Re: Interest in Teac FD235J drives and FC-1 boards?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 01/23/2018 09:27 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

> Being part of the problem, . . . I was very happy in 1991, to finally
> find Windoze 3.0 and 3.1 on CD-ROM, to stop juggling several dozen
> installation floppies.

The last-gasp installation floppies--Microsoft 21-sector DMF
distribution (or IBM bizarre XDF 8192+2048+1024+512) floppies for OS/2).
 In the end, I don't think 2.88M distribution would have helped.
Software was growing too fast.

I did encounter people saying that they had great results using HD media
as ED in some host-sense IBM drives.   I told them to check back with me
in a couple of years as to the readability of those disks.

I've still got one of the 20MB Brier floppy drives, though heaven knows
why...

It's funny--I routinely get HD 5.25" disks written on old DD CP/M
machines that read just fine, by and large.  And lots of WP 3.5"
floppies (240K FM) written on HD media and never had run across one that
couldn't be read.

But ED on HD media seems like more of a hope than reality to me.

--Chuck

Re: Microvax II 'primer'?

[allison via cctalk]

On 01/23/2018 07:58 PM, Jules Richardson via cctech wrote:
> On 01/22/2018 02:05 PM, allison via cctech wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 1/22/18 2:18 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctech wrote:
>>> I can't believe you 'just carry it into the house' all by yourself,
>>> unless you are professional athlete.
>>> I also have a MicroVax II in the BA123 world box and it has wheels
>>> for a
>>> reason!  The damn thing weighs 130 lbs!
>>> I took it to the VCF East last year, never do that again.  Too heavy.
>>>
>> Huge difference between BA23 and ba123 as the BA123 is about twice
>> the size
>> and internal board space.
>
> Mine's the BA123, the bigger one. It's heavy! I lifted it out of the
> van myself and put it onto one of the kids' old sleds so that I could
> drag it through the snow to the door it needed to go through, then
> picked it up again and took it up the few steps that were necessary.
> Did I mention that it was heavy?
>
> I did take the side panels off, which helped a lot - I could lift it
> (just) then with one hand around the top edge and the other on the
> metal bar at the bottom by the power inlet. I certainly wouldn't want
> to carry one far.
>
Your younger than I.  I moved min in the summer so the wheels were good
end ough anda 2WD Toyota pickup (1999) is low
so it was slide it up and in.  Using a a winch didn't hurt either.


>>> Yes, remove the NiCad battery.
>>>
>> Its easily replaced.
>
> Does leaving it out entirely cause any issues (at least during a
> testing phase)?
>
> If it's actually holding a charge at present (I seriously doubt it,
> but it doesn't appear to have leaked) is there any benefit to leaving
> it in initially - i.e. is it responsible for retaining any settings
> (e.g. disk parameters) that it would be useful for me to write down -
> assuming the system proves to be operational - before replacing it?
>
If its working and not leaking go for it.  Its easy to replace when you
need to.

>> RD53s had a problem with the head sticking against the stops.  I repair
>> them, yes I open them
>> unstick it then remove the offending the rubber parts.
>
> That's useful to know - I'm certainly not against doing that myself if
> it proves necessary (assuming that's the drive I have)
>
My favorite line for all this is Kaplagh~!  Go for it and get the docs
they can really help! 

Allison


> cheers
>
> Jules
>

Re: Microvax II 'primer'?

[Jules Richardson via cctalk]

On 01/22/2018 02:05 PM, allison via cctech wrote:



On 1/22/18 2:18 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctech wrote:

I can't believe you 'just carry it into the house' all by yourself,
unless you are professional athlete.
I also have a MicroVax II in the BA123 world box and it has wheels for a
reason!  The damn thing weighs 130 lbs!
I took it to the VCF East last year, never do that again.  Too heavy.


Huge difference between BA23 and ba123 as the BA123 is about twice the size
and internal board space.


Mine's the BA123, the bigger one. It's heavy! I lifted it out of the van 
myself and put it onto one of the kids' old sleds so that I could drag it 
through the snow to the door it needed to go through, then picked it up 
again and took it up the few steps that were necessary. Did I mention that 
it was heavy?


I did take the side panels off, which helped a lot - I could lift it (just) 
then with one hand around the top edge and the other on the metal bar at 
the bottom by the power inlet. I certainly wouldn't want to carry one far.



Yes, remove the NiCad battery.


Its easily replaced.


Does leaving it out entirely cause any issues (at least during a testing 
phase)?


If it's actually holding a charge at present (I seriously doubt it, but it 
doesn't appear to have leaked) is there any benefit to leaving it in 
initially - i.e. is it responsible for retaining any settings (e.g. disk 
parameters) that it would be useful for me to write down - assuming the 
system proves to be operational - before replacing it?



RD53s had a problem with the head sticking against the stops.  I repair
them, yes I open them
unstick it then remove the offending the rubber parts.


That's useful to know - I'm certainly not against doing that myself if it 
proves necessary (assuming that's the drive I have)


cheers

Jules

Re: Microvax II 'primer'?

[Douglas Taylor via cctalk]

On 1/23/2018 7:58 PM, Jules Richardson via cctech wrote:

On 01/22/2018 02:05 PM, allison via cctech wrote:



On 1/22/18 2:18 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctech wrote:

I can't believe you 'just carry it into the house' all by yourself,
unless you are professional athlete.
I also have a MicroVax II in the BA123 world box and it has wheels 
for a

reason!  The damn thing weighs 130 lbs!
I took it to the VCF East last year, never do that again.  Too heavy.

Huge difference between BA23 and ba123 as the BA123 is about twice 
the size

and internal board space.


Mine's the BA123, the bigger one. It's heavy! I lifted it out of the 
van myself and put it onto one of the kids' old sleds so that I could 
drag it through the snow to the door it needed to go through, then 
picked it up again and took it up the few steps that were necessary. 
Did I mention that it was heavy?
It won't get stolen.  At VCF there were some young folks who helped me, 
thanks to them!


I did take the side panels off, which helped a lot - I could lift it 
(just) then with one hand around the top edge and the other on the 
metal bar at the bottom by the power inlet. I certainly wouldn't want 
to carry one far.



Yes, remove the NiCad battery.


Its easily replaced.


Does leaving it out entirely cause any issues (at least during a 
testing phase)?
I was able to start and run the machine w/o the battery.  Had to enter 
the date/time each startup.  Not sure what else was remembered by the 
battery backup.


If it's actually holding a charge at present (I seriously doubt it, 
but it doesn't appear to have leaked) is there any benefit to leaving 
it in initially - i.e. is it responsible for retaining any settings 
(e.g. disk parameters) that it would be useful for me to write down - 
assuming the system proves to be operational - before replacing it?



RD53s had a problem with the head sticking against the stops.  I repair
them, yes I open them
unstick it then remove the offending the rubber parts.


That's useful to know - I'm certainly not against doing that myself if 
it proves necessary (assuming that's the drive I have)

I saved the RD53's, maybe they can be revived.


cheers

Jules

Re: Interest in Teac FD235J drives and FC-1 boards?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Jan 2018, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

The Compaticard IV and a few other ISA cards support ED mode also.
But again, why?  I still have a box of the Imation ED floppies (barium
ferrite).  The price was ridiculous for floppies of the time.


Until CD-rOM became the standard for software distribution, doubling the 
capacity per floppy was always good news.  And there was always the hopee 
that media price would come down "once they catch on".


2.8M seemed far more likely to catch on than "Floptical" (20MB)
I was often wrong about such things; I thought that surely Microsoft would 
fix SMARTDRV before releasing Windoze 3.10, but that didn't happen until 
DOS 6.20




Being part of the problem, . . . 
I was very happy in 1991, to finally find Windoze 3.0 and 3.1 on 
CD-ROM, to stop juggling several dozen installation floppies.

Re: Interest in Teac FD235J drives and FC-1 boards?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 01/23/2018 08:45 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

> They almost started to catch on, particularly in some PS/2.
> I had one with a MicroSolutions "Backpack" parallel port interface.

It would be a simple matter to upgrade a 1.44M backpack floppy with a
2.88M capable drive, as the controller is a PC8477 and the driver
software still supports it (as of the last units to roll off the line).

The Compaticard IV and a few other ISA cards support ED mode also.

But again, why?  I still have a box of the Imation ED floppies (barium
ferrite).  The price was ridiculous for floppies of the time.

> For the sake of "completeness", and maybe for NeXT disks, they would be
> essential.
> 
> And it is a versatile drive for 1.4M
> 
>

Re: Interest in Teac FD235J drives and FC-1 boards?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

2.8M runs at 1,000,000 bits per second.
Such controllers exist, but are not very common.


On Tue, 23 Jan 2018, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

Fred.  They've been fairly common since the 496 days (I've got several
machines with the controllers on them, including a 486 VLB system).


They almost started to catch on, particularly in some PS/2.
I had one with a MicroSolutions "Backpack" parallel port interface.


They kind of died out during the P2-P3 days and I don't know if I've got
a P4 system with that capability.
Of course, the media is darned near unobtainium, so the question is
somewhat moot.
But the drives themselves usually have more configurability than the
usual FD235HF drives.


For the sake of "completeness", and maybe for NeXT disks, they would be
essential.

And it is a versatile drive for 1.4M

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Ian Primus via cctalk]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 12:35 PM, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk
 wrote:
> …are the bane of my existence and should all rot in hell.
>
> Sorry, I just received an email from a “keyboard enthusiast” who was looking 
> for
> various IBM 327x keyboards and wanted to know if I could help him and I needed
> to vent a little.

Ugh. Don't get me started. I collect terminals. Missing keyboards is a
perennial problem, but it's gotten WAY worse in recent years. I have
two terminals here that are missing the keyboards because some
"enthusiast" bought them out from under me during an eBay transaction.

So, now I have an Infoton and an IBM 3101 here that are completely
worthless because the keyboards are missing.

And I have no hope of ever finding replacements - especially for the
IBM 3101, because that's one of the ones the keyboard jerks really
seem to love because it's the older beam spring kind.

