Re: Pinout for current loop interface

[Warner Losh via cctalk]

On Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 10:56 PM Ethan Dicks via cctalk 
wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 17, 2019 at 12:12 AM Charles via cctalk
>  wrote:
> > Is there any standard pinout for 20 ma current loop using a DB-25
> connector,
> > analogous to the well-documents RS-232 serial interface?
>
> From checking a couple of devices, I don't think so.  Here's how the
> original IBM Async adapter for the 5150  did it...
>
> Pin 18 +receive current loop data
> Pin 25 -receive current loop return
> Pin 11 -transmit current loop data
> Pin 9 +transmit current loop return
>
> One BlackBox adapter I found used different pins.
>
> > The ADM-3A receives on pins 23 & 25, and transmits on pins 24 & 17.
>
> I'm used to using 15 and 17 for sync serial clock.  They are typically
> NC for async.  23-25 have alternate uses that are, again, typically
> NC. (I've never seen a device that used pin 25 for 'test').  There are
> Sun workstations that have two serial ports over one DB25 which might
> be the only use of the "B" pins I've encountered.
>

The DEC rainbow has B pins for talking to a modem dialer via a special
cable... but it is basically useless for anything other than a few
characters.


Warner

>

Re: Pinout for current loop interface

[Ethan Dicks via cctalk]

On Sat, Aug 17, 2019 at 12:12 AM Charles via cctalk
 wrote:
> Is there any standard pinout for 20 ma current loop using a DB-25 connector,
> analogous to the well-documents RS-232 serial interface?

>From checking a couple of devices, I don't think so.  Here's how the
original IBM Async adapter for the 5150  did it...

Pin 18 +receive current loop data
Pin 25 -receive current loop return
Pin 11 -transmit current loop data
Pin 9 +transmit current loop return

One BlackBox adapter I found used different pins.

> The ADM-3A receives on pins 23 & 25, and transmits on pins 24 & 17.

I'm used to using 15 and 17 for sync serial clock.  They are typically
NC for async.  23-25 have alternate uses that are, again, typically
NC. (I've never seen a device that used pin 25 for 'test').  There are
Sun workstations that have two serial ports over one DB25 which might
be the only use of the "B" pins I've encountered.

-ethan

Pinout for current loop interface

[Charles via cctalk]

Is there any standard pinout for 20 ma current loop using a DB-25 connector, 
analogous to the well-documents RS-232 serial interface?


My PDP-8/A drives an ASR-33, and having just restored an ADM-3A I want to be 
able to unplug the TTY and plug in the ADM.
I somewhat arbitrarily put the transmit data + on pin 2 and receive + on pin 
3, and picked two uncommitted RS-232 pins for the - legs of both loops.


The ADM-3A receives on pins 23 & 25, and transmits on pins 24 & 17. Polarity 
doesn't matter since both pairs use bridge rectifiers.
If this is some kind of de facto standard, I'll change the bulkhead 
connector on the PDP-8 and the TTY to match.
Otherwise I'll just make yet another unique cable to hook up the ADM-3A to 
the PDP-8 as it's wired.


Or would you recommend I use a different connector entirely? The reason I 
used the DB-25 to begin with is that I had a DEC rack-mount plate that 
already takes one.

Maybe a Jones 4-pin would make more sense.

thanks for any tips.
-Charles


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Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[systems_glitch via cctalk]

As Jon said, from my analysis of busted-apart DEC connectors, there's a
selectively plated "pad" where the contact surface actually is.

I wouldn't be surprised if the bulk of the contact fingers is *phosphor
bronze* which is often used in springs. Perhaps we can get Connor to do a
metallurgical analysis once he gets the EDX attachment for his SEM going!

Thanks,
Jonathan

On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 10:21 PM Jon Elson via cctalk 
wrote:

> On 08/16/2019 05:59 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
> >  > From: Brent Hilpert
> >
> >  > I've seen pieces of HP high-end lab equipment from thru the 60s
> that
> >  > used tin plating on the PCB edge fingers, mating into gold-plated
> edge
> >  > connectors on the backplane.
> >
> > ISTR that DEC used bronze contacts in their backplanes, but basically
> all the
> > boards had gold-plated fingers. (I think I've seen a few power supply
> boards
> > that had tinned fingers.)
> >
> > I think the bronze was preferred since the contacts bend back and forth
> as
> > cards are inserted/removed, and bronze is more durable; and being part
> tin,
> > has the same corrosion characteristics are the tin.
> >
> >   Noel
> >
> The contacts were mostly phosphor bronze, but they had a
> little spot of selectively plated gold where the PC board
> finger actually wiped.  I think they used basically the same
> technology from the PDP-8 era to the VAX 7xx series.
>
> Jon
>
> Jon
>

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 08/16/2019 05:59 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:

 > From: Brent Hilpert

 > I've seen pieces of HP high-end lab equipment from thru the 60s that
 > used tin plating on the PCB edge fingers, mating into gold-plated edge
 > connectors on the backplane.

ISTR that DEC used bronze contacts in their backplanes, but basically all the
boards had gold-plated fingers. (I think I've seen a few power supply boards
that had tinned fingers.)

I think the bronze was preferred since the contacts bend back and forth as
cards are inserted/removed, and bronze is more durable; and being part tin,
has the same corrosion characteristics are the tin.

Noel

The contacts were mostly phosphor bronze, but they had a 
little spot of selectively plated gold where the PC board 
finger actually wiped.  I think they used basically the same 
technology from the PDP-8 era to the VAX 7xx series.


Jon

Jon

RXV21 questions

[Douglas Taylor via cctalk]

I have 2 RXV21 RX02 controller boards.  They were bought to be used with 
the RX02 emulator, the one on github by AK6DN.


Finally, I finished one of the emulator boards and tried it out on a 
PDP-11/03 and found that one of the RXV21  boards worked and the other 
didn't.  I assumed the one board was bad.


Yesterday I tried the RX02 emulator in a BA23 with a 11/53 cpu (I also 
tried a 11/23+) cpu.  What I found is that the one that worked in the 
11/03 didn't work, while the other board kinda worked.  I could do a 
DIRECTORY and DUMP from RT11, but I couldn't boot the RX02 in the 
microPDP-11.


Today I ran into Chuck Dickman's web site that talked about the Etch 
versions of the board and which would work in a microPDP-11. He showed 
how to convert an Etch 'D' board to work in a microPDP-11.


I have Etch 'C' - this is the one that works in the 11/03, and an Etch 
'D'.  My 'D' board isn't exactly like the 'D' board he shows.


What are the changes to the 'D' board that he outlines?  What is exactly 
the reason why the 'C' works in the 11/03 and why an 'F' or modified 'D' 
is needed for the microPDP-11?


