Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Glen Slick]

On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 10:19 PM, jwsmobile  wrote:
>
>
> Any idea which vendor to buy from to get an "open" part, how to preserve the
> firmware / settings on what you get if you wish to modify it as an open
> product?  The above is pretty nasty for the vendor of an  open product, and
> I think I'll be buying from someone else.
>

The US seller inertialcomputing has several listings from $66 to $80
currently, depending on what size SD card is included:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/191849269608
http://www.ebay.com/itm/191881269696
http://www.ebay.com/itm/191839174447
http://www.ebay.com/itm/191760360045
http://www.ebay.com/itm/191845395864

The photos in the items listings show a SCSI2SD V5.0a PCB and the
seller claims to have worked in direct collaboration with its designer
and creator, Michael McMaster.

I haven't bought one of those myself yet, although I have been considering it.

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Don North]

On 6/1/2016 10:19 PM, jwsmobile wrote:



On 6/1/2016 4:52 PM, Mike Ross wrote:

The advantages of the SCSI2SD over the ACard are as follows:
>
>1) It's open-source (hardware and firmware and software)
>2) The developer is extremely responsive to bug reports / feature requests
>3) It's very flexible -- you can make it look like any drive you want to
>(important for machines that expect to see only certain drives), it
>supports oddball sector sizes (for your lisp machines and AS/400s)

Wait - what? I'd never even thought of that. Has anyone got SCSI2SD
running successfully on AS/400?

I noticed that one vendor had the following note in their sale posting on Ebay.

** Please note
1) The card will be preconfigured for 8 gb storage only.
2) You will not be able to change the firmware as a little modifications have 
been done in PCB.


Vendor:  floppy_to_usb

Not nice sports fans.

SCSI2SD-50-Pin-SCSI-Hard-to-Micro-Sd-Converter-8-gb-micro-SD-for-Staubli-JC5

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301859438071

Any idea which vendor to buy from to get an "open" part, how to preserve the 
firmware / settings on what you get if you wish to modify it as an open 
product?  The above is pretty nasty for the vendor of an  open product, and I 
think I'll be buying from someone else.


Thanks
Jim


That price ($200) is about 3X the going rate.

The main page for SCSI2SD is here: 
http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD


Scroll down to here: 
http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD#Purchase to find links 
to vendors


Links to firmware updates and tools here: 
http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD#News


I have no vested interest in SCSI2SD, other than being a very satisfied user.

Don



--
Don North
AK6DN

Re: Beehive B601 terminal

[COURYHOUSE]

need to see a photo
 
 
always looking for the beige  upper case only hives~
 
I force people that whine about SHOUTING  to use them  for an  hour 
Ed
 
 
In a message dated 6/1/2016 9:12:18 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time,  
ccl...@sydex.com writes:

On  06/01/2016 08:24 AM, tony duell wrote:
> Does anyone know anything about  this? Does anyone
> have a service manual for it?

Internally, it  sounds about the same as the veneered and generated Super
Bee from the  early-mid 1970s.   I don't see any manuals for it on
bitsavers,  however.

--Chuck

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[jwsmobile]

On 6/1/2016 4:52 PM, Mike Ross wrote:

The advantages of the SCSI2SD over the ACard are as follows:
>
>1) It's open-source (hardware and firmware and software)
>2) The developer is extremely responsive to bug reports / feature requests
>3) It's very flexible -- you can make it look like any drive you want to
>(important for machines that expect to see only certain drives), it
>supports oddball sector sizes (for your lisp machines and AS/400s)

Wait - what? I'd never even thought of that. Has anyone got SCSI2SD
running successfully on AS/400?
I noticed that one vendor had the following note in their sale posting 
on Ebay.


** Please note
1) The card will be preconfigured for 8 gb storage only.
2) You will not be able to change the firmware as a little modifications 
have been done in PCB.


Vendor:  floppy_to_usb

Not nice sports fans.

SCSI2SD-50-Pin-SCSI-Hard-to-Micro-Sd-Converter-8-gb-micro-SD-for-Staubli-JC5

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301859438071

Any idea which vendor to buy from to get an "open" part, how to preserve 
the firmware / settings on what you get if you wish to modify it as an 
open product?  The above is pretty nasty for the vendor of an  open 
product, and I think I'll be buying from someone else.


Thanks
Jim

Re: Apple & SGI keyboards (Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[Zane Healy]

> On Jun 1, 2016, at 4:15 PM, Liam Proven  wrote:
> 
> Yeah, I think all Apple keyboards /up until/ the Extended II had
> keyswitches -- then they switched to cheaper ones, like most of the
> industry.

I believe so.  I’m typing this on my Extended II keyboard.  I bought it when I 
bought my PowerMac 8500/180 in January ’97.  When I purchased my G4/450 (the 
second sold in the area) the keyboard was such a joke, I immediately invested 
in an ADB-to-USB converter (as in the next day).  I now use it on my Mac Pro. 
:-)

I have to admit, I rather like the keyboard that came with my SGI O2.

Zane

Decmate II

[pdaguytom .]

I've got a Decmate II that has a keyboard issue.  I've tested with a LK401
that I use with my Rainbow 100 system, keyboard works fine with the Rainbow
but gives a error 48 with the Decmate.  I've had a look at the motherboard,
tracing pins 14 & 15 from the db15 connector to a series of what looks to
me to be picofuses.  Testing these in circuit with a multimeter, 4 of these
"picofuses" show a resistance of approx. 530 ohms and the remaining 2
appear to be open.  Anyone have any experience with these?   Are these
really picofuses?  Any insights would be appreciated.

Tom

Re: TU58 yet one more time

[Mark J. Blair]

The Plastibands that I tried were about half the width of the original belt 
once stretched into place, and they would not stay centered on the pulleys or 
tape spools at all. Once they slipped, after just a few turns of the roller, 
they tangled things up badly.
-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: Keyboards and Mice (was Model M, NEC ProSpeed)

[Chuck Guzis]

Okay, time for a big gripe about the Model M--the *&^!~ "feet" that can
be snapped out to raise the top a bit.   They get old and brittle and
the usual solvent cement (methylene dichloride) doesn't touch it.

I much prefer the supports on the Model F, but you can't have everything.

Has anyone located a source for these things.  Maybe 3D printing?

--Chuck

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Mike Ross]

On Thu, Jun 2, 2016 at 8:53 AM, Josh Dersch  wrote:

> The advantages of the SCSI2SD over the ACard are as follows:
>
> 1) It's open-source (hardware and firmware and software)
> 2) The developer is extremely responsive to bug reports / feature requests
> 3) It's very flexible -- you can make it look like any drive you want to
> (important for machines that expect to see only certain drives), it
> supports oddball sector sizes (for your lisp machines and AS/400s)

Wait - what? I'd never even thought of that. Has anyone got SCSI2SD
running successfully on AS/400?

If not maybe I need to be the tester...

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.'

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Pete Turnbull]

On 01/06/2016 23:51, Swift Griggs wrote:


Does anyone have such a beast and can share a model # ? If they are cheap
enough, I'd replace my current crapola 1X external "ace in the hole" CDROM
with it. My hang-up has always been the block size issue.


Most Toshibas respond to the command, so pretty much anything later than 
an XM3401 - that's a 4x caddy drive with jumpers.  XM3601 is also 4x but 
with tray instead of caddy, though it still has jumpers for the block 
size.  I have both of those, and an XM3301 (2x) caddy drive.


O2s use XM5401 (4x), as does my Origin2000.  I regularly use an XM5701 
(12x) on one of my Indys, an XM6401 (32x) on another and I recently 
bought a Toshiba SD-M1401 ex-Sun DVD-ROM drive that is working happily 
on the Indy that used to have the XM5701.  These are all jumperless for 
the block size.


SGI once had special firmware for some of the early supported Toshiba 
CDROM drives, but that was only for the benefit of booting a really 
ancient miniroot on 4Ds.  Sun did the same thing.  I believe (but have 
never tested) that changing one of the pads on standard Toshiba XM3401 
(not SGI/Sun branded) enables the hack.  It's in the SGI FAQ.  I've 
never had any problem with random SCSI CDROMs, but all my SGIs are 
Indigos or later, and the few older Sparcstations I've had are happy 
with any firmware I tried.


I happen to like Toshibas, but I had an NEC Multispin (3x) that worked, 
and others swear by Plextor drives, and I believe Sun also used Hitachis.


--
Pete

Re: Keyboards and Mice (was Model M, NEC ProSpeed)

[Sean Conner]

It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once stated:
> On 1 June 2016 at 17:48, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> > I'm keyboard-oriented--Ctrl-V, where I've copied using Ctrl-X or
> > Control-C .
> 
> The neat thing about middle-click-to-paste-selection is that it's *as
> well as* the clipboard C&P.
> 
> So you can, for instance, highlight a URL, hit Ctrl-C to copy,
> highlight the page title, switch windows, middle-click to paste the
> title, then Ctrl-V to paste the URL too.
> 
> *All in a single operation.*
> 
> It's /very/ handy and worth learning if only for that reason alone.

  An interesting thing about Firefox on Linux [1] is that once you select
the text of a webpage, you have some interesting options:

TIMESTAMP
TARGETS
MULTIPLE
text/html
text/_moz_htmlcontext
text/_moz_htmlinfo
UTF8_STRING
COMPOUND_TEXT
TEXT
STRING
text/x-moz-url

  Those are the selection types available via X Windows [2].  "text/html"
returns the HTML of the selected portion of the page.  "text/x-moz-url" will
return the URL of the page.  "UTF8_STRING" will return the selected text as
UTF-8 encoded data.  

  Because of this, I wrote a command line program to query the current
selection (assumed to be a webpage) and obtain not only the selected
portion, but the URL and from there, request the page to extract the title
element [3].  All in a single command.

  -spc (The X Selection method is quite flexible)

[1] Or used to be; I haven't done this since I switched to using Mac
OS-X for web browsing.

[2] I won't go into depth of how this works right now---just be aware
that you can chose what type of data to obtain from the selection
owner.

[3] A typical operation when blogging about a web page.

Re: Apple & SGI keyboards (Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[Liam Proven]

On 1 June 2016 at 20:57, Swift Griggs  wrote:
> Cool. I didn't know about those early mechanical models. I didn't wake up
> to macs until about the Mac II days. I did have a friend with a IIGS. I
> remember playing the Bards' Tale series on there. So, I must have used it
> before.

Yeah, I think all Apple keyboards /up until/ the Extended II had
keyswitches -- then they switched to cheaper ones, like most of the
industry.

> I was disappointed that they didn't take the IIGS further as a hardware
> platform, but that's only because I loved my SNES (and yes, also my
> Genesis). IIRC, the IIGS has the same processor as a SNES with a 16bit
> bus, no? I like the design of the GS, too.

Interesting -- I didn't know the SNES had a 65816!

I've not touched a //GS since they were new, but yes, they were lovely
machines. Even if somewhat crippled -- they ran the 65816 at about
2.something MHz, when even the early ones could do circa 10-12 MHz and
later ones 20-30MHz, AIUI.

There are alleged technical reasons, but the main one, I think, and
the reason for the machine's demise, is that it just competed with the
Mac too much.

The IIgs came out in 1986, the Mac II in 1987. So when the IIgs
shipped, there were no colour-capable Macs (and their sound wasn't
that impressive either). The IIgs looked like a plausible rival, and
could have been expanded into an Amiga-alike fairly readily -- and
thus threaten the still-new Macintosh.

Damned shame, really.



-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: Keyboards and Mice (was Model M, NEC ProSpeed)

[Liam Proven]

On 1 June 2016 at 17:48, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> I'm keyboard-oriented--Ctrl-V, where I've copied using Ctrl-X or
> Control-C .


The neat thing about middle-click-to-paste-selection is that it's *as
well as* the clipboard C&P.

So you can, for instance, highlight a URL, hit Ctrl-C to copy,
highlight the page title, switch windows, middle-click to paste the
title, then Ctrl-V to paste the URL too.

*All in a single operation.*

It's /very/ handy and worth learning if only for that reason alone.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Swift Griggs]

On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, pete wrote:
> AAT.  2048 bytes is the common CDROM standard, used by PCs and their 
> ilk, whereas SGIs want 512-byte blocks on CDROMs.

Ah, quite right. Thanks, Pete.

> Some SGIs/IRIX versions (eg Indy and later, running IRIX 5.3 or later) 
> will issue a command to make the CDROM switch to 512-byte blocks instead 
> of their default 2048.

