4.2BSD TU58 distribution tape for VAX-11/750?

Hey all -- I'm researching what I need to have on hand to get 4.2BSD installed running on my 11/750. I'm pretty close to having mass storage working, I have a SCSI TMSCP tape controller that should do the job in conjunction with a SCSI 9-track drive, and the VAX itself seems to be happy.

Re: COSMAC Elf switch panel using PCBs

On Sat, Apr 23, 2016 at 8:18 PM, dwight wrote: > You'd need to decide, LOAD is switch up or > LOAD is switch down. Which still doesn't explain how a toggle (not momentary) can be said to have NC and NO pins. But at this point I'm flogging a dead horse. > Even if a single

Re: Tadpole Sparcbook Hard Drive

I have nothing unfortunately! It's that caddy and cable that's the hard part. On Sat, Apr 23, 2016 at 9:28 PM, Ian Finder wrote: > What's your scenario? Do you have the caddy and cable? If so, a SCSI2SD is > a good bet. > > Sent from Outlook for

Re: bit slice chips (was Re: Harris H800 Computer)

I recall going to Mike Quinn's and seeing barrels of RTL. I wish now that I'd bought a bunch of them. Most DTL can be replace by a TTL except a few with different pinouts and the NAND with the diode expand pin. My oldest equipment has a mix of DTL and TTL. Dwight

Re: COSMAC Elf switch panel using PCBs

You'd need to decide, LOAD is switch up or LOAD is switch down. Even if a single wire, it needs to be debounced. Dwight From: cctalk on behalf of Eric Smith If it was momentary, it would have to be

Re: COSMAC Elf switch panel using PCBs

On Sat, Apr 23, 2016 at 5:09 PM, dwight wrote: > Lf it were mine to make, it would be a spring return > momentary SPDT. NC would be ground and NO would be +5V, > as per the schematic. > I'm not sure what the manual says about it. > It is debounced with a jam latch, as per

FA: 5.25" floppy mailers

I just came across two unopened boxes (500 each) of 6"x0" 5.25" floppy disk mailers. Anyone want them? You can have them for shipping, FOB 97405. --Chuck

Re: Accelerator boards - no future? Bad business?

Overall I'm personally much more about using the system *as a whole* than using it *as it was*. For example, I have a Mac IIci with maxed-out RAM, some large SCSI disks, Ethernet, and an accelerated NuBus video card, all possible at the time. (Though 128MB RAM and the 1GB disks would have

Re: bit slice chips (was Re: Harris H800 Computer)

On 2016-Apr-23, at 4:15 PM, Jon Elson wrote: > On 04/23/2016 05:46 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> On 04/23/2016 02:34 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: >> >>> I was surprised by the early date code on the 7490s when I ran across >>> them in a piece of test equipment. >> What was surprising to me is how

First Retail version of MS-DOS was Re: Ibm s-100 system?

I am not sure if 5.00 was the first Retail version. I know that for fact there is a 3.2 version released in the blue plexiglass Microsoft retail packaging. The 4.x versions are usually gray boxed with some having OEM/new computer stickers. -Ali

Re: COSMAC Elf switch panel using PCBs

I think you two are talking different versions of the Elf: Eric is talking specifically about the Elf 2000 whose circuit design has been modified considerably from the original version Dwight appears to be referring to. For my part, when I refurbished a period homebrew implementation (someone's

Re: Ibm s-100 system?

On 04/23/2016 05:09 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > After Microsoft upgraded PC-DOS from 1.00 to 1.10, they then > provided computer OEMs with a similar product numbered 1.25 OEMs were > expected to make their own personalized and customized IO.SYS, > MODE.COM (could also do stuff such as switching

Re: Ibm s-100 system?

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016, william degnan wrote: I have a copy of a MS or IBM DOS for my CompuPro on 8" disk, I think it's v. 1.25. 1.25 would be MS-DOS. The PC-DOS equivalent was 1.10 ("equivalent", NOT exactly the same (GWBASIC, MODE.COM differences, IO.SYS/IBMBIO.COM differences, FORMAT,

Re: bit slice chips (was Re: Harris H800 Computer)

On 04/23/2016 05:46 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: On 04/23/2016 02:34 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: I was surprised by the early date code on the 7490s when I ran across them in a piece of test equipment. What was surprising to me is how quickly the industry standardized on the TI 7400/5400 parts.

