with a broken escape key - does anyone happen to have a basket-case keyboard that they'd be able to salvage one from for me? There's a little bit of stem left on the keyswitch, so I think I could possibly make it work with just the keycap, although (assuming the machine's keyboard even uses individual switches, I've not actually dismantled to check) I probably wouldn't say no to the associated keyswitch, too. It's an ex-school machine, so I wonder if it was broken off intentionally (i.e. to stop kids quitting out of some software that they weren't supposed to) - the system's in great cosmetic shape otherwise. cheers Jules From richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca Fri Jan 23 11:03:35 2015 From: richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca (Richard Loken) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 10:03:35 -0700 (MST) Subject: Equipment Available (really VAX 8600) In-Reply-To: <54C27379.1090503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Fri, 23 Jan 2015, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/23/15 7:55 AM, Richard Loken wrote: > > > The VAX 8820 ran a MicroVAX II as its boot/management console but I cannot > > remember what did that job for the 8600. Was it a MicroVAX II? > > pro 350 Who would have thought! It fits into the theory we had at the time that Digital used whatever small machine was overstocked at the warehouse... -- Richard Loken VE6BSV, Unix System Administrator : "Anybody can be a father Athabasca University : but you have to earn Athabasca, Alberta Canada : the title of 'daddy'" ** richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca ** : - Lynn Johnston From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Jan 23 14:27:29 2015 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 12:27:29 -0800 Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... In-Reply-To: <54C25724.3000000@bitsavers.org> References: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> <54C11752.1070903@cimmeri.com> <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> <0173ED8ACB574FFE8B88CB6172E1888F@workshop> <005201d03707$cc53ff20$64fbfd60$@classiccmp.org> <54C25724.3000000@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 2015-Jan-23, at 6:13 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/23/15 4:26 AM, Jay West wrote: >> Marc wrote... >> ---- >> [snip] How the hell does the darn bracket work? You'd attach the bracket >> first to the rack, then slide in the drive and screw it in to the bracket >> *from the inside* of the opened unit, while delicately balancing 130 pounds >> of tape drive? Yikes! >> ---- >> Yep. > > This is exactly the way that Kennedy 9000 tape drives mount as well. > I wonder who copied who. I have a HP 7970A, date codes 1970, that uses the same mounting bracket/method, if that helps the determination. The A is 800 BPI, darn it, so I can't R/W common 1600 BPI tapes. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Jan 23 14:29:20 2015 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 12:29:20 -0800 Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... In-Reply-To: References: <016c01d03648$d6f7be90$84e73bb0$@classiccmp.org> <54C11752.1070903@cimmeri.com> <01c001d03659$57382170$05a86450$@classiccmp.org> <0173ED8ACB574FFE8B88CB6172E1888F@workshop> <005201d03707$cc53ff20$64fbfd60$@classiccmp.org> <54C2754D.6080703@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: On 2015-Jan-23, at 8:25 AM, Mike Loewen wrote: > On Fri, 23 Jan 2015, js at cimmeri.com wrote: >> On 1/23/2015 7:26 AM, Jay West wrote: >>> In the event that the lip doesn't help, >> It's a two person job, but the lip definitely helps. The hardest part is just lifting the machine up. > > I can attest that it can be done by one person, but I don't recommend it. :-) My experience, and my sentiments, too. Steel-toed boots advisable. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 23 14:41:54 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 20:41:54 +0000 Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) In-Reply-To: References: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> , Message-ID: > > Doing such a thing would have an appreciable chance of causing damage to > the modulator because it's feeding into something that's probably not I think that's unlikely. The modulator has a very low RF output (after all, it is designed to connect to an input that typically gets microvolt signals from an aerial) so there is not enough RF power around to do damage no matter where it ends up. Certainly running a modulator into an open circuit or short circuit does no harm (These are big no-nos for radio transmitters)). For that matter, I am not convinced that the aerial input of a TV is going to be tuned to the modulator output frequency. Particularly not if the TV is tuned to a different channel :-). And I have never seen warnings about making sure the TV is correctly tuned before powering up. > tuned to precisely the right frequency. Antennas designed only to receive > tend to be very poor for transmitting. How come? The elementary books on aerials suggest that a good transmitting aerial is a good receiving aerial and vice versa. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 23 14:47:17 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 20:47:17 +0000 Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) In-Reply-To: <01PHNLIOIKXE002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01PHNLIOIKXE002M1L@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: > > I don't know whether some US televisions do this too but I have a Japanese radio > that has two screw terminals for a 300 Ohm balanced feeder and alternatively > allows a 75 Ohm unbalanced feeder to be connected between one of those terminals > and a ground terminal which is also provided. One of my old FM tuners (a Leak Trough Line 3 [1]) has that arrangement. It's quite simple electrically, since the impedance ratio goes as the square of the turns ratio, you need twice as many turns to match 300 ohms as to match 75 ohms. And since the 300 ohm input is balanced, it should really be centre-tapped to earth. These conditions are both met by having a centre-tapped input coil (matching to the right impedance on the secondary side of the RF input transformer) with the tap grounds. I am sure the Trough Line 3 schematic is on the web (every other old Leak schematic I've wanted is) if you want to see the circuit. [1] So called because the oscillator 'coil' is a concentric line soldered to the tuning capacitor. It is therefore very stable. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 23 15:34:05 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 21:34:05 +0000 Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) In-Reply-To: <54C28532.1060804@gmail.com> References: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> , <54C28532.1060804@gmail.com> Message-ID: > Oddly, I never saw a TV switch box in the UK back in the day - everyone I > knew with any kind of machine that used a TV for a display simply unplugged > the regular antenna and plugged the computer in when they wanted to use it. I never saw one with a computer, they were more commonly used with TV games consoles. I have one somewhere. Actually I think I've seen them in pound shops (equivalent of dollar stores) recently, next time I am going around such places I will have another look I got a US one (300 ohm aerial I/O, 75 ohm computer input on an RCA phono socket with internal balun) with my CoCo 3, which is the US NTSC version (it was never sold in the UK, and trying to find the PAL version sold in Australia was impossible). I have never used it, I use the CoCo 3 with an RGB monitor. -tony From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Fri Jan 23 18:29:59 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:29:59 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54BEE292.5040805@9track.net> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> <54BEE292.5040805@9track.net> Message-ID: <000901d0376c$e311bad0$a9353070$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Matt Burke > Sent: 20 January 2015 23:20 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > On 20/01/2015 05:06, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > Do you recall what EPROM you used and how its pinout differed from the > > ROM you were replacing? As far as I can tell there is only one ROM on > > the board, could it be both the character ROM and the firmware? > > > > I used a 2716, but you will probably need a 2764 for the ROM in question. If you > look at the four ROMs on the VT100 schematic you will see that the chip select > pins are different for each one. Mask ROMs can be manufactured with any > combination of chip select required whereas EPROMs are fixed. This means > that the four mask ROMs can be installed in any order. > > There should be a separate ROM on the board for the character generator. > The part number will be something like 23-018E2-00. It's usually soldered in. > > Matt I probed the pins of the ROM with my scope and some of the pins looked a bit odd, seeming to have 3 voltage levels rather than 2. I took the ROM out of the VT101 and put it in my programmer to try reading it. I had a private suggestion that as a 24-pin 8K ROM chip, it would probably by equivalent to MCM68766, but when I read it with the programmer every single bit came out as a 1. So either the ROM is really bad, or I have chosen the wrong device type. I probed some of the address lines on the 8085 and the ROM and they seemed to correspond, so perhaps I did choose the right device type. So: 1. Given the ROM is marked: CN55004N 8232, DEC TP03, 23-028E4-00, and it is 24-pin, is MCM68766 really the right choice? 2. If it was right, is there a modern equivalent? Ebay does not have any of these chips in the UK. It looks like I may have to buy/make a 28->24 pin adapter for a 2764, or ship MCM68766 from the USA. 3. Does anyone have a ROM image for the VT101? Thanks Rob From bqt at update.uu.se Fri Jan 23 18:52:22 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 01:52:22 +0100 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <000901d0376c$e311bad0$a9353070$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> <54BEE292.5040805@9track.net> <000901d0376c$e311bad0$a9353070$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <54C2ECC6.6050208@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-24 01:29, Robert Jarratt wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Matt > Burke >> Sent: 20 January 2015 23:20 >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >> >> On 20/01/2015 05:06, Robert Jarratt wrote: >>> Do you recall what EPROM you used and how its pinout differed from the >>> ROM you were replacing? As far as I can tell there is only one ROM on >>> the board, could it be both the character ROM and the firmware? >>> >> >> I used a 2716, but you will probably need a 2764 for the ROM in question. > If you >> look at the four ROMs on the VT100 schematic you will see that the chip > select >> pins are different for each one. Mask ROMs can be manufactured with any >> combination of chip select required whereas EPROMs are fixed. This means >> that the four mask ROMs can be installed in any order. >> >> There should be a separate ROM on the board for the character generator. >> The part number will be something like 23-018E2-00. It's usually soldered > in. >> >> Matt > > > I probed the pins of the ROM with my scope and some of the pins looked a bit > odd, seeming to have 3 voltage levels rather than 2. > > I took the ROM out of the VT101 and put it in my programmer to try reading > it. I had a private suggestion that as a 24-pin 8K ROM chip, it would > probably by equivalent to MCM68766, but when I read it with the programmer > every single bit came out as a 1. So either the ROM is really bad, or I have > chosen the wrong device type. I probed some of the address lines on the 8085 > and the ROM and they seemed to correspond, so perhaps I did choose the right > device type. > > So: > > 1. Given the ROM is marked: CN55004N 8232, DEC TP03, 23-028E4-00, and it is > 24-pin, is MCM68766 really the right choice? > 2. If it was right, is there a modern equivalent? Ebay does not have any of > these chips in the UK. It looks like I may have to buy/make a 28->24 pin > adapter for a 2764, or ship MCM68766 from the USA. > 3. Does anyone have a ROM image for the VT101? Given it's "8232", I could suspect that it would be a 4K rom... Also, looking at the VT100 and VT103, they have 2K roms, named 8316, which really reinforces my suspicion that this would be a 4K rom... 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 update.uu.se Fri Jan 23 18:56:08 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 01:56:08 +0100 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54C2ECC6.6050208@update.uu.se> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> <54BEE292.5040805@9track.net> <000901d0376c$e311bad0$a9353070$@ntlworld.com> <54C2ECC6.6050208@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54C2EDA8.7060809@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-24 01:52, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2015-01-24 01:29, Robert Jarratt wrote: >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Matt >> Burke >>> Sent: 20 January 2015 23:20 >>> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >>> Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault >>> >>> On 20/01/2015 05:06, Robert Jarratt wrote: >>>> Do you recall what EPROM you used and how its pinout differed from the >>>> ROM you were replacing? As far as I can tell there is only one ROM on >>>> the board, could it be both the character ROM and the firmware? >>>> >>> >>> I used a 2716, but you will probably need a 2764 for the ROM in >>> question. >> If you >>> look at the four ROMs on the VT100 schematic you will see that the chip >> select >>> pins are different for each one. Mask ROMs can be manufactured with any >>> combination of chip select required whereas EPROMs are fixed. This means >>> that the four mask ROMs can be installed in any order. >>> >>> There should be a separate ROM on the board for the character generator. >>> The part number will be something like 23-018E2-00. It's usually >>> soldered >> in. >>> >>> Matt >> >> >> I probed the pins of the ROM with my scope and some of the pins looked >> a bit >> odd, seeming to have 3 voltage levels rather than 2. >> >> I took the ROM out of the VT101 and put it in my programmer to try >> reading >> it. I had a private suggestion that as a 24-pin 8K ROM chip, it would >> probably by equivalent to MCM68766, but when I read it with the >> programmer >> every single bit came out as a 1. So either the ROM is really bad, or >> I have >> chosen the wrong device type. I probed some of the address lines on >> the 8085 >> and the ROM and they seemed to correspond, so perhaps I did choose the >> right >> device type. >> >> So: >> >> 1. Given the ROM is marked: CN55004N 8232, DEC TP03, 23-028E4-00, and >> it is >> 24-pin, is MCM68766 really the right choice? >> 2. If it was right, is there a modern equivalent? Ebay does not have >> any of >> these chips in the UK. It looks like I may have to buy/make a 28->24 pin >> adapter for a 2764, or ship MCM68766 from the USA. >> 3. Does anyone have a ROM image for the VT101? > > Given it's "8232", I could suspect that it would be a 4K rom... > Also, looking at the VT100 and VT103, they have 2K roms, named 8316, > which really reinforces my suspicion that this would be a 4K rom... ...or I might be confused. I swapped "83" for "82" here. You might want to ignore me. :-) 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 wilson at dbit.com Fri Jan 23 19:54:03 2015 From: wilson at dbit.com (John Wilson) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 20:54:03 -0500 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <000901d0376c$e311bad0$a9353070$@ntlworld.com> References: <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> <54BEE292.5040805@9track.net> <000901d0376c$e311bad0$a9353070$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20150124015403.GA26319@dbit.dbit.com> On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 12:29:59AM -0000, Robert Jarratt wrote: >I took the ROM out of the VT101 and put it in my programmer to try reading >it. I had a private suggestion that as a 24-pin 8K ROM chip, it would >probably by equivalent to MCM68766, but when I read it with the programmer >every single bit came out as a 1. So either the ROM is really bad, or I have >chosen the wrong device type. I probed some of the address lines on the 8085 >and the ROM and they seemed to correspond, so perhaps I did choose the right >device type. Based on nothing more than the fact that I know the APL char gen ROM socket on the VT100's AVO board has jumpers to choose between various chip-select polarities, and that the default setting (for DEC's mask ROM) differs from a 2716 or whatever the similar-sized normal EPROM was (since I had to change them to make one of those work 1,000 years ago), I buy the theory that this thing may have non-standard chip-select pins/polarities. Reading as all ones certainly does sound like it's not being selected properly, just as much as it could mean a frotzed chip. >3. Does anyone have a ROM image for the VT101? Nope but I do have a VT101, so if you get stuck (and someone does know how to set the CS pin(s)), I'd be willing to try to read it out. I got the VT11 char gen PROM out using a LPT port and some perf board so it's OK if it doesn't correspond to any vanilla EPROM type, as long as the pinout can be figured out. John Wilson D Bit From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Jan 23 20:53:09 2015 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 02:53:09 +0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <54C2ECC6.6050208@update.uu.se> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> <54BEE292.5040805@9track.net> <000901d0376c$e311bad0$a9353070$@ntlworld.com> <54C2ECC6.6050208@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54C30915.2050005@dunnington.plus.com> On 24/01/2015 00:52, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2015-01-24 01:29, Robert Jarratt wrote: >> 1. Given the ROM is marked: CN55004N 8232, DEC TP03, 23-028E4-00, and >> it is 24-pin, is MCM68766 really the right choice? As close as you'll get in an EPROM, modulo chip select polarities. Someone on the list promised me a few some years ago, but I never got them :-( >> 3. Does anyone have a ROM image for the VT101? I don't, sorry, but if anyone get an image dumped, I'll host it alongside the others on my website. > Given it's "8232", I could suspect that it would be a 4K rom... Nope, it's 8K. A DEC 23-xxxE4 part number specifies 8K ROM. I expect 8232 is the date code. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From mhs.stein at gmail.com Fri Jan 23 21:55:03 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 22:55:03 -0500 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> <54BEE292.5040805@9track.net> <000901d0376c$e311bad0$a9353070$@ntlworld.com> <54C2ECC6.6050208@update.uu.se> <54C30915.2050005@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <506B41E7F7CD4943AC4DBFA6005E28DF@310e2> FYI, the 24 to 28 pin adapters I mentioned previously have selectable polarity chip selects: http://store.go4retro.com/23xx-adapter/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pete Turnbull" To: ; "Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 23, 2015 9:53 PM Subject: Re: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > On 24/01/2015 00:52, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> On 2015-01-24 01:29, Robert Jarratt wrote: >>> 1. Given the ROM is marked: CN55004N 8232, DEC TP03, 23-028E4-00, and >>> it is 24-pin, is MCM68766 really the right choice? > > As close as you'll get in an EPROM, modulo chip select polarities. Someone > on the list promised me a few some years ago, but I never got them :-( > >>> 3. Does anyone have a ROM image for the VT101? > > I don't, sorry, but if anyone get an image dumped, I'll host it alongside > the others on my website. > >> Given it's "8232", I could suspect that it would be a 4K rom... > > Nope, it's 8K. A DEC 23-xxxE4 part number specifies 8K ROM. I expect > 8232 is the date code. > > -- > Pete > > Pete Turnbull From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 24 00:18:35 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 06:18:35 +0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: <000901d0376c$e311bad0$a9353070$@ntlworld.com> References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> <54BEE292.5040805@9track.net>,<000901d0376c$e311bad0$a9353070$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: > I probed the pins of the ROM with my scope and some of the pins looked a bit > odd, seeming to have 3 voltage levels rather than 2. Which pins? The address pins are inputs to the ROM, so if they 'look odd', the problem is likely to be something else, such as whatever chip drives the address bus. The data pins go to a shared bus (several 3-state devices can drive it, only one is enabled at a time), and may well appear to have intermediate voltage levels if all devices are momentarily disabled. This doesn't mean the ROM is good, of course! > > I took the ROM out of the VT101 and put it in my programmer to try reading > it. I had a private suggestion that as a 24-pin 8K ROM chip, it would > probably by equivalent to MCM68766, but when I read it with the programmer > every single bit came out as a 1. So either the ROM is really bad, or I have If all the bits are 1's then either the ROM is totally dead or more likely it is never being enabled. The chip select input(s) on mask ROMs can often be selected (by the final metalisation layer that determines the ROM contents) to be either active-high or active-low. EPROM ones are active low. So it is possible your programmer is disabling the chip. If the ROM was all 1's then I would expect the 8085 to be exectuing FF's = RST 38h. Since location 0038 is very likely to be in the ROM of a simple 8085 system like this, it will just keep on exectuting RST 38h, pushing 39 00 onto the stack each time (and thus filling writable memory with those bytes). This is not what your VT101 is doing AFAIK, so I would think the ROM is not all 1's -tony From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Sat Jan 24 00:40:54 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 01:40:54 -0500 Subject: somewhat sad tek4015-1 Message-ID: Hi, I pulled my tek4015-1 from storage (~10 years, dry but cold, had been working perfectly then) and brought it home to my living room, much to the dismay of my significant other. I plugged it in. it squealed a bit, zapped a little and lit up with that signature green expanding circle. I was able to get the line/local light to behave reasonably and it seemed to go into local mode ok. Was hoping to echo characters to the screen, but no love. The screen is really bright. It's as if the whole thing was in the lit-up state. PAGE key does blink the screen, but I remember it flashing brightly whilst erasing in the past. Now it looks like it's just staying bright all the time. I wiggled the boards in the cage around and managed to get it to repeat control-g feeps (while holding those keys down), but it's only able to do it intermittently, seems related to the positioning (or complete absence) of the display driver board. Still no characters showing up. Does anyone know how to work on these? thx jake From marc.verdiell at gmail.com Sat Jan 24 00:48:32 2015 From: marc.verdiell at gmail.com (Marc Verdiell) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 22:48:32 -0800 Subject: calling all HP7970 tape owners.... Message-ID: <000701d037a1$c5f34060$51d9c120$@gmail.com> Jay wrote... ---- Here is a link to pictures of the bracket, in case someone has it laying around but doesn't realize "this is what that's for"... www.ezwind.net/hp2000/7970E/ The bracket is pictures 0520 through 0525 ---- I see. It's a more involved bracket than I thought, with 3D bends in heavy gauge steel. It will need to be bent by hand since it's not worth making a fixture for so few. It's going to be an interesting calculation for the hole position if they drill them pre-bend, they might not get it right first time. Let us know what you find out. Marc From mstaunton at roadrunner.com Fri Jan 23 21:47:34 2015 From: mstaunton at roadrunner.com (Matthew Staunton) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 19:47:34 -0800 Subject: San Diego, CA: 1991 ERA AS400 In-Reply-To: <7D9CB56D-AC31-47C5-BE5F-C83126F303C6@gewt.net> References: <7D9CB56D-AC31-47C5-BE5F-C83126F303C6@gewt.net> Message-ID: where are located? Sent from my iPad On Jan 20, 2015, at 11:03 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote: > > Id love the Apollo. List a starting price. > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Jan 20, 2015, at 21:20, Matthew Staunton wrote: >> >> Sorry got really sick. Below is the model numbers. I will supply more info if anybody is interested >> Pricing is open due to shipping weight is included >> >> CRT monitors working with cables >> HP A4033A 65lbs >> HP A45764 75lbs >> >> servers/workstations >> HP Visualize C180 30lbs >> HP Apollo 400 MOD#A2193A 90lbs >> Mentor Graphics HLN5065W 100lbs >> I clan also be contacted via cell 7607030986 >> From tsw-cc at johana.com Fri Jan 23 21:57:52 2015 From: tsw-cc at johana.com (Tom Watson) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 03:57:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 Message-ID: <2001978536.321248.1422071872480.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> The discussion about servos on the XT2190 prompted me to turn on a machine (Altos ACS 68000) that I have with one of these nice drives in it.? The initial sounds of the drive is it re-calibrating using a stepping sequence.? This may be done by the drive controller to find track zero, or the drive itself (I really don't know).? Since the stepping (and subsequent servo lock) happens at a low frequency, it is the sound you hear.? Sometimes it takes a couple of times to get its act together, but it works well.? This was a machine that had been off for a bunch of years (over 10?) and it came back to life nicely.? I couldn't say much about the terminal I had attached as the dust that had accumulated made some keys not function so well, but I'll take some canned air and "blow it out" to get it working well. I note that the MFM interface does not have any "microstep" capability, only a simple step function.? I believe that the SMD interface did (it has been a few years, I never used it in my work), and the ESDI might (I never worked with that one). Soon I'll get the MFM drive simulator working and go "solid state". From mstaunton at roadrunner.com Fri Jan 23 22:12:24 2015 From: mstaunton at roadrunner.com (Matthew Staunton) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 20:12:24 -0800 Subject: San Diego, CA: 1991 ERA AS400 In-Reply-To: <7D9CB56D-AC31-47C5-BE5F-C83126F303C6@gewt.net> References: <7D9CB56D-AC31-47C5-BE5F-C83126F303C6@gewt.net> Message-ID: <95A8F11E-6B3B-4451-B174-8FD8EB79A2B1@roadrunner.com> btw the Mentor Graphics is also based on the Apollo and contains all the same parts. I will be posting a full inventory of all hardware specs this weekend. Sent from my iPad On Jan 20, 2015, at 11:03 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote: > > Id love the Apollo. List a starting price. > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Jan 20, 2015, at 21:20, Matthew Staunton wrote: >> >> Sorry got really sick. Below is the model numbers. I will supply more info if anybody is interested >> Pricing is open due to shipping weight is included >> >> CRT monitors working with cables >> HP A4033A 65lbs >> HP A45764 75lbs >> >> servers/workstations >> HP Visualize C180 30lbs >> HP Apollo 400 MOD#A2193A 90lbs >> Mentor Graphics HLN5065W 100lbs >> I clan also be contacted via cell 7607030986 >> From ian.finder at gmail.com Fri Jan 23 22:32:47 2015 From: ian.finder at gmail.com (Ian Finder) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 20:32:47 -0800 Subject: San Diego, CA: 1991 ERA AS400 In-Reply-To: <95A8F11E-6B3B-4451-B174-8FD8EB79A2B1@roadrunner.com> References: <7D9CB56D-AC31-47C5-BE5F-C83126F303C6@gewt.net> <95A8F11E-6B3B-4451-B174-8FD8EB79A2B1@roadrunner.com> Message-ID: <093E85E3-E0E7-42E5-9B27-4DA2357DEB0A@gmail.com> Interested in the Apollo, to 98105. Still avail? Sent from my portable PDP 11/73 > On Jan 23, 2015, at 20:12, Matthew Staunton wrote: > > btw the Mentor Graphics is also based on the Apollo and contains all the same parts. I will be posting a full inventory of all hardware specs this weekend. > > Sent from my iPad > >> On Jan 20, 2015, at 11:03 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote: >> >> >> Id love the Apollo. List a starting price. >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On Jan 20, 2015, at 21:20, Matthew Staunton wrote: >>> >>> Sorry got really sick. Below is the model numbers. I will supply more info if anybody is interested >>> Pricing is open due to shipping weight is included >>> >>> CRT monitors working with cables >>> HP A4033A 65lbs >>> HP A45764 75lbs >>> >>> servers/workstations >>> HP Visualize C180 30lbs >>> HP Apollo 400 MOD#A2193A 90lbs >>> Mentor Graphics HLN5065W 100lbs >>> I clan also be contacted via cell 7607030986 >>> From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sat Jan 24 05:07:41 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 11:07:41 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> <54BEE292.5040805@9track.net>, <000901d0376c$e311bad0$a9353070$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <003701d037c5$f90f5140$eb2df3c0$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony duell > Sent: 24 January 2015 06:19 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > > I probed the pins of the ROM with my scope and some of the pins looked > > a bit odd, seeming to have 3 voltage levels rather than 2. > > Which pins? > > The address pins are inputs to the ROM, so if they 'look odd', the problem is > likely to be something else, such as whatever chip drives the address bus. > > The data pins go to a shared bus (several 3-state devices can drive it, only one > is enabled at a time), and may well appear to have intermediate voltage levels > if all devices are momentarily disabled. > > This doesn't mean the ROM is good, of course! > > > > > I took the ROM out of the VT101 and put it in my programmer to try > > reading it. I had a private suggestion that as a 24-pin 8K ROM chip, > > it would probably by equivalent to MCM68766, but when I read it with > > the programmer every single bit came out as a 1. So either the ROM is > > really bad, or I have > > If all the bits are 1's then either the ROM is totally dead or more likely it is > never being enabled. The chip select input(s) on mask ROMs can often be > selected (by the final metalisation layer that determines the ROM contents) to > be either active-high or active-low. EPROM ones are active low. So it is possible > your programmer is disabling the chip. > > If the ROM was all 1's then I would expect the 8085 to be exectuing FF's = RST > 38h. Since location 0038 is very likely to be in the ROM of a simple > 8085 system like this, it will just keep on exectuting RST 38h, pushing > 39 00 onto the stack each time (and thus filling writable memory with those > bytes). This is not what your VT101 is doing AFAIK, so I would think the ROM is > not all 1's You're right, I did think that it seemed odd that it would appear to be all 1's when the CPU does appear to do things, and that the behaviour is random, suggesting that the ROM can't possibly be all 1s. I was planning to put the ROM on a breadboard so that I can play with its connections to the programmer, but, overnight, the old PC I use to connect the parallel port programmer has developed what looks like a memory fault. I don't have any spare memory so it will be next weekend now before I can get new memory and try again. :-( Regards Rob From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Sat Jan 24 07:22:05 2015 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Robert Jarratt) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 13:22:05 -0000 Subject: VT101 8085 CPU Fault In-Reply-To: References: <013b01d03350$5457e0f0$fd07a2d0$@ntlworld.com> <014001d0335a$63cf2f20$2b6d8d60$@ntlworld.com> <54BC135B.4050201@sbcglobal.net> <024f01d03429$38b2f4a0$aa18dde0$@ntlworld.com> <025b01d0342e$a785d410$f6917c30$@ntlworld.com> <20150119213930.GA7144@dbit.dbit.com> <20150119214540.GA82653@night.db.net> <54BD91CE.2010809@9track.net> <027501d0346e$c9628bb0$5c27a310$@ntlworld.com> <54BEE292.5040805@9track.net>, <000901d0376c$e311bad0$a9353070$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <00a001d037d8$bf30e2a0$3d92a7e0$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony duell > Sent: 24 January 2015 06:19 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: VT101 8085 CPU Fault > > > I probed the pins of the ROM with my scope and some of the pins looked > > a bit odd, seeming to have 3 voltage levels rather than 2. > > Which pins? > > The address pins are inputs to the ROM, so if they 'look odd', the problem is > likely to be something else, such as whatever chip drives the address bus. > > The data pins go to a shared bus (several 3-state devices can drive it, only one > is enabled at a time), and may well appear to have intermediate voltage levels > if all devices are momentarily disabled. > > This doesn't mean the ROM is good, of course! > > > > > I took the ROM out of the VT101 and put it in my programmer to try > > reading it. I had a private suggestion that as a 24-pin 8K ROM chip, > > it would probably by equivalent to MCM68766, but when I read it with > > the programmer every single bit came out as a 1. So either the ROM is > > really bad, or I have > > If all the bits are 1's then either the ROM is totally dead or more likely it is > never being enabled. The chip select input(s) on mask ROMs can often be > selected (by the final metalisation layer that determines the ROM contents) to > be either active-high or active-low. EPROM ones are active low. So it is possible > your programmer is disabling the chip. > > If the ROM was all 1's then I would expect the 8085 to be exectuing FF's = RST > 38h. Since location 0038 is very likely to be in the ROM of a simple > 8085 system like this, it will just keep on exectuting RST 38h, pushing > 39 00 onto the stack each time (and thus filling writable memory with those > bytes). This is not what your VT101 is doing AFAIK, so I would think the ROM is > not all 1's > As I can't use my programmer at the moment, I just put the ROM in a breadboard to try the pins and see what happens. I used the pinout of the MCM68776 and it seems to correspond exactly. Basically the data outputs change as I change the address lines when pin 20 is low, which is as per the datasheet. This is odd, because I told the programmer it was MCM68776, and yet it read all 1s, whereas when I use it on the breadboard, the ROM does seem to return 0s as well. I will have to investigate further when I can get to use the programmer again. Regards Rob From stefan.skoglund at agj.net Sat Jan 24 08:38:37 2015 From: stefan.skoglund at agj.net (Stefan Skoglund) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 15:38:37 +0100 Subject: HP16500B Logicanalyzator on ebay In-Reply-To: <1YEEBo-3aXn1c0@fwd37.aul.t-online.de> References: <1YEEBo-3aXn1c0@fwd37.aul.t-online.de> Message-ID: <1422110317.6818.6.camel@compaq.lokeldarn.hobby-site.org> tor 2015-01-22 klockan 10:36 +0100 skrev aswood at t-online.de: > http://www.ebay.de/itm/HP-Agilent-16500B-Modular-Logic-Analysis-System-Mainframe-HPIB-16501A-Module-/151561709548?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2349c827ec > > Wrong side of the pond. > > Seller is also offering a lot of Tek scopes, Kaypro and some other interesting equipment. > > Had a Convex SPP1200CD - also wrong side of the pond - I'd have love to get the board, even the Vicor DC-DC converter on the boards.... > Someone (or the society) hade one or two for sale at the autumn Auction at Chalmers (G?teborg) in December. Contact ETA. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 24 12:45:53 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 18:45:53 +0000 Subject: Atari 800XL RF cable (and I/O cable availability?) In-Reply-To: References: <54C17FB4.6080608@gmail.com> , <54C28532.1060804@gmail.com>, Message-ID: [TV Aerial switchboxes] > I never saw one with a computer, they were more commonly used with TV games > consoles. I have one somewhere. Actually I think I've seen them in pound shops > (equivalent of dollar stores) recently, next time I am going around such places I > will have another look I was right. The pound shop next to Woolwich Arsenal station has a 3-way aerial switchbox, sold as a 'TV game switch'. 3 Belling-Lee sockets, a switch (which doesn't look as though it will provide much RF isolation) and a short cable ending in a Belling-Lee plug. -tony From stefan.skoglund at agj.net Sat Jan 24 13:41:01 2015 From: stefan.skoglund at agj.net (Stefan Skoglund) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 20:41:01 +0100 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <000b01d033eb$c2b000f0$481002d0$@classiccmp.org> References: <000b01d033eb$c2b000f0$481002d0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <1422128461.6818.13.camel@compaq.lokeldarn.hobby-site.org> m?n 2015-01-19 klockan 07:28 -0600 skrev Jay West: > > My thought (given there?s not a shortage of open space inside the chassis) > was to put a car jack inside and jack it up thus pushing out the top. My > concern there was that there would be an ?equal and opposite reaction?). > Perhaps a 2x4 that goes side to side under the jack would alleviate this. > But on freenode #classiccmp (where I hang out pretty much every night), > PJustice and Sark both had similar ideas for an alternative approach that > took advantage of the fact that the top of the chassis has a lot of vent > holes on top. I implemented their approach and it worked very well so I > thought I?d document it with pictures and post here. I should note that this > approach only works because the angle iron I used was 14ga. Anything less > would just bend itself. For car body repair it exists a method with spot-welded pins: the pin is specially done to be able to spot-weld it with a electric arc welder. pull at them using slide hammer remove the stub and clean up the damage afterwards. This method will unfortunately destroy the zink layer. Look for stub weld. From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Jan 24 13:59:32 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:59:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: MSV11-D debugging question Message-ID: <20150124195932.31FC418C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> OK, so I'm back to debugging busted memory cards. Again, I have a sitation where a bit is stuck on, and I'm curious to see if anyone has any insight into which chip (of 3) might be causing it (in an attempt to not have to try replacing them at random :-). Looking at the line from the memory chips (two chips - E26 and E27, if anyone cares - have outputs wire-or'd together) to the input of an octal tri-state latch (E40, an S373), that line goes to about +2V when the machine is powered on (which is similar to what other bits do); then, when I run a two-instruction read loop, (after writing 0 into that location), the line goes to +5V and stays there (which is distinctly unlike how other bits behave). Any guesses as to whether the culprit is the S373 or one of the memory chips? Noel From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 24 14:10:10 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 12:10:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <1422128461.6818.13.camel@compaq.lokeldarn.hobby-site.org> References: <000b01d033eb$c2b000f0$481002d0$@classiccmp.org> <1422128461.6818.13.camel@compaq.lokeldarn.hobby-site.org> Message-ID: <20150124120624.T34895@shell.lmi.net> > My thought (given there?s not a shortage of open space inside the chassis) > was to put a car jack inside and jack it up thus pushing out the top. My > concern there was that there would be an ?equal and opposite reaction?). > Perhaps a 2x4 that goes side to side under the jack would alleviate this. > But on freenode #classiccmp (where I hang out pretty much every night), > PJustice and Sark both had similar ideas for an alternative approach that > took advantage of the fact that the top of the chassis has a lot of vent > holes on top. I implemented their approach and it worked very well so I > thought I?d document it with pictures and post here. I should note that this > approach only works because the angle iron I used was 14ga. Anything less > would just bend itself. Bed-frame angle iron is much more rigid than perforated or slotted angle iron. Harbor Freight sells 4-ton and 10-ton "porta-power" hydraulic units. (pump, rams, extensions, variety of endpieces, etc.) I have a 10-ton kit if anybody in the Berkeley area needs one. I might still have a slide-hammer or two. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 24 14:40:37 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 12:40:37 -0800 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <000b01d033eb$c2b000f0$481002d0$@classiccmp.org> References: <000b01d033eb$c2b000f0$481002d0$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54C40345.9020105@sydex.com> On 01/19/2015 05:28 AM, Jay West wrote: > I?m in the process of building another HP2000/Access TSB system. I pulled a > 7970E tape drive out of a shipping container (I had not opened the shipping > container since I bought it about 8 years ago). When I got the unit on the > bench to give it a going over, while it looked pristine ? someone had > dropped something very heavy (heavy enough to severely deform ?? steel) on > the top of the unit. Well, if this were my unit, I'd remove the warped panel (it looks like aluminum to me). Drilling out the rivets shouldn't be a problem. Then I'd put it on my English wheel with a flat anvil and roll it completely flat--and then reattach with screws or rivets. This is why you should talk to a competent auto body shop for whom, once you remove the panel, the work should be a few minutes of child's play. FWIW, Chuck P.S. English wheels are wonderful--not only can you stretch metal to form a curve (e.g. a car fender), but you can also "shrink" it (to "unstretch" the metal from a dent. From stefan.skoglund at agj.net Sat Jan 24 14:55:00 2015 From: stefan.skoglund at agj.net (Stefan Skoglund) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 21:55:00 +0100 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: References: <36BA6914-5896-4560-9851-6A2C07C3DB74@gmail.com> <20150118203355.GG4901@ns1.bonedaddy.net> Message-ID: <1422132900.6818.23.camel@compaq.lokeldarn.hobby-site.org> m?n 2015-01-19 klockan 14:08 -0800 skrev Ian S. King: > I have a fair amount of experience with this, too. When acquiring a > system, often there are a few large cabinets and a bunch of loose items > like cables, media and documentation. Put the loose things into boxes, > which can then be stacked on the pallet and shrink-wrapped to keep them > secure. There's also a pallet called a 'gaylord' that's a cardboard box > with a pallet base, which is good for loose items. Depending on the > condition of the large cabinets, I would usually ask for cardboard under > shrink-wrap. If there are protruding switches, I would either remove those > switch panels, wrap them liberally in bubble wrap and put them in the > gaylord, or if they couldn't be removed I'd use a thick block of styrofoam, > sometimes carved out a bit, taped and shrink-wrapped to the cabinet. > Look for a elevator service firm, a lot of that eq is deliverd in nicely sized plywood boxes with a pallet like bottom so it can be handled with normal pallet lifts. The same for some manufacturing firms including those who occasionally gets new kit to install. Nice and Sturdy boxes. > One thing to ask: will the cabinets be upright the entire time? With a > PDP-15 I had shipped, it was far cheaper if they could ship it on its > side. So the seller used styrofoam to ensure that the Flip Chips stayed in > place, and got a commitment that it would be shipped on one particular > side, i.e. not rotated (he was worried about the power supplies ripping > loose). It got to Seattle in fine condition. > Very important if the thing is severly top-heavy. :-) hmm considering the hazzles an overbalanced rack can lead to.. :-( multiple times. My old work received heating eq which was heavily top heavy. Almost every driver who was new handling that gear had to break at least one. That was almost impossible to alone offload safely from a lift-gate truck. > There are two things about doing your own prep vs. having the shippers do > it. For one, if you do it you pay less money (but there is your time). If > they do it, there is the question of whether they are competent and/or open > to your input. I stopped using MoveIt when I got a crew that didn't give a > wet slap about my instructions - it was the first time I received items > with e.g., broken casters. (They denied responsibility because of the age > of the equipment!) After that I used EMOtrans pretty exclusively, and they > were great whether the job was from CA to WA or from Western Australia. > Some drivers will destroy everything (not intentionally usually they are to eager and impatient.) From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Jan 24 17:04:36 2015 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 17:04:36 -0600 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> Message-ID: I haven't ever played with official Sugru, but how does it differ from ordinary relatively inexpensive Shoe Goo? Is Sugru like slightly dried-out Shoe Goo? I find that a tube of Shoe Goo dries out a bit after a few years and becomes a more easily worked substance. - John From glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Jan 24 18:08:13 2015 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 16:08:13 -0800 Subject: Shipping antique computers In-Reply-To: <1422132900.6818.23.camel@compaq.lokeldarn.hobby-site.org> References: <36BA6914-5896-4560-9851-6A2C07C3DB74@gmail.com> <20150118203355.GG4901@ns1.bonedaddy.net> <1422132900.6818.23.camel@compaq.lokeldarn.hobby-site.org> Message-ID: Anyone in the Seattle area need some palletized shipping crates? Two listed here at UW surplus for $50 each, 30" x 43" x 4'-high. http://www.washington.edu/facilities/finadmin/movingandsurplus/inventory/item/big-lockable-shipping-crates From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 24 18:19:40 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 18:19:40 -0600 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <20150124120624.T34895@shell.lmi.net> References: <000b01d033eb$c2b000f0$481002d0$@classiccmp.org> <1422128461.6818.13.camel@compaq.lokeldarn.hobby-site.org> <20150124120624.T34895@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <005001d03834$9cf10380$d6d30a80$@classiccmp.org> Fred wrote... ---- Bed-frame angle iron is much more rigid than perforated or slotted angle iron. ---- That wouldn't have worked well at all. The angle iron that I used worked because it had many many holes in it allowing me to put the bolt to pull precisely where I wanted. J From t.gardner at computer.org Sat Jan 24 16:07:51 2015 From: t.gardner at computer.org (Tom Gardner) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:07:51 -0800 Subject: Maxtor XT-2190 In-Reply-To: <2001978536.321248.1422071872480.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <2001978536.321248.1422071872480.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <004c01d03822$327d4b60$9777e220$@computer.org> FWIW, the Seagate ST-4096 apparently used an unused pin in the data cable to place the drive in a Recovery Mode where the step and direction lines would then be used to microstep around the then current track. There are several unused or rarely used pins in the ST-506/412 interface that could have been repurposed to enable microstepping. AFAIK, there was no standard. Tom -----Original Message----- From: Tom Watson [mailto:tsw-cc at johana.com] Sent: Friday, January 23, 2015 7:58 PM To: cctech at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Maxtor XT-2190 The discussion about servos on the XT2190 prompted me to turn on a machine (Altos ACS 68000) that I have with one of these nice drives in it.? The initial sounds of the drive is it re-calibrating using a stepping sequence.? This may be done by the drive controller to find track zero, or the drive itself (I really don't know).? Since the stepping (and subsequent servo lock) happens at a low frequency, it is the sound you hear.? Sometimes it takes a couple of times to get its act together, but it works well.? This was a machine that had been off for a bunch of years (over 10?) and it came back to life nicely.? I couldn't say much about the terminal I had attached as the dust that had accumulated made some keys not function so well, but I'll take some canned air and "blow it out" to get it working well. I note that the MFM interface does not have any "microstep" capability, only a simple step function.? I believe that the SMD interface did (it has been a few years, I never used it in my work), and the ESDI might (I never worked with that one). Soon I'll get the MFM drive simulator working and go "solid state". From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Jan 24 18:38:53 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 19:38:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: HP 21MX Computer Message-ID: <20150125003853.0DD3218C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> For all you HP fans: http://www.ebay.com/itm/111471510213 Noel From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 24 18:43:21 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 18:43:21 -0600 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <54C40345.9020105@sydex.com> References: <000b01d033eb$c2b000f0$481002d0$@classiccmp.org> <54C40345.9020105@sydex.com> Message-ID: <008001d03837$ebce58b0$c36b0a10$@classiccmp.org> Chuck wrote... ---- Well, if this were my unit, I'd remove the warped panel (it looks like aluminum to me). Drilling out the rivets shouldn't be a problem. Then I'd put it on my English wheel with a flat anvil and roll it completely flat--and then reattach with screws or rivets. This is why you should talk to a competent auto body shop for whom, once you remove the panel, the work should be a few minutes of child's play. ---- My very first thought was to drill out the rivets. If the rivets were originally pop rivets, I would have done this (sheared off the pop rivets, take off the plate, flatten, and re-pop-rivet or bolt). But HP quality is a bit better than pop rivets and I aimed to preserve that (come to think of it, I don't' think I recall seeing pop rivets anywhere in the HP gear I have). It's all aircraft style flush rivets that are sanded down & polished. At times, you need a magnifier to even tell it's a rivet. So long story short, I wasn't going to take that gorgeous smooth polished surface and replace it with bolts or screws. But for something that was pop-rivets, you betcha, I'd have gone that route. J From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 24 18:47:28 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 18:47:28 -0600 Subject: HP 21MX Computer In-Reply-To: <20150125003853.0DD3218C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150125003853.0DD3218C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <008101d03838$7ef65020$7ce2f060$@classiccmp.org> 2112A - so it's an M series... with the A version power supply. The A version power supply is pretty wonky, and parts for that are very difficult to find. Too bad it's not a B series :\ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Noel Chiappa Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2015 6:39 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Subject: HP 21MX Computer For all you HP fans: http://www.ebay.com/itm/111471510213 Noel From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Sat Jan 24 19:01:55 2015 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 20:01:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: HP 21MX Computer In-Reply-To: <20150125003853.0DD3218C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150125003853.0DD3218C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: On Sat, 24 Jan 2015, Noel Chiappa wrote: > For all you HP fans: > > http://www.ebay.com/itm/111471510213 He's been trying to sell that for months. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 24 19:22:59 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 17:22:59 -0800 Subject: HP tape drive novel repair In-Reply-To: <008001d03837$ebce58b0$c36b0a10$@classiccmp.org> References: <000b01d033eb$c2b000f0$481002d0$@classiccmp.org> <54C40345.9020105@sydex.com> <008001d03837$ebce58b0$c36b0a10$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54C44573.7050807@sydex.com> On 01/24/2015 04:43 PM, Jay West wrote: > So long story short, I wasn't going to take that gorgeous smooth polished > surface and replace it with bolts or screws. But for something that was > pop-rivets, you betcha, I'd have gone that route. I understand, I guess--but who's going to see it? ;) You can get flush aluminum standard rivets--they're not terribly hard to set. I've also got a few underlug flush-head screws (no slot), which, if you can get some, should preserve the exterior appearance. FWIW, if you're looking at drilling the buggers start with a good center punch and a very small bit--and then drill that with a bit slightly smaller than the rivet shank only down as far as the head depth. Then you'll be able to insert a rot of the same size and smartly snap the head off without affecting the original hole. Musical instrument repair shops also have special tools for working dents and wrinkles out of brass. They range from a "dent machine" that looks like an English wheel, with the wheel turned 90 degrees. Small portable dent rollers, such as a "Fast Eddie" are also used. Good luck! Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 24 19:27:35 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 19:27:35 -0600 Subject: HP 21MX Computer In-Reply-To: <008101d03838$7ef65020$7ce2f060$@classiccmp.org> References: <20150125003853.0DD3218C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <008101d03838$7ef65020$7ce2f060$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <000b01d0383e$1a0f6a10$4e2e3e30$@classiccmp.org> I should point out... I do have a stack of M series boxes (2108's) and I *THINK* they are all the A series power supply. They have not been refurbished yet for that reason and have just sat for years. If someone does get that one on ebay and needs parts, I might be able to help. I may be willing to trade a mint (and I really do mean MINT) 2113B for a (correspondingly mint) 2109B. I do have a single 2109B, but it's just not pretty enough (front panel too yellowed, etc.). J -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2015 6:47 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: HP 21MX Computer 2112A - so it's an M series... with the A version power supply. The A version power supply is pretty wonky, and parts for that are very difficult to find. Too bad it's not a B series :\ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Noel Chiappa Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2015 6:39 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Subject: HP 21MX Computer For all you HP fans: http://www.ebay.com/itm/111471510213 Noel From simski at dds.nl Sun Jan 25 03:37:39 2015 From: simski at dds.nl (Simon Claessen) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 10:37:39 +0100 Subject: somewhat sad tek4015-1 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54C4B963.8000008@dds.nl> caps checked and formed before turning on? don't think so... :-( On 24-01-15 07:40, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > Hi, > I pulled my tek4015-1 from storage (~10 years, dry but cold, had been > working perfectly then) and brought it home to my living room, much to the > dismay of my significant other. I plugged it in. it squealed a bit, > zapped a little and lit up with that signature green expanding circle. I > was able to get the line/local light to behave reasonably and it seemed to > go into local mode ok. Was hoping to echo characters to the screen, but no > love. > > The screen is really bright. It's as if the whole thing was in the > lit-up state. PAGE key does blink the screen, but I remember it flashing > brightly whilst erasing in the past. Now it looks like it's just staying > bright all the time. I wiggled the boards in the cage around and managed > to get it to repeat control-g feeps (while holding those keys down), but > it's only able to do it intermittently, seems related to the positioning > (or complete absence) of the display driver board. Still no characters > showing up. > > Does anyone know how to work on these? > > thx > jake > -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl From steerex at ccvn.com Sat Jan 24 19:36:57 2015 From: steerex at ccvn.com (Steve Robertson) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 20:36:57 -0500 Subject: HP 21MX Computer References: <20150125003853.0DD3218C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <008101d03838$7ef65020$7ce2f060$@classiccmp.org> <000b01d0383e$1a0f6a10$4e2e3e30$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <5C9F1F9736F048CAA6E52E0F0B24D95B@dl380> I hope he gets what he is asking for it. I've got 5 or 6 that would go to a new home if the price was high enough. Steve Robertson steerex at ccvn.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2015 8:27 PM Subject: RE: HP 21MX Computer >I should point out... I do have a stack of M series boxes (2108's) and I > *THINK* they are all the A series power supply. They have not been > refurbished yet for that reason and have just sat for years. If someone > does > get that one on ebay and needs parts, I might be able to help. > > I may be willing to trade a mint (and I really do mean MINT) 2113B for a > (correspondingly mint) 2109B. I do have a single 2109B, but it's just not > pretty enough (front panel too yellowed, etc.). > > J > > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West > Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2015 6:47 PM > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: RE: HP 21MX Computer > > 2112A - so it's an M series... with the A version power supply. The A > version power supply is pretty wonky, and parts for that are very > difficult > to find. Too bad it's not a B series :\ > > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Noel > Chiappa > Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2015 6:39 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu > Subject: HP 21MX Computer > > For all you HP fans: > > http://www.ebay.com/itm/111471510213 > > Noel > > > From pbirkel at gmail.com Sun Jan 25 03:12:46 2015 From: pbirkel at gmail.com (Paul Birkel) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 04:12:46 -0500 Subject: DEC PDP-11/70 Wire Lists Message-ID: All; I'm hoping that someone here has a back-room shoebox of DEC microfiche (or even hardcopy!) that includes Wire Lists for any/all of the following: KB11-C 11/70 Processor (or the older KB11-B) FP11-C 11/70 Floating-point processor (or the older FP11-B, also used in 11/45 and 11/50) RH70 MASSBUS controller MJ11-A Core memory I'd like to get these scanned and into Bitsavers. Please contact me off list, soonest, if you think that you can help me out. I'd be _very_ much obliged. Thanks, paul [PS: Of course, if they are already online somewhere that I've overlooked, or simply already-digital but not online, please educate me further :->.] From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sun Jan 25 07:40:08 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 08:40:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: HP 21MX Computer Message-ID: <20150125134008.DC70018C08C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Mike Loewen > He's been trying to sell that for months. Mmm. Didn't know that. I just passed the URL along because it seemed like a not totally unreasonable price for what's there (seems to be quite a few boards, no idea if it's a complete board set) - older minicomputers seem to be going for $1-2K in open auctions (the last two PDP-8's both went for $2K). Noel From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sun Jan 25 08:22:33 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 09:22:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: DEC PDP-11/70 Wire Lists Message-ID: <20150125142233.2569118C08C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Paul Birkel > Wire Lists for any/all of the following: > > KB11-C 11/70 Processor (or the older KB11-B) > FP11-C 11/70 Floating-point processor (or the older FP11-B, also used > in 11/45 and 11/50) > RH70 MASSBUS controller I don't know for sure about the 11/70 (I never looked at one closely), but for the 11/45 FPP, IIRC that was part of an integral multi-unit backplane assembly with the CPU, i.e. it was wired as part of a large wire mat that included the wiring for the CPU. So I don't think there's a separate wire list for the FPP. I would guess the same is true of the RH70. DEC generally included the wire lists in the engineering drawings; do the 11/70 prints not include the wire list? Noel From bqt at update.uu.se Sun Jan 25 13:08:28 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 20:08:28 +0100 Subject: DEC PDP-11/70 Wire Lists In-Reply-To: <20150125142233.2569118C08C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150125142233.2569118C08C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54C53F2C.4060706@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-25 15:22, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Paul Birkel > > > Wire Lists for any/all of the following: > > > > KB11-C 11/70 Processor (or the older KB11-B) > > FP11-C 11/70 Floating-point processor (or the older FP11-B, also used > > in 11/45 and 11/50) > > RH70 MASSBUS controller > > I don't know for sure about the 11/70 (I never looked at one closely), but > for the 11/45 FPP, IIRC that was part of an integral multi-unit backplane > assembly with the CPU, i.e. it was wired as part of a large wire mat that > included the wiring for the CPU. So I don't think there's a separate wire > list for the FPP. I would guess the same is true of the RH70. Right. Everything is prewired in the backplane. And there is just one backplane, and it holds both the KB11-C, the FP11-C and the four RH70, as well as for Unibus slots. > DEC generally included the wire lists in the engineering drawings; do the > 11/70 prints not include the wire list? I think I remember seeing the wire list in there, but it's been many years since I read through the 11/70 prints. 