Doug

Re: ADM-3A question

[Charles via cctalk]

I am still struggling with my ADM-5.  The smoke I mentioned last time came

from a tantalum capacitor decoupling a -20V supply.  After removing it, I
got back to the monitor showing a cursor.

Interesting you should mention that... early in the debugging process 
(always start with the power supplies!),
I had discovered the +12/-12 power supplies weren't right. (+12 was very 
low). The problem was a fractured solder joint on the PCB's male Molex 
connector

J3. Specifically, pin 4 (red/white) - the center tap of the transformer.

This is the worst pin to be open since the load on the +12 is much greater 
than the -12, so the voltage across the unregulated supply soared on the
minus side to over 35 volts (should be + and - 20v, as you mentioned). The 
electrolytic is rated at 35 volts, and of even more concern, so is the 2.2 
uf tantalum bypass. Those match-head tantalum caps are known for 
short-circuiting even when operated below their maximum rated voltage (as 
any Tek owner can attest).
Fortunately I found the problem before the tantalum exploded and took out 
the bridge rectifier with it. 



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Re: ADM-3A question

[Peter Coghlan via cctalk]

Charles wrote:
> Today the replacement 'LS193 arrived, so I put it in the 
> previously-installed socket and the screen is now 24x80 again :)
> I'd been testing with the dip switch in half-duplex mode... For final test, 
> I put it in FDX, connected to my HP protocol analyzer, and what do you know, 
> no serial data out.
> The 1488 RS-232 driver was blown (TTL-level data going to it, but the RS-232 
> line was stuck in spacing). Not an uncommon failure with static discharge 
> and incorrect cable hookups...
> I destructively removed it, again installed a good dip socket, now waiting 
> for THAT chip (a variety of other line drivers in my drawer, but not 
> 1488/1489).

I'm glad to hear you got to the end of the chain of faults on your ADM-3A.

I am still struggling with my ADM-5.  The smoke I mentioned last time came
from a tantalum capacitor decoupling a -20V supply.  After removing it, I
got back to the monitor showing a cursor.  I tried sending and receiving data
and found neither operation worked.  While I was looking into this problem(s),
without any provocation the monitor went off, with the picture collapsing to a
vertical line and fading out with no nasty noises or any other signs of
distress.  From previous experience, I checked the HDRIVE signal to the
monitor and found it was absent.  (The usual beep at power on did not happen
after this either). Luckily, the ciruitry in this area seems to be identical
to the ADM-3A so I can use the ADM-3A maintenance manual to troubleshoot it,
however the component references are all different so it can still get very
tedious. (I also found some frequencies listed on the timing diagram don't
seem to be correct which doesn't help matters either).  I eventually found a
74LS161 which is used to divide the master clock signal was not behaving
correctly.  Not having a replacement, I "borrowed" one that seemed to be
working correctly from my other ADM-5 which has even more issues.  This made
the waveforms around the dot counter and character position counters look much
more reasonable, however, I still don't have the HDRIVE signal restored yet
so there must be another problem lurking and when I get to the bottom of that
one, I will probably still have the data transmission and reception issues...

While working on these latest issues, I remembered that the faults that led
me to replacing the two 74LS125 chips on a previous occasion were certain
received characters being incorrectly displayed due to stuck bits.  I also
noticed that I had to replace a 7805 voltage regulator during that
troubleshooting session.  I'm making lots of notes this time around so I won't
have these recall difficulties next time around.

This ADM-5 was stored in an attic space with poor temperature control for
many years but since then and before the most recently failures, it had been
in a less variable environment.  The 74LS161 that failed was clearly working
initially when the terminal came out of storage this time.  It didn't seem to
be a lead bonding issue either - the MSB of the count output seemed to be
following the clock input.

Every time I try to use my ADM-5 terminals, I seem to run into these kind of
successive failures.  I have some BBC Micro equipment from the same era which
also contains a fair amount of TTL but it doesn't give anything like the same
degree of trouble, although I did have to replace a single 74LS163
counter/latch in my oldest BBC micro.  It was wired to be a latch only but it
decided it's true destiny was to be a counter.  This failure could have been
a lead bonding issue.

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.

Re: Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

[Cameron Kaiser via cctalk]

> Then imagine that a law is passed in a far away land, and the site owner 
> decides it's is too risky to bother with, and they then take the entire 
> site down - wiki and fora - with no warning and no access to the material...

Gosh, Steven, I can't imagine for the *life of me* what site you're
referring to here. I mean, it's not like Some Guy Immediately pulls it
all down on a whim, is it?

;)

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean. -- Albert Einstein -

Re: Google site ordering (Was: Archiving information)

[Cameron Kaiser via cctalk]

> > I assume he knew what he was talking about (via his Web-site engineering
> > people). I suppose I could research it, but I don't have the time right
> > at the moment. I'd love to hear if anyone else knows more.
> 
> It is true. Google now marks any site that is not using HTTPS as
> "insecure", and uses that as a negative weight in their rankig
> algorithm.
> 
> I have mixed feelings about this. I do think that FORCING people to use
> TLS encryption is a bad thing. On the other hand, we live in strange
> times -- many ISPs are intercepting HTTP traffic and injecting content
> into the pages. Using TLS encryption is an effective way to avoid this
> (for now). I personally enforce TLS on all my sites just for that
> reason.

I offer both on Floodgap pages. I don't see why it should be an either-or
proposition.

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- The future's got all the time in the world! -- Dinosaur Comics #1932 ---

Re: ADM-3A question

[Charles via cctalk]

I found a newer version of the tech manual on bitsavers, which does mention 
the mysterious S8 switch (as well as the S6 switch that fills the screen 
with 0's upon clearing).


"The gated EXTENSION port mode, when selected
by switch S8, allows selective transmission of
data from the keyboard, in Half-Duplex mode, or
the communication line through the
EXTENSION port.

GT: Enables gated EXTENSION port
mode which allows ON/OFF control of
the EXTENSION port.

LK: Disables gated EXTENSION port mode
which allows locking and unlocking off [sic]
keyboard."

The wiring is on the newer schematic, too. Another of life's little 
mysteries, solved :)



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Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Brent Hilpert

> I've seen pieces of HP high-end lab equipment from thru the 60s that
> used tin plating on the PCB edge fingers, mating into gold-plated edge
> connectors on the backplane.

ISTR that DEC used bronze contacts in their backplanes, but basically all the
boards had gold-plated fingers. (I think I've seen a few power supply boards
that had tinned fingers.)

I think the bronze was preferred since the contacts bend back and forth as
cards are inserted/removed, and bronze is more durable; and being part tin,
has the same corrosion characteristics are the tin.