Grr.

Re: Interest in Teac FD235J drives and FC-1 boards?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 01/23/2018 08:14 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

> Be aware that you will also need a different controller, or some minor
> modifications.
> 
> PC controllers normally support 250,000 bits per second ("360K", "720K"),
> and 500,000 bits per second ("1.2M, "1.4M")
> SOMETIMES 125,000 bits per second for 5.25" SD/FM.
> 
> 2.8M runs at 1,000,000 bits per second.
> 
> Such controllers exist, but are not very common.


Fred.  They've been fairly common since the 496 days (I've got several
machines with the controllers on them, including a 486 VLB system).

They kind of died out during the P2-P3 days and I don't know if I've got
a P4 system with that capability.

Of course, the media is darned near unobtainium, so the question is
somewhat moot.

But the drives themselves usually have more configurability than the
usual FD235HF drives.

--Chuck

Re: Interest in Teac FD235J drives and FC-1 boards?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 6:36 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk
 wrote:

I've got a fellow with a stock of Teac FD235J (2.88) drives and about a
dozen bare Teac FC-1 SCSI boards.

On Tue, 23 Jan 2018, Jason T via cctalk wrote:

I'm interested, if the drives can be used for imaging 2.88 media (a la
IBM, etc).  Probably not so much the SCSI boards - the drives seem to
have regular 34-pin interfaces, if I'm looking at the right photos.


Be aware that you will also need a different controller, or some minor 
modifications.


PC controllers normally support 250,000 bits per second ("360K", "720K"),
and 500,000 bits per second ("1.2M, "1.4M")
SOMETIMES 125,000 bits per second for 5.25" SD/FM.

2.8M runs at 1,000,000 bits per second.

Such controllers exist, but are not very common.


Can Catweasel/kryoflux handle that data transfer rate?

RE: CX laser printers (Was: Sun3 valuations?

[Ali via cctalk]

> At least close.
> It's what Printerworks says that they use to repaint the Fedex purple
> printers back to look like the other CX based printers.   Check the

Fred,

Thanks for the info. I guess I may have to stop by the local
Sherman-Williams and see what they have!


p.s. while we are at it anybody remember what the color is for the "Apple
Platinum" machines (a la Mac IIs)?

Re: Microvax II 'primer'?

[Jules Richardson via cctalk]

On 01/22/2018 08:07 AM, Adrian Graham via cctalk wrote:

At this stage I've got no idea if it's a SMPSU or a linear (I've not

popped the panel off)... I suppose if it's linear then it perhaps doesn't
even need a load to do its thing. If it's a switcher then I expect it'll at
least need something on +5V, and maybe +12V too (unless it has built-in
load resistors to keep the regulation happy, as designs occasionally do).

It's actually 3 separate boards and 2 identical discrete PSUs for +12 and
+5 in a massive metal box, the thing is a beast and fits along the whole
side of the machine behind the Q22 backplane.


Aha, so it is... I just removed it for a visual inspection. Pretty clean 
inside, some dust, five or six mouse turds (but no sign of piss damage), a 
chunk of slate, and a golf tee.


When the bit of slate fell out I was a little concerned that it was a 
fragment of ceramic IC/component packaging, but I really do think it's just 
a piece of slate tile or whatnot that had somehow found its way in there 
over the years.


No obviously-roached caps or other components, so I'll figure out some form 
of loading and give it a go.


cheers

J.

Re: Interest in Teac FD235J drives and FC-1 boards?

[Jason T via cctalk]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 6:36 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk
 wrote:
> I've got a fellow with a stock of Teac FD235J (2.88) drives and about a
> dozen bare Teac FC-1 SCSI boards.

I'm interested, if the drives can be used for imaging 2.88 media (a la
IBM, etc).  Probably not so much the SCSI boards - the drives seem to
have regular 34-pin interfaces, if I'm looking at the right photos.

Interest in Teac FD235J drives and FC-1 boards?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

I've got a fellow with a stock of Teac FD235J (2.88) drives and about a
dozen bare Teac FC-1 SCSI boards.

I'm trying to gauge interest--I don't think he wants to sell them
onesy-twosy, but I'm willing to act as intermediary for single-unit
purchases if there is sufficient interest.

--Chuck

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 01/23/2018 04:04 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:

> There is a clue in the PARC Ethernet Blue and White about this where
> they mention they used CATV technology (where the vampire taps come
> from ) but they don't actually say there that they used 75 Ohm cable,
> terminated at both ends.

Wasn't that ChaosNet?

--Chuck

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 1/23/18 4:04 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:

> He's holding up the wrong stuff if it's RG-8
> 
> Experimental Ethernet is 75 ohms.
> 

I just went out to storage and got the run of cable that was used with a Dorado.
I'll take some pics of it later.
It is orange, looks like RG-6, is Malco 98278 (Xerox PN 117P80660)
I measured the terminator resistance to be 75.0 ohms.

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Steve Malikoff via cctalk]

Al said:
> On 1/23/18 11:01 AM, Ian Finder via cctalk wrote:
>> I too have always enjoyed the analogy to ivory poachers.
>>
>
> Those are computer front panel collectors.


Sometimes this has a good outcome: a couple of years ago I acquired a slimline 
11/10 with a
home-made front switch panel, the original presumably souvenired in the distant 
past.
When it arrived, I realised it was an early production model with the cast 
Mazak lower bezel
without the air slots. This is the version shown in the 11/05 handbook 
photographs.

Last December an early 11/10 console with the unpainted cast DIGITAL logo and 
lower black
trim stripe under the switches appeared on the usual auction site, so I was 
very keen to
acquire it, which I managed to, and after finding some of the correct # screws 
and star washers
it's now with the rest of the machine.
It's a nice feeling to get a console back onto the rest of the computer and 
even nicer to have
the chronologically correct one as well.
The advesive tape holding the plastic nomenclature strip on had perished, and 
on the reverse side
of the strip is written in pencil '2-73' which would match the era.

Steve.

Re: Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Ed Sharpe via cctalk]

When  out and  about when I saw a keyboard with some unworldly number of  
function keys  on it ( I recall one  with 3  rows of them... and other oddities 
) I   got and stashed them now  to find them..   
 
 We are stating a  move to  convert  boxed of  weird  odds and ends  stuff ( in 
the computer  area,  general science area, teletype area and radio area)  to  
$$$   for  re-roofing  buildings... and completing half  completed  groups of 
things into  finished  displays all this  stuff is   fun and neat  but  
time  to focus  some  I think...
 
 
what is the  market  on odd keyboards? 
 
 
thx  Ed# www.smecc.org 
 
In a message dated 1/23/2018 3:23:10 PM US Mountain Standard Time, 
cctalk@classiccmp.org writes:

 
 On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 12:58 PM, william degnan via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> Did anyone attend VCF South East this past year, there was a large table
> run by a keyboard vendor. Just keyboards, laid out like tusks from poached
> elephants.
>

Lol! I love it.

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 1/23/18 12:27 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
> 

>> The stuff with better shield, marking bands, etc is 10 Mb; it's about 1.05cm
>> in diagmeter. The black stuff (the stuff Dave is holding in the video) is 
>> 3Mb;
>> the piece I have is .95 cm.
> 
> The Ethernet spec says that the cable OD is in the range .365 to .415 inch, 
> which is 9.27 to 10.54 mm.  The nominal OD of RG-8/U is .405 inches, or 10.28 
> mm, which is within spec for Ethernet cable.
> 

He's holding up the wrong stuff if it's RG-8

Experimental Ethernet is 75 ohms.

see 
http://bitsavers.org/public_html/pdf/xerox/alto/ethernetEthernet_Transceiver_Electrical_Characteristics

Drive Voltage: +3 volts (Nominal) into  >> 37.5 ohms <<

There is a clue in the PARC Ethernet Blue and White about this where they 
mention they used CATV technology
(where the vampire taps come from ) but they don't actually say there that they 
used 75 Ohm cable, terminated at both ends.

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Paul Berger via cctalk]

On 2018-01-23 7:49 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:


On 1/23/18 10:53 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:

  it seems these
people do it for 'fun'.

As an experiment I put a couple of obscure mechanical keyboards up on eBay,
like Tektronix reed switch APL ones and NOS Kaypros
with a high price but a 'make offer' and have gotten zero interest in them.

They also do stupid sh*t like minutia details on the 9816 keyboard but then
don't write down the actual HP part number for it.

https://deskthority.net/wiki/HP_9816

Nice "Volume adjuster for beeper on left"  and on bottom view "bulky 
beeper on the top right"


Paul.

Re: ISO 9816 small keyboard

[Paul Berger via cctalk]

On 2018-01-23 7:42 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:


On 1/23/18 8:48 AM, Dave via cctalk wrote:

  Hi Al,
What 9816 parts are required to run it?  Do you already have the 9816 and 9121 
drive?  Also, is there a copy of CP/M-68K available somewhere for download?
Dave
 On Monday, January 22, 2018, 1:13:08 PM CST, Al Kossow via cctalk 
 wrote:

A friend made an adapter board for HP's 26 and 34 pin 600rpm drives to standard 
34 pin
that we should have soon. I was not able to read any of the disks with a normal 
300rpm
drive, so the software has not been imaged yet.

I have an early 9122 that has the same board as a 9121 and was going to 
retrofit the older firmware.

The piece I'd like to get is the little keyboard so the whole thing takes up 
less space then using
a Nimitz keyboard.

There is one disk for CP/M-68K on the HP Museum site, but what I have is very
different (6 disks with additional .rel and src files) copyright 1984 Empirical 
Research Group

I'm really hoping it can be recovered.

That's odd I have never had any trouble reading or creating diskettes 
for my HP 600 RPM drives on PCs using 300 rpm drives,  I mostly use an 
old Panasonic PII Toughbook.


Paul.

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 1/23/18 11:01 AM, Ian Finder via cctalk wrote:
> I too have always enjoyed the analogy to ivory poachers.
> 

Those are computer front panel collectors.