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 jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Sun Jan 25 14:25:38 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 15:25:38 -0500 Subject: somewhat sad tek4015-1 In-Reply-To: <54C4B963.8000008@dds.nl> References: <54C4B963.8000008@dds.nl> Message-ID: Nope. From the conversations I remember on here months ago, there was some lengthy debate as to whether the whole concept of reforming caps was a farce and that trying to do so was, perhaps, more dangerous than just turning the thing on. I tried to look at archives for details on how to do it, but it seems they're not up currently. On that note, maybe this is good fodder for the wiki discussion that was going on last week. If I could've made a more informed decision and possibly saved my rare machine by having that information readily accessible, that would've been a good thing. So anyway, I found a really nice manual online for the tek. I'm too much of an amateur to just dig in and start analysing it myself. Anyone have suggestions on what to look for and where to start? Should I put together a simple PC parallel port logic analyser? thx jake On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 4:37 AM, Simon Claessen wrote: > caps checked and formed before turning on? don't think so... :-( > > > On 24-01-15 07:40, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > >> Hi, >> I pulled my tek4015-1 from storage (~10 years, dry but cold, had been >> working perfectly then) and brought it home to my living room, much to the >> dismay of my significant other. I plugged it in. it squealed a bit, >> zapped a little and lit up with that signature green expanding circle. I >> was able to get the line/local light to behave reasonably and it seemed to >> go into local mode ok. Was hoping to echo characters to the screen, but >> no >> love. >> >> The screen is really bright. It's as if the whole thing was in the >> lit-up state. PAGE key does blink the screen, but I remember it flashing >> brightly whilst erasing in the past. Now it looks like it's just staying >> bright all the time. I wiggled the boards in the cage around and managed >> to get it to repeat control-g feeps (while holding those keys down), but >> it's only able to do it intermittently, seems related to the positioning >> (or complete absence) of the display driver board. Still no characters >> showing up. >> >> Does anyone know how to work on these? >> >> thx >> jake >> >> > -- > Met vriendelijke Groet, > > Simon Claessen > drukknop.nl > From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sun Jan 25 15:40:35 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 16:40:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: RA81 removal Message-ID: <20150125214035.2E49418C092@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> So, does anyone know how to take an RA81 on slides _out_ of the cabinet? The manual gives a lot of directions on how to _install_ it, but nothing on how to _remove_ one once one has it in. I had to take a pair of RA81's out of some cabinets, and I could not for the life of me find the trick! I finally resorted to undoing the two machine screws that hold the slides onto the RA81 case, which I consider sort of cheating (although from looking at that manual, that may be the correct, official way...) Noel From p.gebhardt at ymail.com Sun Jan 25 15:49:47 2015 From: p.gebhardt at ymail.com (P Gebhardt) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 21:49:47 +0000 (UTC) Subject: RA81 removal In-Reply-To: <20150125214035.2E49418C092@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150125214035.2E49418C092@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <955442541.317942.1422222587518.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Hi Noel, hehe, I had exactly the same problems a year ago and also found all this information on how to install the RA8x drive, but not how to _uninstall_ it :) You actually have to unskrew four screws which hold the slides against the chassis. Two screws on each side, if I recall corretly. Not sure on the exakt total amount of screws anymore, though. The slides are hold by brackets, so the slides are completely removed from the drive's chassis. Cheers, Pierre ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pierre's collection of classic computers moved to: http://www.digitalheritage.de ----- Urspr?ngliche Message ----- > Von: Noel Chiappa > An: cctalk at classiccmp.org > CC: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu > Gesendet: 22:40 Sonntag, 25.Januar 2015 > Betreff: RA81 removal > > So, does anyone know how to take an RA81 on slides _out_ of the cabinet? The > manual gives a lot of directions on how to _install_ it, but nothing on how to > _remove_ one once one has it in. > > I had to take a pair of RA81's out of some cabinets, and I could not for the > life of me find the trick! I finally resorted to undoing the two machine > screws that hold the slides onto the RA81 case, which I consider sort of > cheating (although from looking at that manual, that may be the correct, > official way...) > > Noel > From pbirkel at gmail.com Sun Jan 25 09:52:07 2015 From: pbirkel at gmail.com (Paul Birkel) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 10:52:07 -0500 Subject: DEC PDP-11/70 Wire Lists In-Reply-To: <20150125142233.2569118C08C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150125142233.2569118C08C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: In reverse order, I think that the 11/40 was the last MP to include an integrated Wire List. In later cases they apparently were separate documents. Or those portions simply didn't get scanned and archived to Bitsavers (or elsewhere) ... they're not in MP0KB11-C0_1170engDrw_Nov75.pdf anyway. Yes, the 11/70 has one big, bad, backplane. I think that you're probably correct that there's a single Wire List for the whole thing -- perhaps just identified as KB11-C. But I don't know that to be true ... yet :->. On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 9:22 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Paul Birkel > > > Wire Lists for any/all of the following: > > > > KB11-C 11/70 Processor (or the older KB11-B) > > FP11-C 11/70 Floating-point processor (or the older FP11-B, also > used > > in 11/45 and 11/50) > > RH70 MASSBUS controller > > I don't know for sure about the 11/70 (I never looked at one closely), but > for the 11/45 FPP, IIRC that was part of an integral multi-unit backplane > assembly with the CPU, i.e. it was wired as part of a large wire mat that > included the wiring for the CPU. So I don't think there's a separate wire > list for the FPP. I would guess the same is true of the RH70. > > DEC generally included the wire lists in the engineering drawings; do the > 11/70 prints not include the wire list? > > Noel > From billdeg at buzz1.com Sun Jan 25 10:41:17 2015 From: billdeg at buzz1.com (B Degnan) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 11:41:17 -0500 Subject: Digital PDP11/10 PDP 11/20 Price List Dec 15, 1969 Message-ID: I scanned some info on the launch of the Digital PDP11. As the documents show, there was a "rev 1" PDP11/10 that was used as a process control system. You could buy the 11/20 version that had the front panel. Otherwise they were very similar/same systems. The "rev 2" PDP11/10 is the unit most people are more familiar with, the core system is interchangeable with the 11/05. Most references I have seen on the WWW do not include the original PDP11/10, anyone have one? http://vintagecomputer.org/browse_thread.cfm?id=593 Bill From bqt at update.uu.se Sun Jan 25 17:28:40 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 00:28:40 +0100 Subject: RA81 removal In-Reply-To: <20150125214035.2E49418C092@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150125214035.2E49418C092@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54C57C28.50909@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-25 22:40, Noel Chiappa wrote: > So, does anyone know how to take an RA81 on slides _out_ of the cabinet? The > manual gives a lot of directions on how to _install_ it, but nothing on how to > _remove_ one once one has it in. > > I had to take a pair of RA81's out of some cabinets, and I could not for the > life of me find the trick! I finally resorted to undoing the two machine > screws that hold the slides onto the RA81 case, which I consider sort of > cheating (although from looking at that manual, that may be the correct, > official way...) You mean sliding them out on their rails or removing them from the rails? 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 jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sun Jan 25 18:00:50 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 19:00:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: RA81 removal Message-ID: <20150126000050.0DA2918C099@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Johnny Billquist > You mean sliding them out on their rails or removing them from the > rails? Sliding them out on their rails. (Removing them from their rails I've figured out how to do! :-) Noel From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 01:48:13 2015 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 08:48:13 +0100 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On 25 January 2015 at 00:04, John Foust wrote: > I haven't ever played with official Sugru, but how does it differ > from ordinary relatively inexpensive Shoe Goo? Is Sugru like > slightly dried-out Shoe Goo? I find that a tube of Shoe Goo > dries out a bit after a few years and becomes a more easily worked > substance. I've never heard of this Shoe Goo stuff before, so I can't comment on a direct comparison. I've used a differently-branded Sugru alternative, though. It's not an adhesive and it's not sticky. It's like Plasticine or other modelling clay -- a smooth, non-tacky, very viscous colloidal gel, which can be moulded and shaped. It only adheres to things by virtue of being moulded onto and around them; if you need to, say, stick it to a flat surface, you'd have to glue it on. But when it sets, it goes hard - like a hard rubber. You can make a small mark with a fingernail but this will eventually smooth out. It's no more pliable than a piece of truck tyre when cured. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R) From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 02:08:31 2015 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 09:08:31 +0100 Subject: Home-made 8-bit portable computer Message-ID: Maker describes it as a cross between a C64 and an HX-20. http://www.grappendorf.net/projects/6502-home-computer -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R) From drlegendre at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 03:17:59 2015 From: drlegendre at gmail.com (drlegendre .) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 03:17:59 -0600 Subject: Home-made 8-bit portable computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Wow, and talk about your vintage appearance.. dang thing looks like it's been exposed to the sun for around thirty years. ;-) But seriously now, thanks for the link. I only read the intro, but it seems like quite the micro-accomplishment. Have to go through the rest when I have time. On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 2:08 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > Maker describes it as a cross between a C64 and an HX-20. > > http://www.grappendorf.net/projects/6502-home-computer > > -- > Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile > Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven > MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven > Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R) > From ian.finder at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 03:20:49 2015 From: ian.finder at gmail.com (Ian Finder) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 01:20:49 -0800 Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse References: Message-ID: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> > Trying to get my 3/50 restored... If anyone has these available I would like to purchase them from you. > > Understand it might be a long shot. > > I'm in Seattle, WA > > Thanks, > > - Ian > > -- > Ian Finder > (206) 395-MIPS > ian.finder at gmail.com From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Jan 26 03:34:28 2015 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 01:34:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: found a 1702 Message-ID: I found a 1702 EPROM rattling around in the bottom of one of my boxes of stuff. I have no idea what's on it. Can someone give me some advice on just reading the thing with a TL866? If/when I decide I want to program it, I'll make something like this: http://www.tronola.com/html/1702a_prom_programmer.html -- 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 johannesthelen at hotmail.com Sun Jan 25 16:46:24 2015 From: johannesthelen at hotmail.com (Johannes Thelen) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 00:46:24 +0200 Subject: HP 21MX Computer In-Reply-To: <20150125134008.DC70018C08C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150125134008.DC70018C08C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: This seller have also hard drive, tape reader and magnetic tape unit for that MX. I asked this same HP around month ago and he told it was stored ten years ago. It have been part of some kind of test equipment. Price somehow good, but when you add all those accessories, price raises quite high. Also I live otherside of the globe, shipping would cost way too much :( > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: HP 21MX Computer > Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 08:40:08 -0500 > From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu > CC: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu > > > From: Mike Loewen > > > He's been trying to sell that for months. > > Mmm. Didn't know that. I just passed the URL along because it seemed like a > not totally unreasonable price for what's there (seems to be quite a few > boards, no idea if it's a complete board set) - older minicomputers seem to > be going for $1-2K in open auctions (the last two PDP-8's both went for $2K). > > Noel From charles at uniwho.com Mon Jan 26 01:51:33 2015 From: charles at uniwho.com (Charles) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 02:51:33 -0500 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: sounds like you guys are Talking about the Amazing Goop! The stuff really is amazing. Sent from the office of MacCaps.com MACCAPS.COM 22222 ROETHEL DRIVE SUITE F NOVI, MICHIGAN 48375 UNITED STATES Thanks. Charles Phillips 248 325 8812 On Jan 26, 2015, at 2:48 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > On 25 January 2015 at 00:04, John Foust wrote: >> I haven't ever played with official Sugru, but how does it differ >> from ordinary relatively inexpensive Shoe Goo? Is Sugru like >> slightly dried-out Shoe Goo? I find that a tube of Shoe Goo >> dries out a bit after a few years and becomes a more easily worked >> substance. > > > I've never heard of this Shoe Goo stuff before, so I can't comment on > a direct comparison. > > I've used a differently-branded Sugru alternative, though. It's not an > adhesive and it's not sticky. It's like Plasticine or other modelling > clay -- a smooth, non-tacky, very viscous colloidal gel, which can be > moulded and shaped. It only adheres to things by virtue of being > moulded onto and around them; if you need to, say, stick it to a flat > surface, you'd have to glue it on. > > But when it sets, it goes hard - like a hard rubber. You can make a > small mark with a fingernail but this will eventually smooth out. It's > no more pliable than a piece of truck tyre when cured. > > -- > Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile > Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven > MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven > Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R) From useddec at gmail.com Sun Jan 25 19:03:26 2015 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 19:03:26 -0600 Subject: Digital PDP11/10 PDP 11/20 Price List Dec 15, 1969 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Did you mean the 15 and the 20? I think the 15 is the oem version of the 20, and the 5 is the oem version of the 10. The 11/05 and/or 11/10 came in at least 3 different boxes and 5 or 6 different backplanes available. On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 10:41 AM, B Degnan wrote: > > > I scanned some info on the launch of the Digital PDP11. As the documents > show, there was a "rev 1" PDP11/10 that was used as a process control > system. You could buy the 11/20 version that had the front panel. > Otherwise they were very similar/same systems. The "rev 2" PDP11/10 is the > unit most people are more familiar with, the core system is interchangeable > with the 11/05. > > Most references I have seen on the WWW do not include the original > PDP11/10, anyone have one? > > http://vintagecomputer.org/browse_thread.cfm?id=593 > > Bill > From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 26 07:45:47 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:45:47 +0100 Subject: RA81 removal In-Reply-To: <20150126000050.0DA2918C099@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150126000050.0DA2918C099@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54C6450B.7080402@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-26 01:00, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Johnny Billquist > > > You mean sliding them out on their rails or removing them from the > > rails? > > Sliding them out on their rails. (Removing them from their rails I've figured > out how to do! :-) Ok. Normally they should slide out without any fuzz at all. However, occasionally I've seen them secured in place by a bracket at the rear. And, while I haven't seen this explicitly on RA81s, there are sometimes a design with a spring latch on the top right, that needs to be pushed in with a finger before a box can slide out. But I can't see that they would have re-fitted your drives with that. I would start by checking if they were secured with a bracket at the rear. And of course, you then have some additional small locks and tricks if you want to extend them beyond their normal point, as needed if you actually plan to remove them from the slides. Johnny From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 26 07:50:47 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 08:50:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: RA81 removal Message-ID: <20150126135047.A1E9C18C0A2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Johnny Billquist > you then have some additional small locks and tricks if you want to > extend them beyond their normal point, as needed if you actually plan > to remove them from the slides. Sorry, I was not clear enough: that is exactly what I want to do - remove them from their slides (i.e. from the cabinet). I do know how to do that by taking out the two machine screws in each side which secure the slides to the disk case. However, is there some way to remove the drive completely, without doing that? I.e. a way to separate the slide into two parts, one of which stays with the cabinet, and one with the disk drive? Noel From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 26 07:52:51 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:52:51 +0100 Subject: RA81 removal In-Reply-To: <20150126135047.A1E9C18C0A2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150126135047.A1E9C18C0A2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54C646B3.9040300@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-26 14:50, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Johnny Billquist > > > you then have some additional small locks and tricks if you want to > > extend them beyond their normal point, as needed if you actually plan > > to remove them from the slides. > > Sorry, I was not clear enough: that is exactly what I want to do - remove > them from their slides (i.e. from the cabinet). > > I do know how to do that by taking out the two machine screws in each side > which secure the slides to the disk case. > > However, is there some way to remove the drive completely, without doing > that? I.e. a way to separate the slide into two parts, one of which stays > with the cabinet, and one with the disk drive? Oh! Yeah, I didn't fully understand what you were looking for. Well, no, there is no way to split the slides. You are supposed to remove the two tiny screws that holds the slide to the drive when you remove it. Johnny From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 26 08:11:45 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 09:11:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: RA81 removal Message-ID: <20150126141145.E18BA18C0A2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Johnny Billquist > You are supposed to remove the two tiny screws that holds the slide to > the drive when you remove it. Yeah, that seems to be the conclusion. What's odd is that RL0x's use almost identical (maybe they are identical) slides, but on the RLOx's, there _is_ (I think) a way to take the drive out without undoing screws; there's a little latch at the very front of the slide, and it looks like if one trips that latch, the rail along the side of the drive case will slide out out of the slides. I wonder why they didn't do that on the RA8x's as well? Maybe because those weigh so much more? Noel From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 26 08:14:34 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 15:14:34 +0100 Subject: RA81 removal In-Reply-To: <20150126141145.E18BA18C0A2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150126141145.E18BA18C0A2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54C64BCA.1060102@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-26 15:11, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Johnny Billquist > > > You are supposed to remove the two tiny screws that holds the slide to > > the drive when you remove it. > > Yeah, that seems to be the conclusion. > > What's odd is that RL0x's use almost identical (maybe they are identical) > slides, but on the RLOx's, there _is_ (I think) a way to take the drive out > without undoing screws; there's a little latch at the very front of the > slide, and it looks like if one trips that latch, the rail along the side of > the drive case will slide out out of the slides. If that was the case, then the previous user was sloppy. In addition to that latch, you are also supposed to screw in four (I think it is) screws from the rail to the drive there too. > I wonder why they didn't do that on the RA8x's as well? Maybe because those > weigh so much more? They should all be screwed... The latch is just an extra safety feature of the RL rail since it's so easy for it to come off the rails when the screws are out... Johnny From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 26 08:57:49 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 09:57:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: RA81 removal Message-ID: <20150126145749.7A48F18C0A2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Johnny Billquist > If that was the case, then the previous user was sloppy. In addition to > that latch, you are also supposed to screw in four (I think it is) > screws from the rail to the drive there too. Yup, manual confirms 4. Anyway, maybe that's why they got rid of that feature on the RA81 - people were being lazy and depending on the latches, and not putting in the screws. Noel From dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com Mon Jan 26 10:57:16 2015 From: dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com (Doug Ingraham) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 09:57:16 -0700 Subject: ANSWER: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20150121) Message-ID: And this question must have been too obscure to elicit any response. The answer is C) 50. After posting the trivia question I came up with a way on the PDP8 to measure time events to a resolution of 1.5 microseconds and went back and retested the High Speed Paper tape reader hardware. The earlier version could only measure to 3.0 microseconds resolution. Here is the 1.5 microsecond version of the program: / ADVANCED HIGH SPEED PAPER TAPE TIMING PROGRAM / / USES FIELD 1 AND LINK/AC TO MEASURE TIME DELAY / WITH INTERRUPTS. *0000 .-. / INTERRUPT ENTRY POINT RSF / MAKE CERTAIN IT WAS A HSR INTERRUPT HLT / HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM DCA I AUTO0 / SAVE COUNT AND LINK AS A 24 BIT RAL DCA I AUTO0 / SAVE LINK JMP MORE *0010 AUTO0, .-. / MORE, ISZ Z FRM1 / CHECK FOR DONE JMP NEXT / EXIT INTERRUPT AND CONTINUE TIMING TAD Z COUNTS / POINT AT START OF ARRAY DCA Z AUTO0 TAD Z CNTS / GET BACK ORIGINAL COUNT OF SAMPLES DCA Z FRM1 TLS / PRIME THE PUMP PRLP, TAD I Z AUTO0 / GET 12 BIT PART DCA Z BASE TAD I Z AUTO0 / GET LINK PART CLL RAR / RESTORE THE LINK TAD Z BASE / COUNT IS IN LINK AND AC TAD Z C0002 / ADD 2 WHICH CORRECTS TIMING FOR START DELAY DCA Z BASE / SAVE FOR PRINTING RAL / PRINT THE LEADING OCTAL DIGIT TAD Z CHZERO / ADD IN '0' TO GET LEADING DIGIT JMS PRINT / AND WE DONT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE LINK ANYMORE TAD Z M0004 / INITIALIZE DIGIT COUNTER DCA Z DIGCNT DIGLP, TAD Z BASE / OCTAL DIGIT IS IN UPPER 3 BITS RTL RAL DCA Z BASE / NEXT DIGIT IS IN UPPER 3 BITS TAD Z BASE / NEED TO SHIFT ONCE MORE TO GET IN LOWER 3 BITS RAL AND Z C0007 / KEEP JUST THE LOWER 3 BITS TAD Z CHZERO / ADD IN THE OFFSET FOR ASCII 0 CHARACTER JMS PRINT / AND GO PRINT IT ISZ Z DIGCNT JMP DIGLP TAD Z CHSPC / PRINT A SPACE JMS PRINT TAD Z CHCR / PRINT CR JMS PRINT TAD Z CHLF / PRINT LF JMS PRINT ISZ Z FRM1 / ARE WE DONE? JMP PRLP / NO HLT / ALL DONE JMP START / GO AGAIN NEXT, CLA CLL / LINK AND AC MAKE A 13 BIT COUNTER ION / INTERRUPTS ON. CIF THAT FOLLOWS DELAYS THIS CIF 10 / SWITCH TO FIELD 1 AT THE JMP I CZERO RFC / START THE NEXT READ JMP I C0000 / START COUNTING (ADDS 2 TO THE ACTUAL COUNT) PRINT, .-. / PRINT THE CHARACTER IN THE AC TSF / WAIT FOR LAST CHARACTER TO FINISH PRINTING JMP .-1 / WAIT TLS / SHIP IT CLA CLL / RETURN WITH AC CLEAR JMP I PRINT / RETURN / CONSTANTS C0000, 0 C0002, 2 C0007, 0007 / MASK CIAC, IAC / IAC CONSTANT CHLF, 0012 / CONSTANT FOR LINE FEED CHCR, 0015 / CONSTANT FOR CARRIAGE RETURN CHSPC, 0040 / CONSTANT FOR A SPACE CHARACTER CHZERO, 0260 / CONSTANT FOR '0' CHARACTER COUNTS, ARRAY-1 / POINTER TO COUNTS ARRAY-1 FOR AUTO INCREMENT INITIALIZE M0004, -4 / VARIABLES FRM1, 0000 / FRAME COUNT KEPT HERE CNTS, 0000 / COPY OF FRAME COUNT READ FROM SWITCHES BASE, 0000 / TEMPORARY STORAGE OF WORD BEING PRINTED DIGCNT, 0000 / COUNT OF DIGITS WHEN PRINTING *0200 START, CLA DCA FRM1 / FILL ALL OF FIELD 1 WITH IAC INSTRUCTIONS CDF 10 FILL, TAD CIAC / GET THE CIAC INSTRUCTION DCA I FRM1 / PUT IT ON FIELD 1 ISZ FRM1 / BUMP AND CHECK FOR DONE JMP FILL / NOT DONE CDF 00 / RESTORE TO FIELD ZERO AGAIN, LAS / READ SR CMA / INITIALIZE FRAME COUNT FROM SR FOR ISZ DCA Z FRM1 TAD Z FRM1 DCA Z CNTS / KEEP A COPY FOR USE WHEN PRINTING TAD Z COUNTS / INITIALIZE THE AUTO INCREMENT REGISTER DCA Z AUTO0 JMP NEXT / AND GO MAKE A PASS *0400 ARRAY, .-. /STORE THE COUNTS HERE $ The program fills field 1 with IAC instructions and then reads the switch register to find out how many frames to process. Each frame is timed and the result stored in words pairs starting at 0400. Counts are 0-8191 which on a straight 8 would represent 0 - 12286.5 microseconds. The actual time is 2 counts more than this because of the JMP I C0000 to switch fields and start execution of the timer. Once the switch register count of frames is reached the contents of the array plus 2 is dumped out as 5 octal digits to the teletype. In the case of the Type 750 and PC01 the first character read sets the flag immediately so the first entry in the table shows as 2 which for the purpose of my emulator I fixed the first entry. My emulator of course gives the same answers as the 8 but then it has to because it uses the table generated by the real 8. The only other place I ran it was on Sim8 which always gives 0145 as the answer which is not even close. I will come up with something of more general interest for the next trivia question. I have something in mind already. Doug Ingraham PDP-8 S/N 1175 On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 11:27 PM, Doug Ingraham wrote: > Many of us on this list are collectors of one sort of computer or > another. I don't think of myself as a collector so much as a caretaker of > my PDP-8. Of the things it has been fairly easy to get in recent years are > the CPU and its related cards for the models that were produced in fairly > large numbers. What is not easy to get are peripherals for these > machines. So here is a question relating to the Type 750 high speed paper > tape reader found on the early models. A few years back we were working on > getting the CPU back in good working order. We needed to read in the > diagnostic paper tapes but the reader was not reliable. Went through the > tuning procedure and found that it was trying to read the tape at nearly > 450 cps. After tuning it up the full speed now sits at 342 cps. > > The question is how many frames does it have to read before it reaches > full speed? > > A) 1 > B) 10 > C) 50 > D) 100 > > This is probably a somewhat squishy number and would depend somewhat on > tuning. I wrote a couple of programs to determine this so I could add > correct delays to my emulator. I was able to obtain a 3 microsecond > resolution count of the delay. How that was accomplished might make for > another trivia question. > > > > > -- Doug Ingraham PDP-8 SN 1175 From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 11:49:28 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:49:28 -0500 Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse In-Reply-To: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> Message-ID: Ian, I _think_ I have a Sun Type 3 Keyboard, mouse and mirror grid. Unknown operational status (was working ten years ago before ghastly storage) and probably quite dusty. Finding it will involve a bit of digging. Let me know if you don't get any better offers and I'll give it a go. --jake On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 4:20 AM, Ian Finder wrote: > > > Trying to get my 3/50 restored... If anyone has these available I would > like to purchase them from you. > > > > Understand it might be a long shot. > > > > I'm in Seattle, WA > > > > Thanks, > > > > - Ian > > > > -- > > Ian Finder > > (206) 395-MIPS > > ian.finder at gmail.com > From bqt at update.uu.se Mon Jan 26 07:47:37 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:47:37 +0100 Subject: Digital PDP11/10 PDP 11/20 Price List Dec 15, 1969 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54C64579.8@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-26 02:03, Paul Anderson wrote: > Did you mean the 15 and the 20? I think the 15 is the oem version of the > 20, and the 5 is the oem version of the 10. The 11/05 and/or 11/10 came in > at least 3 different boxes and 5 or 6 different backplanes available. At the time of launch, they had a plan for a whole range of machines, with designations. What eventually was called the 11/15, was named 11/10 in some early documents and plans. (It was never manufactured as such, though.) Johnny > > On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 10:41 AM, B Degnan wrote: > >> >> >> I scanned some info on the launch of the Digital PDP11. As the documents >> show, there was a "rev 1" PDP11/10 that was used as a process control >> system. You could buy the 11/20 version that had the front panel. >> Otherwise they were very similar/same systems. The "rev 2" PDP11/10 is the >> unit most people are more familiar with, the core system is interchangeable >> with the 11/05. >> >> Most references I have seen on the WWW do not include the original >> PDP11/10, anyone have one? >> >> http://vintagecomputer.org/browse_thread.cfm?id=593 >> >> Bill >> From engel at multicores.org Mon Jan 26 12:27:46 2015 From: engel at multicores.org (Michael Engel) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 18:27:46 +0000 Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse In-Reply-To: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> Message-ID: <67FC05D1-008C-4635-9AD9-B845A899C60E@multicores.org> On 26 Jan 2015, at 09:20, Ian Finder wrote: > >> Trying to get my 3/50 restored... If anyone has these available I would like to purchase them from you. Sun type 4 and 5 keyboards work on the 3/50 using an adapter and should be a bit easier to find, pinouts (DB15->Mini-Din 8) can be found in the Sun HW reference: http://www.sunhelp.org/faq/sunref5.html Finding a working ECL monitor might in fact be the bigger problem. I have never tried to run an EIZO6500 or an Atari TT ECL monitor on my 3/50 and 3/60, but I suspect these might also work, However, they probably won't be easier to find today than an original Sun ECL monitor. There might be an option to convert the ECL monitor signal of the 3/50 back to TTL, which will be easier to adapt to a modern monitor. Looking at the schematics of the Sun 2 video board at bitsavers, page 18 of 19 (http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/sun/sun2/800-1187-01_2-120_Video_Board_Engr_Sep84.pdf), a TTL-compatible video output (for very early Sun 2 monochrome TTL monitors) is supported in addition to ECL, selectable by a jumper (right hand side of the sheet). The conversion from ECL back to TTL is done by a 10H125 Quad MECL-to-TTL translator chip (U1809, top right corner of the sheet): http://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/MC10H125-D.PDF I checked if this would also be possible on the 3/50 some months ago and - if my memory doesn't fail me - my 3/50 board actually had empty solder pads for a 10H125. The board is currently about 900 km away from here, so I can't easily check this and I couldn't find a suitable high resolution photo of the board. However, I think it might be worthwhile to investigate if the 3/50 can be adapted to use TTL monitors in a similar way to the Sun 2 video board. Strangely, the Sun 2/50 schematics on bitsavers don't seem to include the option for a 10H125. The chip is still available from OnSemi, I ordered a couple, but didn't get to try them so far. Hope that helps, Michael From engel at multicores.org Mon Jan 26 12:27:46 2015 From: engel at multicores.org (Michael Engel) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 18:27:46 +0000 Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse In-Reply-To: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> Message-ID: <67FC05D1-008C-4635-9AD9-B845A899C60E@multicores.org> On 26 Jan 2015, at 09:20, Ian Finder wrote: > >> Trying to get my 3/50 restored... If anyone has these available I would like to purchase them from you. Sun type 4 and 5 keyboards work on the 3/50 using an adapter and should be a bit easier to find, pinouts (DB15->Mini-Din 8) can be found in the Sun HW reference: http://www.sunhelp.org/faq/sunref5.html Finding a working ECL monitor might in fact be the bigger problem. I have never tried to run an EIZO6500 or an Atari TT ECL monitor on my 3/50 and 3/60, but I suspect these might also work, However, they probably won't be easier to find today than an original Sun ECL monitor. There might be an option to convert the ECL monitor signal of the 3/50 back to TTL, which will be easier to adapt to a modern monitor. Looking at the schematics of the Sun 2 video board at bitsavers, page 18 of 19 (http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/sun/sun2/800-1187-01_2-120_Video_Board_Engr_Sep84.pdf), a TTL-compatible video output (for very early Sun 2 monochrome TTL monitors) is supported in addition to ECL, selectable by a jumper (right hand side of the sheet). The conversion from ECL back to TTL is done by a 10H125 Quad MECL-to-TTL translator chip (U1809, top right corner of the sheet): http://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/MC10H125-D.PDF I checked if this would also be possible on the 3/50 some months ago and - if my memory doesn't fail me - my 3/50 board actually had empty solder pads for a 10H125. The board is currently about 900 km away from here, so I can't easily check this and I couldn't find a suitable high resolution photo of the board. However, I think it might be worthwhile to investigate if the 3/50 can be adapted to use TTL monitors in a similar way to the Sun 2 video board. Strangely, the Sun 2/50 schematics on bitsavers don't seem to include the option for a 10H125. The chip is still available from OnSemi, I ordered a couple, but didn't get to try them so far. Hope that helps, Michael From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 26 12:56:00 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:56:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: Digital PDP11/10 PDP 11/20 Price List Dec 15, 1969 Message-ID: <20150126185600.F2E2A18C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: B Degnan > there was a "rev 1" PDP11/10 that was used as a process control system. > You could buy the 11/20 version that had the front panel. Otherwise > they were very similar/same systems. According to my 1971 11/20-15-R20 handbook, the 11/15 (the 'rev 1' 11/10, KC11 processor) did have one significant difference from the 11/20, which is that it only supported one interrupt level, instead of four (see table pg. 2). I seem to recall reading that in other places, too. Of course, according to that table, the 11/05 (KD11-B) also only supported one interrupt level, so maybe that table is confused. Noel From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 26 13:30:50 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:30:50 -0800 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> On 01/25/2015 11:48 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > I've used a differently-branded Sugru alternative, though. It's not an > adhesive and it's not sticky. It's like Plasticine or other modelling > clay -- a smooth, non-tacky, very viscous colloidal gel, which can be > moulded and shaped. It only adheres to things by virtue of being > moulded onto and around them; if you need to, say, stick it to a flat > surface, you'd have to glue it on. > > But when it sets, it goes hard - like a hard rubber. You can make a > small mark with a fingernail but this will eventually smooth out. It's > no more pliable than a piece of truck tyre when cured. Can you fabricate rubber parts, such as pinch rollers with the stuff--and do they work? --Chuck From cctalk at fahimi.net Mon Jan 26 13:44:09 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:44:09 -0800 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> Message-ID: <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> > Can you fabricate rubber parts, such as pinch rollers with the stuff-- > and do they work? > Chuck, Are you thinking of making capstans out of it? -Ali From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 26 13:57:15 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:57:15 -0800 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> Message-ID: <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> On 01/26/2015 11:44 AM, Ali wrote: >> Can you fabricate rubber parts, such as pinch rollers with the stuff-- >> and do they work? >> > > Are you thinking of making capstans out of it? Yeah, pretty much. -Chuck From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 26 14:00:35 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:00:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jan 2015, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 01/26/2015 11:44 AM, Ali wrote: >>> Can you fabricate rubber parts, such as pinch rollers with the stuff-- >>> and do they work? >>> >> > >> Are you thinking of making capstans out of it? > > Yeah, pretty much. > Chuck, you might want to find someone that's got a 3D printer near you and has experience with a flexible filament called NinjaFlex. If you can't find anyone, let me know and I'll pick up a spool and give it a shot. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Mon Jan 26 14:08:19 2015 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:08:19 -0800 Subject: MSV11-D debugging question In-Reply-To: <20150124195932.31FC418C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150124195932.31FC418C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <1B218BB5-DEB3-4EC6-932B-867325330D2E@cs.ubc.ca> On 2015-Jan-24, at 11:59 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > OK, so I'm back to debugging busted memory cards. Again, I have a sitation > where a bit is stuck on, and I'm curious to see if anyone has any insight into > which chip (of 3) might be causing it (in an attempt to not have to try > replacing them at random :-). > > Looking at the line from the memory chips (two chips - E26 and E27, if anyone > cares - have outputs wire-or'd together) to the input of an octal tri-state > latch (E40, an S373), that line goes to about +2V when the machine is powered > on (which is similar to what other bits do); then, when I run a > two-instruction read loop, (after writing 0 into that location), the line goes > to +5V and stays there (which is distinctly unlike how other bits behave). > > Any guesses as to whether the culprit is the S373 or one of the memory chips? If I'm following your observations adequately and starting from the assumption the observations you present are sufficient, it is being implied that after the memory is accessed some failure results in the state of the 3-point circuit latching up. I take it that the other wire-OR'd bit-lines return to +2V after the memory access. Given: - There are two banks (upper & lower) of memory chips wire-OR'd together. - nCAS of the mem chips acts as the tri-state control for the chip data output. - When a memory location is accessed, nCAS for one of the upper or lower bank of mem chips will be sent low, enabling data output to the 373 latch inputs. - The 373 latch control will be strobed to latch the data into the 373, while nCAS is low. (Are they 4116 memory chips in use?) Assuming you have ODT or a front panel available where you have atomic control over memory accesses ..., a means to isolate which of the 3 points (ICs/pins) is the problem might (not guaranteed) be: - Clear the circuit state to +2V state. - Access the low bank of memory. - Note the circuit state. - Clear the circuit state to +2V state. - Access the high bank of memory. - Note the circuit state. If the state after both accesses is +5 (faulty) then it suggests the 373 is the failure point. If the state is only faulty after one of the accesses it suggests the according mem chip is the failure point. You might want to play with writing 0 or 1 into the location prior to the read, it's difficult to be exhaustive at this distance for all the possible test/failure scenarios, but you get the idea: distinguish the accesses to the upper and lower bank to try to isolate when the circuit enters the faulty state, and see whether it's common to both banks or only one. You might also try scoping the various nRAS, nCAS, 373 strobe inputs along with the faulty circuit to see if you can discern time coincidence between activity on one of those inputs and entering the fault state. From charles at uniwho.com Mon Jan 26 14:09:42 2015 From: charles at uniwho.com (Charles) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 15:09:42 -0500 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> Message-ID: <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> Hey that is a good idea :) Man these 3d printers are so awesome! Its getting to the point where, one could 3d print anything. Don?t quote me on this, but i think Jay Leno, One of his mechanics 3D prints up working car parts that are not made any more of for some of those 100 year old cars he has. http://www.3ders.org/articles/20120514-jay-leno-uses-3d-scanner-and-3d-printer-to-replace-old-car-parts.html a flexible filament called NinjaFlex. If you can't find anyone, let me know and I'll pick up a spool and give it a shot. > > g. > > > -- > Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 > http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. > http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. > Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. > > ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment > A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. > http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From cctalk at fahimi.net Mon Jan 26 14:16:47 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:16:47 -0800 Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> Message-ID: <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> > Hey that is a good idea :) Man these 3d printers are so awesome! > Its getting to the point where, one could 3d print anything. Yes, 3D printers are very cool especially with this hobby. The problem, at least for someone like me, is that I can't design the items that need to be printed. For example, the capstan would be about as far as I could go assuming I had measurements from a "good one" since it is just a cylinder. What would be needed is an easy to use/store/search file format and database where people with talent could put in the "parts" you could print at home or local store. Of course then you have to worry about copyright infringement. -Ali From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 26 14:33:46 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:33:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jan 2015, Charles wrote: > Hey that is a good idea :) Man these 3d printers are so awesome! > Its getting to the point where, one could 3d print anything. > > Don?t quote me on this, but i think Jay Leno, One of his mechanics 3D prints up working > car parts that are not made any more of for some of those 100 year old cars he has. > http://www.3ders.org/articles/20120514-jay-leno-uses-3d-scanner-and-3d-printer-to-replace-old-car-parts.html > A couple of weeks ago I printed the elevator bellcrank for a Spitfire (the fighter) as a test. They need to fix some issues with the model, but it will be reprinted 2% larger and will be used to cast an aluminum replacement for a restoration. When the job was done: http://www.geneb.org/spitfire/bellcrank-done.jpg After the support was removed: http://www.geneb.org/spitfire/bellcrank-1.jpg (Change the 1 to 2 through 5 to see the other photos.) I've also printed a replacement platen knob for an ASR-33 for a group member. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 26 14:34:58 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:34:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jan 2015, Ali wrote: >> Hey that is a good idea :) Man these 3d printers are so awesome! >> Its getting to the point where, one could 3d print anything. > > Yes, 3D printers are very cool especially with this hobby. The problem, at > least for someone like me, is that I can't design the items that need to be > printed. For example, the capstan would be about as far as I could go > assuming I had measurements from a "good one" since it is just a cylinder. > What would be needed is an easy to use/store/search file format and database > where people with talent could put in the "parts" you could print at home or > local store. Of course then you have to worry about copyright infringement. > I'd be happy to help with part design if you need it. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From captainkirk359 at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 14:46:08 2015 From: captainkirk359 at gmail.com (Christian Gauger-Cosgrove) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 15:46:08 -0500 Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> Message-ID: On 26 January 2015 at 15:34, geneb wrote: >>> Hey that is a good idea :) Man these 3d printers are so awesome! >>> Its getting to the point where, one could 3d print anything. >> 3D Printing is "the shit" as some people I know have said. I fully agree, 3D printing really is awesome. My university's library actually installed a 3D printer for use by anyone at the university, for free. It's pretty damned cool (and I'll have to make use of it some time.) > I'd be happy to help with part design if you need it. > Part of my degree involves taking a drafting and modelling course (hello anyone who uses SolidWorks regularly), I'll chip in and offer to make some models and designs, though I'll admit I'm not that great at it yet. Cheers, Christian -- Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove STCKON08DS0 Contact information available upon request. From francois.dion at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 14:48:55 2015 From: francois.dion at gmail.com (Francois Dion) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 15:48:55 -0500 Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> Message-ID: There's http://www.thingiverse.com (how about a 1/9th scale Apple ][+? http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3823 ) I think though, that it is well worth the efforts to learn something like Blender ( http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Modeling/PrintToolbox). Plus you can actually do everything from the command line in python (I do everything with it these days) if you want. Gears of any size, including worm gears? There's a script for that. In fact, I'm about to go and talk and demo precisely that at Wake Forest University in a few hours. Francois -- raspberry-python.blogspot.com - www.pyptug.org - @f_dion On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 3:16 PM, Ali wrote: > > Hey that is a good idea :) Man these 3d printers are so awesome! > > Its getting to the point where, one could 3d print anything. > > Yes, 3D printers are very cool especially with this hobby. The problem, at > least for someone like me, is that I can't design the items that need to be > printed. For example, the capstan would be about as far as I could go > assuming I had measurements from a "good one" since it is just a cylinder. > What would be needed is an easy to use/store/search file format and > database > where people with talent could put in the "parts" you could print at home > or > local store. Of course then you have to worry about copyright infringement. > > -Ali > > From turing at shaw.ca Mon Jan 26 14:55:17 2015 From: turing at shaw.ca (Norman Jaffe) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:55:17 -0700 (MST) Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <348351946.150742629.1422305717868.JavaMail.root@cds032> I've also used OpenSCAD, since you can write 'programs' to generate precise dimensions. Norm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Francois Dion" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, January 26, 2015 12:48:55 PM Subject: Re: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? There's http://www.thingiverse.com (how about a 1/9th scale Apple ][+? http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3823 ) I think though, that it is well worth the efforts to learn something like Blender ( http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Modeling/PrintToolbox). Plus you can actually do everything from the command line in python (I do everything with it these days) if you want. Gears of any size, including worm gears? There's a script for that. In fact, I'm about to go and talk and demo precisely that at Wake Forest University in a few hours. Francois -- raspberry-python.blogspot.com - www.pyptug.org - @f_dion On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 3:16 PM, Ali wrote: > > Hey that is a good idea :) Man these 3d printers are so awesome! > > Its getting to the point where, one could 3d print anything. > > Yes, 3D printers are very cool especially with this hobby. The problem, at > least for someone like me, is that I can't design the items that need to be > printed. For example, the capstan would be about as far as I could go > assuming I had measurements from a "good one" since it is just a cylinder. > What would be needed is an easy to use/store/search file format and > database > where people with talent could put in the "parts" you could print at home > or > local store. Of course then you have to worry about copyright infringement. > > -Ali > > From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 26 14:58:26 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:58:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jan 2015, Francois Dion wrote: > There's http://www.thingiverse.com (how about a 1/9th scale Apple ][+? > http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3823 ) > I would suggest Repables (http://www.repables.com) - primarily because it's in no way associated with TakerBot. > I think though, that it is well worth the efforts to learn something like > Blender ( > http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Modeling/PrintToolbox). > Plus you can actually do everything from the command line in python (I do > everything with it these days) if you want. Gears of any size, including > worm gears? There's a script for that. In fact, I'm about to go and talk > and demo precisely that at Wake Forest University in a few hours. > I wouldn't recommend Blender for use as a CAD tool unless I really hated the person I was recommending it to. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From francois.dion at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 15:05:09 2015 From: francois.dion at gmail.com (Francois Dion) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 16:05:09 -0500 Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> Message-ID: Any other that has an extensive python script library? On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 3:58 PM, geneb wrote: > On Mon, 26 Jan 2015, Francois Dion wrote: > > There's http://www.thingiverse.com (how about a 1/9th scale Apple ][+? >> http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3823 ) >> >> I would suggest Repables (http://www.repables.com) - primarily because > it's in no way associated with TakerBot. > > I think though, that it is well worth the efforts to learn something like >> Blender ( >> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/ >> Modeling/PrintToolbox). >> Plus you can actually do everything from the command line in python (I do >> everything with it these days) if you want. Gears of any size, including >> worm gears? There's a script for that. In fact, I'm about to go and talk >> and demo precisely that at Wake Forest University in a few hours. >> >> I wouldn't recommend Blender for use as a CAD tool unless I really hated > the person I was recommending it to. :) > > > g. > > -- > Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 > http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. > http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. > Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. > > ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment > A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. > http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! > From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 26 15:16:31 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:16:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jan 2015, Francois Dion wrote: > Any other that has an extensive python script library? > That's irrelevant. Blender is not a CAD tool. It can do CAD-ish things, but I'd no sooner use Blender for CAD than I would use a clam shovel for digging a ditch. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From uban at ubanproductions.com Mon Jan 26 15:53:16 2015 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 15:53:16 -0600 Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse In-Reply-To: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> Message-ID: <54C6B74C.9040606@ubanproductions.com> For some reason, even though I rid myself of all of my Sun3 equipment years ago, I still have a 19" ECL (365-1010-01) which was working when put away into storage years ago and is in an original Sun box. Make me an offer... --tom On 1/26/15, 3:20 AM, Ian Finder wrote: > >> Trying to get my 3/50 restored... If anyone has these available I would like to purchase them from you. >> >> Understand it might be a long shot. >> >> I'm in Seattle, WA >> >> Thanks, >> >> - Ian >> >> -- >> Ian Finder >> (206) 395-MIPS >> ian.finder at gmail.com > From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jan 26 15:26:46 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:26:46 -0800 Subject: ECL to VGA In-Reply-To: <67FC05D1-008C-4635-9AD9-B845A899C60E@multicores.org> References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> <67FC05D1-008C-4635-9AD9-B845A899C60E@multicores.org> Message-ID: <54C6B116.4020203@bitsavers.org> I don't know if this is still available http://www.tenox.net/hw/tenoxvga/ but it hardly matters, since all people here will do is bitch about the price. From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 16:35:36 2015 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 23:35:36 +0100 Subject: Home-made 8-bit portable computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 26 January 2015 at 10:17, drlegendre . wrote: > But seriously now, thanks for the link. I only read the intro, but it seems > like quite the micro-accomplishment. :-) You're welcome. I must admit to being considerably impressed. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R) From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 16:37:34 2015 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 23:37:34 +0100 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> Message-ID: On 26 January 2015 at 20:30, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Can you fabricate rubber parts, such as pinch rollers with the stuff--and do > they work? I've certainly not tried anything that fancy. By hand, no, not unless you're Michelangelo reborn. If you can make up some kind of mould, probably, but smoothness & symmetry might be problematic. I'd pursue the 3D printer idea, I think, IIWY. :-) -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R) From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 26 16:42:33 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:42:33 -0800 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> Message-ID: <54C6C2D9.5050705@sydex.com> On 01/26/2015 12:00 PM, geneb wrote: > Chuck, you might want to find someone that's got a 3D printer near you > and has experience with a flexible filament called NinjaFlex. If you > can't find anyone, let me know and I'll pick up a spool and give it a shot. Maybe, but here's the thing: "flexible" doesn't mean that material is suitable. If you take my example of a capstan, one property that's required is a sufficient amount of "grippiness" (there's probably an engineering term for it). So, for example, polyethylene is quite soft in some forms, but is totally "un-grippy". Some stuff that's grippy isn't hard enough (I think that's the durometer rating), e.g. most silicone elastomers. Neoprene is obviously the ideal stuff for this; I'm wondering if this Sugru material has the desired characteristics. As far as I know, one can't 3D print neoprene. --Chuck From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 17:11:39 2015 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 17:11:39 -0600 Subject: Home-made 8-bit portable computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54C6C9AB.1070905@gmail.com> On 01/26/2015 02:08 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > Maker describes it as a cross between a C64 and an HX-20. > > http://www.grappendorf.net/projects/6502-home-computer Thanks - I really like this. I've seen far too many sites where it's just a schematic and a few photos, so it's nice to see one where functional areas are slowly added. From drlegendre at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 17:14:21 2015 From: drlegendre at gmail.com (drlegendre .) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 17:14:21 -0600 Subject: 1983 IBM Hardware & Software price list Message-ID: This has been floating around here for ages, and figured I should scan & share it out before it's lost for good. It's two JPEGs inside a ZIP archive; I was too lazy to merge them into a single image. IBM Hardware & Software Price List - March 8th, 1983 Tried sending this to the list as an attachment, but it was too large. You can download it here: http://nerp.net/~legendre/greenkeys/IBM_Price_List_8-MAR-1983.zip From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 21:42:02 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 22:42:02 -0500 Subject: 11/34 up! (sort of) Message-ID: Woohoo, I finally, after over a decade of being somewhat out of the pdp11 hobby, have managed to bring back to life one of my pdp11/34s! It's a plain 11/34 with dl11-w, ky11-lb, ms11-L, rl11 and a M9312 terminator/boot rom board. I have an emulex controller and some fuji 160s I'll tack on later so I can run 2.9BSD once I get the basic build confirmed safe. It's not in great shape at the moment, apparently, as these xxdp 2.5 diags are crashing left and right. But it at least boots the os and tries. I initially had, but mysteriously lost the console emulator/ODT functionality, seems it's starting at 165000 instead of 165200 at poweron. Maybe a 9312 switch mis-set... So I'm booting from the panel by calling the address of the ODT or the rl02 boot rom, which does the trick. Would anyone care to recommend some xxdp diags I should be running or next steps to isolate what's wrong / right with it? thx jake P.S. I tried to boot rsx11m v4.1, but got a strange crash with all zeroes in the stack and registers. What might that indicate? @DL0 DEVICE DD000: NOT IN CONFIGURATION DEVICE DD100: NOT IN CONFIGURATION DEVICE DY002: NOT IN CONFIGURATION DEVICE DY102: NOT IN CONFIGURATION MEVICE NI002: NOT IN CONFIGURATION RSX-11M V4.1 BL35 124.K MAPPED SYSTEM CRASH AT LOCATION 000000 REGISTERS R0=000000 R1=000000 R2=000000 R3=000000 R4=000000 R5=000000 SP=000000 PS=000000 SYSTEM STACK DUMP LOCATION CONTENTS 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 CRASH -- CONT WITH SCRATCH MEDIA ON DY0 From billdeg at buzz1.com Mon Jan 26 22:47:39 2015 From: billdeg at buzz1.