Where to get a Vax or microvax
I have had an interest in the DEC VAX line of computers for some time now and am trying to find a good place to get a system to start out with. The main pourpose being to have a machine to use VMS on. I have been running VMS on emulated hardware via SIMH, however i would like to move to running on real hardware. What would be the best machine for a beginner to VAX Hardware to start out with? My main place for looking for hardware has been ebay, although most of what im seeing is untested and expensive. Is there a better place to find older machines like this?
Re: DEC Logo
On Jun 29, 2015, at 11:26 AM, Toby Thain t...@telegraphics.com.au wrote: On 2015-06-29 10:59 AM, Paul Koning wrote: On Jun 28, 2015, at 6:34 PM, simon sim...@dds.nl wrote: It seems to me that pdp8 is written in futura bold Where? In the picture that Bill posted, you can see what I think is a dec custom font in labels like “industrial 11” and “power supply. That’s the same font that was used on the covers of pdp-11 handbooks, and as far as I know it’s something DEC made up. I traced it and turned it into a TrueType font some years ago. Here it is. Some of the letters are guesses because I have no samples. There's reason to believe it's Chalet. See my previous mail for a link to one revival of that family. I looked at that. There are plenty of variations, but none of them match at all. Take a look at the 11/45 processor handbook, or the peripherals handbook (for example the 1976 edition). The inside cover page is particularly helpful because it shows the company name for an additional bunch of characters. If you mix match letters from all the different variants of Chalet (like the a from Paris 1980 but the k from Paris 1970) you can get closer. But that’s not plausible, and in any case it’s still not the same. The k in Paris 1970 is somewhat like the one in the DEC font, but it is clearly not a match: the DEC k has arcs starting at the vertical line, while in Paris 1970 there’s a bit of a horizontal line first. And none of the variants have the r in “processor” or either of the two version of the t in “digital equipment corporation”. paul
RE: Where to get a Vax or microvax
To give folks an idea of how much stuff I had jammed into my (many) storage units, as I was going through them trying to figure out what I'd keep and what I would dispose of, I found a VAX 11/780 that I didn't know that I had. I knew that I had one in storage as I was digging/sorting I discovered a second 11/780 that I had forgotten was in there. You *know* you have too much stuff and it's packed too tightly when you can lose a VAX 11/780! Kersqueeble! When I moved last year I found an RK05 (drive) that I had forgotten about, but that was about it. No really large machines came out of the woodwork. A tip for anyone moving in the UK. Do as much as you can yourself. I had the misfortune to use a removal company who assured me they could move the stuff and would handle it properly. Result : a heck of a lot of damage that will take years to put right, parts will have to be made from scratch, etc. And absolutely no way to get a penny out of them -tony
Re: Where to get a Vax or microvax
To give folks an idea of how much stuff I had jammed into my (many) storage units, as I was going through them trying to figure out what I'd keep and what I would dispose of, I found a VAX 11/780 that I didn't know that I had. I knew that I had one in storage as I was digging/sorting I discovered a second 11/780 that I had forgotten was in there. You *know* you have too much stuff and it's packed too tightly when you can lose a VAX 11/780! Ha! Bud sadly, I can relate. I am moving as well, and I am coming across tons (VERY literally) of racks of military radar and radio equipment I forgot I had. The good news is that as I am breaking up my radar and radio collections, I do not have to think too hard about where the stuff is going. It ain't stayin' here! -- Will
Re: Where to get a Vax or microvax
On Jun 29, 2015, at 10:28 AM, tony duell a...@p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: To give folks an idea of how much stuff I had jammed into my (many) storage units, as I was going through them trying to figure out what I'd keep and what I would dispose of, I found a VAX 11/780 that I didn't know that I had. I knew that I had one in storage as I was digging/sorting I discovered a second 11/780 that I had forgotten was in there. You *know* you have too much stuff and it's packed too tightly when you can lose a VAX 11/780! Kersqueeble! When I moved last year I found an RK05 (drive) that I had forgotten about, but that was about it. No really large machines came out of the woodwork. A tip for anyone moving in the UK. Do as much as you can yourself. I had the misfortune to use a removal company who assured me they could move the stuff and would handle it properly. Result : a heck of a lot of damage that will take years to put right, parts will have to be made from scratch, etc. And absolutely no way to get a penny out of them I think that's universal regardless of where you are located. If it's unusual stuff, then move it yourself (if you're able to). Fortunately had some fore thought prior to my move. So I spent a lot of time sorting and palletizing the smaller stuff (ie anything that wasn't already on casters). I would not have been able to load the truck, drive almost 200 miles, unload and drive back all in the same day if I hadn't already had stuff pre-packaged. TTFN - Guy