Re: ISO 9816 small keyboard

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 1/23/18 8:48 AM, Dave via cctalk wrote:
>  Hi Al,
> What 9816 parts are required to run it?  Do you already have the 9816 and 
> 9121 drive?  Also, is there a copy of CP/M-68K available somewhere for 
> download?
> Dave
> On Monday, January 22, 2018, 1:13:08 PM CST, Al Kossow via cctalk 
>  wrote:  

A friend made an adapter board for HP's 26 and 34 pin 600rpm drives to standard 
34 pin
that we should have soon. I was not able to read any of the disks with a normal 
300rpm
drive, so the software has not been imaged yet.

I have an early 9122 that has the same board as a 9121 and was going to 
retrofit the older firmware.

The piece I'd like to get is the little keyboard so the whole thing takes up 
less space then using
a Nimitz keyboard.

There is one disk for CP/M-68K on the HP Museum site, but what I have is very
different (6 disks with additional .rel and src files) copyright 1984 Empirical 
Research Group

I'm really hoping it can be recovered.

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Geoffrey Oltmans via cctalk]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 11:35 AM, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> …are the bane of my existence and should all rot in hell.
>
> Sorry, I just received an email from a “keyboard enthusiast” who was
> looking for
> various IBM 327x keyboards and wanted to know if I could help him and I
> needed
> to vent a little.
>
> I sent him a polite “no way in hell” response but I’m still angry about
> it.  These
> terminals are hard enough to find.  And more often than not, the keyboard
> is
> missing because some “enthusiast” thought it would be cool to convert it
> to a PC
> keyboard.  ARG!  And of course the keyboards that they want are the
> “typewriter”
> keyboards (all of my 3278 terminals have the “data entry keyboard”).
>
>
In their defense (and yes, I think they are awful no good people), I guess
you can't fault them too much since up until fairly recently a quality
mechanical keyboard was either too expensive or practically impossible to
source for a modern computer, what with the obsession with flat square
keycaps with next to no travel, etc. At least now we are starting to get
some decent lower cost options in the marketplace as new. Maybe these new
keyboards will dissuade people from destroying rare artifacts.

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Geoffrey Oltmans via cctalk]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 12:58 PM, william degnan via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> Did anyone attend VCF South East this past year, there was a large table
> run by a keyboard vendor.  Just keyboards, laid out like tusks from poached
> elephants.
>

Lol! I love it.

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Ethan Dicks via cctalk]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 11:12 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk
 wrote:
> Vampire taps.  Now there's a blast from the past.  Somewhere around here
> I still have my toolbag which still has my tap drill for installing those 
> taps.

I also have a tap drill somewhere, but it was a rescue from a
clean-out.  I've never installed any Thicknet... so far.

I did pick up a bit of yellow 10mbit cable at VCF Midwest a couple
years back, and a couple of taps.  I wish I had one more to make it
interesting.  I do have some of the boxy transceivers but with 10Base2
BNCs on the mounting plate that can also take a vampire tap mounting
plate.

One of my long-term low-priority projects is to mount that Ethernet
segment high up on a wall, display fashion, and have 2-3 stations and
AUI cables hanging down to table height for interconnecting vintage
networking gear.  I do have 10BaseT hubs with AUI ports and even one
or two AUI<->Fiber MAUs to make it all interesting.

Something I have that may be of interest here is a small box of
N-connector 50 Ohm terminators.  I can't ever imagining needing more
than 2 pair for my entire life, so if anyone wants to swap for vintage
network hardware, let me know.  Mostly, I really want one or two of
the clamp-on vampire taps, the kind you could unscrew from the
transceiver (so that you never had to disturb the tap but you could
remove a station).

The last time I knew I was using Etherhose was at the South Pole in
1996 - they had a long run of it before they switched all the building
interconnects to fiber.  It's probably still buried there.

-ethan

Re: Televideo 970

[Mark Linimon via cctalk]

That reminds me, I still have one or two in the garage (yes, stored in 
uncontrolled conditions).  Maybe a manual as well.  If anyone is
interested, contact me off-list.

I'm in Austin, Texas, USA.

mcl

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

I hope they all weren't on that yellow cable.  @60 devices on a single
collision domain would likely not have worked very well.

I also can't believe you used Ethernet RG8 for ham radio.  I read the
spec and even tried some (I had reels of that stuff at one time) and
found it way too lossy even at HF frequencies.  It was very low quality
RG8.

bill
KB3YV


From: cctalk  on behalf of Pete Lancashire via 
cctalk 
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 3:51 PM
To: Noel Chiappa; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

A side story. I was the only 'customer' of a long run of that yellow cable,
when we moved the 260 + 3/50's to a different location, I asked
if they were going to reuse the cable. "Nope, cost to much to get it out of
the roof trusses." I forget but it was a LONG run. Tektronix
back in those days was still an engineering oriented company and all I had
to do was mention it one day in the main cafeteria. Next
thing I know I was followed back to the building with at least 10 engineers
following me. I called and asked one one the facility department
guys that knew about the cable no longer being used, and his reply was
something like if it not there Monday I know nothing about it.

The bottom of the trusses were a good 15 if not more feet up. Five of us
got it down and I came home with the cable on Sunday.
My helpers would not take anything in $'s, the challenge was good enough.

Make a great cable for my ham radio hobby.

Today one would never get away with such 

-pete



On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 12:39 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> > From: Paul Koning
>
> > The nominal OD of RG-8/U is .. within spec for Ethernet cable.
>
> Oh, OK. I was just used to the 10Mb cable we used being slightly larger
> than
> the 3Mb cable we used.
>
> > Also, Ethernet requires a solid inner conductor (for the tap) while
> > RG-8/U may come stranded. (Maybe only in some variants, I'm not
> sure.)
>
> As can be seen in the photos, the 3Mb stuff (at least, the stuff we used)
> was
> also solid. The diameter of the center was a little smaller on the 3Mb
> than on
> the 10Mb; .16mm versus .23mm; not sure if that was just happenstance, or
> what.
>
> Noel
>
>

Re: Experimental Ethernet, XGP, etc.

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 23, 2018, at 4:17 PM, Glen Slick via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 11:15 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk
>  wrote:
>> 
>> The cable spec given in the Ethernet standard doesn't mention additional 
>> shielding.  It does differ from RG-8 in that it calls for foam dielectric 
>> and a higher velocity factor (0.77 rather than 0.66).  Another common 
>> difference (not required by the spec) is that RG-8 is polyethylene while 
>> Ethernet coax is usually PTFE.
>> 
> 
> FWIW, here is a spec sheet for Belden 89880 Thicknet 10BASE5 cable,
> which apparently DEC used for their part number 17-00324-00 cable.
> 
> https://catalog.belden.com/techdata/EN/89880_techdata.pdf 
> 

Yes, that looks like the stuff.  A smoky orange color due to the translucent 
jacket.  I once saw at DEC a run of prototype cable, which was bright yellow 
with black stripes.  Perhaps polyethylene jacket, which would explain why it 
was changed before becoming a product -- that was right around the time when 
the "plenum rated" cable specs were appearing.

paul

Re: Experimental Ethernet, XGP, etc.

[Glen Slick via cctalk]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 11:15 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> The cable spec given in the Ethernet standard doesn't mention additional 
> shielding.  It does differ from RG-8 in that it calls for foam dielectric and 
> a higher velocity factor (0.77 rather than 0.66).  Another common difference 
> (not required by the spec) is that RG-8 is polyethylene while Ethernet coax 
> is usually PTFE.
>

FWIW, here is a spec sheet for Belden 89880 Thicknet 10BASE5 cable,
which apparently DEC used for their part number 17-00324-00 cable.

https://catalog.belden.com/techdata/EN/89880_techdata.pdf

It does mention a Nominal Velocity of Propagation (VP) of 78%, and
Ring-band stripes every 2.5 meters to aid users in tap placement,
among other specifications.

You could buy a 1000-ft spool on eBay for only $480, vs $9,818 at Mouser.

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

Nice story.

On 01/23/2018 01:51 PM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk wrote:

Today one would never get away with such 


I don't know.  I've had to mine out quite a bit of old cable that was 
abandoned in place to make room for new installations.  Frequently the 
building owners were more than happy to see it disappear in a fashion 
that meant that I didn't have to bill them for my time to pull it out.


Day 1:  Man, we have to move get this crap out of the way so that we can 
do our install.
Day 2:  Meetings.  (While interested parties pull out the cable and 
leave a surprise.)
Day 3:  Hay, I thought you said that we needed to mine something.  I it 
looks like clear haul.  ...and someone left a pull string that we can 
use.  Suckers.  ;-)




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Pete Lancashire via cctalk]

A side story. I was the only 'customer' of a long run of that yellow cable,
when we moved the 260 + 3/50's to a different location, I asked
if they were going to reuse the cable. "Nope, cost to much to get it out of
the roof trusses." I forget but it was a LONG run. Tektronix
back in those days was still an engineering oriented company and all I had
to do was mention it one day in the main cafeteria. Next
thing I know I was followed back to the building with at least 10 engineers
following me. I called and asked one one the facility department
guys that knew about the cable no longer being used, and his reply was
something like if it not there Monday I know nothing about it.

The bottom of the trusses were a good 15 if not more feet up. Five of us
got it down and I came home with the cable on Sunday.
My helpers would not take anything in $'s, the challenge was good enough.

Make a great cable for my ham radio hobby.

Today one would never get away with such 

-pete



On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 12:39 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> > From: Paul Koning
>
> > The nominal OD of RG-8/U is .. within spec for Ethernet cable.
>
> Oh, OK. I was just used to the 10Mb cable we used being slightly larger
> than
> the 3Mb cable we used.
>
> > Also, Ethernet requires a solid inner conductor (for the tap) while
> > RG-8/U may come stranded. (Maybe only in some variants, I'm not
> sure.)
>
> As can be seen in the photos, the 3Mb stuff (at least, the stuff we used)
> was
> also solid. The diameter of the center was a little smaller on the 3Mb
> than on
> the 10Mb; .16mm versus .23mm; not sure if that was just happenstance, or
> what.
>
> Noel
>
>

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 01/23/2018 01:39 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
As can be seen in the photos, the 3Mb stuff (at least, the stuff we used) 
was also solid. The diameter of the center was a little smaller on the 
3Mb than on the 10Mb; .16mm versus .23mm; not sure if that was just 
happenstance, or what.


