[cctalk] Re: 5,34 Petaflop System Cheyenne

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I wonder how well that machine would do at bitcoin mining


Extremely poor?


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] WTB: x68000 keyboard and mouse

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

USA here, anyone have a Sharp x68000 keyboard and mouse to sell?

The one that I've repaired and am trying to complete is the desktop 
version, black, mini-din connector.


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I had someone very seriously questioning me, over on Fesse Bouc, if I
was serious when I said that the ZX Spectrum could remotely be
considered a more significant machine than (one model of) TRS-80, and
he was incredulous when I absolutely maintained the point.


We had the Timex version of the Spectrum in the USA, but it wasn't much of 
a machine. That probably ruined it so we never got the 2+ or 3+.


Virginia USA reporting in, and so far I have the Spectrum 2+ (boxed) and 
3+. They are cool machines but I think the Atari and Commodore beat it 
sound wise. But I *REALLY* dig the fact that you had cassette distribution 
of software at what looks like pretty low prices? That is really cool. I 
imagine game tapes in supermarket checkout lines everywhere.


Remember when these machines were on the market in the 80s everyone relied 
on magazines for information, and those magazines relied on advertising 
dollars. No WWW. So it's not a big wonder that that Americans didn't know 
about these machines since marketing money wasn't spent here.


Thanks to another cclist member I have purchased an A4000 Acorn via 
facebook marketplace, and am excited to finally get my first Archimedes 
machine. Hope the repairs needed aren't too bad! After that will be a BBC 
micro but really the A4000 seems like a killer machine.


At some point I might try to find an A3010 as well, but the 4000 checks 
the boxes for me.


It's pretty hard buying machines from over there, local collection only!



- Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Anyone have a D1 deck?

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I have 3/4" unatic, svhs, super beta, DAT, minidv, digital 8, adat. never 
got into betacam, d1 or any of those monster formats as tape was expensive 
as a geek. The sony tape machines for the big digital pro formats are 
s beautiful though!!!


At this point Im going to have to get the superbeta and svhs machines 
overhauled and fearing the cost.




I've been really surprised how much news that made. I've seen it get asked
a few times in a few retro places. I would think lots of tv stations,
colleges, and audiophiles would have one but maybe it really is that
obscure.

Given, I've never heard of the format so maybe I'm being naive.


On 12/30/23 22:26, Jim Brain via cctalk wrote:



https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/23/12/30/0151241/documentarians-secure-original-reboot-master-tapes-but-need-help-to-play-them






--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Tadpole/RDI UltraBooks - UNIX notebooks - species needs rescue...

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Awesome! Didn't realize MAME ws limited to 32-Bit SPARC.

But the emulators can definitely be handy, or at least get you partly 
there!


- Ethan

Hi Ethan, thanks for suggesting MAME - did some research and somehow I 
do not think it emulates UltraSparc but only 32bit Sarc. But saw, that 
QEMU has a UltraSparc emulation and they...


https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/system/target-sparc64.html

...explicitly claim that a NVRAM is emulated, although they are doing a 
M48T59 there is at least some chance that the memory address can be 
found in the QEMU sources. Will take a look in the next weeks ;-)




--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Tadpole/RDI UltraBooks - UNIX notebooks - species needs rescue...

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Interesting - did you youse some modern technology for
doing that? I already thought to attach a logic analyzer to the
NVRAM to see which bytes are read first (e.g. for dtermining
the hardware configuration).


Late to the convo, but it's interesting.

You might be able to dump the ROMs and find someone who knows Sparc 
assembly to run it through a debugger/emulator and trace it? Hard part 
would probably be knowing where the NVRAM lives in memory space (memory 
map.)


Maybe the MAME people would have an idea? Some of the old arcade games 
suffer from the exact same issue - they store variables in the ST 
Microelectronics Timekeepers and once it dies game won't boot due to a 
byte or two.


MAME has SPARC emulation.

Other thing is people with a working Tadpoles needs to dump their NVRAMS 
ASAP because it sounds like all of them are about to quit working?



--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Any leads on Fairlight sampler that needs repair?

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

That's why I said broken!

A boy can dream!


- Ethan


They are a fairly high demand item when they come up for sale, and are very
expensive.

Sellam

[cctalk] Any leads on Fairlight sampler that needs repair?

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Anyone have any leads in USA on a Fairlight CMI or similar that needs 
repair? S-100 based sampler from the 80s. Would be fun to restore one.


- Ethan

[cctalk] Anyone in Sheffield uk?

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Anyone in Sheffield UK? There is an Acorn Archemedies computer I am 
interested in buying but the guy is collection only. I am in the USA, but 
interested in buying and repairing the system.


- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: PDP-8/L $15,000

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I hate what epay is doing to our hobby.
I prefer to sell and trade between our selves as reasonable prices 
understanding that a lot of what we do is sweat equity.


If you think the hobby is bad, you should see what happened to housing.

"I know what I got!"

I have a lot of different geeky hobbies and what happened to vintage 
computing is idential to what happened to video games (way bigger market) 
and music equipment (Synths, guitar stuff.) Same with aracade games and 
especially pinball machines. What was a $1000 C title pinball is now $5000 
with some gaudy mods taped to them.


I could the be the eternal pessimist, but I think things are weakening? I 
have some synthesizers I rebuilt up for sale and notice the market is much 
slower than it was. I wish I could get a read on the video game markets 
which of course spill into some classic computers. I assume people are 
going to pull back spending at some point, but with 40% more money added 
to the US economy in the last few years there are people sitting on a 
lt of cash. Be it stock wins or PPP loan freebies or crypto or 
hoomer gains.


If it could only dip on the stuff I want but rise on the stuff I have.

- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: PDP-8/L $15,000

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

However, epay does charge an insertion fee so they will have to pay even when 
it doesn't sell.


Eh, you get a lot of free listings these days. They take a huge chunk 
though.


- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: Death of Mitnick

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Too bad, but on the other hand, John Draper turned 80 this year.
Probably a better role model.
--Chuck



Hah! Funny!

- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: VCF and System Source Computer Museum swap meet this weekend

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I'll be there. Hello Ethan. Bring some good stuff for me to buy. jk.
-andy


Years ago there was an auction of an Internet Kiosk company in Newport 
News Virginia. I decided to go. It was well advertised and run by a big 
company (probably Rasmus but I don't remember.)


I get there. The crowd seemed to be a random bunch but it was well 
attended. Crowd was a mix of the flipper types, estate sales types maybe 
and a few geeks.


I run into some people I knew from the BBS scene in my childhood. They 
could be troublemakers, but they tended to be funny. You know the type. We 
had separated ways years before and ran in different geek circles, but 
here they were. Kind of good seeing them again, but also obvious not much 
had changed.


They were running a computer repair store, and purchased things like the 
filing cabinet full of customer records so they could market to them. They 
left test copies on all the copiers of ads for their adult website(s). I 
remember the auctioneer picking up the face down full coverage 8x11 paper 
ads in the output tray a little shocked on the mic "Looks like it works 
well..."


Well one guy bids on this maxwell house can of screws. The hex head things 
that hold on the covers to your standard beige PC and the smaller ones 
that hold in the CD-ROMs and floppies. But not the hard drives, those use 
the case sized ones.