Huh... I didn't realize that. I remember using one of those Pioneer 
slot-loading SCSI drives to load IRIX at some point and it still had the 
jumper as the switching mechanism. I guess I just haven't seen SCSI CDROM 
drives that didn't because I only order or fiddle with the ones that do.

> Most modern SCSI CDROMs honour that, but older ones may have jumpers or 
> PCB links that need to be set.

Does anyone have such a beast and can share a model # ? If they are cheap 
enough, I'd replace my current crapola 1X external "ace in the hole" CDROM 
with it. My hang-up has always been the block size issue. 

-Swift

cdrom block size - WAS::::Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Jerry Kemp]

+1

Most early Sun equipment required 512 block size also.

Not that I am casting doubt, but I am unaware of anything that required 2048 
block size for optical devices.


If you have a workstation or server that required 2048 block size for optical 
media, please share!


That is the great thing about this list, I learn new stuff, all the time.

Jerry


On 06/ 1/16 06:07 PM, pete wrote:

On 01/06/2016 23:29, Swift Griggs wrote:

On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Josh Dersch wrote:

it can support multiple drives on a single board, pretend to be a
CD-ROM, etc, etc, etc. 4) It's considerably cheaper.


That's an excellent feature that I'm sure would come in handy, especially
if it can emulate a CDROM with a 2048 block size. That'd be super-helpful
on an SGI, and would probably make the mind-numbing 'inst' operations take
a little less time.


AAT.  2048 bytes is the common CDROM standard, used by PCs and their ilk,
whereas SGIs want 512-byte blocks on CDROMs.  Some SGIs/IRIX versions (eg Indy
and later, running IRIX 5.3 or later) will issue a command to make the CDROM
switch to 512-byte blocks instead of their default 2048.  Most modern SCSI
CDROMs honour that, but older ones may have jumpers or PCB links that need to be
set.

Re: Macintosh Quadra 840AV

[Cameron Kaiser]

> There is a newer version in production V5 and the next generation
> (total redesign) soon.
> 
> http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD

I have one in my Solbourne S3000. Works great.

http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/solace/install.html

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- Microsoft Windows is the IBM 3270 of the 21st century. -

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[pete]

On 01/06/2016 23:29, Swift Griggs wrote:

On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Josh Dersch wrote:

it can support multiple drives on a single board, pretend to be a
CD-ROM, etc, etc, etc. 4) It's considerably cheaper.


That's an excellent feature that I'm sure would come in handy, especially
if it can emulate a CDROM with a 2048 block size. That'd be super-helpful
on an SGI, and would probably make the mind-numbing 'inst' operations take
a little less time.


AAT.  2048 bytes is the common CDROM standard, used by PCs and their 
ilk, whereas SGIs want 512-byte blocks on CDROMs.  Some SGIs/IRIX 
versions (eg Indy and later, running IRIX 5.3 or later) will issue a 
command to make the CDROM switch to 512-byte blocks instead of their 
default 2048.  Most modern SCSI CDROMs honour that, but older ones may 
have jumpers or PCB links that need to be set.


--
Pete
Pete Turnbull

Re: TU58 yet one more time

[shadoooo]

Hello,
I would need some clarification about the Plastibands, as I will have to find a 
suitable replacement for the belt,
as ALL my cartridges need a replacement, after removing the old one without 
causing the infamous blank-spot.

Al, please could you clarify which size / brand of (Baumgarten) plastibands did 
you use for the TU58 cassette?

Mark, I'm not sure that a wider belt would work better, maybe worse. In fact 
pulley / belt mechanisms usually work with
pulleys that have a bigger diameter near the center than on the sides, 
resulting slightly convex.
Because of physical friction forces, an "unbiased" flat belt will always remain 
exactly in the center of the pulleys.
If a cylindrical pulley will be used, this effect will not be present, so the 
belt will slide off the pulleys.
On TU58 as in DC100 tapes AFAIK the belt is narrow, maybe abound the half the 
width of the pulleys.

Thanks
Andrea


I tried using plastibands in a TU58 cartridge, with zero success. Once stretched, 
the width of the plastiband was too narrow, and > it kept on slipping off the 
edge of the tape spool and jamming things up thoroughly. These are the ones I 
tried using:


> 
http://www.amazon.com/Baumgartens-8-inch-Plastibands-BAUSF5000-Assorted/dp/B0008GIKQW



I think they might have worked if they were at least twice as wide, at around 
the same circumference. Is there a different type
available that might work better?

Re: SCSI2SD for 50 pin - was Re: Macintosh Quadra 840AV

[Pete Lancashire]

The newer V6 board looks like what I'm after for my 9000/382

-pete

On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 9:33 AM, Cody Swanson  wrote:
> Perfect, I will check out the scsi2sd. Thanks for the feedback gents!
>
> - Original Message -
> From: "Toby Thain" 
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
> Sent: Wednesday, June 1, 2016 10:19:18 AM
> Subject: SCSI2SD for 50 pin - was Re: Macintosh Quadra 840AV
>
> On 2016-06-01 12:11 PM, Cody Swanson wrote:
>> I managed to pick up a Mac Quadra 840AV yesterday ...
>>
>> What is everyone doing for replacement 50 pin SCSI drives in their
>> 90's hardware? Is there a reasonably priced flash based replacement
>> yet? I remember looking into it a few years ago for my Sun IPX and
>> the only solutions I could find seemed to be priced for industrial
>> applications.
>
>
> SCSI2SD is very reasonably priced:
>
>http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD
>
> When I bought mine last year, there were a couple of different ebay stores.
>
> --Toby
>
>
>>
>> Also, has anyone had experience with the apple power supplies of this
>> vintage? ...
>

Ohio company with opening in Portland OR

[Pete Lancashire]

https://sherwin.taleo.net/careersection/10/jobdetail.ftl

Re: Macintosh Quadra 840AV

[Pete Lancashire]

There is a newer version in production V5 and the next generation
(total redesign) soon.

http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD

On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 9:19 AM, tim lindner  wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 9:11 AM, Cody Swanson  wrote:
>> What is everyone doing for replacement 50 pin SCSI drives in their 90's 
>> hardware? Is there a reasonably
>> priced flash based replacement yet? I remember looking into it a few years 
>> ago for my Sun IPX and the only
>> solutions I could find seemed to be priced for industrial applications.
>
> My friend Ed, sells this:
>
> https://sites.google.com/site/thezippsterzone/scsi2sd
>
> While I have not bought one of these products, I have bought others
> from him (CoCoSDC, and MCX-128, RGB2VGA) and am really happy with the
> quality and service.
>
> zippster278  gmail.com
>
> He may, or may not have any left to sell.
>
> --
> --
> tim lindner
>
> "Proper User Policy apparently means Simon Says."
>

Re: Model M Key Cap Replacement WAS: Keyboards and the Model M (was Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[Guy Dawson]

On my 1992 IBM Model M most of the key caps are removable but some are not.
Notably, wider keys such as Backspace, Enter and the big + on the numeric
pad don't have removable caps. They're like the Unicomp Wide Keys.


On 1 June 2016 at 14:52, geneb  wrote:

> On Tue, 31 May 2016, Christopher Satterfield wrote:
>
> Unicomp still sells replacement caps (
>> http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/category/Buttons ), however I believe they
>> have a minimum order amount (price). There are also the ever-so-hated
>> keyboard forums where you can often post a "Looking for" and find someone
>> with some spares they'll dump dirt cheap or free.
>>
>> AFAIK, the key caps that Unicomp sells are the monolithic cap & plunger
> that their keyboards use, not the two-part keys that the real Model M
> keyboards use.  (For those not aware, the Model M key cap is separate from
> the plunger - the key cap is _literally_ just a cap on top of a smaller key
> form that's got the plunger molded in.)
>
> 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_!
>



-- 
4.4 > 5.4

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Pete Turnbull]

On 01/06/2016 22:05, Jerry Kemp wrote:

I still remember when I had my first 600G (not GR) that got upgraded to
(3) 327 Mb drives.  I was very excited that I had *just shy* of 1 Gig of
hard disk storage space available.


When I bought my SGI Indy, I swallowed hard and specced a 1GB drive for 
it, because I'd had experience of 500MB drives filling up.  Not too long 
after that I splashed out on one of those crazy new-fangled CD writers 
and then realised I'd need another 1GB drive to build the images on :-(


--
Pete
Pete Turnbull

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Swift Griggs]

On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Josh Dersch wrote:
> The advantages of the SCSI2SD over the ACard are as follows:

Heh, I just ordered one. I'll test it vis-a-vis the ACARD device and post 
my results here and on Nekochan where I originally posted about the ACARD 
adapter.

> 1) It's open-source (hardware and firmware and software)

Ohhh, nice. I didn't realize that. Very cool. 

> 2) The developer is extremely responsive to bug reports / feature 
> requests

That's always a plus, but I doubt I'm going to try it on anything too 
spacey. I'll just be my SGIs and the one Amiga 3k.

> 3) It's very flexible -- you can make it look like any drive 
> you want to (important for machines that expect to see only certain 
> drives), it supports oddball sector sizes (for your lisp machines and 
> AS/400s),

I'd probably burst into flame if I touched a LISP machine at this point. 
Though, then again, I'm quite certain there are no Gods in the LISP 
pantheon. Otherwise I'd be riding a thunderbolt by now, and my college 
profs would be with 72 gazelle-eyed virgins. :-P 

NOTE TO LIST MEMBERS: THAT was a JOKE!! (remember those?)

> it can support multiple drives on a single board, pretend to be a 
> CD-ROM, etc, etc, etc. 4) It's considerably cheaper.

That's an excellent feature that I'm sure would come in handy, especially 
if it can emulate a CDROM with a 2048 block size. That'd be super-helpful 
on an SGI, and would probably make the mind-numbing 'inst' operations take 
a little less time. 

> It's probably slower than a real drive some instances, but in equally as 
> many instances that you're going to use something like this, the host 
> machine isn't going to reach peak throughput anyway.

We will see. Lots of folks had the same doubt when I was testing the ACARD 
device. They felt that the SATA disk would overwhelm the SCSI2 bus, and 
they were right. However, what they were wrong about was that the internal 
disk didn't much matter. When I replaced the Samsung 850 Pro with a 5400 
RPM laptop hard disk (still far newer/faster than the SCSI disk) the 
performance dropped considerably. So, while disk throughput was 
comparable, latency was still much lower with the SSD and that had the 
most anecdotal "feel" impact, too.

-Swift

Acard - WAS::Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Jerry Kemp]

Thanks for the link.  I wasn't aware of the Acard device.

I guess I should extend my question, so, does anyone have an Acard HDD 
replacement in their AT&T 3b2?


If so, how is it working out for you?

Jerry




On 06/ 1/16 01:03 PM, Swift Griggs wrote:

On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Jerry Kemp wrote:

I was reviewing the online documentation for SCSI2SD, specifically here:

and I specifically see that the AT&T 3B2/600 is supported.


I neither have a AT&T 3B2 nor a SCSI2SD. Sorry. I do however, have
experience with lots of ACARD adapters. The one that's most like the
SCSI2SD is the ARS-2000SUP. That's the 50-pin SCSI/SCSI2 version. It works
great in my older SGIs (Indy, Challenge S, and Indigo), a Quadra 660AV,
Sun Sparc Classic, and I've also tested it in an Amiga 3000 where it also
works fine. I use them with SSDs to push the latency as low as I can go. I
realize the disk throughput is never going to be great just due to the
limitations of fast SCSI2.

http://www.acard.com/english/fb01-product.jsp?idno_no=249&prod_no=ARS-2000SUP&type1_idno=6&ino=43

-Swift

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Jerry Kemp]

Absolutely.

If I had an IRIX box right now, it would be spinning rust or an SSD.  One day I 
hope to have a Crimson and a Fuel.


Any 3b2 is going to be significantly slower.

I still remember when I had my first 600G (not GR) that got upgraded to (3) 327 
Mb drives.  I was very excited that I had *just shy* of 1 Gig of hard disk 
storage space available.


Very different times.

Jerry



On 06/ 1/16 02:17 PM, Pete Turnbull wrote:



Not personally (yet) but for a while I've been looking at comments in the
Nekochan forums, thinking about using it on one of my SGIs. Consensus is that
it's rather slow.  Not so slow that it's awful on an Indy (apart maybe from
booting), but noticeably slower than people expect on faster machines.  The
ACARD ones seem to be faster.  Perhaps it won't matter for older machines.