Re: bit slice chips (was Re: Harris H800 Computer)

On 04/23/2016 04:34 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: The interesting thing was that there seemed to be a distrust of LSI chips early on. I recall working on a project around 1973, where the lead engineer preferred to design his own UART from SSI rather than use one of the new UART chips. Well, he

Re: COSMAC Elf switch panel using PCBs

Lf it were mine to make, it would be a spring return momentary SPDT. NC would be ground and NO would be +5V, as per the schematic. I'm not sure what the manual says about it. It is debounced with a jam latch, as per schematic. Tinker Dwight From: cctalk

Re: Ibm s-100 system?

On Sat, Apr 23, 2016 at 5:56 PM, Jim Brain wrote: > On 4/22/2016 11:02 AM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > >> I wrote a somewhat long post a while ago on why we’re still stuck with >> various timing artifacts due to the original PC’s choice to use an NTSC >> color burst crystal as the

Re: bit slice chips (was Re: Harris H800 Computer)

On 04/23/2016 02:34 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: > I was surprised by the early date code on the 7490s when I ran across > them in a piece of test equipment. What was surprising to me is how quickly the industry standardized on the TI 7400/5400 parts. Early (ca 1967) Moto databooks had MTTL I,

Re: Ibm s-100 system?

On 4/22/2016 11:02 AM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: I wrote a somewhat long post a while ago on why we’re still stuck with various timing artifacts due to the original PC’s choice to use an NTSC color burst crystal as the main crystal for the PC. TTFN - Guy Link? -- Jim Brain br...@jbrain.com

WTB: Sun Voyager Bag, Oberheim Synthesizer

Two things on the hunt list: 1. Sun Sparcstation Voyager bag (the bag to put it in) 2. Oberheim Matrix 6, 6R or 1000 synthesizers.

Re: bit slice chips (was Re: Harris H800 Computer)

On 2016-Apr-23, at 10:06 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 04/23/2016 05:41 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: >>> From: Brent Hilpert >> >>> I'd say the 74181 (1970) deserves a mention here. Simpler (no >>> register component, ALU only) but it pretty much kicked off the >>> start of IC-level bit slicing. > >

RE: AlphaStation 200 NVRAM Problem

> > First of all you might be able to run some SRAM diagnostics yourself, > either from the console (if it has a tool for this; at worst you could > poke at it manually with deposit/examine commands, but the complicated > flashbus access protocol will make it a tedious task unless there is a

RE: AlphaStation 200 NVRAM Problem

> First of all you might be able to run some SRAM diagnostics yourself, either > from the console (if it has a tool for this; at worst you could poke at it > manually with deposit/examine commands, but the complicated flashbus > access protocol will make it a tedious task unless there is a way

RE: AlphaStation 200 NVRAM Problem

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > Second: it may also be that DROM itself is faulty, a bit may have flipped > for > > example; NB this is UV EPROM, so things happen. Maybe someone can > > share a known-good image. > > > > When I put the DROM back the failure returned. So it is

Re: Keys - Non-Ace was RE: ACE Key codes (xx2247 etc.)

> On a related note, a former DEC field engineer gave me this key (and > keychain). He thought it was a PDP-8 key at first, but it's not the > standard XX2247. It says KBM1100...any ideas what this might go to? VAXen were used in GE EDACS repeater controllers, so perhaps one of those systems?

Re: CDC 6600/Cyber 73 Memories - WAS: Harris H800 Computer

Now that we're on the subject of 6600's and the like... I have a bit of a puzzle. I have some CDC 7600 modules; these consist of 8 thin PCB's, with metal shielding in between. On the back, there are 8 rows of 16 pins, and on the front there are 8 rows of 6 recessed pins, staggered (I believe for

Re: COSMAC Elf switch panel using PCBs

On Sat, Apr 23, 2016 at 11:28 AM, dwight wrote: > I looked at the schematic pdf and it looks right. > The ground lead is the NC. It's an SPDT toggle. Neither the NC or NO pin of the switch should be tied to ground; it's the common pin that's grounded. So for a toggle switch,

Re: bit slice chips (was Re: Harris H800 Computer)

On 04/23/2016 11:29 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > From: Jon Elson > The 11/45 and 11/70 are mostly the same processor. ... > the data paths boards and FPU are the same part numbers 'Yes' to the FPP (well, there are two versions, the FP11-B and FP11-C, but they are both identical in

Re: High performance coprocessor boards of the 80s and 90s - was Re: SGI ONYX

On 04/20/2016 10:32 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: On 20/04/2016 16:00, Toby Thain wrote: On 2016-04-20 10:27 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: It did indeed - I have one. Also a couple of 6502 CoPros, a 65C102, a 32016 and a pair of Z80s, which were nice in their day. Nice collection. I'd forgotten about