That (and the OD) sounds like standard manufacturer to manufacturer 
variation in different RG-8 grade cables that meet / fall within the 
electrical / transmission / physical specifications of RG-8 cable.


I expect that the "yellow hosepipe" as I've heard the 10 Mbps coax 
referred to as being a subset, possibly more stringent, of Radio Grade 8 
coax cable.




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Experimental Ethernet, XGP, etc.

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 23, 2018, at 1:35 PM, Mark Kahrs via cctech  
> wrote:
> 
> A few notes:
> ...
> The vampire tap transceiver used RG-8 cable originally.  That's before they
> added the lines around the cable and added additional shielding.

The cable spec given in the Ethernet standard doesn't mention additional 
shielding.  It does differ from RG-8 in that it calls for foam dielectric and a 
higher velocity factor (0.77 rather than 0.66).  Another common difference (not 
required by the spec) is that RG-8 is polyethylene while Ethernet coax is 
usually PTFE.

paul

Re: Experimental Ethernet, XGP, etc.

[Josh Dersch via cctalk]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 10:35 AM, Mark Kahrs via cctech <
cct...@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> A few notes:
>
> The experimental Ethernet speed was in fact 2.94 MHz: It's the Alto clock
> divided by 2.
>
> The Alto based printer was called "SLOT" -- Scanning Laser Output
> Terminal.  It was plugged into the Alto backplane and presented itself as a
> hardware peripheral controlled by microcode (as was the case for all Alto
> I/O).  It was an Alto task, of course.
>

There was also the later Orbit controller, which talked to a number of ROS
(Raster Output Scanner) devices, including the Dover.  The Orbit controlled
the ROS and the printer and had special hardware + microcode to assist in
the generation of raster bands (16x4096 pixels) for imaging.  This allowed
the Alto to keep up with the Dover (which was approximately 1 page/second)
in real time while generating 384dpi output.

(Incidentally, not all Alto I/O was implemented as hardware + microcode --
just the high-bandwidth stuff; there was memory-mapped hardware at the top
of the address space for keyboard/keyset/mouse and various other devices.)

Also: The latest version of ContrAlto (
https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/ContrAlto) emulates the Orbit and
Dover ROS in case anyone's itching to print some PRESS files :).  Bitsavers
has a set of disks I put together with Spruce (one of a number of
Alto-based print servers) if you want to play around with it.

- Josh

Re: SCSI Controller Hanging...

[Plamen Mihaylov via cctalk]

What SCSI controller are you using - MVME320, 327 or 328 ?
Do you reset the MVME177 board using RESET command from 177bug> along with
SCSI bus reset  option?

Best regards,
Plamen


On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 6:33 PM, Jack Harper via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

>
> Greetings to the List from the Snowy Rocky Mountains.
>
> Beautiful clear sunny day here at +9F :)
>
> The SCSI controller on the 68K development system (VMEbus) that I have
> cobbled together occasionally hangs after I reset one of the processor
> boards (there are four MVME177-005 68060 boards in the VME rack).
>
> The hang then happens when my software touches the SCSI drives via the
> ROM'd 68K/Bug I/O primitives and the hang will not go away even after
> another reset until I cycle power.
>
> I have never before dealt with SCSI as a programmer - does this sound like
> something is configured incorrectly?
>
> There is not much to configure.
>
> I point out that I am not certain that I have the termination resistors
> correct.
>
>
> Thoughts?
>
> I appreciate any advice.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Jack
> Evergreen Colorado
>
>
>
>
>
> 
> --
> Jack Harper, President
> Secure Outcomes Inc
> 2942 Evergreen Parkway, Suite 300
> Evergreen, Colorado 80439 USA
>
> 303.670.8375
> 303.670.3750 (fax)
>
> http://www.secureoutcomes.net for Product Info.
>

Experimental Ethernet, XGP, etc.

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

A few notes:

The experimental Ethernet speed was in fact 2.94 MHz: It's the Alto clock
divided by 2.

The Alto based printer was called "SLOT" -- Scanning Laser Output
Terminal.  It was plugged into the Alto backplane and presented itself as a
hardware peripheral controlled by microcode (as was the case for all Alto
I/O).  It was an Alto task, of course.

The vampire tap transceiver used RG-8 cable originally.  That's before they
added the lines around the cable and added additional shielding.

The XGP was used at the Stanford AI Lab and was, as mentioned early, a dry
process.  And it did use a roll of paper.

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Paul Koning

> The nominal OD of RG-8/U is .. within spec for Ethernet cable.

Oh, OK. I was just used to the 10Mb cable we used being slightly larger than
the 3Mb cable we used.

> Also, Ethernet requires a solid inner conductor (for the tap) while
> RG-8/U may come stranded. (Maybe only in some variants, I'm not sure.)

As can be seen in the photos, the 3Mb stuff (at least, the stuff we used) was
also solid. The diameter of the center was a little smaller on the 3Mb than on
the 10Mb; .16mm versus .23mm; not sure if that was just happenstance, or what.

Noel

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 23, 2018, at 3:19 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
>> From: Grant Taylor
> 
>> I can fairly clearly see the RG-8/U on the side of the cable that David
>> is holding ... Sure, there was probably a better alternative that came
>> along after, with better shielding and marking bands. 
> 
> You keep mixing up the 3 Mbit and 10 Mbit. _They were not the same_. (I
> _really_ need to retake those photos with a ruler in them...)
> 
> The stuff with better shield, marking bands, etc is 10 Mb; it's about 1.05cm
> in diagmeter. The black stuff (the stuff Dave is holding in the video) is 3Mb;
> the piece I have is .95 cm.

The Ethernet spec says that the cable OD is in the range .365 to .415 inch, 
which is 9.27 to 10.54 mm.  The nominal OD of RG-8/U is .405 inches, or 10.28 
mm, which is within spec for Ethernet cable.

One place where the two cable specs differ is in the velocity factor, 0.66 for 
RG-8/U and 0.77 for Ethernet cable.  That relates to the dielectric -- solid 
polyethylene for RG-8/U and foamed material (unspecified) for Ethernet.  Also, 
Ethernet requires a solid inner conductor (for the tap) while RG-8/U may come 
stranded.  (Maybe only in some variants, I'm not sure.)  And there are the 
stripes, of course, but those have no electrical significance.  You can use a 
tape measure if you don't have the stripes.

paul

Re: ISO 9816 small keyboard

[Paul Berger via cctalk]

On 2018-01-23 3:58 PM, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote:

tisdag 23 januari 2018 skrev Marc Verdiell via cctalk 

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

That's what I get for cutting and pasting from a Google search.
Sorry...

bill


From: cctalk  on behalf of Bill Gunshannon via 
cctalk 
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 2:22 PM
To: Grant Taylor via cctalk; Grant Taylor
Subject: Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

If you want a real hoot try reading what


"A System Administrator’s Guide to Sun 
Workstations"

has to say about it.  Google has it available for reading.

bill


From: cctalk  on behalf of Grant Taylor via 
cctalk 
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 2:13 PM
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

On 01/23/2018 12:09 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
> "Transceivers should be installed only at precise 2.5-metre
> intervals. This distance was chosen to not correspond to the wavelength
> of the signal; this ensures that the reflections from multiple taps are
> not in phase. These suitable points are marked
>  on the cable with black bands."
>
> It cites "IEEE Standard 802.3-1985.
> IEEE. p. 121."

Thank you for correcting ~> educating me.

#learnSomethingEveryDay



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: ISO 9816 small keyboard

[Mattis Lind via cctalk]

tisdag 23 januari 2018 skrev Marc Verdiell via cctalk :

> Would the small keyboard be the same as the one on the "Munchkin" 2382A
> terminal? They appear on ebay regularly.


It looks very similar to the keyboard that came with my 9816 but it is
lacking the rotary encoder wheel on the upper left.

I tried the CP/M 68k disk found at hpmuseum.net. But I have a 9122
diskdrive. Maybe the CP/M 68k disk isn’t compatible with the 9122, only
9121? I never got it booting fully.



> http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=421
> There is one right now, but at a completely unreasonable price.
> https://www.ebay.com/itm/Working-Vintage-HP-2382A-terminal-computer-with-
> keyboard-and-PWS-Card/292046947585?hash=item43ff5ac501:g:aJ0AAOSwhlZYvQmf
>
> Marc
>
> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave via
> cctalk
> Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 8:48 AM
> To: Al Kossow via cctalk 
> Subject: Re: ISO 9816 small keyboard
>
>  Hi Al,
> What 9816 parts are required to run it?  Do you already have the 9816 and
> 9121 drive?  Also, is there a copy of CP/M-68K available somewhere for
> download?
> Dave
> On Monday, January 22, 2018, 1:13:08 PM CST, Al Kossow via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
>  I acquired a copy of CP/M-68K and am trying to pull together the parts
> for a 9816 to run it. I have Nimitz keyboards, but would like to find its
> little brother that matches the size of the 9816
>
>
>
>
>

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 01/23/2018 12:07 PM, Marc Verdiell via cctalk wrote:
Have you seen this part of the video where David Boggs (designer of the 
first 3 Mb Ethernet card for the Alto), and Ron Crane (designer of the 
10 Mb Ethernet) are doing a show and tell in their own words? You get 
to see the clamps, the drill, the transceivers, the cards, and some of 
the inventors. Regrettably Ron passed away a few month after we took 
the video. We still miss him.  https://youtu.be/XhIohWr10kU?t=4m27s


I really liked that video, and the entire Alto restoration series from 
CuriousMarc.