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Josh Dersch]

On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 1:08 PM, Swift Griggs  wrote:

> On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Pete Turnbull wrote:
> > Not so slow that it's awful on an Indy (apart maybe from booting), but
> > noticeably slower than people expect on faster machines.  The ACARD ones
> > seem to be faster.  Perhaps it won't matter for older machines.
>
> The Acard device is @250 bucks. It appears that the SCSI2SD is $50-$100
> depending who who is selling. I can tell you that the ACARD device is much
> faster than the Seagate Barracuda drive I was using before in my R5k Indy.
> I did a test using several benchmarks. There wasn't a single metric which
> was better on the old drive. The biggest change was in latency. It made a
> serious difference using the machine as a desktop. It also worked
> outstandingly well as a video capture destination - no dropped frames. I
> use a 2.5" 128G Samsung 850 Pro SATA disk internally inside the 3.5"
> device.
>
> -Swift
>
>
The advantages of the SCSI2SD over the ACard are as follows:

1) It's open-source (hardware and firmware and software)
2) The developer is extremely responsive to bug reports / feature requests
3) It's very flexible -- you can make it look like any drive you want to
(important for machines that expect to see only certain drives), it
supports oddball sector sizes (for your lisp machines and AS/400s), it can
support multiple drives on a single board, pretend to be a CD-ROM, etc,
etc, etc.
4) It's considerably cheaper.

It's probably slower than a real drive some instances, but in equally as
many instances that you're going to use something like this, the host
machine isn't going to reach peak throughput anyway.

- Josh

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Rod Smallwood]

On 01/06/2016 20:25, Fred Cisin wrote:

Here's a clue "Garmin"
You had me really confused there for a moment.  I thought you were 
talking about the company that makes navigational devices at first 
and couldn't for the life of me figure out what they had to do 
with it.  Obviously, I had the wrong Garmin…

On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Jerry Weiss wrote:

Isn’t it Garman?


Yes.
Garmin was the demon, whose voice tried to convince me to make a right 
turn when I was in the middle of the San Rafael Bridge.



Yes sorry Jack Garman
R

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Swift Griggs]

On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Pete Turnbull wrote:
> Not so slow that it's awful on an Indy (apart maybe from booting), but 
> noticeably slower than people expect on faster machines.  The ACARD ones 
> seem to be faster.  Perhaps it won't matter for older machines.

The Acard device is @250 bucks. It appears that the SCSI2SD is $50-$100 
depending who who is selling. I can tell you that the ACARD device is much 
faster than the Seagate Barracuda drive I was using before in my R5k Indy. 
I did a test using several benchmarks. There wasn't a single metric which 
was better on the old drive. The biggest change was in latency. It made a 
serious difference using the machine as a desktop. It also worked 
outstandingly well as a video capture destination - no dropped frames. I 
use a 2.5" 128G Samsung 850 Pro SATA disk internally inside the 3.5" 
device.

-Swift

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Pete Turnbull]

On 01/06/2016 18:36, Jerry Kemp wrote:

We have recently had activity on the list discussing AT&T 3b2 related
stuff, then earlier today we have had discussions concerning the SCSI2SD
drive replacement hardware.

I was reviewing the online documentation for SCSI2SD, specifically here:



Wondering if anyone here is using SCSI2SD on their 3b2's, and if so,
what are your experiences?  Hopefully working well?


Not personally (yet) but for a while I've been looking at comments in 
the Nekochan forums, thinking about using it on one of my SGIs. 
Consensus is that it's rather slow.  Not so slow that it's awful on an 
Indy (apart maybe from booting), but noticeably slower than people 
expect on faster machines.  The ACARD ones seem to be faster.  Perhaps 
it won't matter for older machines.


--
Pete

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Fred Cisin]

Here's a clue "Garmin"
You had me really confused there for a moment.  I thought you were 
talking about the company that makes navigational devices at first 
and couldn't for the life of me figure out what they had to do with 
it.  Obviously, I had the wrong Garmin…

On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Jerry Weiss wrote:

Isn’t it Garman?


Yes.
Garmin was the demon, whose voice tried to convince me to make a right 
turn when I was in the middle of the San Rafael Bridge.

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Jerry Weiss]

Jerry Weiss
j...@ieee.org



> On Jun 1, 2016, at 1:59 PM, Brian L. Stuart  wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 6/1/16, Rod Smallwood  wrote:
>> On 01/06/2016 19:34, Brian L. Stuart wrote:
>>> On Wed, 6/1/16, Rod Smallwood  wrote:
 On 01/06/2016 18:57, Charles Anthony wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 10:49 AM, Rod Smallwood 
>  wrote:
>> Apart from a personal 1202 alarm
> I have a habit of coding "can't happen" error checks with 1201 or 1202
> error numbers.
 You may be close .. Do you know why you do that?
 
 Here's a clue "Garmin"
>>>
>>> You had me really confused there for a moment.  I thought you were talking
>>> about the company that makes navigational devices at first and couldn't
>>> for the life of me figure out what they had to do with it.  Obviously, I 
>>> had the
>>> wrong Garmin…

Isn’t it Garman?

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Brian L. Stuart]

On Wed, 6/1/16, Rod Smallwood  wrote:
> On 01/06/2016 19:34, Brian L. Stuart wrote:
>> On Wed, 6/1/16, Rod Smallwood  wrote:
>>> On 01/06/2016 18:57, Charles Anthony wrote:
 On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 10:49 AM, Rod Smallwood 
  wrote:
> Apart from a personal 1202 alarm
 I have a habit of coding "can't happen" error checks with 1201 or 1202
 error numbers.
>>> You may be close .. Do you know why you do that?
>>>
>>> Here's a clue "Garmin"
>>   
>> You had me really confused there for a moment.  I thought you were talking
>> about the company that makes navigational devices at first and couldn't
>> for the life of me figure out what they had to do with it.  Obviously, I had 
>> the
>> wrong Garmin...
>>
>> But "personal 1202 alarm" is the funniest thing I've seen all day.  I'm going
>> to have to start using that expression.  My students won't have a clue what
>> I'm talking about.  Hopefully it'll be a good way to educate them a bit.
>>
> OK so answer this how many seconds were left  and who wore a different 
> waistcoat every time?

The different waistcoat (or vest on this side of the pond) was Gene Kranz's 
habit.  
I'd have to cheat and look up the number of seconds.  My vague recollection
is about 15, but that memory seems to have suffered from bit rot.  My impression
though is that Armstrong was determined to put that thing down no matter what
and the main role of the fuel level was when to stop looking and take the best
spot he could find.

BLS

Re: Apple & SGI keyboards (Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[Swift Griggs]

On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Raymond Wiker wrote:
> The Apple //e, //c, //c+ and //GS all had mechanical and somewhat clicky 
> keyboards (using various types of Alps keyswitches). I'm also pretty 
> certain that the original Mac had a (very nice) clicky keyboard.

Cool. I didn't know about those early mechanical models. I didn't wake up 
to macs until about the Mac II days. I did have a friend with a IIGS. I 
remember playing the Bards' Tale series on there. So, I must have used it 
before. 

I was disappointed that they didn't take the IIGS further as a hardware 
platform, but that's only because I loved my SNES (and yes, also my 
Genesis). IIRC, the IIGS has the same processor as a SNES with a 16bit 
bus, no? I like the design of the GS, too. 

-Swift

RE: Tek 4317 and/or Tek 4132

[Rick Bensene]

Al K. wrote: 

> At this point it may be worth digging into the drives to see if they can be
> fixed.
> I have had bits of a 4132 for a while, and haven't had any luck locating
> software.

The original drives are long gone.  At the time, I looked into sending them to 
a data recovery firm to see if they could be repaired or data extracted, but 
their pricing was way beyond my budget.

I kept 'em around for a few years, but when a move was upcoming, I did a purge 
--  anything that was "broken", and hadn't been touched in a few years went to 
the big bit-bucket in the sky.

Still can't believe I didn't image the tapes back in the day!  I should have 
known better.

Hindsight is 20/20.:-/

-Rick

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Rod Smallwood]

On 01/06/2016 19:34, Brian L. Stuart wrote:

On Wed, 6/1/16, Rod Smallwood  wrote:

On 01/06/2016 18:57, Charles Anthony wrote:

On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 10:49 AM, Rod Smallwood  
wrote:

Apart from a personal 1202 alarm

I have a habit of coding "can't happen" error checks with 1201 or 1202
error numbers.

You may be close .. Do you know why you do that?

Here's a clue "Garmin"
  
You had me really confused there for a moment.  I thought you were talking

about the company that makes navigational devices at first and couldn't
for the life of me figure out what they had to do with it.  Obviously, I had the
wrong Garmin...

But "personal 1202 alarm" is the funniest thing I've seen all day.  I'm going
to have to start using that expression.  My students won't have a clue what
I'm talking about.  Hopefully it'll be a good way to educate them a bit.

BLS
OK so answer this how many seconds were left  and who wore a different 
waistcoat every time?


Rod

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Rod Smallwood]

On 01/06/2016 19:21, Glen Slick wrote:

On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 11:05 AM, Rod Smallwood
 wrote:

You could if you were able to get into ODT.  I have yet to discover how you
get there.


Read the manual. See that setup option K is the Halt on Break option
which has a factory default setting of 0, which ignores console breaks
from the terminal Break key. If you set that option to 1 it enables
the processor to halt if the console SLU detects a break condition
from the Break key on the terminal, which should cause console ODT
mode to be entered.

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/1193/
EK-KDJ1E-UG-001_KDJ11-E_CPU_Module_Users_Guide_Jan91.pdf

3.2 Console ODT Entry Conditions

4.2.6 Setup Command
4.2.6.2 Setup Mode Command 2 • Select Configuration Parameters
K - Halt-on-Break
Table 4-12 Halt-on-Break Parameter Variations
That's probably right. However as my system does not do what the manual 
says it should

 I cant get there to change that.

Rod

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Brian L. Stuart]

On Wed, 6/1/16, Rod Smallwood  wrote:
> On 01/06/2016 18:57, Charles Anthony wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 10:49 AM, Rod Smallwood 
> >  wrote:
> > > Apart from a personal 1202 alarm
> >
> > I have a habit of coding "can't happen" error checks with 1201 or 1202
> > error numbers.
>
> You may be close .. Do you know why you do that?
>
> Here's a clue "Garmin"
 
You had me really confused there for a moment.  I thought you were talking
about the company that makes navigational devices at first and couldn't
for the life of me figure out what they had to do with it.  Obviously, I had the
wrong Garmin...

But "personal 1202 alarm" is the funniest thing I've seen all day.  I'm going
to have to start using that expression.  My students won't have a clue what
I'm talking about.  Hopefully it'll be a good way to educate them a bit.

BLS

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Rod Smallwood]

On 01/06/2016 18:57, Charles Anthony wrote:

On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 10:49 AM, Rod Smallwood <
rodsmallwoo...@btinternet.com> wrote:Apart from a personal 1202 alarm

I have a habit of coding "can't happen" error checks with 1201 or 1202
error numbers.

-- Charles

You may be close .. Do you know why you do that?

Here's a clue "Garmin"

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Glen Slick]

On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 11:05 AM, Rod Smallwood
 wrote:
>
> You could if you were able to get into ODT.  I have yet to discover how you
> get there.
>

Read the manual. See that setup option K is the Halt on Break option
which has a factory default setting of 0, which ignores console breaks
from the terminal Break key. If you set that option to 1 it enables
the processor to halt if the console SLU detects a break condition
from the Break key on the terminal, which should cause console ODT
mode to be entered.

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/1193/
EK-KDJ1E-UG-001_KDJ11-E_CPU_Module_Users_Guide_Jan91.pdf

3.2 Console ODT Entry Conditions

4.2.6 Setup Command
4.2.6.2 Setup Mode Command 2 • Select Configuration Parameters
K - Halt-on-Break
Table 4-12 Halt-on-Break Parameter Variations

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Rod Smallwood]

On 01/06/2016 18:54, Henk Gooijen wrote:
-Oorspronkelijk bericht- From: Rod Smallwood Sent: Wednesday, 
June 01, 2016 7:49 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic 
Posts Subject: Re: PDP-11/94-E
All good information. Apart from a personal 1202 alarm (somebody out 
there may understand that)

I did try a TK50 controller instead of the RX02 controller - same result.

-
I hope you tried a TUK50 instead of the RX211, not a TK50 ... (QBUS).
Personally, I would have tried using a simple DL11 or SLU module.
The TUK50 is too rare (read: expensive) to be used as a guinea pig ...

- Henk
Well actually the the M7547 came with the system. It just says TK50 
UNIBUS CONTROLLER.