Sold for $20 or whatever it was. I mean, it was pretty full but I thought 
it was a strange purchase.


Some loud lady proclaims "Who on earth would pay $20 for a can of screws?" 
Everyone is watching, Geoff just shrugs. Doesn't say anything.


She bids on this beige tower PC. Wins. Goes to pick it up and the cover 
slides right off. A lot of people see this. Kind of mortified she looks 
over at Geoff who is sitting on some furniture running his fingers 
through his $20 can of screws. He loudly says "Hey, I've got screws 
for sale a dollar each" once she looks over. Some are amused some 
confused. The auctioneer chuckles.

[cctalk] Re: VCF and System Source Computer Museum swap meet this weekend

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Hi,
I am curious if anyone here might be planning on attending.
https://museum.syssrc.com/artifact/events/3000/


I am heading up there with friends Friday night so we can get there early 
Saturday.


Bringing some stuff to sell, nothing too crazy just odds and ends. PICMG 
Pentium rackmount machine and odds and ends for micros.


Only system on my "to get" list is Acorn Archemedies.

Looking forward to it, and I think System Source might be the #1 
collection in the world. Very cool place.


Say hi if you see me and are on this list.

- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: The World Wide Web

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

 FidoNet is still a thing too. 

So is USENET.
Julf


And bigger than ever (storage size wise.)

- Ethan

--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: One of Paul Allen's Museums

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

One oddity about LCM was that they seemed to be into non-disclosure 
agreements.  It's rather bizarre for a museum to recruit people for a 
technical advisory group to help them with understanding old hardware, 
and then require them to sign an NDA for the privilege of helping them.

paul


I assume with the immense wealth PA had that anyone and everyone connected 
to him were sought out by people looking to try to pitch ideas, get 
grants, try to sell thing things, etc. Maybe NDA helped reduce that noise 
to the org.


- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: One of Paul Allen's Museums

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Question, were Paul Allen’s museums non-profits?
Zane


I am sure, tax writeoff.

--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: VCF East 2023 photos

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

It shouldn't be "part of the experience".  It's poor planning and poor
management of the consignment area on the part of the organizers.  This
same thing happened at VCF "West" last year and it was a catastrophe.
There was a line snaking down the hallway at least a fifty people deep and
they were waiting for 2-3 HOURS before it actually started moving.  That
was 2-3 hours that attendees weren't in the exhibit/speaker hall engaging
with the exhibitors and their exhibits, and listening to the speakers.  I'm
really disappointed to hear that, despite their prior experience, it seems
like they have not done anything to address this completely unacceptable
and entirely avoidable scenario.


Every bit of space that is currently available at InfoAge was used for the 
event. Attendence jumped over prior years and the demand was 
unpredictable. The weather in that area can be cold and rainy so outdoors 
use is limited in planning. I figured there would be blowout attendence at 
the 3pm streamer panel in Saturday, but crowd wasn't an issue. Meanwhile 
at the dedicated swap meets at InfoAge attendence wasn't that crazy at the 
last one. Maybe it's because it's tax return time?


If VCF could raise enough money to finish off their new space at InfoAge 
and get a CO that would help a ton next year. But that is quite a bit of 
money intertwined with government legal red tape.


Trust me there will be big discussions about how to try to fix it for the 
future.


Also the event could use more volunteers for next year as well.

- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: 3.5' 1.44 & 720K compatible Read/Write FDDs

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Is there a list of floppy disk drives which could read and write both 3.5"
1.44mb and 720k diskettes?


Replace any SMD electrolytic caps on the drive pcb if there are any.

- Ethan

--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Knockoffs, was: Low cost logic analyzer

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I once heard a story from someone* who was told by a journalist that while
said journalist was interviewing Richard Stallman he was [WARNING: GRAPHIC
CONTENT COMMENCES HERE] picking the jam from between his toes and eating it.


Oh, that's a thing of legend. Fear not, for there is video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ

- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: Knockoffs, was: Low cost logic analyzer

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

If you posted your design as Open Source, someone else producing it 
isn't a knockoff, it's the system working as intended.

 -- Chris


I remember a talk by LadyADA of Adafruit at HOPE about starting a company 
making open source hardware and success and all that. It's easy if you 
have the marketing and big revenue stream, but eventually people will copy 
the designs. Also there are cases where multiple people have the same 
idea, I have projects that I started and didn't finish but I bet if I look 
around someone else has made the same thing and filled in the gaps.


The first XT-IDE I ever came across was on I think a Chinese site called 
Seed Studio. From memory it was a single CPLD (I think?) and EPROM, it was 
a pretty sexy design but I've never seen them in the wild. I reached out 
to them and they said they would produce them. Later I found out about 
other ones and own some of the Glitchworks ones and have bought a few of 
the TexElec ones for special laptops (Tandy 1400FD / Yamaha C1.)


Also, big HP versus USB logic analyzer. I had one of those old HP logic 
analyzers a while ago and it was really slow. Way easier to use the USB 
ones when it comes to portability and software speed. Plus easier to store 
captures, share data without a GPIB plotter, etc.


I have one of the DSLogic ones and it does what I need, and as I recally 
there is a hack where you can solder in a SMD DRAM IC and expand the 
memory (upgrading it DIY to a higher model) if one cares to. Don't know if 
it's a clone, didn't research it that hard. Sold the HP years ago, never 
up-paid for the Rigol with the logic analyzer functions since the USB ones 
were so much cheaper in comparison.


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Visiting the computer history museum (chm)

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

The Silicon Valley of old is basically dead.  The magic is gone.


The two suplus stores are gone (Halted and Weird Stuff Warehouse.) Only 
thing I can think of that I would recommend is the Musee Mechanique over 
in San Fran.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mus%C3%A9e_M%C3%A9canique

For suplus parts I guess you gotta go to Shenzhen these days.


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Why the Floppy Disk Just Won't Die

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

The mylar substrate would probably be the easiest.  I don't know if
anyone's still making audio tape, but the coating equipment might be the
same.   I don't know how to find the proper stuff for the goo, however.


ATR Magnetics (www.atrtape.com) and others still produce audio tape. They 
have normal consumer-style stuff up to the 2" reels. Not sure if the 2" 
stuff they sell will work on digital machines like the Sony DASH machines.


Cassette tapes are kind of back a little as well and apparently there are 
duplication houses for them again.


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Tadpole RISC laptop RAM modules

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I don't think it's the connector, but it's junk if it isn't anyway, so I might
see. These things screw in place and the fit was tight getting it out so it
would boot again, so I don't think it wiggled. Still, would be nice to know a
source for spares because it seems like others on this list have had similar
problems with theirs.


It might be possible to transplant DRAM ICs from other SIMMS onto the 
Tadpole memory modules to refurbish them.


- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Tadpole RISC laptop RAM modules

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Well, this is the second Tadpole laptop RAM module I've had go bad on me (one
in my PA-RISC PrecisionBook and now one in my SPARC UltraBook IIi). These are
the maroon-red 256MB or 512MB screw-in modules marked "Huxley Only" using a
custom friction fit connector, not regular SO-DIMMs. I can't find an obvious
part number on them and searching for Tadpole RAM modules just finds the
rinkydink 8MB parts for the earlier SPARCbooks.