Re: equipment available
Hi Jay, I'm desperate for H960s and need a tape drive anyway. I'll pay to have it professionally moved. Thanks, Paul On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 5:44 PM, Jay West jw...@classiccmp.org wrote: A gentleman in Miami Springs, FL emailed me and has the following available: Two DEC H960 cabinets with headers side panels containing the below… 11/34 cpu Three RL01/RL02 drives (picture seems to show 1 rl02 and 2 rl01’s, can’t be sure) TE10W ½ mag tape drive Full library of RSXM manuals Spare 11/34 cpu Spare power supply “Many spare circuit boards, disks, and tapes” Two VT100 terminals Two LP11-VA line printers “Single owner, known to be working” Owner is asking $600, does not want to pack/ship If interested, email me off-list and I’ll get you contact information. Please, only people that are serious about the system and are able to pick it up safely. Best, J
Re: DEC Logo
On 2015-06-29 1:26 PM, Paul Koning wrote: On Jun 29, 2015, at 11:26 AM, Toby Thain t...@telegraphics.com.au wrote: On 2015-06-29 10:59 AM, Paul Koning wrote: On Jun 28, 2015, at 6:34 PM, simon sim...@dds.nl wrote: It seems to me that pdp8 is written in futura bold Where? In the picture that Bill posted, you can see what I think is a dec custom font in labels like “industrial 11” and “power supply. That’s the same font that was used on the covers of pdp-11 handbooks, and as far as I know it’s something DEC made up. I traced it and turned it into a TrueType font some years ago. Here it is. Some of the letters are guesses because I have no samples. There's reason to believe it's Chalet. See my previous mail for a link to one revival of that family. I looked at that. There are plenty of variations, but none of them match at all. Take a look at the 11/45 processor handbook, or the peripherals handbook (for example the 1976 edition). The inside cover page is particularly helpful because it shows the company name for an additional bunch of characters. If you mix match letters from all the different variants of Chalet (like the a from Paris 1980 but the k from Paris 1970) you can get closer. But that’s not plausible, I worked in graphic design for a long time. Modifications and substitutions of any kind are not unusual in a logo. So yes, it's plausible, but just annoying when reverse engineering it later, of course. and in any case it’s still not the same. The k in Paris 1970 is somewhat like the one in the DEC font, but it is clearly not a match: the DEC k has arcs starting at the vertical line, while in Paris 1970 there’s a bit of a horizontal line first. And none of the variants have the r in “processor” or either of the two version of the t in “digital equipment corporation”. This *could* be due to differences betwen the House revival and the original Chalet font. The next research step could be to find specimens of the latter. Or perhaps it was indeed a custom font as you said earlier, based on Chalet or something like it, with variant letters cherry picked. That explanation might satisfy everyone. :) I think it's pretty unlikely that a font will be discovered that is a better match than Chalet out of the box, though. --Toby paul
Re: Where to get a Vax or microvax
On 2015-06-29 18:08, tony duell wrote: on real hardware. What would be the best machine for a beginner to VAX Hardware to start out with? I think you need to think very carefully about what you want this machine to do. The ideal VAX for me is not going to necessarily be the ideal VAX for you. In general there are 3 classes of VAX that people run at home. There are many other families, but in general they are much rarer, and probably much harder to maintain. The first series are the VAXstations, probably a 3100 of some kind. These are desktop boxes, they are workstations (so you can drive a CRT monitor from them, although they have serial ports too, and AFAIK can use a serial console). They generally have SCSI and ethernet interfaces built in. The downside is that they are somewhat closed machines. You have connectors for a memory board in most of them. You have the SCSI bus for disks. But you don't really have access to the CPU bus to add anything out of the ordinary. This may well not matter to you. The second series are the MicroVAX II/III machines. Normally in a deskside-size cabinet. Normally use a serial terminal, but there are exceptions. Here the