I took it out because TK50's are very nasty beasts.
The motors do strange things from time to time.  Not only that you 
can't  get the tapes.

The old tapes go sticky and jam. I have junked loads of them
Rod

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Rod Smallwood]

On 01/06/2016 18:50, Henk Gooijen wrote:
-Oorspronkelijk bericht- From: Noel Chiappa Sent: Wednesday, 
June 01, 2016 7:24 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Cc: 
j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Re: PDP-11/94-E

   > From: Henk Gooijen

   > The first 4 (5?) slots are QBUS

Technically, PMI, which is more-or-less QBUS on the left (A/B) side 
(modulo
not having grants, unless the appropriate backplane jumpers are set to 
send
grants to those slots), and it uses the standard CD interconnect (as 
in Q/CD

backplanes) on the right (C/D) side to carry PMI.

   > The RX211 must have the NPR/NPG open. Check the documention which 
DIP
   > switch must be set in the correct position. However, not sure if 
that

   > would cause the RX211 to be "invisible".

Right; DMA would not work, but normal master/slave UNIBUS read/write 
cycles

to the device registers should still work.

Noel

-
You can of course read and write the CSR and all other registers of 
the RX211,
You could if you were able to get into ODT.  I have yet to discover how 
you get there.
*if* it is in the memory space where you expect it. Making sure is 
easy: check

the jumpers / DIP switches on the RX211.
Note that the RX11 (for RX01 drives) does *not* use DMA, and what's worse
(IIRC) that module does NOT jumper CA1-CB1 on the module itself!
The RX211 does use DMA, so the NPG should be open. As said, there is no
need to cut the NPR/NPG wire, because those two pins  go to that first 
module
at the right side, and has a DIP switch to open / close the NPR/NPG 
for *all*

UNIBUS slots).
But this is all from memory ... you can read the manual from bitsavers 
too ;-)
BTW, yes I have an 84 and an 94 in that box (power supply at the right 
side
of the box). Very similar in all aspects.  In fact, DEC did "rebrand" 
an 84 to

an 94 by swapping the CPU module (and removing the memory modules),
and glueing a label saying PDP-11/94 over the original panel's PDP-11/84.
I have such a box too. Hmmm, should take a picture of that ...

- Henk

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Swift Griggs]

On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Jerry Kemp wrote:
> I was reviewing the online documentation for SCSI2SD, specifically here:
> 
> and I specifically see that the AT&T 3B2/600 is supported.

I neither have a AT&T 3B2 nor a SCSI2SD. Sorry. I do however, have 
experience with lots of ACARD adapters. The one that's most like the 
SCSI2SD is the ARS-2000SUP. That's the 50-pin SCSI/SCSI2 version. It works 
great in my older SGIs (Indy, Challenge S, and Indigo), a Quadra 660AV, 
Sun Sparc Classic, and I've also tested it in an Amiga 3000 where it also 
works fine. I use them with SSDs to push the latency as low as I can go. I 
realize the disk throughput is never going to be great just due to the 
limitations of fast SCSI2.

http://www.acard.com/english/fb01-product.jsp?idno_no=249&prod_no=ARS-2000SUP&type1_idno=6&ino=43

-Swift

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Charles Anthony]

On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 10:49 AM, Rod Smallwood <
rodsmallwoo...@btinternet.com> wrote:Apart from a personal 1202 alarm

I have a habit of coding "can't happen" error checks with 1201 or 1202
error numbers.

-- Charles

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Henk Gooijen]

-Oorspronkelijk bericht- 
From: Rod Smallwood 
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2016 7:49 PM 
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts 
Subject: Re: PDP-11/94-E 

All good information. Apart from a personal 1202 alarm (somebody out 
there may understand that)

I did try a TK50 controller instead of the RX02 controller - same result.

-
I hope you tried a TUK50 instead of the RX211, not a TK50 ... (QBUS).
Personally, I would have tried using a simple DL11 or SLU module.
The TUK50 is too rare (read: expensive) to be used as a guinea pig ...

- Henk

Re: AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Josh Dersch]

On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 10:36 AM, Jerry Kemp  wrote:

> We have recently had activity on the list discussing AT&T 3b2 related
> stuff, then earlier today we have had discussions concerning the SCSI2SD
> drive replacement hardware.
>
> I was reviewing the online documentation for SCSI2SD, specifically here:
>
> 
>
> and I specifically see that the AT&T 3B2/600 is supported.
>
> Many years ago, when I was administering 3b2's, I had always remembered
> those 327 Mb drives were a PITA getting those replaced thru my supply
> system.
>
> ..
>
> Wondering if anyone here is using SCSI2SD on their 3b2's, and if so, what
> are your experiences?  Hopefully working well?


I have my 3B2/600 running off of a SCSI2SD (from an image taken from my
original dying 327MB Seagate Wren drive) and it runs like a champ.  I think
I'm the guy who reported success to the SCSI2SD site for this particular
machine.

We also have our 3B2/600 at the Living Computer Museum running off of one.
I've found the SCSI2SD to be extremely useful in a number of situations.
Most recently I've gotten an HP/Apollo 425T (which demands a SCSI-1 drive
amongst other things) happily running off of one.

- Josh



>
>
> Jerry
>

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Henk Gooijen]

-Oorspronkelijk bericht- 
From: Noel Chiappa 
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2016 7:24 PM 
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org 
Cc: j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu 
Subject: Re: PDP-11/94-E 


   > From: Henk Gooijen

   > The first 4 (5?) slots are QBUS

Technically, PMI, which is more-or-less QBUS on the left (A/B) side (modulo
not having grants, unless the appropriate backplane jumpers are set to send
grants to those slots), and it uses the standard CD interconnect (as in Q/CD
backplanes) on the right (C/D) side to carry PMI.

   > The RX211 must have the NPR/NPG open. Check the documention which DIP
   > switch must be set in the correct position. However, not sure if that
   > would cause the RX211 to be "invisible".

Right; DMA would not work, but normal master/slave UNIBUS read/write cycles
to the device registers should still work.

Noel

-
You can of course read and write the CSR and all other registers of the RX211,
*if* it is in the memory space where you expect it. Making sure is easy: check
the jumpers / DIP switches on the RX211.
Note that the RX11 (for RX01 drives) does *not* use DMA, and what's worse
(IIRC) that module does NOT jumper CA1-CB1 on the module itself!
The RX211 does use DMA, so the NPG should be open. As said, there is no
need to cut the NPR/NPG wire, because those two pins  go to that first module
at the right side, and has a DIP switch to open / close the NPR/NPG for *all*
UNIBUS slots).
But this is all from memory ... you can read the manual from bitsavers too ;-)
BTW, yes I have an 84 and an 94 in that box (power supply at the right side
of the box). Very similar in all aspects.  In fact, DEC did "rebrand" an 84 to
an 94 by swapping the CPU module (and removing the memory modules),
and glueing a label saying PDP-11/94 over the original panel's PDP-11/84.
I have such a box too. Hmmm, should take a picture of that ...

- Henk

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Rod Smallwood]

On 01/06/2016 18:24, Noel Chiappa wrote:

 > From: Rod Smallwood

 > if you try to get it to boot it says no controller to every device
 > except DD and that says no drive

Hmm, I wonder if that's a clue. Ah, probably not: 'DD' means 'TU58', which is
interfaced through a standard serial line (DL11 clone), and the standard
device location for the TU58's serial line is 776500, which is the standard
address for the first serial line, and since the 11/94 has a bunch of serial
lines, the code probably thinks there's a TU58 there. But there isn't...

 > I cant get it to go into ODT to look at the registers.

If you look in the "PDP-11/84 System Technical and Reference Manual"
(EK-1184E-TM-001), available here:

   http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/1184/EK-1184E-TM-001_Dec87.pdf

Section 3.7 lists several ways to get into ODT. In addition to those, if you
look at Section 3.2.2, it allows you to configure the machine to fall into
ODT on power-on (section B gives details).


 > From: Henk Gooijen

 > The first 4 (5?) slots are QBUS

Technically, PMI, which is more-or-less QBUS on the left (A/B) side (modulo
not having grants, unless the appropriate backplane jumpers are set to send
grants to those slots), and it uses the standard CD interconnect (as in Q/CD
backplanes) on the right (C/D) side to carry PMI.

 > The RX211 must have the NPR/NPG open. Check the documention which DIP
 > switch must be set in the correct position. However, not sure if that
 > would cause the RX211 to be "invisible".

Right; DMA would not work, but normal master/slave UNIBUS read/write cycles
to the device registers should still work.

 > Can you check the RX211 in another UNIBUS system? See whether its CSR
 > responds.

Another good test would be to plug a known working UNIBUS card into the
11/94, and check if the CPU can 'see' it.

 > Also, check the configuration of the RX211. It might be set to a
 > different CSR ...

Yup.

Noel
All good information. Apart from a personal 1202 alarm (somebody out 
there may understand that)

I did try a TK50 controller instead of the RX02 controller - same result.
I'll have another go with the outstanding things to try to-morrow.
My two granddaughters (one two the other four) have been helping to-day!!

Thanks for  the help.
   Please insert speech from Henry V scene III here (We 
few We band of brothers...)


Regards  Rod

AT&T 3b2 vs SCSI2SD drive replacement

[Jerry Kemp]

We have recently had activity on the list discussing AT&T 3b2 related stuff, 
then earlier today we have had discussions concerning the SCSI2SD drive 
replacement hardware.


I was reviewing the online documentation for SCSI2SD, specifically here:



and I specifically see that the AT&T 3B2/600 is supported.

Many years ago, when I was administering 3b2's, I had always remembered those 
327 Mb drives were a PITA getting those replaced thru my supply system.


..

Wondering if anyone here is using SCSI2SD on their 3b2's, and if so, what are 
your experiences?  Hopefully working well?


Jerry

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Noel Chiappa]

> If you look in the "PDP-11/84 System Technical and Reference Manual"

Ooops, getting my 84's and 94's (it's the same chassis) mixed up. You of
course want the "PDP-11/94-E System User and Maintenance Guide"
(EK-PDP94-MG-001)

  http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/1194/EK-PDP94-MG-001_Sep90.pdf

> Section 3.7 lists several ways to get into ODT. In addition to those,
> if you look at Section 3.2.2, it allows you to configure the machine to
> fall into ODT on power-on (section B gives details).

Basically the same manual, but you want Section 3.5.6.2 in this one for the
startup config.

Noel

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Rod Smallwood]

On 01/06/2016 17:24, Jerry Weiss wrote:



On Jun 1, 2016, at 10:08 AM, Rod Smallwood  
wrote:



On 01/06/2016 14:39, Jerry Weiss wrote:

On Jun 1, 2016, at 5:04 AM, Rod Smallwood  wrote:


OK from the beginning.

1.The 11/94 is housed in deep box located in a 42inch cabinet. It uses a 
KDJ11-E Quad proc. board.
2.Two buses (Q and Uni) are housed in the one box and are linked by a 
special interface card.
3.Via a pair of flat cables the CPU is linked to an I/O panel at  the rear 
of the cabinet.
   As well as six nine way D (rs232) and one 25 way D  (rs232) sockets 
there is a set of dip switches to
   set up the console serial line parameters. There is also a two digit 
power on self test progress display.
4.On switch on the self test progress display and the LED's on the edge of 
the CPU card count down
from 77 to 04 (normal run mode)

5.Dialog mode is entered as set by the dip switches on the I/O panel. 
Sometimes it gives the List Boot etc.
Hitting any of the choices just drops you into set up mode. Setup does 
work and you can save the changes.
6.   The main problems are that if you try to get it to boot it says no 
controller to every device except  DD
   and that says no drive. Secondly I cant get it to go into ODT to look at 
the registers.

Comments please

Rod Smallwood




1. The PROM appears to be genuine DEC. KDJ11-E Monitor V 1.06

2.  I have seen it  the mode where it offers List etc but only with VT100



It would appear that deviced on the Unibus is inaccessible.  DD is run off the 
KDJ11-E serial ports.

Have you checked the Unibus supply voltages?KDJ11-T properly seated?
Is there a good battery for the TOY clock inserted?

TOY battery did need a change. (got to go get one)
Would that have caused the problems?


Its possible that a low or bad battery may be causing problems if the TOY chip 
is also was used to store a the bits of the Setup or other internal status.
You said the settings are saved, but does this mean they are retained after 
power has been removed?  Best to put in a new battery and rule it out.