Can you tell if it's one of the DRAM ICs or if it's the connector? Deoxit 
on the connector then reseat?


- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: WTB: Acorn A3010 or A4000

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Looking for an Acorn A3010 or A4000 + KB/Mouse, happy to repair it.
Also Sinclair +3 with some disks
Also BBC Micro
Also Amstrad CPC 6128 color. Could forgo monitor and build my own PSU.
- Ethan


Still looking (though I might have line on the +3)

--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Store with "vintage" computers and parts

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I would be interested in knowing some of those options.
Thanks,
Will


Brave Search / Brave Browser is one.

Yandex is a Russian search engine that can come in useful sometimes.

Trying to find ISO CD images of discs for music hardware (Samplers) it 
feels like the internet through google is way smaller than it used to be.


The bad thing is there is a ton of knowledge on facebook that isn't 
indexed to the public web.



--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: WTB: Acorn A3010 or A4000

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Hi, Ethan,
Whereabouts are you?  I'm in York, UK, and I have more than one spare BBC 
Micro. I don't have an A3010 but I do have an A3020 (red function keys) if 
that's of interest.


Private email sent! The A3020 and BBC Micro are of interest! Thanks!

- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Store with "vintage" computers and parts

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

In this case, "bryanipad.com" appears to be available.



But... my name is Ethan and my old tablet is Android :-(


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] WTB: Acorn A3010 or A4000

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Looking for an Acorn A3010 or A4000 + KB/Mouse, happy to repair it.

Also Sinclair +3 with some disks
Also BBC Micro
Also Amstrad CPC 6128 color. Could forgo monitor and build my own PSU.


- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: Store with "vintage" computers and parts

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

The address is very suspicious, as it does not seem like a very good
website name, and ends in .shop, which valid shops in our hobby rarely if
ever use.


Problem is all the .com addresses are squatted on now, so people are 
slowly starting to move to alternative things.


- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: Computer Museum uses GreaseWeazle to help exonerate Maryland Man

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

What do you guys think of the "archive-ness" of current solid state
devices?  M.2, NVMe, SSD, or even USB thumb sticks?   A friend proposed
that when one of those starts to go bad, any kind of partial data recovery
becomes difficult - but any more difficult than the old traditional
magnetic media?


I thought Flash could only hold the data in them X amount of years until 
the junctions discharge or whatever? It's less permanent than decent 
quality optical or pro magnetic media?


You have to plug them in every so often to refresh I believe.



- Ethan

--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Excellent CHM Article on Apple Lisa Software (Apple Archive)

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Companies don't care about history.  It does not affect the next
quarter's sales. I had serial number 1 of a Radio Shack shortwave
receiver and offered it to them.


A CEO I know of a company who's products I use has commented that he is 
always thinking forward, doesn't dwell in the past. Otherwise there would 
be layoffs.


- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: in need of 2.5" disks

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I saw it at Comdex, and then never again.


Nintendo Famicom disk system uses some kind of odd sized not swure disk.

--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: 2 sets of IRIX, 2 Indys and I1

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Question is are these versions of Irix suitable. Or couldnI do better. 
And on account of SGIs licensing scheme, which attaches a specific os 
version to a maxhine (or vice versa), does that entitle me to obtain and 
install those specific versions. Put anotjer way if I obtained images 
from somewhere, installed the correct versions of Irix, would thoae 
machines then be legit? Or am I supposed to pay through the nose for a 
subscription or whatever?


Depends on what software you want to run and if it needs the last version 
of IRIX.


I know there are people that have ported Yum (I think) to IRIX and have 
been producing modern compiles of software but not sure how beefy the 
machine needs to be.


You can find tons of IRIX CDs right here:

https://archive.org/search?query=irix=3

Notice that is page 2 and it's so full of IRIX software and CDs it's 
crazy. Hats off to the archive on this one.


- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: SGI vs. Mac

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I thought the end of SGI hinged on two things: banking on the Itanium 
and giving up on MIPS, and their Graphics experts went off to found a 
company called Nvidia... the rest was inevitable.


Founder of SGI wrote a book and in it he said he wanted to get into the PC 
Graphics card market and thought the writing was on the wall but the gravy 
train from the gov buyers was too good. Until it wasn't.


I remember (in the workplace) when we started seeing PC clusters take the 
place of the big SGI boxes. For a while there was a claim that the 
graphics output on SGI was more accurate and the PC stuff fudged it 
(important in sims I guess) but we see where it all ended up.


Really without the US government as a customer I wonder how many of these 
companies could have made it on industry alone.


- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: SGI vs. Mac

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Don"t know what an Elan is. I do seem to recall suddenly an Indy with no 
graphics output, intended to be used as a headless server.


The SGI Challenge S is an Indy sized machine that is meant as a server. 
They get rid of the graphics and replace it with a board that adds a 2nd 
network interface and two additional differental SCSI interfaces.


- Ethan

[cctalk] A UK Vintage Computer exchange buddy?

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Hello,

  I have looked at vintage UK computers on Facebook Marketplace and the 
like. The people usually will not post, especially to me in the USA. They 
are normally looking for local collection. Anyone in the UK want to be a 
vintage computer swap friend? Looking to get some systems from there and 
could help get systems from here in return. I am in the USA.


  Private message if interested!

- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Large private collections

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I have seen system source both the museum part and the warehouse in the
back.  The rhode island.museum and warehouse is probably larger.  Not that
system source is not substantial.
Bill


Ohhh yea, you might of visited System Source before the expansion. Did you 
see the Cray 1? There is the Cray room now with the raised floor. Also 
Xerox Altos systems and all that. Tons of other systems with that haul 
(800+?)


- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Great Vintage Computer Heist of 2012

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Don't be pedantic. You know what I mean.
Anyway, in the US, there are *significant* barriers to cross for
people taking your land.


And for the younger crowd it's very expensive now. Not like the old days 
(assuming you live near a job center.)


- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: Large private collections

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I suspect Jim Austin has one of the largest collections that's publicly
documented...
https://www.computermuseum.org.uk/
.. but many are very private about what they own
Dave


Indeed! Looking down their list it's quite impressive but I think System 
Source has them beat. I don't see a list of systems on the system source 
website though so I have to go from memory and what I know.


Not sure how big the collections are behind the scenes at Living Computer 
Museum, CHM or that place down in Georgia. And who knows how many other 
Computer Reset Warehouses are out there that we don't know about.


--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: Great Vintage Computer Heist of 2012

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Own your land.
Museum or individual.


You never own your land. They can always take it.

- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: Large private collections

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

However you define it, who has the largest private collections?  Is
there anyone who claims to have the largest private collection?  I
hypothesize that there is a terminal size where it becomes
unmanageable.
Bill


Largest one I know of would by System Source in Maryland?

And an awesome one at that.

- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: Seattle Computer Products!

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Yes. I have a description of my recreation of the Gazelle on my web site, as 
well as notes on restoring the one for
VCFe. 
Rich


Very interesting! Reading through it all now. I notice you use Tarbell 
disk controller... difficult to use the SCP DiskMaster? I don't find many 
references to systems running it. It supports SD/DD 5.25/8... I had 
planned to go 5.25"


- Ethan

[cctalk] Seattle Computer Products!