Noel

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[allison via cctalk]

On 8/16/19 5:46 PM, Brent Hilpert via cctalk wrote:
> On 2019-Aug-16, at 11:56 AM, systems_glitch via cctalk wrote:
>> On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 2:53 PM Paul Koning  wrote:
>>>
 On Aug 16, 2019, at 2:43 PM, systems_glitch via cctalk <

 I'm sure DEC wouldn't have bothered with hard gold plating if their
 connectors were metallurgically incompatible :P The few busted DEC
 connectors I've replaced did indeed have selective gold plating on the
 contact surfaces. Most quality edge connector slots are similarly
 constructed.
>>>
>>> It's been a while and I never looked in depth, but it most definitely is
>>> not true that gold is only compatible with gold.
>>>
>>> From what I remember, the detailed analysis involves an "electrochemical
>>> series", which has metals like sodium at one end, copper closer to the
>>> middle, and gold at or near the other end.  Metals are compatible if their
>>> potential value differs by less than a limit.  The limit depends on the
>>> environment; in an office you can have a larger limit than on a ship where
>>> you have salt spray, or a tire factory with lots of SO2 in the air.
>>>
>>> There are also some twists; I think stainless steel is compatible with
>>> many things thanks to the alloy ("stainless") properties.  In fact, I think
>>> the subject came up in connection with failure analysis of coin cell
>>> battery holders.  The battery cases are stainless steel; the question is
>>> what contacts are acceptable.  Gold is; there may be others but some things
>>> that are used in the market are not good choices.
> 
>> You can look it up in an electronegativity chart for a quick "will these
>> ruin each other" check.
>>
>> I think a lot of this comes from the SIMM era in PCs, where folks were told
>> to only use gold-flash SIMMs in gold sockets, and only tin plated SIMMs in
>> tin plated sockets.
> 
> 
> I've seen pieces of HP high-end lab equipment from thru the 60s that used tin 
> plating on the PCB edge fingers, mating into gold-plated edge connectors on 
> the backplane.
> Never quiet understood it, they (HP) were doing gold-plated edge fingers on 
> other equipment at the same time.
> 
> 

Back in the dark ages when MITS Altair (and dirt) was new

Initial board were tin and not the fancy stuff either,  sockets were
commonly gold. then came the occasional gold.  What was nasty was the
gold over copper not gold/nickel/copper...  Can you say Electromigration
and green plague?  It was the cause of the shake well disorder as in
before powering up, pull the board and wipe the edge connector,
re-insert boards and it would be hopefully stable, maybe.  I had to
retire that machine after about 2 years it was so flakey due to that.
By then the suspect boards were retired and never used again.

Looking back and having it to look at part of the issue was crappy gold
plating (looked good) and also some of the sockets did not have a hard
wipe or high spring tension both of which were likely causative.

I've not see that anywhere else.  Dec connector blocks are hard wipe
and very good at what they do, make a connection.  Even tin plate seems
to be no trouble at all.

Allison

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[systems_glitch via cctalk]

That *is* surprising, HP sometimes gold plated the whole thing!

In any case, I will continue to run edge connectors with the superior
albeit more expensive selective hard gold process :P

Thanks,
Jonathan

On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 5:46 PM Brent Hilpert via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> On 2019-Aug-16, at 11:56 AM, systems_glitch via cctalk wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 2:53 PM Paul Koning 
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Aug 16, 2019, at 2:43 PM, systems_glitch via cctalk <
> >>>
> >>> I'm sure DEC wouldn't have bothered with hard gold plating if their
> >>> connectors were metallurgically incompatible :P The few busted DEC
> >>> connectors I've replaced did indeed have selective gold plating on the
> >>> contact surfaces. Most quality edge connector slots are similarly
> >>> constructed.
> >>
> >> It's been a while and I never looked in depth, but it most definitely is
> >> not true that gold is only compatible with gold.
> >>
> >> From what I remember, the detailed analysis involves an "electrochemical
> >> series", which has metals like sodium at one end, copper closer to the
> >> middle, and gold at or near the other end.  Metals are compatible if
> their
> >> potential value differs by less than a limit.  The limit depends on the
> >> environment; in an office you can have a larger limit than on a ship
> where
> >> you have salt spray, or a tire factory with lots of SO2 in the air.
> >>
> >> There are also some twists; I think stainless steel is compatible with
> >> many things thanks to the alloy ("stainless") properties.  In fact, I
> think
> >> the subject came up in connection with failure analysis of coin cell
> >> battery holders.  The battery cases are stainless steel; the question is
> >> what contacts are acceptable.  Gold is; there may be others but some
> things
> >> that are used in the market are not good choices.
>
> > You can look it up in an electronegativity chart for a quick "will these
> > ruin each other" check.
> >
> > I think a lot of this comes from the SIMM era in PCs, where folks were
> told
> > to only use gold-flash SIMMs in gold sockets, and only tin plated SIMMs
> in
> > tin plated sockets.
>
>
> I've seen pieces of HP high-end lab equipment from thru the 60s that used
> tin plating on the PCB edge fingers, mating into gold-plated edge
> connectors on the backplane.
> Never quiet understood it, they (HP) were doing gold-plated edge fingers
> on other equipment at the same time.
>
>
>

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[Brent Hilpert via cctalk]

On 2019-Aug-16, at 11:56 AM, systems_glitch via cctalk wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 2:53 PM Paul Koning  wrote:
>> 
>>> On Aug 16, 2019, at 2:43 PM, systems_glitch via cctalk <
>>> 
>>> I'm sure DEC wouldn't have bothered with hard gold plating if their
>>> connectors were metallurgically incompatible :P The few busted DEC
>>> connectors I've replaced did indeed have selective gold plating on the
>>> contact surfaces. Most quality edge connector slots are similarly
>>> constructed.
>> 
>> It's been a while and I never looked in depth, but it most definitely is
>> not true that gold is only compatible with gold.
>> 
>> From what I remember, the detailed analysis involves an "electrochemical
>> series", which has metals like sodium at one end, copper closer to the
>> middle, and gold at or near the other end.  Metals are compatible if their
>> potential value differs by less than a limit.  The limit depends on the
>> environment; in an office you can have a larger limit than on a ship where
>> you have salt spray, or a tire factory with lots of SO2 in the air.
>> 
>> There are also some twists; I think stainless steel is compatible with
>> many things thanks to the alloy ("stainless") properties.  In fact, I think
>> the subject came up in connection with failure analysis of coin cell
>> battery holders.  The battery cases are stainless steel; the question is
>> what contacts are acceptable.  Gold is; there may be others but some things
>> that are used in the market are not good choices.

> You can look it up in an electronegativity chart for a quick "will these
> ruin each other" check.
> 
> I think a lot of this comes from the SIMM era in PCs, where folks were told
> to only use gold-flash SIMMs in gold sockets, and only tin plated SIMMs in
> tin plated sockets.