After looking at EK-PDP94-MG-001_Sep90.pdf documents that the self diagnostics 
should have checked out the KTJ11—B and cpu throughly, but its not clear it 
actually checks anything on the Unibus side, other than though the MAP command.

Also check out http://www.pdp-11.nl  for info on an 
11/93 which is basically Qbus only use of the same CPU board.




Hi
Henk has been helping. It would appear he has one of these beasts. See 
recent post for comments.

I'm going to replace the battery with 2 x 1.5v whilst I get a 3V one

Rod

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Rod Smallwood

> if you try to get it to boot it says no controller to every device
> except DD and that says no drive

Hmm, I wonder if that's a clue. Ah, probably not: 'DD' means 'TU58', which is
interfaced through a standard serial line (DL11 clone), and the standard
device location for the TU58's serial line is 776500, which is the standard
address for the first serial line, and since the 11/94 has a bunch of serial
lines, the code probably thinks there's a TU58 there. But there isn't...

> I cant get it to go into ODT to look at the registers.

If you look in the "PDP-11/84 System Technical and Reference Manual"
(EK-1184E-TM-001), available here:

  http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/1184/EK-1184E-TM-001_Dec87.pdf

Section 3.7 lists several ways to get into ODT. In addition to those, if you
look at Section 3.2.2, it allows you to configure the machine to fall into
ODT on power-on (section B gives details).


> From: Henk Gooijen

> The first 4 (5?) slots are QBUS

Technically, PMI, which is more-or-less QBUS on the left (A/B) side (modulo
not having grants, unless the appropriate backplane jumpers are set to send
grants to those slots), and it uses the standard CD interconnect (as in Q/CD
backplanes) on the right (C/D) side to carry PMI.

> The RX211 must have the NPR/NPG open. Check the documention which DIP
> switch must be set in the correct position. However, not sure if that
> would cause the RX211 to be "invisible".

Right; DMA would not work, but normal master/slave UNIBUS read/write cycles
to the device registers should still work.

> Can you check the RX211 in another UNIBUS system? See whether its CSR
> responds.

Another good test would be to plug a known working UNIBUS card into the
11/94, and check if the CPU can 'see' it.

> Also, check the configuration of the RX211. It might be set to a
> different CSR ...

Yup.

Noel

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Rod Smallwood]

On 01/06/2016 16:27, Henk Gooijen wrote:
-Oorspronkelijk bericht- From: Rod Smallwood Sent: Wednesday, 
June 01, 2016 1:02 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic 
Posts Subject: PDP-11/94-E

Hi
  I'm trying to get my 11/94 running. Its a hybrid having both Q 
and Unibus. The CPU card  has a KDJ11-E
18Mhz processor with 4Mb ram and six serial ports plus the console on 
board. Apart from a voltage monitor card

that's all there is in the Qbus section.
Between the Q and Unibus sections is a special  convertor card 
(KTJ-11B UNIBUS adapter.)
After the KTJ-11B I have one slot with an RX211 8in floppy controller 
in it.
All of the other slots have bus grant cards except the last one that 
has a terminator card and a MLM card.
On switch on the console display comes up. Whilst it performs the same 
functions as the one in the manual
it looks different. What ever I do by way of setting up devices I 
can't get it to talk to the RX211.

it just says No Controller.

Ideas anybody?
Rod Smallwood

-
I have to do this from memory as all my systems "live" 9 km away ...
Both 84 and 94 in that box are very similar. The first 4 (5?) slots 
are QBUS,

the rest is UNIBUS. The slot between the QBUS and UNIBUS is where the
converter is supposed to be.
In the 84, all memory would go in the QBUS slots, but with the 94, I 
guess

the QBUS slots will be empty, because *all* memory is on-board the 94.

However, most right slot (seen from the front) in the QBUS section is a
module that, among others, has the system voltages and monitoring.
On *that* board are all NPR/NPG (CA1-CB1) "jumpers" for the UNIBUS
slots. Actually they are DIP switches.
The RX211 must have the NPR/NPG open. Check the documention
which DIP switch must be set in the correct position.
However, not sure if that would cause the RX211 to be "invisible".

Can you check the RX211 in another UNIBUS system?  See whether its
CSR responds. Also, check the configuration of the RX211. It might be
set to a different CSR ...

- Henk



Thanks Henk
   You are quite correct.  Its are laid out exactly as 
you describe and as in the manual.
There is a monitoring card next to the cpu connected by a few black 
wires on a plug.
There nothing in the next slot because as you comment that's where the 
PMI is.
Next we have the Uni/Q bus converter followed by the RX02 interface card 
then
three bus grant  cards  and in the last slot a minimum load card at one 
end and a unibus terminator at the other ( as per the manual.)


I have found one issue the TOY battery needs changing . I  don't have 3v 
cell  I can make something from

two 1.5v cells.
Can you confirm the RX02 controller is not DMA ie polled and the npr 
strap for that slot does need removing.
You get at it underneath The straps are held on  with screws according 
to the PDP-11/94-E manual.


At switch on it does now go into the monitor screen where you can choose 
List Diagnostic etc.
However regardless of what you type it goes to the main setup screen. 
You can go the different setups and save the changes.


So what would prevent it going to say the list function and defaulting 
to the setup screen?


Regards

Rod

MOnSter 6502 (was Re: Monster 6502)

[Eric Smith]

Nitpick: It's not the "Monster 6502", it's the "MOnSter 6502".

Eric has added discrete capacitors to the internal buses which has it
working better than before. I haven't heard whether that's improved
the maximum clock rate.

Re: Apple & SGI keyboards (Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[Raymond Wiker]

> On 01 Jun 2016, at 16:46 , Liam Proven  wrote:
> 
> On 1 June 2016 at 00:16, Swift Griggs  wrote:
>> I've never
>> known them to create "clackety" keyboards with mechanical switches
> 
> But that's the point. This here Extended II has them, as did the
> Extended I before it. (I have one of them too, but I couldn't find it
> in my storage unit in London to bring it over here to the Czech
> Republic.)
> 
> I think the earlier ones do too, but they, although pleasant to type
> on, have weird key layouts, especially of the cursor keys. The
> Extended I & II have a PC-like layout, which minimised the mental
> effort of switching between my Mac, my PC laptops and my IBM Model-M
> equipped Raspberry Pi. "Inverted T" FTW!

The Apple //e, //c, //c+ and //GS all had mechanical and somewhat clicky 
keyboards (using various types of Alps keyswitches). I'm also pretty certain 
that the original Mac had a (very nice) clicky keyboard.

Re: Real Mice (was real keyboards ...)

[geneb]

On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:


On 06/01/2016 07:18 AM, geneb wrote:


For trackballs, you can't beat the Kensington Trackball:
http://www.kensington.com/us/us/4493/k64325/expert-mouse-wired-trackball


(They can be had for less in other places)

The ball is roughly the size of a cue ball and it's got a nice feel
to it.


I'll venture that the ball in my CH DT225 *is* a standard billiards cue
ball.


That design looks very similar to the Kensington I had in the early to mid 
90's.


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_!

Re: Real Mice (was real keyboards ...)

[Jon Elson]

On 06/01/2016 09:18 AM, geneb wrote:
For trackballs, you can't beat the Kensington Trackball: 
http://www.kensington.com/us/us/4493/k64325/expert-mouse-wired-trackball 


(They can be had for less in other places)
The ball is roughly the size of a cue ball and it's got a 
nice feel to it.
$100??  Yikes!  Well, I wear these out, so I will keep an 
eye out for one at a more reasonable price.

What dies is the button switches, so I replace those as needed.

Jon

Re: SCSI2SD for 50 pin - was Re: Macintosh Quadra 840AV

[Cody Swanson]

Perfect, I will check out the scsi2sd. Thanks for the feedback gents!

- Original Message -
From: "Toby Thain" 
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
Sent: Wednesday, June 1, 2016 10:19:18 AM
Subject: SCSI2SD for 50 pin - was Re: Macintosh Quadra 840AV

On 2016-06-01 12:11 PM, Cody Swanson wrote:
> I managed to pick up a Mac Quadra 840AV yesterday ...
>
> What is everyone doing for replacement 50 pin SCSI drives in their
> 90's hardware? Is there a reasonably priced flash based replacement
> yet? I remember looking into it a few years ago for my Sun IPX and
> the only solutions I could find seemed to be priced for industrial
> applications.


SCSI2SD is very reasonably priced:

   http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD

When I bought mine last year, there were a couple of different ebay stores.

--Toby


>
> Also, has anyone had experience with the apple power supplies of this
> vintage? ...

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Jerry Weiss]

Jerry Weiss
j...@ieee.org



> On Jun 1, 2016, at 11:24 AM, Jerry Weiss  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Its possible that a low or bad battery may be causing problems if the TOY 
> chip is also was used to store a the bits of the Setup or other internal 
> status.
> You said the settings are saved, but does this mean they are retained after 
> power has been removed?  Best to put in a new battery and rule it out.
> 

After further review EEprom is seperate chip for the setup retention.

 

SCSI2SD for 50 pin - was Re: Macintosh Quadra 840AV

[Toby Thain]

On 2016-06-01 12:11 PM, Cody Swanson wrote:

I managed to pick up a Mac Quadra 840AV yesterday ...

What is everyone doing for replacement 50 pin SCSI drives in their
90's hardware? Is there a reasonably priced flash based replacement
yet? I remember looking into it a few years ago for my Sun IPX and
the only solutions I could find seemed to be priced for industrial
applications.



SCSI2SD is very reasonably priced:

  http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD

When I bought mine last year, there were a couple of different ebay stores.

--Toby




Also, has anyone had experience with the apple power supplies of this
vintage? ...

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Jerry Weiss]

> On Jun 1, 2016, at 10:08 AM, Rod Smallwood  
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 01/06/2016 14:39, Jerry Weiss wrote:
>> 
>>> On Jun 1, 2016, at 5:04 AM, Rod Smallwood  
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> OK from the beginning.
>>> 
>>> 1.The 11/94 is housed in deep box located in a 42inch cabinet. It uses 
>>> a KDJ11-E Quad proc. board.
>>> 2.Two buses (Q and Uni) are housed in the one box and are linked by a 
>>> special interface card.
>>> 3.Via a pair of flat cables the CPU is linked to an I/O panel at  the 
>>> rear of the cabinet.
>>>   As well as six nine way D (rs232) and one 25 way D  (rs232) sockets 
>>> there is a set of dip switches to
>>>   set up the console serial line parameters. There is also a two digit 
>>> power on self test progress display.
>>> 4.On switch on the self test progress display and the LED's on the edge 
>>> of the CPU card count down
>>>from 77 to 04 (normal run mode)
>>> 
>>> 5.Dialog mode is entered as set by the dip switches on the I/O panel. 
>>> Sometimes it gives the List Boot etc.
>>>Hitting any of the choices just drops you into set up mode. Setup 
>>> does work and you can save the changes.
>>> 6.   The main problems are that if you try to get it to boot it says no 
>>> controller to every device except  DD
>>>   and that says no drive. Secondly I cant get it to go into ODT to look 
>>> at the registers.
>>> 
>>> Comments please
>>> 
>>> Rod Smallwood
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 1. The PROM appears to be genuine DEC. KDJ11-E Monitor V 1.06
>>> 
>>> 2.  I have seen it  the mode where it offers List etc but only with VT100
>>> 
>>> 
>> It would appear that deviced on the Unibus is inaccessible.  DD is run off 
>> the KDJ11-E serial ports.
>> 
>> Have you checked the Unibus supply voltages?KDJ11-T properly seated?
>> Is there a good battery for the TOY clock inserted?
> TOY battery did need a change. (got to go get one)
> Would that have caused the problems?
> 

Its possible that a low or bad battery may be causing problems if the TOY chip 
is also was used to store a the bits of the Setup or other internal status.
You said the settings are saved, but does this mean they are retained after 
power has been removed?  Best to put in a new battery and rule it out.

After looking at EK-PDP94-MG-001_Sep90.pdf documents that the self diagnostics 
should have checked out the KTJ11—B and cpu throughly, but its not clear it 
actually checks anything on the Unibus side, other than though the MAP command.

Also check out http://www.pdp-11.nl  for info on an 
11/93 which is basically Qbus only use of the same CPU board.

Re: Macintosh Quadra 840AV

[tim lindner]

On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 9:11 AM, Cody Swanson  wrote:
> What is everyone doing for replacement 50 pin SCSI drives in their 90's 
> hardware? Is there a reasonably
> priced flash based replacement yet? I remember looking into it a few years 
> ago for my Sun IPX and the only
> solutions I could find seemed to be priced for industrial applications.

