Re: Apple 1, Commodore 65, Enigma Machine, Inventor of C++

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 28 Mar 2017, Evan Koblentz wrote:
"What do an Apple 1, Commodore 65, Enigma Machine, and the inventor of C++ 
all have in common?"


They're just overestimated pieces of junk ;-)  (and C++, not its inventor)
[duck...]

Christian

Re: QIX game on PDP-11

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 28 Mar 2017, Systems Glitch wrote:
Looks similar to a Mentec KDJ11-B workalike, I don't remember their 
designation. Onboard RAM and DLV11-J from what I remember...


The board says SBC J11-8, so that should give a hint.

Christian

Re: Univac I memory tank

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 15 Mar 2017, dwight wrote:
The Olivetti used a piece of wire for the delay line. I forget what the 
Dielh Combitron used but I know it used a two delay lines. One was for 
registers and the other was for lookup tables that loaded at turn on 
time from a metal tape ( as I recall ).


I can tell you exactly what the Diehl Combitron does; I have a running 
bachelor thesis for a student who is developing an emulator and assembler 
for that machine, and we have also disassembled (but not yet 
understood) the firmware (contained on the metal tape) of the machine.


In fact, it uses two magnetostrictive delay lines, one is called the R 
delay line containing 219 bits plus one external in a flip-flop. The other 
is called the M delay line with a total of 10889+1 bits. The main clock of 
the machine is 1 MHz thus a bit time (called P) is 1 µs.
The R line holds four words à 55 bits, one in the I phase P bits time, one 
in the I phase /P bits time, one in the /I phase P bits time and one in 
the /I phase /P bits time. The instructions are always fetched from the I 
phase /P bits and executed in the /I phase.
The M line holds a total of 99 P words and 99 /P words. The phase between 
P and /P changes every M cycle


During the loading phase (e.g. at power on or after a 'e1' order) the R 
line is filled with the contents coming from tape and then executed. 
Usually the code just transfers the other three words of the R line 
somewhere into the M line and restarts the loading phase for the next 
block. After loading the last block a fill instruction "jumps" to the 
entry point of the firmware. The fill instruction transfers four words 
from the M line to the R line.


Christian

Re: Looking for windows 1.x for HP-150 touchscreen Also looking for Touchscreen II

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 20 Mar 2017, Ed wrote:

Looking for windows 1.x  for HP-150 touchscreen Also looking for


Look at the obvious hpmuseum.net site, it's there.

Christian

Another unknown frontpanel

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

Hi,

I have another frontpanel, this one is from Plessey Peripheral Systems and 
must come from a 16 bit system. It's only the board with LEDs and 
switches. Does anyone know the system this panel comes from?

http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pics/temp/plessey_fp.jpg

Christian

Re: OT: PCI Ethernet or USB 2.0 ethernet?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sat, 1 Apr 2017, Peter Corlett wrote:
Both USB 2.0 and PCI are orders of magnitude faster than real-world 
wifi. Even ISA will give wifi a run for its money. I recommend you not 
bother with wifi if you care about network performance.


No, USB 2.0 is way too slow for 802.11ac that outperforms GBE.

Christian

Re: I hate the new mail system

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Fri, 3 Mar 2017, Jules Richardson wrote:
Thanks to both of you. I came back to cctalk after not checking it for a few 
days, and wondered what the %$#^ was going on, with every message showing 
with cctalk as the "from" field.


I'm another one who dislikes the new system. It would be much better if 
the Reply-To field did *not* contain the sender's email address because 
when I reply to a message, I use the Reply-To field (of course) and have 
to delete the extra line because I want to reply to the list and *not* 
privately to the sender. So either the sender's address should be in the 
From field or in a new header field, e.g. List-Original-Sender or 

something like that.
For now I have set up a procmail rule to strip the "via cctalk" from the 

From field because this is ugly and redundant.


Christian

Re: I hate the new mail system

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 9 Mar 2017, Tor Arntsen wrote:

I did an strace and I can confirm that the Linux 'whois' client that I
used from those various sites sends '-T dn' (or actually -T dn,ace)

  write(3, "-T dn,ace uni-stuttgart.de\r\n", 28) = 28

I can't see where this whois originates from, it has version number
'5.2.'. Its man page refers to RFC 3912, but RFC 3912 says
nothing about -T.  RFC 3912's single example wouldn't have worked in
this case. So I wonder what replaced RFC 3912, and why there's a
mismatch between documentation and functionality.


I did a little research on that:
The '-T' option is passed to the whois server, it's not a client option. 
Intelligent or modern clients know what options to pass to the appropriate 
server, in this case '-T dn' to the DENIC whois server.
This option is completely legal and was introduced at DENIC in an attempt 
to better protect the domain holder's privacy (you know, different 
country, different rules). This was many years ago, but it's still there.
RFC 3912 doesn't specify what output the whois server is supposed to send. 
Everybody "assumes" that it should be the complete domain information, but 
that's simply not the case.
Imposing this assumption is what Mouse does, and that is wrong. Heck, I 
could even have a whois server that tells me the current weather forecast 
for a specific request ;-) It is a minimalistic directory service, nothing 
more.


Christian

Re: I hate the new mail system

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 6 Mar 2017, Mouse wrote:

Only if you don't bother editing it down to whichever address you want
to reply to (as I did for this message).  If your user agent doesn't
let you do that, well, your choice of a crippled user agent (and an
inability to edit the list of recipients is a pretty serious failing
for a user agent) is not reason to mangle the list even further for
everyone else.


You know how to see what user agent I use (hint: alpine). And it is fully 
capable of editing or changing anything I want.



This is *wrong* and must be corrected (i.e. removed)!


I disagree.


I disagree with your disagreement.


For one thing, that is one of only two places the actual sender's
address appears anywhere in the headers, based on the mail I'm replying
to (and the other one is in a Received: comment, even less available to
user agents and not present unless the sending mailsystem happens to
add it).


Yes, and it must not be in the Reply-To: field because in normal cases, 
this field is the one used for replying, and I want to reply to the 
list, and only to the list. If I want to reply personally, I override the 
default and take the From: address instead. That's how it should work.
For example, alpine ask me "Use "Reply-To:" address instead of "From:" 
address?" and defaults to "yes" because the former field has a higher 
priority.
A compromise would be to have just the sender's address in the header 
field, not with a second recipient cctalk@...



No, the Envelope-From: [...]


The envelope-from is not a header and in general does not have a name


Ehm, right ;-)


with a colon after it.  (Your user agent, or possibly your mail store,


Don't blame my user agent, I'm fond of it ;-) It was just my fault.


As I understand it, the attempt to "fix" the suspended-subscription
"problem" has nothing to do with where the bounces are going, but
rather with their being produced in the first place.  As far as I have

[...]

Yes, it is, well, funny... I haven't been able to figure out what the 
problem could be. I know that in my case, I've never had any bounce 
problem with this list, although the mail gateway and server on my side 
are quite picky. BTW over here, legally it is not allowed to reject spam 
mails.


Christian

PS: Replying to "Mouse " is somehow weird...

Re: I hate the new mail system

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 6 Mar 2017, Mouse wrote:

Yes, and it must not be in the Reply-To: field because in normal
cases, this field is the one used for replying, and I want to reply
to the list, and only to the list.


...that's sure what this sounds like.  If so, I have little sympathy
for your position.


So you say the Reply-To: field is to be ignored although in all other 
contexts it is preferred over the From: field. Say what you want, I don't 
understand that.


Quotes from RFC 5322:
"
   The "From:" field specifies the author(s) of the message,
   that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s) or system(s) responsible
   for the writing of the message.
[...]
   The originator fields also provide the information required when
   replying to a message.  When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it
   indicates the address(es) to which the author of the message suggests
   that replies be sent.  In the absence of the "Reply-To:" field,
   replies SHOULD by default be sent to the mailbox(es) specified in the
   "From:" field unless otherwise specified by the person composing the
   reply.

