Other stuff for sale at VCFMW - PDP/11 34a and 23+, DECpc, Sun SPARCClassic, Dolch PAK, all working

[Julian Wolfe via cctalk]

PDP 11/34a - $600 - BA11-K chassis, 248KB MOS, M7856 serial, DU686 ESDI card, 
DELUA network card, and Pertec controller.  I'll be powering this up at the 
show to verify it's still working, but it lived in A/C in a bedroom on the 
second floor since I last turned it on in 2011 and booted RSTS/E.



PDP 11/23+ - $750 - QBUS Scsi, 2.5MB RAM, DEQNA Ethernet, IDE to SCSI adapter, 
boots off a 2.5mb Transcend IDE drive.  Includes a second empty /23+ chassis 
for spares.



SPARCclassic - $300 - Max memory (196MB?) 4GB HDD, Battery has been modded to 
use a coin cell.  Includes sideways stand. No yellowing.  Runs great.



DEC VT240 - $175 - Working.  Includes keyboard.



DEC VT220 - $150 - Working.  Includes keyboard.



DIGITAL DECpc 486 - 8MB RAM, IDE HDD, 40GB I think.  $40.


Commodore 1750 expander in box with software. $100.  No yellowing.



Commodore 1351 mouse in box with software.  $50.  No yellowing.



The 11/34 will be coming to the show because it's already in the car, as will 
the Itaniums I listed.  Everything else is by request.



Contact me if you're interested and I will bring it out.  Anything left over 
will be hitting eBay.

Fwd: HP ZX6000s for sale at VCFMW -$550

[Julian Wolfe via cctalk]

Dual 900mhz CPU, 4GB of memory, service processor card, includes rack rails.

Tested working with OpenVMS 8.4.



They all include at least one 36gb or 72GB hard disk.  Presumably they'll take 
anything that's SCA80, but the sleds are special.

I have 6 of these units.





Let me know ahead of time if you're interested.  I'll be dumping the rest on 
eBay after the show.

Re: Getting out of the hobby

[Julian Wolfe]

Funny, there's this 11/23+ (BA11-S style) I bought from Pavl Zachary many years 
ago, it's been a near-constant companion through all of my moves and most of 
the VCF Midwests.  Despite the bouncing, banging, and shuffling, it's always 
worked.  It ran 24/7 at my home for much of its life, without so much as a 
hiccup.



We found a brand new 11/23+ a few weeks ago that promptly smoked its power 
supply on power-on.


I have a second unit that I keep for spares, but the power supply gets flicked 
on regularly whenever I can remember to do so, just to keep the caps from 
drying up.  I've never needed any of its parts.



My experience is that classic computers are like anything else that isn't 
exercised regularly - it isn't just sufficient to repair them and take them out 
every few years for use.  They need love.



If it were me in your place, I'd pare down what you have and just use your 
favorites on a regular basis for minimum grief.




 On Tue, 11 Oct 2016 13:07:29 -0700Seth Morabito  
wrote 




Hey folks, 

 

Recent activity on the list, especially the "Ka... ching!" thread, has 

had me reevaluating a lot of what I get out of this hobby. I think there 

are two things going on that make it less fun for me now: The money, 

and the age of the stuff. I'll try to explain. 

 

I've never been a real "collector", I suppose. I don't feel a burning 

need to fill every hole in a product line, or to put things on display. 

I've also never been in this for the money, far from it. No, the only 

reason I've ever collected classic computers is because I've loved 

playing with them. That's really all there is to it. I enjoy the sights, 

sounds, and smells of firing up vintage computers and seeing them work. 

 

On the money front, as I said I've never been in this for the money. 

There was a time when most of this stuff could just be had for free, and 

that was fun! Going on rescue trips was a blast. I'll never regret 

driving down to LA from the Bay Area to rescue a PDP-11/34, or the time 

that a bunch of us got togethr and picked up an 11/45 and an Imlac PDS-1 

from Bill Gosper's house. What a time that was -- I didn't even keep any 

of it, I was just there for the rescue and the camaraderie. 

 

But nowadays, there's so much less of that. 99% of what trades hands 

seems to go back and forth on eBay for real big bucks. And that's 

probably just the sign of a maturing hobby, but it's not really what I 

enjoy. 

 

And secondly, lately there's been a lot less of "firing up vintage 

computers and seeing them work", and a whole lot more "carefully 

replacing capacitors and praying that the vintage computer will still 

fire up". We've reached the point where the hardware I love is dying. 