I've seen pieces of HP high-end lab equipment from thru the 60s that used tin 
plating on the PCB edge fingers, mating into gold-plated edge connectors on the 
backplane.
Never quiet understood it, they (HP) were doing gold-plated edge fingers on 
other equipment at the same time.

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[ben via cctalk]

On 8/16/2019 12:53 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:


 From what I remember, the detailed analysis involves an "electrochemical 
series", which has metals like sodium at one end, copper closer to the middle, and 
gold at or near the other end.  Metals are compatible if their potential value differs by 
less than a limit.  The limit depends on the environment; in an office you can have a 
larger limit than on a ship where you have salt spray, or a tire factory with lots of SO2 
in the air.

There are also some twists; I think stainless steel is compatible with many things thanks 
to the alloy ("stainless") properties.  In fact, I think the subject came up in 
connection with failure analysis of coin cell battery holders.  The battery cases are 
stainless steel; the question is what contacts are acceptable.  Gold is; there may be 
others but some things that are used in the market are not good choices.

paul

That reminds me, Tubes and More ( https://www.tubesandmore.com ) sell a 
contact cleaner used for vacuum tubes. That may be useful for cleaning 
cards and card edge sockets. Deoxit is the product and comes in assorted

types depending what you are cleaning.
Ben.

Re: ADM-3A question

[Charles via cctalk]

Today the replacement 'LS193 arrived, so I put it in the 
previously-installed socket and the screen is now 24x80 again :)
I'd been testing with the dip switch in half-duplex mode... For final test, 
I put it in FDX, connected to my HP protocol analyzer, and what do you know, 
no serial data out.
The 1488 RS-232 driver was blown (TTL-level data going to it, but the RS-232 
line was stuck in spacing). Not an uncommon failure with static discharge 
and incorrect cable hookups...
I destructively removed it, again installed a good dip socket, now waiting 
for THAT chip (a variety of other line drivers in my drawer, but not 
1488/1489).


Meanwhile I noted another slide switch S8 ("GT/LK") near the DB-25 
connectors. It is not referenced anywhere in the documentation, nor in the 
schematics!
The wiper of the switch also goes through a hex inverter to a 74LS32 chip, 
ALSO not in the schematic or circuit description. This signal originates at 
the flip-flop that generates KBLOCK\.
Finally, input pin 10 of the removed 1488 is supposed to be tied to pin 9, 
with the RTS output on pin 8. But pin 10 goes In fact, the PCB artwork at 
the end of the tech manual shows no connections except +5 and ground to that 
chip (position C2 I think), and it doesn't show the slide switch either.


This is likely something for the auto-tester that LSI used to check these 
boards on the production line, although I don't know if the extra circuitry 
was added or removed during production.
Anyone have internal documents on this? I'm just curious since it only 
appears to affect the keyboard lock functions which I'm not using anyway.



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Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[systems_glitch via cctalk]

You can look it up in an electronegativity chart for a quick "will these
ruin each other" check.

I think a lot of this comes from the SIMM era in PCs, where folks were told
to only use gold-flash SIMMs in gold sockets, and only tin plated SIMMs in
tin plated sockets.

Thanks,
Jonathan

On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 2:53 PM Paul Koning  wrote:

>
>
> > On Aug 16, 2019, at 2:43 PM, systems_glitch via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >
> > I'm sure DEC wouldn't have bothered with hard gold plating if their
> > connectors were metallurgically incompatible :P The few busted DEC
> > connectors I've replaced did indeed have selective gold plating on the
> > contact surfaces. Most quality edge connector slots are similarly
> > constructed.
>
> It's been a while and I never looked in depth, but it most definitely is
> not true that gold is only compatible with gold.
>
> From what I remember, the detailed analysis involves an "electrochemical
> series", which has metals like sodium at one end, copper closer to the
> middle, and gold at or near the other end.  Metals are compatible if their
> potential value differs by less than a limit.  The limit depends on the
> environment; in an office you can have a larger limit than on a ship where
> you have salt spray, or a tire factory with lots of SO2 in the air.
>
> There are also some twists; I think stainless steel is compatible with
> many things thanks to the alloy ("stainless") properties.  In fact, I think
> the subject came up in connection with failure analysis of coin cell
> battery holders.  The battery cases are stainless steel; the question is
> what contacts are acceptable.  Gold is; there may be others but some things
> that are used in the market are not good choices.
>
> paul
>
> > On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM ben via cctalk 
> > wrote:
> >
> >> On 8/16/2019 12:13 PM, systems_glitch via cctalk wrote:
> >>> Dwight,
> >>>
> >>> I spot check boards. I lack sufficiently sensitive instruments to
> measure
> >>> actual thickness (even on a surface plate, it's the same for ENIG as
> hard
> >>> gold with an 0.0001" indicator) but ENIG won't stand up to a few swipes
> >>> with an ink eraser, whereas hard gold will stand up to it no problem.
> The
> >>> main issue I've seen, in buying other people's products and projects,
> is
> >>> board houses passing off ENIG as hard gold (and charging for it!) or
> >>> claiming they're using "extra heavy ENIG" -- which of course isn't a
> >> thing,
> >>> because ENIG is an ion swap!
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>> Jonathan
> >>
> >> Is gold plating the best thing? I thought that gold plating only works
> >> best when matching other gold connections.
> >> Ben.
> >>
> >>
>
>

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Aug 16, 2019, at 2:43 PM, systems_glitch via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> I'm sure DEC wouldn't have bothered with hard gold plating if their
> connectors were metallurgically incompatible :P The few busted DEC
> connectors I've replaced did indeed have selective gold plating on the
> contact surfaces. Most quality edge connector slots are similarly
> constructed.

It's been a while and I never looked in depth, but it most definitely is not 
true that gold is only compatible with gold. 

From what I remember, the detailed analysis involves an "electrochemical 
series", which has metals like sodium at one end, copper closer to the middle, 
and gold at or near the other end.  Metals are compatible if their potential 
value differs by less than a limit.  The limit depends on the environment; in 
an office you can have a larger limit than on a ship where you have salt spray, 
or a tire factory with lots of SO2 in the air.

