Re: SPACEWAR! Switch Boxes for a PDP-12

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 9/23/18 7:46 AM, Michael Thompson via cctech wrote:
> Before we cave
> in and buy some modern C toggle switches

ugh

use black arcade pushbuttons

that is what the PDP-1 at CHM has been using for over 10 years

Re: SPACEWAR! Switch Boxes for a PDP-12

[Brent Hilpert via cctalk]

On 2018-Sep-23, at 7:46 AM, Michael Thompson via cctech wrote:

> Visitors to the RICM like to play SPACEWAR! in the PDP-12. Unfortunately
> using the console switches is uncomfortable, not intuitive, and is tough on
> the switches. We would like to recreate the switch boxes used on the PDP-1
> to make playing a better experience.
> 
> We modified the source
> 
> from D.E. WREGE
> 
> to use the LINC SXL instruction to read the PDP-12 GPIO signals, and
> prototyped two switch boxes using recycled toggle switches. This works
> great, so now we need to make better switch boxes.
> 
> This CHM article shows what we want to recreate.
> 
> This article shows a sketch of the switch boxes.
> 
> A generous donor made these boxes for us.
> 
> 
> The lever switches are turning our to be difficult to find at a reasonable
> price. We found some NOS SwitchCraft lever switches that looked like the
> sketch and the PDP-1 pictures and were a reasonable price, but our order
> was rejected because they only had one in stock. eBay has Mossman and
> SwitchCraft, but they are either very expensive (more than $50 each), or
> they only have one available.
> 
> The switches that we are looking for need to be SPDT, three-position,
> non-locking, center off. (If the switches have more than one pole we can
> remove the extra poles to keep the operational force low.) Before we cave
> in and buy some modern C toggle switches, does anyone have a source for
> Mossman or SwitchCraft switches at a reasonable price?



You haven't provided much detail about what limits you're willing to entertain 
in style of switch.

There are a wide variety of lever switches available.
There are leaf-contact switches that mount with two screws and a slot for the 
lever,
leaf-contact with a throated actuator that mount in a 1/2 inch hole (much 
easier to mount than making a narrow slot),
wafer switches with the two-screw/slot mount, etc.
Slot-styles may have the lever plane made from stamped/sheet metal with a slide 
on knob vs. made from thick ~3/16-1/8 inch metal with a thread-on knob.
The latter were very robust and the type typically found in telephone 
switchboards, although there were also some cheaper japanese makes.

Do you want period-correct even if not the exact manuf/type originally used, or 
when you mention C are you referring to modern mini-toggles as acceptable?

Re: SPACEWAR! Switch Boxes for a PDP-12

[Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk]

On 9/23/2018 7:46 AM, Michael Thompson via cctech wrote:

Visitors to the RICM like to play SPACEWAR! in the PDP-12. Unfortunately
using the console switches is uncomfortable, not intuitive, and is tough on
the switches. We would like to recreate the switch boxes used on the PDP-1
to make playing a better experience.

We modified the source

from D.E. WREGE

to use the LINC SXL instruction to read the PDP-12 GPIO signals, and
prototyped two switch boxes using recycled toggle switches. This works
great, so now we need to make better switch boxes.

This CHM article shows what we want to recreate.

This article shows a sketch of the switch boxes.

A generous donor made these boxes for us.


The lever switches are turning our to be difficult to find at a reasonable
price. We found some NOS SwitchCraft lever switches that looked like the
sketch and the PDP-1 pictures and were a reasonable price, but our order
was rejected because they only had one in stock. eBay has Mossman and
SwitchCraft, but they are either very expensive (more than $50 each), or
they only have one available.

The switches that we are looking for need to be SPDT, three-position,
non-locking, center off. (If the switches have more than one pole we can
remove the extra poles to keep the operational force low.) Before we cave
in and buy some modern C toggle switches, does anyone have a source for
Mossman or SwitchCraft switches at a reasonable price?