I've got to say, I think David Boggs saying "…very simple off the shelf 
stuff, for people who want to know, it's RG-8. … This is the 50 Ω 
version of it."  I can fairly clearly see the RG-8/U on the side of the 
cable that David is holding at 8:01.  That's good enough for me.


Sure, there was probably a better alternative that came along after, 
with better shielding and marking bands.  But it sounds like RG-8/U is 
definitive acceptable to me.  I'll assume that David meant quality RG-8.


What I don't know is if RG-8/U was used for 3 Mbps and then something 
else was used for 10 Mbps.




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: ISO 9816 small keyboard

[Paul Berger via cctalk]

On 2018-01-23 3:24 PM, Marc Verdiell via cctalk wrote:

Would the small keyboard be the same as the one on the "Munchkin" 2382A 
terminal? They appear on ebay regularly.
http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=421
There is one right now, but at a completely unreasonable price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Working-Vintage-HP-2382A-terminal-computer-with-keyboard-and-PWS-Card/292046947585?hash=item43ff5ac501:g:aJ0AAOSwhlZYvQmf

Marc

-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave via cctalk
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 8:48 AM
To: Al Kossow via cctalk 
Subject: Re: ISO 9816 small keyboard

  Hi Al,
What 9816 parts are required to run it?  Do you already have the 9816 and 9121 
drive?  Also, is there a copy of CP/M-68K available somewhere for download?
Dave
 On Monday, January 22, 2018, 1:13:08 PM CST, Al Kossow via cctalk 
 wrote:
  
  I acquired a copy of CP/M-68K and am trying to pull together the parts for a 9816 to run it. I have Nimitz keyboards, but would like to find its little brother that matches the size of the 9816



   
The keyboard technology looks the same but the layout is different. The 
terminal case looks to be the same as the 9816 too.


Paul.

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Ian Finder via cctalk]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 11:32 AM, Daniel Seagraves via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

>
>
> > On Jan 23, 2018, at 12:15 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >
> > Really, is this any worse than the gold bugs scrapping whole systems for
> > the prospective precious metal content?
>
> It seems worse to me because the gold bugs are ignorant and greedy but the
> keyboardists are “computer people” and should know better.
>
> Also as far as I know the gold bugs don’t deliberately target rare systems
> for their rarity.
>
>
Thanks, Daniel, for this succinct differentiation!


-- 
   Ian Finder
   (206) 395-MIPS
   ian.fin...@gmail.com

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Daniel Seagraves via cctalk]

> On Jan 23, 2018, at 12:15 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> Really, is this any worse than the gold bugs scrapping whole systems for
> the prospective precious metal content?

It seems worse to me because the gold bugs are ignorant and greedy but the 
keyboardists are “computer people” and should know better.

Also as far as I know the gold bugs don’t deliberately target rare systems for 
their rarity.

RE: ISO 9816 small keyboard

[Marc Verdiell via cctalk]

Would the small keyboard be the same as the one on the "Munchkin" 2382A 
terminal? They appear on ebay regularly.
http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=421
There is one right now, but at a completely unreasonable price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Working-Vintage-HP-2382A-terminal-computer-with-keyboard-and-PWS-Card/292046947585?hash=item43ff5ac501:g:aJ0AAOSwhlZYvQmf

Marc

-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave via cctalk
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 8:48 AM
To: Al Kossow via cctalk 
Subject: Re: ISO 9816 small keyboard

 Hi Al,
What 9816 parts are required to run it?  Do you already have the 9816 and 9121 
drive?  Also, is there a copy of CP/M-68K available somewhere for download?
Dave
On Monday, January 22, 2018, 1:13:08 PM CST, Al Kossow via cctalk 
 wrote:  
 
 I acquired a copy of CP/M-68K and am trying to pull together the parts for a 
9816 to run it. I have Nimitz keyboards, but would like to find its little 
brother that matches the size of the 9816


  

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

If you want a real hoot try reading what


"A System Administrator’s Guide to Sun 
Workstations"

has to say about it.  Google has it available for reading.

bill


From: cctalk  on behalf of Grant Taylor via 
cctalk 
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 2:13 PM
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

On 01/23/2018 12:09 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
> "Transceivers should be installed only at precise 2.5-metre
> intervals. This distance was chosen to not correspond to the wavelength
> of the signal; this ensures that the reflections from multiple taps are
> not in phase. These suitable points are marked
>  on the cable with black bands."
>
> It cites "IEEE Standard 802.3-1985.
> IEEE. p. 121."

Thank you for correcting ~> educating me.

#learnSomethingEveryDay



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 01/23/2018 12:09 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
"Transceivers should be installed only at precise 2.5-metre 
intervals. This distance was chosen to not correspond to the wavelength 
of the signal; this ensures that the reflections from multiple taps are 
not in phase. These suitable points are marked 
 on the cable with black bands."


It cites "IEEE Standard 802.3-1985. 
IEEE. p. 121."


Thank you for correcting ~> educating me.

#learnSomethingEveryDay



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

>From Wiki:
"Transceivers should be installed only at precise 2.5-metre intervals. This 
distance
was chosen to not correspond to the wavelength of the signal; this ensures that 
the
reflections from multiple taps are not in phase. These suitable points are 
marked
 on the cable with black bands."

It cites "IEEE Standard 802.3-1985. 
IEEE. p. 121."

bill


From: cctalk  on behalf of Pete Turnbull via 
cctalk 
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 1:54 PM
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

On 23/01/2018 16:48, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:
> On 01/23/2018 09:10 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
>> If you didn't locate the transceivers on those black marks you would
>> have had terrible performance as that affects collisions.  Timing
>> (among other things like grounding) was very important with that
>> version of ethernet hardware.
>
> It's my understanding that the marks (black bands or other markings on
> the sheath) were exactly one wavelength apart.  Which from what I
> remember ~> understand from my ham radio days is quite important.

No, that's quite wrong.  The marks are every 2.5m (8.2 feet) wich IIRC
is 1/19th of a wavelength apart, the point being to try to minimise the
likelihood of connections being made where they'd suffer constructive
(additive) interference and to prevent transceivers being too close
together.

--
Pete
Pete Turnbull

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 23, 2018, at 11:10 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> If you didn't locate the transceivers on those black marks you would
> have had terrible performance as that affects collisions.  Timing (among
> other things like grounding) was very important with that version of
> ethernet hardware.
> 
> bill

Yes, the purpose of the marks is to make the collision mechanism reliable.

Ethernet does not have any critical timing; collisions do not depend on timing. 
 The black stripes on official Ethernet cable exists for a different reason: to 
get you to place the taps at positions that are NOT round multiples of a 
quarter wavelength.  The reason: a tap is a (small) impedance bump, which 
causes reflections on the cable.  If you have a lot of taps and they are spaced 
multiples of a wavelength apart, those reflections will combine to produce a 
large reflection, which if you're unlucky will look like a collision.  If you 
pick the correct spacing, the reflections from the various taps are spread out 
across time and don't combine, so none of them add up to a strong enough pulse 
to be seen as a collision.

This is clearly stated in the Ethernet V2 spec, section 7.6.2:

> Coaxial cables marked as specified in 7.3.1.1.6 have marks at regular 2.5 
> meters spacing; a transceiver may be placed at any mark on the cable. This 
> guarantees both a minimum spacing between transceivers of 2.5 meters, as well 
> as controlling the relative spacing of transceivers to insure non-alignment 
> on fractional wavelength boundaries.

Reading between the lines, it's clear you could ignore those marks and get away 
with it in many cases.  Low tap count, for example.  Other positioning that 
meets the "non-alignment" intent.  But for large installations, using the marks 
ensures that you stay out of trouble.

The need to have a transmission line with controlled reflections is also why 
the cable is required to be terminated with accurate terminating resistors, at 
both end points (but not at any other point :-) ) and why splices are made with 
constant impedance connectors (N connector barrels).

Apart from the marks, the 10Base5 cable is pretty ordinary.  It's not exactly 
RG-8/U but it is not all that differen either, and if the diameter is close 
enough something like RG-8/U would make an acceptable substitute.

The same sort of considerations could apply to 10Base2, but there things are 
not as strict because the cable is shorter and the station count is 
significantly lower (max of 30).  So the spec simply states that stations 
should be at least 1/2 meter apart, and that there must not be a significant 
stub (more than a few centimeters) between the T connector and the transceiver 
electronics.

If you build with transmission line design rules in mind, you can make Ethernet 
buses out of cable of your choice, so long as it's 50 ohms and good quality 
components are used throughout.  You can, for example, splice 10Base5 to 
10Base2 (with a barrel, not a T) if you follow the more restrictive of the two 
configuration rules.

paul

RE: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Marc Verdiell via cctalk]

Noel,
Have you seen this part of the video where David Boggs (designer of the first 3 
Mb Ethernet card for the Alto), and Ron Crane (designer of the 10 Mb Ethernet) 
are doing a show and tell in their own words? You get to see the clamps, the 
drill, the transceivers, the cards, and some of the inventors. Regrettably Ron 
passed away a few month after we took the video. We still miss him.
https://youtu.be/XhIohWr10kU?t=4m27s
Marc

-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow via 
cctalk
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 8:10 AM
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

there are pictures of the transceiver w/o the vampire tap on bitsavers under 
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/ethernet_3mb/

On 1/23/18 7:51 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
> > From: Grant Taylor
> 
> > According to the following page, it was not RG-8 cable ... As such it
> > was purpose built.
> 
> The 10MBit cable, yes; it was custom (you can see 'Ethernet' printed 
> on the chunk in the picture). (I'd forgotten about the black stripes! 
> I'm not sure we really bothered to follow that.)
> 
> The earlier 3Mbit I'm not so sure about - that has the air of standard 
> commercial coax.
> 
> I wish there was a picture of a 3Mbit transceiver, clamp-on holder, 
> etc! Does the CHM or LCM have them with their Alto stuff?
> 
>   Noel
> 

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Ian Finder via cctalk]

I too have always enjoyed the analogy to ivory poachers.