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 23:47:39 -0500 Subject: ROM Dump Intellec/8 for 8008 Message-ID: <001401d039ec$61b1ed20$2515c760$@buzz1.com> I just dumped and posted on my web site an 8008 (inverted) monitor ROM for the Intellec/8. It starts at 3800H and came from 8 1702A's on an Intel IMM 6-26 Prom card. I don't think it's for the 8080 even though this PROM card was used on both 8080 and 8008 Intellec's. I will post updates to this thread, after I invert the code and check the actual instructions. Anyone interested to check or use it before I do, be my guest - http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=595 Bill From tiggerlasv at aim.com Tue Jan 27 05:40:25 2015 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (Tim Thompson) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 06:40:25 -0500 Subject: 11/34 up! (sort of) Message-ID: <8D2083D2D192122-1094-56C78@webmail-vm148.sysops.aol.com> On Mon Jan 26 21:42:02 CST 2015, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > I initially had, but mysteriously lost the console emulator/ODT > functionality, seems it's starting at 165000 instead of 165200 at poweron. > Maybe a 9312 switch mis-set... So I'm booting from the panel by calling > the address of the ODT or the rl02 boot rom, which does the trick. I think it's supposed to be at 165020. Check switch-pack 1, and make sure that 7 is On. I think the default for the switch-pack is: 1, 2, and 7 = On. Everything else = Off. T From supervinx at libero.it Tue Jan 27 07:24:07 2015 From: supervinx at libero.it (supervinx) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:24:07 +0100 Subject: ICL Quattro PC Message-ID: <1422365047.3271.13.camel@PIV-Ubuntu> Well, I need some help. I got an ICL Quattro PC I repaired the PSU. It powers up, the HD spins and seems to load something. Then no led activity, may be it's waiting for user input. I have no ICL terminals. I tried to connect with a straight serial cable and a terminal emulator, 9600, 8,N,1 No answer in either port. Tried also a null modem cable. Same stuff. The DB25 ports have a female connector, so I tried a straight cable, first. The straight cable shows some random and spurious characters. But there's also a DB15 female port. Do you know how to connect to this old beast? I'm getting no answer just because the Quattro is not working or I'm wrong somehow? Thanks! -- Vincenzo (aka Supervinx) --==ooOoo==-- My computer collection: http://www.supervinx.com/Retrocomputer --==ooOoo==-- You can reach me at: www.supervinx.com www.facebook.com/supervinx http://www.youtube.com/user/supervinx http://www.myspace.com/supervinx From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 27 08:17:52 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 06:17:52 -0800 Subject: ROM Dump Intellec/8 for 8008 In-Reply-To: <001401d039ec$61b1ed20$2515c760$@buzz1.com> References: <001401d039ec$61b1ed20$2515c760$@buzz1.com> Message-ID: <54C79E10.9060507@bitsavers.org> On 1/26/15 8:47 PM, Bill Degnan wrote: > I just dumped and posted on my web site an 8008 (inverted) monitor ROM for > the Intellec/8. It starts at 3800H and came from 8 1702A's on an Intel IMM > 6-26 Prom card. I don't think it's for the 8080 even though this PROM card > was used on both 8080 and 8008 Intellec's. I will post updates to this > thread, after I invert the code and check the actual instructions. Anyone > interested to check or use it before I do, be my guest - > > http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=595 > > Bill > > > the link is bad http://vintagecomputer.net/intel/imm_6-26/MON80_3800-%3Cbr%3E3FFF.zip it should be vintagecomputer.net/intel/imm_6-26/MON80_3800-3FFF.zip From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 27 09:52:56 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 09:52:56 -0600 Subject: Equipment Available (WAS VAX 8600 + stuff) Message-ID: <008401d03a49$51b4c750$f51e55f0$@classiccmp.org> Much to my chagrin, after passing the original deal (that ostensibly included a VAX 8600) to a listmember - the owner emailed me to say that he had incorrectly stated the exact equipment available in his original email to me. There is no VAX 8600. Not wanting to miss-step again, I talked to him at some length to make SURE that the following is a correct statement of the equipment that he is trying to get rid of. I don't think he stated the equipment incorrectly on purpose, I believe he just wasn't sure what he had. This stuff is in Houston, TX. If someone wants to take over spearheading this deal (I do not wish to) please email me off-list. Here it is.. List of Equipment: MicroVAX 3400 (details below) 6250 tape drive DEC PC AXP 150 Alpha Station 200 8mm SCSI tape drive ??? 8mm SCSI tape drive EXB-8500 (10 GB) 4mm SCSI tape drive Sony SDT-5000 (8 GB) Tape drives are in external SCSI enclosures. ============================= MicroVAX 3400 DETAILS =========================================== MS650-AA Category: VAX Memory Description: 8MB MEMORY BOARD FOR MV3300-MV3900/VAX 4200 BA213 Enclosure Dimensions:27" H x 21" W x 17.8" D. Has castors Bus details: Q-bus - 12 slots, All slots are Q/CD Drive bays: Four full height 5.25 bays. One with front access. Power supply: Dual 230W power supply w/ Line conditioning Used in: MicroVAX 3400, VAXserver 3400, MicroVAX 3800 VAXserver 3800, factoryVAX-II Last updated: 2000-02-01 Notes:Industrial box. Commonly referred to as a "skunk box", expansion version is B213F and has slave power control input. KA640-BA MicroVax 3400, used with single user software M7624-DA VAX3400 CPU BD M7624-DL CXY08-M The CXY08 (M3119) is a Q-bus 8-port asynchronous serial adapter with full modem control. M3119-YA Qbus DEC VAX M3119-YA Multiplexer Card, (Tape drive) From holm at freibergnet.de Tue Jan 27 10:31:50 2015 From: holm at freibergnet.de (Holm Tiffe) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:31:50 +0100 Subject: RA81 available for pickup in Germany/Weimar Message-ID: <20150127163150.GA1601@beast.freibergnet.de> Hi huys, a friend of mine informed me that he has an DEC RA81 drive available for picup in Germany Weimar. Sorry picup onbly, the weight is 67 Kilograms. The price is to be negotiated with my friend. Mail me if you are interested, I'll forward mails to him. Regard,s Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 From nf6x at nf6x.net Tue Jan 27 11:04:09 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 09:04:09 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media Message-ID: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> I have a bunch of DECTAPE II cartridges from which I want to try recovering as much data as possible, including the console cartridges for my VAX-11/730, none of which have managed to boot the machine. Inspired by the various floppy disk imagers I have, my thinking has wandered in the direction of building an imaging device using a TU58-XA mechanism and my own drive electronics. I happen to have a few TU58-XA mechanisms sitting about to experiment with. The imagined imager would sample both tracks simultaneously with ADCs so that I could post-process the data repeatedly from a single physical pass past the heads. Maybe I'd even hack in the missing optical end-of-tape sensor rather than relying on the written end-of-tape signals. This scheme might let me recover data from tapes which confuse the normal TU58 drive electronics (say, because of corrupted sector marks). With that in mind, I dug into a box of acquired tapes to select a sacrificial dummy for experimentation, and picked out one labeled "NFG" by the previous owner, figuring I had nothing to lose with that one. Inspection revealed that the drive belt had broken and was stuck to the tape, and as expected, it peeled the oxide right off when I removed it. Is there any way to remove pieces of stuck drive belt from these tapes without harming the underlying oxide? Next, I moved on to trying to replace the drive belt with a Plastiband brand elastic band, as I've previously seen discussed for tape cartridges with this style of mechanism (including the larger QIC cartridges). I used the 2-1/8" size, and found that it seemed to be of suitable diameter to stretch around the required path. However, I have had no luck getting it to stay in place when the tape is moved. It quickly jumps off and gets tangled when I drive the tape, and I suspect that it's because these Plastibands are a bit too narrow to properly ride the crowned drive wheel and idler rollers. Let me interject that I have nothing good to say about this belt-driven cartridge design. I thought it was a bad design the first time I encountered one, and nothing has changed my opinion since then! Now I finally get to the main topic I'd like to discuss: "Destructive" imaging of DECTAPE II media. By eye, the DECTAPE II tape media looks very close to the same width as normal audio cassette tape. What if I built an imaging drive in which I remove the tape from any DECTAPE II cart to be imaged rather than trying to use the original &(#$%*$ belt drive system? I wonder whether there's any prior art for a scheme like this. One idea would be to transplant the tape media into a cassette tape housing, but I'm not yet sure whether that might offer any advantages over building an ad-hoc open reel system, or even a reel-less system since any given tape would only be run past the heads a small number of times in one event, and then might be discarded once any remaining data is extracted. I have doubts that a cassette transport's pinch roller and capstan system would work well for this scheme, since the normal tape speed of a DECTAPE II is over 15x the tape speed of an audio cassette. So, I'd probably need to fashion a different sort of capstan system, possibly negating any advantage of using cassette tape housings. I'm not sure whether it would be better to pull the tape with a capstan and pinch roller drive vs. pulling it with a take-up reel hub and providing a free-spinning capstan with an optical encoder to provide tape speed feedback. Either scheme would allow me to move the tape past the head at constant speed, but I'm not sure if one scheme might be easier to build than the other. Next, the imaginary device would need appropriate heads. I might salvage the head from a TU58-XA, though that could be a bit challenging since the heads are epoxied in place after adjustment. Or, maybe I would get lucky and discover that the heads from an auto-reversing audio tape deck (which I believe have four gaps in order to play stereo tapes in either direction without flipping them) might have gaps in the right places for reading both tracks of DECTAPE II media? Audio cassette tape heads have a few potential advantages, including not being epoxied in place and having a tape alignment guide welded on one side. What do you folks think about this silliness? -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Tue Jan 27 11:22:13 2015 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 15:22:13 -0200 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> Message-ID: <95AD45BE664741D9A1D8B1568ACC444B@deskjara> I think it is a great start! But if you're doing destructive tape recovering, why not using a 15x slower mech and using a slower (and cheaper) ADC? Or use a band from a known good cartridge, at least to recover the data. Or you can use a reel-to-reel mech :) --- Enviado do meu Apple IIGS (pq eu sou chique) Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br Meu blog: http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark J. Blair" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 3:04 PM Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media I have a bunch of DECTAPE II cartridges from which I want to try recovering as much data as possible, including the console cartridges for my VAX-11/730, none of which have managed to boot the machine. Inspired by the various floppy disk imagers I have, my thinking has wandered in the direction of building an imaging device using a TU58-XA mechanism and my own drive electronics. I happen to have a few TU58-XA mechanisms sitting about to experiment with. The imagined imager would sample both tracks simultaneously with ADCs so that I could post-process the data repeatedly from a single physical pass past the heads. Maybe I'd even hack in the missing optical end-of-tape sensor rather than relying on the written end-of-tape signals. This scheme might let me recover data from tapes which confuse the normal TU58 drive electronics (say, because of corrupted sector marks). With that in mind, I dug into a box of acquired tapes to select a sacrificial dummy for experimentation, and picked out one labeled "NFG" by the previous owner, figuring I had nothing to lose with that one. Inspection revealed that the drive belt had broken and was stuck to the tape, and as expected, it peeled the oxide right off when I removed it. Is there any way to remove pieces of stuck drive belt from these tapes without harming the underlying oxide? Next, I moved on to trying to replace the drive belt with a Plastiband brand elastic band, as I've previously seen discussed for tape cartridges with this style of mechanism (including the larger QIC cartridges). I used the 2-1/8" size, and found that it seemed to be of suitable diameter to stretch around the required path. However, I have had no luck getting it to stay in place when the tape is moved. It quickly jumps off and gets tangled when I drive the tape, and I suspect that it's because these Plastibands are a bit too narrow to properly ride the crowned drive wheel and idler rollers. Let me interject that I have nothing good to say about this belt-driven cartridge design. I thought it was a bad design the first time I encountered one, and nothing has changed my opinion since then! Now I finally get to the main topic I'd like to discuss: "Destructive" imaging of DECTAPE II media. By eye, the DECTAPE II tape media looks very close to the same width as normal audio cassette tape. What if I built an imaging drive in which I remove the tape from any DECTAPE II cart to be imaged rather than trying to use the original &(#$%*$ belt drive system? I wonder whether there's any prior art for a scheme like this. One idea would be to transplant the tape media into a cassette tape housing, but I'm not yet sure whether that might offer any advantages over building an ad-hoc open reel system, or even a reel-less system since any given tape would only be run past the heads a small number of times in one event, and then might be discarded once any remaining data is extracted. I have doubts that a cassette transport's pinch roller and capstan system would work well for this scheme, since the normal tape speed of a DECTAPE II is over 15x the tape speed of an audio cassette. So, I'd probably need to fashion a different sort of capstan system, possibly negating any advantage of using cassette tape housings. I'm not sure whether it would be better to pull the tape with a capstan and pinch roller drive vs. pulling it with a take-up reel hub and providing a free-spinning capstan with an optical encoder to provide tape speed feedback. Either scheme would allow me to move the tape past the head at constant speed, but I'm not sure if one scheme might be easier to build than the other. Next, the imaginary device would need appropriate heads. I might salvage the head from a TU58-XA, though that could be a bit challenging since the heads are epoxied in place after adjustment. Or, maybe I would get lucky and discover that the heads from an auto-reversing audio tape deck (which I believe have four gaps in order to play stereo tapes in either direction without flipping them) might have gaps in the right places for reading both tracks of DECTAPE II media? Audio cassette tape heads have a few potential advantages, including not being epoxied in place and having a tape alignment guide welded on one side. What do you folks think about this silliness? -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 27 11:46:52 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 09:46:52 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <95AD45BE664741D9A1D8B1568ACC444B@deskjara> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <95AD45BE664741D9A1D8B1568ACC444B@deskjara> Message-ID: <54C7CF0C.7000303@bitsavers.org> On 1/27/15 9:22 AM, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > why not using a 15x slower mech and using a slower (and cheaper) ADC? > Because the amplitude from the read head is a function of tape speed. > Or use a band from a known good cartridge, at least to recover the data. > I was going to suggest that. Any DC-100 sized cart can be used as a donor, and you only need a couple of them. There was a post about saving HP tapes by doing something to them (heating them?) but now I can't find the post. Chuck was trying to find something to keep the hole in the oxide from interfering with the EOT/BOT sensing, but I don't know if he found something that worked reliably. You need something that is opaque to IR. I also thought someone already imaged the 730 carts, but I can't find those either. Maybe they were for the 750. I have 100+ TU58s that I need to get to this year and already replaced the rollers with new ones made from norprene tubing. From simski at dds.nl Tue Jan 27 12:12:04 2015 From: simski at dds.nl (Simon Claessen) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 19:12:04 +0100 Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> Message-ID: <54C7D4F4.6010309@dds.nl> enter shapeways.com and thingyverse.com and for modeling I use openscad. you do not draw, you program and add or substract cubes, spheres, cylinders, etc. and because it is procedural, you can nest and reuse parts of models. and if you print with ABS, you can polish the result. On 26-01-15 21:16, Ali wrote: >> Hey that is a good idea :) Man these 3d printers are so awesome! >> Its getting to the point where, one could 3d print anything. > > Yes, 3D printers are very cool especially with this hobby. The problem, at > least for someone like me, is that I can't design the items that need to be > printed. For example, the capstan would be about as far as I could go > assuming I had measurements from a "good one" since it is just a cylinder. > What would be needed is an easy to use/store/search file format and database > where people with talent could put in the "parts" you could print at home or > local store. Of course then you have to worry about copyright infringement. > > -Ali > > -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 27 12:48:56 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 10:48:56 -0800 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <54C6C2D9.5050705@sydex.com> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <54C6C2D9.5050705@sydex.com> Message-ID: <54C7DD98.2090009@sydex.com> On 01/26/2015 02:42 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Maybe, but here's the thing: "flexible" doesn't mean that material is > suitable. If you take my example of a capstan, one property that's > required is a sufficient amount of "grippiness" (there's probably an > engineering term for it). The engineering term seems to be "surface friction" or something like it. It's what table tennis pros need on their paddles to control the ball--and why the rubber facing is replaced frequently. I marvel at the things you can learn on teh Internets. --Chuck From nf6x at nf6x.net Tue Jan 27 13:22:08 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 11:22:08 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <54C7CF0C.7000303@bitsavers.org> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <95AD45BE664741D9A1D8B1568ACC444B@deskjara> <54C7CF0C.7000303@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > On Jan 27, 2015, at 09:46 , Al Kossow wrote: > > On 1/27/15 9:22 AM, Alexandre Souza wrote: >> >> why not using a 15x slower mech and using a slower (and cheaper) ADC? >> > > Because the amplitude from the read head is a function of tape speed. Right. I don't necessarily need to run the tape at 30 ips like a real TU58, but I probably will need to run it somewhere in that ballpark. > >> Or use a band from a known good cartridge, at least to recover the data. >> > > I was going to suggest that. Any DC-100 sized cart can be used as a donor, and you > only need a couple of them. True. This would take less effort to implement since I could use a TU58-XA mechanism instead of fabricating my own transport, and the effort of designing motor control stuff would be similar in either case. But there would also be some advantages to abandoning that danged belt drive tape mechanism and using some type of reel-to-reel mechanism that doesn't involve rubbing a belt against the oxide surface, too. > There was a post about saving HP tapes by doing something to them (heating them?) > but now I can't find the post. I thought that I had read something like that, but I also don't recall when/where. A baking cycle might be beneficial just like it is for other old magnetic media, but I don't recall whether baking was also helpful in releasing stuck drive belt from the oxide. > Chuck was trying to find something to keep the hole > in the oxide from interfering with the EOT/BOT sensing, but I don't know if he found > something that worked reliably. You need something that is opaque to IR. I wish that DEC had included unpopulated provisions for optical end of tape sensing in the TU58-XA rather than entirely cost-cutting that sensor out of the design. I see that the cartridges still include the BOT/EOT holes and the right-angle mirror; presumably, the drives that they used to preformat the tapes in the factory used those for BOT/EOT sensing prior to writing the magnetic BOT/EOT symbols. > I also thought someone already imaged the 730 carts, but I can't find those either. > Maybe they were for the 750. I have found some 730 cart images online, and at the moment I expect that my only way of booting my 730 will involve using those with tu58em. I'd still like to image the carts that came with my machine, though, which may be different versions. > I have 100+ TU58s that I need to get to this year and already replaced the rollers with > new ones made from norprene tubing. I've already replaced the drive roller rubber in a few of my drives with black latex rubber tubing. The stuff I used is essentially the same as the yellow tubing used for wrist rockets and water weenies, except it's black, and of a suitable diameter to fit the aluminum roller hub and have about the right outside diameter when installed. To cut it, I stuck a short length on a piece of plastic rod, chucked the rod in a Harbor Freight mini lathe, and cut pieces with a surgical scalpel while the chuck was spinning. I simply cut many more than I needed and selected the ones that turned out the best, as there was a lot of variation in width from my eyeball-cutting, and variation in squareness of the edges depending on how I held the scalpel. I probably threw away five pieces for every one that I selected, but the end results look very neat. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Tue Jan 27 13:32:15 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:32:15 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 Message-ID: Hi, I'm getting all zeroes nearly any time there's supposed to be a large number output to my terminal. Does this sound familiar to anyone? This happened last night on rsx and is also happening today on xxdp. example xxdp testing rl02: DRSSM-G2 CZRLK-B-0 CZRLK PERFORMS RANDOM OPERATIONS OF GET STATUS, SEEK, READ, AND WRITE UNIT IS RL01,RL02 RSTRT ADR 000000 DR>START CHANGE HW (L) ? Y # UNITS (D) ? 1 UNIT 0 RL11 (L) Y ? Y BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? VECTOR (O) 0 ? DRIVE (O) 0 ? DRIVE TYPE = RL01 (L) Y ? N BR LEVEL (O) 0 ? CHANGE SW (L) ? N NXT TST MAY ZERO LD UNIT. DOIT ANYWAY?Y TESTING STARTED CZRLK HRD ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 DR ERR TIME: 00:00:00 RLCS: 000000 DRIVE: 0 DRIVE TYPE = RL00 >> FUNCTION: WRITE BEFORE ERR (RLCS): 000000 (RLBA): 000000 (RLDA): 000000 (RLMP): 000000 AT ERR (RLCS): 000000 (RLBA): 000000 (RLDA): 000000 (RLMP): 000000 DR ERR ADDR = CYL: 000. SUR: 0 SECT: 00. STATUS WAS: 000000 LST POS: 000000 DR ERR - RECOVERED CZRLK HRD ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 DR ERR TIME: 00:00:00 RLCS: 000000 DRIVE: 0 DRIVE TYPE = RL00 >> FUNCTION: WRITE BEFORE ERR (RLCS): 000000 (RLBA): 000000 (RLDA): 000000 (RLMP): 000000 AT ERR (RLCS): 000000 (RLBA): 000000 (RLDA): 000000 (RLMP): 000000 DR ERR ADDR = CYL: 000. SUR: 0 SECT: 00. STATUS WAS: 000000 LST POS: 000000 DR ERR - RECOVERED CZRLK HRD ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 GARBLED DATA - CAN'T CHECK IT TIME: 00:00:00 RLCS: 000000 DRIVE: 0 DRIVE TYPE = RL00 >> FUNCTION: READ BEFORE ERR (RLCS): 000000 (RLBA): 000000 (RLDA): 000000 (RLMP): 000000 AT ERR (RLCS): 000000 (RLBA): 000000 (RLDA): 000000 (RLMP): 000000 DR ERR ADDR = CYL: 000. SUR: 0 SECT: 00. XFER SIZE = 00000. WORDS 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 From bqt at softjar.se Tue Jan 27 13:58:18 2015 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 20:58:18 +0100 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <708EA834-E9B6-4E10-89C6-D832864FEC8E@softjar.se> Well, if you tell it to use a csr of 0 and a vector of 0, things will not work well. You also mentioned rsx. What do the error log show in there? Johnny Jacob Ritorto skrev: (27 januari 2015 20:32:15 CET) >Hi, > I'm getting all zeroes nearly any time there's supposed to be a large >number output to my terminal. Does this sound familiar to anyone? > >This happened last night on rsx and is also happening today on xxdp. > >example xxdp testing rl02: > >DRSSM-G2 >CZRLK-B-0 >CZRLK PERFORMS RANDOM OPERATIONS OF GET STATUS, SEEK, READ, AND WRITE >UNIT IS RL01,RL02 >RSTRT ADR 000000 >DR>START > >CHANGE HW (L) ? Y > ># UNITS (D) ? 1 > >UNIT 0 >RL11 (L) Y ? Y >BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? >VECTOR (O) 0 ? >DRIVE (O) 0 ? >DRIVE TYPE = RL01 (L) Y ? N >BR LEVEL (O) 0 ? > >CHANGE SW (L) ? N > >NXT TST MAY ZERO LD UNIT. DOIT ANYWAY?Y > >TESTING STARTED > >CZRLK HRD ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >DR ERR >TIME: 00:00:00 RLCS: 000000 DRIVE: 0 DRIVE TYPE = RL00 >>> FUNCTION: WRITE >BEFORE ERR (RLCS): 000000 (RLBA): 000000 (RLDA): 000000 (RLMP): 000000 >AT ERR (RLCS): 000000 (RLBA): 000000 (RLDA): 000000 (RLMP): 000000 >DR ERR ADDR = CYL: 000. SUR: 0 SECT: 00. >STATUS WAS: 000000 LST POS: 000000 > >DR ERR - RECOVERED > >CZRLK HRD ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >DR ERR >TIME: 00:00:00 RLCS: 000000 DRIVE: 0 DRIVE TYPE = RL00 >>> FUNCTION: WRITE >BEFORE ERR (RLCS): 000000 (RLBA): 000000 (RLDA): 000000 (RLMP): 000000 >AT ERR (RLCS): 000000 (RLBA): 000000 (RLDA): 000000 (RLMP): 000000 >DR ERR ADDR = CYL: 000. SUR: 0 SECT: 00. >STATUS WAS: 000000 LST POS: 000000 > >DR ERR - RECOVERED > > >CZRLK HRD ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >GARBLED DATA - CAN'T CHECK IT >TIME: 00:00:00 RLCS: 000000 DRIVE: 0 DRIVE TYPE = RL00 >>> FUNCTION: READ >BEFORE ERR (RLCS): 000000 (RLBA): 000000 (RLDA): 000000 (RLMP): 000000 >AT ERR (RLCS): 000000 (RLBA): 000000 (RLDA): 000000 (RLMP): 000000 >DR ERR ADDR = CYL: 000. SUR: 0 SECT: 00. > >XFER SIZE = 00000. WORDS >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 >000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 -- Skickat fr?n min Android-telefon med K-9 E-post. Urs?kta min f?ordighet. From ian.finder at gmail.com Tue Jan 27 14:15:27 2015 From: ian.finder at gmail.com (Ian Finder) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:15:27 -0800 Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse In-Reply-To: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> Message-ID: Someone has helpfully offered up a Sun-branded monochrome monitor with two BNC inputs- video & sync- on the back. I fear, however, that this is a greyscale monitor designed to work with one channel on a *color* Sun 3 framebuffer, and not necessarily a monochrome ECL output. Can anyone confirm, or is it simply a matter of building a cable? If this can be adapted using some similar circuitry to the ECL -> TTL adapter mentioned, I might still go for it. Forgive me for the noobish question, ancient video formats are not my strong suite... Thanks, - Ian On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 1:20 AM, Ian Finder wrote: > > Trying to get my 3/50 restored... If anyone has these available I would > like to purchase them from you. > > Understand it might be a long shot. > > I'm in Seattle, WA > > Thanks, > > - Ian > > -- > Ian Finder > (206) 395-MIPS > ian.finder at gmail.com > > -- Ian Finder (206) 395-MIPS ian.finder at gmail.com From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 27 14:24:01 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 15:24:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 Message-ID: <20150127202401.D2AE118C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Jacob Ritorto > I'm getting all zeroes nearly any time there's supposed to be a large > number output to my terminal. It sounds like the CPU may be too broken to run diagnostics. Why don't you try writing some small programs to test various bits and pieces of the CPU (e.g. add instructions, etc), and toggle them in, and try and find what's busted that way? (Although for 'add', if the thing's that broken, I'm amazed it even boots.) Here's an example: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/tests/print.s It's probably too long to toggle in, but you could steal pieces from it and try them. I'd probably try out the shift and multiply instruction to start with; trying to figure out what's probably not used during booting, but could be used during number printing, those are two good bets. Anyway, there's no point to running diagnostics until you get that first problem fixed. Noel From chrise at pobox.com Tue Jan 27 14:31:38 2015 From: chrise at pobox.com (Chris Elmquist) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:31:38 -0600 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <95AD45BE664741D9A1D8B1568ACC444B@deskjara> <54C7CF0C.7000303@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20150127203138.GV13173@n0jcf.net> On Tuesday (01/27/2015 at 11:22AM -0800), Mark J. Blair wrote: > > > I have 100+ TU58s that I need to get to this year and already replaced the rollers with > > new ones made from norprene tubing. > > I've already replaced the drive roller rubber in a few of my drives with black latex rubber tubing. The stuff I used is essentially the same as the yellow tubing used for wrist rockets and water weenies, except it's black, and of a suitable diameter to fit the aluminum roller hub and have about the right outside diameter when installed. To cut it, I stuck a short length on a piece of plastic rod, chucked the rod in a Harbor Freight mini lathe, and cut pieces with a surgical scalpel while the chuck was spinning. I simply cut many more than I needed and selected the ones that turned out the best, as there was a lot of variation in width from my eyeball-cutting, and variation in squareness of the edges depending on how I held the scalpel. I probably threw away five pieces for every one that I selected, but the end results look very neat. I rebuilt several TU58s in a similar fashion and had all nice spiffy rollers and each tape I stuck in there promptly broke the band after it had moved less than an inch. In the end, out of dozens of tapes, I think I had two that worked. Even NOS tapes, still wrapped in cellophane, would fail when unwrapped and put in the drive for the first time. > the original &(#$%*$ belt drive system? I know what that word is. I think we should take the tape out of the cartridges and build a thing that pulls it through a small pool of Magna-See (do they still make that stuff? Is that what it was called?) and then image them with a camera and decode the data from the video. Maybe even counting the bits by hand will be easier than trying to read those &(#$%*$ tapes in any sort of drive. In any case, I'm totally in support of any DC100 destructive methods. Using them instead of clay pigeons also comes to mind. :-) Chris -- Chris Elmquist From engel at multicores.org Tue Jan 27 14:38:43 2015 From: engel at multicores.org (Michael Engel) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 20:38:43 +0000 Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse In-Reply-To: References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AF42A27-F54B-4F6A-94D8-592B732C5701@multicores.org> On 27 Jan 2015, at 20:15, Ian Finder wrote: > Someone has helpfully offered up a Sun-branded monochrome monitor with two > BNC inputs- video & sync- on the back. > > I fear, however, that this is a greyscale monitor designed to work with one > channel on a *color* Sun 3 framebuffer, and not necessarily a monochrome > ECL output. The Sun mono monitor has a DB9 input, so this is probably a monitor for a CG3/ CG6 SPARC SBus card (there was also a bwtwo SBus card which provided ECL output IIRC). It's hard to find a picture of this monitor, I think this one from Wikipedia is the BNC type greyscale monitor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation_10#mediaviewer/File:Sun_SparcStation_10_with_CRT.jpg However, it's strange that the monitor has two BNC inputs - the grayscale monitor was usually driven by the Sync-on-Green signal, so it should require only one BNC connector. However, I haven't seen a Sun grayscale monitor in almost two decades. > Can anyone confirm, or is it simply a matter of building a cable? > > If this can be adapted using some similar circuitry to the ECL -> TTL > adapter mentioned, I might still go for it. The hardware FAQ doesn't mention the frequencies accepted by the grayscale monitor. But I think it supports the same as the color monitor, since the grayscale simply uses the green (+sync-on-green) signal instead of RGB. The standard 1152x900 resolution ECL monitor's frequencies are 61.8 kHz horizontal and 66 Hz vertical. The color screen also supports a 61.8 kHz/ 66 Hz mode, so the frequencies seem to be compatible. Assuming the ECL-to-TTL converter solution works (will try in two weeks when I'm back in Germany), generating the analog grayscale signal should be a matter of reducing the signal voltage (1 Vpp instead of 5 V) and mixing in the H/V sync signals. This circuit by Tomi Engdahl might be a starting point (the first one it mixes the sync signals): http://en664r.blogspot.co.uk Mixing this to a sync-on-green signal is described here: http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/sync_r.html (if sync-on-green works with the monitor). Beware - I have tried none of these circuits, so checking the voltages and frequencies at the output before connecting a monitor is highly recommended... Hope that helps... -- Michael From cctalk at fahimi.net Tue Jan 27 14:39:45 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:39:45 -0800 Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> Message-ID: <068f01d03a71$6407c290$2c1747b0$@net> > I'd be happy to help with part design if you need it. > Thanks for the offer. I may take you up on it next time I break something. :) However, if you want to design something for the heck of it and would be popular with the IBM PC crowd I'd recommend the disk drive access covers. These were bits of plastic with a handle and would fit into the original 5150/5160/5161/5162 case to prevent dust being sucked in to the disk drives. For some reason they sell for crazy amounts on eBay. You could be doing a service to humanity if you could design a replica! Or make a fortune just selling the replicas! ;) From cctalk at fahimi.net Tue Jan 27 14:39:45 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:39:45 -0800 Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <54C7D4F4.6010309@dds.nl> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> <54C7D4F4.6010309@dds.nl> Message-ID: <069001d03a71$64ee2af0$2eca80d0$@net> > enter shapeways.com and thingyverse.com > Yes, but if you actually do a search there isn't much there. Although, I admit shapeways did have a number of IBM keyboard parts for purchase. Again, to me this is still in its infancy. Ideally, in some other awesome universe, I will type in a part number from an IBM, Compaq, G2K, etc. and get the part I need to print and paint at home. Will it ever get there, I have no idea. But I can dream. -Ali From hp-fix at xs4all.nl Tue Jan 27 14:45:04 2015 From: hp-fix at xs4all.nl (Rik Bos) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 21:45:04 +0100 Subject: Hp 9836a on ebay Message-ID: 201273924178 Hp 9836A ot Hp 9000/236 Not mine, don't know the seller. But it looks good and starts cheap. -Rik From billdeg at buzz1.com Tue Jan 27 12:06:51 2015 From: billdeg at buzz1.com (B Degnan) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:06:51 -0500 Subject: ROM Dump Intellec/8 for 8008 Message-ID: > From: Al Kossow > > http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=595 > > > > > the link is bad > > http://vintagecomputer.net/intel/imm_6-26/MON80_3800-%3Cbr%3E3FFF.zip > it should be > vintagecomputer.net/intel/imm_6-26/MON80_3800-3FFF.zip Thanks, fixed the page. Bill From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Tue Jan 27 14:54:26 2015 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 21:54:26 +0100 Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse In-Reply-To: References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> Message-ID: <54C7FB02.5020606@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Am 27.01.15 um 21:15 schrieb Ian Finder: > I fear, however, that this is a greyscale monitor designed to work with one > channel on a *color* Sun 3 framebuffer, and not necessarily a monochrome > ECL output. Most likely. The Sun ECL monitors I came across had DE9 or 13W3 inputs. Also note that the ECL signal is differential / symmetrical. This doesn't fit well to a BNC plug. Once I owned a Sun gray scale monitor. It used a 13W3 connector. It came together with a SBus BW2. The later was available with DE9 ECL and 13W3 analog output. But I used it with a CG6... -- tsch??, Jochen From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Jan 27 15:16:31 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:16:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <068f01d03a71$6407c290$2c1747b0$@net> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> <068f01d03a71$6407c290$2c1747b0$@net> Message-ID: On Tue, 27 Jan 2015, Ali wrote: > However, if you want to design something for the heck of it and would be > popular with the IBM PC crowd I'd recommend the disk drive access covers. > These were bits of plastic with a handle and would fit into the original > 5150/5160/5161/5162 case to prevent dust being sucked in to the disk drives. > For some reason they sell for crazy amounts on eBay. You could be doing a > service to humanity if you could design a replica! Or make a fortune just > selling the replicas! ;) Got a photo of it? I've never seen one. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From nf6x at nf6x.net Tue Jan 27 15:32:12 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:32:12 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <20150127203138.GV13173@n0jcf.net> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <95AD45BE664741D9A1D8B1568ACC444B@deskjara> <54C7CF0C.7000303@bitsavers.org> <20150127203138.GV13173@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: > On Jan 27, 2015, at 12:31 , Chris Elmquist wrote: > I think we should take the tape out of the cartridges and build a thing > that pulls it through a small pool of Magna-See (do they still make that > stuff? Is that what it was called?) and then image them with a camera and > decode the data from the video. Maybe even counting the bits by hand will > be easier than trying to read those &(#$%*$ tapes in any sort of drive. I think that reading them with magnetic heads will be much easier than trying to read them optically, but I wouldn't mind having some of that magnetic visualization fluid for experimental use anyway. I've found the track dimensions of the DECTAPE II in a specification on Bitsavers, and I found dimensions of various tracks formats used on audio cassette tapes on another site. I'm about to compare them to see if there's any potential compatibility, since audio cassette tape heads generally have a built-in tape alignment guide that might make things easier mechanically vs. the TU58-XA head (assuming I didn't use a TU58-XA mechanism). I'll follow up with whatever I find. I did determine that both tapes are the same width: 0.15" or 3.81mm. > In any case, I'm totally in support of any DC100 destructive methods. > Using them instead of clay pigeons also comes to mind. :-) Once the data is recovered, of course. :) -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From cctalk at fahimi.net Tue Jan 27 15:41:26 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:41:26 -0800 Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> <068f01d03a71$6407c290$2c1747b0$@net> Message-ID: <069e01d03a7a$032df8f0$0989ead0$@net> > > Got a photo of it? I've never seen one. > Here is an auction that closed a few weeks ago: www.ebay.com/itm/331434499398. -Ali From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Jan 27 15:52:18 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:52:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <069e01d03a7a$032df8f0$0989ead0$@net> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> <068f01d03a71$6407c290$2c1747b0$@net> <069e01d03a7a$032df8f0$0989ead0$@net> Message-ID: On Tue, 27 Jan 2015, Ali wrote: >> >> Got a photo of it? I've never seen one. >> > > Here is an auction that closed a few weeks ago: > www.ebay.com/itm/331434499398. > Ahh, ok. How does it stay put? Magnets? Something like that is more suited to laser cut acrylic with a handle added. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From cctalk at fahimi.net Tue Jan 27 16:14:32 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:14:32 -0800 Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> <068f01d03a71$6407c290$2c1747b0$@net> <069e01d03a7a$032df8f0$0989ead0$@net> Message-ID: <069f01d03a7e$a2614b80$e723e280$@net> > Ahh, ok. How does it stay put? Magnets? > > Something like that is more suited to laser cut acrylic with a handle > added. No, it's just a tight fit. I think the originals are molded plastic as the handle and the plate seem to be one piece. -Ali From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Jan 27 16:31:59 2015 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:31:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: 3D Printing WAS: RE: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: <069f01d03a7e$a2614b80$e723e280$@net> References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> <0FF933AD-2C22-4A63-B145-CE4B7677FC2F@uniwho.com> <057001d039a5$047c81c0$0d758540$@net> <068f01d03a71$6407c290$2c1747b0$@net> <069e01d03a7a$032df8f0$0989ead0$@net> <069f01d03a7e$a2614b80$e723e280$@net> Message-ID: On Tue, 27 Jan 2015, Ali wrote: >> Ahh, ok. How does it stay put? Magnets? >> >> Something like that is more suited to laser cut acrylic with a handle >> added. > > No, it's just a tight fit. I think the originals are molded plastic as the > handle and the plate seem to be one piece. > Ok. Still, something like that could be banged out pretty quick especially considering how low the volume would be. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From nf6x at nf6x.net Tue Jan 27 16:36:38 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:36:38 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> References: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: Responding on-list to an off-list message, with permission... On Jan 27, 2015, at 09:30 , Lou Ernst wrote: > This is not silly. I think it can work. I had a similar idea about TU60 decassettes. My task was easier there though since the TU60 uses standard Philips compact cassette shells. The TU60 however has no capstan and uses the spindle motors to maintain tape temsion. It was designed by the same guy who designed dectape (TU55/56). Using the spindle motors to maintain tape tension seems like a better scheme than that danged drive belt in my opinion. I recall reading somewhere online about the heroic measures that some engineers (at HP? Or was it 3M?) had to go to to get a DC-100A-like cartridge design working, involving lots of hard work in the areas of lubricants, surface finish, and how to make that drive belt by stretching out a small disc of plastic. My interpretation is that they had to apply heroic efforts to make a crappy design barely work. ;) > Long story short, I was able to play TU60 cassettes in a good audio cassette deck and digitize the audio on a PC. I manipulated the audio file in Audacity. I was able to cut single data blocks and dump the blocks to a long .CSV file. I opened these in Excel and created intelligence in the spreadsheet to digest the audio samples back into the block data, even properly decoding the header and checking the checksum. The hardest work in the spreadsheet was tracking the bit boundaries due to the temporally varying bit-rate (no capstan in the real TU60). Cool! > At last I did not have to use this means of recovering data from TU60 cassettes. My real TU60/TA11 worked well enough to recover the data on the cassettes I was provided to recover. I developed that tape deck/digitizing method in case there were dropouts unrecoverable by the real TU60. At least the real TU60 isn't hobbled by that dreadful cartridge design. > Perhaps you can build a sort of open frame reel-to-reel deck to play and digitize the tu58 tapes. That's what I'm thinking. While I could repeatedly use one or two good cartridge/belt assemblies with the guts of multiple tapes in order to image them in a TU58-XA transport, I don't relish the thought of repeatedly tinkering with the danged belt if I can come up with a better solution. I found a specification that includes the magnetic track dimensions of the DECTAPE II on Al's site: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/dectape/tu58/TU58_Engineering_Specification_Jun78.pdf Also, I found a diagram showing track dimensions for various audio cassette formats here: http://richardhess.com/notes/formats/magnetic-media/magnetic-tapes/analog-audio/015-cassettes/ in particular: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/cass_trk_lrg.gif Both the DECTAPE II media and standard audio cassette media are 0.15" (3.81mm) wide. DECTAPE II has two .057" (1.448mm) wide tracks, centered 0.046" (1.168mm) apart. Data density is 800 BPI, with 2400 flux reversals per inch. At standard read speed of 30 ips, that turns into bits in 41.7us increments and flux changes in 13.9us increments. The reels inside the cartridge will spin at around 380 to 800 RPM depending on how much tape is on them, if I still know how to do math. Or twice that at the scanning speed of 60 ips. Just based on track geometry, it seems to me that it may be quite possible to read DECTAPE II media with the inner two tracks of a 4-track recorder head or auto-reversing stereo audio deck head. Or even with both tracks of a 2-track 2-channel head as shown in the diagram I found, though I don't know how common those are. 4-track recorders and auto-reversing stereo decks are pretty common, though. Running the tape at a stable speed near 30 ips instead of 1-7/8 ips would be the hardest part, I think. My gut feeling is that a normal audio cassette capstan and pinch roller assembly may not work well at 16x normal speed, and I haven't seen references to any audio cassette tape applications that run the tape at controlled speeds that fast (rewind and fast-forward speeds may be that fast or faster, but those run the tape at unregulated speeds with the pinch roller disengaged). I don't know if audio tape heads are electrically suitable for this application, but I think they might be since the flux change period is in the same ballpark as the AC bias frequency used in cassette recorders, so the head coils ought to respond ok at those higher frequencies (?). I'm curious about what folks with deeper magnetic media experience than I have might think about this. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From bqt at update.uu.se Tue Jan 27 16:42:18 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 23:42:18 +0100 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <20150127202401.D2AE118C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150127202401.D2AE118C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54C8144A.8070601@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-27 21:24, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Jacob Ritorto > > > I'm getting all zeroes nearly any time there's supposed to be a large > > number output to my terminal. > > It sounds like the CPU may be too broken to run diagnostics. Why don't you > try writing some small programs to test various bits and pieces of the CPU > (e.g. add instructions, etc), and toggle them in, and try and find what's > busted that way? (Although for 'add', if the thing's that broken, I'm amazed > it even boots.) > > Here's an example: > > http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/tests/print.s > > It's probably too long to toggle in, but you could steal pieces from it > and try them. > > I'd probably try out the shift and multiply instruction to start with; trying > to figure out what's probably not used during booting, but could be used > during number printing, those are two good bets. > > Anyway, there's no point to running diagnostics until you get that first > problem fixed. If it comes as far as booting RSX as well as XXDP, there can't be anything seriously wrong with the CPU... 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 bear at typewritten.org Tue Jan 27 16:45:36 2015 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:45:36 -0800 Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse In-Reply-To: References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 27, 2015, at 12:15 PM, Ian Finder wrote: > Someone has helpfully offered up a Sun-branded monochrome monitor with two > BNC inputs- video & sync- on the back. > > I fear, however, that this is a greyscale monitor designed to work with one > channel on a *color* Sun 3 framebuffer, and not necessarily a monochrome > ECL output. It is indeed an analog monochrome monitor (for color framebuffer, or the B&W MG1). It won?t work with an ECL framebuffer. ok bear. From bear at typewritten.org Tue Jan 27 16:45:36 2015 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:45:36 -0800 Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse In-Reply-To: References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 27, 2015, at 12:15 PM, Ian Finder wrote: > Someone has helpfully offered up a Sun-branded monochrome monitor with two > BNC inputs- video & sync- on the back. > > I fear, however, that this is a greyscale monitor designed to work with one > channel on a *color* Sun 3 framebuffer, and not necessarily a monochrome > ECL output. It is indeed an analog monochrome monitor (for color framebuffer, or the B&W MG1). It won?t work with an ECL framebuffer. ok bear. From nf6x at nf6x.net Tue Jan 27 16:49:22 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:49:22 -0800 Subject: Hp 9836a on ebay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On Jan 27, 2015, at 12:45 , Rik Bos wrote: > > 201273924178 > > Hp 9836A ot Hp 9000/236 > > Not mine, don't know the seller. > But it looks good and starts cheap. I'm always tempted to get one of those, since I used them in a class back in college for digital circuit simulation, and they were pretty neat. But they sure are heavy beasts! -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From ak6dn at mindspring.com Tue Jan 27 16:56:15 2015 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:56:15 -0800 (GMT-08:00) Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 Message-ID: <15222619.1422399376117.JavaMail.root@wamui-haziran.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Could be something wrong with MUL, DIV, ASH, ASHC that may be used in the print routine, but would not be used during basic OS operation. XXDP in particular is designed to run on a very basic CPU so it does not normally use any optional instructions. I'd start with running the 11/34 CPU tests. Don -----Original Message----- >From: Johnny Billquist >Sent: Jan 27, 2015 2:42 PM >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 > >On 2015-01-27 21:24, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> > From: Jacob Ritorto >> >> > I'm getting all zeroes nearly any time there's supposed to be a large >> > number output to my terminal. >> >> It sounds like the CPU may be too broken to run diagnostics. Why don't you >> try writing some small programs to test various bits and pieces of the CPU >> (e.g. add instructions, etc), and toggle them in, and try and find what's >> busted that way? (Although for 'add', if the thing's that broken, I'm amazed >> it even boots.) >> >> Here's an example: >> >> http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/tests/print.s >> >> It's probably too long to toggle in, but you could steal pieces from it >> and try them. >> >> I'd probably try out the shift and multiply instruction to start with; trying >> to figure out what's probably not used during booting, but could be used >> during number printing, those are two good bets. >> >> Anyway, there's no point to running diagnostics until you get that first >> problem fixed. > >If it comes as far as booting RSX as well as XXDP, there can't be >anything seriously wrong with the CPU... > > 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 jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 27 17:05:08 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 18:05:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 Message-ID: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Johnny Billquist > If it comes as far as booting RSX as well as XXDP, there can't be > anything seriously wrong with the CPU... Yeah, I see your point, but why all the zeros, then? That's what I could't work out. Anyway, it should be really easy to make sure e.g. ASH, MUL and DIV are working; it's vaguely plausible that one of them is broken. (Unix V6, I think, might even boot even if MUL was broken. I know the bootstrap uses DIV, to calculate the cylinder in the disk driver.) If not, cross that off the list, and try the next thing... Which is? Noel From bqt at update.uu.se Tue Jan 27 17:12:52 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 00:12:52 +0100 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <15222619.1422399376117.JavaMail.root@wamui-haziran.atl.sa.earthlink.net> References: <15222619.1422399376117.JavaMail.root@wamui-haziran.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <54C81B74.6020306@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-27 23:56, Don North wrote: > Could be something wrong with MUL, DIV, ASH, ASHC that may be used in the print > routine, but would not be used during basic OS operation. XXDP in particular is > designed to run on a very basic CPU so it does not normally use any optional > instructions. He booted RSX as well. > I'd start with running the 11/34 CPU tests. I'd start with actually putting in some non-zero values for CSR and vector when running the RL test. :-) Johnny > > Don > > -----Original Message----- >> From: Johnny Billquist >> Sent: Jan 27, 2015 2:42 PM >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Re: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 >> >> On 2015-01-27 21:24, Noel Chiappa wrote: >>> > From: Jacob Ritorto >>> >>> > I'm getting all zeroes nearly any time there's supposed to be a large >>> > number output to my terminal. >>> >>> It sounds like the CPU may be too broken to run diagnostics. Why don't you >>> try writing some small programs to test various bits and pieces of the CPU >>> (e.g. add instructions, etc), and toggle them in, and try and find what's >>> busted that way? (Although for 'add', if the thing's that broken, I'm amazed >>> it even boots.) >>> >>> Here's an example: >>> >>> http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/tests/print.s >>> >>> It's probably too long to toggle in, but you could steal pieces from it >>> and try them. >>> >>> I'd probably try out the shift and multiply instruction to start with; trying >>> to figure out what's probably not used during booting, but could be used >>> during number printing, those are two good bets. >>> >>> Anyway, there's no point to running diagnostics until you get that first >>> problem fixed. >> >> If it comes as far as booting RSX as well as XXDP, there can't be >> anything seriously wrong with the CPU... >> >> 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 > -- 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 update.uu.se Tue Jan 27 17:13:42 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 00:13:42 +0100 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-28 00:05, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Johnny Billquist > > > If it comes as far as booting RSX as well as XXDP, there can't be > > anything seriously wrong with the CPU... > > Yeah, I see your point, but why all the zeros, then? That's what I could't > work out. > > Anyway, it should be really easy to make sure e.g. ASH, MUL and DIV are > working; it's vaguely plausible that one of them is broken. (Unix V6, I think, > might even boot even if MUL was broken. I know the bootstrap uses DIV, to > calculate the cylinder in the disk driver.) If not, cross that off the list, > and try the next thing... Which is? Is noone paying attention to the fact (and my previous comment) about using 0 for CSR and vector??? 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 cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Tue Jan 27 15:19:07 2015 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 21:19:07 +0000 (WET) Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse In-Reply-To: "Your message dated Tue, 27 Jan 2015 21:54:26 +0100" <54C7FB02.5020606@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> Message-ID: <01PHTVQPIK4S005QF2@beyondthepale.ie> Jochen Kunz wrote: > > Am 27.01.15 um 21:15 schrieb Ian Finder: > > I fear, however, that this is a greyscale monitor designed to work with one > > channel on a *color* Sun 3 framebuffer, and not necessarily a monochrome > > ECL output. > Most likely. The Sun ECL monitors I came across had DE9 or 13W3 inputs. > Also note that the ECL signal is differential / symmetrical. This > doesn't fit well to a BNC plug. > Is a 13W3 not going to be similarly unsuitable for differential signals if the three coaxial inserts are used for the colour signals? Or is the 13W3 an alternative input to ECL signals on the DE9? > Once I owned a Sun gray scale monitor. It used a 13W3 connector. It came > together with a SBus BW2. The later was available with DE9 ECL and 13W3 > analog output. But I used it with a CG6... I have a Sun badged Sony Trinitron GDM 1604B40 monitor (part no. 365-1093-01) with a 13W3 input (only) which I saved from a skip (dumpster) many years ago. I don't have any Sun gear but I thought it might be good for spares for my Digital VR297-D3 badged Sony GDM 1602 which looks almost identical to it. It has a sticker with "DEAD" written on it but this can't be completely true - as far as I recall it at least made some attempt to power up. Is this monitor likely to want ECL inputs? There doesn't seem to be much information about it out there. Manx has a 6 page operating instructions manual which consists of almost no information poorly translated into several languages, for example "Do not place the unit near the equipment which generates a magnetism such as a converter or high voltage power lines." However, it does seem to hint that it is the same monitor as a GDM 1604B15 except for the mains power supply voltage. Regards, Peter Coghlan. From mhs.stein at gmail.com Tue Jan 27 17:58:14 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 18:58:14 -0500 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media References: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <93E755F908CF4831B82EB504B78BF2AC@310e2> I can't find it at the moment but somewhere I have a Burroughs digital cassette drive, capstan-less and capable of high-speed bidirectional seek. AFAIK it uses the standard half-track mono tape format, one track for data and the other for the clock. Don't know if it'd be useful and not sure if I want to part with it permanently, but keep it in mind if nothing else works out and you get desperate ;-) mike ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark J. Blair" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 5:36 PM Subject: Re: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media Responding on-list to an off-list message, with permission... On Jan 27, 2015, at 09:30 , Lou Ernst wrote: > This is not silly. I think it can work. I had a similar idea about TU60 > decassettes. My task was easier there though since the TU60 uses standard > Philips compact cassette shells. The TU60 however has no capstan and uses > the spindle motors to maintain tape temsion. It was designed by the same > guy who designed dectape (TU55/56). Using the spindle motors to maintain tape tension seems like a better scheme than that danged drive belt in my opinion. I recall reading somewhere online about the heroic measures that some engineers (at HP? Or was it 3M?) had to go to to get a DC-100A-like cartridge design working, involving lots of hard work in the areas of lubricants, surface finish, and how to make that drive belt by stretching out a small disc of plastic. My interpretation is that they had to apply heroic efforts to make a crappy design barely work. ;) > Long story short, I was able to play TU60 cassettes in a good audio > cassette deck and digitize the audio on a PC. I manipulated the audio file > in Audacity. I was able to cut single data blocks and dump the blocks to a > long .CSV file. I opened these in Excel and created intelligence in the > spreadsheet to digest the audio samples back into the block data, even > properly decoding the header and checking the checksum. The hardest work > in the spreadsheet was tracking the bit boundaries due to the temporally > varying bit-rate (no capstan in the real TU60). Cool! > At last I did not have to use this means of recovering data from TU60 > cassettes. My real TU60/TA11 worked well enough to recover the data on the > cassettes I was provided to recover. I developed that tape deck/digitizing > method in case there were dropouts unrecoverable by the real TU60. At least the real TU60 isn't hobbled by that dreadful cartridge design. > Perhaps you can build a sort of open frame reel-to-reel deck to play > and digitize the tu58 tapes. That's what I'm thinking. While I could repeatedly use one or two good cartridge/belt assemblies with the guts of multiple tapes in order to image them in a TU58-XA transport, I don't relish the thought of repeatedly tinkering with the danged belt if I can come up with a better solution. I found a specification that includes the magnetic track dimensions of the DECTAPE II on Al's site: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/dectape/tu58/TU58_Engineering_Specification_Jun78.pdf Also, I found a diagram showing track dimensions for various audio cassette formats here: http://richardhess.com/notes/formats/magnetic-media/magnetic-tapes/analog-audio/015-cassettes/ in particular: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/cass_trk_lrg.gif Both the DECTAPE II media and standard audio cassette media are 0.15" (3.81mm) wide. DECTAPE II has two .057" (1.448mm) wide tracks, centered 0.046" (1.168mm) apart. Data density is 800 BPI, with 2400 flux reversals per inch. At standard read speed of 30 ips, that turns into bits in 41.7us increments and flux changes in 13.9us increments. The reels inside the cartridge will spin at around 380 to 800 RPM depending on how much tape is on them, if I still know how to do math. Or twice that at the scanning speed of 60 ips. Just based on track geometry, it seems to me that it may be quite possible to read DECTAPE II media with the inner two tracks of a 4-track recorder head or auto-reversing stereo audio deck head. Or even with both tracks of a 2-track 2-channel head as shown in the diagram I found, though I don't know how common those are. 4-track recorders and auto-reversing stereo decks are pretty common, though. Running the tape at a stable speed near 30 ips instead of 1-7/8 ips would be the hardest part, I think. My gut feeling is that a normal audio cassette capstan and pinch roller assembly may not work well at 16x normal speed, and I haven't seen references to any audio cassette tape applications that run the tape at controlled speeds that fast (rewind and fast-forward speeds may be that fast or faster, but those run the tape at unregulated speeds with the pinch roller disengaged). I don't know if audio tape heads are electrically suitable for this application, but I think they might be since the flux change period is in the same ballpark as the AC bias frequency used in cassette recorders, so the head coils ought to respond ok at those higher frequencies (?). I'm curious about what folks with deeper magnetic media experience than I have might think about this. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 27 18:32:10 2015 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 16:32:10 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <93E755F908CF4831B82EB504B78BF2AC@310e2> References: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> <93E755F908CF4831B82EB504B78BF2AC@310e2> Message-ID: On 2015-Jan-27, at 3:58 PM, Mike Stein wrote: > I can't find it at the moment but somewhere I have a Burroughs digital cassette drive, capstan-less and capable of high-speed bidirectional seek. AFAIK it uses the standard half-track mono tape format, one track for data and the other for the clock. That description fits the tape system used in the HP9830. The tape transport is actually a "DigiDeck" OEM'd by International Computer Products, out of Dallas, Texas. The head is non-standard though, in that it R/Ws both half-tracks simultaneously. > Don't know if it'd be useful and not sure if I want to part with it permanently, but keep it in mind if nothing else works out and you get desperate ;-) I don't think it would be of any benefit to the OP's interest over what he already has to work with. From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Tue Jan 27 18:34:32 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 19:34:32 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> Message-ID: Johnny, I just took the defaults, thinking that maybe the real value there (that was printing as zeroes) was intact. In fact, the disk did run tests, blinking the ready light ferociously. Then reported all zeroes back :\ In a stroke of sheer weirdness, it also managed to boot 2.9BSD from an rl02! It actually ran kind of normally. Even got to multiuser mode and ran and compiled a hello world test program I typed in myself using vi! Crazy, eh? Per your recommendations, I'm going to try the small test programs with math here, shortly; thank you. Also, I grabbed a set of pdp11/34a boards from a dead (ps issues) machine. Can I plug them straight into this blackplane that's currently housing my misbehaving 11/34? Backplane markings are very faded but seem to say dd11-pk. thx jake On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 6:13 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2015-01-28 00:05, Noel Chiappa wrote: > >> > From: Johnny Billquist >> >> > If it comes as far as booting RSX as well as XXDP, there can't be >> > anything seriously wrong with the CPU... >> >> Yeah, I see your point, but why all the zeros, then? That's what I could't >> work out. >> >> Anyway, it should be really easy to make sure e.g. ASH, MUL and DIV are >> working; it's vaguely plausible that one of them is broken. (Unix V6, I >> think, >> might even boot even if MUL was broken. I know the bootstrap uses DIV, to >> calculate the cylinder in the disk driver.) If not, cross that off the >> list, >> and try the next thing... Which is? >> > > Is noone paying attention to the fact (and my previous comment) about > using 0 for CSR and vector??? > > > 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 update.uu.se Tue Jan 27 19:02:08 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 02:02:08 +0100 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54C83510.2080402@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-28 01:34, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > Johnny, I just took the defaults, thinking that maybe the real value there > (that was printing as zeroes) was intact. In fact, the disk did run tests, > blinking the ready light ferociously. Then reported all zeroes back :\ That is weird. All the tests I can ever remember running under XXDP actually presented the actual correct default values, or else I had to put values in there. I have not ever seen 0 presented, and then not actually used. But I cannot recall if I explicitly played with the RL tests. But I know I've run the MSCP tests, which use the same diagnostic supervisor code. > In a stroke of sheer weirdness, it also managed to boot 2.9BSD from an > rl02! It actually ran kind of normally. Even got to multiuser mode and ran > and compiled a hello world test program I typed in myself using vi! Crazy, > eh? Yes. > Per your recommendations, I'm going to try the small test programs with > math here, shortly; thank you. Please do. I would at least feel much better if you actually put in the correct CSR and vectors... Also, it would be very interesting to see the error logs from RSX if things fail. Assuming you are booting from some other device, otherwise the error logs might be hard to write when there is a failure. :-) And the RSX errors logs are pretty good at telling you what kind of problems you might have. > Also, I grabbed a set of pdp11/34a boards from a dead (ps issues) machine. > Can I plug them straight into this blackplane that's currently housing my > misbehaving 11/34? Backplane markings are very faded but seem to say > dd11-pk. I believe the backplane is the same, but maybe someone else could verify that. Johnny > > thx > jake > > > On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 6:13 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> On 2015-01-28 00:05, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> >>> > From: Johnny Billquist >>> >>> > If it comes as far as booting RSX as well as XXDP, there can't be >>> > anything seriously wrong with the CPU... >>> >>> Yeah, I see your point, but why all the zeros, then? That's what I could't >>> work out. >>> >>> Anyway, it should be really easy to make sure e.g. ASH, MUL and DIV are >>> working; it's vaguely plausible that one of them is broken. (Unix V6, I >>> think, >>> might even boot even if MUL was broken. I know the bootstrap uses DIV, to >>> calculate the cylinder in the disk driver.) If not, cross that off the >>> list, >>> and try the next thing... Which is? >>> >> >> Is noone paying attention to the fact (and my previous comment) about >> using 0 for CSR and vector??? >> >> >> 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 >> -- 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 hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 27 19:22:00 2015 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:22:00 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: References: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <896AC3A4-ED72-4AEC-B287-C5F451ADBDC2@cs.ubc.ca> On 2015-Jan-27, at 2:36 PM, Mark J. Blair wrote: > > I found a specification that includes the magnetic track dimensions of the DECTAPE II on Al's site: > > http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/dectape/tu58/TU58_Engineering_Specification_Jun78.pdf > > Also, I found a diagram showing track dimensions for various audio cassette formats here: > > http://richardhess.com/notes/formats/magnetic-media/magnetic-tapes/analog-audio/015-cassettes/ > > in particular: > > http://www.richardhess.com/tape/cass_trk_lrg.gif > > Both the DECTAPE II media and standard audio cassette media are 0.15" (3.81mm) wide. DECTAPE II has two .057" (1.448mm) wide tracks, centered 0.046" (1.168mm) apart. Something's funny there, the C-to-C distance between two tracks has to be greater than (with separation gap as shown in the manual) or equal to the track width, that is: C-to-C = TW/2 + SEPGAP + TW/2 C-to-C >= 2*(TW/2) but: .046 < .057 > Data density is 800 BPI, with 2400 flux reversals per inch. At standard read speed of 30 ips, that turns into bits in 41.7us increments and flux changes in 13.9us increments. The reels inside the cartridge will spin at around 380 to 800 RPM depending on how much tape is on them, if I still know how to do math. Or twice that at the scanning speed of 60 ips. > > Just based on track geometry, it seems to me that it may be quite possible to read DECTAPE II media with the inner two tracks of a 4-track recorder head or auto-reversing stereo audio deck head. Do some auto-reversing stereo decks have 4-transducer heads? The ones I've seen (not many, so I don't know) mechanically flip a 2-transducer head around 180 degrees. > Or even with both tracks of a 2-track 2-channel head as shown in the diagram I found, though I don't know how common those are. 4-track recorders and auto-reversing stereo decks are pretty common, though. > > Running the tape at a stable speed near 30 ips instead of 1-7/8 ips would be the hardest part, I think. My gut feeling is that a normal audio cassette capstan and pinch roller assembly may not work well at 16x normal speed, and I haven't seen references to any audio cassette tape applications that run the tape at controlled speeds that fast (rewind and fast-forward speeds may be that fast or faster, but those run the tape at unregulated speeds with the pinch roller disengaged). > > I don't know if audio tape heads are electrically suitable for this application, but I think they might be since the flux change period is in the same ballpark as the AC bias frequency used in cassette recorders, so the head coils ought to respond ok at those higher frequencies (?). > > I'm curious about what folks with deeper magnetic media experience than I have might think about this. I think the question would be what are the head-gap widths. It's got to be small enough to adequately discern the linear-rate-of-change of the flux variation on tape. I don't think that's necessarily going to correspond to the AC bias F in audio recording, but yes, it's still in the ballpark of 20KHz hi-fi audio. From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 27 20:03:15 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 21:03:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 Message-ID: <20150128020315.3864E18C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Johnny Billquist > Is noone paying attention to the fact (and my previous comment) about > using 0 for CSR and vector??? Err, no. :-) But seriously, I'm a bit boggled that a diagnostic program would _not_ have as default the 'standard' vector/address. So I'm kind of assuming that the 0's are somehow bug results. > From: Jacob Ritorto > I grabbed a set of pdp11/34a boards ... Can I plug them straight into > this blackplane that's currently housing my misbehaving 11/34? Yes, if the backplane is some flavour of DD11-P (I don't know of any backplane that supports the 11/34 but not the 11/34A, but I only have direct confirmatory documentation on the DD11-P, and it supports both). My vague recollection is that one can use _either_ the M7265/M7266 (but as paired set) _or_ the M8265/M8266 set, but you can't mix and match them. But don't depend on that (I'm too tired to dig into this tonight, I'll do so tomorrow). > Backplane markings are very faded but seem to say dd11-pk. Yeah, that's the 11/34 backplane (actually, the DD11-P part - the -PK is the version with the wire harness to work in a BA11-L or BA11-K; the -PF is for the BA11-F or BA11-P). Noel From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Tue Jan 27 20:20:54 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 21:20:54 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <20150128020315.3864E18C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150128020315.3864E18C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: Awesome, I'm just going to swap cpu boards and try again, then. Never hurts to have floating point, I guess (actually, in the pdp11 world, I bet there are cases where it hurts :\ ) Thanks Noel! On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 9:03 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Johnny Billquist > > > Is noone paying attention to the fact (and my previous comment) about > > using 0 for CSR and vector??? > > Err, no. :-) > > But seriously, I'm a bit boggled that a diagnostic program would _not_ have > as default the 'standard' vector/address. So I'm kind of assuming that the > 0's are somehow bug results. > > > > From: Jacob Ritorto > > > I grabbed a set of pdp11/34a boards ... Can I plug them straight into > > this blackplane that's currently housing my misbehaving 11/34? > > Yes, if the backplane is some flavour of DD11-P (I don't know of any > backplane that supports the 11/34 but not the 11/34A, but I only have > direct > confirmatory documentation on the DD11-P, and it supports both). > > My vague recollection is that one can use _either_ the M7265/M7266 (but as > paired set) _or_ the M8265/M8266 set, but you can't mix and match them. But > don't depend on that (I'm too tired to dig into this tonight, I'll do so > tomorrow). > > > Backplane markings are very faded but seem to say dd11-pk. > > Yeah, that's the 11/34 backplane (actually, the DD11-P part - the -PK is > the > version with the wire harness to work in a BA11-L or BA11-K; the -PF is for > the BA11-F or BA11-P). > > Noel > From nf6x at nf6x.net Tue Jan 27 20:27:02 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 18:27:02 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <896AC3A4-ED72-4AEC-B287-C5F451ADBDC2@cs.ubc.ca> References: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> <896AC3A4-ED72-4AEC-B287-C5F451ADBDC2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <62CAECD2-2301-4273-9B6E-7246E0746101@nf6x.net> > On Jan 27, 2015, at 17:22 , Brent Hilpert wrote: > > > On 2015-Jan-27, at 2:36 PM, Mark J. Blair wrote: >> >> I found a specification that includes the magnetic track dimensions of the DECTAPE II on Al's site: >> >> http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/dectape/tu58/TU58_Engineering_Specification_Jun78.pdf [...] >> Both the DECTAPE II media and standard audio cassette media are 0.15" (3.81mm) wide. DECTAPE II has two .057" (1.448mm) wide tracks, centered 0.046" (1.168mm) apart. > > Something's funny there, the C-to-C distance between two tracks has to be greater than (with separation gap as shown in the manual) or equal to the track width, that is: > C-to-C = TW/2 + SEPGAP + TW/2 > C-to-C >= 2*(TW/2) > but: > .046 < .057 Hmm, you're right of course, but that's how it is drawn in Figure 5 of the spec linked to above. Maybe the dimensions were accidentally reversed in the drawing? > Do some auto-reversing stereo decks have 4-transducer heads? The ones I've seen (not many, so I don't know) mechanically flip a 2-transducer head around 180 degrees. I have never seen one that moved the heads. I'm pretty sure that I've seen ones that simply have four coils/gaps, just like the head in a 4-track audio recorder would have. > I think the question would be what are the head-gap widths. It's got to be small enough to adequately discern the linear-rate-of-change of the flux variation on tape. I don't think that's necessarily going to correspond to the AC bias F in audio recording, but yes, it's still in the ballpark of 20KHz hi-fi audio. I'm also blindly assuming that the coil/gap orientations are the same. Well, I could always avoid the problem by using a real TU58 head; then I have to guide the tape externally to the head (perhaps using tape guide spools harvested from a sacrificial tape cart) instead of using the sheet metal guide notch found on typical audio tape heads, and I need to get that epoxied-in head out of the transport and provide some means to mount and adjust it. In contrast, my recollection of audio tape heads that I've seen is that they're usually screwed in place (not epoxied), and in better drives there's even an alignment adjustment. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From nf6x at nf6x.net Tue Jan 27 20:28:06 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 18:28:06 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <93E755F908CF4831B82EB504B78BF2AC@310e2> References: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> <93E755F908CF4831B82EB504B78BF2AC@310e2> Message-ID: > On Jan 27, 2015, at 15:58 , Mike Stein wrote: > > I can't find it at the moment but somewhere I have a Burroughs digital cassette drive, capstan-less and capable of high-speed bidirectional seek. AFAIK it uses the standard half-track mono tape format, one track for data and the other for the clock. > > Don't know if it'd be useful and not sure if I want to part with it permanently, but keep it in mind if nothing else works out and you get desperate ;-) If I had one sitting around, then I might consider using it. But I wouldn't want to borrow one, especially because I'm much better at starting projects than finishing them. ;) -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From mhs.stein at gmail.com Tue Jan 27 20:51:54 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 21:51:54 -0500 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media References: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> <93E755F908CF4831B82EB504B78BF2AC@310e2> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brent Hilpert" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 7:32 PM Subject: Re: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media On 2015-Jan-27, at 3:58 PM, Mike Stein wrote: > I can't find it at the moment but somewhere I have a Burroughs digital > cassette drive, capstan-less and capable of high-speed bidirectional seek. > AFAIK it uses the standard half-track mono tape format, one track for data > and the other for the clock. That description fits the tape system used in the HP9830. The tape transport is actually a "DigiDeck" OEM'd by International Computer Products, out of Dallas, Texas. The head is non-standard though, in that it R/Ws both half-tracks simultaneously. > Don't know if it'd be useful and not sure if I want to part with it > permanently, but keep it in mind if nothing else works out and you get > desperate ;-) I don't think it would be of any benefit to the OP's interest over what he already has to work with.= ----- Reply ----- Probably not, but I thought I'd mention it just in case; it doesn't use a pinch roller though, and it is completely digital, FWIW. I don't recall whether it was a DigiDeck, but ISTR that I compared the BBM unit to another digital deck that was (relatively) popular way back when, and I'm pretty sure that they were different. http://www.picklesnet.com/burroughs/images/fullsize/burr0050.jpg They were mostly used with Burroughs Series L machines, but I think some of the small B series could also be equipped with them. I've still got a few boxes of utility, game and program tapes for Burroughs L series machine, but working L's are pretty thin on the ground so I sometimes toy with building an emulator; that's why I still have the tapes and the drives (although unfortunately I threw out a lot of paper tapes a long time ago), but that project is pretty far down on the list... Just a thought... m From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Tue Jan 27 21:00:46 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 22:00:46 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150128020315.3864E18C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: I moved the console down a notch and replaced the (2) 11/34 board with the (3) 11/34a boards. Got a lovely BUS ERROR, couldn't get control of panel with CNTRL-HLT. So I put the original (2) 11/34 boards back in and it's running as it was before. Ho Hum. On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 9:20 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > Awesome, I'm just going to swap cpu boards and try again, then. Never > hurts to have floating point, I guess (actually, in the pdp11 world, I bet > there are cases where it hurts :\ ) > > Thanks Noel! > > On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 9:03 PM, Noel Chiappa > wrote: > >> > From: Johnny Billquist >> >> > Is noone paying attention to the fact (and my previous comment) >> about >> > using 0 for CSR and vector??? >> >> Err, no. :-) >> >> But seriously, I'm a bit boggled that a diagnostic program would _not_ >> have >> as default the 'standard' vector/address. So I'm kind of assuming that the >> 0's are somehow bug results. >> >> >> > From: Jacob Ritorto >> >> > I grabbed a set of pdp11/34a boards ... Can I plug them straight >> into >> > this blackplane that's currently housing my misbehaving 11/34? >> >> Yes, if the backplane is some flavour of DD11-P (I don't know of any >> backplane that supports the 11/34 but not the 11/34A, but I only have >> direct >> confirmatory documentation on the DD11-P, and it supports both). >> >> My vague recollection is that one can use _either_ the M7265/M7266 (but as >> paired set) _or_ the M8265/M8266 set, but you can't mix and match them. >> But >> don't depend on that (I'm too tired to dig into this tonight, I'll do so >> tomorrow). >> >> > Backplane markings are very faded but seem to say dd11-pk. >> >> Yeah, that's the 11/34 backplane (actually, the DD11-P part - the -PK is >> the >> version with the wire harness to work in a BA11-L or BA11-K; the -PF is >> for >> the BA11-F or BA11-P). >> >> Noel >> > > From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 27 21:04:30 2015 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 19:04:30 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: References: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> <93E755F908CF4831B82EB504B78BF2AC@310e2> Message-ID: On 2015-Jan-27, at 6:51 PM, Mike Stein wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brent Hilpert" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 7:32 PM > Subject: Re: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media > > > On 2015-Jan-27, at 3:58 PM, Mike Stein wrote: > >> I can't find it at the moment but somewhere I have a Burroughs digital cassette drive, capstan-less and capable of high-speed bidirectional seek. AFAIK it uses the standard half-track mono tape format, one track for data and the other for the clock. > > That description fits the tape system used in the HP9830. The tape transport is actually a "DigiDeck" OEM'd by International Computer Products, out of Dallas, Texas. The head is non-standard though, in that it R/Ws both half-tracks simultaneously. > > >> Don't know if it'd be useful and not sure if I want to part with it permanently, but keep it in mind if nothing else works out and you get desperate ;-) > > I don't think it would be of any benefit to the OP's interest over what he already has to work with.= > > ----- Reply ----- > > Probably not, but I thought I'd mention it just in case; it doesn't use a pinch roller though, and it is completely digital, FWIW. > > I don't recall whether it was a DigiDeck, but ISTR that I compared the BBM unit to another digital deck that was (relatively) popular way back when, and I'm pretty sure that they were different. > > http://www.picklesnet.com/burroughs/images/fullsize/burr0050.jpg > > They were mostly used with Burroughs Series L machines, but I think some of the small B series could also be equipped with them. I've still got a few boxes of utility, game and program tapes for Burroughs L series machine, but working L's are pretty thin on the ground so I sometimes toy with building an emulator; that's why I still have the tapes and the drives (although unfortunately I threw out a lot of paper tapes a long time ago), but that project is pretty far down on the list... Can't tell from that pic - can't see internals. Pics of the 9830 transport well down the page here: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP9830/gallery/index.html Some tech details of use in the 9830: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP9830/hardware.html#tape although I should correct my earlier statement: the HP uses 2 half-tracks for 1 bits and 0 bits, not data and clock as you indicate for the Burroughs, but they're still very similar, the diff would just be in the electronics. From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Tue Jan 27 21:10:40 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 22:10:40 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150128020315.3864E18C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: I just found and installed another m9312. That's the board that houses the power-on diagnostics, right? Assuming that's true, I may have a clue: the machine now halts with 177021 showing when I power it on. I can still enter 165200 via the front panel and CNTRL-START it and it then behaves just like before, with the corrupted numbers. Does that shed any light? thx jake On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 10:00 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > I moved the console down a notch and replaced the (2) 11/34 board with the > (3) 11/34a boards. Got a lovely BUS ERROR, couldn't get control of panel > with CNTRL-HLT. So I put the original (2) 11/34 boards back in and it's > running as it was before. Ho Hum. > > On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 9:20 PM, Jacob Ritorto > wrote: > >> Awesome, I'm just going to swap cpu boards and try again, then. Never >> hurts to have floating point, I guess (actually, in the pdp11 world, I bet >> there are cases where it hurts :\ ) >> >> Thanks Noel! >> >> On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 9:03 PM, Noel Chiappa >> wrote: >> >>> > From: Johnny Billquist >>> >>> > Is noone paying attention to the fact (and my previous comment) >>> about >>> > using 0 for CSR and vector??? >>> >>> Err, no. :-) >>> >>> But seriously, I'm a bit boggled that a diagnostic program would _not_ >>> have >>> as default the 'standard' vector/address. So I'm kind of assuming that >>> the >>> 0's are somehow bug results. >>> >>> >>> > From: Jacob Ritorto >>> >>> > I grabbed a set of pdp11/34a boards ... Can I plug them straight >>> into >>> > this blackplane that's currently housing my misbehaving 11/34? >>> >>> Yes, if the backplane is some flavour of DD11-P (I don't know of any >>> backplane that supports the 11/34 but not the 11/34A, but I only have >>> direct >>> confirmatory documentation on the DD11-P, and it supports both). >>> >>> My vague recollection is that one can use _either_ the M7265/M7266 (but >>> as >>> paired set) _or_ the M8265/M8266 set, but you can't mix and match them. >>> But >>> don't depend on that (I'm too tired to dig into this tonight, I'll do so >>> tomorrow). >>> >>> > Backplane markings are very faded but seem to say dd11-pk. >>> >>> Yeah, that's the 11/34 backplane (actually, the DD11-P part - the -PK is >>> the >>> version with the wire harness to work in a BA11-L or BA11-K; the -PF is >>> for >>> the BA11-F or BA11-P). >>> >>> Noel >>> >> >> > From js at cimmeri.com Tue Jan 27 21:28:44 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 22:28:44 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150128020315.3864E18C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54C8576C.2010208@cimmeri.com> (3) 11/34A boards? On 1/27/2015 10:00 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > I moved the console down a notch and replaced the (2) 11/34 board with the > (3) 11/34a boards. Got a lovely BUS ERROR, couldn't get control of panel > with CNTRL-HLT. So I put the original (2) 11/34 boards back in and it's > running as it was before. Ho Hum. > > From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Tue Jan 27 22:06:35 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 23:06:35 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <54C8576C.2010208@cimmeri.com> References: <20150128020315.3864E18C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C8576C.2010208@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 10:28 PM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > > (3) 11/34A boards? Right, 8266, 8265, 8267. I assume the 8267 is what makes it an "-a" with floating point, right? Or am I getting this miserably wrong? This is from memory ~25 years ago, so apologies.. From js at cimmeri.com Tue Jan 27 22:36:58 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 23:36:58 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150128020315.3864E18C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C8576C.2010208@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <54C8676A.6000004@cimmeri.com> On 1/27/2015 11:06 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 10:28 PM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: >> (3) 11/34A boards? > > Right, 8266, 8265, 8267. I assume the 8267 is what makes it an "-a" with > floating point, right? > > Or am I getting this miserably wrong? This is from memory ~25 years ago, > so apologies.. > > Run it without that third board. - J. From wilson at dbit.com Tue Jan 27 22:42:59 2015 From: wilson at dbit.com (John Wilson) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 23:42:59 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150128020315.3864E18C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C8576C.2010208@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <20150128044259.GA30313@dbit.dbit.com> On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 11:06:35PM -0500, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 10:28 PM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: >> >> (3) 11/34A boards? > > >Right, 8266, 8265, 8267. I assume the 8267 is what makes it an "-a" with >floating point, right? The *ability* to accept the FPP (and/or cache -- M8268 I think?) is what makes it an -A. And you need the right over-the-top connector (hazy memory says H882 or H8822 for either or both option but I may have made those up). Better to reduce the variables and leave the FPP off for now. The fact that you can get so far with such a fundamental bug seems insane. I'd almost start wondering about your terminal (it's insane, but less insane), if you weren't copying/pasting all those all-zeros numbers. XXDP stuff would never depend on DIV or ASH unless that's what it's testing -- its whole purpose is to limp along on partially broken hardware. Insanity! John Wilson D Bit From mhs.stein at gmail.com Tue Jan 27 22:48:52 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 23:48:52 -0500 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media References: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> <93E755F908CF4831B82EB504B78BF2AC@310e2> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brent Hilpert" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 10:04 PM Subject: Re: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media On 2015-Jan-27, at 6:51 PM, Mike Stein wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brent Hilpert" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 7:32 PM > Subject: Re: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media > > > On 2015-Jan-27, at 3:58 PM, Mike Stein wrote: > >> I can't find it at the moment but somewhere I have a Burroughs digital >> cassette drive, capstan-less and capable of high-speed bidirectional >> seek. AFAIK it uses the standard half-track mono tape format, one track >> for data and the other for the clock. > > That description fits the tape system used in the HP9830. The tape > transport is actually a "DigiDeck" OEM'd by International Computer > Products, out of Dallas, Texas. The head is non-standard though, in that > it R/Ws both half-tracks simultaneously. > > >> Don't know if it'd be useful and not sure if I want to part with it >> permanently, but keep it in mind if nothing else works out and you get >> desperate ;-) > > I don't think it would be of any benefit to the OP's interest over what he > already has to work with.= > > ----- Reply ----- > > Probably not, but I thought I'd mention it just in case; it doesn't use a > pinch roller though, and it is completely digital, FWIW. > > I don't recall whether it was a DigiDeck, but ISTR that I compared the BBM > unit to another digital deck that was (relatively) popular way back when, > and I'm pretty sure that they were different. > > http://www.picklesnet.com/burroughs/images/fullsize/burr0050.jpg > > They were mostly used with Burroughs Series L machines, but I think some > of the small B series could also be equipped with them. I've still got a > few boxes of utility, game and program tapes for Burroughs L series > machine, but working L's are pretty thin on the ground so I sometimes toy > with building an emulator; that's why I still have the tapes and the > drives (although unfortunately I threw out a lot of paper tapes a long > time ago), but that project is pretty far down on the list... Can't tell from that pic - can't see internals. Pics of the 9830 transport well down the page here: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP9830/gallery/index.html Some tech details of use in the 9830: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP9830/hardware.html#tape although I should correct my earlier statement: the HP uses 2 half-tracks for 1 bits and 0 bits, not data and clock as you indicate for the Burroughs, but they're still very similar, the diff would just be in the electronics. ----- Reply ----- No, completely different mechanically and electronically, and the analog and most of the digital electronics are on a set of five cards at the back of the unit. But that doesn't mean they couldn't read each other's tapes with some effort and a few jumper wires ;-) Found the Tech manuals; FWIW: Model: A9490 Read speed: Start & stop: 10 ips Continuous: 30 ips Write speed: 10 ips Mode: NRZ (2 tracks, clock & data) or (optional): PE (Single track, can use both sides) Rewind speed: 60 ips Doesn't Al have one of these at the CHM on a B700 or something similar? From north at alum.mit.edu Tue Jan 27 17:38:05 2015 From: north at alum.mit.edu (Don North) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 15:38:05 -0800 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54C8215D.9010608@alum.mit.edu> On 1/27/2015 3:13 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2015-01-28 00:05, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> > From: Johnny Billquist >> >> > If it comes as far as booting RSX as well as XXDP, there can't be >> > anything seriously wrong with the CPU... >> >> Yeah, I see your point, but why all the zeros, then? That's what I could't >> work out. >> >> Anyway, it should be really easy to make sure e.g. ASH, MUL and DIV are >> working; it's vaguely plausible that one of them is broken. (Unix V6, I think, >> might even boot even if MUL was broken. I know the bootstrap uses DIV, to >> calculate the cylinder in the disk driver.) If not, cross that off the list, >> and try the next thing... Which is? > > Is noone paying attention to the fact (and my previous comment) about using 0 > for CSR and vector??? > > Johnny > No, but it is likely those values are OK, but are being printed as ZERO the same way all the other numbers are ... From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Wed Jan 28 01:24:09 2015 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 23:24:09 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: References: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> <93E755F908CF4831B82EB504B78BF2AC@310e2> Message-ID: <54C88E99.1020102@sbcglobal.net> On 1/27/2015 6:28 PM, Mark J. Blair wrote: >> On Jan 27, 2015, at 15:58 , Mike Stein wrote: >> >> I can't find it at the moment but somewhere I have a Burroughs digital cassette drive, capstan-less and capable of high-speed bidirectional seek. AFAIK it uses the standard half-track mono tape format, one track for data and the other for the clock. >> >> Don't know if it'd be useful and not sure if I want to part with it permanently, but keep it in mind if nothing else works out and you get desperate ;-) > If I had one sitting around, then I might consider using it. But I wouldn't want to borrow one, especially because I'm much better at starting projects than finishing them. ;) > Could you use an instrumentation recorder's cassette transport? Teac made cassette systems with 7 and 9 tracks. Ebay item 251372482082 I believe is a 7 track assembly. Or look for one of their complete units MR-30, MR40 etc. Might be a good starting point for building up a reader. They are variable speed units also, with a wide range of speeds. Bob -- Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it. I've been practising it for years. -Prince Philip From nf6x at nf6x.net Wed Jan 28 01:52:52 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 23:52:52 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <54C88E99.1020102@sbcglobal.net> References: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> <93E755F908CF4831B82EB504B78BF2AC@310e2> <54C88E99.1020102@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <6F26A03D-372C-4962-8091-A84CFDD91F4C@nf6x.net> > On Jan 27, 2015, at 23:24, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > > > Could you use an instrumentation recorder's cassette transport? Teac made cassette systems with 7 and 9 tracks. Ebay item 251372482082 > I believe is a 7 track assembly. Or look for one of their complete units MR-30, MR40 etc. Might be a good starting point for building up > a reader. They are variable speed units also, with a wide range of speeds. Hmm, I don't know. I'm not familiar with those yet, so I'll have to search to learn more about them (especially, how fast they can run the tape with controlled speed). The mechanics of the thing look sturdy. Thanks for the suggestion! -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From nf6x at nf6x.net Wed Jan 28 02:05:27 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 00:05:27 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <54C88E99.1020102@sbcglobal.net> References: <27547047.25455.1422379832377.JavaMail.root@vznit170116.mailsrvcs.net> <93E755F908CF4831B82EB504B78BF2AC@310e2> <54C88E99.1020102@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <04217903-033E-4BEF-A3C9-29F2D533372A@nf6x.net> > On Jan 27, 2015, at 23:24, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > > > Could you use an instrumentation recorder's cassette transport? Teac made cassette systems with 7 and 9 tracks. Ebay item 251372482082 > I believe is a 7 track assembly. Or look for one of their complete units MR-30, MR40 etc. Might be a good starting point for building up > a reader. They are variable speed units also, with a wide range of speeds. Ok, it looks like the top speed of a complete MR-30 is 38.1 cm/s, or 15 ips. That's half the speed of a normal TU-58, but maybe it's close enough to get a good signal? And maybe the mechanism can be driven faster? For $24 shipped, it's worth experimenting with, and if it works, then that solves most of the mechanical hurdles. Thanks for the lead! -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Wed Jan 28 03:14:20 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 04:14:20 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <54C8215D.9010608@alum.mit.edu> References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <54C8215D.9010608@alum.mit.edu> Message-ID: ok, it's after four, here, and I'm calling it a night. But I felt the need to briefly summarize and have to seriously thank all of you for the brilliant input and observation. I got it running and solved the zeroes problem. Based on your input, I looked more informedly at my inventory and it turned out that I had two 11/34a board sets, one of which had the fp board with it. I ended up taking js's advice and ditching the fp board and mix-and-matching 8265 and 8266 boards from the old and new sets to make a system that doesn't bus error and doesn't print weird zeroes. Also, thankfully, no more power-up hanging and manually entering ODT at 165200. (I wonder if there's something numeric that happens there that's affected by the bug?) I'm so excited that this thing is actually working again after so long -- thank you all again for the insights and interest! If anyone is really interested in debugging these "bus error / zero-inducing" cpu boards to find out what on earth was causing the problem, I'd be happy to loan them out. Heck, I might even try to do what we were talking about initially and write up some little math tests if you're really curious. It's been a really long and wonderful pdp11-filled day. See you tomorrow with more interesting hacking on the next hurdle: emulex controllers and smd disks! ttfn jake P.S. John, it was initially a Mac using screen(1) to talk to a PL2303 serial dongle. When you suggested terminal insanity, I switched out to an old CIT-101 terminal I had lying about. Same results. Although I concur with your suspicions because the dongle really fouls up talking to 2.9bsd for some reason and is, I agree, a pretty shady (insane) terminal. On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 6:38 PM, Don North wrote: > On 1/27/2015 3:13 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> On 2015-01-28 00:05, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> >>> > From: Johnny Billquist >>> >>> > If it comes as far as booting RSX as well as XXDP, there can't be >>> > anything seriously wrong with the CPU... >>> >>> Yeah, I see your point, but why all the zeros, then? That's what I >>> could't >>> work out. >>> >>> Anyway, it should be really easy to make sure e.g. ASH, MUL and DIV are >>> working; it's vaguely plausible that one of them is broken. (Unix V6, I >>> think, >>> might even boot even if MUL was broken. I know the bootstrap uses DIV, to >>> calculate the cylinder in the disk driver.) If not, cross that off the >>> list, >>> and try the next thing... Which is? >>> >> >> Is noone paying attention to the fact (and my previous comment) about >> using 0 for CSR and vector??? >> >> Johnny >> >> > No, but it is likely those values are OK, but are being printed as ZERO > the same way all the other numbers are ... > From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Wed Jan 28 03:51:42 2015 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 10:51:42 +0100 (CET) Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <20150127203138.GV13173@n0jcf.net> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <95AD45BE664741D9A1D8B1568ACC444B@deskjara> <54C7CF0C.7000303@bitsavers.org> <20150127203138.GV13173@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 27 Jan 2015, Chris Elmquist wrote: > rollers and each tape I stuck in there promptly broke the band after it > had moved less than an inch. In the end, out of dozens of tapes, I think The problem is that the band loses its elasticity and gets longer. The black PU based bands can be made functional again with the method that I described in a post some months ago (hot water). You may try this method; actually you must use this method with all tapes that haven't been used for some time. My experience even with NOS QIC cartridges from the 90s is that all such bands have that problem nowadays. Christian From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jan 28 06:05:08 2015 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 04:05:08 -0800 Subject: new-old-tech news Message-ID: <46288E20-A63D-4402-BE86-7313B6964B9C@cs.ubc.ca> Not my thing really, but of interest to some here I expect (pardon if I missed it and it's already been mentioned on the list): "Remodelled ZX Spectrum production set to begin" http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-30810148 Also, not especially computers, but: "Why can't we let go of our old tech?" http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30879638 From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Wed Jan 28 06:22:58 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 07:22:58 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <54C8215D.9010608@alum.mit.edu> References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <54C8215D.9010608@alum.mit.edu> Message-ID: ok, it's after four, here, and I'm calling it a night. But I felt the need to briefly summarize and have to seriously thank all of you for the brilliant input and observation. I got it running and solved the zeroes problem. Based on your input, I looked more informedly at my inventory and it turned out that I had two 11/34a board sets, one of which had the fp board with it. I ended up taking js's advice and ditching the fp board and mix-and-matching 8265 and 8266 boards from the old and new sets to make a system that doesn't bus error and doesn't print weird zeroes. Also, thankfully, no more power-up hanging and manually entering ODT at 165200. (I wonder if there's something numeric that happens there that's affected by the bug?) I'm so excited that this thing is actually working again after so long -- thank you all again for the insights and interest! If anyone is really interested in debugging these "bus error / zero-inducing" cpu boards to find out what on earth was causing the problem, I'd be happy to loan them out. Heck, I might even try to do what we were talking about initially and write up some little math tests if you're really curious. It's been a really long and wonderful pdp11-filled day. See you tomorrow with more interesting hacking on the next hurdle: emulex controllers and smd disks! ttfn jake P.S. John, it was initially a Mac using screen(1) to talk to a PL2303 serial dongle. When you suggested terminal insanity, I switched out to an old CIT-101 terminal I had lying about. Same results. Although I concur with your suspicions because the dongle really fouls up talking to 2.9bsd for some reason and is, I agree, a pretty shady (insane) terminal. On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 6:38 PM, Don North wrote: > On 1/27/2015 3:13 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> On 2015-01-28 00:05, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> >>> > From: Johnny Billquist >>> >>> > If it comes as far as booting RSX as well as XXDP, there can't be >>> > anything seriously wrong with the CPU... >>> >>> Yeah, I see your point, but why all the zeros, then? That's what I >>> could't >>> work out. >>> >>> Anyway, it should be really easy to make sure e.g. ASH, MUL and DIV are >>> working; it's vaguely plausible that one of them is broken. (Unix V6, I >>> think, >>> might even boot even if MUL was broken. I know the bootstrap uses DIV, to >>> calculate the cylinder in the disk driver.) If not, cross that off the >>> list, >>> and try the next thing... Which is? >>> >> >> Is noone paying attention to the fact (and my previous comment) about >> using 0 for CSR and vector??? >> >> Johnny >> >> > No, but it is likely those values are OK, but are being printed as ZERO > the same way all the other numbers are ... > From kspt.tor at gmail.com Wed Jan 28 06:30:42 2015 From: kspt.tor at gmail.com (Tor Arntsen) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 13:30:42 +0100 Subject: new-old-tech news Message-ID: On 28 January 2015 at 13:05, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Not my thing really, but of interest to some here I expect (pardon if I missed it and it's already been mentioned on the list): > "Remodelled ZX Spectrum production set to begin" > http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-30810148 It'll be interesting to see if that works at all. > Also, not especially computers, but: > "Why can't we let go of our old tech?" > http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30879638 Aah, old arcade games.. and pinball machines. There's something about that mechanical/physical aspect I think. The point in time when I lost interest in pinball machines was when they changed the number displays from mechanical to electronical. Suddenly the pinball machines lost their appeal for me. Some important part of the experience was gone. -Tor From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jan 28 08:57:46 2015 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 14:57:46 +0000 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54C8F8EA.9080301@dunnington.plus.com> On 27/01/2015 19:32, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > Hi, > I'm getting all zeroes nearly any time there's supposed to be a large > number output to my terminal. Does this sound familiar to anyone? > > This happened last night on rsx and is also happening today on xxdp. > > example xxdp testing rl02: > BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? > VECTOR (O) 0 ? I agree with Johnny; even before I read his post I looked at this and thought here's a simple case of GIGO :-) XXDP makes NO assumptions about things like CSRs for devices, and does almost no sanity checking on input. There's no rule that says a controller has to be at a particular address, not even necessarily in the I/O page in Bank 7. When you told XXDP the CSR is at address 0 (by not entering a different value), that's what it would believe, and it would happily test whatever is there. In this case, that's real, existing, working memory, so it won't even fail with a bus error, but it will read back zeros after it's cleared - exactly as you saw. Even the elapsed time is genuinely zero, as it's reporting immediately, and all the other values are the contents of a zeroed memory location instead of a register. The fact that your CPU boots XXDP - never mind something more demanding like RSX or BSD - suggests it (and the memory, disks, etc) is pretty much working. Retry the RL02 test with proper values. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 28 10:14:33 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 08:14:33 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <95AD45BE664741D9A1D8B1568ACC444B@deskjara> <54C7CF0C.7000303@bitsavers.org> <20150127203138.GV13173@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: <54C90AE9.8030701@bitsavers.org> On 1/28/15 1:51 AM, Christian Corti wrote: > The problem is that the band loses its elasticity and gets longer. The black PU based bands can be made functional again with the method that I described in a post some months ago (hot water). You may > try this method; actually you must use this method with all tapes that haven't been used for some time. My experience even with NOS QIC cartridges from the 90s is that all such bands have that problem > nowadays. > When I was working on this a couple of months ago, I had hundreds of old DC450/600/6150 carts to experiment on and I sent out a message about the results. Short answer is bands from 300/450 and 600 aren't worth messing with. 6150 are a slightly different formulation and are also a bit tighter. This seems to be true for all of the larger capacity carts beyond 150Mb as well. The 6150 bands either do not require the warm water treatment or should be rehydrated at significantly lower temperature/time. Since I disassemble and replace the bands when I bake the tapes, it isn't a big deal to change them out. I also posted a rather long post on how to put the bands on. Like I said, I have a big batch of TU58 tapes that I need to process, so I'll experiment with different brands of DC-100 sized tapes when I do it. I'm in the middle of setting up new lab space at CHM right now, and as soon as that's done I'll bump up the TU58 recovery in the queue. I know I have 730 tapes in the piles to do. From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Wed Jan 28 10:18:33 2015 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 11:18:33 -0500 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> Message-ID: <54C90BD9.3030400@compsys.to> >Alexandre Souza wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark J. Blair" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 3:04 PM > Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media > > [Snip] > > What do you folks think about this silliness? It has been over 2 years since I last used my TU58 tape drive, but it was still working then with (of course USABLE) TU58 tapes, although a good percentage were no longer in that category. If it seems reasonable, I can try to see if the TU58 tape drive will still function correctly. If the TU58 tapes which need to be recovered can still be read by a TU58 drive, then I could undertake to recover those ones. Note that I am in Toronto, so postage would be MUCH more than within the US. Unfortunately, there is no visual difference between tapes which can still be read and those which have errors that can't be recovered. But if the tape can't even be moved or the drive belt is broken, either of those problems would prevent a standard DEC TU58 drive from being able to recover any data from the tape. Jerome Fine From nf6x at nf6x.net Wed Jan 28 10:37:15 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 08:37:15 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <54C90BD9.3030400@compsys.to> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <54C90BD9.3030400@compsys.to> Message-ID: I found the older posts about band installation and about restoring stretched bands with hot water. I do not recall, however, whether anybody has posted about successfully unsticking the band from the tape media without stripping oxide. That's something I'd sure like to know about! -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 28 10:56:34 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 08:56:34 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <54C90BD9.3030400@compsys.to> Message-ID: <54C914C2.4030902@bitsavers.org> On 1/28/15 8:37 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: > I found the older posts about band installation and about restoring stretched bands with hot water. I do not recall, however, whether anybody has posted about successfully unsticking the band from the tape media without stripping oxide. That's something I'd sure like to know about! > http://www.hp9845.net/9845/tutorials/savetapes/ has an interesting discussion of the problems of recovering DC-100 tapes but doesn't mention unsticking the tape. I'll keep digging. I suspect it will be wetting the band at the point of contact with the tape. I'm guessing the safest way to do this will be to cut the band and carefully lift the band and reels off of the hubs, then lay the tape out flat on a paper towel and wet the parts that are stuck to the binder. Like they say on the 9845 page, recovering some of the data is better than nothing, since there are probably other copies somewhere with bad blocks in other places. From nf6x at nf6x.net Wed Jan 28 11:27:38 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 09:27:38 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <54C914C2.4030902@bitsavers.org> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <54C90BD9.3030400@compsys.to> <54C914C2.4030902@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <6169169D-33A9-47D5-A217-C34EAD4A4CDA@nf6x.net> > On Jan 28, 2015, at 08:56, Al Kossow wrote: > I'm guessing the safest way to > do this will be to cut the band and carefully lift the band and reels off of the hubs, then lay the > tape out flat on a paper towel and wet the parts that are stuck to the binder. I think it may be safer to wet the tape (assuming that works) without straightening it first. It seems to me that straightening it could apply enough force along the tape axis to pull off the oxide. When I get a chance, I'll look through my smallish pile of TU58 tapes to see if I have any other not-so-precious ones with stuck bands to try. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of trying to boot my VAX from the most precious tapes without any special preparation, so if any of those had stuck but not broken bands, then those tapes have already shed oxide. Hopefully in a non-critical area of the tapes, but Murphy suggests otherwise. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 28 13:02:18 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 14:02:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card Message-ID: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> So, I'm in the process of trying to read those old MIT V6 Unix dump tapes (with a really big hand from Chuck, who did all the ugly work of actually reading the bits off the tapes, for which he has my undying gratitude!), and although I'm still trying to figure out what the format is, I did manage to retrieve, more or less, a copy of the assembler startup/support file (m47.s; a hacked version of m45.s), and it reveals that we were using an Able ENABLE card to take our 11/45 out to more than 256KB. I found a copy of brochure which very briefly describes/shows it here: http://archive.org/stream/bitsavers_ablebrochuuctSummary_2920347/Able_Computer_Product_Summary_djvu.txt and although the picture didn't ring any bells for me, that must be it. It looks like it has a UNIBUS connector (which I take it is 'UNIBUS out'), and also some kind of 'over-the-back' connector which I assume is the bus to the memory, which sounds (from a brief mention I found somewhere else) like it was standard Extended UNIBUS memory in a separate backplane. (Although I could be wrong; maybe the ENABLE plugged into the EUB backplane, and the UNIBUS connector is 'UNIBUS in' from the CPU?) I was unable to locate any real documentation for it online (maybe my Google-fu just isn't strong enough), but if someone has any, or can point me at any, I'd be grateful. Any if anyone actually has one, in the flesh, that would be Really Cool! Noel From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Wed Jan 28 13:14:20 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 14:14:20 -0500 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 2:02 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > Any if anyone actually has one, in the flesh, that would be Really Cool! > I just happen to have one in my hand as we speak. I'll photograph it... From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jan 28 13:42:31 2015 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 12:42:31 -0700 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: References: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54C93BA7.1000808@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/28/2015 12:14 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 2:02 PM, Noel Chiappa > wrote: >> >> Any if anyone actually has one, in the flesh, that would be Really Cool! >> > > I just happen to have one in my hand as we speak. I'll photograph it... > I think he wants you to mail the PCB ... Ben. From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Wed Jan 28 13:59:18 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 14:59:18 -0500 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: References: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: Oops, my bad, based on the photos in the brochure, this must be the Qinverter I have here. On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 2:14 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > > > On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 2:02 PM, Noel Chiappa > wrote: >> >> Any if anyone actually has one, in the flesh, that would be Really Cool! >> > > I just happen to have one in my hand as we speak. I'll photograph it... > From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 28 13:59:15 2015 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 14:59:15 -0500 Subject: VCF East exhibits update Message-ID: <54C93F93.2080401@snarc.net> We're up to 25 exhibitors for VCF East so far: http://www.vintage.org/2015/east/exhibit.php We'll definitely exceed 30, as we did last year for East 9.1 (33). How high will it go? 35? 37? Will we somehow squeeze in 40, which would be the most of any VCF ever? If you're thinking about exhibiting, then do not wait. Register now while there is space. From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 28 13:59:50 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 14:59:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 Message-ID: <20150128195950.0D88918C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: John Wilson > The *ability* to accept the FPP (and/or cache -- M8268 I think?) Yup, M8268. > And you need the right over-the-top connector (hazy memory says H882 or > H8822 for either or both option but I may have made those up). There are two: if one has only an FPP (M8268) _or_ a cache (M8268) one needs a single OTB connector, H8821 (they both go in the same slot, if one has only one of the two). If one has _both_ the FPP _and_ cache, one needs a double OTB connector, H8822. > Better to reduce the variables and leave the FPP off for now. Indeed! > From: Jacob Ritorto > I ended up ... mix-and-matching 8265 and 8266 boards from the old and > new sets to make a system that doesn't bus error and doesn't print > weird zeroes. Let me make sure I get this. You have two M8265's, A and B, and two M8266's, C and D. You're saying that _only_ the combination AC works; that AD, BC and BD all fail? In other words, only A and C work, and both B and D are bad? > thank you all again for the insights and interest! Hey, that's what we're here for! > If anyone is really interested in debugging these "bus error / > zero-inducing" cpu boards to find out what on earth was causing the > problem, I'd be happy to loan them out. Nah, I've got enough of my own stuff to work on... :-) But if you decide you have no use for dead cards, and want to sell/trade, please let me know! > Heck, I might even try to do what we were talking about initially and > write up some little math tests if you're really curious. Well, I'm mildly curious, but _iff_ you want to repair them, you need to do some of that, to try and figure out what the bug(s) are. (And of course there's that busted M7265/M7266 set, too!) Since you have 3 sets, and only one works, you might want to get a second set working before that set dies on you, too... :-) Noel From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 28 14:06:23 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:06:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card Message-ID: <20150128200623.1012618C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Jacob Ritorto > I just happen to have one in my hand as we speak. I'll photograph it... Hmm. That photo (here: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/jpg/PDP11s/AbleENABLE.jpg if anyone wants to see it) shows a very different card than the one in the brochure. That one's a hex card, with an over-the-back connector: this one's quad, no OTB connector. This looks more like a QNIVERTER? Does it say 'ENABLE' on it anywhere? (Which would imply there was more than one variant... which would be interesting, because I have this bit set that the one we had at MIT was not like the one described here: http://gopher.quux.org:70/Archives/usenet-a-news/FA.unix-wizards/81.07.09_ucbvax.2202_fa.unix-wizards.txt because I'm pretty sure that on ours, the DMA devices were on the far side of the ENABLE - which makes sense, because ours had separate PARs and UNIBUS map registers, which make no sense in that configuration - unless Mike [blessings, wherever you are] made a mistake in drawing that up.) Noel From pontus at update.uu.se Wed Jan 28 14:19:40 2015 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 21:19:40 +0100 Subject: VCF East exhibits update In-Reply-To: <54C93F93.2080401@snarc.net> References: <54C93F93.2080401@snarc.net> Message-ID: <54C9445C.2000200@update.uu.se> On 01/28/2015 08:59 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: > We're up to 25 exhibitors for VCF East so far: > http://www.vintage.org/2015/east/exhibit.php > > We'll definitely exceed 30, as we did last year for East 9.1 (33). > > How high will it go? 35? 