How about these? They look close, but are still a bit expensive.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-SWITCHCRAFT-60312DL-MOMENTARY-SWITCH/253586118419?epid=27018592158=item3b0ae91713:g:NvcAAOSwqMRa4hGS:sc:USPSFirstClass!95051!US!-1


Bob

--
Vintage computers and electronics
www.dvq.com
www.tekmuseum.com
www.decmuseum.org

SPACEWAR! Switch Boxes for a PDP-12

[Michael Thompson via cctalk]

Visitors to the RICM like to play SPACEWAR! in the PDP-12. Unfortunately
using the console switches is uncomfortable, not intuitive, and is tough on
the switches. We would like to recreate the switch boxes used on the PDP-1
to make playing a better experience.

We modified the source

from D.E. WREGE

to use the LINC SXL instruction to read the PDP-12 GPIO signals, and
prototyped two switch boxes using recycled toggle switches. This works
great, so now we need to make better switch boxes.

This CHM article shows what we want to recreate.

This article shows a sketch of the switch boxes.

A generous donor made these boxes for us.


The lever switches are turning our to be difficult to find at a reasonable
price. We found some NOS SwitchCraft lever switches that looked like the
sketch and the PDP-1 pictures and were a reasonable price, but our order
was rejected because they only had one in stock. eBay has Mossman and
SwitchCraft, but they are either very expensive (more than $50 each), or
they only have one available.

The switches that we are looking for need to be SPDT, three-position,
non-locking, center off. (If the switches have more than one pole we can
remove the extra poles to keep the operational force low.) Before we cave
in and buy some modern C toggle switches, does anyone have a source for
Mossman or SwitchCraft switches at a reasonable price?

-- 
Michael Thompson

Re: SPACEWAR! Switch Boxes for a PDP-12

[Anders Sandahl via cctalk]

> Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2018 10:46:48 -0400
> From: Michael Thompson 
> To: cctech 
> Subject: SPACEWAR! Switch Boxes for a PDP-12
> Message-ID:
>   
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Visitors to the RICM like to play SPACEWAR! in the PDP-12. Unfortunately
> using the console switches is uncomfortable, not intuitive, and is tough
> on
> the switches. We would like to recreate the switch boxes used on the PDP-1
> to make playing a better experience.
>
> We modified the source
> 
> from D.E. WREGE
> 
> to use the LINC SXL instruction to read the PDP-12 GPIO signals, and
> prototyped two switch boxes using recycled toggle switches. This works
> great, so now we need to make better switch boxes.
>
> This CHM article shows what we want to recreate.
> 
> This article shows a sketch of the switch boxes.
> 
> A generous donor made these boxes for us.
> 
>
> The lever switches are turning our to be difficult to find at a reasonable
> price. We found some NOS SwitchCraft lever switches that looked like the
> sketch and the PDP-1 pictures and were a reasonable price, but our order
> was rejected because they only had one in stock. eBay has Mossman and
> SwitchCraft, but they are either very expensive (more than $50 each), or
> they only have one available.
>
> The switches that we are looking for need to be SPDT, three-position,
> non-locking, center off. (If the switches have more than one pole we can
> remove the extra poles to keep the operational force low.) Before we cave
> in and buy some modern C toggle switches, does anyone have a source for
> Mossman or SwitchCraft switches at a reasonable price?
>
> --
> Michael Thompson

Michel,

I did just what you did for being able to play Spacewar! on my PDP-8a (I
have KK8E with EAE, VC8E and the DK8E real time clock). But since the
frontpanel doesn't have proper switches for the switch register I had to
build game hand controls.

I built them just like those that can be spotted in the video from CHM:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EWQYAfuMYw but smaller.

I just used ordinary arcade style buttons and connected them to the
digital inputs on the DKC8A board and modified the source code for that.

Those hand controls have two switches for rotate left/right, one for fire
and one for acceleration. The last one is for hyper speed but that is
triggered by pressing left/right switches at the same time. I intended to
fix this so it should be triggered by the last button but never came to
it.