There are also some twists; I think stainless steel is compatible with many 
things thanks to the alloy ("stainless") properties.  In fact, I think the 
subject came up in connection with failure analysis of coin cell battery 
holders.  The battery cases are stainless steel; the question is what contacts 
are acceptable.  Gold is; there may be others but some things that are used in 
the market are not good choices.

paul

> On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM ben via cctalk 
> wrote:
> 
>> On 8/16/2019 12:13 PM, systems_glitch via cctalk wrote:
>>> Dwight,
>>> 
>>> I spot check boards. I lack sufficiently sensitive instruments to measure
>>> actual thickness (even on a surface plate, it's the same for ENIG as hard
>>> gold with an 0.0001" indicator) but ENIG won't stand up to a few swipes
>>> with an ink eraser, whereas hard gold will stand up to it no problem. The
>>> main issue I've seen, in buying other people's products and projects, is
>>> board houses passing off ENIG as hard gold (and charging for it!) or
>>> claiming they're using "extra heavy ENIG" -- which of course isn't a
>> thing,
>>> because ENIG is an ion swap!
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> Jonathan
>> 
>> Is gold plating the best thing? I thought that gold plating only works
>> best when matching other gold connections.
>> Ben.
>> 
>> 

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[systems_glitch via cctalk]

I'm sure DEC wouldn't have bothered with hard gold plating if their
connectors were metallurgically incompatible :P The few busted DEC
connectors I've replaced did indeed have selective gold plating on the
contact surfaces. Most quality edge connector slots are similarly
constructed.

Thanks,
Jonathan

On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM ben via cctalk 
wrote:

> On 8/16/2019 12:13 PM, systems_glitch via cctalk wrote:
> > Dwight,
> >
> > I spot check boards. I lack sufficiently sensitive instruments to measure
> > actual thickness (even on a surface plate, it's the same for ENIG as hard
> > gold with an 0.0001" indicator) but ENIG won't stand up to a few swipes
> > with an ink eraser, whereas hard gold will stand up to it no problem. The
> > main issue I've seen, in buying other people's products and projects, is
> > board houses passing off ENIG as hard gold (and charging for it!) or
> > claiming they're using "extra heavy ENIG" -- which of course isn't a
> thing,
> > because ENIG is an ion swap!
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Jonathan
>
> Is gold plating the best thing? I thought that gold plating only works
> best when matching other gold connections.
> Ben.
>
>

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[ben via cctalk]

On 8/16/2019 12:13 PM, systems_glitch via cctalk wrote:

Dwight,

I spot check boards. I lack sufficiently sensitive instruments to measure
actual thickness (even on a surface plate, it's the same for ENIG as hard
gold with an 0.0001" indicator) but ENIG won't stand up to a few swipes
with an ink eraser, whereas hard gold will stand up to it no problem. The
main issue I've seen, in buying other people's products and projects, is
board houses passing off ENIG as hard gold (and charging for it!) or
claiming they're using "extra heavy ENIG" -- which of course isn't a thing,
because ENIG is an ion swap!

Thanks,
Jonathan


Is gold plating the best thing? I thought that gold plating only works 
best when matching other gold connections.

Ben.

Re: Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

[dwight via cctalk]

One of the problems with archiving is what to do with items that are not 
popular. Some things might be more valued ten or twenty years in the future but 
not now. Is the fact that the item has relatively low interest now a possible 
reason to not archive it in a searchable form for future reference?
What about things that are scattered on other personal sites currently that may 
be gone next week? So much information is already lost.
Who determines what should be saved? What say you come across a rare document 
but the copy was poorly done at a lower than desired resolution. Do you refuse 
to post it because it doesn't meet your standards or do you post it with a note 
that it is the best to date? Judging such things can be arbitrary and be the 
reason for lost information.
At least when you publish a book, there is a chance that some copy may be 
saved. Now with information sitting on someones disk drives, it could be 
deletes with one mistake.
This is a really complicated issue. I'm getting older and know I'm on the tail 
end of my life. Still, I have no way to begin to pass on what I have. I doubt 
my heirs would care much unless it had significant monetary value.
Dwight


From: cctalk  on behalf of Seth J. Morabito via 
cctalk 
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2019 8:31 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts 
Subject: Re: Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question


Paul Koning via cctalk writes:

> Anything worth having around deserves backup.  Which makes me wonder
> -- how is Wikipedia backed up?  I guess it has a fork, which isn't
> quite the same thing.  I know Bitsavers is replicated in a number of
> places.  And one argument in favor of GIT is that every workspace is a
> full backup of the original, history and all.
>
> One should worry for smaller scale efforts, though.

This is a problem I think about a lot.

In the early 2000s I worked on the LOCKSS program at Stanford
University. LOCKSS stands for "Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe", and is a
distributed network of servers that replicate backup copies of
electronic academic journals. It stemmed from a research project that
looked at how to design an attack resistent peer-to-peer digital
archival network.  Each node in the network keeps a copy of the original
journal content, does a cryptographic hash of each resource (HTML page,
image, PDF, etc.), and participates in a steady stream of polls with all
the other nodes where they vote on the hashes. If a minority of nodes
loses a poll, their content is assumed to be damaged, missing, or bad,
and they replicate the content from the winners of the poll.

It's designed as a "Dark" archive, meaning the data is there, but nobody
tries to access it unless the original web content disappears. Then, the
servers act as transparent web proxies, so when you hit the original URL
or URI, they serve up the content that's now missing from the real
public Internet.

It's a neat idea. It's also open source, and unencumbered with
patents. I've always thought a similar model could be used to archive
and replicate just about anything, but it's just one of those things
that nobody's ever gotten around to doing.

>paul

-Seth

--
  Seth Morabito
  Poulsbo, WA, USA
  w...@loomcom.com

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[systems_glitch via cctalk]

Dwight,

I spot check boards. I lack sufficiently sensitive instruments to measure
actual thickness (even on a surface plate, it's the same for ENIG as hard
gold with an 0.0001" indicator) but ENIG won't stand up to a few swipes
with an ink eraser, whereas hard gold will stand up to it no problem. The
main issue I've seen, in buying other people's products and projects, is
board houses passing off ENIG as hard gold (and charging for it!) or
claiming they're using "extra heavy ENIG" -- which of course isn't a thing,
because ENIG is an ion swap!

Thanks,
Jonathan

On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 1:14 PM dwight via cctalk 
wrote:

> I was wondering, does anyone check the thickness of the gold plating
> anymore. Years ago, working at another large company, we saw quite a bit of
> cheating on this.
> Trust but verity.
> Dwight
>
> 
> From: cctalk  on behalf of Dennis Boone
> via cctalk 
> Sent: Friday, August 16, 2019 8:46 AM
> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org 
> Subject: Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board
>
> > I've gotten the distinct impression that US board houses really are
>  > only interested in government/military/aerospace work. I've often
>  > wondered what it would take to set up a modern "no human interaction"
>  > line and if one could be even a little competitive with the Chinese
>  > on it.
>
> Based on a couple of youtube videos I've seen in the last year (sorry,
> don't have links), I'm not sure it's entirely fair to describe the
> Chinese board house process as "no human interaction".  I mean, sure,
> web form submission, but they seem to have a lot of "engineers" checking
> designs, and factory workers, and...
>
> De
>

Re: Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

[Tomasz Rola via cctalk]

On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 02:21:36AM -0400, Noel Chiappa via cctalk
wrote:
[...]
> Yeah, I added "CHWiki" to the text on the Main Page to make it a
> little easier

Because of curiosity, I tried.