My friend Ed, sells this:

https://sites.google.com/site/thezippsterzone/scsi2sd

While I have not bought one of these products, I have bought others
from him (CoCoSDC, and MCX-128, RGB2VGA) and am really happy with the
quality and service.

zippster278  gmail.com

He may, or may not have any left to sell.

-- 
--
tim lindner

"Proper User Policy apparently means Simon Says."

Re: Real Mice (was real keyboards ...)

[Pete Turnbull]

On 01/06/2016 02:58, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:

Since we are moaning about real hardware, is there anything available
these days that comes even close to the Logitech ergonomic three
button mouse from the mid-late 1990s



I suspect most people here still use the middle mouse button on a
regular basis


Absolutely, it's indispensable in Unix systems I use, and used a lot in 
Windoze too.  My favourite mouse is a Logitech VX Nano; it has a scroll 
wheel that can be set to freewheel for very fast scrolling, or set as 
normal, but very importantly it also has a real middle button just 
behind the scroll wheel.  They're no longer made, but the Logitech MX 
Anywhere is very similar.  I have one VX and four MXs, and my only 
regret is that there isn't a PS/2 version to use on my SGIs so I need an 
adapter.


--
Pete
Pete Turnbull

Re: Real Mice (was real keyboards ...)

[Swift Griggs]

On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> (They can be had for less in other places)
> > The ball is roughly the size of a cue ball and it's got a nice feel
> > to it.
> 
> I'll venture that the ball in my CH DT225 *is* a standard billiards cue
> ball.

Eight ball rollin'! 

http://standalonecomplex.org/theprof/Sorted%20Pictures/Mice/Trackballs/CH%20DT225/Dual%20USB%20DT225s.jpg

-Swift

Re: Beehive B601 terminal

[Chuck Guzis]

On 06/01/2016 08:24 AM, tony duell wrote:
> Does anyone know anything about this? Does anyone
> have a service manual for it?

Internally, it sounds about the same as the veneered and generated Super
Bee from the early-mid 1970s.   I don't see any manuals for it on
bitsavers, however.

--Chuck

Macintosh Quadra 840AV

[Cody Swanson]

I managed to pick up a Mac Quadra 840AV yesterday with an apple VGA monitor and 
Laser Writer II printer for $60 CAD (approximately $5 USD :-) off the local 
classifieds site. The pram battery had leaked pretty badly but seemed to only 
drip onto the internal RF shielding. After I cleaned everything up with 
isopropanol it booted fine off a startup floppy although the hard disk appears 
to be bad. Like most macs of this vintage it does seem to have leaking surface 
mount caps so I am going to order the standard tantalum replacements from 
digikey and recap the mainboard. 

What is everyone doing for replacement 50 pin SCSI drives in their 90's 
hardware? Is there a reasonably priced flash based replacement yet? I remember 
looking into it a few years ago for my Sun IPX and the only solutions I could 
find seemed to be priced for industrial applications. 

Also, has anyone had experience with the apple power supplies of this vintage? 
I'm wondering if it's something I should recap as well? Also, any comments as 
to which classic mac OS version is best for this era of hardware? I haven't 
played around with classic macs much, I went right from the Apple IIe to PC's 
in the early 90's. 

Re: Real Mice (was real keyboards ...)

[Chuck Guzis]

On 06/01/2016 07:18 AM, geneb wrote:

> For trackballs, you can't beat the Kensington Trackball: 
> http://www.kensington.com/us/us/4493/k64325/expert-mouse-wired-trackball
> 
(They can be had for less in other places)
> The ball is roughly the size of a cue ball and it's got a nice feel
> to it.

I'll venture that the ball in my CH DT225 *is* a standard billiards cue
ball.

--Chuck

Re: Keyboards and Mice (was Model M, NEC ProSpeed)

[Chuck Guzis]

On 06/01/2016 01:49 AM, Christian Corti wrote:

> How do you paste text then? And there are quite a few applications
> that use the middle button to scroll the visible layer (e.g. gschem),
> or to open a link in a new tab (e.g. Opera, Firefox); very
> comfortable. I definitely need the middle button very often each
> day.

I'm keyboard-oriented--Ctrl-V, where I've copied using Ctrl-X or
Control-C .

> As a side note, I use only "Model M" keyboards even on current PCs 
> (although none of my IBM keyboards are labelled "Model M", but
> 1391403; can someone please clarify the origin of this designation?),
> and the good old Logitech M-Series mice (my current office PC has the
> _serial_ version)

At random, I've flipped over the 4 keyboards nearest me to read
thelabel.  All say "Model  M" along with the plant number.  The part and
FRU varies; the one I'm typing this on is 1391401 for the part number.

--Chuck

Re: Tek 4317 and/or Tek 4132

[Pete Lancashire]

3M cartridges can be either restored or the data read from them, about
15 years ago I took on a project to recover data from about 200 DC-300
cartridges.

The key is test and remove/replace the elastomer band before using the
cartridge. But if one does get the remains of the band all over the
place it just adds to the recovery time.

There are two recovery methods, the first is to replace the band.
Pretty much find a band from a DC600 or new cartridge. If that does
not work one could look into having a band made. Even if it is for a
one shot attempt to get the data off the tape. There are (were?)
companies that make belts. They grind the ends in a taper then bond
the ends together.

Another is to jury rig a drive to read from tape but not in the
cartridge. This is what I ended up doing. Try to image a real to real
tape machine. Again the idea is just to be able to read a tape once to
recover the data. Not to re-create a full transport.

Your going to need the resources of a small machine shop but depending
on the drive your going to sacrifice it not that hard to do. The drive
I had was one where the cartridge loaded sideways. or the smaller end
in first. You first built/find two servo/tension drives to hold each
of the two spools. The servos job was to keep tension on the tape
going into and out of the cartridge.  The cartridge was modified to
spool tape out and in, and to keep tape under tension between the
head(s) and the capsin. For servo's I took apart semi-pro 1/4" tape
transport that had servo driven tape reels. That machine also got me
tape guides and rollers.

Another task is removing any band remains from the tape with solvents
that will not effect the bond between the tape carrier (plastic) and
the magnetic material. It was a long time ago but I remember either
isopropyl or ethyl alcohol.





On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 7:02 AM, Rick Bensene  wrote:
> Hello, kind ClassicCMP denizens,
>
> I have two old Tektronix workstation machines.
>
> One is a Tektronix 4132.  It is a pc-sized (a little less tall, a little 
> deeper) unit that uses a National Semiconductor 32016 chip as the CPU.  It's 
> got a bunch of cards for RAM expansion, parallel and RS-232 ports.  It comes 
> with two built-in RS-232 ports, one of which is for the console terminal.  
> These machines have a slot in them a SCSI (single-ended) drive.  Typically 
> they were equipped with Maxtor XT1105 and XT1140 drives.  In the front, they 
> have a tape cartridge drive that uses 3m DC300A data cartridges.  This drive 
> is equipped with a piggy-backed Adaptec converter that takes the native QIC 
> tape drive format and converts it to a SCSI accessible tape drive.  On the 
> bank panel is a 7- segment display that indicates the self-test and 
> diagnostics, and when the OS (UTek) is loaded indicates system activity.  
> These is also a row of DIP-switches that set things like the console baud 
> rate, boot device, and stuff like that.There are two DB-25 serial ports, 
> a GPIB port, an AUI port for 10 Megabit Ethernet, and a port that extended 
> the internal SCSI bus externally.  Below  the back panel are slots for 
> plugging in options such as RAM and I/O, which included things like 
> full-width RAM cards (2 MB I think was the largest), half-width dual-port 
> async RS-232 serial cards, a half-width parallel interface card, a half-width 
> SCSI interface card (added another SCSI interface to the machine). The 
> machine ran a 4.2-Berkeley variant known as UTek.
> UTek was installed on the machine by putting a special cartridge in the drive 
> that contained essentially a miniroot filesystem and basic boot code.  The 
> configuration switches on the back would be set to force the tape drive as 
> the boot device.  The machine would be powered up (the power button was a 
> soft-power switch on the front panel of the machine), and the tape would be 
> read, and options provided via the console terminal to format the drive, set 
> its partition table, and things like that.  Then, the mini-root Unix system 
> would be loaded into, and run out of memory.  From there, if I remember 
> correctly, there was another cartridge (or perhaps two) that had the full 
> UTek installation on them.  The first tape was loaded, and a script run from 
> the mini-root OS that would begin the process of loading UTek onto the hard 
> disk from the tape image, and creating the boot block and all that would be 
> needed to boot up the full UTek environment from the hard disk.   When 
> complete, the scripting would ask for things like setting the time and date 
> (the machine had an built-in battery-backed real-time clock/calendar), 
> setting the root password, creating user accounts and groups, and stuff like 
> that.
> The machine was (for the day) a pretty capable little Unix workstation at a 
> time (the 4132 was announced in August of '85) when Suns were still at 
> Berkeley, and anything else that ran a halfway decent version of BSD was a 
> supermini li

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Henk Gooijen]

-Oorspronkelijk bericht- 
From: Rod Smallwood 
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2016 1:02 AM 
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts 
Subject: PDP-11/94-E 


Hi
  I'm trying to get my 11/94 running. Its a hybrid having both Q 
and Unibus. The CPU card  has a KDJ11-E
18Mhz processor with 4Mb ram and six serial ports plus the console on 
board. Apart from a voltage monitor card

that's all there is in the Qbus section.
Between the Q and Unibus sections is a special  convertor card (KTJ-11B 
UNIBUS adapter.)
After the KTJ-11B I have one slot with an RX211 8in floppy controller in 
it.
All of the other slots have bus grant cards except the last one that has 
a terminator card and a MLM card.
On switch on the console display comes up. Whilst it performs the same 
functions as the one in the manual
it looks different. What ever I do by way of setting up devices I can't 
get it to talk to the RX211.

it just says No Controller.

Ideas anybody?
Rod Smallwood

-
I have to do this from memory as all my systems "live" 9 km away ...
Both 84 and 94 in that box are very similar. The first 4 (5?) slots are QBUS,
the rest is UNIBUS. The slot between the QBUS and UNIBUS is where the
converter is supposed to be.
In the 84, all memory would go in the QBUS slots, but with the 94, I guess
the QBUS slots will be empty, because *all* memory is on-board the 94.

However, most right slot (seen from the front) in the QBUS section is a
module that, among others, has the system voltages and monitoring.
On *that* board are all NPR/NPG (CA1-CB1) "jumpers" for the UNIBUS
slots. Actually they are DIP switches.
The RX211 must have the NPR/NPG open. Check the documention
which DIP switch must be set in the correct position.
However, not sure if that would cause the RX211 to be "invisible".

Can you check the RX211 in another UNIBUS system?  See whether its
CSR responds. Also, check the configuration of the RX211. It might be
set to a different CSR ...

- Henk

Beehive B601 terminal

[tony duell]

I am trying to empty my storage unit back to my house (to save money
and becuase I have these old computers to play around with, not to
store). One thing I brought home recently is an old (even on this list)
CRT terminal. It claims to be a Beehive B601.

I have no manuals for it at all. 

Inside is the CRT (which looks to have a shallower deflection angle
than normal, but maybe it's a normal 90 degree one), a PSU (big
mains transformer and some kind of hybrid module for the regulator),
and 4 boards of logic plugged into a backplane. These are : 

Comms (all TTL, there is no UART chip that I can spot)

Processor (8008 + lots of 1702As.  I can only find
16 bytes of RAM (a pair of 7489s) but maybe I am
missing something

Cursor (yes, an entire PCB with that title -- all TTL again)

Display (lots of TTL + a couple of ROMs (presumably 
character generators) + a couple of rows of 8 pin
ICs (MOS shift registers for the display RAM?) and 
2 metal cans at the end of them (clock drivers?)

One odd feature is that one of the LEDs on the front
(there is a column of same next to the screen) is labelled
'Hebrew' and there seem to be hebrew (as well as English)
characters on the keycaps.

Does anyone know anything about this? Does anyone
have a service manual for it?

-tony

Re: Star install disks

[Al Kossow]

On 5/31/16 1:53 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
> 
> 
> On 5/31/16 1:38 PM, Jerry Wright wrote:
> 
>> Don Maslin had most of them.  I sent copies of mine to him and he sent 
>> copies of his to me. of coarse that a few years ago.
>>
> 
> They didn't survive to what was left in the storage locker. I just looked
> again at what I read when we got them at CHM (about 900 disks) and they
> aren't there. They also weren't on the aardvark system backup from 2002.
> 
> Can you send me copies of what you have?
> 
> 

also, came across this today

I had forgotten about "product factoring"

at the end, some machines were saved in the bay area. I have a rather large 
pile of 8010/8090 boards
and four 8090s that another list member saved when he lived in Santa Cruz in 
the late 90's.