Re: bit slice chips (was Re: Harris H800 Computer)

> AFAIK, the only non-FPP board in the CPU which is interchangeable > between the two machines is the M8132 (instruction register decode & > condition codes) So it seems like there's an(other) error in the DEC documentation. If one looks at 11/70 Maintenance Manual (EK-11070-MM-002),

Tadpole Sparcbook Hard Drive

This is a long shot, but does anyone have a Tadpole Sparcbook 3TX hard drive? Their existence may be just a myth. -- Ben Sinclair b...@bensinclair.com

Re: High performance coprocessor boards of the 80s and 90s - was Re: SGI ONYX

On 04/21/2016 09:51 AM, Jon Elson wrote: On 04/21/2016 07:04 AM, Jules Richardson wrote: On 04/20/2016 10:00 AM, Toby Thain wrote: Nice collection. I'd forgotten about the 32016! What software ran on these respective processors? OS-wise the 32016 ran something called Panos, with Pandora as

Re: High performance coprocessor boards of the 80s and 90s - was Re: SGI ONYX

On 04/22/2016 11:59 AM, Liam Proven wrote: The only BBC copro that could run GEM, AFAIAA, was the BBC Master 512 with the Intel 80186. And the '286 copro for the ABC3xx machines, I expect; the '186 which ended up in the M512 was essentially a cost-reduced version of that board (slower CPU

Re: Accelerator boards - no future? Bad business?

On 04/23/2016 10:37 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > From: Jules Richardson > I can't see the point in modern upgrades .. At the point where people > start adding emulated storage, USB interfaces, VGA display hardware > etc. it stops being a vintage system and starts being a modern

RE: AlphaStation 200 NVRAM Problem

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016, Robert Jarratt wrote: > Well! I took out the DROM and switched it on again. The machine bleeped at > me, but then it gave me a console and I was able to boot VMS! I'm glad that it worked, this will certainly make further diagnostics easier, and you have a usable machine

Re: COSMAC Elf switch panel using PCBs

>From p.11: "RUN and LOAD switches S1 and S2 in Fig. 5 control the operation of the computer. With both switches set to OFF, ~LOAD is +5V and RUN is at ground potential. This resets the 1802." Note the tilde, suggesting ~LOAD is active low. m - Original Message - From: "dwight"

Re: COSMAC Elf switch panel using PCBs

I looked at the schematic pdf and it looks right. The ground lead is the NC. Can you tell us what page reference you think is wrong or confusing? Dwight From: cctalk on behalf of Eric Smith Sent:

RE: AlphaStation 200 NVRAM Problem

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016, Robert Jarratt wrote: > > But from the discussion referred I gather DROM outputs its diagnostics to > > this port too and you might be able to learn what exactly about NVRAM it > > complains. > > > Ah OK, so you think the DROM console also outputs to the SROM diagnostics?

RE: AlphaStation 200 NVRAM Problem

> But from the discussion referred I gather DROM outputs its diagnostics to > this port too and you might be able to learn what exactly about NVRAM it > complains. Also you might be able to correct configuration, e.g. by poking at > NVRAM or elsewhere appropriately; notice that the manual also

Re: bit slice chips (was Re: Harris H800 Computer)

> From: Jon Elson > The 11/45 and 11/70 are mostly the same processor. ... > the data paths boards and FPU are the same part numbers 'Yes' to the FPP (well, there are two versions, the FP11-B and FP11-C, but they are both identical in the two machines). 'No' to the data paths,

RE: AlphaStation 200 NVRAM Problem

> > > > I don't think the SROM diagnostics are going to help much because the > > failure is in the DROM sequence, which comes after the SROM. > > But from the discussion referred I gather DROM outputs its diagnostics to > this port too and you might be able to learn what exactly about NVRAM

Re: Keys - Non-Ace was RE: ACE Key codes (xx2247 etc.)

> What do you think of the Klom imitation of it? Initial impressions of the Klom K-747 tubular key cutter The Klom K-747 cutter is designed to cut Chicago ACE type tubular keys, and the Fort equivalents. It is available in at least four key barrel sizes, 7.0mm, 7.3mm, 7.5mm and 7.8mm. The

RE: VCF East pictures

> Simplest just to read the article (it's not very long): > > http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Feb1975/PE_Feb1975.htm > Thanks Bill. That is pretty cool! -Ali

Re: bit slice chips (was Re: Harris H800 Computer)

On 04/23/2016 07:41 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > From: Brent Hilpert > I'd say the 74181 (1970) deserves a mention here. Simpler (no register > component, ALU only) but it pretty much kicked off the start of > IC-level bit slicing. Yes, it was used in quite a few machines.