CPU is one board, memory is one or 2 more, then separate boards plugging into something called Qbus for everything else. The advantage, of course, is that Qbus is the processor bus so if you need a strange interface you can probably add it. The disadvantage is that finding some of the boards you may want is a pain (Qbus SCSI is often hard to get) The third series I hesitate to mention, as I don't think they're what you are looking for. That's the first ever VAX series, the 11/7xx machines. There are 3 sub-families. The 11/780 was the first It's massive (think large wardrobe just for the CPU) and needs 3 phase mains officially. The upside for a hardware person is that said CPU is massive because it's built from lots of simple, standard, ICs. It's repairable. Very. The 11/750 came next, a bit smaller, but now the CPU is a lot of custom gate array chips. One that I would avoid (yes, I know I'll get flamed for that from all the happy owners). To me the 11/750 is large and doesn't give you anything over a microVAX The third subseries is the 11/730. It's slow. It's very slow. I am told that using the DEC supplied microcode tape it can take 25 minutes to get a boot prompt (!). But it's small, the CPU is one 10.5 high, 19 wide rack mount box. A useable machine fits in a half-height rack. And amazingly this small VAX was built from standard ICs (admittedly a lot of PALs), mostlly. These machines use an expansion bus called Unibus (the 11/780 and 11/750 also have MassBus for disks). Unibus is similar in concept to Qbus, so again you would have a board for ethernet, one for serial terminals, etc. For me, a hardware hacker with too many machines as it is, the 11/730 fits the bill. I can accomodate it (I doubt I could fit an 11/780 in anywhere) and I can hang a logic analyser off it if I want to. For you, I think you should probably look towards a VAXstation to start with. But I might be very wrong... So, where would you place a VAX8650 in there? Or the 6000- or 7000-series? :-D (Or, drool, a 9000?) Johnny
Re: Where to get a Vax or microvax
On 2015-06-29 21:35, tony duell wrote: Well, ok, if your list was intended as a first VAX only list, then That is what I believe the OP was asking for, Yes. But I would never dream of suggesting a VAX-11/780 as a first VAX either... I think most people would not even know what to do if presented with 500 Kg of computer... Not to mention all the subsystems you need to figure out, learn, connect and get running... It's not exactly like a workstation or a PC. fair enough. I would not consider most of those machines as good first VAXen either. Although, the 6000 is actually not that hard, nor some of the small 8000-machines, such as the 8200. The 6000 series are quite big cabinets and as a first VAX it's hard for me to see the great advantage over a microVAX or a VAXstation. They are small compared to a VAX-11/780. The problem with lots of the more modern machines though, are that they essentially are fine if they work, but if they break, you'll have a hard time to fix them. That goes both for the 6000 series as well as all the pizza boxes. My view is that there are only 2 VAXen series that I would want to run at home. For me. That is machines where component-level investigation and repair are very possible, Those series are the 11/780 (including the 11/782 and 11/785, of course) and the 11/730 (including 11/725). As I don't have space for the former, I intend to run the latter. But my requirements and interests are likely to be very different from other people's hence my initial comments. The 11/782 would become very big, and use even more power. Not that an 11/780 are small to start with, but we're talking about roughly doubling the size and power consumption here... Not to mention being a very odd machine from a multiprocessor point of view as well. Not something I would recommend unless you are seriously interested in that specific machine. The 11/730 and 11/725 are probably among the last machines I would ever want to have. We all have different dreams... The 8650 is sweet. I could possibly like a 9000 even more... Thing about the VAXstations is that there are quite a few about that can be raided for spares. There is a printset for at least one of them on bitsavers, so I would guess finding a faulty IC is not going to be impossible. I refuse to actually suggst b***d-sw*pp**g but you know what I mean Yeah. VAXstations makes a lot of sense for someone who just wants to run a VAX and play around. The fact that you can get spares pretty easy most of the time has its points. If you like playing around with the hardware as well as the software, then maybe there are more interesting machines around than the pizzabox ones. I have never seen a printset for a 6000, 7000, 8650, etc machine. Do they exist? I doubt it for the 6000 series. I don't remember if I have the printsets for the 8650, but we (Update) sure have quite a lot of documentation for it. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: b...@softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip - B. Idol