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

At this point I have achieved the SCP CPU card, a CPU support card and a 
Disk Master card. So hopefully all I need is some kind of 16 bit RAM board 
and a 4 slot S100 backplane and I can boot 86-DOS.


I have started to read through the documentation on the hardware.

Has anyone else been down this road and built a system to run this?

- Ethan

--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: 8" floppy diskette storage cases

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I have contacted the seller, and kindly asked as a gentlemanly as I possibly 
could.
I'll see what happens
Don Resor


If the seller will use PirateShip that can knock down the price of 
shipping quite a bit, UPS and USPS only. Good news is it, unlike so many 
others, can actually give you a PDF that is 4" x 6" for a thermal label 
printer without hassle.


Charging fees on shipping is eBay's way of stopping people from listing 
items for $1 with $49 shipping to get around paying ebay fees.


- Ethan

[cctalk] Re: z9 (s390x) mainframe up for grabs in Melbourne, FL

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Will the damage from Hurricane Ian cause problems for anyone trying to retrieve 
it, and any idea if the Storage Unit suffered storm damage?
Zane


Melbourne Florida is near Cape Canaveral, it's on the East Coast and 
probably protected by the cape. Shouldn't be any water damage.


Cool surplus place there MRAM Surplus or something. One of the employees 
had stuff like full rack Onyx and all that.


- Ethan

--
: Ethan O'Toole

[cctalk] Re: BBS memorabilia

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Has anyone ever seen promotional videos showing Prodigy, Compuserv, 
Delphi, GENie, AOL?  I've collected disks, but the systems are long gone 
so archived video is all we have to remember them by.  When I was young, 
I remember seeing disks and pamphlets for these services in the box when 
upgrading modems. They had serious brand recognition. By the time the 
Internet was becoming available to the public, I remember being more 
interested in getting a Compuserv account lol.  After getting our first 
Internet account in 1994, I was confused because I didn’t know where the 
“file areas”, “message areas” and “chat” were after being so used to BBS 
menus. Eventually I learned about FTP, USENET, and IRC.  We even had a 
“yellow pages” paper book where you could look up topic specific FTP, 
USENET, and Gopher sites.


Just a heads up in case you aren't familiar, there is a project out there 
where someone was pulling data from Prodigy cache directories (from 
installed software that was used, on old computers.) They were working to 
re-create Prodigy.


Would be cool if someone re-created the others as well.

- Ethan O'Toole

Re: Vintage Computing Hosting [Was: List migration]

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Who else provides free vintage computer-themed web site hosting as a group
service?  I know neurotica.com (LSSM) does too, and I realize a lot of
people have home servers that host their web sites on the subject, still,
right?


My shell host of friends is at a tier 1 colocation facility. 1.5ms to 
google, half a ms to aws and azure. Just spun up VMs for running a BBS for 
MAGFest and trying to figure out analog modem inbound for it. If someone 
needed to host a project for the community I could help, same goes with 
mirrors.


My costs are fixed and the box is prety beefy (thanks to friends.) Shell 
host is probably 30 years at this point.



--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Advice on Desoldering an IC

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I am trying to remove an IC from my PDP 11/24 CPU, a DS8641. I am really
struggling to desolder it. I am using the technique of applying fresh solder
and then removing it. But after multiple cycles of this I think I am
starting to damage the PCB.
Are there any tips for removing ICs?
Thanks
Rob


I use a Hakko 808 and have found cases where the pin size of the IC is 
close to the hole size, and then you can't get the solder out.


Some tricks I have used include Chip quick. This is a different allow you 
"solder in" with existing solder. It has a lower melting point so stays 
liquid longer. It's great for SMD and troublesome through hole, but you 
have to clean it off and that part sucks.


If you can get some of the legs loose on the chip and then apply some 
pressure to pull up chip and heat the troublesome pins, but be careful 
not to lift traces. This sometimes allows chip to "walk" up


Flux also helps sometimes

Hot air is another trick but probably left to modern boards.



--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Retro networking / WAN communities

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Does anyone know of any communities / mailing lists / newsgroups / et al. for 
retro networking / WAN technologies?

 - PSTN / PBX / PABX


There is a Central Office Groups.io list (which migrated from Yahoo 
Groups) located at https://groups.io/g/centraloffice . It is low traffic.


There is a Discord server related to PBX and Telephone stuff, but will 
have to dig up that info later. It's pretty low traffic as well.


- Ethan

--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Possibly going up to VCF, stuff I would like to sell/get to proper people pdp8/12/HP stuff

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I'm thinking about going up to VCF in Wall next weekend. I haven't been to it 
since it was the Trenton Computer Fest (think late 1990's) so I'm not sure 
what the protocol is on tailgating, trading stuff or whatnot. Appears that 
they have a "sale room" you drop things off in with prices. Ok


It's April 22nd to April 24th :-)

https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/


--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Data recovery (was: Re: SETI@home (ca. 2000) servers heading to salvage)

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

For those in the know, how much success - assuming a "money is no object" 
approach - do data recovery companies have in retrieving data from drives 
that have a) been overwritten with zeros using dd or similar, and b) been 
overwritten with random data via a more comprehensive tool?

cheers,
Jules


I am pretty sure someone had a bounty out there, they give you a hard 
drive that had a phase on it that is stored linear on the platter. They 
write over it once with zeros. If you can recover the phrase then you win 
the bounty.


It's unclaimed.

Everyone talks about some theoretical ideas but no proof of it being done. 
My understanding is once you erase the data it's difficult to tell the 
difference between something recently erased and the noise floor. This was 
last time I looked into this which was a while ago. Maybe nation state 
has some ability but you or your customers data isn't worth the hassle.


Prior employer would just have hundreds/thousands of pounds of hard drives 
ground up though. To eliminate any risk of data leakage. I am sure the 
same is done with SSDs by other companies and the US Government. 
Probably grinding up $9000 8TB SSDs all day.




--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: LSSM is chasing this, was Re: General Data? Computer Equipment Auction - GSA

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

 In LSSM's case, it's a wholly-occupied 14,000 square foot commercial 
storefront building that nobody lives in, in a downtown shopping district, as 
distinguished from the typical private collection in a garage, basement, etc.

-Dave


Right, I know you have a real building and are open to the public and 
operate what I would consider a real museum. But where does one define a 
museum when it comes to randos, the small shops, the people just 
collecting donations for the price break, etc.


Someone I know has a museum, collects stuff, no business entity for it, 
and it doesn't usually see the light of day. He says he plans to open a 
museum someday, but he has no real business plan AFAIK. He does have some 
stuff on display at another museum though.


- Ethan
--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: LSSM is chasing this, was Re: General Data? Computer Equipment Auction - GSA

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I interpreted "disappear into the black hole of a private collection" as 
meaning "regrettably unavailable for viewing and/or use by anyone but the 
collector".  This has nothing to do with how well the systems are preserved.
And while the particular choice of words may be somewhat inflammatory 
(although not to me), I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment.


