[cctalk] Re: Friden (was Silly question about S-100 and video monitors)

the added errors of them downloading your design and sending gerbers off. On Mon, Sep 4, 2023 at 12:03 AM Paul Koning wrote: > > > > On Sep 3, 2023, at 5:34 PM, Adrian Godwin via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > OSHPArk and PCBWay will hold your des

[cctalk] Re: Friden (was Silly question about S-100 and video monitors)

On Mon, Sep 4, 2023 at 12:33 AM ben via cctalk wrote: > > I guess the era of kit building is long gone. > > Sadly, yes. The cost of bagging up all the components is large compared with the automated assembly cost, and many people are unwilling to do surface mount manually. Through-hole is

[cctalk] Re: Friden (was Silly question about S-100 and video monitors)

OSHPArk and PCBWay will hold your design and let other people buy them (if you wish). This is an excellent way to do cheap on-demand distribution. I don't believe Jlcpcb offer this. On Sun, Sep 3, 2023 at 10:32 PM Adrian Godwin wrote: > I had a couple of boards from OSHPark. They seemed a bit

[cctalk] Re: Friden (was Silly question about S-100 and video monitors)

I had a couple of boards from OSHPark. They seemed a bit slower : it took them longer to accumulate enough board orders to fill their panel needs. For a very small board (same size as an HPIB connector) they were excellent. Cheap, and postage included whereas the Chinese suppliers have expensive

[cctalk] Re: VCFMW vendor tables

Any proprietary interface or message database is anathema to honest communication. And even if they currently have benevolent commercial policies there's always the possibility of another twitter-style regression. Moguls love communication platforms and always have, from Randall Hearst onwards,

[cctalk] Re: Silly question about S-100 and video monitors

Singer certainly had a place in early computing. But was it the same Singer that made sewing machines ? On Fri, Sep 1, 2023 at 5:02 PM Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > On Fri, Sep 1, 2023 at 4:51 PM dwight via cctalk > wrote: > > > > My first computer was a Poly-88. I had no monitor and no

[cctalk] Re: Friden (was Silly question about S-100 and video monitors)

Interesting that processors are getting wider and wider, whilst (perhaps not in the same timeframe) we have moved away from parallel interfaces towards serial ones. I know there are reasons for that in operations-per-cycle and the difficulty of synchronising wide busses off-chip but I wonder if

[cctalk] Re: Greaseweazle part 2

An interesting update on greaseweazle. As I understand this it now supports LIF at the file level as well as at the disc format level. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OLdqJqJ490 On Sun, Jun 25, 2023 at 9:43 AM Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > On Sun, Jun 25, 2023 at 8:31 AM r.stricklin via

[cctalk] Re: Greaseweazle part 2

I should say that that's actually the Fluxengine software in combination with the Greaseweazle hardware. On Wed, Nov 1, 2023 at 11:19 AM Adrian Godwin wrote: > An interesting update on greaseweazle. As I understand this it now > supports LIF at the file level as well as at the disc format

[cctalk] Re: Good C to FPGA/PLA compiler

There are now some open source tools for working with fpgas. They started with the ice40 but have now been extended to cover others such that it's worth googling for free fpga tools rather than going to a single site. example

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

There are solutions to the dying DS chips. I have seen replacement with newer ones (but sometimes those have old cells too), surgery to replace the internal cell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZJDlNoJk7M, and replacement with a clone https://www.tindie.com/search/?q=dallas. However the critical

[cctalk] Re: VT100: Failing 2114 Chip Replaced With One With The Same Fault

Another possible approach is to trigger the logic analyser on a write access to that ram address, preferably with the probes on the ram itself. Look at the resulting captures .. does it seem consistent with the code and other accesses ? On Sun, Oct 8, 2023 at 12:35 PM Adrian Godwin wrote: >

[cctalk] Re: VT100: Failing 2114 Chip Replaced With One With The Same Fault

Do you have one of those eprom programmers which also do device checks ? They might do a check of the supposed faulty ram out of circuit. If you don't have one you could probably write one for any convenient device you have to hand such as an arduino. Exercising the ram with port writes will be

[cctalk] Re: Logic Analyzers - HP/Agilent 16700B or 1670G?

There have been a few threads very recently in https://groups.io/g/HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment which you would probably find interesting. There is a lot of enthusiasm over the 1670 and 16700 machines - I wouldn't say you've missed the sweet spot since these are now often much cheaper than the

[cctalk] Re: Good Inventory Program

It doesn't really add any proper database features (though there may be extensions) but I use mediawiki for cataloguing mixed information. It's good at just adding things to the structure and still providing a searchable store. On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 3:19 PM Hans-Ulrich Hölscher via cctalk <

[cctalk] Re: Philips P2000C add-ons.