   In all cases, the "From:" field *SHOULD NOT* contain any mailbox that
   does not belong to the author(s) of the message.  See also section
   3.6.3 for more information on forming the destination addresses for a
   reply.
"

And cctalk@... is neither responsible for the writing of the message nor 
does it belong to the author of the message. But replies should be 
directed there, so there should be a Reply-To: field containing cctalk@... 
and the From: field should contain the author's address.


EOD from my part ;-)

Christian

Re: I hate the new mail system

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 6 Mar 2017, Mouse wrote:
[...]

And BTW, what you are doing is not clever at all:
  mo...@rodents-montreal.org
SMTP error from remote mail server after initial connection:
host MX-4.rodents-montreal.org [98.124.61.89]:
550-.de's whois server, whois.denic.de, is completely broken, handing
550-out no contact information at all when queried for .de domains in
550 the usual way.  Such a domain has no place on a civilized network.

This is just wrong. Of course they hand out contact information!
Sorry, I had to post it here since I cannot contact you directly.

Christian

Re: I hate the new mail system

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2017, Pete Turnbull wrote:

No, Mouse is right, it's broken:


Works for me (also from different networks outside the university 
network):


# whois uni-stuttgart.de
% Copyright (c) 2010 by DENIC
% Version: 2.0
%
% Restricted rights.
%
% Terms and Conditions of Use
%
% The data in this record is provided by DENIC for informational purposes only.
% DENIC does not guarantee its accuracy and cannot, under any circumstances,
[...]
Domain: uni-stuttgart.de
Nserver: dns0.uni-stuttgart.de 129.69.0.1 2001:7c0:7c0:0:0:0:babe:face
Nserver: dns1.belwue.de
Nserver: dns1.uni-stuttgart.edu
Nserver: dns3.belwue.de
Nserver: minnehaha.rhrk.uni-kl.de
[...]


Christian

Re: I hate the new mail system

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sat, 4 Mar 2017, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:

The whole "foo via cctalk" is *really* annoying...  What is wrong with
a half default mailman setup?  There is no Reply-To header there, From
is set to the person actually sending the message (as it should be).


Yes, that is most annoying. My complaint (and I guess many more from other 
users will follow) is, that if you reply to a message on the list, the 
author of that message gets a private mail, too, as he is listed in the 
Reply-To:-field. This is *wrong* and must be corrected (i.e. removed)!
(BTW this reply to Alfed's mail is to one sent to me privately because of 
that error).



And all the bounce addresses are set to
cctalk-bounces+foo=b...@classiccmp.org where foo=bar is the user
sending the message.


No, the Envelope-From: only has "cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org", there's 
no "+foo=bar" in it.
And yes, the change in the address fields don't cure the bounce problem 
because the envelope from field is unchanged (and *that* field is used for 
bounces, not the header fields *within* the mail).


Christian

Re: Supercomputers, fishing for information

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 3 Apr 2017, Chuck Guzis wrote:

I'm probably showing my age (again), but "QIC" and "Supercomputers" just
seems to be about as related as "Chateau Margaux" and "Cheez Whiz".

If one is spending millions on a supercomputer, why would anyone want to
put software for it on a QIC cart?


Well, I have two larger boxes filled with QIC tapes for our former NEC 
SX-4 (the original SW distribution and all patches, updates, etc.).


Christian

Re: Remex Tape Reader - Pre-power up advice?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 17 Apr 2017, Rod Smallwood wrote:

There are what appear to be 1976 date codes on some caps.

If its that old then replace all and any electrolytic capacitors plus any 
paper based caps.


If they aint bad now they soon will be.


*shaking head*

Sorry, this is just a plain dumb answer. If they are good now, they 
probably will be good in 10 years, too. We never change any caps just 
because of their age.


I suggest: check for electrical safety, then plug it in and try it; after 
all, it's "just" a tape reader with a simple PSU, not a 50s era mainframe.
It will just work, I guess. If there should be a problem with those "big 
caps", you'll see it. But it's much faster and easier to test them 
beforehand (i.e. short or no short) than to foolishly replace everything.


Christian

bitsavers rsync server down

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

Hi,

for those who wonder why our mirror at
 bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de
is outdated:
The reason is that the main rsync server is down/unavailable since March, 
11. I've already contacted Al several days ago but haven't got any 
response yet.


Christian

Re: Cleaning a board slightly oxydized ??

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sun, 30 Jul 2017, Alexandre Souza wrote:

Light green? Was it battery electrolyte? Wash it with vinegar (yes,
vinegar) and after, wash with a good detergent and warm water.


No, *not* vinegar. Use citric acid. You don't want to force the formation 
of copper acetate.


Christian

Re: Sperry UTS 40 on Ebay - Statesboro, Georgia

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 1 Aug 2017, Al Kossow wrote:
They canceled my order as well, just after sending me a message 
wondering if I wanted the keyboard


And this is not illegal in the US? It is here.

Christian

Re: 2.11BSD on two RL02 drives? Probably not, but...

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 3 Aug 2017, emanuel stiebler wrote:

On 2017-08-03 11:12, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
It would be nice, though if someone just finished a MSCP controller with a 
CF or SD on it.


I don't think there is enough demand for it. So to finish it would take some 
effort, and the boards wouldn't be cheaper than the SCSI controllers out 
there (CMD, Emulex, etc).


I don't like the idea of CF or SD at all. I'd pretty much prefer PATA or 
SATA, because ...



However, it would be nice to get rid of the noise of rotating rust ;-)


... I have tons of PATA and SATA drives. Real drives are also much more 
reliable than flash drives, and the noise isn't an issue at all. Modern 
drives just don't make any noise when used in a PDP-11 (or whatever 
UNIBUS or QBUS system) ;-)


BTW the problem with Fujitsu Eagle SMD drives is that they need a complete 
lowlevel format from time to time. *All* Eagle drives I have, have 
developed bad sectors that can't be read without errors even with 
microstepping and other tricks.


Christian

Re: Disk imaging with IMD - question

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 10 Aug 2017, camiel.vanderhoeven--- via cctalk wrote:
My workhorse 8" drives are some Ye-Data half-height ones. I still have about 
a dozen of them as NOS. I believe they were made in 1993.


If you mean the Y-E DATA YD-180, well, they are QumeTrack 242 ;-)

Christian

Re: Disk imaging with IMD - question

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 9 Aug 2017, Chuck Guzis wrote:

I'll try again--it doesn't matter if the Qume 242 (I've got one) is a
DSDD drive if you're using SS media.  Peek inside the drive and you'll
see that there are *two* index sensors--one for single-sided and the
other for double-sided media.  Unless you've got a hole punch handy, you
can't format single-sided media to use both sides.


That really depends on the drive. Ok, I think the Qume is "smart" enough 
to inhibit any write to side 1 on a SS media. But OTOH, many other drives 
are just happy doing anything that you request (e.g. the BASF drives I 
also use).


Oh BTW, speaking of Qume 242: this is the drive I have currently attached 
to my PC (running Linux) and that I use with my TI development board for 
doing flux level images. This drive *can't* handle hard sectored disks!

Unless... (yeah, there's a way) you do the following:
- remove jumper C (HEAD LOAD input)
- install jumper D (IN USE input)
- connect the left pin of jumper C (HEAD LOAD input) to the top pin of
  jumper HA (going to pin 10 of IC 2G)
You need to issue DRIVE SELECT *and* HEAD LOAD *and* IN USE to access the 
drive.


Christian

Re: Disk imaging with IMD - question

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 9 Aug 2017, Richard Cini wrote:

Will do. These 242 drives are NOS and I have several. I'll swap them too.


One more note about QumeTrack 242 drives:
I have the problem that the head load is very sticky (on both of my 
drives). I had to clean and oil it to make it working again. But still, if 
the drive is unused for a couple of days, it needs some tries before it 
will correctly load the heads.


Christian

Re: IBM 5110 - Where does the character set live? And other questions.

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 11 Jul 2017, Santo Nucifora wrote:

I might have some better documentation that I just haven't had a chance to
scan yet.

[...]