Private collector of computers, older video game stuff, pinball machines, 
synth/music toys and now dabbling into 35mm stuff. A few friends in this 
space.


Our stuff is ALWAYS going out and getting played with. From the 
Smithsonian (SAAM events) to MAGFest events to Vintage Computer Festival 
events (Remember, most of those systems on display for play are from 
private collectors there to share!), to events that happened in Norfolk VA 
and Chesapeake VA. Some of my stuff will probably be at the upcoming event 
in Philly (Too many games.)


I mean what is a museum really? What about low attendence museums versus 
private collections that serve tons of people? Aren't museums private 
collections too?


- Ethan

--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Typing in lost code

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Can the listings be OCR'ed?

- Ethan



Has anyone ever used Amazon Mechanical Turk to employ typists to type in
old listings of lost code?

Asking for a friend.



--
: Ethan O'Toole

Manual, Amiga, Broadcast Titler 2

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Anyone have the manual for the Amiga software Broadcast Titler 2?

If so, can I scan it and return it to you?

Thanks

- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Apple I auction

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Terrible in this day and age.


 >> That buyer's premium seems crazy steep. >

It is not.

--
Will



--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Apple I auction

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

That buyer's premium seems crazy steep.



Another Apple I on the auction block:

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/114629733_the-chaffey-college-apple-1-personal-computer


Steve




--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: 3d modelling software

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I think I may need to get a small part 3d printed (some plastic board
mounting guide rails from a PDP 11/24 H7140 PSU). What software is best for
a novice? Preferably free!
Thanks
Rob


I use the web version of Sketchup 3D. It's now owned by Trimble. It gets 
me by for making project boxes and parts.



--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: WTB: Amiga 3000 front/floppy

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Those funky 150RPM Amiga HD drives are made from unicorns. I have one. I may
have even seen another at some point in the last 30 years, but couldn't say
for sure.
If you don't need HD support, I suggest just taking the front off that PC
drive and 3D-printing a plausible-looking fascia for it.


I mostly don't care about disks at all other than archiving them, the 
issue is the prior owner after the machine was older... cut a giant hole 
where the left floppy drive was... and mounted a normal PC drive inside. 
So the front has a larger than the drive hole cut in it. I will get a 
picture. It's because the A3000 used custom form fitted drives that match 
the front plastic unlike the 2000 where it was just a normal drive in a 
2.5" hole. I have a few external Amiga floppies, so maybe the A3000 drive 
is just one of those inside with a different eject button?


First thing to solve is the plastic face, then I can worry about floppy.

The right drive has a plastic thing over it still as I recall.

On my A2500HD I just run a SCSI2SD with a bracket I 3d printed that holds 
the board against an expansion slot... so I can remove the SD card now 
without taking off the cover. I can boot the SD card in WinUAE, copy stuff 
over, eject it.


- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

WTB: Amiga 3000 front/floppy

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Scored an A3000. Prior owner cut a hole where the floppy goes and mounted 
a PC floppy in there. Looking for an original front plate and the matching 
floppy drive to restore machine to original look.


- Ethan

Re: DEC HP sgi ibm and misc for sale

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Sup man!

First Tezro I've ever seen on CCTalk.

Fistbump!

- Ethan

On Tue, 29 Jun 2021, devin davison via cctalk wrote:


I am making room to work on my pdp 11 and mainframe computers. The
following things are for sale :

3 Dec decmate computers with kb and monitor. Partway loads into the WP os
but the floppy is bad, and i dont have more

Sgi tezro

Hp 9000 desktop for hp -ux with cables

Working microvax 3100 with install of vms. Vt terminal availible for sale
too to go with it.

Hp 9000 for basic. Was used with test insturments like volt meters, relay
controllers  hpib etc for process control.
Many hp keyboards with chicklet keys availible for this system

Tandy vgm 300 monitor

Enough crt monitors to sink a boat.  Nec, viewsonic, ibm, etc.

S100 bus computer chassis with backplane, power supply and proto boards.

A single S100 backplane

Isa /pci single board computer backplanes

Isa 486 and pentium single board computers. Works standalone or with
previously mentioned backplane

Rackmount 68k vme bus motorolla computer with floppy, hard drive and proto
boards.

(Must be sold together will not seperate) books for like every version of
irix apple early windows maya, power animator, discreet, etc. Sgi install
cd sets. Sgi power animator cd. Studio paint. Misc hotmix cd's.

Trs 80 model 3. No keyboard. Posts, bad floppy drive hangs up boot. Unplug
it and it works. Big / heavy.

Dec alphastation 255 computers x3
I had vms on them at some point.

Wyse dumb terminal in original box

Many televideo dumb terminals

Ibm bladecenter h chassis with misc blades and spare fans etc. Shipping
will be expensive.

Hp 50mhz dual trace scope 54200a.

Working apple mac plus with kb and external 20 mb hard drive. No battery
damage. Clean. Boots. Runs.

Im sure to find more to list. Send some offers my way and ill ship it out.

Located in melbourne fl.

https://mastodon.technology/@mrbill0/media?

Most of my stuff is on my mastadon gallery, welcome to scroll through. I
can provide pictures of said machines upon request, too much to take
pictures of right now though.



--Devin D.



--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Intel/Altera Dev, Seeking Quartus II old versions

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I found what seems to be 12.1 Service Pack 1 on my archive drive. 
There are two of them.  I think the second one with "free" in the name 
is for windows.  The other is for Linux.  I believe, but I'm not 
certain, that these were extracted from the download bundle when I got 
them.  I didn't try installing them now, although I'm pretty sure I did 
when I got them.  AT least the LInux one.


Awesome! Much thanks for posting those. My friend said they're both 
Windows, not linux. He added them to his collection but is still on the 
lookout for "full linux archive of 12."


Note - I'm an innocent bystander here. I have an idea what the software is 
for, but never used it.


My friend's twitter thing is https://twitter.com/edgetriggered

Thanks again!

- Ethan

Re: Intel/Altera Dev, Seeking Quartus II old versions

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I think I have at least ver 12 for Linux.  Of course it's pretty big. 
I can upload it to my web page for download if you like.  Let me know. 
It will be at least tonight or tomorrow morning before I get a chance.

Will


Awesome! That would be great!

Thanks!

- Ethan

Re: Intel/Altera Dev, Seeking Quartus II old versions

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Jumping on thread about older version of Intel dev stuff.
My friend has been looking for copies of the Altera/Intel Quartus II 
software for a while now.


Intel pulled every copy from their website and there doesn't seem to be 
versions online or archived. I assume it is similar issues that others are 
having with other dev tools from Intel.


https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/programmable/downloads/download-center.html

If anyone has any install bundles below version 13 for Quartus II it 
would be much appreciated.


- Ethan

Re: IndiZone collections

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Have you checked archive.org? The one site on the internet that didn't 
whine about posting CD ISOs of a long dead operating system (kudos to 
them!)