On gog:
 === chwiki - because gog discovers I type from Poland and "chwiki"
 looks like Polish word "chwili" (a genetivus of "chwila" which means
 "moment", or "a second", like "just a second"), so it gave me page
 full of stuff like "this moment is best" or "no better moment than
 her touch" (which even for native speaker sounds a bit too contorted,
 but gog just indexes whatever garbage local folk produce)

 === computer history wiki - fifth result on first page

 === gunkies - first link on first page

On double duck:
 all the same, like above

Please note, for me gunkies.org and http://gunkies.org/wiki/Main_Page
are equals, so I assume finding gunkies.org counts.


-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.  **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home**
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...  **
** **
** Tomasz Rola  mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **

Re: Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

[ben via cctalk]

On 8/16/2019 1:50 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:

On Thu, 15 Aug 2019, Noel Chiappa wrote:
An additional issue, I think, is that Google is deprecating sites that 
use
HTTP, versus HTTPS. I can't comment more, lest I start ranting at the 
utter


Not true, in contrary, Google even crawls through FTP sites :-)

Christian


Well with me I have been finding with many searches, the modern browsers
refuse to display sites for "what they figure is unsafe" yet the porn 
ads still show. I can find it, but not view it.

Ben.

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[dwight via cctalk]

I was wondering, does anyone check the thickness of the gold plating anymore. 
Years ago, working at another large company, we saw quite a bit of cheating on 
this.
Trust but verity.
Dwight


From: cctalk  on behalf of Dennis Boone via 
cctalk 
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2019 8:46 AM
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org 
Subject: Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

> I've gotten the distinct impression that US board houses really are
 > only interested in government/military/aerospace work. I've often
 > wondered what it would take to set up a modern "no human interaction"
 > line and if one could be even a little competitive with the Chinese
 > on it.

Based on a couple of youtube videos I've seen in the last year (sorry,
don't have links), I'm not sure it's entirely fair to describe the
Chinese board house process as "no human interaction".  I mean, sure,
web form submission, but they seem to have a lot of "engineers" checking
designs, and factory workers, and...

De

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[Dennis Boone via cctalk]

 > I've gotten the distinct impression that US board houses really are
 > only interested in government/military/aerospace work. I've often
 > wondered what it would take to set up a modern "no human interaction"
 > line and if one could be even a little competitive with the Chinese
 > on it.

Based on a couple of youtube videos I've seen in the last year (sorry,
don't have links), I'm not sure it's entirely fair to describe the
Chinese board house process as "no human interaction".  I mean, sure,
web form submission, but they seem to have a lot of "engineers" checking
designs, and factory workers, and...

De

Re: Google site ordering (Was: Archiving information)

[Seth J. Morabito via cctalk]

Noel Chiappa via cctalk writes:

> I assume he knew what he was talking about (via his Web-site engineering
> people). I suppose I could research it, but I don't have the time right
> at the moment. I'd love to hear if anyone else knows more.

It is true. Google now marks any site that is not using HTTPS as
"insecure", and uses that as a negative weight in their rankig
algorithm.

I have mixed feelings about this. I do think that FORCING people to use
TLS encryption is a bad thing. On the other hand, we live in strange
times -- many ISPs are intercepting HTTP traffic and injecting content
into the pages. Using TLS encryption is an effective way to avoid this
(for now). I personally enforce TLS on all my sites just for that
reason.

>   Noel

-Seth

--
Seth Morabito
Poulsbo, WA, USA
w...@loomcom.com

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[systems_glitch via cctalk]

Indeed, when I tried to get quotes for the first XT-IDE run, the best
US-based quote I got was around $15/board with a *16 WEEK* lead time.
Compare to my usual "does good hard gold" shop in China, PCB Cart, at
$8/board (final all-in cost) and 12 day lead time, including the initial
tooling fees. PCB Cart is the same shop that the former N8VEM project,
s100computers.com, etc. have used for their work, so they've got a long,
solid track record with the hobbyist community.

I've gotten the distinct impression that US board houses really are only
interested in government/military/aerospace work. I've often wondered what
it would take to set up a modern "no human interaction" line and if one
could be even a little competitive with the Chinese on it.

Thanks,
Jonathan

On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 11:18 AM Jon Elson  wrote:

> On 08/16/2019 08:59 AM, systems_glitch via cctalk wrote:
> > Paul,
> >
> > I've got a board house I usually use, but if I can find a shop in the USA
> > that will do hard gold plating and provide a comparable cost-per-board,
> I'd
> > certainly switch!
> >
> >
> There are few board houses in the US anymore, and they are
> usually doing aerospace or government work, and are quite
> expensive.  Most of the supposedly US-based outfits now do
> almost all their fabrication in China.
>
> I use E-teknet, based in AZ, but their fabs are in China.
> They do VERY good work.  In the distant past I did a lot of
> boards with US makers, but had a constant problem that they
> would charge me for electrical test, and then just cheat and
> NOT actually test the boards, just do a visual inspection.
> So, I ended up with 4-layer boards with shorts on the inner
> layers!  And, only found those after stuffing the boards.  A
> MAJOR pain, and I would blacklist those companies.
> Well, E-teknet has never done that to me.  (The flying probe
> tester leaves TINY dots on the pads, so you can tell whether
> a board has been tested or not.)
>
> Jon
>

Re: Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Steven M Jones

> imagine that a law is passed in a far away land, and the site owner
> decides it's is too risky to bother with, and they then take the entire
> site down - wiki and fora - with no warning and no access to the
> material...
> ..
> I would strongly suggest that if people are going to do something of
> the scale you describe, they might want to consider setting up a
> distribution or replication mechanism 

Past events have made me very concerned about this issue! On a couple of
occasions, Tore (who runs the CHWiki) has forgotten to pay the DNS fee, or
something similar, and it went off-line (the first time for a week, as he
was off camping). Leading to total panic on my part when he wasn't reachable,
about all the content I'd written!

There is an automatic backup system which sends copies to a machine at his
house, so the particular scenario above (hosting sevice goes away with no
warning) is not an issue. (Yes, a Chicxulub event in Scandanavia would defeat
that, but we'd all probably have larger problems to worry about!) After the
first event, I make manual backups here of all the articles I contribute.

The biggest concern is if he has an unfortunate interaction with a truck. I
did raise this issue with him, and he had some initial suggestions, but I
haven't followed through. If people start contributing, it'd probably be time
to formalize something.