5110 System Library Binder 1
SY31-0550-2 IBM 5110 Computer Maintenance Information Manual
SY31-0551-0 IBM 5114 Diskette Unit Maintenance Information Manual
SY31-0414-3 IBM 5103 Printer Maintenance Information Manual
SY31-0581-0 IBM 5110 Language Support Maintenance Information Manual
S131-0627-1 IBM 5110 Computer Parts Catalog
S131-0626-0 IBM 5114 Diskette Unit Parts Catalog
S131-0598-3 IBM 5103 Printer Parts Catalog
SY31-0553-1 IBM 5110 Maintenance Analysis Procedures

5110 System Library Binder 2
GA21-9300-0 IBM 5110 General Information and Physical Planning Manual
SA21-9311-0 IBM 5110 Customer Support Functions Reference Manual
SA21-9308-1 IBM 5110 BASIC Reference Manual

5110 System Library Binder 3
SA21-9306-0 IBM 5110 BASIC Introduction
SA21-9307-1 IBM 5110 BASIC User's Guide
SA21-9318-0 IBM 5110 Computing System Setup Procedure


This is more or less the complete manual set that I have, too. I also have 
the manuals for the Async/Serial I/O adapter and *maybe* the IEEE adapter.


The scans I made are quite old; I do have a much better scanner now so I 
could just rescan the manuals for better quality.


Christian

Re: IBM 5110 - Where does the character set live? And other questions.

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 11 Jul 2017, Robert wrote:

So, faulty support logic, rather than a faulty ROS. That's encouraging.


I hope this is also true in your case. According to your picture, the last 
column of each character is missing. It could be an issue around the shift 
register (e.g. the Display Data register, a latch, cold solder joint, 
...). I just see that I have the following info on my site (didn't 
remember that detail ;-) ):
"The 8 bit wide characters are stored as a pattern of seven different bits 
followed by a 0-bit in a 2048x16 display ROS (character generator). These 
8 bits are loaded along with two 0 padding bits into a 10 bit shift 
register. The address of the 8 bit pattern is based on the Display Data 
register that contains the current character and the character row counter 
that counts the current display row within a character."


Christian

Re: IBM 5110 - Where does the character set live? And other questions.

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 12 Jul 2017, Christian Corti wrote:
The scans I made are quite old; I do have a much better scanner now so I 
could just rescan the manuals for better quality.


Ok, I've added the 5114 MIM, and also added some pages of the System Logic 
Manual, including the Display Adapter and the 5114 drive. I will scan the 
other pages but it can take some time because the pages are very large and 
I need to scan them in slices.


Christian

Re: IBM 5110 - Where does the character set live? And other questions.

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 10 Jul 2017, Robert wrote:

It's always the same characters that are mangled and it's independent
of their position on the screen, so I suspect possible corruption in
the character set, wherever in ROS or the display card it is held.


The characters are stored on the display interface card. I had a similar 
fault in one of my 5110s, in my case it was a faulty TTL chip (IIRC a 
74159 demux).



to the printer, but I think the print head is gummed up.


You have to a) clean the print head and b) replace the rubber rollers that 
transport the ink ribbon. The rollers will be goo and make a "big 
mess"(tm).



2. Can anybody direct me to a pdf copy of the user manual and/or the
service manual for the 5103?


Your search engine's broken, right? ;-)
They're either on my site or at bitsavers.


Here's a link to my thread on the VCF, with pictures:
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?58583-IBM-5110-with-5114-drive-amp-5103-printer=467901#post467901


I can't see any pictures, and _no_, I won't register just to see the 
pictures.


Christian

Re: IBM 5110 - Where does the character set live? And other questions.

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 11 Jul 2017, Robert wrote:

maintenance manual and that for the 5103. No luck on the 5114, yet,
but I'll keep looking.


Ok, I will scan that manual the next days. But in general the contents of 
the 5114 MIM is contained withing the 5120 MIM.


Christian

NCR terminal

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

I have an NCR labelled ADDS 2020 terminal that emulates the NCR 7930 and 
7901. Has anyone a manual for those NCR terminals that describes the 
control sequences? OTOH a firmware dump of the ANSI firmware for the 2020 
would be fine, too.


Christian

Diehl Combitron

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

Hi,
I want to share the latest result of a bachelor thesis in our museum. We 
are now able to program and load arbitrary machine programs and run them 
on the Combitron. As a proof-of-concept, the student wrote an hommage to 
Stanley Frankel, the designer of the CPU, by writing a boot tape that in 
the end, fills the M delay line with data that is displayed on a scope, 
triggering to the beginning of a 110 bit word.


http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pics/combitron/sf1.jpg
http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pics/combitron/sf2.jpg

Christian

RE: tape baking

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 3 Jul 2017, Rob Jarratt wrote:
All I could do was prop open the tape door with a paper clip. 45C in my 
fan oven worked for me. 55C in my oven seemed to mostly demagnetise the 
tape. Other ovens may be different, so it is best to experiment with 
something that doesn't matter.


You can not demagnetize tapes at 55°C, that must be another effect, like 
crosstalk (which is an issue, especially with audio tapes) or something 
like that.


Christian

Re: 2.11BSD on two RL02 drives? Probably not, but...

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2017, Guy Sotomayor Jr wrote:
Unfortunately PATA drives are becoming difficult to find and designing a 
SATA interface (not to mention layout issues) is not for the faint of 
heart.


That's why I suggest using dirt cheap external PATA<-->SATA bridges.

Christian

Re: IBM 5280

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2017, Sam O'nella wrote:

What are the 4 games?


SPIEL1: Vier in einer Reihe
SPIEL2: Lebenserwartung
SPIEL3: Roulette
SPIEL4: Kopfnuss (Superhirn)

Christian

Re: ftp.compaq.com mirror

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 8 Aug 2017, Adrian Graham wrote:
of the whole ftp site but it?s 220gb and I?m not sure my little 150mb/s 
web connection will download that in less than a month :)


You should think about the proper usage of units...

If "gb" is gigabytes, then "mb" is megabytes. With a 150 megabytes/s link 
downloading the whole archive should be very comfortable. OTOH if "mb" is 
megabits, then with 220 gigabits, it isn't that a huge archive.
In addition to that, "m" (minuscule M) stands for "milli", "M" 
(majuscule M) stands for "mega" and "G" for giga, so 150mb/s would be 150 
millibytes/second. Oh yes, "bytes" is abbreviated with a majuscule B.

==> 220 GB, 150 Mbits/s

;-)

Christian

Re: Sperry UTS 40 on Ebay - Statesboro, Georgia

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 2 Aug 2017, jim stephens wrote:
Legal / illegal and ebay in the same sentence doesn't make sense. They only 
want to make money, and don't care about either sellers or buyers.


Thanks god that I am not in the US, because here, even eBay has to follow 
local legislation. Or in other words, we have consumer rights, and a 
finished auction with bids implies a valid contract (between seller and 
buyer) that must be fulfilled, *even* in the case the seller cancels the 
auction with active bids (expect in cases where e.g. the matter was stolen 
etc.) . Best example is the case of one seller who deliberately put up an 
auction for a car with a starting bid of 1 Euro. He didn't want to accept 
the (only) bid at that price but instead, insisted on a much higher value. 
He (the seller) was convicted to pay the difference (several thousand 
euros) to the buyer because the sole fact that he put up the car at that 
low price doesn't voids the auction. On the contrary, it is the spirit and 
purpose of an auction to make a bargain (on the buyer's side) or to 
realize a higher price (for the seller).


Christian

Re: WTB: RX02 Floppy Disks

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 2 Aug 2017, Al Kossow wrote:
There is no way to low-level format disks on a DEC RX01 or RX02. The 
hardware doesn't support it in the controller inside the DEC disk drive. 
DEC expected you to buy media from them.


Not really. You can use any standard 3740 formatted disk (i.e. 26 
sectors/track, 128 bytes/sector, 77 tracks, FM) and change it to RX02 
formatting in an RX02 drive with

.FORMAT DY0:
or change it back to RX01 with
.FORMAT/SINGLEDENSITY DY0:

In both cases you need to
.INIT/BAD DY0:
to create the directory.