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 10:58 AM, william degnan via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> >
> > Well, the latter are presumably in it as a business, whereas it seems
> these
> > people do it for 'fun'.
> >
> > Now there's an idea: perhaps we could convince them that pulling the
> wings
> > off flies is a more entertaining hobby?
> >
> > Noel
> >
>
> Did anyone attend VCF South East this past year, there was a large table
> run by a keyboard vendor.  Just keyboards, laid out like tusks from poached
> elephants.
>
> b
>



-- 
   Ian Finder
   (206) 395-MIPS
   ian.fin...@gmail.com

Re: Apollo Software

[Ian Finder via cctalk]

Bill,

I have an Apollo here with an 8" drive and I'm hunting for an 8" Domain
media set so I can reinstall the OS.
If you get them to me I can image them and send images to Al.

- Ian

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 7:44 AM, Daniel Seagraves via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

>
>
> > On Jan 23, 2018, at 9:33 AM, jim stephens via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> > The real work was done in the back rooms @ Mission control, with certain
> features implemented on the systems onboard the rocket.
> >
> > You couldn't carry out a mission w/o the ground supporting either system
> with computations to the onboard systems.  You didn't punch in the address
> of the moon on any system onboard the rocket, you got pre-computed
> parameters from ground  computations that the flight computers carried out.
>
> That’s exactly what I was trying to point out. What we have is a
> relatively small piece of the entire puzzle. People seem to think that just
> because a few versions of CM and LM software exist all is saved and done,
> but it’s really only the user interface to a much larger stack. You can't
> just fire up the AGC and push the “land on the moon” button. You can run it
> by itself and look at the idle loop or display the clock but getting it to
> actually DO anything close to its original tasks requires input from a lot
> of missing pieces. We aren’t trying to just run it in a box, that’s been
> done. We’re making it FLY.
>
> > I'm not getting your "absolutely wrong" part.
>
> He said "The Saturn IBM firmware is lost, but was under command of the LM
> and CM computers”. This is absolutely wrong. It was the other way around.
>
>
>


-- 
   Ian Finder
   (206) 395-MIPS
   ian.fin...@gmail.com

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[william degnan via cctalk]

>
> Well, the latter are presumably in it as a business, whereas it seems these
> people do it for 'fun'.
>
> Now there's an idea: perhaps we could convince them that pulling the wings
> off flies is a more entertaining hobby?
>
> Noel
>

Did anyone attend VCF South East this past year, there was a large table
run by a keyboard vendor.  Just keyboards, laid out like tusks from poached
elephants.

b

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Chuck Guzis

> Really, is this any worse than the gold bugs scrapping whole systems
> for the prospective precious metal content?

Well, the latter are presumably in it as a business, whereas it seems these
people do it for 'fun'.

Now there's an idea: perhaps we could convince them that pulling the wings
off flies is a more entertaining hobby?

Noel

Re: Televideo 970

[Jules Richardson via cctalk]

On 01/23/2018 09:54 AM, Aaron Jackson wrote:



1) The EMI filter had gone open-circuit - it's one of those metal can types
which is integrated with the IEC power input connector. Are these still
obtainable anywhere? It seems like equipment these days just has the
filtering directly on the PSU board, rather than as a separate module. I've
just bypassed it for testing, but I don't want to leave it like that.


You can still get these. The hard part is finding one which will fit
properly unless you are willing to bodge it together a bit. Just search
for "C14 EMI" on eBay and you'll find hundreds of them. Maybe you've
seen them already and were just surprised by how small they have become :)


Ha, no... I'd actually not looked into it, I just assumed they were 
long-gone because I'd not seen one used in anything for *years*.


The one in the Televideo is surprisingly compact, given the age - around 1" 
wide, 3/4" high and 2" deep (including the solder points). It looks like I 
should be able to find a replacement easily enough, though (I'm assuming 
that the internal component values aren't particularly critical, and it's 
just a case of finding something with enough max current rating)



You can also just remove it, and (safely) wire in a fixed power cord.


Yes, right now I just grabbed a panel-mount IEC connector from a junk PC 
PSU and wired that up while I'm testing, I think long-term though I'd 
prefer to do it right; it won't make any difference to the terminal, but it 
might make other gadgets plugged into the same AC feed a little happier. :-)


cheers

Jules

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Ian Finder via cctalk]

I get these all the time with Lisp Machines. "Yo can I get a keyboard!"

UGH.

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 10:15 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> On 01/23/2018 09:44 AM, Daniel Seagraves via cctalk wrote:
>
> > One of them scrapped a Symbolics XL for the keyswitches. That would
> > be bad enough, but it gets worse - They did because they thought it
> > was a CADR "Space Cadet” keyboard.
> Really, is this any worse than the gold bugs scrapping whole systems for
> the prospective precious metal content?
>
> --Chuck
>



-- 
   Ian Finder
   (206) 395-MIPS
   ian.fin...@gmail.com

Re: SCSI Controller Hanging...

[Jack Harper via cctalk]

Great information/advice Jules.

I appreciate it - and know more about SCSI now than before.

Regards,

Jack



At 11:15 AM 1/23/2018, Jules Richardson via cctalk wrote:

On 01/23/2018 10:33 AM, Jack Harper via cctalk wrote:


Greetings to the List from the Snowy Rocky Mountains.

Beautiful clear sunny day here at +9F :)


It's a toasty 20F here in northern MN :)


I have never before dealt with SCSI as a programmer - does this sound like
something is configured incorrectly?

There is not much to configure.


I'm not sure about incorrect config, but I'm guessing it could be a 
software issue (rather than hardware) - i.e. board reset is also 
causing a reset of the SCSI bus in some odd way which is then 
offlining/confusing any attached devices. Does it just happen with a 
reset of one specific CPU board, or is it any of them?



I point out that I am not certain that I have the termination resistors
correct.


Termination's easy enough - in theory :-)  A single set of 
termination at each end of the bus, never in the middle - and 
double-termination at either end will cause weird things to happen.


If it's a 16-bit SCSI bus then you need termination either end of 
both high/low 'halves' (sometimes people will park an 8-bit device 
via a cable adapter at the end of a 16-bit bus, and stick an 8-bit 
terminator on the device, which leaves the high side of the 16 bit 
bus unterminated and causes glitches)


*Something* on the bus needs to provide +5V on the SCSI TERMPWR 
line; the terminators need this to work. I think typically the bus 
adapter (i.e. controller) will do this, but I seem to recall that 
the adapter in my Apple IIGS has no support for it and expects one 
of the attached devices to do it (some will via a jumper setting, 
but some won't)


I think that some 16-bit devices will automagically work on an 8-bit 
SCSI bus, but I don't know if there's any guarantee of that.


Other than that, if you've got external devices then try and use the 
best quality cables that you can find - there used to be some really 
cheap junk out there which could cause all sorts of oddball problems.


cheers

Jules




--
Jack Harper, President
Secure Outcomes Inc
2942 Evergreen Parkway, Suite 300
Evergreen, Colorado 80439 USA

303.670.8375
303.670.3750 (fax)

http://www.secureoutcomes.net for Product Info. 

Re: SCSI Controller Hanging...

[Jules Richardson via cctalk]

On 01/23/2018 10:33 AM, Jack Harper via cctalk wrote:


Greetings to the List from the Snowy Rocky Mountains.

Beautiful clear sunny day here at +9F :)


It's a toasty 20F here in northern MN :)


I have never before dealt with SCSI as a programmer - does this sound like
something is configured incorrectly?

There is not much to configure.


I'm not sure about incorrect config, but I'm guessing it could be a 
software issue (rather than hardware) - i.e. board reset is also causing a 
reset of the SCSI bus in some odd way which is then offlining/confusing any 
attached devices. Does it just happen with a reset of one specific CPU 
board, or is it any of them?



I point out that I am not certain that I have the termination resistors
correct.


Termination's easy enough - in theory :-)  A single set of termination at 
each end of the bus, never in the middle - and double-termination at either 
end will cause weird things to happen.


If it's a 16-bit SCSI bus then you need termination either end of both 
high/low 'halves' (sometimes people will park an 8-bit device via a cable 
adapter at the end of a 16-bit bus, and stick an 8-bit terminator on the 
device, which leaves the high side of the 16 bit bus unterminated and 
causes glitches)


*Something* on the bus needs to provide +5V on the SCSI TERMPWR line; the 
terminators need this to work. I think typically the bus adapter (i.e. 
controller) will do this, but I seem to recall that the adapter in my Apple 
IIGS has no support for it and expects one of the attached devices to do it 
(some will via a jumper setting, but some won't)


I think that some 16-bit devices will automagically work on an 8-bit SCSI 
bus, but I don't know if there's any guarantee of that.


Other than that, if you've got external devices then try and use the best 
quality cables that you can find - there used to be some really cheap junk 
out there which could cause all sorts of oddball problems.


cheers

Jules

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 01/23/2018 09:44 AM, Daniel Seagraves via cctalk wrote:

> One of them scrapped a Symbolics XL for the keyswitches. That would
> be bad enough, but it gets worse - They did because they thought it
> was a CADR "Space Cadet” keyboard.
Really, is this any worse than the gold bugs scrapping whole systems for
the prospective precious metal content?

--Chuck

Re: Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Daniel Seagraves via cctalk]

> On Jan 23, 2018, at 11:35 AM, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> …are the bane of my existence and should all rot in hell.
> 
> Sorry, I just received an email from a “keyboard enthusiast” who was looking 
> for
> various IBM 327x keyboards and wanted to know if I could help him and I needed
> to vent a little.
> 
> I sent him a polite “no way in hell” response but I’m still angry about it.  
> These 
> terminals are hard enough to find.  And more often than not, the keyboard is
> missing because some “enthusiast” thought it would be cool to convert it to a 
> PC
> keyboard.  ARG!  And of course the keyboards that they want are the 
> “typewriter”
> keyboards (all of my 3278 terminals have the “data entry keyboard”).

One of them scrapped a Symbolics XL for the keyswitches. That would be bad 
enough, but it gets worse - They did because they thought it was a CADR "Space 
Cadet” keyboard.

