Re: Value of 7-track TU10

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Paul Anderson

> A 9 can be converted to a 7 with a head change and I thing a board
> change or removal.

Yeah, the M768 module contains configurable diode arrays to control certain
operational delays, which are different between the two - one can either
change out the M768, or modify the existing one by adding/removing jumpers.

> I recall having a TU10 7 track here somewhere.

If it turns up, maybe someone with a 9-track drive could convert it to
7-track.

Noel

Re: Value of 7-track TU10

[Paul Anderson]

The backplanes are the same for master and slave.

On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 7:58 PM, Noel Chiappa 
wrote:

> > From: William Degnan
>
> > I found the doc somewhere months ago sorry I can't remember where. I
> > will upload to my site if I get a free moment and it's still on my
> > computer.
>
> Thanks; that would be great. I already did find online the TU10 Maintenance
> Manual (EK-TU10-MM-007), the TU10M Master System Manual (DEC-00-TU10M-D),
> and
> the TU10 Engineering Drawings, so we're pretty well set for these drives,
> but
> it would be good to have DEC-00-TU10S-DC too.
>
>
> > $2000 if clean.
>
> Wow. I saw a pair of H960's, a pair of CDC 92185 tape drives, 3 Fuji
> MiniEagles and an 11/23 go for $1.5K on eBait recently:
>
>   http://www.ebay.com/itm/161928600660
>
> Now, those are streaming drives, not vacuum column, but still - why is the
> TU10 worth so much more?
>
> > Master unit double that price.
>
> I find this even harder to understand. The only difference between the two
> is
> that the Master has 7 dual Flip Chips (M640, M891, M7673, M7672, M892,
> M895,
> M7671) and 3 single Flip Chips (M100, M896, M958) that the Slave doesn't
> have.
>
> (The backplane is, as far as I can tell, wired for both - the wire list
> given
> in the prints is for the master, and I don't see a second Slave-only
> wire-list. Yes, perhaps some early Slave drives had a Slave-only backplane,
> but that's just a guess. If someone who has a Slave drive can check their
> backplane to see if slots 6-15 are wired, that would be very useful to
> know.)
>
> Yes, the full set of 10 Flips Chips would be hard to find, but I have a
> hard
> time seeing them being worth $200 each...
>
> Noel
>

Re: Value of 7-track TU10

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: William Degnan

> I found the doc somewhere months ago sorry I can't remember where. I
> will upload to my site if I get a free moment and it's still on my
> computer.

Thanks; that would be great. I already did find online the TU10 Maintenance
Manual (EK-TU10-MM-007), the TU10M Master System Manual (DEC-00-TU10M-D), and
the TU10 Engineering Drawings, so we're pretty well set for these drives, but
it would be good to have DEC-00-TU10S-DC too.


> $2000 if clean.

Wow. I saw a pair of H960's, a pair of CDC 92185 tape drives, 3 Fuji
MiniEagles and an 11/23 go for $1.5K on eBait recently:

  http://www.ebay.com/itm/161928600660

Now, those are streaming drives, not vacuum column, but still - why is the
TU10 worth so much more?

> Master unit double that price.

I find this even harder to understand. The only difference between the two is
that the Master has 7 dual Flip Chips (M640, M891, M7673, M7672, M892, M895,
M7671) and 3 single Flip Chips (M100, M896, M958) that the Slave doesn't have.

(The backplane is, as far as I can tell, wired for both - the wire list given
in the prints is for the master, and I don't see a second Slave-only
wire-list. Yes, perhaps some early Slave drives had a Slave-only backplane,
but that's just a guess. If someone who has a Slave drive can check their
backplane to see if slots 6-15 are wired, that would be very useful to know.)

Yes, the full set of 10 Flips Chips would be hard to find, but I have a hard
time seeing them being worth $200 each...

Noel

Reminder: VCF Berlin, 1–3 October 2016

[Anke Stüber]

Hi list,

VCF Berlin[0] is coming soon! We'll have a day open only for
participants and other collectors on Saturday, 1st of October. On
Sunday, 2nd and Monday, 3rd of October we'll be open to the general
public (3rd of October is a holiday in Germany). Entry is free on all
days. Apart from exhibitions there will be lectures, soldering
workshops, a chiptune party and many other things. Come and visit us!

Sorry this reminder is so late, I was hoping for the English version of
the website to get updated, which hasn't happened yet. Please refer to a
translation[1] of the German version for more information instead.
Although all but one talk will be given in German, most of the
exhibitors can speak English, so VCFB is worth a visit even if you don't
speak any German. In case you need somewhere to stay, we can probably
find a place for you.