Re: DEC Logo
:-) ze web to ze rescue: grabbing a png from the pdf of the maintanance manual and uploading it to myfonts.com points me to the font rescue regular. but it is not perfect as the verticals have rounded ends on rescue and straight on the dec font. another is insignia but having the wrong letter t On 29-06-15 04:50, Toby Thain wrote: On 2015-06-28 10:12 PM, Toby Thain wrote: On 2015-06-28 6:34 PM, simon wrote: It seems to me that pdp8 is written in futura bold ITC Avant Garde would probably be closer. (released circa 1970) Oops, I was looking at the vertical d e c when I said that. The font used in the industrial11 logo and across the PDP-8 range, has been pinned down to the New York style of Chalet; here's a revival: http://www.houseind.com/fonts/chalet/viewfonts But I can't find a pdp8 image in the thread. Simon, what image are you referring to that leads you to say Futura Bold? --Toby Avant Garde was used in a LOT of DEC's marketing -- it was the signature face for VAX-11, for example (even the machine badges use Avant Garde). --Toby On 28-06-15 18:52, Chris Osborn wrote: On Jun 18, 2015, at 7:20 AM, Chris Osborn fozzt...@fozztexx.com wrote: The logo up to then had been the letters DEC in blocks the shape of the plug-in cards that DEC had been producing. Does anyone have a picture of that? My Google-fu is failing me. I love cutting vinyl stickers of old logos and I think an original DEC logo would make a great prize in the contests I run on RetroBattlestations. I did my best to recreate the plug-in card DEC logo, you can download it as an SVG here: http://www.retrobattlestations.com/DEC/DEC-1957-3.7x4.5.svg Proportions probably aren’t perfect since all I had to work from was very low resolution pictures of the original. I’m happy to send out vinyl cut decals to anyone that wants one if you send me a SASE. Email me privately for my address. http://i.imgur.com/HJki7WI.jpg (Atari 2600 cartridge for scale) -- Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl
Re: Where to get a Vax or microvax
Re: 11/780 as first VAX: no. That's just silly. I restored a pair of 11/785s (one a field-updated /780) for LCM. They're a wonderful machine, and I really really want one - after I win the lottery and can afford the power and space for it and can take the time to get and keep it running. Get a VAXstation of some sort or another. Even if you have a low end one-lunged 3100, or even a 2000, you can run VMS on real VAX hardware and have fun. I would actually suggest a 3100 over just about anything else because you can find expansion cases for it (typically containing SCSI drives, CDROM drives and even cartridge tape drives) pretty easily and cheaply, and everything just plugs in. If you want one of the 'good' ones, you'll fight tooth and nail on ePay, but if your goal is to enjoy running VMS on real hardware, you can buy one of the 'OK' ones for a lot less. Then, if the bug bites you and you really want something bigger, I'd look for one of the pedestal machines - I really love my 4000/300 and, although you'll pay through the nose to ship it, it's a serious VAX that can Do Stuff. Then, if you discover you're totally insane, you can look about for Big VAXen and subsidize your local power company. -- Ian On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 3:04 PM, Johnny Billquist b...@update.uu.se wrote: On 2015-06-29 21:35, tony duell wrote: Well, ok, if your list was intended as a first VAX only list, then That is what I believe the OP was asking for, Yes. But I would never dream of suggesting a VAX-11/780 as a first VAX either... I think most people would not even know what to do if presented with 500 Kg of computer... Not to mention all the subsystems you need to figure out, learn, connect and get running... It's not exactly like a workstation or a PC. fair enough. I would not consider most of those machines as good first VAXen either. Although, the 6000 is actually not that hard, nor some of the small 8000-machines, such as the 8200. The 6000 series are quite big cabinets and as a first VAX it's hard for me to see the great advantage over a microVAX or a VAXstation. They are small compared to a VAX-11/780. The problem with lots of the more modern machines though, are that they essentially are fine if they work, but if they break, you'll have a hard time to fix them. That goes both for the 6000 series as well as all the pizza boxes. My view is that there are only 2 VAXen series that I would want to run at home. For me. That is machines where component-level investigation and repair are very possible, Those series are the 11/780 (including the 11/782 and 11/785, of course) and the 11/730 (including 11/725). As I don't have space for the former, I intend to run the latter. But my requirements and interests are likely to be very different from other