PDP-8/e rebuild - update.
Went to toggle in the RIM loader – huh ! Memory address 04 stuck low. So either try another 4k core (after changing the jumpers) or... Trace the signal path. What do we think? Rod Sent from Mail for Windows 10
Re: chasing down an old game
I had a version that played on the VT11. Still trying to find it. Paul On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 7:56 AM Kevin McQuiggin via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > Might be the old “Star Trek” game? It is still around, I think. > > Sent from my iPad > > > On Dec 9, 2018, at 01:20, Dr Iain Maoileoin via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > Many many years ago in a distant galaxy (called Strathclyde University > Computer Science) we ran a game on the > > PDPs. It was great at testing out terminal line speed handing and > debugging curses (well that is what we told the > > bosses). > > > > I remember the game as being called “search”. But since we had the > source code it could have been anything. > > > > It was played on 24 x 80 dumb terminals. It was multi user. In the > game you moved around the universe in your > > craft - the display was a kind of 3-D picture (you got closer to a plant > and the planet got bigger - try drawing increasing > > circles on a 24x80!). > > > > You could travel through the universe shooting other craft (friend of > foe). The only craft name I think I remember is > > “shankers” - becuase we had source a lot of the craft names turned into > locally relevant names. > > > > You could team up with other players and (1 line) communication with a > group or with that player. > > > > I have searched (on and off) for the game. > > > > I cant find anything like it. > > > > I would like it to test out the DZ cards on my PDP! - OK that is my > excuse ;-) > > > > Is anybody aware of what I am talking about? Does anyone have any old > code anywhere? > > > > Aye, it was not as good as the old GT40 - but it was a different era. > > > > > > > >
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
On 12/9/18 3:30 PM, Guy Dunphy via cctalk wrote: > FWIW, years ago a friend of mine found some important floppies of his had all > developped mold on the magnetic surfaces. Which fouled read heads, making them > useless. We found that slitting open the covers, taking out the disks and > literally washing them in the bathtub with soap and water, drying, then > putting > back in the covers, worked! Back in the day, I was working with a group on a four-month project, where the final version on 8" floppies of the (source) software was put on display for a little celebration. Management sprang for bottles of bubbly, some munchies and some T-shirts--and the department had a small party. What no one noticed until the next day was that the stack of floppies had been soaked through with champagne, and put away for the weekend. Monday arrived--and the disks were a sticky mess. Fortunately, the treatment of washing and re-jacketing did the trick. But there were some very nervous people in the meantime. Needless to say, we made several backup sets and sent two of them off to the vault. --Chuck
Re: SunOS 2.4 Exploit
I believe SunOS 2.4 is old enough all you need to do is delete the password hash from /etc/passwd to log in without a password. KJ
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
On Sun, 9 Dec 2018, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote: theres a make an offer thing on it why not just use that Because a "make an offer" can carry some risks of OFFENDING the seller, if they had thought that the value was not in the same general range as your offer. Not much known history with that seller. If nobody else bids, then it will be cheap, other than the shipping (the seller does not seem to know about media mail: "Computer-readable media containing prerecorded information")
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
theres a make an offer thing on it why not just use that On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 5:24 PM Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > I will be bidding on these > > On 12/9/18 1:40 PM, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: > > Don't know if this worth saving. https://www.ebay.com/itm/283294561797 > > > > 8 inch CDC disks from 1982. Maybe something interesting? > > > >