If they don't have the ones you have, don't forget to submit them if you 
would :-)


- Ethan


Curious if anyone on here knows if the contents of any of the earlier
IndiZone CDs from SGI are posted? A copy of IndiZone3 came with my copy
of IRIX 6.2 a number of years ago, and while the games aren't the sort
that would impress a modern XBox user I thought they were kind of neat
and showed off the equipment and thoughts of the 1995-era, but I also
have some earlier SGIs that would be IndiZone 1/2 era. I found a couple
lists of the contest winners (but the CDs have more), and an occasional
download link, but nothing complete for either.
Anyone have links or lists of what was on them?




--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Compuserve

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I was often free-flagged on CIS and many other services so surfing was free.
For the kids out there, in today's dollars CompuServe was about $20 an hour.


As a young lad, the high costs of things like CompuServe is why I stuck to 
BBS systems, until the internet came along.



Perl parser to separate individual forum posts.  I have about 400 megs of
messages, on the order of 525,000 messages.  I split each post
into its own XML file, tagging the pieces (from, to, subject, etc.)


That is awesome! You should definitely get that stuff on the web!!


I've left the hard part of constructing the web software to make it all
readable and searchable.



 #: 126608 S0/Sysop's Corner
 29-Oct-95  00:20:12
 Sb: #126546-#Problem Uploading Files
 Fm: Betty Clay 76702,337
 To: Shawn/Silent Paw 74777,2602 (X)

 This would be caused by the entire forum running out of blocks in the library.
 Steve handles that, and I'm sure he has noticed and requested more by now.  It
 is quite likely that we won't get them before Monday, though. Sometimes there's
 no one around to handle the request on weekends.

Like this message, some sections were "sysop" and perhaps should be
considered non-public.

My transcripts also have stuff from before and after the forum posts.
Who knows, maybe someone would find interesting the "What's new this week"
intro menu you'd see at login.

Or better yet, the file libraries.  Each section had a "data library".
Each file showed a filename, timestamp and size, uploader PPN and
name, and title line and keywords and a paragraph of description.
I have some listings of the file areas. I may also have the original
files I downloaded.  All that could be linked into a new web version, too.

Maybe there are some text-based public live group chats (conferences), too.

So how could you organize all that into a web database and interface?


Could you put a text front end on it that emulates the original CIS?

A modern emulator that emulated the UI from the original on the internet..


It would also make sense for me to improve my parser to separate
out each email I sent or received.  I'd be eager to release the public
forum posts but I also don't want to release my private emails.


Makes sense


Am I going to trust my parser to have never made a mistake?
Or do I need to read a half-million posts to confirm it didn't?


Search for your name?


I have to believe that other people saved transcripts of CompuServe
forums if not other services, too.  Ideally there could be a way to add
everyone's messages to the reconstruction.

Indeed, google ' "Sb:" "Fm:" "To:" sysop cis ' and you'll see
other bits and pieces of CompuServe transcripts.

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Sb%3A%22+%22Fm%3A%22+%22To%3A%22+sysop+cis

I don't know what it was like inside CIS back then, but I can't help
but wonder if any magtape archives left the building.  I asked
an Amiga forum owner if he saved anything...  he said "no" but
maybe other forum owners did.

As an aside, keep in mind that the people running CIS forums held a
contract with CIS and they were paid.  For many, it was their sole income.
Some ran several forums and made quite a bit of money at it.

I was very surprised to learn the web-based http://forums.compuserve.com/
existed until three-four years ago.
- John

Re: WTB: CompuPro / Godbout RAM 17

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Other than "Buy It Now" I have pretty much given up on
ebay.  Never had luck selling anything and very seldom
had any luck winning a bid.  Got better ways to waste
my time.
bill


eBay/paypal take a huge cut, you do all the work hiking stuff and guessing 
shipping costs.


But it's got a market that Craigslist / Facebook Marketplace doesn't.

I think Facebook Marketplace is going to hurt eBay. Finally a competitor.

- Ethan

RE: WTB: CompuPro / Godbout RAM 17

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Yes, I was going to bid that one too, until I read he needed it.


There was 18 watchers when it was first posted to the list. I figured 
competition was going to be tough! I was really surprised there was that 
much of an audience for it.


Maybe it's a jerk thing, but in my mind with eBay auctions usually I never 
bid except the last bid I mean you can bid first to "mark your 
territory" but you are really just hurting yourself to bid anytime except 
last.


- Ethan

Re: WTB: CompuPro / Godbout RAM 17

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Were you the winner of the eBay auction? It went for a very reasonable 
price. It was very difficult for me to not bid on it - those are great 
boards for use with early S100 systems :)

Mike


Hello! I actually did not bid on it. Someone else from the community sold 
me one. The irony is for the exact same price that the eBay one sold for, 
which was a price we agreed on before the ending of the eBay auction.


In my case I have an IMSAI with a Northstar controller and a deramp SIO 
board, so I need the hole in RAM. I had a RAM board with the phantom 
signal stuff I think but it didn't seem to work.


I just want to be able to run Northstar DOS and CP/M. Most likely when 
events start up again it will go to an event or two (Carefully) where the 
public can play on it. I will probably put a terminal out but keep the 
machine behind glass (so to speak) due to the switches being 
rare/expensive/fragile/whatever.


I also use that board that emulates hard sectored disks and it works well.


   - Ethan

Re: WTB: CompuPro / Godbout RAM 17

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Oh wait, wrong chip. My bad.


I think my Model 100 is 24K of storage is there something I'm missing?

I did re-cap it. Everyone that has one should do this -- they leak.

- Ethan

--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: WTB: CompuPro / Godbout RAM 17

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Yup!

Sigh.

  - Ethan


I assume you saw the RAM 17 on eBay right now?

Mike



--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Apple 1 and memorabilia up for auction in Boston (NOT on Epay)

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

The "restoration" hopefully is 100% on the ICs as a $400k price needs the 
original IC set not work if that was the case.  At least I'd think having the 
original parts is more useful to the buyer. You can or get an emulator for 
the Apple 1, which is cute, but isn't that great a machine, and not disturb 
an original artifact.



Forget the Apple 1 on that auction site... those Apple colored 
"sunglasses" that Woz had made are pretty funky.


Some other Apple things on there as well.

- Ethan

RE: Apple 1 and memorabilia up for auction in Boston (NOT on Epay)

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

What am I missing? The picture shown on RR auctions shows the board with no 
chips?


Search for Apple in the search box at the top. There are some Woz 
Schematics for the Apple II, the Apple 1 and a bunch of other stuff.


Looks like some of it might be Woz's stuff but hard to tell.

Apple 1 was at $102K this morning.

-- Ethan

WTB: CompuPro / Godbout RAM 17

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Looking for a RAM 17 for my IMSAI 8080 to replace 6 x 8K boards.


--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: The best hard drives??

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

     Do you think that we can get back to the original question??

Knowing this list, that won't happen.


HGST!



--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: The best hard drives??

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

   In the opinions of you experts out there considering reliability being 
number one on the list with speed be number two on the list what would you 
folks consider to be the best SATA drives on the market?

GOD Bless and Thanks,
rich!


HGST. 4TB seem really good.

You can also see what backblaze stats currently says.

--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: WTB: Amiga 8375 Agnus IC (NTSC or PAL) or Amiga 600 motherboard

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

 If all else fails, there's this:
https://github.com/LIV2/Diet-Agnus-A500-plus
 It's a little interposer that allows using an 8372A Agnus.  You're limited 
to 1MB chipram with it, but it beats 0.