people's hence my initial comments. The 11/782 would become very big, and use even more power. Not that an 11/780 are small to start with, but we're talking about roughly doubling the size and power consumption here... Not to mention being a very odd machine from a multiprocessor point of view as well. Not something I would recommend unless you are seriously interested in that specific machine. The 11/730 and 11/725 are probably among the last machines I would ever want to have. We all have different dreams... The 8650 is sweet. I could possibly like a 9000 even more... Thing about the VAXstations is that there are quite a few about that can be raided for spares. There is a printset for at least one of them on bitsavers, so I would guess finding a faulty IC is not going to be impossible. I refuse to actually suggst b***d-sw*pp**g but you know what I mean Yeah. VAXstations makes a lot of sense for someone who just wants to run a VAX and play around. The fact that you can get spares pretty easy most of the time has its points. If you like playing around with the hardware as well as the software, then maybe there are more interesting machines around than the pizzabox ones. I have never seen a printset for a 6000, 7000, 8650, etc machine. Do they exist? I doubt it for the 6000 series. I don't remember if I have the printsets for the 8650, but we (Update) sure have quite a lot of documentation for it. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: b...@softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip - B. Idol -- Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate The Information School http://ischool.uw.edu Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal http://tribunalvoices.org Value Sensitive Design Research Lab http://vsdesign.org University of Washington There is an old Vulcan saying: Only Nixon could go to China.
Re: Computer museum seeks BBC Micro fixers
On 29/06/2015 20:29, Brent Hilpert wrote: If you're handy with a screwdriver and soldering iron, and near TNMOC: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33291036 I used to repair Acorn equipment (ie mostly BBC Micros) for a living, but I'm a bit too far from Bletchley for it to be practical on a regular basis. -- Pete Pete Turnbull
Re: Where to get a Vax or microvax
I recently got a Microvax 3100 and a VAX 4000-200, very pleased with how easy they are to work with. I have had a lot more issues with Alpahservers. VAX/Aphas running one flavor or another of openVMS. I agree with Ian, think the 3100's are a good starter VAX. My 3100 system has two SCSI external drives to beef it up. You get what you pay for, try to find something in nice shape that works and pay a little extra. My opinion. Bill On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 9:04 PM, Ian S. King isk...@uw.edu wrote: Re: 11/780 as first VAX: no. That's just silly. I restored a pair of 11/785s (one a field-updated /780) for LCM. They're a wonderful machine, and I really really want one - after I win the lottery and can afford the power and space for it and can take the time to get and keep it running. Get a VAXstation of some sort or another. Even if you have a low end one-lunged 3100, or even a 2000, you can run VMS on real VAX hardware and have fun. I would actually suggest a 3100 over just about anything else because you can find expansion cases for it (typically containing SCSI drives, CDROM drives and even cartridge tape drives) pretty easily and cheaply, and everything just plugs in. If you want one of the 'good' ones, you'll fight tooth and nail on ePay, but if your goal is to enjoy running VMS on real hardware, you can buy one of the 'OK' ones for a lot less. Then, if the bug bites you and you really want something bigger, I'd look for one of the pedestal machines - I really love my 4000/300 and, although you'll pay through the nose to ship it, it's a serious VAX that can Do Stuff. Then, if you discover you're totally insane, you can look about for Big VAXen and subsidize your local power company. -- Ian On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 3:04 PM, Johnny Billquist b...@update.uu.se wrote: On 2015-06-29 21:35, tony duell wrote: Well, ok, if your list was intended as a first VAX only list, then That is what I believe the OP was asking for, Yes. But I would never dream of suggesting a VAX-11/780 as a first VAX either... I think most people would not even know what to do if presented with 500 Kg of computer... Not to mention all the subsystems you need to figure out, learn, connect and get running... It's not exactly like a workstation or a PC. fair enough. I would not consider most of those machines as good first VAXen either. Although, the 6000 is actually not that hard, nor some of the small 8000-machines, such as the 8200. The 6000 series are quite big cabinets and as a first VAX it's hard for me to see the great advantage over a microVAX or a VAXstation. They are small compared to a