37? Will we somehow squeeze in 40, which > would be the most of any VCF ever? > > If you're thinking about exhibiting, then do not wait. Register now > while there is space. Not a bad lineup! Wish I could come. When will we muster something like this in Sweden? /P From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 28 14:34:54 2015 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:34:54 -0500 Subject: VCF East exhibits update In-Reply-To: <54C9445C.2000200@update.uu.se> References: <54C93F93.2080401@snarc.net> <54C9445C.2000200@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54C947EE.4060309@snarc.net> >> We're up to 25 exhibitors for VCF East so far: >> http://www.vintage.org/2015/east/exhibit.php >> >> We'll definitely exceed 30, as we did last year for East 9.1 (33). >> >> How high will it go? 35? 37? Will we somehow squeeze in 40, which >> would be the most of any VCF ever? >> >> If you're thinking about exhibiting, then do not wait. Register now >> while there is space. > > Not a bad lineup! Wish I could come. > > When will we muster something like this in Sweden? VCF can happen anyplace where there are three things: - Enough potential audience - Not overlapping the territory of a current VCF - Someone local who we (me + Sellam Ismail) can trust to run the event That last one is the big challenge. :) We will listen to anyone who thinks they've got what it takes to produce a Vintage Computer Festival. Feel free to email me privately for more info. From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Wed Jan 28 15:31:52 2015 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 22:31:52 +0100 Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse In-Reply-To: <01PHTVQPIK4S005QF2@beyondthepale.ie> References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> <01PHTVQPIK4S005QF2@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <54C95548.7050008@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Am 27.01.15 um 22:19 schrieb Peter Coghlan: > Is a 13W3 not going to be similarly unsuitable for differential signals if > the three coaxial inserts are used for the colour signals? Or is the 13W3 > an alternative input to ECL signals on the DE9? Sorry. I meant Sun monochrome monitors in general but wrote "ECL". The ECL monitors have a DE9 input, the analog (actually gray scale) monitors have 13W3. The gray input is on the green channel. Sync pins etc. are the same as on the 13W3 color monitors. Therefore you can connect them to a color frame buffer to get a gear scale monitor. You can connect a color monitor to a BW2 with 13W3 output, but you will get a green on black display. The BW2 doesn't feed red and blue. >> > Once I owned a Sun gray scale monitor. It used a 13W3 connector. It came >> > together with a SBus BW2. The later was available with DE9 ECL and 13W3 >> > analog output. But I used it with a CG6... > I have a Sun badged Sony Trinitron GDM 1604B40 monitor I had one of those too. It was a fixed frequency monitor. Don't expect this thing to work on anything but a Sun frame buffer with the exact matching timing. -- tsch??, Jochen From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 28 15:49:19 2015 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 21:49:19 -0000 Subject: new-old-tech news References: <46288E20-A63D-4402-BE86-7313B6964B9C@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <009a01d03b44$80ddaa50$829e190a@user8459cef6fa> Regarding the remodelled Spectrum, it'd be awesome to have access to 1,000 games so easily. I don't mind it lacking a keyboard as long as it has a PS/2 or USB connector so you can connect a modern keyboard to it. (How else will you play the games in the absence of a Kempston joystick?! Well... ok, I never had a Kempston joystick, as I have a Sinclair one instead) Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brent Hilpert" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2015 12:05 PM Subject: new-old-tech news Not my thing really, but of interest to some here I expect (pardon if I missed it and it's already been mentioned on the list): "Remodelled ZX Spectrum production set to begin" http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-30810148 Also, not especially computers, but: "Why can't we let go of our old tech?" http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30879638 From jason at textfiles.com Wed Jan 28 15:50:39 2015 From: jason at textfiles.com (Jason Scott) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 16:50:39 -0500 Subject: VCF East exhibits update In-Reply-To: <54C947EE.4060309@snarc.net> References: <54C93F93.2080401@snarc.net> <54C9445C.2000200@update.uu.se> <54C947EE.4060309@snarc.net> Message-ID: Vintage Computer Festival Jason's Storage Container On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 3:34 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: > > We're up to 25 exhibitors for VCF East so far: >>> http://www.vintage.org/2015/east/exhibit.php >>> >>> We'll definitely exceed 30, as we did last year for East 9.1 (33). >>> >>> How high will it go? 35? 37? Will we somehow squeeze in 40, which would >>> be the most of any VCF ever? >>> >>> If you're thinking about exhibiting, then do not wait. Register now >>> while there is space. >>> >> >> Not a bad lineup! Wish I could come. >> >> When will we muster something like this in Sweden? >> > > > VCF can happen anyplace where there are three things: > - Enough potential audience > - Not overlapping the territory of a current VCF > - Someone local who we (me + Sellam Ismail) can trust to run the event > > That last one is the big challenge. :) > > We will listen to anyone who thinks they've got what it takes to produce a > Vintage Computer Festival. Feel free to email me privately for more info. > > > From bqt at update.uu.se Wed Jan 28 16:13:41 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 23:13:41 +0100 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54C95F15.9030301@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-28 20:02, Noel Chiappa wrote: > So, I'm in the process of trying to read those old MIT V6 Unix dump tapes > (with a really big hand from Chuck, who did all the ugly work of actually > reading the bits off the tapes, for which he has my undying gratitude!), and > although I'm still trying to figure out what the format is, I did manage to > retrieve, more or less, a copy of the assembler startup/support file (m47.s; a > hacked version of m45.s), and it reveals that we were using an Able ENABLE > card to take our 11/45 out to more than 256KB. > > I found a copy of brochure which very briefly describes/shows it here: > > http://archive.org/stream/bitsavers_ablebrochuuctSummary_2920347/Able_Computer_Product_Summary_djvu.txt > > and although the picture didn't ring any bells for me, that must be it. > > It looks like it has a UNIBUS connector (which I take it is 'UNIBUS out'), and > also some kind of 'over-the-back' connector which I assume is the bus to the > memory, which sounds (from a brief mention I found somewhere else) like it was > standard Extended UNIBUS memory in a separate backplane. (Although I could be > wrong; maybe the ENABLE plugged into the EUB backplane, and the UNIBUS > connector is 'UNIBUS in' from the CPU?) > > I was unable to locate any real documentation for it online (maybe my > Google-fu just isn't strong enough), but if someone has any, or can point me > at any, I'd be grateful. > > Any if anyone actually has one, in the flesh, that would be Really Cool! I can only offer one slightly related datapoint here. I used to play with an 11/34, which had an Able ENABLE product of some sort (if my memory for names are to be trusted) to expand memory. That thing brought an 11/34 up to 1M of memory, essentially working the same way an 11/24 would work. However, the was one board that went into the CPU box, and then there was a cable or two out from that to a separate memory box that held the memory. So the memory cards themself was not in the CPU box, and I actually have a hard time understanding how it would have worked in an 11/45 as well. The machines that had more than 256K of memory, and were Unibus based, and had the memory on the "unibus" actually had a special backplane for the memory cards, where otherwise unused signals were used to do the extra addressing bits. Which also means that all the memory cards had to sit in the same backplane as the CPU. They could not be put in any other Unibus backplane. The only two machines that did this was the 11/24 and 11/44. But apart from the problem of getting four more address lines, the rest is pretty simple. You will get a Unibus map, for all DMA, and you'll get a new MMU which implements all the bits in the PAR registers. And that's it. So, it also implies that the original MMU have to be removed. And that is where you put the new card in. But I don't know anything about the 11/45 extension this way. Like I said, I only played with an 11/34 that had this. Johnny From kylevowen at gmail.com Wed Jan 28 16:16:40 2015 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 16:16:40 -0600 Subject: PDP-8/E EAE MUY Instruction Message-ID: I've been working on a software emulation of the Extended Arithmetic Element for the PDP-8/E. I've been struggling a little with the multiply (MUY) instruction in particular. I don't have an actual EAE to test this all with, but I'd appreciate anyone with one to test out a bit of code to confirm. In any event, both SimH and the OS X PDP-8/E Simulator exhibit the same symptoms, which seem to multiply (PC + 1) by MQ and add AC, placing that result into AC, MQ. Expected behavior, best I can tell from the Maintenance Manual Volume 2, would be (PC + 1) * MQ -> AC, MQ, without the addition of the previous AC prior to executing MUY. If this is the case, then clearing AC would be essentially required, unless you want to add that value after the multiply (which could be a useful mathematical operation in some circumstances). There is a little code found on bitsavers that seems to emulate these EAE instructions: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/DEC/pdp8/From_Vince_Slyngstad/digital/digital-8-17-u-ascii.txt You'll note that there is no DCA at the top of the MUY subroutine to save AC in order to add it to MQ (and complete the carry) afterward. I've been writing a comparison tool after finding that one program changed to support the software EAE failed to function correctly, hence attempting to track down some differences. If you're interested in trying on real hardware (which would be appreciated), here's what I'm running: MUY=7405 DVI=7407 NMI=7411 SHL=7413 ASR=7415 LSR=7417 MQL=7421 SCL=7403 SCA=7441 MQA=7501 CAM=CLA MQL *200 CLA CLL TAD MQVAL MQL TAD ACVAL HLT MUY 7777 HLT MQVAL, 7777 ACVAL, 7777 $ After the first halt, AC=MQ=7777, as expected. After continuing, AC=7777, MQ=0000. This would be equivalent to 7777*7777+7777=77770000, rather than the expected value of 7777*7777=77760001. Any help would greatly ease my concerns! Kyle From uban at ubanproductions.com Wed Jan 28 16:29:23 2015 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 16:29:23 -0600 Subject: Seeking an ECL monitor (preferably for a dimple-top Sun base) and Sun 3 Keyboard and Mouse In-Reply-To: References: <9B408C2E-6166-4D8E-8121-272EFCD7DEF9@gmail.com> Message-ID: <54C962C3.3000504@ubanproductions.com> These FE manuals might be a help for you: http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/sun/FE/ I found the 365-1010 19" greyscale 1152x900 w/2bnc (like mine) listed in Vol 2 of the 90 FE manual. --tom On 1/27/15, 2:15 PM, Ian Finder wrote: > Someone has helpfully offered up a Sun-branded monochrome monitor with two > BNC inputs- video & sync- on the back. > > I fear, however, that this is a greyscale monitor designed to work with one > channel on a *color* Sun 3 framebuffer, and not necessarily a monochrome > ECL output. > > Can anyone confirm, or is it simply a matter of building a cable? > > If this can be adapted using some similar circuitry to the ECL -> TTL > adapter mentioned, I might still go for it. > > Forgive me for the noobish question, ancient video formats are not my > strong suite... > > > Thanks, > > - Ian > > On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 1:20 AM, Ian Finder wrote: > >> >> Trying to get my 3/50 restored... If anyone has these available I would >> like to purchase them from you. >> >> Understand it might be a long shot. >> >> I'm in Seattle, WA >> >> Thanks, >> >> - Ian >> >> -- >> Ian Finder >> (206) 395-MIPS >> ian.finder at gmail.com >> >> > > From spacewar at gmail.com Wed Jan 28 18:28:31 2015 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 17:28:31 -0700 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: <54C95F15.9030301@update.uu.se> References: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C95F15.9030301@update.uu.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 3:13 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > So, it also implies that the original MMU have to be removed. And that is > where you put the new card in. The PDP-11/34 "original MMU" is part of the base CPU and is not separable. Upgrading an 11/34 to 22-bit addressing would require replacing at least one or possibly both of the CPU cards with something else, in which case technically it's no longer an 11/34. From bqt at softjar.se Wed Jan 28 18:36:07 2015 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 01:36:07 +0100 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: References: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C95F15.9030301@update.uu.se> Message-ID: I am rather sure the cpu was left. But you really need additional bits in the par as well as actually addressing the extended memory. I probably should try to find the documentation for exact details here then. I might be able to track down the machine, but I haven't seen it in almost 20 years. Johnny Eric Smith skrev: (29 januari 2015 01:28:31 CET) >On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 3:13 PM, Johnny Billquist >wrote: >> So, it also implies that the original MMU have to be removed. And >that is >> where you put the new card in. > >The PDP-11/34 "original MMU" is part of the base CPU and is not >separable. Upgrading an 11/34 to 22-bit addressing would require >replacing at least one or possibly both of the CPU cards with >something else, in which case technically it's no longer an 11/34. -- Skickat fr?n min Android-telefon med K-9 E-post. Urs?kta min f?ordighet. From kylevowen at gmail.com Wed Jan 28 19:01:52 2015 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 19:01:52 -0600 Subject: PDP-8/E EAE MUY Instruction In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: After reading the Small Computer Handbook (1973), I realize that this is in fact expected behavior. Sorry for the trouble! Back to programming... Kyle From wilson at dbit.com Wed Jan 28 19:55:09 2015 From: wilson at dbit.com (John Wilson) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 20:55:09 -0500 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: References: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C95F15.9030301@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <20150129015509.GA11626@dbit.dbit.com> On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 01:36:07AM +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote: >I am rather sure the cpu was left. But you really need additional bits in >the par as well as actually addressing the extended memory. I probably >should try to find the documentation for exact details here then. I might >be able to track down the machine, but I haven't seen it in almost 20 >years. This is hurting my head. To stick a completely outboard 22-bit MMU onto any Unibus machine with an 18-bit MMU, you'd need to sniff all PAR writes and add four bits to all PAR reads (so hopefully those accesses would appear fully on the Unibus even though the PARs are internal to the CPU), and then jump in the way of all accesses from the CPU to main memory (which might be OK if you cleared out the rest of the SU so it's just the CPU and the MMU expander and RAM, and all peripherals are beyond the expander and go through its Unibus map), but even then w/o the three MSBs of the VAs the MMU expander wouldn't know which PAR to use (and all it's seeing on the Unibus is the 18-big PA, which isn't necessarily unique). I have a hazy memory that someone sold an F11-based CPU card that was a drop-in replacement for the 11/34a CPU and included all the memory (so there's no need to confuse things with Unibus DMA), and gave you something which looked like an 11/34a but acted like an 11/24 (so, no odd address traps for one thing). Could that be what this was? I don't remember who the vendor was. Who made the PEP70? Maybe them? John Wilson D Bit From spacewar at gmail.com Wed Jan 28 20:10:28 2015 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 19:10:28 -0700 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: <20150129015509.GA11626@dbit.dbit.com> References: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C95F15.9030301@update.uu.se> <20150129015509.GA11626@dbit.dbit.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 6:55 PM, John Wilson wrote: > Who made the PEP70? SETASI (aka Digital Data Systems?). They also made the HC70 Hypercache that works in conjunction with the PEP70 to further improve performance. From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 28 20:10:29 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 21:10:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card Message-ID: <20150129021029.71E4F18C094@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Johnny Billquist > However, the was one board that went into the CPU box, and then there > was a cable or two out from that to a separate memory box that held the > memory. So the memory cards themself was not in the CPU box Right, that's a product called the Megabox; details I can find online about it are thin, but it seems to include the Extended UNIBUS backplane the memory sits on, and the memory cards. (Google 'ABLE Enable Megabox' and it'll pop up a short Computerworld blurb about it.) > The machines that had more than 256K of memory, and were Unibus based, > and had the memory on the "unibus" actually had a special backplane for > the memory cards, where otherwise unused signals were used to do the > extra addressing bits. Standard Extended UNIBUS (a la 11/24 and 11/44), I think. > Which also means that all the memory cards had to sit in the same > backplane as the CPU. They could not be put in any other Unibus > backplane. Anyway, no, the memory did not have to be in the same backplane as the CPU; see the Megabox, where the memory was in that box. However, a caveat: there is some possibility there was more than one version of the ENABLE, in which case two seemingly contradictory statements about 'the' ENABLE might in fact both be correct. But until that's shown, let's assume there's only one kind... :-) The thing that I think did have to be on (in, actually - see below) the main UNIBUS was the ENABLE card. I think the logical configuration was like this (diagram semi-ripped off from Mike Muuss' email): Processor ---------- ENABLE ------------------------ Term. UNIBUS | | UNIBUS | EUB | | | |_ 11/44 style | memory |_ Devices (both DMA and non-DMA) I think all the devices - well, you could have put non-DMA devices on the section between the CPU and the ENABLE - all DMA devices at least, had to be on the second UNIBUS, because the ENABLE included a UNIBUS map, which was separate from the PARs used for CPU accesses, so I think that's pretty conclusive that the CPU and DMA devices did not share a UNIBUS. > and you'll get a new MMU which implements all the bits in the PAR > registers. .. > So, it also implies that the original MMU have to be removed. No. (And I can show you the code... :-) The original MMU was retained; the ENABLE included only a second set of PARS (full 16-bit wide), which were the ones normally used while the system was running; the PDRs in the CPU continued to be used as the _only_ PDRs in the system. The style of usage was to, using the CPU's PARs, statically map Kernel D space to one quadrant of UNIBUS address space, Kernel I to a second, User D to a third, and User I to the fourth. (You wanted to use Supervisor mode too? Thhhppptttt!) Those mappings would be on the segment between the CPU and ENABLE; once initially set up, those mappings (i.e. CPU PAR contents) were never changed. The PARs on the ENABLE card (which controlled which part of real memory various addresses on the first UNIBUS got mapped to) were the ones the operating system adjusted as the system was running. > And that is where you put the new card in. I don't think so. I'm kind of hazy on exactly how this was all wired up: there are the fingers on the card (which I think _might_ be the EUB used for the memory bus), the UNIBUS edge connector on the ENABLE card, and that over-the-back connector on the ENABLE card. Then there were 4 things that had to be connected up: the CPU UNIBUS, the memory EUB, the device UNIBUS, and an optional cache memory card ... but we have only three connectors. So whether the cache somehow hung off the EUB, or directly from the ENABLE via a custom backplane, or what, I'm not sure. > I don't know anything about the 11/45 extension this way. Like I said, > I only played with an 11/34 that had this. Anything you could do on the /34 could of course also be done on the /45 (since the ENABLE did not involve any mods to the CPU, it just interfaced to the UNIBUS). Although I have this bit set that perhaps it - or, one variant of the ENABLE (see comment above about more than one) - somehow used the fast memory slots in the 11/45 backplane (originally designed for special high-speed solid state memory) and that's how you got full advantage of the cache. (I have this distinct memory of running 'mips' on our /45 after it was upgraded and the result was '3'...) But probably something in my memory is flaky - it was a long time ago. > I probably should try to find the documentation for exact details here > then. I might be able to track down the machine, but I haven't seen it > in almost 20 years. If you could track down the documentation, that would be really good. The programming of the thing we can work out (in addition to my code for V6 Unix, there is code online for other versions of Unix which support it, e.g. BSD2.9). It's the physical installation details which are murky... Noel From rick at rickmurphy.net Wed Jan 28 21:19:32 2015 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 22:19:32 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> At 07:34 PM 1/27/2015, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >Johnny, I just took the defaults, >BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? What Johnny said. The prompt says "(O)", not "(0)" - the letter O for Octal. The zero after that isn't a default, it simply means that the value hasn't been set. There is no default. Or at least no sane one. Zero in this case means that it's writing to memory address zero for CSR. The diagnostic should reject that, but diagnostics are notoriously user unfriendly. -Rick From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Wed Jan 28 21:29:52 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 22:29:52 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> Message-ID: >From what I observed, this zeroed-out prompt was just another manifestation of the zeroes bug. The values were there in memory and were supposed to be offered to the user but got blanked out with zeroes instead. I had suspected this and just hit enter at the prompt and XXDP did, in fact, exercise the disk. There were blinking lights and head noise, obvious work being done that wouldn't have, had there actually been real zeroes in the address and csr fields. I might swap the bad cpu board back in and try again, but now that the problem has been isolated and removed, I'm inclined to just enjoy the pdp11 :) On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 10:19 PM, Rick Murphy wrote: > At 07:34 PM 1/27/2015, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > >> Johnny, I just took the defaults, >> > > >BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? > > What Johnny said. The prompt says "(O)", not "(0)" - the letter O for > Octal. The zero after that isn't a default, it simply means that the value > hasn't been set. > > There is no default. Or at least no sane one. Zero in this case means that > it's writing to memory address zero for CSR. The diagnostic should reject > that, but diagnostics are notoriously user unfriendly. > -Rick > > From useddec at gmail.com Wed Jan 28 22:07:04 2015 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 22:07:04 -0600 Subject: thread on tools Message-ID: I can't seem to find the thread on precision screwdrivers and other tools. I might have mistakenly deleted it. I planned on reviewing it to buy some new tools and now I'm stuck. Can someone please get me in the send me a copy of it? Thanks, Paul From elson at pico-systems.com Wed Jan 28 22:49:11 2015 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2015 22:49:11 -0600 Subject: 11/34 up! (sort of) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54C9BBC7.1060508@pico-systems.com> On 01/26/2015 09:42 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > Woohoo, I finally, after over a decade of being somewhat out of the pdp11 > hobby, have managed to bring back to life one of my pdp11/34s! > > It's a plain 11/34 with dl11-w, ky11-lb, ms11-L, rl11 and a M9312 > terminator/boot rom board. I have an emulex controller and some fuji 160s > I'll tack on later so I can run 2.9BSD once I get the basic build confirmed > safe. > > It's not in great shape at the moment, apparently, as these xxdp 2.5 diags > are crashing left and right. But it at least boots the os and tries. > > I initially had, but mysteriously lost the console emulator/ODT > functionality, seems it's starting at 165000 instead of 165200 at poweron. > Maybe a 9312 switch mis-set... So I'm booting from the panel by calling > the address of the ODT or the rl02 boot rom, which does the trick. > > > Thinking about this problem, I'm wondering if one of the address bits is stuck? I'm guessing since 165200 seems to work better than 165000, that maybe the 200 (octal) bit is stuck on? You could try depositing 1234 to location 0, and 4321 to location 200, and then read back both locations. If they both read 4321, then probably that address bit does not change as the CPU is commanding it to. It is also possible that the diag/ODT ROM is not properly sensing the address bits on the Unibus. Jon From useddec at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 01:51:59 2015 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 01:51:59 -0600 Subject: thread on tools In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Got it! Thanks tothwolf On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 10:07 PM, Paul Anderson wrote: > I can't seem to find the thread on precision screwdrivers and other tools. > I might have mistakenly deleted it. I planned on reviewing it to buy some > new tools and now I'm stuck. > > Can someone please get me in the send me a copy of it? > > Thanks, Paul > From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Thu Jan 29 03:53:17 2015 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 10:53:17 +0100 (CET) Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <54C90AE9.8030701@bitsavers.org> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <95AD45BE664741D9A1D8B1568ACC444B@deskjara> <54C7CF0C.7000303@bitsavers.org> <20150127203138.GV13173@n0jcf.net> <54C90AE9.8030701@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Jan 2015, Al Kossow wrote: > When I was working on this a couple of months ago, I had hundreds of old > DC450/600/6150 carts to experiment on and I > sent out a message about the results. Short answer is bands from 300/450 and > 600 aren't worth messing with. 6150 are That's more or less true. I have many old 300/600 tapes with with belts that broke during or shortly after the treatment. Therefore I use belts from much newer (about one decade) NOS 600 tapes (thanksfully I have many dozens of them). They need the hot water treatment beforehand, too. But at least they work reliably after that. If you are archiving such tapes you don't need a new belt for each cartridge. I simply transfer the belt from the archived cartridge to the next one and keep it in a parts box for a future archiving session. > The 6150 bands either do not require the warm water treatment or should > be rehydrated at significantly lower temperature/time. Since I I had very few 6150 that needed the treatment, too. But in general, you're right. > Like I said, I have a big batch of TU58 tapes that I need to process, so I'll > experiment with different brands of DC-100 > sized tapes when I do it. I'm in the middle of setting up new lab space at I have many TU58 tapes, but I have never used a TU58 so far. But I also have a lot of DC100 tapes from HP terminals, and they surely have the sticky and worn belt problem. And because DC100 tapes are so rare and *** expensive, I try anything to keep the original belt going. Christian From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Thu Jan 29 03:56:21 2015 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 10:56:21 +0100 (CET) Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <54C914C2.4030902@bitsavers.org> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <54C90BD9.3030400@compsys.to> <54C914C2.4030902@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Jan 2015, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/28/15 8:37 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: >> I found the older posts about band installation and about restoring >> stretched bands with hot water. I do not recall, however, whether anybody >> has posted about successfully unsticking the band from the tape media >> without stripping oxide. That's something I'd sure like to know about! >> > > http://www.hp9845.net/9845/tutorials/savetapes/ has an interesting > discussion of the problems of recovering DC-100 tapes but doesn't > mention unsticking the tape. I'll keep digging. I suspect it will be > wetting the band at the point of contact with the tape. I'm guessing the It's simple: heat. I heat the belt with the radiation from a halogen lamp (or other light bulb that emits enough heat). But I suppose that the first couple of minutes of a tape baking session will also do it. Christian From jam at synthetica.org Thu Jan 29 06:13:01 2015 From: jam at synthetica.org (Josh Miller) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 07:13:01 -0500 Subject: VCF East exhibits update In-Reply-To: References: <54C93F93.2080401@snarc.net> <54C9445C.2000200@update.uu.se> <54C947EE.4060309@snarc.net> Message-ID: <54CA23CD.8070600@synthetica.org> On 01/28/2015 04:50 PM, Jason Scott wrote: > Vintage Computer Festival Jason's Storage Container With only /one/ speaker, however. ;^) From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 29 07:04:06 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 08:04:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 Message-ID: <20150129130406.D047018C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Jacob Ritorto > but now that the problem has been isolated and removed, I'm inclined to > just enjoy the pdp11 :) I'd really recommend fixing at least one more board set - otherwise, when the next failure happens, you'll have _no_ working board sets... Noel From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 29 07:26:07 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:26:07 +0100 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: <20150129015509.GA11626@dbit.dbit.com> References: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C95F15.9030301@update.uu.se> <20150129015509.GA11626@dbit.dbit.com> Message-ID: <54CA34EF.5080602@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-29 02:55, John Wilson wrote: > On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 01:36:07AM +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> I am rather sure the cpu was left. But you really need additional bits in >> the par as well as actually addressing the extended memory. I probably >> should try to find the documentation for exact details here then. I might >> be able to track down the machine, but I haven't seen it in almost 20 >> years. > > This is hurting my head. To stick a completely outboard 22-bit MMU onto > any Unibus machine with an 18-bit MMU, you'd need to sniff all PAR writes > and add four bits to all PAR reads (so hopefully those accesses would appear > fully on the Unibus even though the PARs are internal to the CPU), and then > jump in the way of all accesses from the CPU to main memory (which might be > OK if you cleared out the rest of the SU so it's just the CPU and the MMU > expander and RAM, and all peripherals are beyond the expander and go through > its Unibus map), but even then w/o the three MSBs of the VAs the MMU > expander wouldn't know which PAR to use (and all it's seeing on the Unibus > is the 18-big PA, which isn't necessarily unique). The Unibus DMA is the easy problem, so we can leave that. The interesting part is the page address table. How on earth did they do it? I honestly don't know at this point, but I am getting curious. I probably did know 20 years ago, when I had the machine. I think I even might have had the documentation. > I have a hazy memory that someone sold an F11-based CPU card that was a > drop-in replacement for the 11/34a CPU and included all the memory (so > there's no need to confuse things with Unibus DMA), and gave you something > which looked like an 11/34a but acted like an 11/24 (so, no odd address > traps for one thing). Could that be what this was? I don't remember who > the vendor was. Who made the PEP70? Maybe them? Well, Able did no such thing. I tried to jog my memory a bit more last night, and managed to recall that the product name was something like Able/34. So I searched around a bit more today. I did find a couple of brochures on bitsavers that mentions it. My memory was almost right. The product was called Enable/34, and it was apparently usable both on the 11/34, 11/45 and 11/60. See: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/able/brochures/Able_Computer_Brochures_1983.pdf and http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/able/brochures/Able_Computer_Product_Summary.pdf You even have a picture of the board in the latter one. Also, it would appear they had two products. The Enable/34 and the Megabox. But some text seems to suggest that the Megabox just included the Enable/34 and a box with memory installed. Johnny From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 29 07:26:44 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:26:44 +0100 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: References: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C95F15.9030301@update.uu.se> <20150129015509.GA11626@dbit.dbit.com> Message-ID: <54CA3514.1080209@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-29 03:10, Eric Smith wrote: > On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 6:55 PM, John Wilson wrote: >> Who made the PEP70? > > SETASI (aka Digital Data Systems?). They also made the HC70 Hypercache > that works in conjunction with the PEP70 to further improve > performance. Yup. And if anyone happens to have a set just lying around, could they please consider donating it to Update, to speed up Magica? :-) Johnny From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 29 07:46:57 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:46:57 +0100 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: <20150129021029.71E4F18C094@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150129021029.71E4F18C094@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54CA39D1.9090401@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-29 03:10, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Johnny Billquist > > > However, the was one board that went into the CPU box, and then there > > was a cable or two out from that to a separate memory box that held the > > memory. So the memory cards themself was not in the CPU box > > Right, that's a product called the Megabox; details I can find online about > it are thin, but it seems to include the Extended UNIBUS backplane the memory > sits on, and the memory cards. (Google 'ABLE Enable Megabox' and it'll pop up > a short Computerworld blurb about it.) I did find two brochures on bitsavers about Enable/34, and one of them also mentions Megabox. > > The machines that had more than 256K of memory, and were Unibus based, > > and had the memory on the "unibus" actually had a special backplane for > > the memory cards, where otherwise unused signals were used to do the > > extra addressing bits. > > Standard Extended UNIBUS (a la 11/24 and 11/44), I think. "Standard" is a strong word here. :-) Yes, it is called "Extended Unibus", and it's specially wired slots in the CPU backplane. Ie. you can only install the memories in slots 9-12 on an 11/44 or slots 3-6 on an 11/24. In the 11/44 those slots should be left empty if memory is not installed there, while on the 11/24 they are normal SPC slots otherwise. > > Which also means that all the memory cards had to sit in the same > > backplane as the CPU. They could not be put in any other Unibus > > backplane. > > Anyway, no, the memory did not have to be in the same backplane as the CPU; > see the Megabox, where the memory was in that box. Now you are mixing two different topics. The above was about Unibus memory on machines able to address more than 256K.(Ie. the 11/24 and 11/44.) And for those machines the memory *have* to be on the CPU backplane. Think about it for a second. The Unibus only have 18 address lines. How do you ever expect anything addressing beyond 256K to work? The extra address lines just magically hop from one backplane to the next? The Megabox, which is a different solution, actually have its own backplane (it's its own box...), and its own connection to the main system, and only holds memory. As far as I know, it is not a Unibus at all. And it still could not be a Unibus, for the same reason I mentioned above. It is *physically impossible* to address more than 256K on a Unibus. And the 11/70 is another example of a machine that did not have the memory in the same backplane as the CPU. It has a memory bux instead. The 11/24 and 11/44 are actually conceptually similar, even though there the memory sits in the same backplane. They do have a (partly) separate bus to address the memory. And the same is true of the Able product. > However, a caveat: there is some possibility there was more than one version > of the ENABLE, in which case two seemingly contradictory statements about > 'the' ENABLE might in fact both be correct. But until that's shown, let's > assume there's only one kind... :-) There are two products (see my other reply), but it would appear that they share some parts. > The thing that I think did have to be on (in, actually - see below) the main > UNIBUS was the ENABLE card. I think the logical configuration was like this > (diagram semi-ripped off from Mike Muuss' email): > > Processor ---------- ENABLE ------------------------ Term. > UNIBUS | | UNIBUS > | EUB | > | | > |_ 11/44 style | > memory |_ Devices (both DMA and > non-DMA) > > I think all the devices - well, you could have put non-DMA devices on the > section between the CPU and the ENABLE - all DMA devices at least, had to be > on the second UNIBUS, because the ENABLE included a UNIBUS map, which was > separate from the PARs used for CPU accesses, so I think that's pretty > conclusive that the CPU and DMA devices did not share a UNIBUS. The DMA is still the easy and obvious part. The interesting question is how CPU memory addressing worked. > > and you'll get a new MMU which implements all the bits in the PAR > > registers. .. > > So, it also implies that the original MMU have to be removed. > > No. (And I can show you the code... :-) The original MMU was retained; the > ENABLE included only a second set of PARS (full 16-bit wide), which were the > ones normally used while the system was running; the PDRs in the CPU > continued to be used as the _only_ PDRs in the system. That would imply you could not address more than 256K from the CPU. Not likely... > The style of usage was to, using the CPU's PARs, statically map Kernel D > space to one quadrant of UNIBUS address space, Kernel I to a second, User D > to a third, and User I to the fourth. (You wanted to use Supervisor mode too? > Thhhppptttt!) Those mappings would be on the segment between the CPU and > ENABLE; once initially set up, those mappings (i.e. CPU PAR contents) were > never changed. The 11/34 do not have D-space... > The PARs on the ENABLE card (which controlled which part of real memory > various addresses on the first UNIBUS got mapped to) were the ones the > operating system adjusted as the system was running. Sorry, this is simply not how it worked. Like I said, I actually used an 11/34 with the ENable/34 and the separate memory box for a few years. It really looked and behaved identically to an 11/24. Ie, full 16-bit PARs, still no split I/D space. > > And that is where you put the new card in. > > I don't think so. > > I'm kind of hazy on exactly how this was all wired up: there are the fingers > on the card (which I think _might_ be the EUB used for the memory bus), the > UNIBUS edge connector on the ENABLE card, and that over-the-back connector on > the ENABLE card. Then there were 4 things that had to be connected up: the > CPU UNIBUS, the memory EUB, the device UNIBUS, and an optional cache memory > card ... but we have only three connectors. So whether the cache somehow hung > off the EUB, or directly from the ENABLE via a custom backplane, or what, I'm > not sure. An 11/34 do not have any EUB slots. > > I don't know anything about the 11/45 extension this way. Like I said, > > I only played with an 11/34 that had this. > > Anything you could do on the /34 could of course also be done on the /45 > (since the ENABLE did not involve any mods to the CPU, it just interfaced to > the UNIBUS). Right. And after my hunting this morning, it turned out that the Enable/34 was usable both on the 11/34, 11/45 and 11/60. > Although I have this bit set that perhaps it - or, one variant of the ENABLE > (see comment above about more than one) - somehow used the fast memory slots > in the 11/45 backplane (originally designed for special high-speed solid > state memory) and that's how you got full advantage of the cache. (I have > this distinct memory of running 'mips' on our /45 after it was upgraded and > the result was '3'...) But probably something in my memory is flaky - it was > a long time ago. Able also had a memory product for the 11/45 Fastbus. That, however, did not extend the addressing in any way. > > I probably should try to find the documentation for exact details here > > then. I might be able to track down the machine, but I haven't seen it > > in almost 20 years. > > If you could track down the documentation, that would be really good. I'm starting to feel I really should. Having thought a few more minutes, am *know* we had the documentation. Now it's just a question of if we still have it, and where it is. (You should see Updates storage rooms...) > The programming of the thing we can work out (in addition to my code for V6 > Unix, there is code online for other versions of Unix which support it, e.g. > BSD2.9). It's the physical installation details which are murky... I was running RSX-11M and RSX-11M-PLUS on our 11/34, and no modifications to the kernel was needed. But you did have to lie to SYSGEN, and say that you had an 11/24, or else it would not use the full 16 bits of the PARs. Johnny From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 29 07:48:03 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:48:03 +0100 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> Message-ID: <54CA3A13.7080800@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-29 04:19, Rick Murphy wrote: > At 07:34 PM 1/27/2015, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >> Johnny, I just took the defaults, > > >BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? > > What Johnny said. The prompt says "(O)", not "(0)" - the letter O for > Octal. The zero after that isn't a default, it simply means that the > value hasn't been set. Well, I would also look at the zero as the "default". Not a meaningful default, but it is what would be used if you just press enter. > There is no default. Or at least no sane one. Zero in this case means > that it's writing to memory address zero for CSR. The diagnostic should > reject that, but diagnostics are notoriously user unfriendly. Right. :-) Johnny From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 29 07:48:57 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:48:57 +0100 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> Message-ID: <54CA3A49.3080304@update.uu.se> Short question: What did you boot from? The same RL controller and disk you then wanted to run diagnostics on? Or did you have a second storage, from which you booted? Johnny On 2015-01-29 04:29, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > From what I observed, this zeroed-out prompt was just another manifestation > of the zeroes bug. The values were there in memory and were supposed to be > offered to the user but got blanked out with zeroes instead. I had > suspected this and just hit enter at the prompt and XXDP did, in fact, > exercise the disk. There were blinking lights and head noise, obvious work > being done that wouldn't have, had there actually been real zeroes in the > address and csr fields. I might swap the bad cpu board back in and try > again, but now that the problem has been isolated and removed, I'm inclined > to just enjoy the pdp11 :) > > On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 10:19 PM, Rick Murphy wrote: > >> At 07:34 PM 1/27/2015, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >> >>> Johnny, I just took the defaults, >>> >> >>> BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? >> >> What Johnny said. The prompt says "(O)", not "(0)" - the letter O for >> Octal. The zero after that isn't a default, it simply means that the value >> hasn't been set. >> >> There is no default. Or at least no sane one. Zero in this case means that >> it's writing to memory address zero for CSR. The diagnostic should reject >> that, but diagnostics are notoriously user unfriendly. >> -Rick >> >> From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jan 29 09:23:00 2015 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 09:23:00 -0600 Subject: Sugru (moldable rubber) for ??? In-Reply-To: References: <54C06718.4070507@att.net> <20150124231559.2EFDB2073ED0@huey.classiccmp.org> <54C695EA.6020101@sydex.com> <056301d039a0$754151b0$5fc3f510$@net> <54C69C1B.1010001@sydex.com> Message-ID: At 02:00 PM 1/26/2015, geneb wrote: >Chuck, you might want to find someone that's got a 3D printer near you and has experience with a flexible filament called NinjaFlex. If you can't find anyone, let me know and I'll pick up a spool and give it a shot. I have a 3D printer - a Flashforge Creator. Haven't tried the NinjaFlex yet. I think I've seen "Shoe Goo" sold as "Amazing Goo" or maybe they were clones of each other. Available at Walmart. Yes, it's sticky when fresh, like silicone caulk. As it sits in the tube for a while, it seems to harden, becomes less obviously wet and more like tacky. You can get the same effect by just letting a bit dry. How are/were capstans made in the first place? Thermoset rubber in molds by the thousand? Isn't there a hobbyist approach for that? - John From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 29 09:57:34 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 10:57:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card Message-ID: <20150129155734.DF69318C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Johnny Billquist > I searched around a bit more today. > I did find a couple of brochures on bitsavers that mentions it. Err, you didn't need Google for that - the first post in this thread mentioned it... :-) >> Standard Extended UNIBUS (a la 11/24 and 11/44), I think. > "Standard" is a strong word here. :-) Well, 'standard' in the sense that more than one DEC machine used it, and one could buy third-party memory cards that conformed to it. > The Megabox .. As far as I know, it is not a Unibus at all. And it > still could not be a Unibus, for the same reason I mentioned above. I _suspect_ that internally it has a backplane which supported EUB, and the memory plugged into that; whether that was a custom backplane, or what, I don't know. (I'd have to check the wire-lists on, say, a DD11-D to see if those pins are bussed together - I have this vague memory that they are.) And yes, _iff_ the cable to it is a standard UNIBUS cable (I don't know what kind of cable they used), that would only support the 18-bit address space - which would imply that the ENABLE card was in the Megabox. >> (And I can show you the code... :-) The original MMU was retained; the >> ENABLE included only a second set of PARS (full 16-bit wide), which >> were the ones normally used while the system was running; the PDRs in >> the CPU continued to be used as the _only_ PDRs in the system. > That would imply you could not address more than 256K from the CPU. Not > likely... Dude, I PERSONALLY WROTE THE CODE TO USE THE ENABLE. And I have the source, here: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/unix/mit/conf/m47.s You are correct, the CPU cannot _directly_ address more than 256KB. However, the ENABLE board _can_; mapping registers in the ENABLE (32 of them, each handling an 8KB section of incoming UNIBUS address space, from the CPU) allow that UNIBUS address space to be mapped, in 8KB blocks, anywhere in the 22-bit memory space. You will find it all laid out most ably in this old post by Mike Muuss (peace, Mike): http://gopher.quux.org:70/Archives/usenet-a-news/FA.unix-wizards/81.07.12_ucbvax.2254_fa.unix-wizards.txt It looks like I used a slightly different layout of the address space on the UNIBUS from the CPU to the ENABLE from the one he describes (the code in m47.s seems to use: KI0-7 KD0-6 UI0-7 UD0-7 KD7 I/O page with the KI underneath the KD, unlike his; KD7 has to be at the top so that the CPU can get to the registers in the ENABLE), but other than that the details are identical. (Note that they only differ in how the registers were _used_, not in terms of what the hardware's capabilities were.) >> The style of usage was to, using the CPU's PARs, statically map Kernel >> D space to one quadrant of UNIBUS address space, Kernel I to a second, >> User D to a third, and User I to the fourth. > The 11/34 do not have D-space... I was talking about on the /45. >> The PARs on the ENABLE card (which controlled which part of real >> memory various addresses on the first UNIBUS got mapped to) were the >> ones the operating system adjusted as the system was running. > Sorry, this is simply not how it worked. Repeat previous comment about how I personally wrote the code to use it. Just for you, I have groveled around in the dump I'm working on retrieving, and found seg.h, which is the header file which contains the #defines for the mapping registers in Unix V6. Here it is: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/unix/mit/h/seg.h If you look at it, you will see that UISA[0] has been modified to be "0163736". That's how we did the ENABLE - we just changed those definitions, and recompiled all the system modules that touched the mapping registers, so that that code now talked to the 16-bit PARs on the ENABLE, and not the 12-bit ones in the KT (which were set once at system startup time to provide the static mapping - see m47.s - and then never changed again). > Like I said, I actually used an 11/34 with the ENable/34 and the > separate memory box for a few years. It really looked and behaved > identically to an 11/24. Ie, full 16-bit PARs, still no split I/D space. Yes, no split I/D because it was totally external to the CPU, it could only take the UNIBUS addresses the CPU generated and map them around. >> I'm kind of hazy on exactly how this was all wired up: there are the >> fingers on the card (which I think _might_ be the EUB used for the >> memory bus), the UNIBUS edge connector on the ENABLE card, and that >> over-the-back connector on the ENABLE card. > An 11/34 do not have any EUB slots. I was assuming that the ENABLE used an EUB to talk to its memory. (See diagram further up the original post.) > (You should see Updates storage rooms...) Even better would be being allowed to poke around in there... :-) > I was running RSX-11M and RSX-11M-PLUS on our 11/34, and no > modifications to the kernel was needed. There must have been some changes somewhere, since as you can see from the code above, the ENABLE had PARs in non-standard locations (0163700-0163776). Anyway, if you could find the documentation that would be super-wonderful, because I am _really_ curious to know exactly how the thing interfaced to the incoming UNIBUS, outgoing UNIBUS, memory, and cache. Noel From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 29 10:35:24 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 17:35:24 +0100 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: <20150129155734.DF69318C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150129155734.DF69318C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54CA614C.6020703@update.uu.se> We must obviously be talking about different products. Johnny On 2015-01-29 16:57, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Johnny Billquist > > > I searched around a bit more today. > > I did find a couple of brochures on bitsavers that mentions it. > > Err, you didn't need Google for that - the first post in this thread > mentioned it... :-) > > >> Standard Extended UNIBUS (a la 11/24 and 11/44), I think. > > > "Standard" is a strong word here. :-) > > Well, 'standard' in the sense that more than one DEC machine used it, and one > could buy third-party memory cards that conformed to it. > > > The Megabox .. As far as I know, it is not a Unibus at all. And it > > still could not be a Unibus, for the same reason I mentioned above. > > I _suspect_ that internally it has a backplane which supported EUB, and the > memory plugged into that; whether that was a custom backplane, or what, I > don't know. (I'd have to check the wire-lists on, say, a DD11-D to see if > those pins are bussed together - I have this vague memory that they are.) > > And yes, _iff_ the cable to it is a standard UNIBUS cable (I don't know what > kind of cable they used), that would only support the 18-bit address space - > which would imply that the ENABLE card was in the Megabox. > > > >> (And I can show you the code... :-) The original MMU was retained; the > >> ENABLE included only a second set of PARS (full 16-bit wide), which > >> were the ones normally used while the system was running; the PDRs in > >> the CPU continued to be used as the _only_ PDRs in the system. > > > That would imply you could not address more than 256K from the CPU. Not > > likely... > > Dude, I PERSONALLY WROTE THE CODE TO USE THE ENABLE. And I have the source, > here: > > http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/unix/mit/conf/m47.s > > You are correct, the CPU cannot _directly_ address more than 256KB. However, > the ENABLE board _can_; mapping registers in the ENABLE (32 of them, each > handling an 8KB section of incoming UNIBUS address space, from the CPU) allow > that UNIBUS address space to be mapped, in 8KB blocks, anywhere in the 22-bit > memory space. > > You will find it all laid out most ably in this old post by Mike Muuss > (peace, Mike): > > http://gopher.quux.org:70/Archives/usenet-a-news/FA.unix-wizards/81.07.12_ucbvax.2254_fa.unix-wizards.txt > > It looks like I used a slightly different layout of the address space on the > UNIBUS from the CPU to the ENABLE from the one he describes (the code in > m47.s seems to use: > > KI0-7 > KD0-6 > UI0-7 > UD0-7 > KD7 I/O page > > with the KI underneath the KD, unlike his; KD7 has to be at the top so that > the CPU can get to the registers in the ENABLE), but other than that the > details are identical. (Note that they only differ in how the registers were > _used_, not in terms of what the hardware's capabilities were.) > > > >> The style of usage was to, using the CPU's PARs, statically map Kernel > >> D space to one quadrant of UNIBUS address space, Kernel I to a second, > >> User D to a third, and User I to the fourth. > > > The 11/34 do not have D-space... > > I was talking about on the /45. > > >> The PARs on the ENABLE card (which controlled which part of real > >> memory various addresses on the first UNIBUS got mapped to) were the > >> ones the operating system adjusted as the system was running. > > > Sorry, this is simply not how it worked. > > Repeat previous comment about how I personally wrote the code to use it. > > Just for you, I have groveled around in the dump I'm working on retrieving, > and found seg.h, which is the header file which contains the #defines for the > mapping registers in Unix V6. Here it is: > > http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/unix/mit/h/seg.h > > If you look at it, you will see that UISA[0] has been modified to be > "0163736". That's how we did the ENABLE - we just changed those definitions, > and recompiled all the system modules that touched the mapping registers, so > that that code now talked to the 16-bit PARs on the ENABLE, and not the > 12-bit ones in the KT (which were set once at system startup time to provide > the static mapping - see m47.s - and then never changed again). > > > > Like I said, I actually used an 11/34 with the ENable/34 and the > > separate memory box for a few years. It really looked and behaved > > identically to an 11/24. Ie, full 16-bit PARs, still no split I/D space. > > Yes, no split I/D because it was totally external to the CPU, it could only > take the UNIBUS addresses the CPU generated and map them around. > > >> I'm kind of hazy on exactly how this was all wired up: there are the > >> fingers on the card (which I think _might_ be the EUB used for the > >> memory bus), the UNIBUS edge connector on the ENABLE card, and that > >> over-the-back connector on the ENABLE card. > > > An 11/34 do not have any EUB slots. > > I was assuming that the ENABLE used an EUB to talk to its memory. (See > diagram further up the original post.) > > > > (You should see Updates storage rooms...) > > Even better would be being allowed to poke around in there... :-) > > > > I was running RSX-11M and RSX-11M-PLUS on our 11/34, and no > > modifications to the kernel was needed. > > There must have been some changes somewhere, since as you can see from the > code above, the ENABLE had PARs in non-standard locations (0163700-0163776). > > > Anyway, if you could find the documentation that would be super-wonderful, > because I am _really_ curious to know exactly how the thing interfaced to the > incoming UNIBUS, outgoing UNIBUS, memory, and cache. > > Noel > From nf6x at nf6x.net Thu Jan 29 10:38:19 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 08:38:19 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <54C90BD9.3030400@compsys.to> <54C914C2.4030902@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <3031ED87-F3A6-42BF-8C49-AC267CFE59BA@nf6x.net> > On Jan 29, 2015, at 01:56, Christian Corti wrote: > > It's simple: heat. > I heat the belt with the radiation from a halogen lamp (or other light bulb that emits enough heat). But I suppose that the first couple of minutes of a tape baking session will also do it. Excellent! I guess I need to build a media oven one of these days. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 12:32:35 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 13:32:35 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <54CA3A49.3080304@update.uu.se> References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> <54CA3A49.3080304@update.uu.se> Message-ID: Noel wrote: I'd really recommend fixing at least one more board set - otherwise, when the next failure happens, you'll have _no_ working board sets... Yep, you're right. *sigh* more work. But that's honestly a good chunk of the fun of this hobby, right? I guess I should take advantage of the momentum and curiosity about this bug that we have going here. I just need quite a lot of hand holding because I'm still way too green with this stuff. Johnny, you're insisting that I put in the real numbers for address and csr for testing the drive (for instance). I'm going to do that next, here. But are you understanding that some of us think that the reason it prompts a zero default is that it's a manifestation of the zero bug and that the real value *is* actually safe but hidden in memory? Did you see the RSX-11M crash dump I posted in the other thread? And to your other query, yes, I'm booting from the rl02 I'm testing with. I just switch out to a scratch pack once the diag is loaded and ready to run (hence the warnings about writing on LoaD device). On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 8:48 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > Short question: What did you boot from? The same RL controller and disk > you then wanted to run diagnostics on? Or did you have a second storage, > from which you booted? > > Johnny > > > On 2015-01-29 04:29, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > >> From what I observed, this zeroed-out prompt was just another >> manifestation >> of the zeroes bug. The values were there in memory and were supposed to >> be >> offered to the user but got blanked out with zeroes instead. I had >> suspected this and just hit enter at the prompt and XXDP did, in fact, >> exercise the disk. There were blinking lights and head noise, obvious >> work >> being done that wouldn't have, had there actually been real zeroes in the >> address and csr fields. I might swap the bad cpu board back in and try >> again, but now that the problem has been isolated and removed, I'm >> inclined >> to just enjoy the pdp11 :) >> >> On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 10:19 PM, Rick Murphy >> wrote: >> >> At 07:34 PM 1/27/2015, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >>> >>> Johnny, I just took the defaults, >>>> >>>> >>> BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? >>>> >>> >>> What Johnny said. The prompt says "(O)", not "(0)" - the letter O for >>> Octal. The zero after that isn't a default, it simply means that the >>> value >>> hasn't been set. >>> >>> There is no default. Or at least no sane one. Zero in this case means >>> that >>> it's writing to memory address zero for CSR. The diagnostic should reject >>> that, but diagnostics are notoriously user unfriendly. >>> -Rick >>> >>> >>> > From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 29 12:38:52 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 13:38:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 Message-ID: <20150129183852.AEBC318C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Jacob Ritorto > I just need quite a lot of hand holding because I'm still way too green > with this stuff. Hey, that's what this list is for, right? ;-) > put in the real numbers for address and csr for testing the drive ... > I'm going to do that next, here. ... the reason it prompts a zero > default is that it's a manifestation of the zero bug and that the real > value *is* actually safe but hidden in memory? One other thing you could do that would be interesting: re-run the exact same test, but with the good cards in the machine, and see if you still get 0's printed, or if this time the correct numbers show up. Of course, that won't definitely prove that the right numbers are actually being used inside (in the case where it prints 0's), but it would certainly be suggestive. Noel From bear at typewritten.org Thu Jan 29 12:39:39 2015 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 10:39:39 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <54C90BD9.3030400@compsys.to> <54C914C2.4030902@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4F38DB55-3DB5-49A0-9405-AA68907BF60B@typewritten.org> On Jan 29, 2015, at 1:56 AM, Christian Corti wrote: > On Wed, 28 Jan 2015, Al Kossow wrote: >> On 1/28/15 8:37 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: >>> I found the older posts about band installation and about restoring stretched bands with hot water. I do not recall, however, whether anybody has posted about successfully unsticking the band from the tape media without stripping oxide. That's something I'd sure like to know about! >> >> http://www.hp9845.net/9845/tutorials/savetapes/ has an interesting discussion of the problems of recovering DC-100 tapes but doesn't mention unsticking the tape. I'll keep digging. I suspect it will be wetting the band at the point of contact with the tape. I'm guessing the > > It's simple: heat. > I heat the belt with the radiation from a halogen lamp (or other light bulb that emits enough heat). But I suppose that the first couple of minutes of a tape baking session will also do it. IME, at least with DC600 carts, I get consistently better results peeling the belt off before baking, than trying to remove them afterward, just in terms of the sticky residue it leaves and the quality of reads through that residue. I should mention that it always leaves a mark, but I have yet to see the oxide pull completely off to make a transparent spot. If you?re actually pulling oxide off, that?d be a different scenario. ok bear. From bear at typewritten.org Thu Jan 29 12:39:39 2015 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 10:39:39 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <54C90BD9.3030400@compsys.to> <54C914C2.4030902@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4F38DB55-3DB5-49A0-9405-AA68907BF60B@typewritten.org> On Jan 29, 2015, at 1:56 AM, Christian Corti wrote: > On Wed, 28 Jan 2015, Al Kossow wrote: >> On 1/28/15 8:37 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: >>> I found the older posts about band installation and about restoring stretched bands with hot water. I do not recall, however, whether anybody has posted about successfully unsticking the band from the tape media without stripping oxide. That's something I'd sure like to know about! >> >> http://www.hp9845.net/9845/tutorials/savetapes/ has an interesting discussion of the problems of recovering DC-100 tapes but doesn't mention unsticking the tape. I'll keep digging. I suspect it will be wetting the band at the point of contact with the tape. I'm guessing the > > It's simple: heat. > I heat the belt with the radiation from a halogen lamp (or other light bulb that emits enough heat). But I suppose that the first couple of minutes of a tape baking session will also do it. IME, at least with DC600 carts, I get consistently better results peeling the belt off before baking, than trying to remove them afterward, just in terms of the sticky residue it leaves and the quality of reads through that residue. I should mention that it always leaves a mark, but I have yet to see the oxide pull completely off to make a transparent spot. If you?re actually pulling oxide off, that?d be a different scenario. ok bear. From cctalk at fahimi.net Thu Jan 29 12:55:07 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 10:55:07 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans Message-ID: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> Does anyone know if at any time in the past thirty years if the material used to make capstans has changed? I.E. can one be more confident of tape drives manufactured after some era to have non-goo capstan or is it that all tape drives (including ones manufactured now are ticking time bombs? Also how do you guys check capstans? Just stick long Q-tip in there? Thanks. -Ali From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 13:02:58 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:02:58 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <20150129183852.AEBC318C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150129183852.AEBC318C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: totally -- going to do just that. As soon as I (hopefully) find some pdp11 time this afternoon :) On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 1:38 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Jacob Ritorto > > > I just need quite a lot of hand holding because I'm still way too > green > > with this stuff. > > Hey, that's what this list is for, right? ;-) > > > put in the real numbers for address and csr for testing the drive ... > > I'm going to do that next, here. ... the reason it prompts a zero > > default is that it's a manifestation of the zero bug and that the > real > > value *is* actually safe but hidden in memory? > > One other thing you could do that would be interesting: re-run the exact > same test, but with the good cards in the machine, and see if you still > get 0's printed, or if this time the correct numbers show up. > > Of course, that won't definitely prove that the right numbers are actually > being used inside (in the case where it prints 0's), but it would > certainly be > suggestive. > > Noel > From charles at uniwho.com Thu Jan 29 13:16:14 2015 From: charles at uniwho.com (Charles) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:16:14 -0500 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> Message-ID: <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> You can replace those with organic polymer caps, then leaking goo will never happen. Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 29, 2015, at 1:55 PM, "Ali" wrote: > > Does anyone know if at any time in the past thirty years if the material > used to make capstans has changed? I.E. can one be more confident of tape > drives manufactured after some era to have non-goo capstan or is it that all > tape drives (including ones manufactured now are ticking time bombs? > > Also how do you guys check capstans? Just stick long Q-tip in there? Thanks. > > -Ali > > From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jan 29 13:14:40 2015 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 19:14:40 +0000 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> <54CA3A49.3080304@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54CA86A0.7060104@dunnington.plus.com> On 29/01/2015 18:32, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > Johnny, you're insisting that I put in the real numbers for address and csr > for testing the drive (for instance). I'm going to do that next, here. > But are you understanding that some of us think that the reason it prompts > a zero default is that it's a manifestation of the zero bug and that the > real value *is* actually safe but hidden in memory? Did you see the > RSX-11M crash dump I posted in the other thread? I didn't see a crash dump, but did you see what I posted yesterday? The default in XXDP for CSRs is very often zero, and I'm pretty sure it is so in the RL02 diagnostics (I've ont checked the listing for that particular one, but I did look at some others that were more readily to hand). So when it asked you for input and you just hit "return", you really did tell it zero. Applying the principle of Occam's Razor, and assuming the simplest solution is the correct one, you got a lot of zeros back because it was accessing memory instead of the controller you wanted. It's hard to believe you have a CPU fault that consistently prints numbers as zeros yet happily boots three different OSs. Still, I'll change the tune if you re-run XXDP with sensible inputs. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From nf6x at nf6x.net Thu Jan 29 13:45:29 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 11:45:29 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> Message-ID: > On Jan 29, 2015, at 11:16 , Charles wrote: > > You can replace those with organic polymer caps, then leaking goo will never happen. Are you referring to capacitors or capstans? Those are two very different things, although both can be round. :) -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From roeapeterson at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 13:51:03 2015 From: roeapeterson at gmail.com (Roe Peterson) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 13:51:03 -0600 Subject: XXDP generic memory test Message-ID: <7359B99C-EAE8-4AF5-BCA6-3FA7C18A7CA7@gmail.com> I just can't seem to figure out the right XXDP file to run for a straight memory test. I've got a new (for me) pdp11/23+ with M8044 memory boards, and I'd like to run memory tests, but I'm damned if I can figure out what, exactly, to run. This is XXDP 2.5 Thanks for any advice. From glen.slick at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 14:07:22 2015 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 12:07:22 -0800 Subject: XXDP generic memory test In-Reply-To: <7359B99C-EAE8-4AF5-BCA6-3FA7C18A7CA7@gmail.com> References: <7359B99C-EAE8-4AF5-BCA6-3FA7C18A7CA7@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 29, 2015 11:51 AM, "Roe Peterson" wrote: > > I just can't seem to figure out the right XXDP file to run for a straight memory test. > > I've got a new (for me) pdp11/23+ with M8044 memory boards, and I'd like to run memory tests, but I'm damned if I can figure out what, exactly, to run. > > This is XXDP 2.5 > > Thanks for any advice. How about the Q-Bus memory test VMSAC0 ? From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 29 14:18:27 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 12:18:27 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> Message-ID: <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> On 1/29/15 10:55 AM, Ali wrote: > is it that all > tape drives (including ones manufactured now are ticking time bombs? > Tape is the bane of my existence. All of the rubber parts will eventually soften or crack. I've mostly seen softening on QIC drives, and roller cracking on helical DAT or Exabyte drives. If you look on the audio tape deck forums, they claim a pinch roller is only good for maybe five years of life. The youngest drives I use regularly are 25+ years old. A TU58, for example, came out in the late 70's. I don't think any manufacturer cared if a product worked for 10+ years when they were made. This is a huge problem for archives that have huge collections of obsolete media, like the Library of Congress. Punched card readers are all going to fail because of all the rubber rollers in the tape path. I've been told there is a place in LA that still has newly manufactured rollers for Documation, but thanks to the fiasco in 2000, they're being retired. That's why they keep showing up on eBay. > Also how do you guys check capstans? Pull the drive apart and examine it for the correct stiffness. I've seen 1/4" QIC rollers turn to goo as soon as the shaft heats up so even that can be deceptive. There is a high probability that any 1/4" or 1/2" tape drive you have has a failed rubber part in it somewhere. I just bought a big selection of difference sizes of Norprene tubing from US Plastics to see how they work on various QIC drives. The first ones I'm trying are the HP 9145 and TU58. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 29 14:20:35 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 12:20:35 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> Message-ID: <54CA9613.9020507@sydex.com> On 01/29/2015 11:45 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: > >> On Jan 29, 2015, at 11:16 , Charles wrote: >> >> You can replace those with organic polymer caps, then leaking goo will never happen. > > Are you referring to capacitors or capstans? Those are two very different things, although both can be round. :) Indeed, it's when capstans fail to be round that problems ensue... --Chuck From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Thu Jan 29 14:22:44 2015 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 15:22:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2015, Al Kossow wrote: > Punched card readers are all going to fail because of all the rubber > rollers in the tape path. I've been told there is a place in LA that > still has newly manufactured rollers for Documation, but thanks to the > fiasco in 2000, they're being retired. That's why they keep showing up > on eBay. Is it time to lay in a supply of spare rollers for the Documations? I imagine the rollers would cost more than the readers. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Jan 29 14:24:52 2015 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 12:24:52 -0800 Subject: XXDP generic memory test In-Reply-To: <7359B99C-EAE8-4AF5-BCA6-3FA7C18A7CA7@gmail.com> References: <7359B99C-EAE8-4AF5-BCA6-3FA7C18A7CA7@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150129122452.7cf8614b@asrock.bcwi.net> On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 13:51:03 -0600 Roe Peterson wrote: > I just can't seem to figure out the right XXDP file to run for a > straight memory test. Most all of the questions related to PDP-11 diagnostics are answered in: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/xxdp/PDP11_DiagnosticHandbook_1988.pdf Lyle -- Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 29 14:25:50 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 12:25:50 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> Message-ID: <54CA974E.1070204@sydex.com> On 01/29/2015 10:55 AM, Ali wrote: > Does anyone know if at any time in the past thirty years if the material > used to make capstans has changed? I.E. can one be more confident of tape > drives manufactured after some era to have non-goo capstan or is it that all > tape drives (including ones manufactured now are ticking time bombs? > > Also how do you guys check capstans? Just stick long Q-tip in there? Thanks. Capstans fail in several ways, in my experience. One way is the "turn to goo", which seems to happen more on 80s-90s-era units. Another way is to simply dry out and crumble (no goo); I see that on 60s-70s units. A third way is to permanently deform; e.g., when used as a pinch roller, forming a depression where contacting the driving shaft. Oddly, I've never seen a case where a capstan hardens to a rock-like mass, as is encountered in typewriter or printer platens. There, methyl salicylate can work wonders. --Chuck From roeapeterson at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 14:41:48 2015 From: roeapeterson at gmail.com (Roe Peterson) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:41:48 -0600 Subject: XXDP generic memory test In-Reply-To: References: <7359B99C-EAE8-4AF5-BCA6-3FA7C18A7CA7@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1DD25870-3D9E-4C55-9AF8-43F2DEC6F7DA@gmail.com> > On Jan 29, 2015, at 2:07 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > >> On Jan 29, 2015 11:51 AM, "Roe Peterson" wrote: >> >> I just can't seem to figure out the right XXDP file to run for a straight > memory test. >> >> I've got a new (for me) pdp11/23+ with M8044 memory boards, and I'd like > to run memory tests, but I'm damned if I can figure out what, exactly, to > run. >> >> This is XXDP 2.5 >> >> Thanks for any advice. > > How about the Q-Bus memory test VMSAC0 ? Yep, that works, and ZQMCH0 seems very similar. Is there some reference that describes all of this? From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 29 14:45:02 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 12:45:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20150129124422.U15904@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 29 Jan 2015, Mike Loewen wrote: > Is it time to lay in a supply of spare rollers for the Documations? I > imagine the rollers would cost more than the readers. And then store them in the dark in a vacuum at 0 degrees kelvin? From roeapeterson at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 14:46:14 2015 From: roeapeterson at gmail.com (Roe Peterson) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:46:14 -0600 Subject: XXDP generic memory test In-Reply-To: <20150129122452.7cf8614b@asrock.bcwi.net> References: <7359B99C-EAE8-4AF5-BCA6-3FA7C18A7CA7@gmail.com> <20150129122452.7cf8614b@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: <78415BA3-E3D0-42B8-8C29-F6ECF201069D@gmail.com> > > Most all of the questions related to PDP-11 diagnostics are answered in: > > http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/xxdp/PDP11_DiagnosticHandbook_1988.pdf AHA! That's exactly what I was looking for. How is it that googling XXDP manual XXDP documentation XXDP memory test Doesn't point at this? It seems to be the definitive document. And as always, thanks to Al for bitsavers. > > Lyle > -- > Bickley Consulting West Inc. > http://bickleywest.com > > "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 29 15:02:47 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 16:02:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: Tape Drive Capstans Message-ID: <20150129210247.891E318C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Al Kossow > I just bought a big selection of difference sizes of Norprene tubing > from US Plastics to see how they work on various QIC drives. The first > ones I'm trying are the HP 9145 and TU58. If/when we get our wiki up, the outcome of your work would be a great thing to record there. (If you're too busy, I would be more than happy to scribe for you!) I, for instance, have a TU58 I'd like to get running some day, but given that I have about 173 higher-priority things on the list in front of it, I'm sure that by the time I get to it, I'll have some dim memory that it was talked about here, but short of good luck with Google, or a voluminous search through the archives, I won't be able to find what I need - and I'll have to ask... :-( Had we all that kind of stuff in a wiki, on the other hand... :-) Yes, not everyone will be diligent enough to check the wiki before they ask, but hey, if they don't, you all can enjoy yourself flaming them for not being willing to exert themselves to learn how to fish, before asking to just be given some.. :-) Noel From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 29 15:07:07 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 16:07:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: XXDP generic memory test Message-ID: <20150129210707.818C218C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Roe Peterson > How is it that googling > XXDP manual > XXDP documentation > XXDP memory test > Doesn't point at this? Because Googling, useful as it is, is inferior to humans^H^H^H intelligences actually sorting things out, and organizing them in a structured manner. (The way Yahoo worked when it very first started...) Now, if we had a wiki.... :-) Noel From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jan 29 15:13:04 2015 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:13:04 -0700 Subject: XXDP generic memory test In-Reply-To: <20150129210707.818C218C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150129210707.818C218C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54CAA260.7040706@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/29/2015 2:07 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Roe Peterson > > > How is it that googling > > XXDP manual > > XXDP documentation > > XXDP memory test > > Doesn't point at this? > > Because Googling, useful as it is, is inferior to humans^H^H^H intelligences > actually sorting things out, and organizing them in a structured manner. (The > way Yahoo worked when it very first started...) > > Now, if we had a wiki.... :-) > > Noel > I thought was search ebay and amazon then the web. Ben. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 29 15:41:12 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 13:41:12 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> Message-ID: <54CAA8F8.2000506@sydex.com> Pinch rollers, actually. Does anyone have specs for a typical pinch roller? Namely, hardness (Share D)? I wonder of plain old casting polyurethane might be the best solution. Most casting resins seem to clock in at Shore 70D. --Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 29 16:01:49 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:01:49 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CAA8F8.2000506@sydex.com> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> <54CAA8F8.2000506@sydex.com> Message-ID: <54CAADCD.6050004@bitsavers.org> On 1/29/15 1:41 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Pinch rollers, actually. > > Does anyone have specs for a typical pinch roller? Namely, hardness (Share D)? I wonder of plain old casting polyurethane might be the best solution. Most casting resins seem to clock in at Shore 70D. > > --Chuck > > here is a nice chart with three hardness scales http://www.sdplastics.com/polyuret.html From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 29 16:11:21 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:11:21 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CAADCD.6050004@bitsavers.org> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> <54CAA8F8.2000506@sydex.com> <54CAADCD.6050004@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54CAB009.4070808@bitsavers.org> On 1/29/15 2:01 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/29/15 1:41 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Pinch rollers, actually. >> >> Does anyone have specs for a typical pinch roller? Namely, hardness (Share D)? I wonder of plain old casting polyurethane might be the best solution. Most casting resins seem to clock in at Shore >> 70D. >> >> --Chuck >> >> > here is a nice chart with three hardness scales > > http://www.sdplastics.com/polyuret.html > > > > The Norprene tubing I'm using is Shore A 61 http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=23485 From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 29 16:23:01 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:23:01 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54CAB2C5.4020905@bitsavers.org> On 1/29/15 12:22 PM, Mike Loewen wrote: > Is it time to lay in a supply of spare rollers for the Documations? I imagine the rollers would cost more than the readers. > I think someone told me the replacements are polyurethane, so they may last longer, but they will fail eventually as well. From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 29 16:43:12 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 16:43:12 -0600 Subject: XXDP generic memory test In-Reply-To: <20150129210707.818C218C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150129210707.818C218C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <003d01d03c14$f6c06200$e4412600$@classiccmp.org> Noel wrote... ---- Now, if we had a wiki.... :-) ---- Stay tuned ;) From mhs.stein at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 16:30:45 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 17:30:45 -0500 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Kossow" Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 3:18 PM > Tape is the bane of my existence. > > All of the rubber parts will eventually soften or crack. I've mostly > seen softening on QIC drives, and roller cracking on helical DAT or > Exabyte > drives. If you look on the audio tape deck forums, they claim a pinch > roller > is only good for maybe five years of life. Odd; the belts certainly stretch and often turn to goo, but I haven't run across any melting rollers or idlers in my piles of consumer audio and video stuff yet. Maybe just not old enough; I wonder if there's any way to prevent or at least delay the deterioration it if it hasn't started yet. m From glen.slick at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 16:51:57 2015 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:51:57 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 12:18 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/29/15 10:55 AM, Ali wrote: >> >> is it that all >> tape drives (including ones manufactured now are ticking time bombs? >> > > Tape is the bane of my existence. > > All of the rubber parts will eventually soften or crack. I've mostly > seen softening on QIC drives, and roller cracking on helical DAT or Exabyte > drives. If you look on the audio tape deck forums, they claim a pinch roller > is only good for maybe five years of life. The youngest drives I use > regularly > are 25+ years old. A TU58, for example, came out in the late 70's. The only rubber I can remember being used in the tape path of an M4 Data 9914 is on the tach roller. I had a nice working 9914 (800/1600/6250) until the thin rubber coating around the metal tach roller lost the necessary friction properties against the moving tape to correctly sense its speed. Quite a shame to loose a nice drive to such a simple rubber failure. Maybe I could have found some way to fix the problem, but I no longer have that drive. From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Jan 29 17:08:54 2015 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 15:08:54 -0800 Subject: Spacewar! Message-ID: <20150129150854.630bc0b9@asrock.bcwi.net> For those of you who are Spacewar! buffs and you haven't seen Norbert Landsteiner's work, you are missing something big. Norbert has what I believe to be the best simulation of original PDP-1 Spacewar! code running on a Model 30 display. And he doesn't just have one version Spacewar! - but several original versions. In addition, Norbert analyzed the original Spacewar! code line-by-line and created an incredible set of writeups on Spacewar! internals. As Norbert created his writeups, he sent them to me. I read them over, and forwarded them to the entire PDP-1 Team at the Computer History Museum. That Team includes Steve Russell (principal author of Spacewar!) and Peter Samson (Spacewar! star field, etc.). Additionally, I met with both Steve and Peter and we reviewed several of Norbert's writeups together in some detail - and found only a few minor corrections/comments to pass back to Norbert. Here are links to Norbert's work: Simulation ---------- http://www.masswerk.at/spacewar/ Writeups (Inside Spacewar!) --------------------------- http://www.masswerk.at/spacewar/inside/ Cheers, Lyle -- Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 29 17:18:17 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 15:18:17 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54CABFB9.4030900@sydex.com> On 01/29/2015 02:30 PM, Mike Stein wrote: > Odd; the belts certainly stretch and often turn to goo, but I haven't > run across any melting rollers or idlers in my piles of consumer audio > and video stuff yet. Maybe just not old enough; I wonder if there's any > way to prevent or at least delay the deterioration it if it hasn't > started yet. I've got two Nakamichi cassette decks; both are the same model. One has pinch rollers the consistency of modeling clay; the other is just fine. So mileage must certainly vary. I tend to think it's the same story--the problem is chemical degradation and you're not going to stop it by any simple means. --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 29 17:30:36 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 15:30:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CABFB9.4030900@sydex.com> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <54CABFB9.4030900@sydex.com> Message-ID: <20150129152927.X15904@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 29 Jan 2015, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I tend to think it's the same story--the problem is chemical degradation > and you're not going to stop it by any simple means. Entropy. Try Ubik. But only as directed. or storage in a dark cold vacuum? From mspproductions at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 17:39:03 2015 From: mspproductions at gmail.com (Matt Patoray) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 18:39:03 -0500 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <20150129210247.891E318C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150129210247.891E318C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: Rubber rollers and wheels can be rebuilt, if you know the dimensions of the pinch roller. You can contact Gary Stork at www.thevoiceofmusic.com They do customer idler tire rebuilds and have expressed interest in also being able to do Pinch rollers. On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 4:02 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Al Kossow > > > I just bought a big selection of difference sizes of Norprene tubing > > from US Plastics to see how they work on various QIC drives. The > first > > ones I'm trying are the HP 9145 and TU58. > > If/when we get our wiki up, the outcome of your work would be a great > thing to > record there. (If you're too busy, I would be more than happy to scribe for > you!) > > I, for instance, have a TU58 I'd like to get running some day, but given > that > I have about 173 higher-priority things on the list in front of it, I'm > sure > that by the time I get to it, I'll have some dim memory that it was talked > about here, but short of good luck with Google, or a voluminous search > through the archives, I won't be able to find what I need - and I'll have > to > ask... :-( Had we all that kind of stuff in a wiki, on the other hand... > :-) > > Yes, not everyone will be diligent enough to check the wiki before they > ask, > but hey, if they don't, you all can enjoy yourself flaming them for not > being > willing to exert themselves to learn how to fish, before asking to just be > given some.. :-) > > Noel > -- Matt Patoray Owner, MSP Productions KD8AMG Amateur Radio Call Sign From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 17:52:48 2015 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 17:52:48 -0600 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CABFB9.4030900@sydex.com> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <54CABFB9.4030900@sydex.com> Message-ID: <54CAC7D0.4090004@gmail.com> On 01/29/2015 05:18 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 01/29/2015 02:30 PM, Mike Stein wrote: > >> Odd; the belts certainly stretch and often turn to goo, but I haven't >> run across any melting rollers or idlers in my piles of consumer audio >> and video stuff yet. Maybe just not old enough; I wonder if there's any >> way to prevent or at least delay the deterioration it if it hasn't >> started yet. > > I've got two Nakamichi cassette decks; both are the same model. One has > pinch rollers the consistency of modeling clay; the other is just fine. > So mileage must certainly vary. Yes, I've seen it in cassette decks, and also in a couple of 35mm slide projectors (where there's a rubber drive wheel on the motor which engages with the rest of the mechanism, or at least it would, if it hadn't turned to goo) I also had a pair of identical QIC drives where one roller was bad and the other just fine. cheers Jules From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 29 17:56:37 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 15:56:37 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: References: <20150129210247.891E318C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54CAC8B5.4090506@bitsavers.org> On 1/29/15 3:39 PM, Matt Patoray wrote: > Rubber rollers and wheels can be rebuilt Terry's Rubber Rollers is where most people go. http://www.terrysrubberrollers.com/ From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jan 29 18:02:12 2015 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (TeoZ) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 19:02:12 -0500 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CABFB9.4030900@sydex.com> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <54CABFB9.4030900@sydex.com> Message-ID: <655E5233572D42DAA7BE2B4B74871781@TeoPC> I used to think that computer rubber parts had more issues because of old laser printers being close by releasing ozone (hell on humans and rubber parts). Once the rollers start getting soft they are junk. Never really had much of a problem with bad rubber on my tape equipment but I have received a few old NEC Versa laptops where their rubber pads on the bottom had literally turned to snot I had to clean out with q-tips. -----Original Message----- From: Chuck Guzis Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 6:18 PM To: General at classiccmp.org ; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Tape Drive Capstans On 01/29/2015 02:30 PM, Mike Stein wrote: > Odd; the belts certainly stretch and often turn to goo, but I haven't > run across any melting rollers or idlers in my piles of consumer audio > and video stuff yet. Maybe just not old enough; I wonder if there's any > way to prevent or at least delay the deterioration it if it hasn't > started yet. I've got two Nakamichi cassette decks; both are the same model. One has pinch rollers the consistency of modeling clay; the other is just fine. So mileage must certainly vary. I tend to think it's the same story--the problem is chemical degradation and you're not going to stop it by any simple means. --Chuck --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com From bqt at update.uu.se Thu Jan 29 18:13:44 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 01:13:44 +0100 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> <54CA3A49.3080304@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54CACCB8.9070407@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-29 19:32, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > Noel wrote: I'd really recommend fixing at least one more board set - > otherwise, when the > next failure happens, you'll have _no_ working board sets... > > Yep, you're right. *sigh* more work. But that's honestly a good chunk > of the fun of this hobby, right? I guess I should take advantage of the > momentum and curiosity about this bug that we have going here. I just need > quite a lot of hand holding because I'm still way too green with this stuff. So all other combinations results in different types of strange behavior. So you might as well start listing what happens with all the other combos... > Johnny, you're insisting that I put in the real numbers for address and csr > for testing the drive (for instance). I'm going to do that next, here. > But are you understanding that some of us think that the reason it prompts > a zero default is that it's a manifestation of the zero bug and that the > real value *is* actually safe but hidden in memory? Did you see the > RSX-11M crash dump I posted in the other thread? I have not yet even understood what the "zero" bug means. :-) Are you saying that the system works fine, but for some magic reason all numbers printed out comes out as zero, no matter what number you tried to print? What I do remember is that all XXDP tests that I can ever recall running actually shows, and needs proper CSRs and vectors. And when they show 0, they use 0. But who knows, I might be remembering wrong, or that specific test might be the exception. Or any number of possible explanations. I did check the documentation for the tests, and they also suggest that the test should show the actual CSR and vector, so the fact that you get zeroes there are either some really weird magic, or else the tests are clever and do not give your standard controller numbers because XXDP booted from that device, and it tries to avoid you accidentally destroying your diagnostics pack... > And to your other query, yes, I'm booting from the rl02 I'm testing with. > I just switch out to a scratch pack once the diag is loaded and ready to > run (hence the warnings about writing on LoaD device). And I wonder if the test might try to be clever and avoid just defaulting to writing on the diagnostics pack... By the way. I don't remember if I saw exactly which test your were running that failed. Johnny > > > On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 8:48 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> Short question: What did you boot from? The same RL controller and disk >> you then wanted to run diagnostics on? Or did you have a second storage, >> from which you booted? >> >> Johnny >> >> >> On 2015-01-29 04:29, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >> >>> From what I observed, this zeroed-out prompt was just another >>> manifestation >>> of the zeroes bug. The values were there in memory and were supposed to >>> be >>> offered to the user but got blanked out with zeroes instead. I had >>> suspected this and just hit enter at the prompt and XXDP did, in fact, >>> exercise the disk. There were blinking lights and head noise, obvious >>> work >>> being done that wouldn't have, had there actually been real zeroes in the >>> address and csr fields. I might swap the bad cpu board back in and try >>> again, but now that the problem has been isolated and removed, I'm >>> inclined >>> to just enjoy the pdp11 :) >>> >>> On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 10:19 PM, Rick Murphy >>> wrote: >>> >>> At 07:34 PM 1/27/2015, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >>>> >>>> Johnny, I just took the defaults, >>>>> >>>>> >>>> BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? >>>>> >>>> >>>> What Johnny said. The prompt says "(O)", not "(0)" - the letter O for >>>> Octal. The zero after that isn't a default, it simply means that the >>>> value >>>> hasn't been set. >>>> >>>> There is no default. Or at least no sane one. Zero in this case means >>>> that >>>> it's writing to memory address zero for CSR. The diagnostic should reject >>>> that, but diagnostics are notoriously user unfriendly. >>>> -Rick >>>> >>>> >>>> >> -- 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 update.uu.se Thu Jan 29 18:15:24 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 01:15:24 +0100 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <54CA86A0.7060104@dunnington.plus.com> References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> <54CA3A49.3080304@update.uu.se> <54CA86A0.7060104@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <54CACD1C.2050101@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-29 20:14, Pete Turnbull wrote: > On 29/01/2015 18:32, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >> Johnny, you're insisting that I put in the real numbers for address >> and csr >> for testing the drive (for instance). I'm going to do that next, here. >> But are you understanding that some of us think that the reason it >> prompts >> a zero default is that it's a manifestation of the zero bug and that the >> real value *is* actually safe but hidden in memory? Did you see the >> RSX-11M crash dump I posted in the other thread? > > I didn't see a crash dump, but did you see what I posted yesterday? I haven't seen any crash dumps either. > The default in XXDP for CSRs is very often zero, and I'm pretty sure it > is so in the RL02 diagnostics (I've ont checked the listing for that > particular one, but I did look at some others that were more readily to > hand). So when it asked you for input and you just hit "return", you > really did tell it zero. Applying the principle of Occam's Razor, and > assuming the simplest solution is the correct one, you got a lot of > zeros back because it was accessing memory instead of the controller you > wanted. > > It's hard to believe you have a CPU fault that consistently prints > numbers as zeros yet happily boots three different OSs. Still, I'll > change the tune if you re-run XXDP with sensible inputs. Totally agree with that one. 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 update.uu.se Thu Jan 29 18:17:55 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 01:17:55 +0100 Subject: XXDP generic memory test In-Reply-To: <20150129122452.7cf8614b@asrock.bcwi.net> References: <7359B99C-EAE8-4AF5-BCA6-3FA7C18A7CA7@gmail.com> <20150129122452.7cf8614b@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: <54CACDB3.5060606@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-29 21:24, Lyle Bickley wrote: > On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 13:51:03 -0600 > Roe Peterson wrote: > >> I just can't seem to figure out the right XXDP file to run for a >> straight memory test. > > Most all of the questions related to PDP-11 diagnostics are answered in: > > http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/xxdp/PDP11_DiagnosticHandbook_1988.pdf Yes. That is a really useful source of information (I have a hardcopy of it). In addition, many manuals for specific devices or CPUs actually have information about the specific XXDP tests for that device in the technical and/or user manuals. 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 cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 29 18:56:01 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 16:56:01 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: References: <20150129210247.891E318C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54CAD6A1.1020002@sydex.com> On 01/29/2015 03:39 PM, Matt Patoray wrote: > Rubber rollers and wheels can be rebuilt, if you know the dimensions of the > pinch roller. You can contact Gary Stork at www.thevoiceofmusic.com They do > customer idler tire rebuilds and have expressed interest in also being able > to do Pinch rollers. The service that the audio community swears by is Terry's Rubber Rollers http://www.terrysrubberrollers.com/ I understand that the typical charge is about $50 USD. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 29 18:58:49 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 16:58:49 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <655E5233572D42DAA7BE2B4B74871781@TeoPC> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <54CABFB9.4030900@sydex.com> <655E5233572D42DAA7BE2B4B74871781@TeoPC> Message-ID: <54CAD749.5030004@sydex.com> On 01/29/2015 04:02 PM, TeoZ wrote: > I used to think that computer rubber parts had more issues because of > old laser printers being close by releasing ozone (hell on humans and > rubber parts). Once the rollers start getting soft they are junk. Never > really had much of a problem with bad rubber on my tape equipment but I > have received a few old NEC Versa laptops where their rubber pads on the > bottom had literally turned to snot I had to clean out with q-tips. I've unpacked NOS QIC drives still sealed in anti-static bags with the rubber turned to goo. --Chuck From jws at jwsss.com Thu Jan 29 19:13:12 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 17:13:12 -0800 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54CADAA8.6000209@jwsss.com> On 1/28/2015 11:02 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > So, I'm in the process of trying to read those old MIT V6 Unix dump tapes > (with a really big hand from Chuck, who did all the ugly work of actually > reading the bits off the tapes, for which he has my undying gratitude!), and > although I'm still trying to figure out what the format is, I did manage to > retrieve, more or less, a copy of the assembler startup/support file (m47.s; a > hacked version of m45.s), and it reveals that we were using an Able ENABLE > card to take our 11/45 out to more than 256KB. > > I found a copy of brochure which very briefly describes/shows it here: > > http://archive.org/stream/bitsavers_ablebrochuuctSummary_2920347/Able_Computer_Product_Summary_djvu.txt > > and although the picture didn't ring any bells for me, that must be it. > > It looks like it has a UNIBUS connector (which I take it is 'UNIBUS out'), and > also some kind of 'over-the-back' connector which I assume is the bus to the > memory, which sounds (from a brief mention I found somewhere else) like it was > standard Extended UNIBUS memory in a separate backplane. (Although I could be > wrong; maybe the ENABLE plugged into the EUB backplane, and the UNIBUS > connector is 'UNIBUS in' from the CPU?) > > I was unable to locate any real documentation for it online (maybe my > Google-fu just isn't strong enough), but if someone has any, or can point me > at any, I'd be grateful. > > Any if anyone actually has one, in the flesh, that would be Really Cool! > > Noel > > I sent a bit of this thread along to Ken Omohundro who founded Able, and his reply is below. If he sends anything else along, I'll get it to somewhere people can find out about it. /Wow!/ / / /You are talking about 30+ years ago! / / / /Let me check my archives and I'll get back to you./ / / /My memory is not as good as it once was with a long line of communication product designs since then. / / / /Our Univerter was our first product that allowed DEC to sell their first Qbus processor board in larger quantities since they released it before the developed Qbus interfaces for it. On that design we added a register to allow users to access more memory as well.,/ / / /Our Cache 45 sat on the fast bus allowing RSTS OS users to improve system performance over 50% better./ / / /SCAT 45 was a MOS memory we developed to allow us to put a full 128Kb of memory on the fast bus instead of the 32Kb bipolar offered by DEC. Mad flight simulators faster than anything else as well as many scientific and defense applications./ / / /Microverter was bidirectional and our most popular bus converter./ / / /The Enable and the Magnum was our last bus converter products trying to squeeze the last unannounced capabilities of DEC's Qbus processor boards./ /Unfortunately there was not a very big demand for those solutions. Which is why the details haven't stayed with me. I probably have data sheets archived and I will scan them as a PDF file and email them to you./ / / /Hope that will help./ / / /Ken Omohundro/ Thanks Jim From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 20:24:22 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 21:24:22 -0500 Subject: XXDP generic memory test In-Reply-To: <54CACDB3.5060606@update.uu.se> References: <7359B99C-EAE8-4AF5-BCA6-3FA7C18A7CA7@gmail.com> <20150129122452.7cf8614b@asrock.bcwi.net> <54CACDB3.5060606@update.uu.se> Message-ID: speaking of memory tests, I found a fully populated ms11 board in (horrible) storage, complete with freaking MOUSE DROPPINGS. I just cleaned it really well with electronics cleaner spray and a hard toothbrush, dried it thoroughly, installed and and ran ?msd?? for like 15 passes. TOTALLY FLAWLESS, 0 errors. These machines are amazing sometimes. It's like the volkswagen bug of computing. (and this is with my good 11/34 board set that is not exhibiting the mysterious zero errors). On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 7:17 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2015-01-29 21:24, Lyle Bickley wrote: > >> On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 13:51:03 -0600 >> Roe Peterson wrote: >> >> I just can't seem to figure out the right XXDP file to run for a >>> straight memory test. >>> >> >> Most all of the questions related to PDP-11 diagnostics are answered in: >> >> http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/xxdp/ >> PDP11_DiagnosticHandbook_1988.pdf >> > > Yes. That is a really useful source of information (I have a hardcopy of > it). > > In addition, many manuals for specific devices or CPUs actually have > information about the specific XXDP tests for that device in the technical > and/or user manuals. > > 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 jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 20:30:36 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 21:30:36 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <54CACD1C.2050101@update.uu.se> References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> <54CA3A49.3080304@update.uu.se> <54CA86A0.7060104@dunnington.plus.com> <54CACD1C.2050101@update.uu.se> Message-ID: ok, now with my 'good' 11/34 board set (not the set with the mysterious zero bug) installed, I re-ran xxdp against the rl02. I'm getting proper prompts with the address and vectors supplied with non-zero numbers as defaults. I just hit return like I had been doing with the 'zero-bug' cpu boards and this time, the tests run, the drive blinks wildly like before, and I get real results with real numbers filled in. I think this pretty conclusively proves that there's something really weird (mysterious zero bug) going on with my other board set. On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 7:15 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2015-01-29 20:14, Pete Turnbull wrote: > >> On 29/01/2015 18:32, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >> >>> Johnny, you're insisting that I put in the real numbers for address >>> and csr >>> for testing the drive (for instance). I'm going to do that next, here. >>> But are you understanding that some of us think that the reason it >>> prompts >>> a zero default is that it's a manifestation of the zero bug and that the >>> real value *is* actually safe but hidden in memory? Did you see the >>> RSX-11M crash dump I posted in the other thread? >>> >> >> I didn't see a crash dump, but did you see what I posted yesterday? >> > > I haven't seen any crash dumps either. > > The default in XXDP for CSRs is very often zero, and I'm pretty sure it >> is so in the RL02 diagnostics (I've ont checked the listing for that >> particular one, but I did look at some others that were more readily to >> hand). So when it asked you for input and you just hit "return", you >> really did tell it zero. Applying the principle of Occam's Razor, and >> assuming the simplest solution is the correct one, you got a lot of >> zeros back because it was accessing memory instead of the controller you >> wanted. >> >> It's hard to believe you have a CPU fault that consistently prints >> numbers as zeros yet happily boots three different OSs. Still, I'll >> change the tune if you re-run XXDP with sensible inputs. >> > > Totally agree with that one. > > > 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 jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 21:08:28 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 22:08:28 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> <54CA3A49.3080304@update.uu.se> <54CA86A0.7060104@dunnington.plus.com> <54CACD1C.2050101@update.uu.se> Message-ID: So, pardon the large post, but here's the real comparison between my 'mysterious zero bug' KD11E-A cpu board M8266, and my good one: First is the bad. Note that even at power on, I have to halt and restart the console emulator at 165200. Look at the registers, all blanked to zeroes and missing digits, too. It did manage to boot xxdp, but when I tried to enter the correct address and vector to ZRLG??, it actually told me I was wrong and couldn't even run the test on the device that way. Then I just accepted the default (which was presented as zeroes) and it did run. Two passes. Blinking lights and audible head movement. I let it run for two passes, but it presented even that as zero passes and spit a bunch of zeroes in the results. Just for kicks, I then booted (and very promptly crashed) RSX. It crash-dumped, giving a whole lot of zeroes. Next post will be same test with the good KD11E-A; stay tuned.. thx jake ?@ 000000 000 00000 000000 @ 0 000 00000 00000 @ 0 000 00000 00000 @ 0 000 00000 00000 @ 0 000 00000 00000 @ 0 000 00000 00000 @DL? BOOTING UP XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR - XXDP V2.5 REVISION: F0 BOOTED FROM DL0 124KW OF MEMORY UNIBUS SYSTEM RESTART ADDRESS: 152000 TYPE "H" FOR HELP ! .R ?RLG?? NRLGA0.BIC DRSSM-G2 CNRLG-A-0 CNRLG TESTS CONTROLLER FUNCTIONS, INTERFACE LOGIC, REGISTER OPERATION UNIT IS RL01,RL02 RSTRT ADR 000000 DR>START CHANGE HW (L) ? Y # UNITS (D) ? 1 UNIT 0 RL11=1, RLV11=2, RLV12=3 (O) 0 ? 1 BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? 174400 # TOO LARGE BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? 174400 # TOO LARGE BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? VECTOR (O) 0 ? 160 # TOO LARGE VECTOR (O) 0 ? TOO MANY VALUES INPUT VECTOR (O) 0 ? DRIVE (O) 0 ? DRIVE TYPE = RL01 (L) Y ? N BR LEVEL (O) 0 ? 5 CHANGE SW (L) ? N NXT TST MAY ZERO LD UNIT. DOIT ANYWAY?Y ILL INTER 000 PC 000000 PS 000000 DR>START CHANGE HW (L) ? Y # UNITS (D) ? NO DEFAULT # UNITS (D) ? 1 UNIT 0 RL11=1, RLV11=2, RLV12=3 (O) 0 ? 1 BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? VECTOR (O) 0 ? DRIVE (O) 0 ? DRIVE TYPE = RL01 (L) Y ? N BR LEVEL (O) 0 ? CHANGE SW (L) ? N NXT TST MAY ZERO LD UNIT. DOIT ANYWAY?Y CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG EOP 0 0 TOTAL ERRS CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 CNRLG EOP 0 0 TOTAL ERRS ^C DR>^C^C DR> XIT^U EXIT ?@ 000000 000 00000 000000 @ 0 000 00000 00000 @ 0 000 00000 00000 @ 0 000 00000 00000 @DL? DEVICE DD000: NOT IN CONFIGURATION DEVICE DD100: NOT IN CONFIGURATION DEVICE DY002: NOT IN CONFIGURATION DEVICE DY102: NOT IN CONFIGURATION DEVICE NI002: NOT IN CONFIGURATION RSX-11M V4.1 BL35 124.K MAPPED SYSTEM CRASH AT LOCATION 000000 REGISTERS R0=000000 R1=000000 R2=000000 R3=000000 R4=000000 R5=000000 SP=000000 PS=000000 SYSTEM STACK DUMP LOCATION CONTENTS 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 CRASH -- CONT WITH SCRATCH MEDIA ON DY0 On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 9:30 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > ok, now with my 'good' 11/34 board set (not the set with the mysterious > zero bug) installed, I re-ran xxdp against the rl02. I'm getting proper > prompts with the address and vectors supplied with non-zero numbers as > defaults. I just hit return like I had been doing with the 'zero-bug' cpu > boards and this time, the tests run, the drive blinks wildly like before, > and I get real results with real numbers filled in. I think this pretty > conclusively proves that there's something really weird (mysterious zero > bug) going on with my other board set. > > On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 7:15 PM, Johnny Billquist > wrote: > >> On 2015-01-29 20:14, Pete Turnbull wrote: >> >>> On 29/01/2015 18:32, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >>> >>>> Johnny, you're insisting that I put in the real numbers for address >>>> and csr >>>> for testing the drive (for instance). I'm going to do that next, here. >>>> But are you understanding that some of us think that the reason it >>>> prompts >>>> a zero default is that it's a manifestation of the zero bug and that the >>>> real value *is* actually safe but hidden in memory? Did you see the >>>> RSX-11M crash dump I posted in the other thread? >>>> >>> >>> I didn't see a crash dump, but did you see what I posted yesterday? >>> >> >> I haven't seen any crash dumps either. >> >> The default in XXDP for CSRs is very often zero, and I'm pretty sure it >>> is so in the RL02 diagnostics (I've ont checked the listing for that >>> particular one, but I did look at some others that were more readily to >>> hand). So when it asked you for input and you just hit "return", you >>> really did tell it zero. Applying the principle of Occam's Razor, and >>> assuming the simplest solution is the correct one, you got a lot of >>> zeros back because it was accessing memory instead of the controller you >>> wanted. >>> >>> It's hard to believe you have a CPU fault that consistently prints >>> numbers as zeros yet happily boots three different OSs. Still, I'll >>> change the tune if you re-run XXDP with sensible inputs. >>> >> >> Totally agree with that one. >> >> >> 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 aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 29 21:36:04 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 19:36:04 -0800 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> <54CA3A49.3080304@update.uu.se> <54CA86A0.7060104@dunnington.plus.com> <54CACD1C.2050101@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <54CAFC24.8030607@bitsavers.org> On 1/29/15 7:08 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > It did manage to boot xxdp Seems like running the 11/34 CPU diagnostics would be the next logical thing to try. From isking at uw.edu Thu Jan 29 21:53:59 2015 From: isking at uw.edu (Ian S. King) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 19:53:59 -0800 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: References: <20150128190218.AADBD18C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C95F15.9030301@update.uu.se> <20150129015509.GA11626@dbit.dbit.com> Message-ID: Yes, I believe that is correct (DDS was subsumed by SETASI at some point). The PDP-11/70 at Living Computer Museum had a set of both PEP70 and HC70, last I saw (a year ago). On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 6:10 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 6:55 PM, John Wilson wrote: > > Who made the PEP70? > > SETASI (aka Digital Data Systems?). They also made the HC70 Hypercache > that works in conjunction with the PEP70 to further improve > performance. > -- Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS Ph.D. Candidate The Information School University of Washington An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees it half empty. An engineer sees it twice as large as it needs to be. From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 22:04:06 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 23:04:06 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: <54CAFC24.8030607@bitsavers.org> References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> <54CA3A49.3080304@update.uu.se> <54CA86A0.7060104@dunnington.plus.com> <54CACD1C.2050101@update.uu.se> <54CAFC24.8030607@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Yeap. Tried that on both boards. It crashes at load on both :( On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 10:36 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/29/15 7:08 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > >> It did manage to boot xxdp >> > > Seems like running the 11/34 CPU diagnostics would be the next logical > thing to try. > > > > > From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 22:08:17 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 23:08:17 -0500 Subject: 11/34 up! (sort of) In-Reply-To: <54C9BBC7.1060508@pico-systems.com> References: <54C9BBC7.1060508@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: Thanks, Jon. I tried this simple test via the front panel. It wrote and read back the memory perfectly, just as I'd entered it. On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 11:49 PM, Jon Elson wrote: > On 01/26/2015 09:42 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > >> Woohoo, I finally, after over a decade of being somewhat out of the pdp11 >> hobby, have managed to bring back to life one of my pdp11/34s! >> >> It's a plain 11/34 with dl11-w, ky11-lb, ms11-L, rl11 and a M9312 >> terminator/boot rom board. I have an emulex controller and some fuji 160s >> I'll tack on later so I can run 2.9BSD once I get the basic build >> confirmed >> safe. >> >> It's not in great shape at the moment, apparently, as these xxdp 2.5 diags >> are crashing left and right. But it at least boots the os and tries. >> >> I initially had, but mysteriously lost the console emulator/ODT >> functionality, seems it's starting at 165000 instead of 165200 at poweron. >> Maybe a 9312 switch mis-set... So I'm booting from the panel by calling >> the address of the ODT or the rl02 boot rom, which does the trick. >> >> >> >> Thinking about this problem, I'm wondering if one of the address bits is > stuck? > I'm guessing since 165200 seems to work better than 165000, that maybe the > 200 (octal) bit is stuck on? You could try depositing 1234 to location 0, > and > 4321 to location 200, and then read back both locations. If they both read > 4321, then probably that address bit does not change as the CPU is > commanding it to. It is also possible that the diag/ODT ROM is not > properly > sensing the address bits on the Unibus. > > Jon > From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 22:33:41 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 23:33:41 -0500 Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' Message-ID: Has anyone used this software ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver/README against a real pdp11? I'm trying to use it to install a disk image on my 11/34, now, and after keying in the initial code, it appears to happily upload the first file (standalone 'copy') quite successfully, but then hangs. Since Warren has no real pdp11s, I'm wondering if the emulators he used whilst authoring this VTserver do something different than a real '11 that keeps the program from proceeding. thx jake From drb at msu.edu Thu Jan 29 23:10:23 2015 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 00:10:23 -0500 Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' In-Reply-To: (Your message of Thu, 29 Jan 2015 23:33:41 -0500.) References: Message-ID: <20150130051023.157A1A58094@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > Has anyone used this software > ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver/README against a real > pdp11? I have, and I know others have. I had to fiddle with the boot code to get it to work properly with my /93. I may have also fiddled with the expect/send bits of vtserver itself where it's uploading the boot code; it's been a while, and the first thing to go is the kidney between the ears. De From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 23:27:38 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 00:27:38 -0500 Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' In-Reply-To: <20150130051023.157A1A58094@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <20150130051023.157A1A58094@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: Thanks Dennis. Did you, perchance, modify it to speak to the old 11/34 console emulator (unlikely since you mention an 11/93 (Lucky!)) ? I think maybe that device doesn't speak proper "ODT," or perhaps a dialect of it that VTserver may not have been expecting as mine won't auto-feed the initial stuff to the '11 and I have to key it all in manually (ugh). I might write code to mitigate this if I get really motivated. Then again, I tried to use vtserver on a modern macintosh, which may have been my folly. Trying again with a nice old OpenSolaris SPARC next before diving into hard debugging... tips / suggestions (other than "run Linux") welcome. thx jake On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 12:10 AM, Dennis Boone wrote: > > Has anyone used this software > > ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver/README against a real > > pdp11? > > I have, and I know others have. > > I had to fiddle with the boot code to get it to work properly with my > /93. I may have also fiddled with the expect/send bits of vtserver > itself where it's uploading the boot code; it's been a while, and the > first thing to go is the kidney between the ears. > > De > From ak6dn at mindspring.com Thu Jan 29 23:37:54 2015 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 21:37:54 -0800 (GMT-08:00) Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 Message-ID: <27451090.1422596275139.JavaMail.root@wamui-june.atl.sa.earthlink.net> So here is the octal print routine in the M9312 console boot prom for the '34: ; print an octal number followed by one ; ; R0 = register value to print ; R1 = return address ; R2 = temp char ; R3 = temp addr prtoct: mov #<'0/bit1>,r2 ; ascii 0 right 1b sec ; shift a 1 into R0 lsb as done bit 1$: rol r0 ; msb out of R0 rolb r2 ; into lsb of R2 mov pc,r3 ; ret addr br txchar ; print char in R2 mov #+200+<'0/bit3>,r2 ; ascii SP upper, ascii 0 right 3b lower 2$: asl r0 ; msb out of R0 beq 3$ ; when R0 has gone to zero we are done rolb r2 ; into lsb of R2 bcs 2$ ; loop once more if flagbit was set br 1$ ; go get last bit and print char 3$: swab r2 ; move the SP from upper byte to lower mov pc,r3 ; ret addr br txchar ; print the space char in R2 retR1: cmp (r1)+,(r1)+ ; bump return address ptr R1 by +4 jmp -2(r1) ; return to (R1)-2 So I would speculate either 'rol' or 'rolb' are always rotating in a 0 bit instead of the c-bit, or possibly the c-bit is stuck at zero. -----Original Message----- >From: Jacob Ritorto >Sent: Jan 29, 2015 7:08 PM >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" >Subject: Re: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 > >So, pardon the large post, but here's the real comparison between my >'mysterious zero bug' KD11E-A cpu board M8266, and my good one: First is >the bad. Note that even at power on, I have to halt and restart the >console emulator at 165200. Look at the registers, all blanked to zeroes >and missing digits, too. It did manage to boot xxdp, but when I tried to >enter the correct address and vector to ZRLG??, it actually told me I was >wrong and couldn't even run the test on the device that way. Then I just >accepted the default (which was presented as zeroes) and it did run. Two >passes. Blinking lights and audible head movement. I let it run for two >passes, but it presented even that as zero passes and spit a bunch of >zeroes in the results. Just for kicks, I then booted (and very promptly >crashed) RSX. It crash-dumped, giving a whole lot of zeroes. Next post >will be same test with the good KD11E-A; stay tuned.. > >thx >jake > > >?