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
At 02:29 PM 9/12/2018 -0800, Al wrote: I will be bidding on these On Mon, 10 Dec 2018, Guy Dunphy via cctalk wrote: I hope you get them. Cheaply. And if so, please let us know if the data was recoverable. I have some quite old floppies to someday get around to attempting to recover. Really curious to see whether floppies suffer 'data evaporation' over time or not. Disks of that time period tend to do well. Some later disks didn't fare so well, such as Wabash, or Verbatim BEFORE DATALIFE. FWIW, years ago a friend of mine found some important floppies of his had all developped mold on the magnetic surfaces. Which fouled read heads, making them useless. We found that slitting open the covers, taking out the disks and literally washing them in the bathtub with soap and water, drying, then putting back in the covers, worked! and sometimes gentle baking can help (think food dehydrator) I have encountered a lot of disks that were not stored exceptionally well, that had developed difficulty turning in the jackets. Rubbing each edge of the jacket firmly perpendicularly against the edge of a tabletop, so that the jacket bowed out SLIGHTLY, often helped substantially. Then you can usually turn the cookie in the jacket with fingers through the center hole. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
At 02:29 PM 9/12/2018 -0800, you wrote: >I will be bidding on these I hope you get them. Cheaply. And if so, please let us know if the data was recoverable. I have some quite old floppies to someday get around to attempting to recover. Really curious to see whether floppies suffer 'data evaporation' over time or not. FWIW, years ago a friend of mine found some important floppies of his had all developped mold on the magnetic surfaces. Which fouled read heads, making them useless. We found that slitting open the covers, taking out the disks and literally washing them in the bathtub with soap and water, drying, then putting back in the covers, worked! Guy >On 12/9/18 1:40 PM, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: >> Don't know if this worth saving. https://www.ebay.com/itm/283294561797 >> >> 8 inch CDC disks from 1982. Maybe something interesting? >> > >
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
> On 9 Dec 2018, at 22:40, Brent Hilpert via cctalk > wrote: > > On 2018-Dec-09, at 2:06 PM, Adrian Graham via cctalk wrote: >>> On 9 Dec 2018, at 21:40, Mattis Lind via cctalk >>> wrote: >>> >>> Don't know if this worth saving. https://www.ebay.com/itm/283294561797 >>> >>> 8 inch CDC disks from 1982. Maybe something interesting? >> >> It might be just me, but those look like they’ve got great big holes cut in >> them? >> > > If you're thinking of the blue 'slashes' near the horizontal middle of the > disks that look like the back of the pouch showing through a hole cut in the > disk, I think those are actually tabs on the back of the pouch extending up > in front of the next disk back, kind of like file folder tabs. > Don't think I've seen pouches with that before but probably intended to make > it easy to grab a disk by the pouch when they're all down in the box. > Look at the magnified view of the 3rd pic. Ah yes, that makes much more sense. I can see it now. -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest private home computer collection? t: @binarydinosaursf: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
On 2018-Dec-09, at 2:06 PM, Adrian Graham via cctalk wrote: >> On 9 Dec 2018, at 21:40, Mattis Lind via cctalk >> wrote: >> >> Don't know if this worth saving. https://www.ebay.com/itm/283294561797 >> >> 8 inch CDC disks from 1982. Maybe something interesting? > > It might be just me, but those look like they’ve got great big holes cut in > them? > If you're thinking of the blue 'slashes' near the horizontal middle of the disks that look like the back of the pouch showing through a hole cut in the disk, I think those are actually tabs on the back of the pouch extending up in front of the next disk back, kind of like file folder tabs. Don't think I've seen pouches with that before but probably intended to make it easy to grab a disk by the pouch when they're all down in the box. Look at the magnified view of the 3rd pic.