Hope to see you at VCFB!

Best, Anke


[0] http://vcfb.de/2016/index.html.en
[1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de=en=en=UTF-8=
http://vcfb.de/2016/index.html

Re: Value of 7-track TU10

[Paul Koning]

> On Sep 19, 2016, at 12:34 PM, Noel Chiappa  wrote:
> 
> So what do people think the (monetary) value of a 7-track TU10 master drive
> is? I have no idea what these older vacuum-column drives are worth - don't
> recall ever seeing on for sale. This one is in good condition, and has all its
> Flip Chips.  The 7-track is a plus in some ways (rarer), and negative in
> others (can't read old 9-track tapes, which are probably more common than
> 7-track).

I don't know either, but I can say this much:

7 track tape drives are quite rare.  7 track data is not all that common 
either, but it shows up from time to time.  There are plenty of 9 track tapes 
out there; the ability to reach 9 track media is not at risk.  But for 7 
tracks, it might well be.  In other words, it would be a very good idea to see 
this drive preserved.

Along those lines, a project I'm working on has turned up a number of 7 track 
tapes, possibly 556 bpi though that is not entirely clear.  They are in Europe, 
where searches for working 7 track setups have come up empty.  Can anyone offer 
pointers?  Will it take shipping the media to another continent to get the data 
preserved?

paul

Re: Value of 7-track TU10

[william degnan]

>
> None. I don't own either the drive, or a controller for it.
>
> Noel

Noel,
About my earlier comments just making sure I understand precisely what you
you're asking to price.  I found the doc somewhere months ago sorry I can't
remember where.  I will upload to my site if I get a free moment and it's
still on my computer. These are very heavy much more so than a cpu rack.
Assuming you can wheel into a truck intact without disassembly and because
it's a slave / pdp 11...$2000 if clean.  Master unit double that price.
I think that's the big differentiator because I am unsure what use a slave
alone is worth without the controller set, but I am sure you have a
plan/researched the solution
B

Re: Value of 7-track TU10

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Doug Ingraham

> Put it up on EBAY with an unrealistic reserve ... What controller do
> you have for it?

None. I don't own either the drive, or a controller for it.

Noel

Re: Value of 7-track TU10

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: William Degnan

>> a 7-track TU10 master

> What is the model number of the TU10?

The serial number plate just says "TU10"; and it's not in its original DEC
rack, so any label/plate there is no longer available. But the front door
says "TU10 7 CHANNEL", and the head shows 7 tracks (since someone might have
changed the head, and not been able to replace the door).

> The presence of the TU10M label along with a separate TU10 label plate
> means the tape has the the master transport unit installed.

I prefer to actually check the Flip Chips, since one ought to do that anyway
to make sure they are all there (hence my previous description of it as a
"TU10 master drive ... [which] has all its Flip Chips"). (There's a list here:

  http://gunkies.org/wiki/TU10

including locations, if anyone ever needs it.)

> Hopefully this will compare with the unit you're interested in and
> assist with your assessment.

I am perfectly capable of assessing the technical situation from the technical
documentation (which is available), and have already done so.

What I really need is some idea of its value (I haven't a clue). I am aware
that its exact configuration and condition will affect the value, but I
thought "a 7-track TU10 master drive .. in good condition, [with] all its Flip
Chips" would be enough to get to the ball-park.

> See DEC-00-TU10S-DC

I had previously looked online for that, but was unable to find a copy. Can
you point me at one? Thanks.

> more diffs 7 vs, 9 track

AFAICT, the only significant difference is the head; the Flip Chip suite is
the same for both, since the per-channel boards are all 9-track, and simply
leave the last two bits disconnected when used with a 7-track head (see e.g.
drawing # TU10-0-09, note "9 Track Only").

Of course, the drive has to be able to say (to the controller) whether it's a
7-track or 9-track. Drawing # TU10-0-07 shows (center) an incoming signal on
pin AJ1 of the M514 board (slot 21) called "7 CH", that signal is intended to
ground the input, so there's a jumper to ground on the backplane to indicate
7/9 (A21C2, per the MM, Appendix A.5).

Noel

Re: VCFMW 11

[Jason T]

On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 11:17 AM, Jay West  wrote:
> I just wanted to say a huge thanks to Jason and crew for putting on an
> incredible event last weekend. Last year was fantastic, and this year the
> bar was raised again in every area.