@ >000000 000 00000 000000 >@ >0 000 00000 00000 >@ >0 000 00000 00000 >@ >0 000 00000 00000 >@ >0 000 00000 00000 >@ >0 000 00000 00000 >@DL? > > >BOOTING UP XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR > > >XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR - XXDP V2.5 >REVISION: F0 >BOOTED FROM DL0 >124KW OF MEMORY >UNIBUS SYSTEM > >RESTART ADDRESS: 152000 >TYPE "H" FOR HELP ! > >.R ?RLG?? >NRLGA0.BIC > >DRSSM-G2 >CNRLG-A-0 >CNRLG TESTS CONTROLLER FUNCTIONS, INTERFACE LOGIC, REGISTER OPERATION >UNIT IS RL01,RL02 >RSTRT ADR 000000 >DR>START > >CHANGE HW (L) ? Y > ># UNITS (D) ? 1 > >UNIT 0 >RL11=1, RLV11=2, RLV12=3 (O) 0 ? 1 >BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? 174400 > ># TOO LARGE >BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? 174400 > ># TOO LARGE >BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? >VECTOR (O) 0 ? 160 > ># TOO LARGE >VECTOR (O) 0 ? > >TOO MANY VALUES INPUT >VECTOR (O) 0 ? >DRIVE (O) 0 ? >DRIVE TYPE = RL01 (L) Y ? N >BR LEVEL (O) 0 ? 5 > >CHANGE SW (L) ? N > >NXT TST MAY ZERO LD UNIT. DOIT ANYWAY?Y > > > ILL INTER 000 > PC 000000 PS 000000 >DR>START > >CHANGE HW (L) ? Y > ># UNITS (D) ? > >NO DEFAULT ># UNITS (D) ? 1 > >UNIT 0 >RL11=1, RLV11=2, RLV12=3 (O) 0 ? 1 >BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? >VECTOR (O) 0 ? >DRIVE (O) 0 ? >DRIVE TYPE = RL01 (L) Y ? N >BR LEVEL (O) 0 ? > >CHANGE SW (L) ? N > >NXT TST MAY ZERO LD UNIT. DOIT ANYWAY?Y > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG EOP 0 > 0 TOTAL ERRS > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > >CNRLG EOP 0 > 0 TOTAL ERRS >^C >DR>^C^C >DR> >XIT^U >EXIT >?@ >000000 000 00000 000000 >@ >0 000 00000 00000 >@ >0 000 00000 00000 >@ >0 000 00000 00000 >@DL? > DEVICE DD000: NOT IN CONFIGURATION >DEVICE DD100: NOT IN CONFIGURATION >DEVICE DY002: NOT IN CONFIGURATION >DEVICE DY102: NOT IN CONFIGURATION >DEVICE NI002: NOT IN CONFIGURATION > > RSX-11M V4.1 BL35 124.K MAPPED > >SYSTEM CRASH AT LOCATION 000000 > >REGISTERS > > R0=000000 R1=000000 R2=000000 R3=000000 > > R4=000000 R5=000000 SP=000000 PS=000000 > >SYSTEM STACK DUMP > > LOCATION CONTENTS > > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > > >CRASH -- CONT WITH SCRATCH MEDIA ON DY0 > >On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 9:30 PM, Jacob Ritorto >wrote: > >> ok, now with my 'good' 11/34 board set (not the set with the mysterious >> zero bug) installed, I re-ran xxdp against the rl02. I'm getting proper >> prompts with the address and vectors supplied with non-zero numbers as >> defaults. I just hit return like I had been doing with the 'zero-bug' cpu >> boards and this time, the tests run, the drive blinks wildly like before, >> and I get real results with real numbers filled in. I think this pretty >> conclusively proves that there's something really weird (mysterious zero >> bug) going on with my other board set. >> >> On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 7:15 PM, Johnny Billquist >> wrote: >> >>> On 2015-01-29 20:14, Pete Turnbull wrote: >>> >>>> On 29/01/2015 18:32, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >>>> >>>>> Johnny, you're insisting that I put in the real numbers for address >>>>> and csr >>>>> for testing the drive (for instance). I'm going to do that next, here. >>>>> But are you understanding that some of us think that the reason it >>>>> prompts >>>>> a zero default is that it's a manifestation of the zero bug and that the >>>>> real value *is* actually safe but hidden in memory? Did you see the >>>>> RSX-11M crash dump I posted in the other thread? >>>>> >>>> >>>> I didn't see a crash dump, but did you see what I posted yesterday? >>>> >>> >>> I haven't seen any crash dumps either. >>> >>> The default in XXDP for CSRs is very often zero, and I'm pretty sure it >>>> is so in the RL02 diagnostics (I've ont checked the listing for that >>>> particular one, but I did look at some others that were more readily to >>>> hand). So when it asked you for input and you just hit "return", you >>>> really did tell it zero. Applying the principle of Occam's Razor, and >>>> assuming the simplest solution is the correct one, you got a lot of >>>> zeros back because it was accessing memory instead of the controller you >>>> wanted. >>>> >>>> It's hard to believe you have a CPU fault that consistently prints >>>> numbers as zeros yet happily boots three different OSs. Still, I'll >>>> change the tune if you re-run XXDP with sensible inputs. >>>> >>> >>> Totally agree with that one. >>> >>> >>> 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 jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Fri Jan 30 00:38:33 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 01:38:33 -0500 Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' In-Reply-To: References: <20150130051023.157A1A58094@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: Sweet, recompiling VTserver on a rather ancient version of OpenSolaris (Illumos) did the trick. Still not sure why I ever "switched" to the $#%^$ Mac, although I have to admit that the candy colors (especially in the pinwheel) sure are pretty. Man, it feels good to be back on the old workhorse Sun. Big thanks to Warren, if you're listening out there, for writing this clever little program! On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 12:27 AM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > Thanks Dennis. Did you, perchance, modify it to speak to the old 11/34 > console emulator (unlikely since you mention an 11/93 (Lucky!)) ? I think > maybe that device doesn't speak proper "ODT," or perhaps a dialect of it > that VTserver may not have been expecting as mine won't auto-feed the > initial stuff to the '11 and I have to key it all in manually (ugh). I > might write code to mitigate this if I get really motivated. > > Then again, I tried to use vtserver on a modern macintosh, which may have > been my folly. Trying again with a nice old OpenSolaris SPARC next before > diving into hard debugging... > > tips / suggestions (other than "run Linux") welcome. > > thx > jake > > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 12:10 AM, Dennis Boone wrote: > >> > Has anyone used this software >> > ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver/README against a real >> > pdp11? >> >> I have, and I know others have. >> >> I had to fiddle with the boot code to get it to work properly with my >> /93. I may have also fiddled with the expect/send bits of vtserver >> itself where it's uploading the boot code; it's been a while, and the >> first thing to go is the kidney between the ears. >> >> De >> > > From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 21:18:53 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 22:18:53 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> <54CA3A49.3080304@update.uu.se> <54CA86A0.7060104@dunnington.plus.com> <54CACD1C.2050101@update.uu.se> Message-ID: ...and the same routine with the 'good' KD11E-A. Note that it has proper console emulation numbers with real values and no missing digits at power on. Also, I don't have to halt the thing and enter 165200 to get it to talk to the console - it does it happily itself. ZRLG?? offers sane defaults and gives real pass counts and numbers in output. Note also that rsx boots and starts up happily. What can I say? That other board was just a pretty messed up processor :\ I'd like to fix it, but have no clue where to start. 000017 000007 000015 000011 @DL BOOTING UP XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR - XXDP V2.5 REVISION: F0 BOOTED FROM DL0 124KW OF MEMORY UNIBUS SYSTEM RESTART ADDRESS: 152000 TYPE "H" FOR HELP ! .R ZRLG?? ZRLGE0.BIC DRSSM-G2 CZRLG-E-0 CZRLG TESTS CONTROLLER FUNCTIONS, INTERFACE LOGIC, REGISTER OPERATION UNIT IS RL01,RL02 RSTRT ADR 145702 DR>START CHANGE HW (L) ? Y # UNITS (D) ? 1 UNIT 0 RL11=1, RLV11=2, RLV12=3 (O) ? 1 BUS ADDRESS (O) 174400 ? 174400 VECTOR (O) 160 ? 160 DRIVE (O) 0 ? DRIVE TYPE = RL01 (L) Y ? N BR LEVEL (O) 5 ? 5 CHANGE SW (L) ? N NXT TST MAY ZERO LD UNIT. DOIT ANYWAY?Y CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00044 ON UNIT 00 TST 037 SUB 000 PC: 024232 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 132012 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 176640? LAST: 000000 PRES: 176600 EXP'D: 177600 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00043 ON UNIT 00 TST 037 SUB 000 PC: 024070 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 042271 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 157420? LAST: 000000 PRES: 157400 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 050003 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 176610? LAST: 177400 PRES: 176600 EXP'D: 177600 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 014276 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 001005? LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176605 MP: 006013 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176605 MP: 175615? LAST: 177400 PRES: 175600 EXP'D: 176600 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 173605 MP: 126002 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 173605 MP: 175645? LAST: 177400 PRES: 175600 EXP'D: 173600 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000210 BA: 002416 DA: 175601 MP: 132534 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 175601 MP: 161447? LAST: 177400 PRES: 161400 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 167605 MP: 041373 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 167605 MP: 177400? LAST: 177400 PRES: 177400 EXP'D: 167600 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177401 MP: 036064 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177401 MP: 001017? LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 157605 MP: 152242 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 157605 MP: 160611? LAST: 177400 PRES: 160600 EXP'D: 157600 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 176152 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 001022? LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176005 MP: 134244 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176005 MP: 177000? LAST: 177400 PRES: 177000 EXP'D: 176000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 134145 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 001004? LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 174005 MP: 170240 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 174005 MP: 177035? LAST: 177400 PRES: 177000 EXP'D: 174000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 152143 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 001041? LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 170005 MP: 176253 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 170005 MP: 173013? LAST: 177400 PRES: 173000 EXP'D: 170000 CZRLG EOP 1 16 TOTAL ERRS CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00044 ON UNIT 00 TST 037 SUB 000 PC: 024232 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 164002 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 176606? LAST: 177400 PRES: 176600 EXP'D: 177600 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00043 ON UNIT 00 TST 037 SUB 000 PC: 024070 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 066277 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 001004? LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 066006 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 176623? LAST: 177400 PRES: 176600 EXP'D: 177600 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 030270 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 001020? LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176605 MP: 022002 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176605 MP: 175630? LAST: 177400 PRES: 175600 EXP'D: 176600 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 175601 MP: 134530 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 175601 MP: 001045? LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 173605 MP: 146252 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 173605 MP: 176635? LAST: 177400 PRES: 176600 EXP'D: 173600 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 012272 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 001032? LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 167605 MP: 154246 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 167605 MP: 172611? LAST: 177400 PRES: 172600 EXP'D: 167600 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 176152 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 001026? LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176001 MP: 036313 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176001 MP: 001043? LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 174005 MP: 042252 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 174005 MP: 177027? LAST: 177400 PRES: 177000 EXP'D: 174000 CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 170005 MP: 126002 TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 170005 MP: 167414? LAST: 177400 PRES: 167400 EXP'D: 170000 CZRLG EOP 2 29 TOTAL ERRS ^C DR>^C^C DR>EXIT @ 143116 173600 165212 155644 @ 000000 173600 165212 165212 @ 000000 173600 165212 165212 @DL DEVICE DD000: NOT IN CONFIGURATION DEVICE DD001: NOT IN CONFIGURATION DEVICE DY000: NOT IN CONFIGURATION DEVICE DY001: NOT IN CONFIGURATION DEVICE NI000: NOT IN CONFIGURATION RSX-11M V4.1 BL35 124.K MAPPED >RED DL:=SY: >RED DL:=LB: >MOU DL:SYSTEM >@DL:[1,2]STARTUP >;$ [1,2]STARTUP.CMD *** boot-time commands *** >TIME 5:30 24-Jan-95 >; Myrt. >ACS LB:/BLKS=1024. >ELI /LOG 05:30:02 ERRLOG -- Error Logging initialized >SET /COLOG=ON >SET /COLOG/COTERM=TT00: >CLI /INI=DCL >; Select Flying Indirects to be executed by TDX >INS $ICP/TASK=...AU. >INS $ICP/TASK=...AV. >; Install editor task ("...EDT") >INS $EDT >; Install m file transfer utility ("...MFT") >INS $MFT >ins $k11rsx >mount dl1:USER1/SYS MOU - unit offline >BYE Have a nice day 24-JAN-95 05:30 TT0: logged off PDPE2A > 05:30:09 COT -- Date is 24-JAN-95 05:30:09 Logout user [0,0] TT0: >@ On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 10:08 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > So, pardon the large post, but here's the real comparison between my > 'mysterious zero bug' KD11E-A cpu board M8266, and my good one: First is > the bad. Note that even at power on, I have to halt and restart the > console emulator at 165200. Look at the registers, all blanked to zeroes > and missing digits, too. It did manage to boot xxdp, but when I tried to > enter the correct address and vector to ZRLG??, it actually told me I was > wrong and couldn't even run the test on the device that way. Then I just > accepted the default (which was presented as zeroes) and it did run. Two > passes. Blinking lights and audible head movement. I let it run for two > passes, but it presented even that as zero passes and spit a bunch of > zeroes in the results. Just for kicks, I then booted (and very promptly > crashed) RSX. It crash-dumped, giving a whole lot of zeroes. Next post > will be same test with the good KD11E-A; stay tuned.. > > thx > jake > > > ?@ > 000000 000 00000 000000 > @ > 0 000 00000 00000 > @ > 0 000 00000 00000 > @ > 0 000 00000 00000 > @ > 0 000 00000 00000 > @ > 0 000 00000 00000 > @DL? > > > BOOTING UP XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR > > > XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR - XXDP V2.5 > REVISION: F0 > BOOTED FROM DL0 > 124KW OF MEMORY > UNIBUS SYSTEM > > RESTART ADDRESS: 152000 > TYPE "H" FOR HELP ! > > .R ?RLG?? > NRLGA0.BIC > > DRSSM-G2 > CNRLG-A-0 > CNRLG TESTS CONTROLLER FUNCTIONS, INTERFACE LOGIC, REGISTER OPERATION > UNIT IS RL01,RL02 > RSTRT ADR 000000 > DR>START > > CHANGE HW (L) ? Y > > # UNITS (D) ? 1 > > UNIT 0 > RL11=1, RLV11=2, RLV12=3 (O) 0 ? 1 > BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? 174400 > > # TOO LARGE > BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? 174400 > > # TOO LARGE > BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? > VECTOR (O) 0 ? 160 > > # TOO LARGE > VECTOR (O) 0 ? > > TOO MANY VALUES INPUT > VECTOR (O) 0 ? > DRIVE (O) 0 ? > DRIVE TYPE = RL01 (L) Y ? N > BR LEVEL (O) 0 ? 5 > > CHANGE SW (L) ? N > > NXT TST MAY ZERO LD UNIT. DOIT ANYWAY?Y > > > ILL INTER 000 > PC 000000 PS 000000 > DR>START > > CHANGE HW (L) ? Y > > # UNITS (D) ? > > NO DEFAULT > # UNITS (D) ? 1 > > UNIT 0 > RL11=1, RLV11=2, RLV12=3 (O) 0 ? 1 > BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? > VECTOR (O) 0 ? > DRIVE (O) 0 ? > DRIVE TYPE = RL01 (L) Y ? N > BR LEVEL (O) 0 ? > > CHANGE SW (L) ? N > > NXT TST MAY ZERO LD UNIT. DOIT ANYWAY?Y > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG EOP 0 > 0 TOTAL ERRS > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CNRLG EOP 0 > 0 TOTAL ERRS > ^C > DR>^C^C > DR> > XIT^U > EXIT > ?@ > 000000 000 00000 000000 > @ > 0 000 00000 00000 > @ > 0 000 00000 00000 > @ > 0 000 00000 00000 > @DL? > DEVICE DD000: NOT IN CONFIGURATION > DEVICE DD100: NOT IN CONFIGURATION > DEVICE DY002: NOT IN CONFIGURATION > DEVICE DY102: NOT IN CONFIGURATION > DEVICE NI002: NOT IN CONFIGURATION > > RSX-11M V4.1 BL35 124.K MAPPED > > SYSTEM CRASH AT LOCATION 000000 > > REGISTERS > > R0=000000 R1=000000 R2=000000 R3=000000 > > R4=000000 R5=000000 SP=000000 PS=000000 > > SYSTEM STACK DUMP > > LOCATION CONTENTS > > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > 000000 000000 > > > CRASH -- CONT WITH SCRATCH MEDIA ON DY0 > > On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 9:30 PM, Jacob Ritorto > wrote: > >> ok, now with my 'good' 11/34 board set (not the set with the mysterious >> zero bug) installed, I re-ran xxdp against the rl02. I'm getting proper >> prompts with the address and vectors supplied with non-zero numbers as >> defaults. I just hit return like I had been doing with the 'zero-bug' cpu >> boards and this time, the tests run, the drive blinks wildly like before, >> and I get real results with real numbers filled in. I think this pretty >> conclusively proves that there's something really weird (mysterious zero >> bug) going on with my other board set. >> >> On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 7:15 PM, Johnny Billquist >> wrote: >> >>> On 2015-01-29 20:14, Pete Turnbull wrote: >>> >>>> On 29/01/2015 18:32, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >>>> >>>>> Johnny, you're insisting that I put in the real numbers for address >>>>> and csr >>>>> for testing the drive (for instance). I'm going to do that next, here. >>>>> But are you understanding that some of us think that the reason it >>>>> prompts >>>>> a zero default is that it's a manifestation of the zero bug and that >>>>> the >>>>> real value *is* actually safe but hidden in memory? Did you see the >>>>> RSX-11M crash dump I posted in the other thread? >>>>> >>>> >>>> I didn't see a crash dump, but did you see what I posted yesterday? >>>> >>> >>> I haven't seen any crash dumps either. >>> >>> The default in XXDP for CSRs is very often zero, and I'm pretty sure it >>>> is so in the RL02 diagnostics (I've ont checked the listing for that >>>> particular one, but I did look at some others that were more readily to >>>> hand). So when it asked you for input and you just hit "return", you >>>> really did tell it zero. Applying the principle of Occam's Razor, and >>>> assuming the simplest solution is the correct one, you got a lot of >>>> zeros back because it was accessing memory instead of the controller you >>>> wanted. >>>> >>>> It's hard to believe you have a CPU fault that consistently prints >>>> numbers as zeros yet happily boots three different OSs. Still, I'll >>>> change the tune if you re-run XXDP with sensible inputs. >>>> >>> >>> Totally agree with that one. >>> >>> >>> 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 jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Jan 29 21:31:55 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2015 22:31:55 -0500 Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 In-Reply-To: References: <20150127230508.8228918C090@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54C81BA6.4050209@update.uu.se> <201501290319.t0T3JY4t023322@rickmurphy.net> <54CA3A49.3080304@update.uu.se> <54CA86A0.7060104@dunnington.plus.com> <54CACD1C.2050101@update.uu.se> Message-ID: !!! oops, I just noticed that I foolishly used wildcards and accidentally ran NRLGA0.BIC in the former and ZRLGE0.BIC in the latter. In the interest of being completely thorough, I just re-ran the bad board using ZRLGE0. No change - the 'mysterious zeroes bug' behaves nearly identically with both NRLGA0.BIC and ZRLGE0.BIC on the bad board. On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 10:18 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > ...and the same routine with the 'good' KD11E-A. > > Note that it has proper console emulation numbers with real values and no > missing digits at power on. Also, I don't have to halt the thing and enter > 165200 to get it to talk to the console - it does it happily itself. ZRLG?? > offers sane defaults and gives real pass counts and numbers in output. > Note also that rsx boots and starts up happily. > > What can I say? That other board was just a pretty messed up processor :\ > > > I'd like to fix it, but have no clue where to start. > > > > 000017 000007 000015 000011 > @DL > > > BOOTING UP XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR > > > XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR - XXDP V2.5 > REVISION: F0 > BOOTED FROM DL0 > 124KW OF MEMORY > UNIBUS SYSTEM > > RESTART ADDRESS: 152000 > TYPE "H" FOR HELP ! > > .R ZRLG?? > ZRLGE0.BIC > > DRSSM-G2 > CZRLG-E-0 > CZRLG TESTS CONTROLLER FUNCTIONS, INTERFACE LOGIC, REGISTER OPERATION > UNIT IS RL01,RL02 > RSTRT ADR 145702 > DR>START > > CHANGE HW (L) ? Y > > # UNITS (D) ? 1 > > UNIT 0 > RL11=1, RLV11=2, RLV12=3 (O) ? 1 > BUS ADDRESS (O) 174400 ? 174400 > VECTOR (O) 160 ? 160 > DRIVE (O) 0 ? > DRIVE TYPE = RL01 (L) Y ? N > BR LEVEL (O) 5 ? 5 > > CHANGE SW (L) ? N > > NXT TST MAY ZERO LD UNIT. DOIT ANYWAY?Y > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00044 ON UNIT 00 TST 037 SUB 000 PC: 024232 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 132012 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 176640? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 176600 EXP'D: 177600 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00043 ON UNIT 00 TST 037 SUB 000 PC: 024070 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 042271 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 157420? > LAST: 000000 PRES: 157400 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 050003 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 176610? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 176600 EXP'D: 177600 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 014276 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 001005? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176605 MP: 006013 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176605 MP: 175615? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 175600 EXP'D: 176600 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 173605 MP: 126002 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 173605 MP: 175645? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 175600 EXP'D: 173600 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000210 BA: 002416 DA: 175601 MP: 132534 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 175601 MP: 161447? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 161400 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 167605 MP: 041373 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 167605 MP: 177400? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 177400 EXP'D: 167600 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177401 MP: 036064 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177401 MP: 001017? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 157605 MP: 152242 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 157605 MP: 160611? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 160600 EXP'D: 157600 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 176152 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 001022? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176005 MP: 134244 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176005 MP: 177000? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 177000 EXP'D: 176000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 134145 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 001004? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 174005 MP: 170240 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 174005 MP: 177035? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 177000 EXP'D: 174000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 152143 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 001041? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 170005 MP: 176253 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 170005 MP: 173013? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 173000 EXP'D: 170000 > > CZRLG EOP 1 > 16 TOTAL ERRS > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00044 ON UNIT 00 TST 037 SUB 000 PC: 024232 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 164002 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 176606? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 176600 EXP'D: 177600 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00043 ON UNIT 00 TST 037 SUB 000 PC: 024070 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 066277 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 001004? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 066006 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177605 MP: 176623? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 176600 EXP'D: 177600 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 030270 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 001020? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176605 MP: 022002 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176605 MP: 175630? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 175600 EXP'D: 176600 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 175601 MP: 134530 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 175601 MP: 001045? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 173605 MP: 146252 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 173605 MP: 176635? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 176600 EXP'D: 173600 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 012272 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176601 MP: 001032? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 167605 MP: 154246 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 167605 MP: 172611? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 172600 EXP'D: 167600 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 176152 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 177001 MP: 001026? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00051 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 025742 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176001 MP: 036313 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 176001 MP: 001043? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 001000 EXP'D: 000000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 174005 MP: 042252 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 174005 MP: 177027? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 177000 EXP'D: 174000 > > CZRLG DVC FTL ERR 00052 ON UNIT 00 TST 043 SUB 000 PC: 026102 > BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD > CONTROLLER: 174400 DRIVE: 0 > BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 170005 MP: 126002 > TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000211 BA: 002416 DA: 170005 MP: 167414? > LAST: 177400 PRES: 167400 EXP'D: 170000 > > CZRLG EOP 2 > 29 TOTAL ERRS > ^C > DR>^C^C > DR>EXIT > @ > 143116 173600 165212 155644 > @ > 000000 173600 165212 165212 > @ > 000000 173600 165212 165212 > @DL > DEVICE DD000: NOT IN CONFIGURATION > DEVICE DD001: NOT IN CONFIGURATION > DEVICE DY000: NOT IN CONFIGURATION > DEVICE DY001: NOT IN CONFIGURATION > DEVICE NI000: NOT IN CONFIGURATION > > RSX-11M V4.1 BL35 124.K MAPPED > >RED DL:=SY: > >RED DL:=LB: > >MOU DL:SYSTEM > >@DL:[1,2]STARTUP > >;$ [1,2]STARTUP.CMD *** boot-time commands *** > >TIME 5:30 24-Jan-95 > >; Myrt. > >ACS LB:/BLKS=1024. > >ELI /LOG > 05:30:02 ERRLOG -- Error Logging initialized > >SET /COLOG=ON > >SET /COLOG/COTERM=TT00: > >CLI /INI=DCL > >; Select Flying Indirects to be executed by TDX > >INS $ICP/TASK=...AU. > >INS $ICP/TASK=...AV. > >; Install editor task ("...EDT") > >INS $EDT > >; Install m file transfer utility ("...MFT") > >INS $MFT > >ins $k11rsx > >mount dl1:USER1/SYS > MOU - unit offline > >BYE > Have a nice day > 24-JAN-95 05:30 TT0: logged off PDPE2A > > > 05:30:09 COT -- Date is 24-JAN-95 > 05:30:09 Logout user [0,0] TT0: > >@ > > On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 10:08 PM, Jacob Ritorto > wrote: > >> So, pardon the large post, but here's the real comparison between my >> 'mysterious zero bug' KD11E-A cpu board M8266, and my good one: First is >> the bad. Note that even at power on, I have to halt and restart the >> console emulator at 165200. Look at the registers, all blanked to zeroes >> and missing digits, too. It did manage to boot xxdp, but when I tried to >> enter the correct address and vector to ZRLG??, it actually told me I was >> wrong and couldn't even run the test on the device that way. Then I just >> accepted the default (which was presented as zeroes) and it did run. Two >> passes. Blinking lights and audible head movement. I let it run for two >> passes, but it presented even that as zero passes and spit a bunch of >> zeroes in the results. Just for kicks, I then booted (and very promptly >> crashed) RSX. It crash-dumped, giving a whole lot of zeroes. Next post >> will be same test with the good KD11E-A; stay tuned.. >> >> thx >> jake >> >> >> ?@ >> 000000 000 00000 000000 >> @ >> 0 000 00000 00000 >> @ >> 0 000 00000 00000 >> @ >> 0 000 00000 00000 >> @ >> 0 000 00000 00000 >> @ >> 0 000 00000 00000 >> @DL? >> >> >> BOOTING UP XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR >> >> >> XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR - XXDP V2.5 >> REVISION: F0 >> BOOTED FROM DL0 >> 124KW OF MEMORY >> UNIBUS SYSTEM >> >> RESTART ADDRESS: 152000 >> TYPE "H" FOR HELP ! >> >> .R ?RLG?? >> NRLGA0.BIC >> >> DRSSM-G2 >> CNRLG-A-0 >> CNRLG TESTS CONTROLLER FUNCTIONS, INTERFACE LOGIC, REGISTER OPERATION >> UNIT IS RL01,RL02 >> RSTRT ADR 000000 >> DR>START >> >> CHANGE HW (L) ? Y >> >> # UNITS (D) ? 1 >> >> UNIT 0 >> RL11=1, RLV11=2, RLV12=3 (O) 0 ? 1 >> BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? 174400 >> >> # TOO LARGE >> BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? 174400 >> >> # TOO LARGE >> BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? >> VECTOR (O) 0 ? 160 >> >> # TOO LARGE >> VECTOR (O) 0 ? >> >> TOO MANY VALUES INPUT >> VECTOR (O) 0 ? >> DRIVE (O) 0 ? >> DRIVE TYPE = RL01 (L) Y ? N >> BR LEVEL (O) 0 ? 5 >> >> CHANGE SW (L) ? N >> >> NXT TST MAY ZERO LD UNIT. DOIT ANYWAY?Y >> >> >> ILL INTER 000 >> PC 000000 PS 000000 >> DR>START >> >> CHANGE HW (L) ? Y >> >> # UNITS (D) ? >> >> NO DEFAULT >> # UNITS (D) ? 1 >> >> UNIT 0 >> RL11=1, RLV11=2, RLV12=3 (O) 0 ? 1 >> BUS ADDRESS (O) 0 ? >> VECTOR (O) 0 ? >> DRIVE (O) 0 ? >> DRIVE TYPE = RL01 (L) Y ? N >> BR LEVEL (O) 0 ? >> >> CHANGE SW (L) ? N >> >> NXT TST MAY ZERO LD UNIT. DOIT ANYWAY?Y >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG EOP 0 >> 0 TOTAL ERRS >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG DVC FTL ERR 00000 ON UNIT 00 TST 000 SUB 000 PC: 000000 >> BAD SEEK-TEST OF DIFFENCE WORD >> CONTROLLER: 000000 DRIVE: 0 >> BEFORE COMMAND: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000 >> TIME OF ERROR: CS: 000000 BA: 000000 DA: 000000 MP: 000000? >> LAST: 000000 PRES: 000000 EXP'D: 000000 >> >> CNRLG EOP 0 >> 0 TOTAL ERRS >> ^C >> DR>^C^C >> DR> >> XIT^U >> EXIT >> ?@ >> 000000 000 00000 000000 >> @ >> 0 000 00000 00000 >> @ >> 0 000 00000 00000 >> @ >> 0 000 00000 00000 >> @DL? >> DEVICE DD000: NOT IN CONFIGURATION >> DEVICE DD100: NOT IN CONFIGURATION >> DEVICE DY002: NOT IN CONFIGURATION >> DEVICE DY102: NOT IN CONFIGURATION >> DEVICE NI002: NOT IN CONFIGURATION >> >> RSX-11M V4.1 BL35 124.K MAPPED >> >> SYSTEM CRASH AT LOCATION 000000 >> >> REGISTERS >> >> R0=000000 R1=000000 R2=000000 R3=000000 >> >> R4=000000 R5=000000 SP=000000 PS=000000 >> >> SYSTEM STACK DUMP >> >> LOCATION CONTENTS >> >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> 000000 000000 >> >> >> CRASH -- CONT WITH SCRATCH MEDIA ON DY0 >> >> On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 9:30 PM, Jacob Ritorto >> wrote: >> >>> ok, now with my 'good' 11/34 board set (not the set with the mysterious >>> zero bug) installed, I re-ran xxdp against the rl02. I'm getting proper >>> prompts with the address and vectors supplied with non-zero numbers as >>> defaults. I just hit return like I had been doing with the 'zero-bug' cpu >>> boards and this time, the tests run, the drive blinks wildly like before, >>> and I get real results with real numbers filled in. I think this pretty >>> conclusively proves that there's something really weird (mysterious zero >>> bug) going on with my other board set. >>> >>> On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 7:15 PM, Johnny Billquist >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On 2015-01-29 20:14, Pete Turnbull wrote: >>>> >>>>> On 29/01/2015 18:32, Jacob Ritorto wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Johnny, you're insisting that I put in the real numbers for address >>>>>> and csr >>>>>> for testing the drive (for instance). I'm going to do that next, >>>>>> here. >>>>>> But are you understanding that some of us think that the reason it >>>>>> prompts >>>>>> a zero default is that it's a manifestation of the zero bug and that >>>>>> the >>>>>> real value *is* actually safe but hidden in memory? Did you see the >>>>>> RSX-11M crash dump I posted in the other thread? >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I didn't see a crash dump, but did you see what I posted yesterday? >>>>> >>>> >>>> I haven't seen any crash dumps either. >>>> >>>> The default in XXDP for CSRs is very often zero, and I'm pretty sure it >>>>> is so in the RL02 diagnostics (I've ont checked the listing for that >>>>> particular one, but I did look at some others that were more readily to >>>>> hand). So when it asked you for input and you just hit "return", you >>>>> really did tell it zero. Applying the principle of Occam's Razor, and >>>>> assuming the simplest solution is the correct one, you got a lot of >>>>> zeros back because it was accessing memory instead of the controller >>>>> you >>>>> wanted. >>>>> >>>>> It's hard to believe you have a CPU fault that consistently prints >>>>> numbers as zeros yet happily boots three different OSs. Still, I'll >>>>> change the tune if you re-run XXDP with sensible inputs. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Totally agree with that one. >>>> >>>> >>>> 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 j_hoppe at t-online.de Fri Jan 30 00:04:32 2015 From: j_hoppe at t-online.de (=?windows-1252?Q?J=F6rg_Hoppe?=) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 07:04:32 +0100 Subject: XXDP generic memory test In-Reply-To: <20150129122452.7cf8614b@asrock.bcwi.net> References: <7359B99C-EAE8-4AF5-BCA6-3FA7C18A7CA7@gmail.com> <20150129122452.7cf8614b@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: <54CB1EF0.3030602@t-online.de> Hi, A year ago I made a database of all PDP-11 diagnostics found on the web: http://retrocmp.com/tools/pdp-11-diagnostic-database/202-pdp-11-diagnostics-database Here is some info how to use it: http://blinkenbone.com/how-tos/using-pdp-11-diagnostics Hope this helps Joerg Am 29.01.2015 um 21:24 schrieb Lyle Bickley: > On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 13:51:03 -0600 > Roe Peterson wrote: > >> I just can't seem to figure out the right XXDP file to run for a >> straight memory test. > > Most all of the questions related to PDP-11 diagnostics are answered in: > > http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/xxdp/PDP11_DiagnosticHandbook_1988.pdf > > Lyle > From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jan 30 02:54:46 2015 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 09:54:46 +0100 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <20150129124422.U15904@shell.lmi.net> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <20150129124422.U15904@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 29 January 2015 at 21:45, Fred Cisin wrote: > And then store them in the dark in a vacuum at 0 degrees kelvin? > No, the outgassing of volatiles would be a problem... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R) From evan at snarc.net Fri Jan 30 03:27:15 2015 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 04:27:15 -0500 Subject: VCF East keynote change Message-ID: <54CB4E73.7090308@snarc.net> There's a change to the keynote plans for VCF East. Ted Nelson is unable to attend due to a family issue. He sends his regrets, and said he'll try to make it up to us another time. Wes Clark will take Ted's place on Saturday morning at the show. We are looking for other speakers and/or entertainment for the Saturday dinner (when Wes was scheduled to speak). Details are frequently updated at http://www.vintage.org/2015/east. - Evan From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Fri Jan 30 07:13:22 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 08:13:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay Message-ID: <20150130131322.7C72118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/141300893919 The seller has them listed at 'Buy-It-Now' for $1,800, but the listing does say 'make an offer', so you might be able to get it down a ways, to something more reasonable. They seem like they have an interesting (non-identical) set of peripheral cards. However, I know nothing of HP's, so take this all with a large grain of salt! Noel From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Fri Jan 30 07:19:08 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 08:19:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 Message-ID: <20150130131908.E99F318C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Don North > So here is the octal print routine in the M9312 console boot prom for > the '34: I'm curious, is that the 'original' source, or is this dis-assembled from the PROM contents? Is the complete program available somewhere? > So I would speculate either 'rol' or 'rolb' are always rotating in a 0 > bit instead of the c-bit, or possibly the c-bit is stuck at zero. Yup, good suggestion. And that would likely explain why things boot; I can't see too many OS's using 'ROLB'! Noel From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 30 08:04:27 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 08:04:27 -0600 Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00ca01d03c95$a973da00$fc5b8e00$@classiccmp.org> I have used it quite a bit, and it always "just worked" for me. Wonderful piece of software. I should do something similar for the 21MX :) -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jacob Ritorto Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 10:34 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' Has anyone used this software ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver/README against a real pdp11? I'm trying to use it to install a disk image on my 11/34, now, and after keying in the initial code, it appears to happily upload the first file (standalone 'copy') quite successfully, but then hangs. Since Warren has no real pdp11s, I'm wondering if the emulators he used whilst authoring this VTserver do something different than a real '11 that keeps the program from proceeding. thx jake From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 30 08:38:17 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 08:38:17 -0600 Subject: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay In-Reply-To: <20150130131322.7C72118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150130131322.7C72118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <00d901d03c9a$63149db0$293dd910$@classiccmp.org> Noel wrote... ---- http://www.ebay.com/itm/141300893919 The seller has them listed at 'Buy-It-Now' for $1,800, but the listing does say 'make an offer', so you might be able to get it down a ways, to something more reasonable. They seem like they have an interesting (non-identical) set of peripheral cards. However, I know nothing of HP's, so take this all with a large grain of salt! ---- They both appear to be 2113E's (21MX/E with extra IO capacity). Yes, that's a fairly stuffed I/O backplane in both, but many are for peripheral devices that aren't included. It appears they both have the older rev 2102B memory controller, which does impose some restrictions on the memory boards you could add in the future for more memory. One system appears to be missing the memory controller flat jumper cable, that would have to be found to make it operational. If you can get by with less memory (or if you have bigger memory boards that happen to be supported by the 2102B), you could cut the existing memory jumper to two shorter pieces. Both systems would need to have the "battery jumper plug" (or stick in a resistor) in order to POST. They don't appear to be "master slave" as the ad suggests, at least not in any "normal" way. Could have been a home brew interconnect though. It's been eons since I had a power supply open on one, once I get a machine I gut/restore the PS and then they just run forever. But be aware there's a fair amount of foam permanently built inside those power supplies. Before using, I'd strongly suggest taking out the power supply and opening it up and at least clean out and replace the foam. That loose wire on power-cont-in - I am not sure if that's really a problem (in most setups). ISTR that if you're not using a battery and not daisychaining power connectors, the only conductors needed to fake battery presence are middle-left and middle-right in the 3x3 grid of holes. I don't recall the resistor value but can look it up. It does appear the microcode (FEM at least, can't tell if FAB is present & connected) to CPU board jumpers are there. Those frequently are not and the system can run without it but you lose whatever capabilities are on the FEM/FAB. I'm amazed at the asking prices for 21MX's these days. Not too many years ago one would typically sell on ebay for around $150 each and they could often be found "in the wild" for free. ISTR I got a pallet of around nine 2109E's and they all went around $150 (except the few I kept). Of course I will not be bidding on that auction, but if someone here does and wins I might be interested in purchasing some of the I/O cards for spares if the winner doesn't need them. I'd be glad to help get them running and there's a pretty good amount of expertise here amongst listmembers WRT 21MX. Best, J From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Fri Jan 30 08:56:50 2015 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 09:56:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card Message-ID: <20150130145650.06D9218C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: jws > I sent a bit of this thread along to Ken Omohundro who founded Able .. > If he sends anything else along, I'll get it to somewhere people can > find out about it. Neat! Thanks! > I probably have data sheets archived and I will scan them as a PDF file Those would be great - I hope they include enough detail to explain how the ENABLE hooked up the various busses, cache, etc! I live in hope that someone finds a manual, because that may be the only way these questions get answered. Also, I wonder if the product called the "ENABLE/34" (per various brochures, Muuss' email, etc) and the "ENABLE" we ran in the 11/45 were actually the same thing, and they had just changed the name, perhaps because people might have assumed, from the "ENABLE/34" name, that it was only for /34's, when in fact it could run in any UNIBUS machine? The name change may have opened up a bigger market for them. Anyway, another mystery about these things! Noel From isking at uw.edu Fri Jan 30 09:34:29 2015 From: isking at uw.edu (Ian S. King) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 07:34:29 -0800 Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' In-Reply-To: <00ca01d03c95$a973da00$fc5b8e00$@classiccmp.org> References: <00ca01d03c95$a973da00$fc5b8e00$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: I too have used VTserver many times. It's a delightfully clever tool. And don't forget, that for PDP-8 there's David Gesswein's dumprest, which also works very well. I've used VTserver to build RK05s for Unix 6th Ed. on my 11/34 and dumprest to build RK05s for OS/8 on LCM's 8/e. Jacob, I don't know why it would have hung for you unless the copy program is buggered. I used VTserver without modification and without problem. -- Ian On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 6:04 AM, Jay West wrote: > I have used it quite a bit, and it always "just worked" for me. Wonderful > piece of software. I should do something similar for the 21MX :) > > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jacob > Ritorto > Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 10:34 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' > > Has anyone used this software > ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver/README against a real pdp11? > I'm trying to use it to install a disk image on my 11/34, now, and after > keying in the initial code, it appears to happily upload the first file > (standalone 'copy') quite successfully, but then hangs. Since Warren has > no real pdp11s, I'm wondering if the emulators he used whilst authoring > this VTserver do something different than a real '11 that keeps the program > from proceeding. > > thx > jake > > > -- Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS Ph.D. Candidate The Information School University of Washington An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees it half empty. An engineer sees it twice as large as it needs to be. From roeapeterson at gmail.com Fri Jan 30 10:22:12 2015 From: roeapeterson at gmail.com (Roe Peterson) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:22:12 -0600 Subject: XXDP generic memory test In-Reply-To: <54CB1EF0.3030602@t-online.de> References: <7359B99C-EAE8-4AF5-BCA6-3FA7C18A7CA7@gmail.com> <20150129122452.7cf8614b@asrock.bcwi.net> <54CB1EF0.3030602@t-online.de> Message-ID: > On Jan 30, 2015, at 12:04 AM, J?rg Hoppe wrote: > > Hi, > > A year ago I made a database of all PDP-11 diagnostics found on the web: Thanks for the links, I've already added bookmarks. Nice work, and thanks for doing it. From elson at pico-systems.com Fri Jan 30 10:35:39 2015 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:35:39 -0600 Subject: 11/34 up! (sort of) In-Reply-To: References: <54C9BBC7.1060508@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: <54CBB2DB.1070906@pico-systems.com> On 01/29/2015 10:08 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > Thanks, Jon. I tried this simple test via the front panel. It wrote and > read back the memory perfectly, just as I'd entered it. > > Well, so much for THAT idea! Jon From bqt at update.uu.se Fri Jan 30 10:38:45 2015 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 17:38:45 +0100 Subject: UNIBUS PDP-11 memory expander card In-Reply-To: <20150130145650.06D9218C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150130145650.06D9218C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54CBB395.9050402@update.uu.se> On 2015-01-30 15:56, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: jws > > > I sent a bit of this thread along to Ken Omohundro who founded Able .. > > If he sends anything else along, I'll get it to somewhere people can > > find out about it. > > Neat! Thanks! > > > I probably have data sheets archived and I will scan them as a PDF file > > Those would be great - I hope they include enough detail to explain how the > ENABLE hooked up the various busses, cache, etc! I live in hope that someone > finds a manual, because that may be the only way these questions get answered. Based on the product you talk about, I would guess it just appeared as normal memory, with additional mapping to a larger memory space done in that box. I think such a product would be really easy to make. > Also, I wonder if the product called the "ENABLE/34" (per various brochures, > Muuss' email, etc) and the "ENABLE" we ran in the 11/45 were actually the same > thing, and they had just changed the name, perhaps because people might have > assumed, from the "ENABLE/34" name, that it was only for /34's, when in fact > it could run in any UNIBUS machine? The name change may have opened up a > bigger market for them. Anyway, another mystery about these things! The brochures that mentions the Enable/34 that I put in links to said it was for the 11/34, 11/45 and 11/60. If this was the same product as the one you had called "Enable" is another question. Your description does not at all match the thing I was running in an 11/34. 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 ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 30 11:13:23 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 17:13:23 +0000 Subject: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay In-Reply-To: <20150130131322.7C72118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20150130131322.7C72118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: > > Here: > > http://www.ebay.com/itm/141300893919 > > The seller has them listed at 'Buy-It-Now' for $1,800, but the listing does > say 'make an offer', so you might be able to get it down a ways, to something > more reasonable. They seem like they have an interesting (non-identical) set > of peripheral cards. However, I know nothing of HP's, so take this all with a > large grain of salt! Pity they're the wrong side of the Pond :-(. The HP1000 series is one machine I have never managed to find, and of course I am generally an HP-lover. Oh well, one will turn up over here sometime... -tony From js at cimmeri.com Fri Jan 30 11:23:35 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 12:23:35 -0500 Subject: OT Re: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay In-Reply-To: References: <20150130131322.7C72118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <54CBBE17.7050408@cimmeri.com> On 1/30/2015 12:13 PM, tony duell wrote: >> Here: >> >> http://www.ebay.com/itm/141300893919 >> >> The seller has them listed at 'Buy-It-Now' for $1,800, but the listing does >> say 'make an offer', so you might be able to get it down a ways, to something >> more reasonable. They seem like they have an interesting (non-identical) set >> of peripheral cards. However, I know nothing of HP's, so take this all with a >> large grain of salt! > Pity they're the wrong side of the Pond :-(... > > -tony It's not a pond.. it's an ocean. Why do some people insist on calling it a pond? And "whilst" I'm at it, why do some insist on using "blinkenlights" in re CPU front panels instead of correct English -- blinking lights? - J. From imp at bsdimp.com Fri Jan 30 11:35:57 2015 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 11:35:57 -0600 Subject: OT Re: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay In-Reply-To: <54CBBE17.7050408@cimmeri.com> References: <20150130131322.7C72118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54CBBE17.7050408@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <7EF54CE0-39AD-4A05-9720-3E99447FF534@bsdimp.com> > On Jan 30, 2015, at 11:23 AM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > > > > On 1/30/2015 12:13 PM, tony duell wrote: >>> Here: >>> >>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/141300893919 >>> >>> The seller has them listed at 'Buy-It-Now' for $1,800, but the listing does >>> say 'make an offer', so you might be able to get it down a ways, to something >>> more reasonable. They seem like they have an interesting (non-identical) set >>> of peripheral cards. However, I know nothing of HP's, so take this all with a >>> large grain of salt! >> Pity they're the wrong side of the Pond :-(... >> >> -tony > > It's not a pond.. it's an ocean. Why do some people insist on calling it a pond? > > And "whilst" I'm at it, why do some insist on using "blinkenlights" in re CPU front panels instead of correct English -- blinking lights? Because the Faux German Blinkenlights is so much cooler to say. It?s a corruption of Blinenlichten from an old joke: ACHTUNG! ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENPEEPERS! DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT F?R DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN. IST NICHT F?R GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN H?NDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS. ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN. which dates to the 1950?s? See also the insistence on the plural of VAX being VAXEN. Warner From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Fri Jan 30 12:00:18 2015 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave G4UGM) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 18:00:18 -0000 Subject: OT Re: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay In-Reply-To: <54CBBE17.7050408@cimmeri.com> References: <20150130131322.7C72118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54CBBE17.7050408@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <00b101d03cb6$9bc72b20$d3558160$@gmail.