Re: Accelerator boards - no future? Bad business?

> From: Jules Richardson > I can't see the point in modern upgrades .. At the point where people > start adding emulated storage, USB interfaces, VGA display hardware > etc. it stops being a vintage system and starts being a modern version > which just happens to still have a

Re: bit slice chips (was Re: Harris H800 Computer)

On 04/22/2016 11:10 PM, Jon Elson wrote: Yikes, too many typos, let me try over! I built a 32-bit micro-engine for a project that was eventually going to be an IBM 360-like CPU. I picked the 360, not because it was the greatest design, but it was VERY well laid-out and would be easy to write

RE: Accelerator boards - no future? Bad business?

> Honestly, I can't see the point in modern upgrades except perhaps for > temporary use in order to get data to/from original equipment. At the point > where people start adding emulated storage, USB interfaces, VGA display > hardware etc. it stops being a vintage system and starts being a modern

Re: Accelerator boards - no future? Bad business?

On 04/22/2016 01:51 PM, Eric Christopherson wrote: I like the new types of peripherals but it makes me a little uncomfortable knowing that e.g. in the case of the uIEC-SD for Commodores, the clock speed of the peripheral is 16 to 20 times that of the original host CPU. Honestly, I can't see

Re: Accelerator boards - no future? Bad business?

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016, Sean Conner wrote: > > > One major problem with adding a faster CPU to an SGI is the MIPS chip > > > itself---code compiled for one MIPS CPU (say, the R3000) won't run on > > > another MIPS CPU (say, the R4400) due to the differences in the pipeline. > > > MIPS compilers

Re: Accelerator boards - no future? Bad business?

On 04/22/2016 01:03 PM, Swift Griggs wrote: Remember all the accelerator boards for the Mac, Amiga, and even PCs in the 90's ? I've often wished that I could get something similar on my older SGI systems. Well, I seem to remember that some of the desktop SGI machines could take a variety of

RE: AlphaStation 200 NVRAM Problem

> Information on using that is however scarce and scattered, you can find > some here to start: and then the > pinout for the serial diagnostic port is included here: > 199909/cd1/alpha/pcdsatia.pdf> > (the

Re: bit slice chips (was Re: Harris H800 Computer)

> From: Brent Hilpert > I'd say the 74181 (1970) deserves a mention here. Simpler (no register > component, ALU only) but it pretty much kicked off the start of > IC-level bit slicing. Yes, it was used in quite a few machines. Among the PDP-11's alone, it is found in the -11/45,

Re: Accelerator boards - no future? Bad business?

On 23/04/2016 06:16, Eric Smith wrote: On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 9:29 PM, Sean Conner wrote: One major problem with adding a faster CPU to an SGI is the MIPS chip itself---code compiled for one MIPS CPU (say, the R3000) won't run on another MIPS CPU (say, the R4400) due to

Re: Z80 /WAIT signal question

On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 12:26 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > I thought at one point I saw Zilog or Mostek Z80 documentation > that gave the specific details of every M cycle of every instruction, > but I can find such a thing at the moment. :-( Found it. Section 12.0 of the Mostek

Re: Seeking immediate rescue of full-rack SGI ONYX near Northbrook, IL

On 4/19/16 14:58, Swift Griggs wrote: one of your software vendors. Ugh. Of course, watching SGI under Rick Belluzo (I hated that guy) wasn't much easier. "Ohhh, I'm ex-Microsoft so let's make Windows NT workstations." Ugh, Puh!, Bleh grrraaat idea, guys. I wish the board could be

Re: Ibm s-100 system?

On Thu, Apr 21, 2016 at 7:52 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > Nothing I ever heard of and I was in IBM Boca at the time and would have > heard > *something* about it. > > TTFN - Guy > > Are you sure, the IBM S-100 system was demoed only in Europe, I assume developed there too. I

Re: Ibm s-100 system?

> On Apr 22, 2016, at 5:18 AM, william degnan wrote: > > On Thu, Apr 21, 2016 at 7:52 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > >> Nothing I ever heard of and I was in IBM Boca at the time and would have >> heard >> *something* about it. >> >> TTFN - Guy >> >> >