Unfortunately I haven't written on my page https://www.pdp-9.net/pdp-8a on
this yet...

/Anders

Re: Floating point math in FORTRAN IV on PDP-8

[Kyle Owen via cctalk]

On Sun, Sep 23, 2018 at 8:28 PM Rick Murphy via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

>
> That seems like you have a mixed-up F4 compiler/runtime.
> On my system (SIMH) I get the same results, FPP enabled or disabled.
> Don't know how to enable/disable EAE on SIMH, unfortunately.
>
> What you're getting means that the compiler, runtime, and libraries are
> not from the same release.
>  -Rick
>

Hmm...I was using the exact same RK05 image in both SIMH and the real
machine.

I've been informed that "set cpu noeae" will disable the EAE.

Just tried it with that...and there's the problem. No FPP or EAE seems like
a bad combination for running FORTRAN IV code that does any bit of math
operations.

>From SIMH (with EAE and FPP disabled):

.R F4
*FLOAT/G$
1.021.020.00
2.021.310.693147
3.021.2247471.098614
4.022.021.386296
5.025.7981761.609439
6.024.0152021.791761
7.023.5222111.837092
8.012.61   -1.920560
9.022.121345   -1.802777
   10.082.236078   -1.697417
   11.072.345213   -2.130667
   12.122.449492   -1.515095
   13.112.549511   -1.141335
   14.103.331171   -1.469765
   15.093.338015   -1.037061
   16.084.022.772591
   17.074.1231072.833214
   18.124.2426422.890373
   19.114.3589002.967808
   20.10   11.5963572.995733
   21.09   10.1501883.122650
   22.089.1886972.562484
   23.138.5164582.604795
   24.128.0304023.178056
   25.117.6710243.206363
   26.107.4015723.551816
   27.107.1981193.612231
   28.157.0444203.223386
   29.146.9290631.967658
   30.136.8438003.656090
   31.126.7825153.713244
   32.114.0001213.465738
[snip]

Maybe someday I'll delve into why it doesn't play nicely with such math
without EAE and FPP.

So, in summary, either EAE or FPP (or both) works fine. Without at least
one, don't count on any floating point math to be right (based on my
limited assessment).

Surely this must've been known about 40+ years ago...right?

Kyle

Re: Fall cleaning - 9-track drives available

[Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk]

I can hold it but I will probably not be around on the weekends for the 
next few weeks or so.


Bob

On 9/23/2018 1:03 PM, steve shumaker via cctalk wrote:

If you can hold it until the 6th, I can pick it up either Sat or Sun.

Steve


dOn 9/22/2018 2:21 PM, Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk wrote:

No, it's still available, come get it!

Bob

On 9/22/2018 1:35 PM, steve shumaker via cctalk wrote:

Ok.. I'll bite...   Is the CDC/clone system spoken for yet?


Steve Shumaker


On 9/21/2018 7:44 PM, Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk wrote:
I have four 9-track tape drives, and a dirty DEC rack, that I need 
to get rid of.


Two of the drives are HP 7970B's. One has the door unattached. Then 
there's a Kennedy 9100 800/1600 bpi drive.
Very heavy.  As found, none tested by me. Just don't have time to 
play with them.


Last is a CDC drive complete with an AST clone PC with an Overland 
Data controller and software. This
was running a few years ago but has not been used since. Has Media 
Master format conversion software also.


There's also a smallish DEC rack. Could use the top painted but 
otherwise not too bad. Includes four sets of rack

slides.

All are located in Santa Cruz, CA and need to be gone soon, I need 
the room in my hangar. Come get them!


Photos here: http://dvq.com/fall_cleaning/











--
Vintage computers and electronics
www.dvq.com
www.tekmuseum.com
www.decmuseum.org

Re: Floating point math in FORTRAN IV on PDP-8

[Rick Murphy via cctalk]

On 9/19/2018 6:43 PM, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote:

At VCF MW this past weekend, I was playing around with an FPP8/A stuffed
into a PDP-8/M with a fan removed. This hex-wide two-board set will happily
work in a quad-wide backplane, as it needs no signals that an 8/A would
otherwise provide.