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of > js at cimmeri.com > Sent: 30 January 2015 17:24 > To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off- > Topic Posts > Subject: OT Re: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay > > > > On 1/30/2015 12:13 PM, tony duell wrote: > >> Here: > >> > >> http://www.ebay.com/itm/141300893919 > >> > >> The seller has them listed at 'Buy-It-Now' for $1,800, but the > >> listing does say 'make an offer', so you might be able to get it down > >> a ways, to something more reasonable. They seem like they have an > >> interesting (non-identical) set of peripheral cards. However, I know > >> nothing of HP's, so take this all with a large grain of salt! > > Pity they're the wrong side of the Pond :-(... > > > > -tony > > It's not a pond.. it's an ocean. Why do some people insist on calling it a pond? > The same reason "Little John" of Robin Hoods Merry men was called "Little" .... I guess in understatement gone over the top... http://www.debretts.com/british-etiquette/british-behaviour/t-z/understateme nt > And "whilst" I'm at it, why do some > insist on using "blinkenlights" in re > CPU front panels instead of correct > English -- blinking lights? > > - J. > > > From mhs.stein at gmail.com Fri Jan 30 12:22:07 2015 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:22:07 -0500 Subject: OT Re: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay References: <20150130131322.7C72118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54CBBE17.7050408@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <8FF227923666445783B4CC7C99D7F10E@310e2> ----- Original Message ----- From: Sent: Friday, January 30, 2015 12:23 PM > > > On 1/30/2015 12:13 PM, tony duell wrote: ... >> Pity they're the wrong side of the Pond :-(... >> >> -tony > > It's not a pond.. it's an ocean. Why do > some people insist on calling it a pond? ----- Reply ----- It's not just 'a' pond, it's 'the' Pond! (Capital P): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pond From cctalk at fahimi.net Fri Jan 30 12:29:57 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:29:57 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <20150129124422.U15904@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <026e01d03cba$c2424150$46c6c3f0$@net> > On 29 January 2015 at 21:45, Fred Cisin wrote: > > And then store them in the dark in a vacuum at 0 degrees kelvin? > > > No, the outgassing of volatiles would be a problem... > Technically there should be no out gassing at 0 Kelvin.... ;) -Ali From cctalk at fahimi.net Fri Jan 30 12:29:57 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:29:57 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CAB009.4070808@bitsavers.org> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> <54CAA8F8.2000506@sydex.com> <54CAADCD.6050004@bitsavers.org> <54CAB009.4070808@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <026f01d03cba$c3597db0$4a0c7910$@net> > The Norprene tubing I'm using is Shore A 61 > > http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=23485 Al, How are you using these? Do you have the original OD and ID measurements of the roller and slip the tube with the right OD over it? The only tape drives I've "repaired" were a pair of IBM 6157s and I was lucky enough to find replacement capstans for them. But I do have a number of QIC drives on older systems that may be hard to find parts for. Just trying to plan ahead! From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 30 12:44:41 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:44:41 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <026f01d03cba$c3597db0$4a0c7910$@net> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> <54CAA8F8.2000506@sydex.com> <54CAADCD.6050004@bitsavers.org> <54CAB009.4070808@bitsavers.org> <026f01d03cba$c3597db0$4a0c7910$@net> Message-ID: <54CBD119.8050003@bitsavers.org> On 1/30/15 10:29 AM, Ali wrote: > How are you using these? Do you have the original OD and ID measurements of > the roller and slip the tube with the right OD over it? > Correct. You obviously have to have one surviving roller to be able to do this. Brad Parker fixed some TU58's a while ago and sent me a 1' piece of Norprene that a friend of mine cut for me. You end up with a lot extra because you have to buy 10' minimum. He also just did a few for the 9145s we have. You put a dowel inside the tube and cut using dish soap as a lubricant. He used an Xacto Saw blade. I guess creating a table for tubing diamaters that work with common pinch roller types would be a good thing. There are some rollers that may be difficult to do. The early DEI 1/4" cartridge drives have very small rollers. There hasn't been much experimentation yet as far as how much the outer diameter can vary. Most of the cartridge tapes I know of use self-clocking encoding formats, so it might actually be quite a bit. From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Fri Jan 30 13:11:40 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:11:40 -0500 Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' In-Reply-To: References: <00ca01d03c95$a973da00$fc5b8e00$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: As I mentioned some hours ago, compiling it on a real unix machine instead of the Mac cleared up the problem and now it's working, as you put it, "delightfully." It literally does delight me to just watch it run and blink the lights, etc. :) Honestly, my first inclination is that there was a problem with the cheap usb-to-serial dongle I was using mangling characters. I've seen it senselessly corrupt output from the pdp11 before. On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 10:34 AM, Ian S. King wrote: > I too have used VTserver many times. It's a delightfully clever tool. And > don't forget, that for PDP-8 there's David Gesswein's dumprest, which also > works very well. I've used VTserver to build RK05s for Unix 6th Ed. on my > 11/34 and dumprest to build RK05s for OS/8 on LCM's 8/e. > > Jacob, I don't know why it would have hung for you unless the copy program > is buggered. I used VTserver without modification and without problem. -- > Ian > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 6:04 AM, Jay West wrote: > > > I have used it quite a bit, and it always "just worked" for me. Wonderful > > piece of software. I should do something similar for the 21MX :) > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jacob > > Ritorto > > Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 10:34 PM > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' > > > > Has anyone used this software > > ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver/README against a real pdp11? > > I'm trying to use it to install a disk image on my 11/34, now, and after > > keying in the initial code, it appears to happily upload the first file > > (standalone 'copy') quite successfully, but then hangs. Since Warren has > > no real pdp11s, I'm wondering if the emulators he used whilst authoring > > this VTserver do something different than a real '11 that keeps the > program > > from proceeding. > > > > thx > > jake > > > > > > > > > -- > Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS > Ph.D. Candidate > The Information School > University of Washington > > An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees it half empty. An > engineer sees it twice as large as it needs to be. > From killingsworth.todd at gmail.com Fri Jan 30 13:18:16 2015 From: killingsworth.todd at gmail.com (Todd Killingsworth) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:18:16 -0500 Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' In-Reply-To: References: <00ca01d03c95$a973da00$fc5b8e00$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: There is something odd in getting the Mac to talk through a USB ->serial cable. I was having similar problems trying to get my MBP->USB->serial setup working with my Sun v880. The biggest problem seems to be that all the funky cables each have their own special drivers, and the manufacturers don't keep the drivers up to date with all the OS X releases. I eventually broke down and got a program called 'Serial' - the company that makes it seems to have a business model of getting the serial cables from any and all manufacturers working. It was $20, but I'd rather have one laptop that can talk to all my boxes and do my other work as well. On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 2:11 PM, Jacob Ritorto wrote: > As I mentioned some hours ago, compiling it on a real unix machine instead > of the Mac cleared up the problem and now it's working, as you put it, > "delightfully." > > It literally does delight me to just watch it run and blink the lights, > etc. :) > > Honestly, my first inclination is that there was a problem with the cheap > usb-to-serial dongle I was using mangling characters. I've seen it > senselessly corrupt output from the pdp11 before. > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 10:34 AM, Ian S. King wrote: > > > I too have used VTserver many times. It's a delightfully clever tool. > And > > don't forget, that for PDP-8 there's David Gesswein's dumprest, which > also > > works very well. I've used VTserver to build RK05s for Unix 6th Ed. on > my > > 11/34 and dumprest to build RK05s for OS/8 on LCM's 8/e. > > > > Jacob, I don't know why it would have hung for you unless the copy > program > > is buggered. I used VTserver without modification and without problem. > -- > > Ian > > > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 6:04 AM, Jay West wrote: > > > > > I have used it quite a bit, and it always "just worked" for me. > Wonderful > > > piece of software. I should do something similar for the 21MX :) > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jacob > > > Ritorto > > > Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 10:34 PM > > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > > Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' > > > > > > Has anyone used this software > > > ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver/README against a real pdp11? > > > I'm trying to use it to install a disk image on my 11/34, now, and > after > > > keying in the initial code, it appears to happily upload the first file > > > (standalone 'copy') quite successfully, but then hangs. Since Warren > has > > > no real pdp11s, I'm wondering if the emulators he used whilst authoring > > > this VTserver do something different than a real '11 that keeps the > > program > > > from proceeding. > > > > > > thx > > > jake > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS > > Ph.D. Candidate > > The Information School > > University of Washington > > > > An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees it half empty. An > > engineer sees it twice as large as it needs to be. > > > From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Fri Jan 30 13:25:19 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:25:19 -0500 Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' In-Reply-To: References: <00ca01d03c95$a973da00$fc5b8e00$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: Yeah, why is serial so dodgy on Mac? I had to manually load kernel extensions for the PL2303 usb/serial uart, and now it works for normal stuff. Code was on github or something. Nice and hackerly. I think when things get weird, like 7-bit ASCII or weird stuff that's not even normal characters, the thing just falls over. I get totally normal behaviour when using it with RT-11, RSX-11M, XXDP, but as soon as I boot 2.9BSD, the thing goes wild. Using my old SPARC workstation (with it's REAL serial port) to run VTserver has solved the problem (and has also given me an excuse to have ANOTHER neat old machine in the library and out of storage :) On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 2:18 PM, Todd Killingsworth < killingsworth.todd at gmail.com> wrote: > There is something odd in getting the Mac to talk through a USB ->serial > cable. > I was having similar problems trying to get my MBP->USB->serial setup > working with my Sun v880. > The biggest problem seems to be that all the funky cables each have their > own special drivers, and the manufacturers don't keep the drivers up to > date with all the OS X releases. > > I eventually broke down and got a program called 'Serial' - the company > that makes it seems to have a business model of getting the serial cables > from any and all manufacturers working. > > It was $20, but I'd rather have one laptop that can talk to all my boxes > and do my other work as well. > > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 2:11 PM, Jacob Ritorto > wrote: > > > As I mentioned some hours ago, compiling it on a real unix machine > instead > > of the Mac cleared up the problem and now it's working, as you put it, > > "delightfully." > > > > It literally does delight me to just watch it run and blink the lights, > > etc. :) > > > > Honestly, my first inclination is that there was a problem with the cheap > > usb-to-serial dongle I was using mangling characters. I've seen it > > senselessly corrupt output from the pdp11 before. > > > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 10:34 AM, Ian S. King wrote: > > > > > I too have used VTserver many times. It's a delightfully clever tool. > > And > > > don't forget, that for PDP-8 there's David Gesswein's dumprest, which > > also > > > works very well. I've used VTserver to build RK05s for Unix 6th Ed. on > > my > > > 11/34 and dumprest to build RK05s for OS/8 on LCM's 8/e. > > > > > > Jacob, I don't know why it would have hung for you unless the copy > > program > > > is buggered. I used VTserver without modification and without problem. > > -- > > > Ian > > > > > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 6:04 AM, Jay West > wrote: > > > > > > > I have used it quite a bit, and it always "just worked" for me. > > Wonderful > > > > piece of software. I should do something similar for the 21MX :) > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of > Jacob > > > > Ritorto > > > > Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 10:34 PM > > > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > > > Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' > > > > > > > > Has anyone used this software > > > > ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver/README against a real > pdp11? > > > > I'm trying to use it to install a disk image on my 11/34, now, and > > after > > > > keying in the initial code, it appears to happily upload the first > file > > > > (standalone 'copy') quite successfully, but then hangs. Since Warren > > has > > > > no real pdp11s, I'm wondering if the emulators he used whilst > authoring > > > > this VTserver do something different than a real '11 that keeps the > > > program > > > > from proceeding. > > > > > > > > thx > > > > jake > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS > > > Ph.D. Candidate > > > The Information School > > > University of Washington > > > > > > An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees it half empty. An > > > engineer sees it twice as large as it needs to be. > > > > > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 30 13:27:48 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 19:27:48 +0000 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <026e01d03cba$c2424150$46c6c3f0$@net> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <20150129124422.U15904@shell.lmi.net> , <026e01d03cba$c2424150$46c6c3f0$@net> Message-ID: > > On 29 January 2015 at 21:45, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > And then store them in the dark in a vacuum at 0 degrees kelvin? > > > > > No, the outgassing of volatiles would be a problem... > > > > Technically there should be no out gassing at 0 Kelvin.... ;) Ah yes, but then there are the 3 laws of thermodynamics which have been expressed as : 1st : You can't win, you can only break even 2nd : You can only break even at absolute zero 3rd : You can't get to absolute zerp :-) -tony From drb at msu.edu Fri Jan 30 13:40:00 2015 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:40:00 -0500 Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' In-Reply-To: (Your message of Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:25:19 -0500.) References: <00ca01d03c95$a973da00$fc5b8e00$@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20150130194000.4D90EA58094@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > ... Using my old SPARC workstation (with it's REAL serial port) ... "Is that a real poncho, or is that a SEARS poncho?" De From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 30 13:43:17 2015 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (tony duell) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 19:43:17 +0000 Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' In-Reply-To: References: <00ca01d03c95$a973da00$fc5b8e00$@classiccmp.org> , Message-ID: > > Using my old SPARC workstation (with it's REAL serial port) to run VTserver As opposed to an INTEGER serial port? :-) -tony From imp at bsdimp.com Fri Jan 30 13:44:47 2015 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:44:47 -0600 Subject: Warren's 'VTserver' In-Reply-To: References: <00ca01d03c95$a973da00$fc5b8e00$@classiccmp.org> <, > Message-ID: <58F90414-30A6-4872-953B-D9C767AC487E@bsdimp.com> > On Jan 30, 2015, at 1:43 PM, tony duell wrote: > >> >> Using my old SPARC workstation (with it's REAL serial port) to run VTserver > > As opposed to an INTEGER serial port? :-) I have a COMPLEX serial port. Warner From marc.verdiell at gmail.com Fri Jan 30 14:16:21 2015 From: marc.verdiell at gmail.com (Marc Verdiell) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 12:16:21 -0800 Subject: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay Message-ID: <038801d03cc9$9e212610$da637230$@gmail.com> >ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN. This is hilarious (particularly if you know German)! I didn't know about it, thanks for posting! I'll hang it above my collection! Marc ------------------ Because the Faux German Blinkenlights is so much cooler to say. It?s a corruption of Blinenlichten from an old joke: ACHTUNG! ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENPEEPERS! DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT F?R DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN. IST NICHT F?R GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN H?NDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS. ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN. which dates to the 1950?s? See also the insistence on the plural of VAX being VAXEN. Warner ----------------- From aswood at t-online.de Fri Jan 30 15:21:56 2015 From: aswood at t-online.de (Andreas Holz) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 22:21:56 +0100 Subject: OT Re: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay In-Reply-To: <7EF54CE0-39AD-4A05-9720-3E99447FF534@bsdimp.com> References: <20150130131322.7C72118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54CBBE17.7050408@cimmeri.com> <7EF54CE0-39AD-4A05-9720-3E99447FF534@bsdimp.com> Message-ID: <067A9272-ABD2-4851-9DC1-C3754FFB4EEE@t-online.de> This one hung at the cyber 176 console I was working on in the end of the 70s. > Am 30.01.2015 um 18:35 schrieb Warner Losh : > > >> On Jan 30, 2015, at 11:23 AM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: >> >> >> >> On 1/30/2015 12:13 PM, tony duell wrote: >>>> Here: >>>> >>>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/141300893919 >>>> >>>> The seller has them listed at 'Buy-It-Now' for $1,800, but the listing does >>>> say 'make an offer', so you might be able to get it down a ways, to something >>>> more reasonable. They seem like they have an interesting (non-identical) set >>>> of peripheral cards. However, I know nothing of HP's, so take this all with a >>>> large grain of salt! >>> Pity they're the wrong side of the Pond :-(... >>> >>> -tony >> >> It's not a pond.. it's an ocean. Why do some people insist on calling it a pond? >> >> And "whilst" I'm at it, why do some insist on using "blinkenlights" in re CPU front panels instead of correct English -- blinking lights? > > Because the Faux German Blinkenlights is so much cooler to say. It?s a corruption of Blinenlichten from an old joke: > > ACHTUNG! > ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENPEEPERS! > DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT F?R DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN. > IST NICHT F?R GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN H?NDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS. > ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN. > > which dates to the 1950?s? > > See also the insistence on the plural of VAX being VAXEN. > > Warner From spc at conman.org Fri Jan 30 15:30:05 2015 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 16:30:05 -0500 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <20150129124422.U15904@shell.lmi.net> <026e01d03cba$c2424150$46c6c3f0$@net> Message-ID: <20150130213005.GC21580@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great tony duell once stated: > > > On 29 January 2015 at 21:45, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > > And then store them in the dark in a vacuum at 0 degrees kelvin? > > > > > > > No, the outgassing of volatiles would be a problem... > > > > > > > Technically there should be no out gassing at 0 Kelvin.... ;) > > Ah yes, but then there are the 3 laws of thermodynamics which have been expressed as : > > 1st : You can't win, you can only break even > > 2nd : You can only break even at absolute zero > > 3rd : You can't get to absolute zerp I've heard them stated as: 1. You can't win 2. You can't break even 3. You can't get out of the game. -spc From ak6dn at mindspring.com Fri Jan 30 15:37:05 2015 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:37:05 -0800 (GMT-08:00) Subject: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 Message-ID: <20437108.1422653825526.JavaMail.root@wamui-haziran.atl.sa.earthlink.net> -----Original Message----- >From: Noel Chiappa >Sent: Jan 30, 2015 5:19 AM >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu >Subject: Re: strange number corruption on pdp11/34 > > > From: Don North > > > So here is the octal print routine in the M9312 console boot prom for > > the '34: > >I'm curious, is that the 'original' source, or is this dis-assembled from the >PROM contents? Is the complete program available somewhere? Disassembled and re-commented source. Available here: http://ak6dn.dyndns.org/PDP-11/M9312/ along with most all of the other M9312 boot and device PROMS. > > > So I would speculate either 'rol' or 'rolb' are always rotating in a 0 > > bit instead of the c-bit, or possibly the c-bit is stuck at zero. > >Yup, good suggestion. And that would likely explain why things boot; I can't >see too many OS's using 'ROLB'! > > Noel From derschjo at gmail.com Fri Jan 30 15:41:24 2015 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:41:24 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CBD119.8050003@bitsavers.org> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> <54CAA8F8.2000506@sydex.com> <54CAADCD.6050004@bitsavers.org> <54CAB009.4070808@bitsavers.org> <026f01d03cba$c3597db0$4a0c7910$@net> <54CBD119.8050003@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: To add a recent experience of mine, I recently rebuilt a Cipher 540 QIC drive (in a Ridge32). The ID/OD of the capstan wheel on this drive is (roughly) 31/64" ID, 5/8" OD (i.e. the inner diameter is JUST a shade under 1/2"), with a thickness of 1/4". I found some 3/32" thick square o-rings with a 7/16" inner diameter and 5/8" outer for $0.10 each (from http://www.theoringstore.com/) and I ordered a few -- the inner diameter is a bit smaller than required, but I figured it'd just make it stay on better (well, why not for the price...) After cleaning the goo on the capstan off (which is an ugly procedure...) two of the rings fit snugly on the metal capstan wheel (leaving about 1/16" at the bottom uncovered, which is ok since that area will probably never actually need to contact the tape roller), and with a tiny amount of glue they stay affixed quite nicely. I've since erased/retensioned a few tapes and written a few tapes out without issue. Also got RX/V installed on the Ridge using it. I can't say it'll work for a *long* time, but it has worked fine thus far and was enough to bring a doorstop back to life. (Well, now the power supply is causing issues, but at least that doesn't involve getting tar all over my fingers...) - Josh On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 10:44 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/30/15 10:29 AM, Ali wrote: > > How are you using these? Do you have the original OD and ID measurements >> of >> the roller and slip the tube with the right OD over it? >> >> > Correct. You obviously have to have one surviving roller to be able to do > this. > > Brad Parker fixed some TU58's a while ago and sent me a 1' piece of > Norprene that > a friend of mine cut for me. You end up with a lot extra because you have > to buy > 10' minimum. He also just did a few for the 9145s we have. You put > a dowel inside the tube and cut using dish soap as a lubricant. He used an > Xacto > Saw blade. > > I guess creating a table for tubing diamaters that work with common pinch > roller > types would be a good thing. There are some rollers that may be difficult > to do. > The early DEI 1/4" cartridge drives have very small rollers. There hasn't > been > much experimentation yet as far as how much the outer diameter can vary. > Most of > the cartridge tapes I know of use self-clocking encoding formats, so it > might > actually be quite a bit. > > > > > From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 30 16:10:58 2015 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:10:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Three laws of thermodynamics In-Reply-To: <20150130213005.GC21580@brevard.conman.org> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <20150129124422.U15904@shell.lmi.net> <026e01d03cba$c2424150$46c6c3f0$@net> <20150130213005.GC21580@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <20150130140845.T31843@shell.lmi.net> > > Ah yes, but then there are the 3 laws of thermodynamics which have been expressed as : > > 1st : You can't win, you can only break even > > 2nd : You can only break even at absolute zero > > 3rd : You can't get to absolute zerp > > I've heard them stated as: > 1. You can't win > 2. You can't break even > 3. You can't get out of the game. The reason why "political solutions" is an oxymoron: 1. Capitalism is based on the premise that you can win. 2. Socialism is based on the premise that you can break even. 3. Anarchism is based on the premise that you can get out of the game. From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Jan 30 16:35:08 2015 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 16:35:08 -0600 Subject: OT Re: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay In-Reply-To: <54CBBE17.7050408@cimmeri.com> References: <20150130131322.7C72118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54CBBE17.7050408@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <54CC071C.9060902@gmail.com> On 01/30/2015 11:23 AM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > It's not a pond.. it's an ocean. Why do some people insist on calling it a > pond? I'm not sure that the definition of a pond includes some form of boundary - so if you zoom out far enough, it is a pond, albeit a very big one. > And "whilst" I'm at it, why do some insist on using "blinkenlights" in re > CPU front panels instead of correct English -- blinking lights? Because it's mildly amusing. J. From js at cimmeri.com Fri Jan 30 16:43:44 2015 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 17:43:44 -0500 Subject: OT Re: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay In-Reply-To: <54CC071C.9060902@gmail.com> References: <20150130131322.7C72118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54CBBE17.7050408@cimmeri.com> <54CC071C.9060902@gmail.com> Message-ID: <54CC0920.4010205@cimmeri.com> On 1/30/2015 5:35 PM, Jules Richardson wrote: > On 01/30/2015 11:23 AM, js at cimmeri.com > wrote: >> It's not a pond.. it's an ocean. Why >> do some people insist on calling it a >> pond? > > I'm not sure that the definition of a > pond includes some form of boundary - > so if you zoom out far enough, it is a > pond, albeit a very big one. pond (p1/4nd) n. A still body of water smaller than a lake, often of artificial origin. [Middle English ponde, from Old English pund-, enclosure.] > >> And "whilst" I'm at it, why do some >> insist on using "blinkenlights" in re >> CPU front panels instead of correct >> English -- blinking lights? > > Because it's mildly amusing. Maybe the first time it was... :) - J. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 30 16:48:59 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:48:59 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> <54CAA8F8.2000506@sydex.com> <54CAADCD.6050004@bitsavers.org> <54CAB009.4070808@bitsavers.org> <026f01d03cba$c3597db0$4a0c7910$@net> <54CBD119.8050003@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <54CC0A5B.4060803@sydex.com> On 01/30/2015 01:41 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: > To add a recent experience of mine, I recently rebuilt a Cipher 540 QIC > drive (in a Ridge32). > > The ID/OD of the capstan wheel on this drive is (roughly) 31/64" ID, 5/8" > OD (i.e. the inner diameter is JUST a shade under 1/2"), with a thickness > of 1/4". I found some 3/32" thick square o-rings with a 7/16" inner > diameter and 5/8" outer for $0.10 each (from http://www.theoringstore.com/) > and I ordered a few -- the inner diameter is a bit smaller than required, > but I figured it'd just make it stay on better (well, why not for the > price...) Hmm, I wonder if an Amphenol neoprene cable bushing might provide a source there. You'd want to stretch it a little, of course. http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/18/10-35910_C_Page1-187700.pdf Cheap enough. --Chuck From djg at pdp8online.com Fri Jan 30 12:31:40 2015 From: djg at pdp8online.com (David Gesswein) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:31:40 -0500 Subject: PDP-8/E EAE MUY Instruction In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150130183140.GA374@hugin2.pdp8online.com> On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 04:16:40PM -0600, Kyle Owen wrote: > > I don't have an actual EAE to test this all with, but I'd appreciate anyone > with one to test out a bit of code to confirm. > I see you later solved it but if you need to check anything further with a real EAE my online machine has one. http://www.pdp8online.com/run.shtml From cctalk at fahimi.net Fri Jan 30 19:21:07 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 17:21:07 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <20150129124422.U15904@shell.lmi.net> , <026e01d03cba$c2424150$46c6c3f0$@net> Message-ID: <02fa01d03cf4$3210c130$96324390$@net> > Ah yes, but then there are the 3 laws of thermodynamics which have been > expressed as : > > 1st : You can't win, you can only break even > > 2nd : You can only break even at absolute zero > > 3rd : You can't get to absolute zerp > True Tony. But the OP apparently has solved 0K problem. He just can't save his capstans from turning into goo... From cctalk at fahimi.net Fri Jan 30 19:32:21 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 17:32:21 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CC0A5B.4060803@sydex.com> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> <54CAA8F8.2000506@sydex.com> <54CAADCD.6050004@bitsavers.org> <54CAB009.4070808@bitsavers.org> <026f01d03cba$c3597db0$4a0c7910$@net> <54CBD119.8050003@bitsavers.org> <54CC0A5B.4060803@sydex.com> Message-ID: <031901d03cf5$c4065db0$4c131910$@net> > On 01/30/2015 01:41 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: > > To add a recent experience of mine, I recently rebuilt a Cipher 540 > > QIC drive (in a Ridge32). > > > > The ID/OD of the capstan wheel on this drive is (roughly) 31/64" ID, > 5/8" > > OD (i.e. the inner diameter is JUST a shade under 1/2"), with a > > thickness of 1/4". I found some 3/32" thick square o-rings with a > > 7/16" inner diameter and 5/8" outer for $0.10 each (from > > http://www.theoringstore.com/) and I ordered a few -- the inner > > diameter is a bit smaller than required, but I figured it'd just make > > it stay on better (well, why not for the > > price...) Hi, I am glad to hear this is (at least for now) working for you! The IBM 6157 is essentially a rebadged Cipher 540. As I mentioned elsewhere there was a source for replacement capstans on eBay until recently. I could not find the seller when I just looked. Assuming he no longer has good replacements this may be a way to maintain my 4x6157 and 3xCipher 540s! Thanks. From cctalk at fahimi.net Fri Jan 30 19:36:44 2015 From: cctalk at fahimi.net (Ali) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 17:36:44 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CBD119.8050003@bitsavers.org> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com> <54CAA8F8.2000506@sydex.com> <54CAADCD.6050004@bitsavers.org> <54CAB009.4070808@bitsavers.org> <026f01d03cba$c3597db0$4a0c7910$@net> <54CBD119.8050003@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <031f01d03cf6$6082f180$2188d480$@net> > I guess creating a table for tubing diamaters that work with common > pinch roller types would be a good thing. There are some rollers that > may be difficult to do. That would be a fantastic resource. However, as you mentioned there are many models out there specially in the consumer space (e.g. all the Taravan drives) and it may be very hard to accomplish. I am just shooting the breeze but many drives are just rebadges of other drives (e.g. Connor T-stor/Seagate T-stor or IBM 6157/Cipher 540s) I wonder how much sharing is there in the transport space? i.e. If different models/brand used the same transport mechanism and same "off the shelf" parts to save costs... That may reduce the chart size significantly. From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 30 21:14:54 2015 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 21:14:54 -0600 Subject: 3Dprint switches Message-ID: <000001d03d04$165f6b20$431e4160$@classiccmp.org> I don't recall if this was talked about here before, but I just found these via google. PDP8 http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:360853 HP 21MX http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:330821 and http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:331984 Best, J From kspt.tor at gmail.com Sat Jan 31 00:48:09 2015 From: kspt.tor at gmail.com (Tor Arntsen) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 07:48:09 +0100 Subject: OT Re: Pair of HP 1000 E-Series minicomputers on eBay Message-ID: On 30 January 2015 at 23:43, js at cimmeri.com wrote: > > > On 1/30/2015 5:35 PM, Jules Richardson wrote: >> >>> And "whilst" I'm at it, why do some insist on using "blinkenlights" in re >>> CPU front panels instead of correct English -- blinking lights? >> >> >> Because it's mildly amusing. > > > Maybe the first time it was... :) It's not only that. It's because 'blinking lights' is generic, it could mean anything. But 'blinkenlights'.. you'll *know* what it means. From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Fri Jan 30 23:21:08 2015 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 21:21:08 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CBD119.8050003@bitsavers.org> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net>, <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com>, <54CAA8F8.2000506@sydex.com>,<54CAADCD.6050004@bitsavers.org> <54CAB009.4070808@bitsavers.org>, <026f01d03cba$c3597db0$4a0c7910$@net>, <54CBD119.8050003@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: I found these to companies that specalize in rebuilding rubber rollers. I have not used them yet, but going to see what happens with a RCA tape recorder from the 60's, that works fine but is slipping. http://www.terrysrubberrollers.com/ http://www.thevoiceofmusic.com/default.asp Randy > Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:44:41 -0800 > From: aek at bitsavers.org > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Tape Drive Capstans > > On 1/30/15 10:29 AM, Ali wrote: > > > How are you using these? Do you have the original OD and ID measurements of > > the roller and slip the tube with the right OD over it? > > > > Correct. You obviously have to have one surviving roller to be able to do this. > > Brad Parker fixed some TU58's a while ago and sent me a 1' piece of Norprene that > a friend of mine cut for me. You end up with a lot extra because you have to buy > 10' minimum. He also just did a few for the 9145s we have. You put > a dowel inside the tube and cut using dish soap as a lubricant. He used an Xacto > Saw blade. > > I guess creating a table for tubing diamaters that work with common pinch roller > types would be a good thing. There are some rollers that may be difficult to do. > The early DEI 1/4" cartridge drives have very small rollers. There hasn't been > much experimentation yet as far as how much the outer diameter can vary. Most of > the cartridge tapes I know of use self-clocking encoding formats, so it might > actually be quite a bit. > > > > From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Fri Jan 30 23:21:08 2015 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 21:21:08 -0800 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CBD119.8050003@bitsavers.org> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net>, <83673CAF-1AEB-41C6-B790-7ECADECD2663@uniwho.com>, <54CAA8F8.2000506@sydex.com>,<54CAADCD.6050004@bitsavers.org> <54CAB009.4070808@bitsavers.org>, <026f01d03cba$c3597db0$4a0c7910$@net>, <54CBD119.8050003@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: I found these to companies that specalize in rebuilding rubber rollers. I have not used them yet, but going to see what happens with a RCA tape recorder from the 60's, that works fine but is slipping. http://www.terrysrubberrollers.com/ http://www.thevoiceofmusic.com/default.asp Randy > Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:44:41 -0800 > From: aek at bitsavers.org > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Tape Drive Capstans > > On 1/30/15 10:29 AM, Ali wrote: > > > How are you using these? Do you have the original OD and ID measurements of > > the roller and slip the tube with the right OD over it? > > > > Correct. You obviously have to have one surviving roller to be able to do this. > > Brad Parker fixed some TU58's a while ago and sent me a 1' piece of Norprene that > a friend of mine cut for me. You end up with a lot extra because you have to buy > 10' minimum. He also just did a few for the 9145s we have. You put > a dowel inside the tube and cut using dish soap as a lubricant. He used an Xacto > Saw blade. > > I guess creating a table for tubing diamaters that work with common pinch roller > types would be a good thing. There are some rollers that may be difficult to do. > The early DEI 1/4" cartridge drives have very small rollers. There hasn't been > much experimentation yet as far as how much the outer diameter can vary. Most of > the cartridge tapes I know of use self-clocking encoding formats, so it might > actually be quite a bit. > > > > From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jan 31 02:57:52 2015 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 00:57:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <54CAC8B5.4090506@bitsavers.org> References: <20150129210247.891E318C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <54CAC8B5.4090506@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2015, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/29/15 3:39 PM, Matt Patoray wrote: >> Rubber rollers and wheels can be rebuilt > > Terry's Rubber Rollers is where most people go. > > http://www.terrysrubberrollers.com/ I know this is going to come up, so here's a place that resurfaces platens for typewriters and maybe impact printers too: http://www.jjshort.com/typewriter-platen-repair.php -- 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 dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jan 31 03:04:59 2015 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 01:04:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <20150129124422.U15904@shell.lmi.net> , <026e01d03cba$c2424150$46c6c3f0$@net> Message-ID: On Fri, 30 Jan 2015, tony duell wrote: >>> On 29 January 2015 at 21:45, Fred Cisin wrote: >> > > And then store them in the dark in a vacuum at 0 degrees kelvin? >> > > >> > No, the outgassing of volatiles would be a problem... >> > >> >> Technically there should be no out gassing at 0 Kelvin.... ;) > > Ah yes, but then there are the 3 laws of thermodynamics which have been expressed as : > > 1st : You can't win, you can only break even > > 2nd : You can only break even at absolute zero > > 3rd : You can't get to absolute zerp ^^^^ I'm going to add "zerp" to my list of synonyms for "zero". -- 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 cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Sat Jan 31 04:51:48 2015 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 10:51:48 +0000 (WET) Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: "Your message dated Sat, 31 Jan 2015 01:04:59 -0800 (PST)" References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <20150129124422.U15904@shell.lmi.net> <026e01d03cba$c2424150$46c6c3f0$@net> Message-ID: <01PHYRKDASQG005QF2@beyondthepale.ie> David Griffith wrote: > >On Fri, 30 Jan 2015, tony duell wrote: > >>>> On 29 January 2015 at 21:45, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> > > And then store them in the dark in a vacuum at 0 degrees kelvin? >>> > > >>> > No, the outgassing of volatiles would be a problem... >>> > >>> >>> Technically there should be no out gassing at 0 Kelvin.... ;) >> >> Ah yes, but then there are the 3 laws of thermodynamics which have been expressed as : >> >> 1st : You can't win, you can only break even >> >> 2nd : You can only break even at absolute zero >> >> 3rd : You can't get to absolute zerp > ^^^^ > >I'm going to add "zerp" to my list of synonyms for "zero". > Maybe zerp is one of the zeros in ones compliment, the other being zern? > >-- >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? > (Some years ago, a colleague told me I was confusing the customers by not putting my replies at the top. Thanks for providing a nice logical summary of the subject to show to him instead of my having to figure out how to penetrate an upside down mind :-) Regards, Peter Coghlan. From nf6x at nf6x.net Sat Jan 31 12:39:22 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 10:39:22 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> Message-ID: <5EFF1E51-6479-4D0E-AF25-3B81FAFD63C1@nf6x.net> Poking around on eBay, I see that there were other brands (Teac, Wangtek, Everex...) of streaming tape backup drives that look like they may have used those audio-cassette-like tapes with the notch on the back edge, much like the TU60. Maybe one of those transports could be adapted for this wacky scheme? I might buy one of the cheaper ones and some matching tapes to experiment with. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 31 12:47:52 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 10:47:52 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <5EFF1E51-6479-4D0E-AF25-3B81FAFD63C1@nf6x.net> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <5EFF1E51-6479-4D0E-AF25-3B81FAFD63C1@nf6x.net> Message-ID: <54CD2358.6060008@sydex.com> On 01/31/2015 10:39 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: > Poking around on eBay, I see that there were other brands (Teac, > Wangtek, Everex...) of streaming tape backup drives that look like > they may have used those audio-cassette-like tapes with the notch on > the back edge, much like the TU60. Maybe one of those transports > could be adapted for this wacky scheme? I might buy one of the > cheaper ones and some matching tapes to experiment with. Are you thinking of the DC2000/2100 type drives? I think that they're a bit too large. How about, say, an Irwin drive using DC1000 minicarts? --Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jan 31 12:57:46 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 10:57:46 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <54CD2358.6060008@sydex.com> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <5EFF1E51-6479-4D0E-AF25-3B81FAFD63C1@nf6x.net> <54CD2358.6060008@sydex.com> Message-ID: <54CD25AA.7010306@bitsavers.org> On 1/31/15 10:47 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 01/31/2015 10:39 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: >> Poking around on eBay, I see that there were other brands (Teac, >> Wangtek, Everex...) > Are you thinking of the DC2000/2100 type drives? more likely CT-600 if it was TEAC From nf6x at nf6x.net Sat Jan 31 13:00:50 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 11:00:50 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <54CD2358.6060008@sydex.com> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <5EFF1E51-6479-4D0E-AF25-3B81FAFD63C1@nf6x.net> <54CD2358.6060008@sydex.com> Message-ID: <4EC9FCE7-D73C-445F-982F-8A141289A13A@nf6x.net> > On Jan 31, 2015, at 10:47, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 01/31/2015 10:39 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: >> Poking around on eBay, I see that there were other brands (Teac, >> Wangtek, Everex...) of streaming tape backup drives that look like >> they may have used those audio-cassette-like tapes with the notch on >> the back edge, much like the TU60. Maybe one of those transports >> could be adapted for this wacky scheme? I might buy one of the >> cheaper ones and some matching tapes to experiment with. > > Are you thinking of the DC2000/2100 type drives? I think that they're a bit too large. How about, say, an Irwin drive using DC1000 minicarts? No, I'm thinking of things like Teac MT-2ST drives, using audio-cassette-like CT-600H cartridges. Some random googling suggests that those sorts of drives may move the tape at around 90 ips, so hopefully they don't use capstan and pinch roller drive that's designed for slow audio tape movement. I just ordered the cheapest one of those drives listed, and some matching tapes, to experiment with. Maybe it'll provide a better transport than the data logger tape transport that I also have on the way? And either of them might be easier to hack for this project than a regular audio cassette transport that's designed for much slower tape speed. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jan 31 13:18:01 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 11:18:01 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <4EC9FCE7-D73C-445F-982F-8A141289A13A@nf6x.net> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <5EFF1E51-6479-4D0E-AF25-3B81FAFD63C1@nf6x.net> <54CD2358.6060008@sydex.com> <4EC9FCE7-D73C-445F-982F-8A141289A13A@nf6x.net> Message-ID: <54CD2A69.9040206@bitsavers.org> On 1/31/15 11:00 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: > >hopefully they don't use capstan and pinch roller drive There is a maintenance manual on bitsavers It is servo based with an encoder attached to a roller in contact with the tape. The two reels are motor driven. From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Sat Jan 31 13:31:03 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 14:31:03 -0500 Subject: Tape Drive Capstans In-Reply-To: <01PHYRKDASQG005QF2@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01e501d03bf5$1b0ede90$512c9bb0$@net> <54CA9593.8080207@bitsavers.org> <20150129124422.U15904@shell.lmi.net> <026e01d03cba$c2424150$46c6c3f0$@net> <01PHYRKDASQG005QF2@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: Watch out Tony, you're getting infected with my machine's mysterious zeroes bug! Dropping bits and stuff! On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 5:51 AM, Peter Coghlan wrote: > David Griffith wrote: > > >> On Fri, 30 Jan 2015, tony duell wrote: >> >> On 29 January 2015 at 21:45, Fred Cisin wrote: >>>>> >>>> > > And then store them in the dark in a vacuum at 0 degrees kelvin? >>>> > > >>>> > No, the outgassing of volatiles would be a problem... >>>> > >>>> >>>> Technically there should be no out gassing at 0 Kelvin.... ;) >>>> >>> >>> Ah yes, but then there are the 3 laws of thermodynamics which have been >>> expressed as : >>> 1st : You can't win, you can only break even >>> >>> 2nd : You can only break even at absolute zero >>> >>> 3rd : You can't get to absolute zerp >>> >> ^^^^ >> >> I'm going to add "zerp" to my list of synonyms for "zero". >> >> > Maybe zerp is one of the zeros in ones compliment, the other being zern? > > >> -- >> 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? >> >> > (Some years ago, a colleague told me I was confusing the customers by not > putting my replies at the top. Thanks for providing a nice logical > summary of > the subject to show to him instead of my having to figure out how to > penetrate > an upside down mind :-) > > Regards, > Peter Coghlan. > From nf6x at nf6x.net Sat Jan 31 13:31:37 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 11:31:37 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <54CD2A69.9040206@bitsavers.org> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <5EFF1E51-6479-4D0E-AF25-3B81FAFD63C1@nf6x.net> <54CD2358.6060008@sydex.com> <4EC9FCE7-D73C-445F-982F-8A141289A13A@nf6x.net> <54CD2A69.9040206@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <76624201-72FA-4821-AA82-EA29626C258D@nf6x.net> > On Jan 31, 2015, at 11:18, Al Kossow wrote: > > On 1/31/15 11:00 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: >> >> hopefully they don't use capstan and pinch roller drive > > There is a maintenance manual on bitsavers > It is servo based with an encoder attached to a roller in contact with the tape. > The two reels are motor driven. That sounds very promising. I'll look for the maintenance manual. I think that about the only thing that would be better would be a system where I could lift the reels and tape out of a DECTAPE II cart without needing to transfer the media linearly or do any splicing, but that would take a lot more effort. For me, the mechanical part would be a lot harder than the electronic and software parts. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From jonas at otter.se Sat Jan 31 14:58:11 2015 From: jonas at otter.se (Jonas Otter) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 21:58:11 +0100 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 3, Issue 31 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54CD41E3.5030501@otter.se> On 2015-01-31 19:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > On 01/30/2015 11:23 AM, js at cimmeri.com wrote: >> It's not a pond.. it's an ocean. Why do some people insist on >> calling it a >> pond? Because a pond is rather smaller than an ocean. The same logic as when I was at school and milk was known as "bull", because milk comes from a cow, which is the opposite sex to a bull. From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jan 31 15:08:03 2015 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 13:08:03 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <76624201-72FA-4821-AA82-EA29626C258D@nf6x.net> References: <573E5826-D8A8-4488-92B3-B428033357D1@nf6x.net> <5EFF1E51-6479-4D0E-AF25-3B81FAFD63C1@nf6x.net> <54CD2358.6060008@sydex.com> <4EC9FCE7-D73C-445F-982F-8A141289A13A@nf6x.net> <54CD2A69.9040206@bitsavers.org> <76624201-72FA-4821-AA82-EA29626C258D@nf6x.net> Message-ID: <54CD4433.6070707@bitsavers.org> On 1/31/15 11:31 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: > >> On Jan 31, 2015, at 11:18, Al Kossow wrote: >> >> On 1/31/15 11:00 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: >>> >>> hopefully they don't use capstan and pinch roller drive >> >> There is a maintenance manual on bitsavers >> It is servo based with an encoder attached to a roller in contact with the tape. >> The two reels are motor driven. > > > That sounds very promising. I'll look for the maintenance manual. I think that about the only thing that would be better would be a system where I could lift the reels and tape out of a DECTAPE II cart without needing to transfer the media linearly or do any splicing, but that would take a lot more effort. For me, the mechanical part would be a lot harder than the electronic and software parts. > DC-100 reels float on two pins, so at a minimum you'll have to find one of the good quality cassette tapes that had actual reels inside and transfer the tape to those. I just picked up a TEAC cassette mechanism at a surplus place, and the part of the tach that touches the tape is mostly metal with a channel cut into it with what looks like something rubber-ish where the tape would touch at the bottom. That seems a little strange so I'll pull it apart and take pictures of the mechanism. From kylevowen at gmail.com Sat Jan 31 21:11:44 2015 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 21:11:44 -0600 Subject: Unknown TTY ICs Message-ID: Can anyone identify these TTY ICs? A friend gave them to me, but doesn't recall what they came from. http://i.imgur.com/AIfiOyY.jpg Thanks, Kyle From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 31 22:27:10 2015 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 20:27:10 -0800 Subject: Unknown TTY ICs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54CDAB1E.6010402@sydex.com> On 01/31/2015 07:11 PM, Kyle Owen wrote: > Can anyone identify these TTY ICs? A friend gave them to me, but doesn't > recall what they came from. > > http://i.imgur.com/AIfiOyY.jpg > Possibly from a Dataspeed 40 rig? I've got the printset for the line printer if you'd like me to check. --Chuck From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Sat Jan 31 22:29:11 2015 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 23:29:11 -0500 Subject: vtserver mod to accommodate 11/34 console emulator Message-ID: Hi, Pardon the crudeness of this approach, but the last time I did a project like this, I never managed to communicate it to others who might've used it. I modified Warren's VTserver to work with older pdp11s, like my 11/34, that have the older console emulator that speaks differently. Warren's original expects a nice new ODT that responds to things like 165200/000004 for depositing values in memory. I modified it to talk to the 11/34-style console emulator that expect something more like L 165200 D 000004 So, my code currently works, but it's really crude with sleep(1) all over the place to mitigate overrunning the console serial. It should be merged in properly to Warren's original and rewritten to have its own command line argument other than -odt , but that said, here's the diff. Use it if you can. I hope to get around to making it nicer someday. 156a157,159 > puts("SENDING BOOT CODE VIA CONSOLE EMULATOR"); > write(portfd, "L 165000\r", strlen("L 165000\r")); > sleep (1); 158c161 < sprintf(bootbuf, "%06o/", loc); --- > sprintf(bootbuf, "L %06o\r", loc); 160c163 < --- > sleep(1); 162,163c165,166 < while (1) { read(portfd, &ch, 1); if (ch==' ') break; } < sprintf(bootbuf, "%06o\r", bootcode[i]); --- > while (1) { read(portfd, &ch, 1); printf("%c",ch); if (ch=='@') break; } > sprintf(bootbuf, "D %06o\r", bootcode[i]); 165c168 < --- > sleep(1); 167c170 < while (1) { read(portfd, &ch, 1); if (ch=='@') break; } --- > while (1) { read(portfd, &ch, 1); printf("%c",ch); if (ch=='@') break; } 169c172,174 < sprintf(bootbuf, "%06oG", BOOTSTART); --- > puts("SENDING CONSOLE EMULATOR START COMMAND"); > sleep(1); > sprintf(bootbuf, "L %06o\r", BOOTSTART); 171c176,179 < while (1) { read(portfd, &ch, 1); if (ch=='G') break; } --- > sleep(1); > sprintf(bootbuf, "S\r", BOOTSTART); > write(portfd, bootbuf, strlen(bootbuf)); > while (1) { read(portfd, &ch, 1); if (ch=='@') break; } 490a499 > printf("havesentbootcode %d\n",havesentbootcode); From jws at jwsss.com Sat Jan 31 05:39:47 2015 From: jws at jwsss.com (jwsmobile) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 03:39:47 -0800 Subject: SIMH DG Nova and real serial port In-Reply-To: <54CCB4D3.8080401@gmail.com> References: <54CCB4D3.8080401@gmail.com> Message-ID: <54CCBF03.5060006@jwsss.com> On 1/31/2015 2:56 AM, shadoooo wrote: > Hello, > I'm developing a system similar to VTserver for PDP11, but for DG Nova > machines. > The system uses a serial console connection and a Python back-end on > the PC. > Now I need to debug the binary code developed for the Nova, but I have > to do it on > an emulated machine on a PC. > In other words, I would need to use SIMH connected to a real serial > port: is it possible? > Thanks > Andrea If you get the patch to work with SIMH to a tty port, Vmware ESXI server supports connecting the emulated serial ports of two virtual machines together. What I have rigged for many test setups if one machine running the simulation out to what is a serial port on the emulated guest. Usually use linux, as it is easier to see the real status of the serial ports with Linux. I then run the other guest with one of its serial ports connected to the first guest's serial port. i usually use a copy of a system called Pick which has serial ports for expansion. It runs as one guest on the vmesxi system. It can support 2 serial ports, connected to another machine. I then have a copy of linux running in another guest. I can use minicom to connect to the Pick system remotely, since Pick only supports connectivity via the console / keyboard and serial, no network stack. Hope this might help. You won't have to experiment or debug on any vintage hardware till you have it working on SIMH. Jim From shadoooo at gmail.com Sat Jan 31 04:42:01 2015 From: shadoooo at gmail.com (shadoooo) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 11:42:01 +0100 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media Message-ID: <54CCB179.5010202@gmail.com> Hello, I also have an 11/730, but not working yet and it needs to be restored. The TU58 are all rusty, so probably should be replaced. I tried to find a complete TU58 system (mechanics + board) to read the cassettes, modify firmware to format DC100, and in the end to replace the bad one in the 730, but no luck so far (anybody has a suggestion on how to find one?) I have a bunch of cassettes of original software, including console tape, but they all suffer from sticky belt problem. I always avoided to move the tape to avoid the hole spot problem, and stored all of them in vacuum packaging together with silica-gel, waiting for a good restoring procedure and suitable hardware. In these days I read all these posts about reading the tape in different way, that gave me an idea: I have a TASCAM 4-tracks recorder that was using normal audio tapes. As the tape width is the same, and also track position is similar, I could try to move the tape from a TU58 cassette to an audio cassette, then read it on the 4-tracks. The machine has a knob to adjust head position slightly, so it could help. I don' t remember if the speed of the tape could be adjusted too (maybe normal / double). Sampling the audio with a good sound card could give some good data to be elaborated to extract data, of course a filtering/recovery algorithm has to be developed (using Matlab/Octave)? If the procedure would prove to be working, I could offer my help to image tapes, specially for 730 as they would be very useful also to restore my machine (I really would like to have diagnostic tapes). This procedure could work? Andrea From shadoooo at gmail.com Sat Jan 31 04:56:19 2015 From: shadoooo at gmail.com (shadoooo) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 11:56:19 +0100 Subject: SIMH DG Nova and real serial port Message-ID: <54CCB4D3.8080401@gmail.com> Hello, I'm developing a system similar to VTserver for PDP11, but for DG Nova machines. The system uses a serial console connection and a Python back-end on the PC. Now I need to debug the binary code developed for the Nova, but I have to do it on an emulated machine on a PC. In other words, I would need to use SIMH connected to a real serial port: is it possible? Thanks Andrea From roeapeterson at gmail.com Sat Jan 31 05:12:43 2015 From: roeapeterson at gmail.com (Roe Peterson) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 05:12:43 -0600 Subject: SIMH DG Nova and real serial port In-Reply-To: <54CCB4D3.8080401@gmail.com> References: <54CCB4D3.8080401@gmail.com> Message-ID: I know that patches exist for (at least) Linux simh that let real serial ports act as DL interfaces in the pdp11 emulator. I have no idea if the same has been done for the Nova, though. > On Jan 31, 2015, at 4:56 AM, shadoooo wrote: > > Hello, > I'm developing a system similar to VTserver for PDP11, but for DG Nova machines. > The system uses a serial console connection and a Python back-end on the PC. > Now I need to debug the binary code developed for the Nova, but I have to do it on > an emulated machine on a PC. > In other words, I would need to use SIMH connected to a real serial port: is it possible? > Thanks > Andrea > > From kylevowen at gmail.com Sat Jan 31 08:33:58 2015 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 08:33:58 -0600 Subject: SIMH DG Nova and real serial port In-Reply-To: <54CCB4D3.8080401@gmail.com> References: <54CCB4D3.8080401@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 31, 2015 4:56 AM, "shadoooo" wrote: > In other words, I would need to use SIMH connected to a real serial port: is it possible? Hi Andrea, I've been doing this a lot recently with the PDP-8 emulator (v4.0.0), so I don't see any reason it wouldn't work with the Nova emulator. I've turned on the auxiliary teletype telnet port with the notelnet option and tied it to a pseudo TTY with socat. This has worked quite well for any of my programs I've concocted to talk to the emulator. Another option, which I've done as well, is talk directly with sockets. It should be pretty easy to rewrite your Python program to use socket writes instead of serial. Let me know if you need any more specifics. Kyle From nf6x at nf6x.net Sat Jan 31 10:45:37 2015 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 08:45:37 -0800 Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media In-Reply-To: <54CCB179.5010202@gmail.com> References: <54CCB179.5010202@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5EB6B757-F5E9-4192-B763-5EB657B2460E@nf6x.net> > On Jan 31, 2015, at 02:42, shadoooo wrote: > > > This procedure could work? From the research I've done so far, I think that the heads on your 4-track should have gaps in appropriate locations for reading (but not writing) TU58 tapes. I don't know if this will work, though, because normal audio cassette speeds are much slower than in a TU58 drive, and it is my understanding that the signal level received from magnetic tape heads is proportional to the tape speed. Normal audio tape speed is 1-7/8 inches per second, while TU58 tapes normally move about 30 inches per second during reads. That's a really big difference! My gut feeling is that you would need to modify that 4-track to run the tape at much higher speed in order to get a usable signal from the heads, and by the time you sped up the drive enough to do that (assuming it's possible), the resulting signal would be at high enough frequency to get cut off by the sound card's input antialiasing filter. This is why I'm expecting to need to make my own read channel circuitry and sampling hardware, even though I'm contemplating the use of some sort of (heavily modified) regular cassette tape transport for the mechanical part. I think that if you have a "disposable" tape (preferably one that has already been verifiably copied by some other means, known to contain unimportant stuff, or a segment of tape from a cartridge that is already not fully recoverable due to some obvious damage), then there would be no harm in experimenting with this. We could least get some empirical data about what sort of signal levels come off the heads at 1-7/8 ips. I'll probably do something similar if and when I make more progress on this, but you might get around to it long before I do. :) Regarding your rusted drives, I may have one or two TU58-XA units that I could spare for a fellow 11/730 buddy. These would not be complete drives; they're just the tape transport mechanism. They would be untested, dusty, and would need the capstan roller rebuilt, but if your drive electronics are still good, then maybe they would help you out? -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From paul at mcjones.org Sat Jan 31 12:51:04 2015 From: paul at mcjones.org (Paul McJones) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 10:51:04 -0800 Subject: Old ACM publications available for free (CACM, Surveys, TOCS, SIGOPS O.S. Review) Message-ID: <79CAA49B-0FDD-4957-B878-953A30909B4D@mcjones.org> I am offering (for free) ACM publications I?ve accumulated over 40+ years as a subscriber: CACM (Communications of the ACM) 1967-2013 ACM Computing Surveys 1972-1997 SIGOPS Operating System Review 1972-2011 TOCS (ACM Transactions on Computer Systems) 1983-1991 In all, they fill about 7 file boxes. There are some gaps because I?ve already donated batches to ACM and the Computer History Museum to fill gaps in their archives. I live in Mountain View, California, and it would be best if you could pick them up. If you?re willing to pay for postage and packaging, I could mail them media mail rate within the US. Paul McJones From jdbryan at acm.org Sat Jan 31 13:24:53 2015 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 14:24:53 -0500 Subject: SIMH DG Nova and real serial port In-Reply-To: <54CCB4D3.8080401@gmail.com> References: <54CCB4D3.8080401@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Saturday, January 31, 2015 at 11:56, shadoooo wrote: > In other words, I would need to use SIMH connected to a real serial > port: is it possible? The current SIMH 4.0 manual says in section 3.14, "Console Options:" A simulator console can be connected to a serial port on the host system. SET CONSOLE SERIAL=ser0 connect console to serial port ser0 SET CONSOLE SERIAL=COM1 connect console to serial port COM1 SET CONSOLE SERIAL=/dev/ttyS0 connect console to serial port /dev/ttyS0 The available serial ports on the host system can be displayed with the command: SHOW SERIAL display available serial ports on host Serial port speed, character size, parity and stop bits can be indicated on the by appending the speed, character size, parity and stop bits to the serial port name: SET CONSOLE SERIAL=ser0;2400-8N1 This will connect at 2400 with 8 bit characters, no parity and 1 stop bit. The default serial speed, character size, parity and stop bits is 9600-8N1. This capability was added in 2012, I believe. -- Dave