It's been dying for years, I suppose, but now it's in hospice care. And, 

frankly, that part of it is so much less fun for me than actually using 

the systems. Am I just lazy? Maybe. And don't get me wrong, I've learned 

SO MUCH about electronics from taking care of these systems, so I don't 

consider it a loss at all. It's just not what I want to spend my time 

on. 

 

I've been ruminating on all of this pretty hard for the last couple of 

months, and I've concluded that my enjoyment just isn't there any more. 

Now that I'm surrounded by a bunch of stuff that I'm not getting 

much out of, I feel like I'm being weighed down by the hobby. I think 

it's time for me to move on and concentrate on other things. 

 

I'm not sure yet what that means for my current collection. It's already 

much smaller than it once was, as I've found homes for a lot of things 

over the years. I've moved a lot, and every time I've moved I've found 

homes for things I didn't want to take with me. It's probably time to do 

that again, only without the moving part. 

 

I think probably I'll have one last big "sale" of stuff, which I'll post 

about here. At this point most of what I have is vintage home computers, 

terminals, and QBUS PDP-11 stuff, so not everyone will be interested in 

it -- but maybe some people will. 

 

-Seth 

-- 

Seth Morabito 

w...@loomcom.com 

Re: Need help: DSD-440 with unresponsive formatter/control board

[Julian Wolfe]

After reading this section, I should probably bring up that when I checked the 
PSU voltages, the 5v+ line was low, at 4.7v or so.  I adjusted it back to 5.05v 
on the pot as defined in the manual, and there it stayed steady, but it didn't 
seem to help.  Before I adjusted the pot, it was fluctuating.




 On Tue, 20 Sep 2016 11:47:17 -0700 Jerry Weiss <j...@ieee.org>wrote 
 




On Sep 20, 2016, at 1:37 PM, Julian Wolfe <j...@lolqb.us> wrote: 

> 

> Both green LEDs are on. They're ALL on. 

> 

> 

 

As LED 9 is on (sorry for not being clear), then the CPU is active. That’s a 
good sign. 

 

Definitely look at the DC Power up/down circuit first. 

 

Jerry 

 

Re: Need help: DSD-440 with unresponsive formatter/control board

[Julian Wolfe]

Both green LEDs are on.  They're ALL on.





This is a failure of the DC Power Up/Down circuit - See page 3-10 + 3-53/54 in 
June 83 

Service Manual. If the components in this circuit (capacitor) are out of spec, 
then this may be the cause. 

 

Congrats on picking it up. I was tempted to bid for it as well, but I already 
filled had my boat anchor quota. 

 

Is the Green LED on? 

 

Jerry

Need help: DSD-440 with unresponsive formatter/control board

[Julian Wolfe]

So the DSD-440 I got at VCF is completely unresponsive.  All of the LEDs are on 
and never go out, which is bizarre - they are supposed to go out in 1/10 of a 
second after power on.



I tried disconnecting everything but power to the card, and it still lights all 
LEDs.  No jumpers that I could find are in the wrong spot, but many are 
seemingly undocumented ( I looked in both the 1981 user manual and 1984 service 
manual on Bitsavers).



The drive just spins and does nothing else.  Altering the switches on the 
control board do nothing to change the state of the LEDs.



I measured voltages at the power supply, and they seem to be within spec 
according to the manual.



Are there any other things I can try before I start digging into things on a 
component level?

Re: Need help with DSD-440 QBus Controller

[Julian Wolfe]

Never mind.  The 11/23+ boots from a SD-IDE+IDE-SCSI adapter combo and I had 
inadvertently bumped the card and ejected it.  Nothing's wrong. 



 On Thu, 15 Sep 2016 21:40:01 -0700 Jerry Weiss <j...@ieee.org>wrote 
 






> On Sep 15, 2016, at 7:51 PM, Julian Wolfe <j...@lolqb.us> wrote: 

> 

> I recently acquired a DSD-440 drive and purchased its accompanying 
controller on ebay. The controller is configured at defaults according to the 
manual on Bitsavers. However, unless it is on the bus by itself after the RAM 
cards, it halts the CPU at location 270. 

> 

See below. Assuming you have a Q-Q backplane here. If its an Q-CD, full stop. 

 

> Here are the 4 card configurations I tried, &lt; or &gt; denotes 
direction of serpentine QBus: 

> 

> ……. 

> 

> The card says (C)1978 Data Systems Design on it, and the latest manual is 
(C)1980 - which makes me concerned this is an 18-bit only QBus card. 