You could also clone a formatted double-density disks with a flux-level 
reader/writer board.


Only a /slight/ overkill...

Christian

IBM 5280

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

So, we've got an IBM 5285 (5280 series) programmable data station. This is 
a *heavy* and nice beast ;-) Its architecture is a bit unusual but 
interesting. Problem is, I don't have any software for it expect one disk 
that IPLs and that contains four more or less crappy games.

(can be found at ftp://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/ibm/ibm5285/)

I would be very thankful for any disk images for that system, especially 
the diagnostics, utilities and SCP, but also the assembler and other 
languages.


Christian

Re: 2.11BSD on two RL02 drives? Probably not, but...

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2017, Al Kossow wrote:

Can you actually buy SATA PHYs in small quantities now
or even SATA to PATA bridges?


I would go for a cheap external bridge, something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008X8NK0I
http://www.dx.com/en/p/jm20330-2-5-3-5-sata-to-40-pin-ide-adapter-card-green-black-241466

They are small and just work. There are also ones that can do both 
directions (switchable).


Christian

Re: 2.11BSD on two RL02 drives? Probably not, but...

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2017, Noel Chiappa wrote:

But are SD cards really that unreliable? If they were, I'd have thought I'd


Yes they are. Just have look around in the world of cameras and 
smartphones where people suffer from losing their photos just because an 
SD card decides to fail. I have several failed SD and CF cards, as well as 
USB bars. And many flash cards will fall into a read-only mode when errors 
cannot be corrected anymore, in contrast to real disk drives where you can 
skip the bad areas.


I just had a look on some datasheets for industrial SD cards. ATP gives a 
value of 384 TBW (terabytes written) for SLC and 38.4 TBW for MLC devices. 
For a 32 GB SD card, this means a max. write count of 12,000 for a byte. 
SanDisk give 192 TBW for their Industrial XT, that is even worse. A 64 GB 
SD card would only support 3000 writes per byte before you begin to 
play roulette...


S... here I come again with my preference of PATA/SATA drives. If you 
really want a non-rotating media, then I suggest that you use SATA SSDs.

Hence why I prefer a controller/interface with PATA/SATA connectors ;-)
You are totally free in using rotating or non-rotating media.

Christian

Re: 2.11BSD on two RL02 drives? Probably not, but...

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2017, Paul Koning wrote:
On Aug 4, 2017, at 4:14 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk 
<cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: I don't like the idea of CF or SD at 
all. I'd pretty much prefer PATA or SATA, because ...


CF is PATA, just a different connector.


If the board provides a PATA connector, I'm fine. Then you can choose 
between a CF card and a hard disk. The same applies to SATA (SSD vs. hard 
disk).


Christian

Re: rectangular sense core vs. diagonal

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 7 Jun 2017, Paul Koning wrote:

How is ECS constructed?   I fooled with a lot of it back in the day, but
never got a good look at the core planes.


I'd love to know.  I never saw the insides of ECS.  There are some 
documents on Bitsavers but none that I have seen show the ECS memory 
subsystem itself, certainly not at the circuit level.


I got two ECS modules, I put pictures of them on my FB album. I've 
also put them on our server right now, at

ftp://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/cdc/ecs/

The core planes are *huge*, about 4000cm² !

Christian

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
would preclude this.  I did it on a SYS III Xenix clone).  BSD 2.11 
should run fine on a 34 or 23 and there is always Ultrix-11 which I have


No, it doesn't. 2.9BSD, yes, but not 2.11BSD as it requires split I/D and 
more than 128 kwords of memory.


Christian

Re: RL02 to image file

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 1 Jun 2017, Jay Jaeger wrote:

On 6/1/2017 12:12 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:

On Thu, Jun 1, 2017 at 7:59 AM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk
 wrote:

I can.  I use a DR11 parallel port on an 11/24 to transfer the files.


Interesting.  I'd like to see how you tackled that (I can imagine
wanting a couple of layers of integrity-checking, for one).



It uses a simple 8 but parallel bus-like fully interlocked protocol,
byte by byte.  The send side raises a data available bit, the receiver
grabs it, then raises an acknowledge.  The sender then drops the
available, and then waits until the receiver drops the acknowledge.

[...]

I have a similar setup, a DR11 in a 11/34. It is more or less directly
connected to a bidirectional parallel port on a PC that runs a small
server written with eRTOS (DOS based), for the PDP side I have written a
full RT11 driver, so I can do things like COPY/DEV/FILE and even boot from
an image over the DR11. The transfer rate is about 75 kb/s.

Christian

Re: RC11 manuals / schematics online?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2017, Jay Jaeger wrote:

Yes, I am doing the drawings at 600DPI, including the drawings that
reside inside a couple of the maintenance manuals (but 400DPI for the
text, etc.)


Please do *everything* at 600dpi, disk space and file sizes for such 
documents don't matter these days, especially as it won't be a big 
difference between 400 and 600 dpi.


Christian

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, Lyle Bickley wrote:

I run BSD 2.9 on my 11/34C (w/max. mem.) & DZ using (2) RL02s with up to
three TTY sessions. It's a bit "sluggish" (by today's standards). TSX


I have a similar setup with our 11/34. 2.9BSD on one RL01 as root/swap, 
the rest (/usr etc.) on a RA80 (with the backported MSCP driver); also a 
couple of TTY lines. It's not the fastest system, and the kernel uses 
overlays like crazy ;-) But hey, it runs...
I still have to add the cache and FPP boards and see how that improves the 
performance.


Christian

Re: Rainbow Disk Imager

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 14 Sep 2017, Warner Losh wrote:

On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 4:05 PM, Fred Cisin  wrote:

On the IBM PC/AT (5170) with 1.2M, admittedly the only one that is easily
readily available, there is trivial software tweaking required to
format/write "720K"/"quad" density, instead of "high" density: 300 bps with
single speed (360RPM) drive; 300 RPM/low density for dual speed drive.


No. But I don't know what you mean with software tewaking.


You need hardware tweaks as well to make the drives compatible.  Otherwise
the recording strength is too high.


No. Guess why there's the /HD input on the 5¼" drive...


The problem is people try to write RX-50 media with the HD drives. The
difference in recording strength causes many of the retention issues. It
works better when you write with the IBM drive with HD media.  This may
also be drive specific, as the different drive makers have had different
levels of competence with the old standards...


No. The floppy controller switches the recording density (and thus the 
write current) with the /HD line on pin 2 of the 34 pin Shugart bus.


Christian

Re: HP 2108A key

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 21 Sep 2017, Sam O'nella wrote:
Should be easy but my mobile google fu is failing. Didn't Jay and a few 
others know if a vintage computer key database/site somewhere? Would 
that possibly have or benefit from getting afterwards? null


Ok, I went into our storage and made some pics:
http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dev_en/hp1000/keys.html

In total, there are three different keys used on the 21MX, 1000M and 
1000E/F.


Christian

Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 4 Oct 2017, Guy Sotomayor Jr wrote:
Also, the early desktop PS/2 (model 50 and such) had the controller 
integrated on the drive and those were Maxtor as I recall.  The PS/2 
shipped in 1987 and we had the drives in labs at least 12-18 months 
prior (memory is dim on this right now).


No. The IBM 8550 has the controller on a special card and the drive had a 
PCB edge that inserted into the PCB connector on the side of the 
controller. The 8550-021 used a 20MB IBM WD-325N disk drive (P/N 90X6806). 
The controller is a ST-506 type MFM controller (with DMA, so it rocks with 
a sustained data rate of above 500kB/s!). My father upgraded the system 
with a standard Rhodime 50MB MFM drive. There was a purely passive adapter 
that split the card edge connector into the normal 20+34 pin connectors 
plus power. I still have that system and drive :-)


Christian

Re: That Tek 405x QIC Tape.