Noel

Re: Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

[Seth J. Morabito via cctalk]

Paul Koning via cctalk writes:

> Anything worth having around deserves backup.  Which makes me wonder
> -- how is Wikipedia backed up?  I guess it has a fork, which isn't
> quite the same thing.  I know Bitsavers is replicated in a number of
> places.  And one argument in favor of GIT is that every workspace is a
> full backup of the original, history and all.
>
> One should worry for smaller scale efforts, though.

This is a problem I think about a lot.

In the early 2000s I worked on the LOCKSS program at Stanford
University. LOCKSS stands for "Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe", and is a
distributed network of servers that replicate backup copies of
electronic academic journals. It stemmed from a research project that
looked at how to design an attack resistent peer-to-peer digital
archival network.  Each node in the network keeps a copy of the original
journal content, does a cryptographic hash of each resource (HTML page,
image, PDF, etc.), and participates in a steady stream of polls with all
the other nodes where they vote on the hashes. If a minority of nodes
loses a poll, their content is assumed to be damaged, missing, or bad,
and they replicate the content from the winners of the poll.

It's designed as a "Dark" archive, meaning the data is there, but nobody
tries to access it unless the original web content disappears. Then, the
servers act as transparent web proxies, so when you hit the original URL
or URI, they serve up the content that's now missing from the real
public Internet.

It's a neat idea. It's also open source, and unencumbered with
patents. I've always thought a similar model could be used to archive
and replicate just about anything, but it's just one of those things
that nobody's ever gotten around to doing.

>   paul

-Seth

--
  Seth Morabito
  Poulsbo, WA, USA
  w...@loomcom.com

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 08/16/2019 08:59 AM, systems_glitch via cctalk wrote:

Paul,

I've got a board house I usually use, but if I can find a shop in the USA
that will do hard gold plating and provide a comparable cost-per-board, I'd
certainly switch!


There are few board houses in the US anymore, and they are 
usually doing aerospace or government work, and are quite 
expensive.  Most of the supposedly US-based outfits now do 
almost all their fabrication in China.


I use E-teknet, based in AZ, but their fabs are in China.  
They do VERY good work.  In the distant past I did a lot of 
boards with US makers, but had a constant problem that they 
would charge me for electrical test, and then just cheat and 
NOT actually test the boards, just do a visual inspection.  
So, I ended up with 4-layer boards with shorts on the inner 
layers!  And, only found those after stuffing the boards.  A 
MAJOR pain, and I would blacklist those companies.
Well, E-teknet has never done that to me.  (The flying probe 
tester leaves TINY dots on the pads, so you can tell whether 
a board has been tested or not.)


Jon

Re: Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 08/16/2019 02:50 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:

On Thu, 15 Aug 2019, Noel Chiappa wrote:
An additional issue, I think, is that Google is 
deprecating sites that use
HTTP, versus HTTPS. I can't comment more, lest I start 
ranting at the utter


Not true, in contrary, Google even crawls through FTP 
sites :-)


I kind of wonder what this is all about?  I mean, why do you 
have to encrypt today's weather report, a company's public 
web page, and such stuff.  Just to waste CPU time?


Jon

Re: Scanner: was : Re: VAX DATATRIEVE orange binders (4)

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 8/15/19 11:21 PM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote:

> Is this the same, Al is using?
> (can't find the reference anymore)
> 
> 

The scanning info is on the main bitsavers.org page
I'm still using a Panasonic KV-S3065CW

I checked the backlog of scanned VAX manuals, and it doesn't
look like I have anything more scanned fore DATATRIEVE

Google site ordering (Was: Archiving information)

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Christian Corti

>> An additional issue, I think, is that Google is deprecating sites that
>> use HTTP, versus HTTPS.

> Not true, in contrary, Google even crawls through FTP sites :-)

I did say "deprecate", not 'ignore totally'! :-)

Here's what I know: An e-commerce site where I do a lot of business announced
that they would switch to using HTTPS. I grumped, because I'd have to use a
browser I don't like as much. The owner wrote back as follows:

  "next month Google will begin to demote all websites that are not https
  secure"

I assume he knew what he was talking about (via his Web-site engineering
people). I suppose I could research it, but I don't have the time right
at the moment. I'd love to hear if anyone else knows more.

Noel

Re: GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

[systems_glitch via cctalk]

Paul,

I've got a board house I usually use, but if I can find a shop in the USA
that will do hard gold plating and provide a comparable cost-per-board, I'd
certainly switch!

Thanks,
Jonathan

On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 12:55 AM Paul Anderson  wrote:

> Hi Jonathan,
>
> If you are looking for someone to make the boards, I know someone in CA.
> I'll try to dig up his contact info this weekend.
>
> Paul
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 14, 2019 at 7:14 PM systems_glitch via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
>> Connor Krukosky and I have been working on laying out a new quad-height
>> DEC
>> protoboard, which can also be sheared down into a dual-height board. Full
>> announce on the VC Forums:
>>
>>
>> http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?71177-GW-DEC-1-A-New-Quad-Height-DEC-Prototyping-Board=582892#post582892
>>
>> These should be available within a month or so. I'll be putting up a
>> preorder soon to gauge interest in the production run, which as usual will
>> have hard gold plating on the edge connectors. I haven't gotten a quote
>> for
>> the cost, but I expect them to be $30-40 each for production boards.
>> They'll be available at VCF Midwest as well as online!
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jonathan
>>
>

Re: Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Aug 16, 2019, at 6:14 AM, Steven M Jones via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> On 08/15/2019 23:21, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
>> I have on several occasions posted appeals to this list for people to
>> contribute content to it, and gotten almost no response (with one notable
>> exception), in terms of added content; that was a large part of why I merely
>> mentioned it in an offhand way.
> 
> I don't want to discourage anybody from contributing to this or any other 
> project. However...
> 
> Imagine if you will that many people, over many years, put a lot of work into 
> pulling information together on a site with forums, and then distilling that 
> information into a lot of wiki pages. Many discussions in the forums, with 
> hard-won facts and interesting projects documented there. Things the 
> manufacturer(s) never admitted you could do! So many wiki pages carefully 
> explaining things, recording specifications, procedures, configurations, part 
> numbers, substitutions. An incredibly useful resource and a very active 
> community.
> 
> Then imagine that a law is passed in a far away land, and the site owner 
> decides it's is too risky to bother with, and they then take the entire site 
> down - wiki and fora - with no warning and no access to the material...

You don't even have to assume government malice.  Lots of providers have gone 
out of business without any warning simply because of not being economically 
viable.  Or even because the operators decided they weren't interested any 
longer.