Doc


Woah! That is awesome, and I have a 8272A or two sitting around. The A600 
I have has 1MB of RAM total as it is and I don't have any burning need to 
go above that.


Problem though. The Amiga 600 8275 is a surface mount device, not through 
hole. So no way to mount that easily.


A vendor in Germany has a bunch of 8275 NTSC chips but they pulled them 
off the for sale list as they are turning them into some kind of 2MB RAM 
add on for Amigas. A vendor in UK has boards that run like $40-45 that 
give you 4MB, not sure if it is the same type of RAM (that chip or fast or 
whatever) but it definitely gets in the way of sourcing repair parts.


 - Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: WTB: Amiga 8375 Agnus IC (NTSC or PAL) or Amiga 600 motherboard

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Ethan
I probably have one. More likely to be NTSC than PAL - I'll look. What
do they go for, these days?
Cheers
Robert


Hello Robert,

  Did you find this? Eager to get back to repairing the A600. It has 
kicked my butt for a long time. A friend gave me the system working and I 
like it a lot, but then the caps leaked. Cleaned that up but can't get 
past RAM failure issue that isn't the RAM chips.


  Thanks!

   - Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

WTB: Amiga 8375 Agnus IC (NTSC or PAL) or Amiga 600 motherboard

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Looking for an Amiga 8375 Agnus IC (Amiga 600, Amiga 500 Plus.) NTSC is 
what I have now but the PAL version might work.


Also interested in an Amiga 600 motherboard, can deal with it if bad caps 
and cap damage.


Thanks


--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Not-OFFLIST Re: domains available (FTGH)

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I have to agree, that’s an interesting configuration.  The 1U Vaxstation 
4000/VLC makes a lot of sense, this, an A1200 I’m having a bit more 
trouble understanding.  What is the purpose of this system?

Zane


I would assume it can run Linux/Unix stuff? Though not sure you could get 
an accelerator on it.


I wonder if it was some solution sold to TV stations that used an Amiga 
and a genlock in a box?


- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Buying and running an IBM PC-XT in 2020

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I delivered in a truck to the set up in Quebec the 20 IBM XTs that you see
in the movie Xmen the Apocalypse.  I retrieved them after the filming.  I
could set up an office or classroom of XTs.  A funny if not impractical
practical joke
B


That is awesome!

--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: 2 2010 macbook pro's --- vast performance differences....

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

NO excessive fan noise.  I had the back off while changing disks and 
were pretty clean.  Yes.. I could add temp monitoring to see if they are 
being throttled.


Thermal paste can get hard and stop conducting heat. Also, the heatpipes 
can fail and quit moving the heat from the processor or GPU over to the 
heat exchanger (the little radiator and fan.) Both will cause CPU to 
throttle way down.


See if it's an issue, if so may need to remove the heatpipe setup or 
heatsink and respooge it.


- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Sun E250, NVRAM edit? (Serial Speeds, no console, etc)

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

 In theory console can be set to anything but its usually 9600/8/n/1 as I’m
 sure you’ve tried.


Progress last night.

Pulled the NVRAM (STM M48Y59 or something) and threw it in the Needham 
EMP-100. Read contents, nothing that looked like any sort of config 
really. I noticed on the mainboard there is an Intel TSOP Flash IC so that 
might store a bunch.


Saved the contents, wrote all FF's. Checked to see if it retained that (is 
the battery dead?) It seemed to for 1 minute. Shoved it in the E250, and 
got both graphics console and serial output finally. It again complained 
that the NVRAM contents were invalid (same as with the NVRAM IC removed) 
but this time I could actually type on the keyboard. Got past it.


Did a factory defaults option on the NVRAM. Then boot kicked it into 
Solaris. I will hopefully find a Solaris 5.10 sparc ISO on archive.org and 
the last step is to reset root password.


Ethernet won't work until I re-program a MAC address into the NVRAM, but 
those instructions exist out there.


I also found on the mainboard there was a set of jumpers labelled RS-232 / 
RS-483? 482? Some other odd standard that isn't 485 and 422. It looks like 
the were set to the strange one, so I moved them over to 232.




--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Sun E250, NVRAM edit? (Serial Speeds, no console, etc)

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

In theory console can be set to anything but its usually 9600/8/n/1 as 
I’m sure you’ve tried.


Oh yea, I see the diags at that speed but everything else is noise. Memory 
is kind of hazy since it was 2008 era, but back then I had a Livingston 
Portmaster PM-25 hooked to all the colo hosts and I seem to recall this 
Sun box never working right. But the owner had it working over ethernet 
and didn't care.


I spent all weekend camping / diving so I didn't get back to it. But going 
to try to dump the contents of the NVRAM into a file to back it up. Then I 
will see if things are plain text or not. If not, maybe try all FF's so I 
have a working NVRAM to satisfy it. If it is text, there is definitely a 
checksum as I recall. But maybe I can just nuke out the serial console 
statement (graphics console disable), and then it will complain about a 
checksum mismatch but continue to go?


With the NVRAM out I get graphics console but can never type and it seems 
to halt.




On some suns unplugging the serial cable is the equivalent of sending a break, 
so might be worth a try?
Suns do require full hardware signalling on the console connection so might be 
worth checking.


Hmm I tried sending hard breaks via Putty / Hyperterminal. I was using an 
older Dell laptop with a physical RS232 port on it (not USB dongle.) But I 
will try that. Also I can't remember how the serial port A works with 
regards to the lights out management port? That serial data is somehow 
split between the two?


I will definitely mess with it this week. Motivation is high to get it 
working then find it and the ultra 5 a home.


Thanks for the reply! Will poke then report back.

- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

Sun E250, NVRAM edit? (Serial Speeds, no console, etc)

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Hello,

  I have an E250 Sun that belonged to a friend that passed away around 
2008. It was colocated at a colocation office I had running in Virginia 
Beach.


  I pulled it out of storage, and would like to check if his public 
website is archived on it. Archive.org only has bits of it. Odds are low 
since it wasn't the main server, but worth a shot.


  I tried the usual Serial port A, but all I get is garbage. Tried all the 
common baud rates I could think of. If it's switched to diag mode, the 
diag stuff comes across in 9600bps.


  I tried the RSC port, it wants a password. Don't know it, didn't see 
anywhere online on how to reset it.


  I tried hooking up a console. Finally get the power brick in for the 
Samsung 770TFT LCD monitor I've held onto (it has 13w3.) At first it 
wasn't working. Tried both Type 5 and type 6 keyboards attached. No 
console.


  I found by removing the NVRAM, it will finally throw console. But no 
keyboard input. Stop-A, nothing. If I shove the NVRAM back in while it's 
running it immediatley goes black.


  Anyone know if the NVRAM strings are stored in plaintext in the NVRAM 
IC? If I were to dig out all the hardware that should be able to dump that 
chip is it something that is human readable / editable? I've done the 
coin cell hack on them before, but from memory the keyboard worked and it 
wasn't a big deal to do program in replacement MAC. But this is different, 
I need options removed.