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 3 Oct 2017, Al Kossow wrote:
As far as I know, no one has successfully made a copy of a Tek cartridge 
tape in an image format. The tapes use two tracks, one for clock and one 
for data. Encoding beyond that has not been determined. I still have


I can backup Tek405x tapes. Our 4051 has a very featurerich ROM extension 
called COMBI ROM and a RAM back pack used to load the COMBI ROM from tape 
into RAM and use that as an extension ROM.
This COMBI ROM can not only access tape records directly (they are 256 
bytes records), but it also handles CBM floppy disk drives (e.g. 8050) 
attached to the GPIB.
I've written a BASIC program that reads all tape files and stores them 1:1 
as disk files on a floppy. This is not truly the same as imaging a tape 
cartridge, but it is better than nothing ;-) AFAIK there is no additional 
metadata other than the tape file header (read with CALL "HEADER", 
file number [,header string]). The tape records are read with CALL 
"TREAD", string variable.


Christian

Re: Diablo 31 air filters / plugs ?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sun, 8 Oct 2017, Tony Duell wrote:
The Diablo positioner is strange. For one thing it is a permanent magnet 
motor and rack-and-pinion mechanism (!). But the important thing here is 
that the heads are loaded to the platter by a solenoid. Not by loading 
ramps like in an RK05. So even if the heads move out from the home 
position they will not touch (and will not touch a disk if one is in the 
drive).


Interesting... exactly as in the IBM 2310.

Christian

Re: Bridge Communication Unibus Ethernet board?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 30 Aug 2017, Mattis Lind wrote:
[...]

Does anyone have more info about this (dusty) board:

[...]

It says IECU. I wonder if that is some kind of product name? The copyright
in the etch is 1984 but the chips are mostly from 1985 or 1986.


Hmm, we have several Bridge CS/1 terminal servers. Maybe your board is an 
integraded terminal server to telnet into virtual serial ports or to 
connect to telnet ports via emulated serial lines. I'm thinking of 
something like a DZ11 on the host side and ethernet/telnet on the other 
side, all on one board. IECU may stand for "integrated ethernet 
communications unit".


Christian

Re: Reviving ancient MFM drives (was Re: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC)

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 28 Sep 2017, Geoffrey Oltmans wrote:

Speaking of I've got a couple of old MFM drives (10 and 20 MB of a
variety whose name and model #'s escape me, I wanna say Tandon, but not
sure). They seem to work fine when I initially format and partition, but as
they run for a while, they get more and more unreliable. It seems to be a
function of how long they've been running for rather than a predictable
pattern of bad tracks sectors? Are there any good sources of
troubleshooting info at the controller level for these old drives?


Well, that's normal. The usual procedure is to let the drive warm up for 
10-20 minutes before formatting. And it is also normal for some models 
that they must be reformatted after, say, a couple of months or years, 
depending on make and manufacturer. The Rhodime 50MB drive in my IBM 8550 
is such a beast. My procedure is to run Norton CALIBRAT to reformat the 
drive losslessly.


Christian

Re: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 28 Sep 2017, Chuck Guzis wrote:

"Low level format" is pretty much a relic of the old non-servo MFM
drives.   I recall that early Maxtor IDE drives implemented a LLF


Lowlevel formatting has to be done for *all* ST-506 interface drives (e.g. 
"MFM" and "RLL" drives). It is the disk controller that needs to write its 
sector and track layout to the drive (ID marks, data marks, GAPs, CRC, ECC 
and so on). This is also true for SMD drives, for example. So it didn't 
make much sense in selling preformatted drives until when disk drives
exposed only the disk blocks to the host. Whether a drives uses servo 
information or not is irrelevant. I don't consider writing servo 
information as lowlevel formatting.


Christian

Re: DCC-116 E / DATA GENERAL NOVA 2/10 / Nixdorf 620 - Restoring and restarting

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sat, 26 Aug 2017, Dominique Carlier wrote:
I have temporarily replaced the 2N6471 by an approaching equivalent, I makes 
the settings to get very exactly + 5V on both outputs and the machine 
restarted, finally! YES !! :-)

[...]
then 02, 03 !! 04 !!! 05 !! And then ... nothing, and since it got worse, 
it did not pass the stage 02. Now it crashes from the beginning, nothing on 
the screen. Is my disk pack damaged? :-/


Please measure the voltages on the boards (like pin 14 of some standard 
TTL IC). Usually there's a non-negligible voltage drop between the PS 
output and the logic caused by the inevitable resistance of the 
connectors. It is entirely possible that the disk controller behaves 
erratically when powered with e.g. 4.7V instead of 5V.


Christian

Re: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 26 Sep 2017, emanuel stiebler wrote:

So, what is the best(?) or easiest piece of software,
to format the drives, check for bad blocks, etc.?


I like the "CMS Fixed Disk Diagnostics" very much, the file is FDIAG.COM
It can be found here:
ftp://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/utils/FDIAG.COM

Christian

Re: Cloning A Hard Disk Over The Network Using Ultrix

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sat, 21 Oct 2017, Rob Jarratt wrote:


I have a couple of hard disks I want to make dd copies of. I have Ultrix
running on my DECstation 5000/240 with the disk I want to clone attached to
it. The trouble is that I don't have enough disk space on the machine to
clone the disk and then grab the image using FTP. I have been trying to find
a way to pipe the dd output over the network to a SIMH Ultrix machine that
has plenty of disk space. I tried piping dd into rcp, but rcp doesn't seem
to take input from standard input. I have looked at cpio, but that too
appears not to accept input from standard input.


You don't use rcp but rsh (or ssh), for example:
# dd if=/dev/... bs=32768 conv=noerror,sync | rsh otherhost "cat >/dest/path"

You should use a bigger blocksize than the default of 512 bytes, otherwise 
reading will be quite slow...


Or (my preferred way under UNIX), just mount a remote filesystem via NFS 
;-)


Christian

Re: Pine (was: Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 17, Issue 20)

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 23 Oct 2017, Richard Loken wrote:

By gum!  Alpine does indeed translate the 'A' into a '?' and I never
noticed.


I'm using Alpine, too, and have no problems with the à or any other 
foreign character. I'm not even using UTF-8 but plain ISO-8859-1 in my 
terminal.
But it's important to set "Display Character Set" and "Unknown Character 
Set" in Alpine's settings! Otherwise you'll see '?' for all non-ASCII 
characters.


Christian

Re: WTB: HP-85 16k RAM Module and HPIB Floppy Drive

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2017, Mark J. Blair via cctalk wrote:

No, the 9122C model has two 1.44M drives. HP made several earlier 3.5"


No, the 9122C has two high-density, two-sided 80 cylinder drives. A drive 
has no capacity, this is the function of the on-disk format.

;-)

Christian

Re: tumble tiff to pdf converter

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 20 Dec 2017, jim stephens wrote:
and the like that are included in the current system as installed, and there 
are problems now with the tumble_pbm.c code parameters (line 237 
specifically).


Huh?
# wc -l tumble_pbm.c
231 tumble_pbm.c

This is the last known version (part of tumble 0.33 from 2003):
 * $Id: tumble_pbm.c,v 1.1 2003/04/10 00:47:30 eric Exp $

Christian

Re: tumble tiff to pdf converter

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 20 Dec 2017, Christian Corti wrote:

Huh?
# wc -l tumble_pbm.c
231 tumble_pbm.c

This is the last known version (part of tumble 0.33 from 2003):
* $Id: tumble_pbm.c,v 1.1 2003/04/10 00:47:30 eric Exp $


Ok, I see, whoever changed tumble as found on github forgot to 
change all version numbers, to update the README and many things more :-(


But anyway, it compiles happily with two modifications in tumble_pbm.c:
- add the following line in front of the first include statement:
#define HAVE_BOOL
- change the following line from
#include 
  to
#include 

# ./tumble
fatal error: either a control file or an output file (but not both) must 
be specified


tumble version 0.35 - Copyright 2001-2003 Eric Smith 
http://tumble.brouhaha.com/

usage:
./tumble [options] -c 
./tumble [options] ... -o 
./tumble -V
options:
-vverbose
-b   create bookmarks
-Vprint program version
bookmark format:
%F  file name (sans suffix)
%p  page number


# gcc --version
gcc (Debian 7.2.0-16) 7.2.0
Copyright (C) 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR 
PURPOSE.