I wanted to benchmark the FPP8/A with the software emulation that FORTRAN
IV supposedly does. Mind you, I also don't have an EAE in mine, so software
emulation for integer multiplication/division would also be used.

I tried running a simple program to print some natural logs and square
roots, which ran quite well with the FPP8/A in place.

Without the FPP8/A...all of the results were wrong. Significantly. Negative
numbers in many cases. No clear pattern as to what it's doing.


That seems like you have a mixed-up F4 compiler/runtime.
On my system (SIMH) I get the same results, FPP enabled or disabled. 
Don't know how to enable/disable EAE on SIMH, unfortunately.


What you're getting means that the compiler, runtime, and libraries are 
not from the same release.

    -Rick

Re: DEC H744 +5 supply

[Tapley, Mark via cctalk]

On Sep 21, 2018, at 6:03 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk  
wrote:
>  (Although I guess the coil
> for the buck might be cheaper than the transformer - even though the use of a
> high frequency would reduce the size of the latter - making the buck approach
> superior.)
> 
> To put it another way, there's no _necessary_ connection between the switching
> concept, and the buck converter is there? Does that mean it is in theory
> possible to stick a buck converter on the output of a linear supply to do the
> V1I1-> V2I2 conversion? (Although I know it's probably a stupid design, 
> because
> you'd still need some sort of switcher for the buck converter, so the linear
> supply would be basically pointless.)

Noel, 
here’s one way to think about buck converters. The coil (inductor) 
serves as a way of giving the flow of electrons “inertia”. It’s not really 
inertia, it’s energy built up in the magnetic field of the inductor, but it 
acts like inertia. 

You want the electrons to have (say) 3.3 V of energy per electron - 
that translates into an equivalent “speed” of the electrons. So if the power 
supply can put out a train of electrons moving at that speed (plus or minus a 
little), the load will be happy. 

But, the available (battery, or whatever) energy source drops electrons 
out at (say) 5V. 

The buck converter lets the 5V shove the “train” of electrons forward 
for a while, until it’s a little above the 3.3V “speed” at the load, then stops 
the 5V shove and lets the train run on “inertia” (stored energy in the 
inductor) for a while - the voltage will be dropping at the load, but only 
slowly. When it drops low enough, the converter opens the switch to the 5V and 
starts speeding up the train again. The bigger the inductor, the more “inertia” 
the current flow has, and the longer the train takes to speed up and slow down, 
and the slower the switching rate can be for a give above and below voltage 
tolerance at the load.

The inductor serves both to slow the rate at which the train speeds up 
(fighting against the 5V source and storing energy into its field) and to slow 
the rate at which the train slows down (powering the load out of the stored 
energy). 

This is a slightly dangerous analogy in some ways - electrons do *not* 
have any useful inertia in circuits, for example. I think Brent or any of the 
regulars can probably point out other conceptual problems, as well. But, 
hopefully it’ll help in thinking about what a buck supply is trying to do.
- Mark

Re: looking for out-of-print computer book

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

I wonder if the book was announced and never released.
It's pretty rare when something that new doesn't show up anywhere.

Very likely as the LC has no such entry (and they receive all titles
published in the US).


The computer industry is not the sole inventor of "vaporware".

Re: SPACEWAR! Switch Boxes for a PDP-12

[Brent Hilpert via cctalk]