Thanks, Jay, for the kind words and getting this topic started.  I go
into a mini-hibernation/decompression after the show's over and have
been lax in posting follow-up info.  We do have quite a few picture
galleries and walk-through videos coming in, which I have posted here:

http://vcfmw.org/past.html

Unfortunately, a few of them are Facebook galleries that aren't set to
"Public" permissions, so those not on FB can't see them.  I need to
remind the posters to fix that.

The brief wrap-up is that the show went great, attendance was up, the
place was packed, we weathered losing an entire 900sqft room three
days before the show started (won't let _that_ happen again...) and
everyone got along fine in the closer quarters.  The speakers really
classed up the place with some hearty academic topics and a real live
Commodore engineer (C= fanboys rejoiced!)  We had a dedicated A/V guy
(not on this list but thanks Jim!) with a quality camera and audio
setup and YouTube videos of all the talks are being rendered as I
write this.  We should see them arriving on the VCFMW channel over the
next week:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu3UDdi0llxiSaFKq-p5gYQ

There are a few shirts left, but only in sizes S/M/L.  I'll post
counts for those soon.

I agree with Jay, the cross-platform interaction and general
camaraderie of this year's show really stood out.  It was great to see
new faces and old mixing it up, talking shop, trading gear and making
plans.  That's what it's all about.

Big thanks to everyone who contributed, attended, presented, got the
word out and generally encouraged us to keep this thing going.  The
handshakes (minus the one I caught this cold from...Purell at the
table next year) and thanks make it worthwhile.

-j

Re: Value of 7-track TU10

[Doug Ingraham]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 10:34 AM, Noel Chiappa 
wrote:

> So what do people think the (monetary) value of a 7-track TU10 master drive
> is? I have no idea what these older vacuum-column drives are worth - don't
> recall ever seeing on for sale. This one is in good condition, and has all
> its
> Flip Chips.  The 7-track is a plus in some ways (rarer), and negative in
> others (can't read old 9-track tapes, which are probably more common than
> 7-track).
>

Whatever someone is willing to pay.  Peripherals are rarer than CPU's.
People tended to hang on to CPU's but not
so much the Peripherals.  If it is in really good shape with controller for
the machine I have I could imagine paying
as much as $3000 for it.  But I could also imagine someone paying a lot
more than that.  Put it up on EBAY with
an unrealistic reserve and see what it would go for if all you want to know
is what it would sell for.  What controller
do you have for it?

My straight 8 had a homebrew controller and I think it was a Pertec 7 track
which I did not get when I purchased
the system.  The tape drive had real value still and was the only piece the
guy I bought it from wanted for resale.
If I hadn't taken the machine it would have gone for scrap at 14 cents per
pound which is what I paid him for it.

This system was used in the summer months from 1968 through 1973 to do
thunderstorm research and data was
collected on DECtape during the storm and then transfered to 7 track and
shipped off to be processed on the Cray.
I have a couple of hundred DECtapes with weather data on them.  Around 30
meg words of data.  I am assuming that
all three drives were used during a data capture session.  One drive would
be writing, One drive would be waiting to
write.  And the third drive would be rewinding and then unmounted and
changed while the others were actively in service.
The Pertec drive was not a data break device and had to be actively managed
so would not have been able to keep up
with the data stream.

-- 
Doug Ingraham
PDP-8 SN 1175

Re: Value of 7-track TU10

[william degnan]

What is the model number of the TU10?  They can be 9 or 7 track.  For
example TU10-EE is 9-track, TU10-FE is 7 track .  (assuming 60hz/115V).

Photo of the door, that indicates 7 or 9 channel
http://vintagecomputer.net/pictures/2015/WV_trip/DEC_TU-10_front-panel.jpg

The presence of the TU10M label along with a separate TU10 label plate
means the tape has the the master transport unit installed.
http://vintagecomputer.net/digital/TU10/model_serial-num.jpg

More:
http://vintagecomputer.net/digital/TU10/

Hopefully this will compare with the unit you're interested in and assist
with your assessment.

See DEC-00-TU10S-DC and related doc for more diffs 7 vs, 9 track,

b

On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 1:28 PM, Jon Elson  wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 12:34 PM, Noel Chiappa 
> wrote:
>
>> So what do people think the (monetary) value of a 7-track TU10 master
>>> drive
>>> is?
>>>
>> I don't know about monetary value, but it is likely to be one of the VERY
> FEW 7-track drives that might be brought back to life.  There certainly
> should be a few of these drives kept available for reading ancient data
> tapes.
>
> Jon
>

Re: Value of 7-track TU10

[Jon Elson]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 12:34 PM, Noel Chiappa 
 wrote:

So what do people think the (monetary) value of a 7-track TU10 master drive
is?
I don't know about monetary value, but it is likely to be 
one of the VERY FEW 7-track drives that might be brought 
back to life.  There certainly should be a few of these 
drives kept available for reading ancient data tapes.