Christian

Re: Playing with HP2640B

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 16 Nov 2017, CuriousMarc wrote:
What did you do for the screen mold? Hot wire method to separate CRT 
from implosion window? Put the CRT in a hot water bath? Chip at the 
glue? Marc


What we did on one of our 2645 terminals was the hot wire method. We then 
attached the "implosion" window to the inner of the case.


BTW is it really an implosion protection? I don't think so because since 
the 60s, practically all CRTs have a so-called "integral implosion 
protection" (thick glass on the front and metal band around the edge). I 
think it is just an anti-glare filter glass. OTOH American CRTs may be 
completely different in this aspect compared to European ones.


Christian

Re: Playing with HP2640B

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017, David Collins wrote:

Christian do you know the gauge of the wire you used ? And the current?


It was a wire for cutting polystyrene blocks. The current was a fews 
amperes, I think, driven off a bench power supply.


Christian

Signetics TWIN

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

Hi,
do hardware manuals for the TWIN exist? And does any other TWIN system 
exist? It seems it is a completely forgotten and lost development system.


Christian

Re: Drive capacity names (Was: WTB: HP-85 16k RAM Module and HPIB Floppy Drive

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 15 Nov 2017, Fred Cisin wrote:

On Wed, 15 Nov 2017, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:
No, the 9122C has two high-density, two-sided 80 cylinder drives. A drive 
has no capacity, this is the function of the on-disk format.

;-)


"high-density" is even more meaningless than referring to them by their 
capacity in a given format.  It is a BOGUS marketing term!

[...]

Fred, you should know by now that you don't need to tell *me* the 
correct definitions and terms.
And with "high-density", I didn't mean the media capacity but the analog 
recording aspects like coercivity, write current, frequency and so on.


configurations that result in the same final capacities, it is generally 
accepted as to WHICH kind of drive/controller configuration is meant by each 
of those names."400K" generally means Macintosh single sided, not DEC 
Rainbow, etc.


I disagree, that is not generally accepted, at least not any more, and 
this is good!


Unformatted capacity would be a more correct nomenclature, although not 
always precise, and relatively meaningless to the majority of users, who 
didn't CARE except for how much space was available to them.   Formatted 
capacity is generally between 40 and 60 percent of unformatted capacity.


Unformatted capacity doesn't tell you much without reference to the 
recording layout, i.e. no. of tracks, modulation, frequency and so on.



Some specifications:
8" FM "Single Density" was 360 RPM at 250,000 bits per second. (about 500K 
unformatted per side)


8" MFM "Double Density" was 360 RPM at 500,000 bits per second.  (about 1M 
unformatted per side)


I beg to differ. The raw bit rate is about the same. With FM, you have a
500kbits/s raw bit rate but half of the bits are clock bits. It is 
effectively the same density.


5.25" MFM "High Density" was 360 RPM at 500,000 bits per second. (about 1M 
unformatted per side)


What about 5¼" FM "High Density" at 360 RPM?

3.5" MFM "High Density" (sometimes called "1.44M", due to the most common 
formsat being 1.41 Mebibytes, or 1.44 of a unit of 1000*1024 bytes), were 300 
RPM at 500,000 bits per second.  (1M unformatted per side)


The Amiga (more exactly, the "HD" Chinon FZ-357A drives used in Amigas) 
switched to 150 RPM to keep the raw bit rate at 250kbits/s.


3.5" MFM "ED" (vertical recording?/barrium ferrite) were 300 RPM at 1,000,000 
bits per second.  (2M unformatted per side)  NeXT referred to theirs by the 
unformatted capacity: 4M, further confusing their users.


What about FM?

Your list just mixes two aspects that are not strictly correlated, 
raw recording density (bit rate) and data modulation (e.g. FM, MFM).



Can you name another 20 exceptions?   (Chuck and Tony probably can)


Do you want me to start with things like 100tpi drives, GCR, M²FM, 
hard-sectored and other crazy formats?


Just accept that I am not as dumb as you may think.

Christian

Re: HP 2640 character set generation manual in the UK

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Fri, 3 Nov 2017, CuriousMarc wrote:

The link below is from the computer museum in Cambridge, UK, which seems to
have a copy of an HP 2640 terminal manual I am looking for. Is anyone from
that museum on the list? Does any of the UK members know them?
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/14373/HP-2640-Series-Character-Set-Ge
neration/

Does anyone on the list have a copy of this manual?


I not only have a copy, I have the original of the manual (along with tons 
of other stuff like microcode listings etc. for the 264x series).
I will scan it these days and make it online - for free in contrast to 
the Cambridge guys :-)


Christian

RE: HP 2640 character set generation manual in the UK

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 8 Nov 2017, CuriousMarc wrote:

Awesome! The microcode listings would be fantastic too, as I also have a
2749 (which you are supposed to be able to program in assembly)! Let us know


The firmware is already on bitsavers, IIRC. But you can program every 264x 
terminal in assembly. There are some games like Pong, Space Invaders etc. 
for these terminals, both for the i8008 based 2640/2644 and the i8080 
based 2645/2648. These terminals all have a special control code sequence 
to load a binary file (either from tape or from the serial line) into 
memory and start executing. It is " & b".
A short description and sample program for the 8008 based terminals can 
be found here:

http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dev_en/hp2644/diag.html

Christian

RE: HP 2640 character set generation manual in the UK

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

The manual has been scanned and is on our FTP server:
ftp://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/hp/hp2648/13245-90001_2640SeriesCharacterSetGeneration_Oct1975.pdf

Enjoy :-)

@Al: you may push it to bitsavers

Christian

Re: HP 2640 character set generation manual in the UK

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 9 Nov 2017, Mattis Lind wrote:

Very interesting! I have a 2640 which I recently refurbished the screen on
and it runs happily and then a 2645 that still needs treatment for the
screen rot. Is the binaries for pong and space invaders downloadable
somewhere? I searched the usual places, but haven't found anything. It
would be interesting to test this binary download mode.


Sure, the files are on our FTP server:
ftp://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/hp/hp2644 and .../hp2648

Christian

Re: Datasheet for Signetics spc16/10 ( Single chip Philips P800 processor ) ?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 17 May 2018, jos wrote:

( this is not related to the General Automation SPC16 family)


... wherefore I still seek for print sets, software and so on ...

Christian

Re: Unknown CDC unit , looks like a drum memory ?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 16 May 2018, geneb wrote:

On Wed, 16 May 2018, Ed Sharpe via cctalk wrote:


OK  I  see there is a  mix  of  photos in this  directory!
some  tape  reader  some  drum  2  separate  topics.
 
Ed, I don't know if you (or anyone else) can see this, but there's two junk 
characters at the end of every word you write.  I see it in Alpine and it 
makes your text nearly unreadable. :)


I use Alpine, too, but I only see two spaces after each word, but yes, Ed 
has the talent to write illegible postings ;-)


Christian

Re: VAX 4000 PSU (H7874) Schematics

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 7 Jun 2018, Aaron Jackson wrote:

The VAX turns on and the status LED stays on F. The DC lamp does not
illuminate on the PSU. 5V rail appears fine but there is nothing from
the 12V rail. There were some *very* dodgy looking caps which I have
replaced, and some *very* exploded MOSFETs, which I have also
replaced.


If that's all that you replaced, no wonder it still doesn't work ;-)
Usually shorted power transistors in SMPSUs also break one or more fusable 
resistors, maybe some diodes, maybe the driver IC or transistors.
So if you have anything that "exploded" in the power supply, be sure there 
is more work to be invested that replacing the obious parts.


Christian

Re: Whence 556?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sat, 2 Jun 2018, Chuck Guzis wrote:

So 200 and 800 are nice decimal multiples of 10.   But 556 doesn't fit
that pattern--it's not a "nice' number, being the product of 4 and 139
and doesn't correspond to any computer-related characteristics that I
know of. It's not metric.  So why 556 and not 400, 512 or 600?