On 2018-Sep-23, at 7:46 AM, Michael Thompson via cctech wrote:
> Visitors to the RICM like to play SPACEWAR! in the PDP-12. Unfortunately
> using the console switches is uncomfortable, not intuitive, and is tough on
> the switches. We would like to recreate the switch boxes used on the PDP-1
> to make playing a better experience.
> 
> We modified the source
> 
> from D.E. WREGE
> 
> to use the LINC SXL instruction to read the PDP-12 GPIO signals, and
> prototyped two switch boxes using recycled toggle switches. This works
> great, so now we need to make better switch boxes.
> 
> This CHM article shows what we want to recreate.
> 
> This article shows a sketch of the switch boxes.
> 
> A generous donor made these boxes for us.
> 
> 
> The lever switches are turning our to be difficult to find at a reasonable
> price. We found some NOS SwitchCraft lever switches that looked like the
> sketch and the PDP-1 pictures and were a reasonable price, but our order
> was rejected because they only had one in stock. eBay has Mossman and
> SwitchCraft, but they are either very expensive (more than $50 each), or
> they only have one available.
> 
> The switches that we are looking for need to be SPDT, three-position,
> non-locking, center off. (If the switches have more than one pole we can
> remove the extra poles to keep the operational force low.) Before we cave
> in and buy some modern C toggle switches, does anyone have a source for
> Mossman or SwitchCraft switches at a reasonable price?


I have some options that might be suitable but you haven't provided much detail 
about what's ideal or limits you're willing to entertain in style of switch.
Are you trying to be period-correct?

 . . there are a wide variety of lever switches available.
There are leaf-contact switches that mount with two screws and a slot for the 
lever,
leaf-contact with a throated actuator that mount in a 1/2 inch hole (much 
easier to mount than making a narrow slot),
wafer switches with the two-screw/slot mount, etc.
Slot-styles may have the lever plane made from stamped/sheet metal with a slide 
on knob vs. made from thick ~3/16-1/8 inch metal with a thread-on knob.
The latter were very robust and the type typically found in telephone 
switchboards, although there were also some cheaper japanese makes.

Re: DEC H744 +5 supply

[Brent Hilpert via cctalk]

On 2018-Sep-22, at 11:54 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
>> From: Brent Hilpert
> 
>> A glance at the schematic ... you might think it's just a linear
>> regulator
> 
> And the writeup in the maint manual gives that impression too, which didn't
> help! (Hence my assumtion that it was acting in the way a plain linear
> regulator might, in terms energy efficiency.)
> 
>> Diode D5 provides the current path for L1 to supply energy to the load
>> when the source is switched off.
> 
> Right. What is the role of the pair of big caps, C8/C9. Is that just to
> filter ripple, or do they play a role in the provision of current when the
> supply is switched off (by Q2)?
> 
> (My guess would be only the former, since unlike the energy stored in L1,
> which can be used provide electrons when Q2 is off, capacitors only store
> electrons, so they can't play much of a role in the conversion of V1I1 to
> V2I2, which requires 'creation' of more electrons when I2>I1. Oh, reading the
> maint manual, when Q2 is on, they store some of the current coming through
> L1. So I guess they have a peripheral role in the overall operation.)

Your conceptualisation around the role of electrons is perhaps a little off.
Displacement of electrons is the generation of potential (voltage), current is 
a RATE of electron flow.
You don't need 'more' electrons to generate a higher current, you just need to 
'expend them' more quickly -
using words like 'more' and 'expend' loosely, as it's not about moving a 
quantity of electrons from source to load, or creating or consuming them.
Energy transfer is not equivalent to electron flow, or, electron flow does not 
correspond to (or theoretically even imply) energy transfer.

Filtering ripple and supplying current are not mutually exclusive functions.
Capacitors very much play a role in supplying current to the load.
Both the L & C play a role as energy reservoirs.

You can charge two identical capacitors with identical charges (number of 
electrons displaced); discharging one of them into a load in 1mS will generate 
some peak current, discharging the other in 10mS will generate a much smaller 
peak current, with the same energy expended in both cases.


>> The subtle thing about designs like this is where does the switching
>> oscillation come from?, as there is no obvious oscillator present.
> 
> The maint manual does cover that. It more or less says that as the output
> voltage rises through 5.05V, the voltage regulator turns off Q2, and as
> it falls through 4.95, it turns it back on. (Presumably when the whole
> works is first turned on, the output voltage is less than 4.95V, so Q2
> stays on until it gets to the turn-off voltage.)