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
I will be bidding on these On 12/9/18 1:40 PM, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: > Don't know if this worth saving. https://www.ebay.com/itm/283294561797 > > 8 inch CDC disks from 1982. Maybe something interesting? >
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
> > prolly worth rescueing
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
On 12/09/2018 04:06 PM, Adrian Graham via cctalk wrote: On 9 Dec 2018, at 21:40, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: Don't know if this worth saving. https://www.ebay.com/itm/283294561797 8 inch CDC disks from 1982. Maybe something interesting? It might be just me, but those look like they’ve got great big holes cut in them? I didn't see any holes. And, yes, 8" floppies are SUPPOSED to have a big hole in the center. Anyway, the labels indicate they have diagnostic programs. Jon
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
> On 9 Dec 2018, at 21:40, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: > > Don't know if this worth saving. https://www.ebay.com/itm/283294561797 > > 8 inch CDC disks from 1982. Maybe something interesting? It might be just me, but those look like they’ve got great big holes cut in them? -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest private home computer collection? t: @binarydinosaursf: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk
Re: Interesting RK8E fault
On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 5:47 AM Tony Duell wrote: > On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 6:50 AM Josh Dersch via cctalk > wrote: > > > > If anyone has any insights into the inner workings of the RK8E (in > > particular the CRC circuit, since it's used to compare the on-disk > cylinder > > address stored in the header with the cylinder selected by the RK8E's > > address register) please let me know. > > I think you can ignore the actual CRC logic here. Just treat the CRC > register as a shift register. It is shifted in-sync with the data coming > off > the disk, in this case the header word that contains the cylinder address. > Thanks -- that's kind of what I'd gathered from looking at the schematics and reading the service docs, but I wasn't 100% sure. > > Look at page 25 of the RK8-E engineering drawings (Oct72) on bitsavers. > It's sheet D04 (Major Registers PCB). > > The header word bits (from the disk) are compared with the contents of the > the shift register one bit at a time by E24c. The output of that goes to > E34b > (D input). E34b starts off clear, and remains clear while the bits agree. > If > there is a difference in the bits (cylinder address is not right) then > E34b sets. The Q/ output goes low, pulling the S/ input (pin 10) low. This > forces E34b to remain set (The S/ and R/ direct inputs will override the > D input). So after all the bits have been compared, E34b is set if there > was > an error. > Thanks. So I'm trying to figure out what components in this path could cause the behavior I'm seeing. To reiterate my original mail: "On cylinder 128 and 192 and very infrequently on cylinder 64 it will get a cylinder mismatch when doing the seek. When running the formatter during the verification pass, on cyls 64 and 128 if I retry the read it'll continue without issues, but it's never successful on a retry on cylinder 192." Clearly something with the two MSBs of the cylinder address is amiss. I had made a guess that the 7496 at E14 might be at fault (some weird crosstalk between various bits on the SETx signals perhaps) since this takes in EXT CYL ADDRS and BDATA0 (the top two bits of the cylinder address when loading the Disk Address Register via an IOT 67x3. I replaced it to no effect. It seems clear to me that the shift registers themselves are operating OK -- otherwise I'd be seeing CRC errors fairly frequently when reading sectors off the disk, and I'm not. It seems that the DEC380 bus ICs (E13, E22, etc) for the BDATAx signals that eventually get fed into the CRC shift registers must be OK or else the actual data on the disk would end up randomly corrupted, and that's not happening. I'm looking for something that could only fail when only bits 6 and/or 7 (or 0 and 1 in DEC parlance) of the cylinder address are set, but I'm not seeing anything. Anyway, further debugging is in my future... thanks again for the input. Thanks, Josh > > -tony >
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
söndag 9 december 2018 skrev Warner Losh : > > > On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 2:41 PM Mattis Lind via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> Don't know if this worth saving. https://www.ebay.com/itm/283294561797 >> >> 8 inch CDC disks from 1982. Maybe something interesting? >> > > Like US launch codes? :) Doesn't the military still use 8" floppies for > some operational systems they don't want to replace? > Yes. Maybe it is just crap. Sorry for wasting bandwidth. > > Warner >
Re: CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 2:41 PM Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: > Don't know if this worth saving. https://www.ebay.com/itm/283294561797 > > 8 inch CDC disks from 1982. Maybe something interesting? > Like US launch codes? :) Doesn't the military still use 8" floppies for some operational systems they don't want to replace? Warner
CDC floppy disks on Ebay.
Don't know if this worth saving. https://www.ebay.com/itm/283294561797 8 inch CDC disks from 1982. Maybe something interesting?
Re: Conferences/Exhibitions (Was: DECUS PDP-11 SPACE WAR?