Jon

Re: Value of 7-track TU10

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: William Degnan

>> the (monetary) value of a 7-track TU10 master drive
  ^^
> Is there a thread with more details?

No.

> I assume this is a master drive

See above.

> the cards installed indicate whether it came from a pdp 8/9/10/11.

AFAIK, all PDP-10 TU10's are Slaves. TU10's used on an -11 need a Master and
Slaves, I don't know if the ones for an -8 are the same. The TU10 prints
don't seem to indicate that there is more than one type of Slaveax, and
similarly for the Masters - there is just the one type of each.

This one is from an -11, though.

> How is the power supply?

No idea. And no idea about the condition of the motors, compressor, etc, etc,
etc. Like I said, this one "is in good condition", from a purely external
inspection.

Noel

Re: Value of 7-track TU10

[william degnan]

Is there a thread with more details?  I assume this is a master drive, the
cards installed indicate whether it came from a pdp 8/9/10/11.  Which is
it?  How is the power supply?

b

On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 12:34 PM, Noel Chiappa 
wrote:

> So what do people think the (monetary) value of a 7-track TU10 master drive
> is? I have no idea what these older vacuum-column drives are worth - don't
> recall ever seeing on for sale. This one is in good condition, and has all
> its
> Flip Chips.  The 7-track is a plus in some ways (rarer), and negative in
> others (can't read old 9-track tapes, which are probably more common than
> 7-track).
>
> Noel
>

Re: Linux at 25

[Chuck Guzis]

On 09/19/2016 08:23 AM, Tomasz Rola wrote:

> I would check, even with the help of a smartphone's sensors, what it 
> shows when you enable thermo-blue-tooth-why-fi and what when you 
> disable them. BTW, do you have bt keyboard in your house? Your 
> neighbour(s)?


No danger there--I can't even *see* my neighbor's house from mine.

--Chuck

Re: Linux at 25

[Geoff Oltmans]

On Sep 15, 2016, at 10:11 AM, Cameron Kaiser  wrote:

> 
> I intentionally kept the old T87-type thermostat when I bought this
> house because I understood its properties well and it was completely
> predictable.
> 
> My sister, against my request, bought me a Nest. It's still in the
> box. I think it will make a dandy paperweight.
> 

Yep... Just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be If it 
ain't broke don't fix it, etc etc.  All sage advice to follow. 

Re: Linux at 25

[Tomasz Rola]

On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 09:32:53AM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 09/15/2016 07:54 AM, tony duell wrote:
> 
> > My thermostat contains about 2 dozen parts, even if you count every
> > nut , bolt, and washer. It does the job and is not hard to understand
> > or repair if/when it needs it.
> > 
> > Quite why I would want a thermostat with presumably several million
> > components, running a multi-user operating system is, to be honest,
> > beyond me.

I guess people will use those to run some kind of voip (this of course
requires a microphone in thermostat) so they can chat with friends on
other continent while sitting in a basement or under kitchen
sink. Very, very practical and innovative, trust me.

> So a new 2-wire thermostat was employed instead (at the installer's
> expense) and it has WiFi, Web and Bluetooth connectivity as part of
> the package.  Fortunately, all of the aforementioned can be disabled
> via appropriate selection on the (color) LCD graphic touchscreen.

I would check, even with the help of a smartphone's sensors, what it
shows when you enable thermo-blue-tooth-why-fi and what when you
disable them. BTW, do you have bt keyboard in your house? Your
neighbour(s)?

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.  **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home**
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...  **
** **
** Tomasz Rola  mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **

RE: pictures of IBM 6110344 and 6110345

[Electronics Plus]

Subject: Re: pictures of IBM 6110344 and 6110345

>
> I am getting 3 of these ready for sale, and all but 1 of the online 
> pics I see of the boards do NOT have a PA3 or a NumLock key.
>
> Does anyone here have a good high res pic of these 2 complete 
> keyboards, so that I can know what is supposed to be on there?
>

Not exactly what you asked for but this does have have a picture including
PA3.

http://superuser.com/questions/290814/purpose-of-a-mystery-key-on-an-ibm-pc-
3270-keyboard

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.

Wow, I feel like I opened a whole new can of worms!  Thank you, Peter!

Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...)