OK, my analysis of the operation may have been partly off then, I didn't think 
they'd be trying to look at just slight voltage variation of the regulated 
output to generate the switching/oscillation so thought it might be done via 
input current and Q7 providing a sharper switch.
Not  clear to me whether the whole is working as an on-off switcher relying on 
high enough gain in the 723/driver chain to make it a comparator or whether it 
is more like a phase-delay oscillator with the amp/semis operating in the 
linear region.


> Q7 is part of the over-current sensing, it says.
> 
> 
>> the switching is taking place after the transformer rather than
>> straight off the mains, this allows the switcher design to be simpler
>> and get away with using much lower voltage semiconductors.
> 
> Ah, I was wondering about why they did it that way.
> 
>> The transformer is nonetheless much smaller than it would be in a
>> straight linear regulator design because the secondary current it has
>> to supply is several factors lower than for a comparable linear reg.
> 
> That's because of the higher efficiency of this circuit, as opposed to a
> straight linear regulator, which would need more mains power in to produce an
> equivalent power out?

The higher efficiency means less power expended in toto, so that's a partial 
influence, but primarily it's because it's still a higher voltage by several 
multiples than the eventual target output voltage and thus the current that the 
transformer secondary has to deal with is the same factor lower to deliver the 
same output power, meaning less copper for the secondary and less iron for the 
core.
The EI conversion in this supply is taking place in two stages, firstly in the 
transformer step-down from mains to 20-30VAC, then further in the subsequent 
switcher(s).


>> Q5 is functioning as a common-base stage in the driver chain ...
>> It is not part of the +15V supply to the 723, that is provided by
>> R2, zener D2, C2.
> 
> I was confused by the maint manual, which says "D2 is used with Q5 and R2
> to provide +15V to E1".

I don't know why they would phrase it that way but I haven't seen/read this 
TofOp.
E1.12 is the 723 supply pin (being supplied with +15V from D2), E1.11 is the 
control signal out.


>> There are a thousand 

Re: Fall cleaning - 9-track drives available

[steve shumaker via cctalk]

If you can hold it until the 6th, I can pick it up either Sat or Sun.

Steve


dOn 9/22/2018 2:21 PM, Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk wrote:

No, it's still available, come get it!

Bob

On 9/22/2018 1:35 PM, steve shumaker via cctalk wrote:

Ok.. I'll bite...   Is the CDC/clone system spoken for yet?


Steve Shumaker


On 9/21/2018 7:44 PM, Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk wrote:
I have four 9-track tape drives, and a dirty DEC rack, that I need 
to get rid of.


Two of the drives are HP 7970B's. One has the door unattached. Then 
there's a Kennedy 9100 800/1600 bpi drive.
Very heavy.  As found, none tested by me. Just don't have time to 
play with them.


Last is a CDC drive complete with an AST clone PC with an Overland 
Data controller and software. This
was running a few years ago but has not been used since. Has Media 
Master format conversion software also.


There's also a smallish DEC rack. Could use the top painted but 
otherwise not too bad. Includes four sets of rack

slides.

All are located in Santa Cruz, CA and need to be gone soon, I need 
the room in my hangar. Come get them!


Photos here: http://dvq.com/fall_cleaning/

Re: looking for out-of-print computer book

[Andrew Luke Nesbit via cctalk]

On 23/09/2018 02:16, Nemo via cctalk wrote:
> On 22/09/2018, Al Kossow via cctalk  wrote:
>> I wonder if the book was announced and never released.
>> It's pretty rare when something that new doesn't show up anywhere.
>>
> 
> Very likely as the LC has no such entry (and they receive all titles
> published in the US).

I encountered a similar situation a few months ago, regarding a
technical book.  I was unable to find the latest edition.

I wrote to the primary author and explained my confusion. I received the
following clarification.

The publisher had announced the new edition of the book.  The primary
author was keen to do seek help from a co-author who had come on board
to help with specialized parts.