--

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail147.html

Jerry, I've been chasing a subject around the 'net via web pages and e-mails 
for a couple of weeks and have had no luck
finding what I'm looking for. You're fond of saying that we're now in an era 
when most every question has an answer, but
my answer is probably still locked into a human brain. So I though I'd try the 
tap at your web site to see if any of
your readers are able to help me.

For research and personal reasons, I am trying to obtain a functioning Xerox 
GlobalView system. Now this kind of system
is admittedly out of date, but it's far from obsolete. A functioning system can 
take one of several forms that would be
useful to me:

a) A functioning 'max-config' 6085 (pref a 6085-2 or a Fuji Xerox model) 
workstation with a live hard drive. monitor,
kbd, and mouse. All the bells and whistles so to speak.

b) A complete copy of the GlobalView install media for either WinTel (win32) or 
Solaris/Sparc.

I'd also need a complete set of product factoring numbers (software license 
keys) for the Xerox software.

The above will make 'perfect sense' to many of your readers, I hope that one of 
them will actually be able to help me out.

Considering how influential the Xerox STAR and it's follow-ons were, you'd 
think that someone, or some company somewhere
would be able to help. Or that there would be archival information and possibly 
materials available from Xerox.

Wrong.

After exchanging a number of e-mails with current and former Xerox employees, 
it has become clear to me that Xerox would
rather pretend that they didn't "Fumble the Future" and let the Personal 
Computer revolution slip away from them. Even
archives you might normally expect to see at PARC were purged. There are 
several ex-Xerox employee groups trying to
establish a functioning set of workstations and software at museums, but 
materials, hardware, and software are almost
non-existant. And those few who have operable systems are loath to let anyone 
near to them knowing full well that
replacement parts are not to be had.

As far as I'm able to deduce, Xerox has (nearly successfully) tried to bury all 
memory of the STAR. When Xerox
'converted' to MS based networking and commodity-priced personal computers, 
those "ahead of their time" workstations and
software were rather abruptly (one correspondant used the word forcibly) 
removed from user and engineering desktops and
then physically destroyed. Not even put up for employee or surplus sale. Simply 
Destroyed.

Market forces take some of the blame for this as did the need for Xerox to join 
the late 20th Century. But simple
pig-headness on the part of EDS (a contractor to Xerox) and a no-longer-there 
CIO helpd to kill off the memory and
archives of a most remarkable design and software product.

Well, rather than (further) rehash the sad, sorry story of Xerox, STAR, the 
Alto, 8010, 1186, 6085, ViewPoint, and
GlobalView, I'll just hope that one of your readers or their company will be 
able to help me out.

Thanks, take it easy, good luck in Hollywood, and keep working on Jannisaries 
and The Burning Tower.

All the best

Chuck Kuhlman ckuhl...@mn.rr.com  ckuhl...@uswest.net

Re: TI Professional Computer (TIPC) Service Manual?

[David Gesswein]

On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 09:39:14PM -0400, David Gesswein wrote:
> I didn't find them in the technical reference but did find a list in the
> bios listing. If I read that correctly its interrupt or timers failed.
> Should be LED ON OFF OFF.
> 
Scan of bios listing here. Will try to get the tech ref up in a couple days.
http://www.pdp8online.com/ftp/software/TI_PC/documents/

Re: Real Mice (was real keyboards ...)

[geneb]

On Wed, 1 Jun 2016, Holm Tiffe wrote:





I still use the Logitech 3-button "stationary mouse", ie. trackball.  They
are getting harder to find.


For trackballs, you can't beat the Kensington Trackball:
http://www.kensington.com/us/us/4493/k64325/expert-mouse-wired-trackball
(They can be had for less in other places)
The ball is roughly the size of a cue ball and it's got a nice feel to it.

g.

--


Oh yes, the Logitech Trackman Marble FX can beat it :-)


At least the Kensington isn't discontinued. :)

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_!

Re: Tek 4317 and/or Tek 4132

[Al Kossow]

I was also wondering if you have any hardware documentation for the 4317.
I'm curious how similar it is architecturally to the 4406

On 6/1/16 7:58 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
> 
> 
> On 6/1/16 7:02 AM, Rick Bensene wrote:
>> Both machines have had hard disk failures, so OS is gone.
>>
> 
> At this point it may be worth digging into the drives to see if they can be 
> fixed.
> I have had bits of a 4132 for a while, and haven't had any luck locating 
> software.
> 

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Rod Smallwood]

On 01/06/2016 14:39, Jerry Weiss wrote:



On Jun 1, 2016, at 5:04 AM, Rod Smallwood  wrote:


OK from the beginning.

1.The 11/94 is housed in deep box located in a 42inch cabinet. It uses a 
KDJ11-E Quad proc. board.
2.Two buses (Q and Uni) are housed in the one box and are linked by a 
special interface card.
3.Via a pair of flat cables the CPU is linked to an I/O panel at  the rear 
of the cabinet.
   As well as six nine way D (rs232) and one 25 way D  (rs232) sockets 
there is a set of dip switches to
   set up the console serial line parameters. There is also a two digit 
power on self test progress display.
4.On switch on the self test progress display and the LED's on the edge of 
the CPU card count down
from 77 to 04 (normal run mode)

5.Dialog mode is entered as set by the dip switches on the I/O panel. 
Sometimes it gives the List Boot etc.
Hitting any of the choices just drops you into set up mode. Setup does 
work and you can save the changes.
6.   The main problems are that if you try to get it to boot it says no 
controller to every device except  DD
   and that says no drive. Secondly I cant get it to go into ODT to look at 
the registers.

Comments please

Rod Smallwood




1. The PROM appears to be genuine DEC. KDJ11-E Monitor V 1.06

2.  I have seen it  the mode where it offers List etc but only with VT100



It would appear that deviced on the Unibus is inaccessible.  DD is run off the 
KDJ11-E serial ports.

Have you checked the Unibus supply voltages?KDJ11-T properly seated?
Is there a good battery for the TOY clock inserted?

TOY battery did need a change. (got to go get one)
Would that have caused the problems?

Rod

Re: Tek 4317 and/or Tek 4132

[Al Kossow]

On 6/1/16 7:02 AM, Rick Bensene wrote:
> Both machines have had hard disk failures, so OS is gone.
>

At this point it may be worth digging into the drives to see if they can be 
fixed.
I have had bits of a 4132 for a while, and haven't had any luck locating 
software.

Re: Keyboards and Mice (was Model M, NEC ProSpeed)

[Liam Proven]

On 1 June 2016 at 10:49, Christian Corti  
wrote:
>
> How do you paste text then? And there are quite a few applications that use
> the middle button to scroll the visible layer (e.g. gschem), or to open a
> link in a new tab (e.g. Opera, Firefox); very comfortable.
> I definitely need the middle button very often each day.


Exactly. Me too.

And on Linux, middle-clicking the title-bar sends the window to the
back of the stack, which I find very handy. On Ubuntu, middle-clicking
a Launcher icon opens a new blank window for that app, as well as any
other windows it may already have open.

It's indispensable functionality for me.

On the Mac, OTOH, I barely use it except for new browser tabs.


-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: Apple & SGI keyboards (Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[Liam Proven]

On 1 June 2016 at 00:16, Swift Griggs  wrote:
> I've never
> known them to create "clackety" keyboards with mechanical switches

But that's the point. This here Extended II has them, as did the
Extended I before it. (I have one of them too, but I couldn't find it
in my storage unit in London to bring it over here to the Czech
Republic.)

I think the earlier ones do too, but they, although pleasant to type
on, have weird key layouts, especially of the cursor keys. The
Extended I & II have a PC-like layout, which minimised the mental
effort of switching between my Mac, my PC laptops and my IBM Model-M
equipped Raspberry Pi. "Inverted T" FTW!


-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: vintage computers in active use

[Holm Tiffe]

Mouse wrote:

> > I have used the following operating systems: [...]
> > Now will somebody explain to me why windows  is considered not good.
> 
> There are, of course, almost as many answers to that as there are
> people holding that opinion.
> 
> My own answers?
> 
> It's closed source.  It appears to put usefulness to users second to
> separating them from their money.  It appears to be designed for users
> who know nothing about computers - and designed to keep them in that
> state.  It appears to be designed around the model of large companies
> producing content which individual consumers consume (as opposed to
> peers providing things to one another).  It is a monoculture.  It
> drives the Intel ISA monoculture.  By requiring ridiculously
> over-specced machines, it encourages the sloppy coder tendency to hide
> sins with hardware.  It's full of gaping security holes - some by
> culture, some by design, some by chance.
> 
> (Yes, I know some of these are easily explainable.)
> 
> /~\ The ASCII   Mouse
> \ / Ribbon Campaign
>  X  Against HTML  mo...@rodents-montreal.org
> / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Couldn't have sayed it better, thanks.

Besides of that, it is only the german version of the Windows 10
End User Licence Agreement that gives Mikeysoft the righs to do with the
users data what ever they want todo? That in conjunction with the
agressive update mechanism used ist the main cause why people think it
is time now to change to linux. (think thy are right, but don't use
linux for myselves, prefer BSDs).

Regards,

Holm
-- 
  Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, 
 Freiberger Straße 42, 09600 Oberschöna, USt-Id: DE253710583
  www.tsht.de, i...@tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741

Re: Real Mice (was real keyboards ...)

[Holm Tiffe]

geneb wrote:

> On Tue, 31 May 2016, Jon Elson wrote:
> 
> > On 05/31/2016 08:58 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
> >> Since we are moaning about real hardware, is there anything available 
> >> these 
> >> days that comes even close to the Logitech ergonomic three button mouse 
> >> from the mid-late 1990s?  The sculpted to fit in your hand model?  Before 
> >> the scroll wheel abomination had been invented?  They were a joy to 
> >> behold, 
> >> let alone use.
> >> 
> >> 
> > I still use the Logitech 3-button "stationary mouse", ie. trackball.  They 
> > are getting harder to find.
> >
> For trackballs, you can't beat the Kensington Trackball: 
> http://www.kensington.com/us/us/4493/k64325/expert-mouse-wired-trackball
> (They can be had for less in other places)
> The ball is roughly the size of a cue ball and it's got a nice feel to it.
> 
> g.
> 
> -- 

Oh yes, the Logitech Trackman Marble FX can beat it :-)

Regards,

Holm
-- 
  Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, 
 Freiberger Straße 42, 09600 Oberschöna, USt-Id: DE253710583
  www.tsht.de, i...@tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741

Re: Real Mice (was real keyboards ...)

[geneb]

On Tue, 31 May 2016, Jon Elson wrote:


On 05/31/2016 08:58 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
Since we are moaning about real hardware, is there anything available these 
days that comes even close to the Logitech ergonomic three button mouse 
from the mid-late 1990s?  The sculpted to fit in your hand model?  Before 
the scroll wheel abomination had been invented?  They were a joy to behold, 
let alone use.



I still use the Logitech 3-button "stationary mouse", ie. trackball.  They 
are getting harder to find.


For trackballs, you can't beat the Kensington Trackball: 
http://www.kensington.com/us/us/4493/k64325/expert-mouse-wired-trackball

(They can be had for less in other places)
The ball is roughly the size of a cue ball and it's got a nice feel to 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_!

Re: Keyboards and the Model M (was Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[geneb]

On Tue, 31 May 2016, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:




On May 31, 2016, at 5:10 PM, Chuck Guzis  wrote:

I used one enough to have worn a visible depression in the space bar
with my right thumb.  I still have a few of the keyboards around.


Another thing I love about the WASD keyboards.  Because the lettering is 
molded all the way through the keycap, I can't wear the letters off. 
I've had a couple of other compact format Cherry keyboards over the 
years that I loved, but I always managed to pound the legend off them 
within a year or so.


It's called a "double-shot" key.  There's two injection molds used for 
each key.


I strongly suggest that you guys check out 
https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/wiki/index - there's a ton of 
great info there including key vendors.


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_!

Tek 4317 and/or Tek 4132

[Rick Bensene]

Hello, kind ClassicCMP denizens,

I have two old Tektronix workstation machines.