On 12/9/18 12:28 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > > On 12/9/18 12:24 PM, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote: >> Fyi...i have a square bankers box of decus conference proceedings from the >> 70's. Are these otherwise available on the www? >> > > I haven't gotten to them yet. > I have several decades of proceedings that I need to scan > beyond the ones from the 60's that I've done. > > and there is a lot in the archives http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/?s=decus+proceedings which probably won't be gotten to in my lifetime
Re: Conferences/Exhibitions (Was: DECUS PDP-11 SPACE WAR?
On 12/9/18 12:24 PM, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote: > Fyi...i have a square bankers box of decus conference proceedings from the > 70's. Are these otherwise available on the www? > I haven't gotten to them yet. I have several decades of proceedings that I need to scan beyond the ones from the 60's that I've done.
Re: Conferences/Exhibitions (Was: DECUS PDP-11 SPACE WAR?
Fyi...i have a square bankers box of decus conference proceedings from the 70's. Are these otherwise available on the www?
Re: Conferences/Exhibitions (Was: DECUS PDP-11 SPACE WAR?
ouch that musta cause some chaos. On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 7:15 AM Stefan Skoglund via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > lör 2018-12-08 klockan 13:56 -0800 skrev Fred Cisin via cctalk: > > > > > > CeBIT (Hanover Germany) was the largest. Started in 1970; ended? in > > 2018. > > Sorry, I have little or no information about it; I never got a chance > > to go. > > Heinz Nixdorf died (heart failure) on the showroom floor in 1986. > >
Re: SUN SPARC station ELC
Can't comment on the monitor, but I haven't had good luck with modern 48T02 devices and old Sun systems. Apparently ST changed something in how the clock section works, iirc it's timing related. Definitely rebuild your old NVRAMs! I've got a little repair board I made up for it: http://www.glitchwrks.com/2017/08/01/gw-48t02-1 The files are on GitHub if you want to run your own, or I've got them assembled and ready to be installed on your NVRAM. Thanks, Jonathan On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 10:55 AM Guy Dunphy via cctalk wrote: > Checking out a SUN SPARC station ELC tonight. It powers up, passes self > test. > Boot fails because the CMOS RAM battery is dead, so it's lost boot config. > That's no problem, it's an ST MK48T02B-25 'TIMEKEEPER RAM' 2K x 8, which > is still available. Or I'll probably just cut open the tophat and connect > a new battery. > Then RTFM to find how to tell it to boot from external SCSI device 3. > By extreme good fortune this machine came with a complete set of manuals. > > The main problem is the video monitor worked for a few minutes, then > dropped to > about half brightness - and since then is randomly varying in brightness. > Before I open it up and start connector wiggling and hunting bad caps, dry > joints > and so one, does anyone know if schematics for the monitor exist online? > > Guy >
SUN SPARC station ELC
Checking out a SUN SPARC station ELC tonight. It powers up, passes self test. Boot fails because the CMOS RAM battery is dead, so it's lost boot config. That's no problem, it's an ST MK48T02B-25 'TIMEKEEPER RAM' 2K x 8, which is still available. Or I'll probably just cut open the tophat and connect a new battery. Then RTFM to find how to tell it to boot from external SCSI device 3. By extreme good fortune this machine came with a complete set of manuals. The main problem is the video monitor worked for a few minutes, then dropped to about half brightness - and since then is randomly varying in brightness. Before I open it up and start connector wiggling and hunting bad caps, dry joints and so one, does anyone know if schematics for the monitor exist online? Guy
Re: Interesting RK8E fault
On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 6:50 AM Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: > If anyone has any insights into the inner workings of the RK8E (in > particular the CRC circuit, since it's used to compare the on-disk cylinder > address stored in the header with the cylinder selected by the RK8E's > address register) please let me know. It's also worth reading chapter 11 in volume 3 of the PDP8/e (etc) maintenance manual. In particular section 11.15.11.1 etc. It's page 11-92 (page 430 of the ,pdf on bitsavers). -tony
Re: chasing down an old game