Re: SCSI

[Jack Harper via cctalk]

Jim -

I appreciate the great SCSI information.

The hang is not at all frequent.

I do resets many times during a programming 
session as my "marvelous" code hangs or otherwise 
goes crazy and into thew weeds  :)and I only 
see a SCSI hang every few days.


Regards,

Jack




At 10:28 AM 1/23/2018, jim stephens wrote:

Scsi controllers are very sensitive to resets 
and getting out of step with the state of the bus the initiators they control.


Scsi can have multiple initiators, and you may 
of course have a system which acts as a target, 
but i'm guessing since you said drives, you have 
a pretty common setup, a system with drives 
attached, where the scsi device on your system is the initiator.


One thing that throws off scsi is to do a reset 
which comes from somewhere the initiator doesn't 
know about.  many are not friendly when that 
happens and just end up hung up.  Reset tells 
all the devices to stand down, and it is 
expected that an enumeration of the bus will 
take place by all the initiator(s).


That may have happened if you reset your other 
processors or did something which affected the 
initiator.  And the resets on most systems 
usually hit all components, so I'd be surprised 
if only the one processor was affected.


thanks
Jim


--
Jack Harper, President
Secure Outcomes Inc
2942 Evergreen Parkway, Suite 300
Evergreen, Colorado 80439 USA

303.670.8375
303.670.3750 (fax)

http://www.secureoutcomes.net for Product Info. 

Keyboard "enthusiasts"

[Guy Sotomayor via cctalk]

…are the bane of my existence and should all rot in hell.

Sorry, I just received an email from a “keyboard enthusiast” who was looking for
various IBM 327x keyboards and wanted to know if I could help him and I needed
to vent a little.

I sent him a polite “no way in hell” response but I’m still angry about it.  
These 
terminals are hard enough to find.  And more often than not, the keyboard is
missing because some “enthusiast” thought it would be cool to convert it to a PC
keyboard.  ARG!  And of course the keyboards that they want are the “typewriter”
keyboards (all of my 3278 terminals have the “data entry keyboard”).

TTFN - Guy

Re: SCSI Controller Hanging...

[Jack Harper via cctalk]

Hello Bill -

Yes, there are two 4GB (32-bit addressing) SCSI 
drives on the system and they do have different drive numbers.


I will double check the SCSI termination resistor things.

Motorola documentation is very sparse on this - 
"attach the termination resistor" - nothing on 
exactly where or what the resistor thing looks like.


I am far stronger in software than hardware.

I appreciate the adive.

Regards,

Jack
Evergreen, Colorado



At 09:47 AM 1/23/2018, william degnan wrote:


On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 11:33 AM, Jack Harper 
via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:


Greetings to the List from the Snowy Rocky Mountains.

Beautiful clear sunny day here at +9F :)

The SCSI controller on the 68K development 
system (VMEbus) that I have cobbled together 
occasionally hangs after I reset one of the 
processor boards (there are four MVME177-005 68060 boards in the VME rack).


The hang then happens when my software touches 
the SCSI drives via the ROM'd 68K/Bug I/O 
primitives and the hang will not go away even 
after another reset until I cycle power.


I have never before dealt with SCSI as a 
programmer - does this sound like something is configured incorrectly?


There is not much to configure.

I point out that I am not certain that I have 
the termination resistors correct.



Thoughts?

I appreciate any advice.


Regards,

Jack
Evergreen Colorado



Jack,
Yes, two things that I'd be checking
1) Make sure all drives are assigned a different number
2) Make sure you have termination somewhere.

Depending on the OS there are commands to 
display the scsi devices attached, as the OS sees them.


BillÂ


--
Jack Harper, President
Secure Outcomes Inc
2942 Evergreen Parkway, Suite 300
Evergreen, Colorado 80439 USA

303.670.8375
303.670.3750 (fax)

http://www.secureoutcomes.net for Product Info. 

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 01/23/2018 09:10 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
If you didn't locate the transceivers on those black marks you would 
have had terrible performance as that affects collisions.  Timing (among 
other things like grounding) was very important with that version of 
ethernet hardware.


It's my understanding that the marks (black bands or other markings on 
the sheath) were exactly one wavelength apart.  Which from what I 
remember ~> understand from my ham radio days is quite important.




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: ISO 9816 small keyboard

[Dave via cctalk]

 Hi Al,
What 9816 parts are required to run it?  Do you already have the 9816 and 9121 
drive?  Also, is there a copy of CP/M-68K available somewhere for download?
Dave
On Monday, January 22, 2018, 1:13:08 PM CST, Al Kossow via cctalk 
 wrote:  
 
 I acquired a copy of CP/M-68K and am trying to pull together the
parts for a 9816 to run it. I have Nimitz keyboards, but would like
to find its little brother that matches the size of the 9816


  

Re: SCSI Controller Hanging...

[william degnan via cctalk]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 11:33 AM, Jack Harper via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

>
> Greetings to the List from the Snowy Rocky Mountains.
>
> Beautiful clear sunny day here at +9F :)
>
> The SCSI controller on the 68K development system (VMEbus) that I have
> cobbled together occasionally hangs after I reset one of the processor
> boards (there are four MVME177-005 68060 boards in the VME rack).
>
> The hang then happens when my software touches the SCSI drives via the
> ROM'd 68K/Bug I/O primitives and the hang will not go away even after
> another reset until I cycle power.
>
> I have never before dealt with SCSI as a programmer - does this sound like
> something is configured incorrectly?
>
> There is not much to configure.
>
> I point out that I am not certain that I have the termination resistors
> correct.
>
>
> Thoughts?
>
> I appreciate any advice.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Jack
> Evergreen Colorado
>
>
>
Jack,
Yes, two things that I'd be checking
1) Make sure all drives are assigned a different number
2) Make sure you have termination somewhere.

Depending on the OS there are commands to display the scsi devices
attached, as the OS sees them.

Bill

SCSI Controller Hanging...

[Jack Harper via cctalk]

Greetings to the List from the Snowy Rocky Mountains.

Beautiful clear sunny day here at +9F :)

The SCSI controller on the 68K development system (VMEbus) that I 
have cobbled together occasionally hangs after I reset one of the 
processor boards (there are four MVME177-005 68060 boards in the VME rack).


The hang then happens when my software touches the SCSI drives via 
the ROM'd 68K/Bug I/O primitives and the hang will not go away even 
after another reset until I cycle power.


I have never before dealt with SCSI as a programmer - does this sound 
like something is configured incorrectly?


There is not much to configure.

I point out that I am not certain that I have the termination 
resistors correct.



Thoughts?

I appreciate any advice.


Regards,

Jack
Evergreen Colorado





--
Jack Harper, President
Secure Outcomes Inc
2942 Evergreen Parkway, Suite 300
Evergreen, Colorado 80439 USA

303.670.8375
303.670.3750 (fax)

http://www.secureoutcomes.net for Product Info. 

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

Vampire taps.  Now there's a blast from the past.  Somewhere around here
I still have my toolbag which still has my tap drill for installing those taps.

bill


From: cctalk  on behalf of Al Kossow via cctalk 

Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 11:10 AM
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

there are pictures of the transceiver w/o the vampire tap on bitsavers
under http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/ethernet_3mb/

On 1/23/18 7:51 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
> > From: Grant Taylor
>
> > According to the following page, it was not RG-8 cable ... As such it
> > was purpose built.
>
> The 10MBit cable, yes; it was custom (you can see 'Ethernet' printed on the
> chunk in the picture). (I'd forgotten about the black stripes! I'm not sure
> we really bothered to follow that.)
>
> The earlier 3Mbit I'm not so sure about - that has the air of standard
> commercial coax.
>
> I wish there was a picture of a 3Mbit transceiver, clamp-on holder, etc! Does
> the CHM or LCM have them with their Alto stuff?
>
>Noel
>

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

If you didn't locate the transceivers on those black marks you would
have had terrible performance as that affects collisions.  Timing (among
other things like grounding) was very important with that version of
ethernet hardware.

bill


From: cctalk  on behalf of Noel Chiappa via 
cctalk 
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 10:51 AM
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Cc: j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

> From: Grant Taylor

> According to the following page, it was not RG-8 cable ... As such it
> was purpose built.

The 10MBit cable, yes; it was custom (you can see 'Ethernet' printed on the
chunk in the picture). (I'd forgotten about the black stripes! I'm not sure
we really bothered to follow that.)

The earlier 3Mbit I'm not so sure about - that has the air of standard
commercial coax.

I wish there was a picture of a 3Mbit transceiver, clamp-on holder, etc! Does
the CHM or LCM have them with their Alto stuff?

Noel

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

there are pictures of the transceiver w/o the vampire tap on bitsavers
under http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/ethernet_3mb/

On 1/23/18 7:51 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
> > From: Grant Taylor
> 
> > According to the following page, it was not RG-8 cable ... As such it
> > was purpose built.
> 
> The 10MBit cable, yes; it was custom (you can see 'Ethernet' printed on the
> chunk in the picture). (I'd forgotten about the black stripes! I'm not sure
> we really bothered to follow that.)
> 
> The earlier 3Mbit I'm not so sure about - that has the air of standard
> commercial coax.
> 
> I wish there was a picture of a 3Mbit transceiver, clamp-on holder, etc! Does
> the CHM or LCM have them with their Alto stuff?
> 
>   Noel
> 

Re: Televideo 970

[Aaron Jackson via cctalk]

> 1) The EMI filter had gone open-circuit - it's one of those metal can types
> which is integrated with the IEC power input connector. Are these still
> obtainable anywhere? It seems like equipment these days just has the
> filtering directly on the PSU board, rather than as a separate module. I've
> just bypassed it for testing, but I don't want to leave it like that.

You can still get these. The hard part is finding one which will fit
properly unless you are willing to bodge it together a bit. Just search
for "C14 EMI" on eBay and you'll find hundreds of them. Maybe you've
seen them already and were just surprised by how small they have become :)

You can also just remove it, and (safely) wire in a fixed power cord.

Aaron.