Anything worth having around deserves backup.  Which makes me wonder -- how is 
Wikipedia backed up?  I guess it has a fork, which isn't quite the same thing.  
I know Bitsavers is replicated in a number of places.  And one argument in 
favor of GIT is that every workspace is a full backup of the original, history 
and all.

One should worry for smaller scale efforts, though.

paul

Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 59, Issue 13 (Curt Vendel)

[Michael Thompson via cctalk]

>
> Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2019 12:06:48 -0400
> From: Curt Vendel 
> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 59, Issue 13
>
> Will...
>
> I?m still waiting for you and the Rhode Island Computer Society to get my
> brand new in the box 9766, the Alignment disk platter, the box of spare
> heads and the other unit 9766 beat up unit up and running that I gave you
> to donate to RICS for free in exchange for you reading the dozen 300mb
> platters I have and then once the data was read they could keep the
> platters...
>
> So still waiting on that...  hint hint hint
>

There are two vintage computer groups in Rhode Island, The Rhode Island
Computer Museum , and the Retro-Computing
Society of Rhode Island . In this case, Curt is
talking about the Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island.

-- 
Michael Thompson

Re: Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

[Steven M Jones via cctalk]

On 08/15/2019 23:21, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:


I have on several occasions posted appeals to this list for people to
contribute content to it, and gotten almost no response (with one notable
exception), in terms of added content; that was a large part of why I merely
mentioned it in an offhand way.


I don't want to discourage anybody from contributing to this or any 
other project. However...


Imagine if you will that many people, over many years, put a lot of work 
into pulling information together on a site with forums, and then 
distilling that information into a lot of wiki pages. Many discussions 
in the forums, with hard-won facts and interesting projects documented 
there. Things the manufacturer(s) never admitted you could do! So many 
wiki pages carefully explaining things, recording specifications, 
procedures, configurations, part numbers, substitutions. An incredibly 
useful resource and a very active community.


Then imagine that a law is passed in a far away land, and the site owner 
decides it's is too risky to bother with, and they then take the entire 
site down - wiki and fora - with no warning and no access to the material...


I'm not arguing against community collaborations at all - I guess I'm 
mostly just venting my considerable spleen. :(


But I would strongly suggest that if people are going to do something of 
the scale you describe, they might want to consider setting up a 
distribution or replication mechanism at their earliest convenience.


--S.

RE: Event Reminder: DEC Legacy is back on 9th-10th Nov 2019, Windermere UK

[Rob Jarratt via cctalk]

I think I already booked didn't I?

Regards

Rob

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk  On Behalf Of mark--- via
cctalk
> Sent: 16 August 2019 08:17
> To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
> 
> Subject: Event Reminder: DEC Legacy is back on 9th-10th Nov 2019,
> Windermere UK
> 
> 
> Just a quick reminder for those folk thinking about registering...
> 
> The next DEC Legacy will take place Saturday 9th November 2019 - Sunday
> 10th at the Marchesi Centre in Windermere, North West UK.
> 
> With a focus on Digital Equipment Corporation and their legacy of
hardware,
> software and ethos I'm also extending an open invitation to those who are
> interested in SGI, HP, Sun, IBM and other high end hardware to come along
> and share their passion with us. Several formal presentations will be
mixed
> with plenty of hands on time with hardware brought by enthusiasts.
> 
> Enthusiasts are encouraged to bring along hardware and software to
exhibit.
> The personal nature of the event brings a unique atmosphere within which
> friendships are easily forged. Registration is now open.
> 
> Please visit http://wickensonline.co.uk/declegacy/ for more details.
> 
> Kind Regards,
> Mark Wickens, M0NOM
> 

Re: Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 15 Aug 2019, Noel Chiappa wrote:

An additional issue, I think, is that Google is deprecating sites that use
HTTP, versus HTTPS. I can't comment more, lest I start ranting at the utter


Not true, in contrary, Google even crawls through FTP sites :-)

Christian

Event Reminder: DEC Legacy is back on 9th-10th Nov 2019, Windermere UK

[mark--- via cctalk]

Just a quick reminder for those folk thinking about registering...

The next DEC Legacy will take place Saturday 9th November 2019 - Sunday 10th
at the Marchesi Centre in Windermere, North West UK.

With a focus on Digital Equipment Corporation and their legacy of hardware,
software and ethos I'm also extending an open invitation to those who are
interested in SGI, HP, Sun, IBM and other high end hardware to come along
and share their passion with us. Several formal presentations will be mixed
with plenty of hands on time with hardware brought by enthusiasts.

Enthusiasts are encouraged to bring along hardware and software to exhibit.
The personal nature of the event brings a unique atmosphere within which
friendships are easily forged. Registration is now open.

Please visit http://wickensonline.co.uk/declegacy/ for more details.

Kind Regards,
Mark Wickens, M0NOM

Re: Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Eric Christopherson

>> Anyway, the whole 'how do we find the info' is a part of why I started
>> working on CHWiki, once I discovered it

> Psst: it would've been a good idea to share the URL to CHWiki.

Well, that passing reference wasn't an attempt to get people to go look at
it, hence no URL! :-) I was focused on the abstract discussion about 'how do
we make information accessible, if relying on search engines to find blog
postings doesn't work'.

I have on several occasions posted appeals to this list for people to
contribute content to it, and gotten almost no response (with one notable
exception), in terms of added content; that was a large part of why I merely
mentioned it in an offhand way.

> a site I was already familiar with, but not under the name you used for
> it.

Ah, formally it's the 'Computer History Wiki', except that's a lot of typing,
so I've been using 'CHWiki' as a short, easy-to-type, name for it for some
time now.

> (It was a bit hard to find with Google, which just goes to show...)

Yeah, I added "CHWiki" to the text on the Main Page to make it a little easier
to find from the short name, after a previous case where I'd used that term
here, to some people's confusion. But I see it still doesn't work well; I
guess I'll have to add 'CHWiki' links from more pages. Using 'Computer History
Wiki' as a search term only works slightly better, though; it's at the bottom
of the first page of results for me, below a bunch of Wikipedia links.

Noel

PS: In response to a point raised in a private reply to me; the site is for
_all_ historical computers: personal computers, mainframes, the lot. I myself
have added a lot of PDP-11 material, but only because I'm very fond of them,
and know them well. The field of historial computers is _way_ too broad for
one person to cover in depth, which is part of why I previously appealed to
people who knew/were familar with other corners of it to add detailed content
in those areas.

Scanner: was : Re: VAX DATATRIEVE orange binders (4)

[emanuel stiebler via cctalk]

On 2019-08-16 01:41, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote:

> Yes it's an easy scanning job. I have a suitable Fujitsu fi-4530C ADF
> (great machine). Was just testing the waters for interest

Is this the same, Al is using?
(can't find the reference anymore)