One is a Tektronix 4132.  It is a pc-sized (a little less tall, a little 
deeper) unit that uses a National Semiconductor 32016 chip as the CPU.  It's 
got a bunch of cards for RAM expansion, parallel and RS-232 ports.  It comes 
with two built-in RS-232 ports, one of which is for the console terminal.  
These machines have a slot in them a SCSI (single-ended) drive.  Typically they 
were equipped with Maxtor XT1105 and XT1140 drives.  In the front, they have a 
tape cartridge drive that uses 3m DC300A data cartridges.  This drive is 
equipped with a piggy-backed Adaptec converter that takes the native QIC tape 
drive format and converts it to a SCSI accessible tape drive.  On the bank 
panel is a 7- segment display that indicates the self-test and diagnostics, and 
when the OS (UTek) is loaded indicates system activity.  These is also a row of 
DIP-switches that set things like the console baud rate, boot device, and stuff 
like that.There are two DB-25 serial ports, a GPIB port, an AUI port for 10 
Megabit Ethernet, and a port that extended the internal SCSI bus externally.  
Below  the back panel are slots for plugging in options such as RAM and I/O, 
which included things like full-width RAM cards (2 MB I think was the largest), 
half-width dual-port async RS-232 serial cards, a half-width parallel interface 
card, a half-width SCSI interface card (added another SCSI interface to the 
machine). The machine ran a 4.2-Berkeley variant known as UTek.
UTek was installed on the machine by putting a special cartridge in the drive 
that contained essentially a miniroot filesystem and basic boot code.  The 
configuration switches on the back would be set to force the tape drive as the 
boot device.  The machine would be powered up (the power button was a 
soft-power switch on the front panel of the machine), and the tape would be 
read, and options provided via the console terminal to format the drive, set 
its partition table, and things like that.  Then, the mini-root Unix system 
would be loaded into, and run out of memory.  From there, if I remember 
correctly, there was another cartridge (or perhaps two) that had the full UTek 
installation on them.  The first tape was loaded, and a script run from the 
mini-root OS that would begin the process of loading UTek onto the hard disk 
from the tape image, and creating the boot block and all that would be needed 
to boot up the full UTek environment from the hard disk.   When complete, the 
scripting would ask for things like setting the time and date (the machine had 
an built-in battery-backed real-time clock/calendar), setting the root 
password, creating user accounts and groups, and stuff like that.   
The machine was (for the day) a pretty capable little Unix workstation at a 
time (the 4132 was announced in August of '85) when Suns were still at 
Berkeley, and anything else that ran a halfway decent version of BSD was a 
supermini like a DEC VAX, some of the more powerful PDP 11's, or a Gould 
PowerNode.

The other machine, the Tektronix 4317, was again a Unix workstation-class 
machine, but this time, was based on the Motorola 68020 CPU, likely because 
software availability for Motorola 68K-family machine was much higher than that 
of the National 32016/32032 architecture, and porting things proved to be quite 
a difficult thing to do.
The 4317 was also in a PC-like cabinet, with a QIC-type tape drive on the 
front.  Internally, a SCSI hard disk provided storage, typically a larger one, 
like a 300Mb drive, from various different manufacturers.   The back panel was 
similar to that on the 6130, though the SCSI connector was more standardized, 
and there was an option for a framebuffer card that could add on to the CPU 
that provided graphics capability.  BNC connectors for RGB and sync (IIRC...or 
maybe it was sync-on-green, can't remember) were there, along with a jacks for 
plugging in a keyboard and mouse.  With a color display and keyboard/mouse the 
machine could run X-windows.  The back panel also had RS-232 ports, GPIB, and, 
if I remember correctly, it had both an AUI and BNC (for thin-net coax) for 10 
Megabit Ethernet.  It had some slots for expansion options, but I don't 
remember how they were organized.  The CPU board had quite a bit of room for 
RAM, and I believe a RAM expansion board could pop onto the main board to bring 
the RAM (without expansion slots) to something like 4 or 5 megabytes.

Anyway, the situation is this:

I've got a 4132 and a 4317 stashed away in storage.  Both machines have had 
hard disk failures, so OS is gone.
I used to have installation media, but alas, the cartridges all suffered failed 
drive tapes, and they failed in a way where they turned into goo, and without 
noticing it, I put them in the drives, and the goo turned to tapes into sticky, 
goopy spaghetti, not to mention making a mess out of the tape drive head, and 
gett

Re: Model M Key Cap Replacement WAS: Keyboards and the Model M (was Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[geneb]

On Tue, 31 May 2016, Christopher Satterfield wrote:


Unicomp still sells replacement caps (
http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/category/Buttons ), however I believe they
have a minimum order amount (price). There are also the ever-so-hated
keyboard forums where you can often post a "Looking for" and find someone
with some spares they'll dump dirt cheap or free.

AFAIK, the key caps that Unicomp sells are the monolithic cap & plunger 
that their keyboards use, not the two-part keys that the real Model M
keyboards use.  (For those not aware, the Model M key cap is separate from 
the plunger - the key cap is _literally_ just a cap on top of a smaller 
key form that's got the plunger molded in.)


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_!

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Jerry Weiss]

> On Jun 1, 2016, at 5:04 AM, Rod Smallwood  
> wrote:
> 
> 
> OK from the beginning.
> 
> 1.The 11/94 is housed in deep box located in a 42inch cabinet. It uses a 
> KDJ11-E Quad proc. board.
> 2.Two buses (Q and Uni) are housed in the one box and are linked by a 
> special interface card.
> 3.Via a pair of flat cables the CPU is linked to an I/O panel at  the 
> rear of the cabinet.
>   As well as six nine way D (rs232) and one 25 way D  (rs232) sockets 
> there is a set of dip switches to
>   set up the console serial line parameters. There is also a two digit 
> power on self test progress display.
> 4.On switch on the self test progress display and the LED's on the edge 
> of the CPU card count down
>from 77 to 04 (normal run mode)
> 
> 5.Dialog mode is entered as set by the dip switches on the I/O panel. 
> Sometimes it gives the List Boot etc.
>Hitting any of the choices just drops you into set up mode. Setup does 
> work and you can save the changes.
> 6.   The main problems are that if you try to get it to boot it says no 
> controller to every device except  DD
>   and that says no drive. Secondly I cant get it to go into ODT to look 
> at the registers.
> 
> Comments please
> 
> Rod Smallwood
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 1. The PROM appears to be genuine DEC. KDJ11-E Monitor V 1.06
> 
> 2.  I have seen it  the mode where it offers List etc but only with VT100
> 
> 

It would appear that deviced on the Unibus is inaccessible.  DD is run off the 
KDJ11-E serial ports.

Have you checked the Unibus supply voltages?KDJ11-T properly seated?
Is there a good battery for the TOY clock inserted?

Jerry

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[Rod Smallwood]

On 01/06/2016 01:10, Noel Chiappa wrote:

 > From: Rod Smallwood

 > On switch on the console display comes up. Whilst it performs the same
 > functions as the one in the manual it looks different.

Hmm. Does it seem like a DEC EPROM, or someone else's? The 11/84 (very
similar CPU) has a 'list' command which lists all the various EPROM's; does
you console emulator provide that?

 > What ever I do by way of setting up devices I can't get it to talk to
 > the RX211.

Try stopping the console emulator and falling into ODT, and seeing if you can
see the RK211's registers from ODT. If not, does the 11/94 have that 'map'
command in the console emulator that the 11/84 does?

Another thing to try is, if you have some other UNIBUS device, plugging that
in, and seeing if the CPU can 'see' it.

Noel
Hello Noel

   Thank you for your kind reply.

OK from the beginning.

1.The 11/94 is housed in deep box located in a 42inch cabinet. It 
uses a KDJ11-E Quad proc. board.
2.Two buses (Q and Uni) are housed in the one box and are linked by 
a special interface card.
3.Via a pair of flat cables the CPU is linked to an I/O panel at  
the rear of the cabinet.
   As well as six nine way D (rs232) and one 25 way D  (rs232) 
sockets there is a set of dip switches to
   set up the console serial line parameters. There is also a two 
digit power on self test progress display.
4.On switch on the self test progress display and the LED's on the 
edge of the CPU card count down

from 77 to 04 (normal run mode)

5.Dialog mode is entered as set by the dip switches on the I/O 
panel. Sometimes it gives the List Boot etc.
Hitting any of the choices just drops you into set up mode. 
Setup does work and you can save the changes.
6.   The main problems are that if you try to get it to boot it says no 
controller to every device except  DD
   and that says no drive. Secondly I cant get it to go into ODT to 
look at the registers.


Comments please

Rod Smallwood




1. The PROM appears to be genuine DEC. KDJ11-E Monitor V 1.06

2.  I have seen it  the mode where it offers List etc but only with VT100

Re: Keyboards and Mice (was Model M, NEC ProSpeed)

[Christian Corti]

On Tue, 31 May 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:

3-button, serial, RS232 ADB, USB and PS2.   I can't recall ever needing
to use or using the middle button a 3-button mouse.


How do you paste text then? And there are quite a few applications that 
use the middle button to scroll the visible layer (e.g. gschem), or 
to open a link in a new tab (e.g. Opera, Firefox); very comfortable.

I definitely need the middle button very often each day.

As a side note, I use only "Model M" keyboards even on current PCs 
(although none of my IBM keyboards are labelled "Model M", but 1391403; 
can someone please clarify the origin of this designation?), and the good 
old Logitech M-Series mice (my current office PC has the _serial_ version)


Christian

Re: DEC modules in a 4-slot backplane

[Lionel Johnson]

On 31/05/2016 5:42 AM, Adrian Graham wrote:

Hi folks,

Been rummaging in the garage for stuff I'll be exhibiting in the UK in July
and found this:

http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/LSI1123.JPG

It's a 4-slot cage containing:

M7270 11/03 CPU
M7944 4K RAM (x2)
M8027 LP11

There's a fault label on the M8027 saying it occasionally drops characters.
Question is, anyone know what it was out of?

Cheers!


When I worked on DEC gear we used a few 4-slot backplanes from VT130

to use in suitcase portable test units, so could be this.

Lionel.

Re: DEC modules in a 4-slot backplane

[Adrian Graham]

On 01/06/2016 07:38, "Lionel Johnson"  wrote:

>> M7270 11/03 CPU
>> M7944 4K RAM (x2)
>> M8027 LP11
>> 
>> There's a fault label on the M8027 saying it occasionally drops characters.
>> Question is, anyone know what it was out of?
>> 
>> Cheers!
>> 
> When I worked on DEC gear we used a few 4-slot backplanes from VT130
> 
> to use in suitcase portable test units, so could be this.

This was my first thought but the VT103 (I assume you meant this) has a
double-height card cage in it. The VT103 is another of my
should've-picked-up-when-given-the-chance-but-didn't things...

-- 
Adrian/Witchy
Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator
Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer
collection?

Re: Classic keyboard (and fonts) (Was: NEC ProSpeed 386

[Pete Lancashire]

I think I'm using an M. The label was removed long ago. At home I have
a couple of the version that came with an industrialized version that
went with ditto rack mount PS/2 of some flavor. The company I worked
at was buying around 20 a month and even though the product they went
into never used the keyboard or mouse, you got the who package.
Keyboard,
mouse, PS/2 on floppies even though it had a CD reader, etc etc. The
only thing different on the keyboard and mouse was the color was a
dark gray.

On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 11:49 AM, Fred Cisin  wrote:
> On Tue, 31 May 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:
>>
>> It might be interesting to poll the list to see who's still using an IBM
>> Model M keyboard on their x86 box.  I am.
>>
>> Windows key?  What Windows key? ;)
>
> The one with the picture of a dry-rot window Do you mean [Ctrl[Esc]?
>
>
> Best way to represent the above?
> 30? years ago, I created a special key-top font for discussing keystrokes in
> documentation.  IIRC, I had two versions of [Ctrl], [Alt], and [Shft] One
> version had no right hand edge, to reinforce the idea that it was used in
> combination with another key.   LJ/DJ and Cordata, never got around to
> completing a postscript version, nor Truetype, when that came along.
>
> I also did LJ/DJ and Cordata screen printing fonts.  Used, mostly as full
> screen images, along with my TSR, for a lot of Sybex books.
> regular, inverse, and bold, in a couple of resolutions, such as 9x12.
> Did you know that according to HP, it is "IMPOSSIBLE" to print an inverse
> font?  I'm glad that I didn't know until after I succeeded. (Wiley E. Coyote
> principle of project implementation).
> Never did come up with a good representation for blinkking text.
>
> --
> Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
>
>
>