Re: Ethernet cable (Was: Sun3 valuations?)

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Grant Taylor

> According to the following page, it was not RG-8 cable ... As such it
> was purpose built.

The 10MBit cable, yes; it was custom (you can see 'Ethernet' printed on the
chunk in the picture). (I'd forgotten about the black stripes! I'm not sure
we really bothered to follow that.)

The earlier 3Mbit I'm not so sure about - that has the air of standard
commercial coax.

I wish there was a picture of a 3Mbit transceiver, clamp-on holder, etc! Does
the CHM or LCM have them with their Alto stuff?

Noel

Re: Apollo Software

[Daniel Seagraves via cctalk]

> On Jan 23, 2018, at 9:33 AM, jim stephens via cctalk  
> wrote:

> The real work was done in the back rooms @ Mission control, with certain 
> features implemented on the systems onboard the rocket.
> 
> You couldn't carry out a mission w/o the ground supporting either system with 
> computations to the onboard systems.  You didn't punch in the address of the 
> moon on any system onboard the rocket, you got pre-computed parameters from 
> ground  computations that the flight computers carried out.

That’s exactly what I was trying to point out. What we have is a relatively 
small piece of the entire puzzle. People seem to think that just because a few 
versions of CM and LM software exist all is saved and done, but it’s really 
only the user interface to a much larger stack. You can't just fire up the AGC 
and push the “land on the moon” button. You can run it by itself and look at 
the idle loop or display the clock but getting it to actually DO anything close 
to its original tasks requires input from a lot of missing pieces. We aren’t 
trying to just run it in a box, that’s been done. We’re making it FLY.

> I'm not getting your "absolutely wrong" part.

He said "The Saturn IBM firmware is lost, but was under command of the LM and 
CM computers”. This is absolutely wrong. It was the other way around.

Re: Apollo Software

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 1/23/2018 7:24 AM, Daniel Seagraves via cctalk wrote:



On Jan 23, 2018, at 9:14 AM, jim stephens via cctalk  
wrote:



On 1/23/2018 6:30 AM, Daniel Seagraves via cctalk wrote:

The Saturn software, which is what actually flew from Earth to the moon,

The navigation and guidance was in the CM and LM processors.  The Saturn IBM 
firmware is lost, but was under command of the LM and CM computers, and is 
running on simulators, as well as on some hardware replicas.

Absolutely wrong. The only time the CM computer flew the Saturn was in an abort 
scenario where the Saturn digital computer failed, and it happened via a data 
path from the FDAI needles to the Saturn’s analog control computer. At all 
other points prior to S4 staging the CM was strictly along for the ride. After 
S4 staging the CM and LM were on their own, but that was after the translunar 
burn.
As pointed out, the function of the Saturn computers was to do the lunar 
injection.  The main guidance problem of the mission was the coast and 
the landing, which were done by the CM and LM.


They did what the ground uploaded to them for guidance, as full 
independent guidance was decided to be too intensive and unnecessary to 
have in the onboard computers.  The real work was done in the back rooms 
@ Mission control, with certain features implemented on the systems 
onboard the rocket.


You couldn't carry out a mission w/o the ground supporting either system 
with computations to the onboard systems.  You didn't punch in the 
address of the moon on any system onboard the rocket, you got 
pre-computed parameters from ground  computations that the flight 
computers carried out.


The AGC systems could vary that more than the Saturn stack could, as you 
point out the capability was added at astronaut insistence to control 
the Saturn part of the rocket, but was never used.


I'm not getting your "absolutely wrong" part.

After I reread the thread, I think they were talking about saving the Apollo 
computer software, not the spacecraft.

They were.


AGC software here, FWIW.
https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/

I know. I am one of the NASSP maintainers. We took the yaAGC core and built a 
spacecraft around it so we could actually use it instead of just running it to look 
at the pretty flashing numbers in the idle loop. The project has been in work for 
more than 10 years now. Right now we have the most complete Apollo simulation ever 
built, exceeding the capabilities of even the NASA training simulators. See 
http://nassp.sourceforge.net/wiki/Main_Page 

Re: Apollo Software

[Daniel Seagraves via cctalk]

> On Jan 23, 2018, at 9:14 AM, jim stephens via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 1/23/2018 6:30 AM, Daniel Seagraves via cctalk wrote:
>> The Saturn software, which is what actually flew from Earth to the moon,
> The navigation and guidance was in the CM and LM processors.  The Saturn IBM 
> firmware is lost, but was under command of the LM and CM computers, and is 
> running on simulators, as well as on some hardware replicas.

Absolutely wrong. The only time the CM computer flew the Saturn was in an abort 
scenario where the Saturn digital computer failed, and it happened via a data 
path from the FDAI needles to the Saturn’s analog control computer. At all 
other points prior to S4 staging the CM was strictly along for the ride. After 
S4 staging the CM and LM were on their own, but that was after the translunar 
burn.

> After I reread the thread, I think they were talking about saving the Apollo 
> computer software, not the spacecraft.

They were.

> AGC software here, FWIW.
> https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/

I know. I am one of the NASSP maintainers. We took the yaAGC core and built a 
spacecraft around it so we could actually use it instead of just running it to 
look at the pretty flashing numbers in the idle loop. The project has been in 
work for more than 10 years now. Right now we have the most complete Apollo 
simulation ever built, exceeding the capabilities of even the NASA training 
simulators. See http://nassp.sourceforge.net/wiki/Main_Page 

Re: Apollo Software

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Daniel Seagraves

> The Saturn software, which is what actually flew from Earth to the
> moon, was lost.

You mean the Instrumentation Unit on top of the S-IVB stage? That was
discarded when the S-IVB and CSM separated shortly after leaving Earth orbit
(about 6 hours after launch), so I'm not sure it's accurate to say it's "what
actually flew from Earth to the moon". Yes, it put the CSM on the injection
orbit, but...

A very cool computer (the first one to have all its critical components
triplicated for reliabilty, I gather), and yes, it would be nice to have its
software too.

Noel

Re: Apollo Software

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 1/23/2018 6:30 AM, Daniel Seagraves via cctalk wrote:

The Saturn software, which is what actually flew from Earth to the moon,
The navigation and guidance was in the CM and LM processors.  The Saturn 
IBM firmware is lost, but was under command of the LM and CM computers, 
and is running on simulators, as well as on some hardware replicas.


Spare AGCs were used with F8 aircraft for later uses beyond the lunar 
program.


After I reread the thread, I think they were talking about saving the 
Apollo computer software, not the spacecraft.


AGC software here, FWIW.
https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/

I would be interested in what it takes to configure mame to run the 
other Apollo software, which Al mentioned.

thanks
jim

Re: VCF PNW 2018 - less than three weeks away!

[Guy N. via cctalk]

On Sun, 2018-01-21 at 17:33 -0800, Michael Brutman via cctalk wrote:
> Come join us in Seattle on February 10th and 11th for the first VCF PNW.
> We have 20 exhibits, six speakers, and a panel discussion planned.  There
> will be a consignment area for buying and selling vintage gear

I'm clearing out a lot of miscellaneous computers and parts.  DEC Alpha
Multia, Alpha Personal Workstation, Alpha XL300... a variety of SCSI
hard disks (including some DEC RZ??, 450 MB or so) and SCSI CD-ROM
drives... DAT tapes and drives... a few Sun parts... peecee stuff,
including some ISA bus cards (now THAT'S vintage :-)), lots of cables...
you get the picture.

I don't have the time to go to VCF and try to sell any of this on
consignment, but if anyone is interested in collecting this stuff and
trying to sell it (or use it), I'm in the Seattle area (Bothell,
specifically) and would be glad to give it to you.  I'm really hoping
not to simply scrap it all.

Contact me off-list if you're interested.

Re: Apollo Software

[Daniel Seagraves via cctalk]

> On Jan 22, 2018, at 10:35 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
>> From: Paul Koning
> 
>> I[t] just dawned on me that the subject is Apollo the company bought by
>> HP, not Apollo the spacecraft. Oh well...
> 
> Actually, that stuff has all been saved, and run under simulators

Not all, not by a long shot. Not even half.

The Apollo spacecraft had 4 computers aboard. One was in the Command Module, 
two were in the Lunar Module, and one was in the Saturn. Of those, we only have 
software for the CM and LM computers. The Saturn software, which is what 
actually flew from Earth to the moon, was lost. So you can claim we have “75%” 
at best, but that’s still not even close to true. There was a large complex of 
computers on the ground that calculated maneuvers and generated uplink data 
needed for the operation of the CM and LM computers, as well as the computers 
for the controllers, and none of that software survived. A lot of effort has 
gone into filling in those missing pieces, and it’s by no means complete.

Televideo 970

[Jules Richardson via cctalk]

Hi All,

I got a lovely Televideo 970 terminal from another list-member over the 
weekend. Aside from some PSU capacitor issues, it needs a little TLC:


1) The EMI filter had gone open-circuit - it's one of those metal can types 
which is integrated with the IEC power input connector. Are these still 
obtainable anywhere? It seems like equipment these days just has the 
filtering directly on the PSU board, rather than as a separate module. I've 
just bypassed it for testing, but I don't want to leave it like that.


2) I have a faulty back-tab, left shift and return key (return's simply 
unresponsive, while the other two stick down). Do the keycaps on these 
terminals simply pull off, or is there some trick to removal? I did some 
experimental prying, but didn't want to try too hard and risk snapping the 
switch stem.


I don't know if switches are still available, but worst-case I can swap the 
faulty ones with ones for some of the 'special' keys that I'm extremely 
unlikely to ever use.


cheers

Jules

Re: Sun3 valuations?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 22 Jan 2018, Al Kossow wrote:
Not that anyone seems to collect printers, but the LBP1 and the Canon 
engine were some of the first 'inexpensive mass-produced' laser 
printers.


I still have the Kyocera F-1010 that my father bought 30 years ago. It 
still works well, but the foam strips found in the drum unit and toner 
cartridge are troublesome. They disintegrate, with the result that toner 
is spread inside the printer...


Christian