Just a guess, but 556 kHz is 5 MHz divided by 9.

Christian

Re: Whence 556?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 5 Jun 2018, Chuck Guzis wrote:

And we're talking bits/chars per inch, so I don't see the connection,
particularly on a 75 ips drive.


Ehm, yes, I was thinking too fast and too simple... it's a hot day here.

Christian

Re: Preserved LGP-30

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 2 Jul 2018, "j...@cimmeri.com" wrote:
Seriously!  Liam, don't you know that handling paper with your hands 
transfers oils to it and hastens its decay?  This is why gloves are worn to 
handle old paper artifacts.


*lol*
Especially with oiled paper tape that is exposed to daylight and much 
more.


Christian

Re: data cassette and robotic arms

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 10 Jan 2018, Chuck Guzis wrote:

For a time, cassette decks were used as a substitute for punched paper
tape in the commercial embroidery business  They were supplanted by
floppy drive boxes, eventually (e.g. Barudan).


And paper tape is still used in that business (all kind of NC businesses). 
We got the request to copy a severly worn out tape some time ago, and they 
were very happy that we could do that with no problems :-)


Christian

Re: New TestFDC Results Registry

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 Jan 2018, Chuck Guzis wrote:

I've had some decent results with P4 and Socket 939 motherboards but
after that, not so much.  I don't know if that's a bright-line rule, but
it seems to hold with my gear.


My quite current Socket AM3+ board with six-core CPU and 16GB of RAM (to 
be precise, an ASrock 890FX Deluxe5) has a floppy connector (one of the 
reason I chose that board), and it supports FM and MFM.


Christian

Re: Adaptec 1522A SCSI Support (was re: New TestFDC Results Registry)

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Fri, 19 Jan 2018, TeoZ wrote:

Didn?t early SUN gear have SCSI floppy drives?


No, SUN always used standard floppy controllers. But HP and DEC used them, 
although it was not very common. The floppy drives are standard TEAC 
FD-235HF with an additional SCSI floppy controller board.


Christian

Re: Reviving ARPAnet

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 Jan 2018, Grant Taylor wrote:
I'm wondering if it might be possible to use an old NetWare 4.x / 5.x box as 
a router to convert from one Ethernet frame type to another Ethernet frame 
type.  I.e. from IP over Ethernet II frames to IP over 802.3 frames.


Why do you want to convert between the two frame types? They can happily 
coexist on the same segment. In fact I'm using this setup on some Linux 
servers that provide both ordinary IP services (like NFS) and Novell 
shares (using Mars NWE) for DOS clients - on the same interface.


Christian

Re: Sun3 valuations?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

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


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


Christian

Re: help id a chip

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 17 Jan 2018, william degnan wrote:

Not sure, I have a bunch of items that need to be investigated including
that one.
http://vintagecomputer.net/pictures/2017/Objects/
b


Well, two objects are obvious ;-)

P1010070.JPG is the program drum for an IBM 29 card punch (and similar 
models)


P1010126.JPG is the clock generator module for an LGP-30

Christian

Re: SOT - Ultimate Classic Computing Geekdom

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

... and this is the reason why the "new" list mail system that alters 
the headers and puts the private from address into the Reply-To header is 
crap.


Christian


On Sun, 14 Jan 2018, Lionel Johnson wrote:

Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2018 09:48:05 +1100
From: Lionel Johnson 
Reply-To: Lionel Johnson ,
"General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
To: Kevin Parker 
Subject: Re: SOT - Ultimate Classic Computing Geekdom

On 2/01/2018 8:32 PM, Kevin Parker via cctalk wrote:


Hi folks - the family surprised me for Christmas by all contributing to 
some custom plates for my new car.



This might tell you how well they know me.


http://koken.advancedimaging.com.au/index.php?/albums/274143f7eae640a16c276e89b953503d/





Kevin Parker

P: 0418 815 527




Impressive plates, Kevin. Sorry i had to pass on the 5000 box, would have 
been great, but my wife had a stroke in August, now home , but fulltime job 
caring for her. No time for hobbies now.


Lionel.

Re: Google, Wikipedia directly on ASCII terminal?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 6 Feb 2018, Grant Taylor wrote:
Watching Curious Marc's HP 264x Terminals - Part 3: Living the ASCII Life 
video made me think of this thread.


Check out Marc's did video about 17 minutes into the video.  The video shows 
Ken using the HP 264x terminal to run Lynx on a Linux box to access Google.


One needs a video for this? ;-)
That is one of the things we're doing casually for over 15 years here. May 
it be a VT100, a HP 2648 or even the VT52 emulation within the IBM 5110 
Kermit ;-)

(BTW all the equipment is connected to terminal servers)

Christian

Re: Lisa Source Code

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

What is a "Lisa Source Code" ?
The schematics? The source code for the Lisa firmware and/or Lisa OS?

Christian

RQDX3 formatter

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

Where do you patch the ZRQCH0 binary to use different geometries 
for non-DEC drives with a RQDX3?

As it seems it should be possible, but noone has told how to do this ;-)

Christian

Re: Troubleshooting HP 2116B

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sat, 28 Jul 2018, GerardCJAT wrote:

Christian,
I absolutly agree with David s post.
Back in the ' '70 when I was maintaining 3 x HP 2116 B running 24/24 7/7 
FOR around 10 YEARS, the ONLY memory related problem that I got was 
traced to a faulty transistor !!


Then I have a new fault ;-)
After swapping the transistors with those for bit 16 (parity, not used in 
this machine), the fault was still there. Swapping the IC did not help.
Finally, I found it: one of the two 1.65k resistors going to the 
outputs was bad (open). These are the collector resistors for the 
differential amplifier.
So if I had found that resistor earlier the board would look a bit nicer 
than now; it is not easy at all to desolder those little 8 pin metal cans.


There was a short electrolytic on one inhibit driver card, but that was 
fixed several days ago. This fault was obvious: the PSU was shutting off 
with the card in its slot.


Now to the flakey bit in the other memory half. Perhaps the corresponding 
resistor on the other card starts to go bad?


Christian

Troubleshooting HP 2116B

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

Ok, so I've got the computer almost running now. I now need to fix both 
sense amplifier cards. One (0..4k) sometimes reads a one for bit 3 after 
the machine has warmed up. The other (4..8k) has a stuck one for bit 7.
Swapping these cards make the errors move to the other core bank 
respectively.


I have the newer cards, 02116-6298, not the older 02115-6001
The latter has CA3028A used as sense amplifiers. My card uses HP 
1820-0183 (metal can IC from RCA). I guess that it is also a CA3028A or 
maybe a CA3053. Can anyone confirm this?


Next, the manual on bitsavers (02116-9153_2116B_Vol2_Oct70, and the same 
as found on the hpmuseum site) not only contains some errors (see my other 
post about the front panel lamps). It has also some badly scanned pages 
with parts missing, notably page 5-50 (PDF page 350) lacks the right part 
of the page. Is there a better scan available? My 1968 copy does not list 
the 02116-6298.


Christian

Re: R: HP-2116 front panel lamps

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 25 Jul 2018, it was written

I've buy these lamps from Oshino Lamps, the original supplier for a good
price. Minimun quantity 100 pcs


Speaking of Oshino Lamps, I had a phone call yesterday with their German 
branch after I had inquired them for a distributor; I saw the OL-345 on 
their web sites so I thought I'd just ask them.
Well, it was very "interesting". First question I was asked: How on earth 
did I undig this ld type. Well, it is on their web sites, I told them.
Huh, well, it may be listed there, but they don't have them as active in 
their system. The last time they sold the OL-345 was 15 years ago. They 
"could" ask Japan if they had some in stock, but for 100 pcs I could just 
forget that.

Another question: does it have to be the exact same type? And so on...
So my conclusion is that they don't have/produce/know of the old lamp 
types.


Christian

HP-2116 front panel lamps

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

Hi,

I need to replace several broken lamps from our HP-2116B front panel. The 
old/original ones are CM-345 or OL-345. This makes sense, they are rated 
6V 40mA 1 hours.