Some time after work began, the primary author expressed concerns about
the quality of the updates and the publisher cancelled or put the new
edition on hold (I can't remember which).  Nevertheless, confusing
entries about this non-existent updated edition remain in various catalogs.

Andrew
-- 
OpenPGP key: EB28 0338 28B7 19DA DAB0  B193 D21D 996E 883B E5B9

Re: SPACEWAR! Switch Boxes for a PDP-12

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sun, 23 Sep 2018, Michael Thompson wrote:

We modified the source

from D.E. WREGE

to use the LINC SXL instruction to read the PDP-12 GPIO signals, and
prototyped two switch boxes using recycled toggle switches. This works
great, so now we need to make better switch boxes.

[...]

We did something similar for our LAB-8/E, but much simpler. We just hooked 
up two ordinary game joysticks (digital ones like for the C64 or Amiga) to 
the parallel input interface and modified the code to also read that 
input :-)


Christian

Re: HP CPU32 Emulation Adapter

[Carlo Pisani via cctalk]

hi
what have you used as ICE?
or, have you only used a software debugger?
and why not the motorola monitor?

I see you have developed your own monitor
why?

p.s.
I have opened this website(1), it offers space for a sort of
mini-Bazar, but there is also space for junks of files. I am
collecting and sharing utilities, documentation, and stuff for CPUs,
MPUs, etc

(1) http://www.downthebunker.xyz/
Il giorno ven 21 set 2018 alle ore 12:04 Carlo Pisani
 ha scritto:
>
> > But, I've got one of these:
> > https://hackaday.io/project/6150-beckman-du600-reverse-engineering
>
> hi
> where did you find it?
> here I have an EVS board, by motorola :P

Looking for a TURBOchannel Extender Cable

[Rob Jarratt via cctalk]

I have finally fixed the PSU of my TURBOchannel Extender
(https://robs-old-computers.com/2018/09/23/h7826-power-supply-repaired/).
Which means that now I would like to connect it to my DECstation 5000/240. I
need the relevant extender cable, which I believe to be a BC12N or a
17-03335-01. I asked on this list about a year ago if anyone has such a
cable and thought I would try asking again. I have found a 100-pin SCSI
cable that mechanically fits, but I don't know if that has the correct pin
assignments. I am aware of a site in the UK which lists this cable
(http://refurb.icc4it.co.uk/parts/legacy/dec/17-03335-01) but it looks like
one of those sites that speculatively lists things without necessarily
stocking them, and it is likely to charge business prices anyway.

 

So, two questions:

 

1.   Could the 100-pin SCSI cable do the job?

2.   Anyone have a genuine cable going spare (ideally in the UK).

 

Regards

 

Rob

Re: Manual for Documation TM200 punched card reader

[Guy Dunphy via cctalk]

Hi Mike,

At 10:18 PM 22/09/2018 -0400, you wrote:
>From outward appearences, it looks to be the same as the Wang 2244A, and 
>the Wang Model 2200 Systems Mainteance Manual confirms that it is a TM200:
>
>http://www.wang2200.org/docs/system/2200_SystemsMaintenanceManual(redone).03-0025-0.1975.pdf

What an excellent list this is. Who else would have spotted that?

>A reference manual and data sheet are available on the Wang 2200 site:
>
>http://www.wang2200.org/docs/peripheral/2234A_2244A_CardReaderRefManual.700-3330C.11-80.pdf
>https://www.wang2200.org/docs/datasheet/2244A_CardReader_DataSheet.700-3524B.1-79.pdf

Lots of interesting information on card coding and usage, thanks.
Heh. Every single time I hear the name Wang, I'm reminded of the legendary time 
Wang showed
up at an Australian computer trade show, with their staff all wearing badges 
that said
  "WANG CARES"
You have to say it with an Aussie accent and know the local idiom to understand 
why it's
side-splittingly funny.


>
>No schematics, though.

There's the rub.
Fingers crossed Al Kossow can find that original copy.

Regards,
Guy