VAX-11/780. The problem with lots of the more modern machines though, are that they essentially are fine if they work, but if they break, you'll have a hard time to fix them. That goes both for the 6000 series as well as all the pizza boxes. My view is that there are only 2 VAXen series that I would want to run at home. For me. That is machines where component-level investigation and repair are very possible, Those series are the 11/780 (including the 11/782 and 11/785, of course) and the 11/730 (including 11/725). As I don't have space for the former, I intend to run the latter. But my requirements and interests are likely to be very different from other people's hence my initial comments. The 11/782 would become very big, and use even more power. Not that an 11/780 are small to start with, but we're talking about roughly doubling the size and power consumption here... Not to mention being a very odd machine from a multiprocessor point of view as well. Not something I would recommend unless you are seriously interested in that specific machine. The 11/730 and 11/725 are probably among the last machines I would ever want to have. We all have different dreams... The 8650 is sweet. I could possibly like a 9000 even more... Thing about the VAXstations is that there are quite a few about that can be raided for spares. There is a printset for at least one of them on bitsavers, so I would guess finding a faulty IC is not going to be impossible. I refuse to actually suggst b***d-sw*pp**g but you know what I mean Yeah. VAXstations makes a lot of sense for someone who just wants to run a VAX and play around. The fact that you can get spares pretty easy most of the time has its points. If you like playing around with the hardware as well as the software, then maybe there are more interesting machines around than the pizzabox ones. I have never seen a printset for a 6000, 7000, 8650, etc machine. Do they exist? I doubt it for the 6000 series. I don't remember if I have the printsets for the 8650, but we (Update) sure have quite a lot of documentation for it. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || I'm on a bus
RE: Where to get a Vax or microvax
Well, ok, if your list was intended as a first VAX only list, then That is what I believe the OP was asking for, Yes. But I would never dream of suggesting a VAX-11/780 as a first VAX either... I think most people would not even know what to do if presented with 500 Kg of computer... Not to mention all the subsystems you need to figure out, learn, connect and get running... It depends a lot of who you are. As I said in my first posting, the ideal VAX for you is not the ideal VAX for me. Personally, I would have considerd an 11/780 as my first VAX, I know what it is like, I can read the printset, I have a good idea what to expect in the circuitry. For me, a VAXstation would have no interest at all. It's not exactly like a workstation or a PC. That is surely a Good Thing :-) The 6000 series are quite big cabinets and as a first VAX it's hard for me to see the great advantage over a microVAX or a VAXstation. They are small compared to a VAX-11/780. True, about the same size as the 11/750. They are still not small, and I can't see what they would have to offer. The 11/782 would become very big, and use even more power. Not that an 11/780 are small to start with, but we're talking about roughly doubling the size and power consumption here... Not to mention being a very odd Yes, it's close to being a pair of 11/780s running in parallel. machine from a multiprocessor point of view as well. Not something I would recommend unless you are seriously interested in that specific machine. Nor would I, but if I had the space (I don't!) I would love one... . The 11/730 and 11/725 are probably among the last machines I would ever Sure it's slow, and there is a major design misfeature -- I mean who seriously uses DRAM as a control store, and then has to halt the CPU to refresh it every few ms. But IMHO fitting the complete VAX CPU onto 3 hex boards using standard ICs (apart from the memory ECC which used the same gate arrays as the 11/750) is an interesting, at least, bit of work. want to have. We all have different dreams... The 8650 is sweet. I could possibly like a 9000 even more... As I keep on saying, and I hope the OP considers this, the ideal VAX depends on who you are. As I want to get inside the CPU with a logic analyser, there are really only 2 series for me to consider. One large, the other slow. As I am short of space and not time it is obvious what I looked for. -tony
Digital featured on MST3K: Beast of Yucca Flats!
I never expected to see this one today: footage of Digital's Puerto Rican plant on MST3K: The Beast of Yucca Flats! The PDP-8 is featured. https://youtu.be/BRhGW53eoxY?t=26m33s -- Devin Monnens www.deserthat.com The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
Re: Digital featured on MST3K: Beast of Yucca Flats!