[Mouse]

>> To name three real uses I've made of [telnet] recently: [...]
> You might find netcat useful.  Not sure if/which distribution has it
> by default.

"Distribution"?  Are you assuming I run Linux?  (I don't, not on my own
machines.  The Pi 3 was for work.)

I have a netcat, one of my own writing.  It works reasonably well for
such things, yes.  However, it is not present everywhere; when there is
a netcat present, its command line requires learning - if I can even
find the documentation for it.  (And assuming there isn't an nc present
that is something completely different.)

Until I ran into that Raspbian, though, telnet had always (a) just been
there and (b) just worked with (c) the same command-line syntax.

/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email!   7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Re: pictures of IBM 6110344 and 6110345

[Peter Coghlan]

>
> I am getting 3 of these ready for sale, and all but 1 of the online pics I
> see of the boards do NOT have a PA3 or a NumLock key.
>
> Does anyone here have a good high res pic of these 2 complete keyboards, so
> that I can know what is supposed to be on there?
>

Not exactly what you asked for but this does have have a picture including PA3.

http://superuser.com/questions/290814/purpose-of-a-mystery-key-on-an-ibm-pc-3270-keyboard

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.

Re: PDP-8 core memory problems.

[Mattis Lind]

2016-09-07 17:33 GMT+02:00 Doug Ingraham :

> The most likely cause of what you are seeing is a broken wire when the
> plane was originally assembled.  The wire was pulled back a few cores and
> the end stripped.  New wire was soldered to old, insulated and then they
> continued threading in that wire.  Over the years the solder joint has
> degraded or the wire broke at the stress riser found at one end of the
> solder joint and now you have an open circuit. I've not heard of this kind
> of problem on the Straight 8 but that may be due to the rarity of the
> processors.  It is apparently a fairly common failure on the 8I core
> planes.
>
> As was stated you have nothing to lose in attempting a repair as the core
> is useless as is.  A steady hand, good desoldering tools, lots of photos
> and you should be able to take it apart, effect the repair and
> re-assemble.  Keep in mind that the core beads themselves are extremely
> fragile so take precautions that nothing gets dropped on it.  Broken core
> beads are pretty much a death sentence to the memory.  Replacements are
> unobtanium and if you decided to make the beads you would have trouble
> matching the originals well enough to tune the core to work with both new
> and old.  You would end up making a whole new core assembly consisting of
> 49152 beads.  You would need to be really determined to attempt that.
>
> I did come up with an idea that is simply too dangerous to try.  Connect a
> power supply to the ends of the wire and ramp up the voltage until it just
> starts to conduct.  This could be several hundred to several thousand
> volts.  As soon as it starts to conduct the broken ends of the wire will
> start to heat and the moment the current starts to shoot up (the resistance
> drops) you need to cut power.  You will have welded the broken ends of the
> wire together.  The problem is that if anything goes wrong you are in worse
> shape than now and you really only get once shot at it.  And the assumption
> is that the broken ends are in close proximity.
>
> Here is wishing you a steady hand and lots of luck!
>
>
Thanks Doug and Anders for the encouragement. I have decided to put the
core in a safe place while I am gathering tools (stereoscopic microscope
and better tweezers). The core repair project will be on hold until some
vacation day when I have plenty of time and there are no disturbances
around. Possibly in the mean time I will look into the instruction decoding
problem that affects the front panel operation sometimes.

I prepared a small video on the non-operating machine:
https://youtu.be/8WYiUz4SNi8

/Mattis Lind
PDP-8 s/n 351 (non-operating)



> --
> Doug Ingraham
> PDP-8 SN 1175
>

Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...)

[Pontus Pihlgren]

On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 02:13:33PM -0400, Mouse wrote:
> 
> To name three real uses I've made of it recently: to check what a
> remote sshd banners as, to check what an RFB server banners as, and (in
> conjunction with script(1) to capture the output of a one-off server
> set up to transfer a text file (this being the use case I had for it on
> the Pi 3).
> 

You might find netcat useful. Not sure if/which distribution has it by 
default.

/P

Re: DEC 871 / 874 power controller engineering drawings?

[Mattis Lind]

Thanks Tony!

I replaced the solid state relay with an ordinary relay that I had around
and with some small tweaks it worked just fine.

/Mattis

2016-09-08 21:05 GMT+02:00 tony duell :

> >
> > Is there engineering drawings online for the DEC 871 or 874 power
> > controllers?
>
> I don't know if it's any use, but the 874 printset seems to be here :
>
> http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/dec/
> manuals/decimages/moremanuals.htm
>
> -tony
>