> 

 

Yes this is an 18 bit card, but it will work in a 22 bit Qbus in some OS’es 
(TSX+) with the correct configuration. I.e. it will only move data to the 
between the lower 18bits of memory and media. 

 

> 

> I have not yet tried attaching the drive box to the card, thinking it 
would at least see the controller without hanging. The box isn't yet clean and 
ready to go. 

> 

 

That is a good approach. Using ODT make sure the CSR is at 1170 (for an 
11/73) or 777170 for an 11/23 and the status bits appear to be valid. 

 

> 

> Any help with this card would be appreciated. Am I doing something wrong, 
or is this just a bad card? 

> 

> 

A halt at 270 is a bit odd, but its only just above the interrupt vector. 
Disable the DSD controller on-board bootstrap. Without drives and an OS disk, 
its going to halt at some point, 

 

It will conflict with the UC07, if that is strapped for bootstrap as well. Then 
try to boot your normal OS. 

If RT11SJ, FB, or SB and the DY handlers are present, the machine should boot 
and the handler loadable. Without the drives however, accessing them will not 
be useful. 

 

Jerry 

 

 

Need help with DSD-440 QBus Controller

[Julian Wolfe]

Hi folks,



I recently acquired a DSD-440 drive and purchased its accompanying controller 
on ebay.  The controller is configured at defaults according to the manual on 
Bitsavers.  However, unless it is on the bus by itself after the RAM cards, it 
halts the CPU at location 270.



Here are the 4 card configurations I tried, < or > denotes direction of 
serpentine QBus:



Doesn't work:


1 CPU - CPU - CPU - CPU >

2 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM <

3 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM >

4 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM <

5 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM >

6 DSD - DSD - RAM - RAM <

7 UC07-UC07- --DEQNA-- >

8 --- -  --- - --- - --- - --- <

9 --- -  --- - --- - --- - --- >



OR


1 CPU - CPU - CPU - CPU >

2 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM <

3 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM >

4 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM <

5 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM >

6 RAM - RAM - --- - --- <

7 DSD - DSD - --- - --- >
8 UC07-UC07- --DEQNA-- <

9 --- -  --- - --- - --- - --- >





Works (or at least leaves the CPU in the "RUN" state):



1 CPU - CPU - CPU - CPU >

2 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM <

3 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM >

4 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM <

5 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM >

6 DSD - DSD - RAM - RAM <

7 --- -  --- - --- - --- - --- >

8 --- -  --- - --- - --- - --- <

9 --- -  --- - --- - --- - --- >



OR



1 CPU - CPU - CPU - CPU >

2 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM <

3 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM >

4 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM <

5 RAM - RAM - RAM - RAM >

6 RAM - RAM - --- - --- <

7 DSD - DSD - --- - --- >

8 --- -  --- - --- - --- - --- <

9 --- -  --- - --- - --- - --- >



The card says (C)1978 Data Systems Design on it, and the latest manual is 
(C)1980 - which makes me concerned this is an 18-bit only QBus card.



I have not yet tried attaching the drive box to the card, thinking it would at 
least see the controller without hanging.  The box isn't yet clean and ready to 
go.
 

Any help with this card would be appreciated.  Am I doing something wrong, or 
is this just a bad card? 



Thanks



Julian

Re: R: DECdatasystem 534 (11/34) and VT52 for sale at VCF Midwest 10

[Julian Wolfe]

The VT52 and DECdatasystem are spoken for.  Please, no more offers.

On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 3:59 PM, william degnan 
wrote:

> Working on my vt50 yesterday. 50 and 52's are nice giant glass terminal
> replacements to asr33.  From the perspective of the teletype small, zenith
> 19 or vt100, huge!  The last great old school terminal.
>
> Bill Degnan
> twitter: billdeg
> vintagecomputer.net
> On Aug 20, 2015 3:02 PM, "Jason T"  wrote:
>
> > On Aug 20, 2015 12:37 PM, "supervinx"  wrote:
> > >
> > > Location?
> >
> > Near Chicago, Illinois, USA.
> >
>

DECdatasystem 534 (11/34) and VT52 for sale at VCF Midwest 10

[Julian Wolfe]

I will be selling my DECdatasystem 534 and VT52 at the show. Cabinet rack,
72x24x26".11/34a, 32kW of core and A/D+D/A cards. System runs fine and
drops to a console prompt, and passes all the diags I've been able to throw
at it. I've restored all the foam filters and the cabinet was pressure
washed a couple of years ago so no funny smells or mold. I have no
peripherals for it. The VT52 does not power on. I'm entertaining pre-show
offers, so let me know privately if you are interested in either of these
items.

Julian