Referring to Puerto Rico's strong position in pharmaceutical manufacture.. When Judy Garland died, it killed their economy. On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 8:57 PM, Devin Monnens dmonn...@gmail.com wrote: I never expected to see this one today: footage of Digital's Puerto Rican plant on MST3K: The Beast of Yucca Flats! The PDP-8 is featured. https://youtu.be/BRhGW53eoxY?t=26m33s -- Devin Monnens www.deserthat.com The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
RE: Where to get a Vax or microvax
So, where would you place a VAX8650 in there? Or the 6000- or 7000-series? :-D (Or, drool, a 9000?) Those come under the 'many other families' I would argue that those machines are much rarer and much harder to maintain than the 3 families I suggested for a _first_ VAX. In fact having seen inside a 6210 cabinet there is no way I would want to maintain one. Not sure about the 8650, though... If you want to run those at home, fine... If you are offered one, make sure you know what you are taking on. FWIW, I wouldn't recomend a PDP11/45 with only the printset for documentation as a first PDP11 either. But it's what I started with. -tony
Computer museum seeks BBC Micro fixers
If you're handy with a screwdriver and soldering iron, and near TNMOC: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33291036
Re: DEC Logo
On Jun 29, 2015, at 3:19 PM, Toby Thain t...@telegraphics.com.au wrote: On 2015-06-29 1:26 PM, Paul Koning wrote: On Jun 29, 2015, at 11:26 AM, Toby Thain t...@telegraphics.com.au wrote: ... There's reason to believe it's Chalet. See my previous mail for a link to one revival of that family. I looked at that. There are plenty of variations, but none of them match at all. Take a look at the 11/45 processor handbook, or the peripherals handbook (for example the 1976 edition). The inside cover page is particularly helpful because it shows the company name for an additional bunch of characters. If you mix match letters from all the different variants of Chalet (like the a from Paris 1980 but the k from Paris 1970) you can get closer. But that’s not plausible, I worked in graphic design for a long time. Modifications and substitutions of any kind are not unusual in a logo. So yes, it's plausible, but just annoying when reverse engineering it later, of course. For a logo, absolutely. For a house style typeface used as display text in manuals and for panel labels, not quite so likely. ... This *could* be due to differences betwen the House revival and the original Chalet font. The next research step could be to find specimens of the latter. Or perhaps it was indeed a custom font as you said earlier, based on Chalet or something like it, with variant letters cherry picked. That explanation might satisfy everyone. :) I think it's pretty unlikely that a font will be discovered that is a better match than Chalet out of the box, though. Perhaps. I think the similarities are faint enough that I would not point to Chalet any more than I would point to Avant Garde. Designed from scratch by a guy with a set of drafting tools seems more likely to me. But unless someone with first hand knowledge comes along, as was done for the 7-block digital logo, all this will likely remain speculation. Meanwhile, if you want a font file that’s a better match than Chalet, try the “handbook” font I created some years ago from the DEC document samples I have on hand. paul
RE: Where to get a Vax or microvax
Well, ok, if your list was intended as a first VAX only list, then That is what I believe the OP was asking for, fair enough. I would not consider most of those machines as good first VAXen either. Although, the 6000 is actually not that hard, nor some of the small 8000-machines, such as the 8200. The 6000 series are quite big cabinets and as a first VAX it's hard for me to see the great advantage over a microVAX or a VAXstation. The problem with lots of the more modern machines though, are that they essentially are fine if they work, but if they break, you'll have a hard time to fix them. That goes both for the 6000 series as well as all the pizza boxes. My view is that there are only 2 VAXen series that I would want to run at home. For me. That is machines where component-level investigation and repair are very possible, Those series are the 11/780 (including the 11/782 and 11/785, of course) and the 11/730 (including 11/725). As I don't have space for the former, I intend to run the latter. But my requirements and interests are likely to be very different from other people's hence my initial comments. Thing about the VAXstations is that there are quite a few about that can be raided for spares. There is a printset for at least one of them on bitsavers, so I would guess finding a faulty IC is not going to be impossible. I refuse to actually suggst b***d-sw*pp**g but you know what I mean I have never seen a printset for a 6000, 7000, 8650, etc machine. Do they exist? I doubt it for the 6000 series. -tony