BUT:
The maintenance manual says something different and is even wrong and 
inconsistent.

HP part number is 2140-0035, description "Lamp, Incadescent, 6.3V, 0.75A"
This can't be true. 92*0.75A would be 400W alone for the front panel 
lights...
The manufacturer code is 71744 (Chicago Miniature Lamp Works), mfg part 
number 1775. That is indeed a 6.3V lamp, but 0.075A (better!). Problem: 
that is a midget _screw_ base lamp, so wrong socket and only rated for 
1000h. The panel and switches need a midget flanged base lamp. Who wrote 
that manual? Was he drunk? ;-)



Christian

RE: HP-2116 front panel lamps

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 25 Jul 2018, it was written

Christian, when I was restoring the HP Computer Museum's 2116A I ordered a
bunch of these 345 bulbs from 1000bulbs.com - but it seems they no longer
stock them.

I did find this listing though which looks current...
https://www.lighting-pros.com/eiko-345-t-1-3-4-midget-flanged-sx6s-case-of-1
0

They are around 0.04A current draw - not 0.75A!


Yes, the Installation and Maintenance Manual on bitsavers 
(02116-9153_2116B_Vol2_Oct70.pdf) contains several errors.
Interesting enough, my printed copy of this manual from 1968 (that is 
completely different from the 1970 one; it only has parts lists and 
schematics, the chapters for installation and maintenance are simply not 
there) is right: 2140-0035  6.3V 0.04A


In the meantime I've ordered a bunch of JKL 345 from Mouser (60 Ecent/piece)
:-)

Christian

Re: HP-2116 front panel lamps

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 25 Jul 2018, GerardCJAT wrote:
When I was "doing sort of " C.E. for 2116 ( 1971 _ 1981 ), we were using 
CM 380 as replacement. Even longer life !!


Good info! Don't know how I could miss this one, it is even cheaper than 
the 345. I think I wanted to stick to the same type as the ones in the 
panel.


Christian

Re: HP scope mailing list

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sat, 18 Aug 2018, Curious Marc wrote:

On Aug 17, 2018, at 3:14 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk  
wrote:


On 2018-08-17 12:40 AM, Curious Marc via cctalk wrote:
+1 on the hp_agilent Yahoo group



Which at this very moment is MOVING to groups.io:

 https://groups.io/g/HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment

Also highly recommended is the TekScopes list if you own/repair any Tek
gear:

 https://groups.io/g/TekScopes/topics

Ah, excellent, groups.io is so much better.


And still, I prefer NNTP :-D

Christian

Re: SDL and SunOS

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018, carlos_muri...@ieee.org wrote:
Under SunOS 4.1.4, the last gcc version that is supported is 3.3.6, but I 
haven't been able to build it on an IPX;  it gets to the point where it


Not quite true:

# uname -a
SunOS azu 4.1.1 10 sun4 unknown unknown SunOS

# gcc -v
Reading specs from /ibm/usr/lib/gcc/sparc-sun-sunos4.1.1/3.4.6/specs
Configured with: ../gcc-3.4.6/configure --prefix=/ibm/usr 
--program-suffix=-3.4 --with-gnu-ld --with-ld=/ibm/usr/bin/ld 
--with-gnu-as --with-as=/ibm/usr/bin/as --with-cpu=v7 --disable-nls 
--with-libiconv-prefix=/ibm/usr --enable-obsolete

Thread model: single
gcc version 3.4.6

# ld --version
GNU ld 2.9.1
Copyright 1997 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program is free software; you may redistribute it under the terms of
the GNU General Public License.  This program has absolutely no warranty.
  Supported emulations:
   sun4

# as --version
GNU assembler 2.9.1
Copyright 1997 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program is free software; you may redistribute it under the terms of
the GNU General Public License.  This program has absolutely no warranty.
This assembler was configured for a target of `sparc-sun-sunos4.1.1'.


This is on a SUN 4/260 with 32MB RAM.

starts running gengtype and eats all memory available (I have 64MB RAM and 
have added as much as 1024 swap and it still crashes).  So, for the time


Yes, there are such issues. The solution is to cross compile it with 
distcc.


Christian

Re: zilog system 8000

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2018, Al Kossow wrote:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/292646012304

local pickup only

the reserve is >$1500


ROTFL
A very big and expensive door stopper without OS tapes.
But most importantly: the CPU board is missing!
The card in slot 2 appears to be an additional SIO card.

This is a model 20, quite low-end. We have a model 32 (much rarer, I 
haven't found anyone else with a model 32), but it is non-functional 
because I have no tapes. The SMD disk has too many errors to recover a 
functional system.


Christian

Re: VT100's

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 6 Sep 2018, Paul Koning wrote:
The work of a VT100 is quite a lot more complex than that of a VT52 
(many more screen operations, and more complex control sequence 
parsing).  With the hardware technology available at the time, it was a 
pretty tough job.  Does the VT100 have a microprocessor? It may predate 
those.  In hardwired 7400 series logic, it isn't an easy job.


Yes, the V100 has an Intel 8080, the stripped-down V101 has an Intel 8085.

Christian

Re: MOS 6500/1 ROM archival service

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 3 Jul 2018, Jim Brain wrote:
But, I have pulled my hacked reader out from mothballs to read a CPU someone 
is sending, so I thought I would inquire if others have 6500/1 units that 
want read.


Hint: Seagate ST-225

Christian

Re: 8 inch floppies, decaying

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 11 Jul 2018, dwight wrote:
I've had the goo from the adhesive of 5.25 inch 360k disk come through 
the nice liner and make gobs on the disk. I tried several thing but 
found that isopropanol worked without removing any of the magnetic 
material ( maybe s tiny amount that was likely loose already ). I'm not 
saying it would be the same for 8 inch disk. Once working I did copy 
them to floppies without liners.


I use Screen 99 for cleaning floppies, and that has proved to be the best 
so far, giving a clean and smooth surface. There's no need to grapple with 
several different fluids. I don't even use lint-free cloths and the like, 
I use paper towels. The surface is so smooth that all the remaining dust 
can be blown away easily.


Christian

Re: 8 inch floppies, decaying

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 11 Jul 2018, Al Kossow wrote:

On 7/11/18 2:21 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:


I use Screen 99 for cleaning floppies


MSDS
https://store.comet.bg/download-file.php?id=16956
first ingredient listed; isopropyl alcohol


Of course, somehow you need some "magic" in the stuff ;-)
But as you might have seen, the weight in weight is 10% maximum. And when 
sprayed on the surface (only a small spot) it generates a nice solid foam. 
It hasn't dissolved the binder/oxide for now, not even on Wabash floppies 
(that in my experience aren't too horrible, some noname stuff is much 
worse).
If I'm afraid that it might dissolve the media I can always test it 
first on the inner side next to the hub hole. And I don't rub the 
media with high pressure, only gently. It is important to extract the 
floppy from its sleeve for cleaning, though.


Christian

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

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2018, Bill Gunshannon wrote:

I wouldn't mind a couple of  FC-1 but I bet the price would be much more
than I can afford.


Speaking of the FC-1 boards: it appears that they support different sector 
sizes, as well as MFM and FM encoding. How do you program this?


Christian

Re: HP 9845A Computer

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 11 Sep 2018, Marlene Klein wrote:

We have an HP 9845A computer (1977) in working condition.
Can we post it on your site?


That sounds illogical. How do you want to electronically post a physical 
object? ;-) And what site anyway? This is a mailing list.


Christian

Re: Four Unibus boards from radiation dose measurement system.

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 19 Mar 2018, Mattis Lind wrote:

Then there is some kind of serial com board with four UARTs on it.

https://i.imgur.com/YvnTlxq.jpg


That one is easy to name: That's an Able Quadrasync/E, I have that board, 
too.


Christian

Re: EF50 was Re: radar history

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 5 Mar 2018, Christian Corti wrote:

The EF50 has a Loctal base with eight pins. 5xx is Magnoval. 8x is Noval.


Correction: Loctal with nine pins ;-) How crazy...

Christian