Might be the old “Star Trek” game? It is still around, I think. Sent from my iPad > On Dec 9, 2018, at 01:20, Dr Iain Maoileoin via cctalk > wrote: > > Many many years ago in a distant galaxy (called Strathclyde University > Computer Science) we ran a game on the > PDPs. It was great at testing out terminal line speed handing and debugging > curses (well that is what we told the > bosses). > > I remember the game as being called “search”. But since we had the source > code it could have been anything. > > It was played on 24 x 80 dumb terminals. It was multi user. In the game you > moved around the universe in your > craft - the display was a kind of 3-D picture (you got closer to a plant and > the planet got bigger - try drawing increasing > circles on a 24x80!). > > You could travel through the universe shooting other craft (friend of foe). > The only craft name I think I remember is > “shankers” - becuase we had source a lot of the craft names turned into > locally relevant names. > > You could team up with other players and (1 line) communication with a group > or with that player. > > I have searched (on and off) for the game. > > I cant find anything like it. > > I would like it to test out the DZ cards on my PDP! - OK that is my excuse ;-) > > Is anybody aware of what I am talking about? Does anyone have any old code > anywhere? > > Aye, it was not as good as the old GT40 - but it was a different era. > > >
Re: Interesting RK8E fault
On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 6:50 AM Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: > If anyone has any insights into the inner workings of the RK8E (in > particular the CRC circuit, since it's used to compare the on-disk cylinder > address stored in the header with the cylinder selected by the RK8E's > address register) please let me know. I think you can ignore the actual CRC logic here. Just treat the CRC register as a shift register. It is shifted in-sync with the data coming off the disk, in this case the header word that contains the cylinder address. Look at page 25 of the RK8-E engineering drawings (Oct72) on bitsavers. It's sheet D04 (Major Registers PCB). The header word bits (from the disk) are compared with the contents of the the shift register one bit at a time by E24c. The output of that goes to E34b (D input). E34b starts off clear, and remains clear while the bits agree. If there is a difference in the bits (cylinder address is not right) then E34b sets. The Q/ output goes low, pulling the S/ input (pin 10) low. This forces E34b to remain set (The S/ and R/ direct inputs will override the D input). So after all the bits have been compared, E34b is set if there was an error. -tony
Re: Conferences/Exhibitions (Was: DECUS PDP-11 SPACE WAR?
lör 2018-12-08 klockan 13:56 -0800 skrev Fred Cisin via cctalk: > > > CeBIT (Hanover Germany) was the largest. Started in 1970; ended? in > 2018. > Sorry, I have little or no information about it; I never got a chance > to go. Heinz Nixdorf died (heart failure) on the showroom floor in 1986.
chasing down an old game
Many many years ago in a distant galaxy (called Strathclyde University Computer Science) we ran a game on the PDPs. It was great at testing out terminal line speed handing and debugging curses (well that is what we told the bosses). I remember the game as being called “search”. But since we had the source code it could have been anything. It was played on 24 x 80 dumb terminals. It was multi user. In the game you moved around the universe in your craft - the display was a kind of 3-D picture (you got closer to a plant and the planet got bigger - try drawing increasing circles on a 24x80!). You could travel through the universe shooting other craft (friend of foe). The only craft name I think I remember is “shankers” - becuase we had source a lot of the craft names turned into locally relevant names. You could team up with other players and (1 line) communication with a group or with that player. I have searched (on and off) for the game. I cant find anything like it. I would like it to test out the DZ cards on my PDP! - OK that is my excuse ;-) Is anybody aware of what I am talking about? Does anyone have any old code anywhere? Aye, it was not as good as the old GT40 - but it was a different era.
Re: Opening RL02 disk pack
On Fri, 7 Dec 2018, Noel Chiappa wrote: > From>: Christian Corti > I thought that the DEC packs would be similar but no, DEC had to invent > something different... Huh? I thought RL0x drives use an IBM 5440 type pack (as used on the IBM Yes, I mean the mechanism of the handle that is different, not the entire pack. Christian