  I'm thinking this thing has values in the NVRAM that are turning off the 
console and doing something funky to the serial baud rate. Or perhaps the 
baud rate in Solaris is set to something funky.


- Ethan

Re: cray unicos cds sold on ebay in 2016

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

But I bet there are some people that would be interested in it.
jpkiwigeek on YouTube comes to mind.  Now that I think about him, I've not 
seen any new videos in a while.  I hope that he's okay.


I have Unicos 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2 but when I boot it I get a kernel 
panic. Seems to be around drivers for ATM. My system has a lot of HIPPI 
interfaces, no ATM.


Am also interested in finding other copies of J90 Unicos.

There are several models of the CPU boards, no idea how cross compatible 
the software builds are for them


- Ethan

Re: SCSI2SD & Amiga's

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

What version of the SCSD2SD V5 do you have?  The V5.1 was reworked to 
boot faster (so claims the site here 
 
) and the V6 boots even faster I believe.


No idea, I will look someday when I pull it back out :-)

Was working on an IMSAI system currently.. then going to re-battery NeXT.

- Ethan

Re: SCSI2SD & Amiga's (was: About to dump a bunch of Compaq SCSC...)

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Am I correct that a v5.1 SCSI2SD should work just fine?  Anything I need 
to be aware of?


I run a SCSI2SD on my A2500 with whatever SCSI card it has by default. The 
only issue that I have is the SCSI2SD boots slower than the Amiga, so when 
I power on the Amiga I have to wait a few seconds then do the A+A+Control 
reboot three finger salute (or whatever it is.) Before it's ready the 
Amiga just sits at a white screen forever, but after a reboot the SCSI2SD 
is ready and it boots fine.


Extra FRIGGIN awesome is I can pull the SD card out, shove it in a Win10 
laptop and boot the same OS on WinUAE... copy stuff on, pull SD card out 
stuff it back in the physical system and go.


It would be nice if the SCSI2SD was mounted on a expansion cover plate 
though, with the LEDs visible and the SD card accessible externally.




 -- : 
Ethan O'Toole

Re: Amiga Vendors?

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

I guess so, too. Connecting Amiga to plasma was probably the least
hassle of all alternatives. PC would need something special (either
card or converter?), and a hard drive, and a big box, and separate
keyboard and reboot every four(ty) days - Amiga 500 could be just
"stuffed under the rug". And after loading a "demo" from a floppy,
there was no moving parts involved. It could just sit there and
display flying images for years.


Exactly. Maybe once a week, turn it off, put in the new floppy from
HQ, turn it back on, or something like that.


The early plasma TVs usually had BNC RGBHV inputs and such. They could 
take VGA in very easily. I'm pretty sure a PC would have been way easier 
to deal with and could reach much higher resolutions... without needing a 
DB-23 connector :-)


- Ethan

--
: Ethan O'Toole

RE: Future of cctalk/cctech

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

These 2 have my vote as well
I do not know, anyone using a text only mail reader anymore!


/me raises hand! Alpine 

It's super fast to delete things. I run it under screen on a host I have 
co-lo'ed at a tier 1 datacenter. 25 years now?


- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Aquarius (was Re: Apple 1)

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

That was one of the use cases of Sun's Display Postscript where another
program on another host was able to get equal access to a window on an
work-station.



Sun or NeXT?

- Ethan

Re: Apple 1

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

 Who is Robert Cray?  Any relation to Seymour?

He's a musician.
Jon


That plugs up the eBay searches for Cray Computer posters.

Ethan

Re: Aquarius (was Re: Apple 1)

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Actually, Al was hired as an Apple Fellow in 1985. His first project was 
"Trojan" a 68000 mac on an ISA card that mixed EGA and square pixel Mac 
video. I was the Mac-side programmer on the project. Marketing killed it 
before it got from ATG to product development.


That is wild! That would have been an interesting product.

The justification for the Cray was to experiment with what could be done 
if you had a Macintosh with the power of a Cray. It had a pretty fancy 
frame buffer attached to it and some pretty sophisticated anti-aliased 
rendering was produced.


Frame buffer attached to Cray? Or Mac with a fancy framebuffer and 
offloading to the Cray? Pretty wild.


About the only video I know that escaped from Valley Green 3 was the 
title and end credits for "Pencil Test" which weren't produced on a Mac, 
they were done on the Cray (I was the person responsible for pulling all 
of the frame sequences together from the Mac II distributed render farm 
and generating the D1 tape).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXPHlQuXWR0


--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Apple 1

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

That would be Aquarius.

https://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/2019/12/and-now-for-something-completely_29.html



http://intellivisionrevolution.com/files/resized/220082/811;384;6ada4a1cae75747bd8ee4a63b1e0e94b12f0592d.jpg

:-)

--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Apple 1

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

He didn't know of anyone doing much other with it either.  I think it was 
bought before there was a unix type OS under the Macos.

thanks
Jim


https://wiki.c2.com/?AppleCrayComputer

They bought it to use to design the next Macintosh CPU I thought (break 
away from the 68000 but never did), but that page talks about electronics 
layout.


- Ethan

Re: Apple 1

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Oh, I'll sell you a Cray for like 1/4th that. Much better deal, way more 
metal and stuff.


- Ethan


I got a notice from ebay that an Apple 1 is up for sale: $1.5M 
plus $1 shipping, yikes!


ebay item number: 174195921349

Doug




--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: Restarting Old Amiga's

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

use that instead - the T model looks a bit too much like a crazy mid-90's PC 
for my tastes (although the SCSI's nice).


The 4000T has IDE! I have one of those CF card to IDE boards on a back 
expansion slot, allowing it to be removed.




Thoughts on this, incidentally? https://www.ebay.com/itm/254545704933
It's just an empty case, not even a complete machine, which claims to have 
sold. No PSU, no "middle" drive bay hardware. I wonder if a friend of the 
seller "bought" it and it was just a trick to drive up prices or something - 
$550 seems ridiculous for an empty box, but I don't "do" ebay and don't know 
how crazy people are or what kind of scams go on.


That is crazy. To buy something to "mark to market" the price real high 
... you would still have to pay the crazy eBay fees.


There was a late model Adlib card in original box (not sealed) that went 
for $3900 that had people scratching their head. But who knows. I think a 
Nintendo game went for $300K. Some people have way more money than I for 
this hobby that's for sure :-) Pinball machines / arcades are the same.


- Ethan

Re: Restarting Old Amiga's

[Ethan O'Toole via cctalk]

Any advice specific to starting up a TT030 that’s been idle for ~20 
years?  The only question with that system is, where is the monitor I 
used for it.


I think the TT030 should just go? The other easy thing about the TT030 is 
that it has a standard VGA connector. There is a special adapter that 
someone makes that allows it to do a much higher resoution ?ECL? output 
that is needed for running Unix on it. But for normal Atari stuff a VGA 
montior should do.


On mine, I ended up using a SD2SCSI as the original drive sounded like a 
chop saw. I don't remember a battery inside but we should probably check 
on that and caps.


Haven't done much with mine. I last used it with UNIX for the last VCF 
East, would like to setup a SD card with software that can take advantage 
of it's graphics and sound stuff.




--
: Ethan O'Toole