On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 5:09 PM Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > A couple of questions if anyone has experience of this machine : > > 1) There is a 5 pin DIN socket for connecting an external video > monitor. The signals seem to be TTL-level separate syncs at European > TV rates (15625Hz

[cctalk] Re: Philips P2000C add-ons.

On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 6:46 PM Tony Duell wrote: > >> > >> 1) There is a 5 pin DIN socket for connecting an external video > >> monitor. The signals seem to be TTL-level separate syncs at European > >> TV rates (15625Hz horizontal, 50Hz vertical) and separate (not > >> composite) 4-level

[cctalk] Re: Philips P2000C add-ons.

!Chassis monitors". Built for things like ATMs. On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 9:12 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > On 1/24/2023 2:47 PM, Will Cooke via cctalk wrote: > > > > In the US in the late 80s and 90s, there were a crap ton of similar > monitors (without case)

[cctalk] Re: Philips P2000C restoration

On Wed, Jan 25, 2023 at 10:27 AM Tony Duell via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > I've put a few photos of the machine (in bits) in my flickr account here : > > https://www.flickr.com/photos/tony_duell/albums/72177720304931970 > > > Nice ! Very thorough cleaning of the disc drive ! But

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

My personal experience of graphical programming environments (scratch, matlab, PLCs, Max/MSP - though all in quite trivial amounts) is that they're dreadful. Painfully slow to use and clumsy compared with straight C. There are too many possible variants of what you might want to do, so every

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

Wikipedia claims line printers had achieved 600 lpm by the '50s and have reached 2500 lpm On Thu, Jan 26, 2023 at 9:56 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 1/26/23 13:23, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > On Thu, 26 Jan 2023, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > > > Even a

[cctalk] Re: in need of 2.5" disks

There was the Amstrad floppy. I think it was 3". Hopefully didn't get out of the UK. On Mon, Jan 23, 2023 at 7:47 PM Chris via cctalk wrote: > Ok the MS used 2" disks. I suspect only Fuji made them. I am that mental. > > 245 tpi 720kb. That thing was a beast in it's day. Like a LOTR dwarf >

[cctalk] Re: Age of Tape Formats?

Some information about the origin of CUTS here : https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/8099/whats-the-difference-between-kansas-city-tape-standard-and-cuts I recall a Logabax computer (a french office / accounting system that seems to e completely forgotten) in about 1975 that had a

[cctalk] Re: on the origin of home computers

Not really technical, but a couple of presentation points : There's a long tail to the video with no video and blank audio. After a while, a section of audio from the main flow is repeated. It seems to be common to consider Youtube videos more approachable if they're up to about 10 minutes long.

[cctalk] Re: on the origin of home computers

I like that you've included machines like the HP and IBM - sometimes these histories start with the Altair as being the first one at an affordable price, but I'm sure those desktop machines got to a lot of scientific homes before the enthusiasts machines began to appear. On Wed, Mar 8, 2023 at

[cctalk] Re: Low cost logic analyzer

I completely agree about the Saleae devices. Very good software, nicely made hardware. They're not cheap though, and only go up to 16 channels. You can capture 16 channels with the very cheap Cypress FX2 dev boards (the older Saleae devices were pretty much that). I'd like to find a convenient

[cctalk] Re: Low cost logic analyzer

Yes, I've used sigrok and sat on their IRC channel for quite a while. I've used the gpib analyser and extended a DMM driver to cover the hp34401A. The logic analyser client is probably the best application and is comparable with Saleae's own client. The streaming cli clients are also good, but I

[cctalk] Re: PDP-11/05 early print set for download

I thought it was Mazak too - eg https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Myford-Mazak-hand-dials-ML7-and-ML7R-/325571981560 On Sat, Mar 18, 2023 at 2:54 PM Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: > On 3/18/23 04:34, Steve Malikoff via cctalk wrote: > > G'day all, > > I have just uploaded the engineering drawings

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

I think museums these days are careful to make sure donations really are that. Not, probably, because they see a sale in their future but because in the event of commercial failure they don't want to have to execute thousands of different disposal requirements. On Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 2:55 PM

[cctalk] Re: Nuking an MFM drive with a magnet, format/servo gone?

Or ST506 ? On Fri, Feb 3, 2023 at 5:21 PM Alexandre Souza via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > I thoug the right one was st512...can you enlighten me on this subject > Tony? > > Enviado do meu Tele-Movel > > > > I assume by 'MFM' you mean a drive with an interface similar to the > ST412.

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

On Fri, Feb 3, 2023 at 4:45 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > Another problem with very old core is that its physical integrity is > often an issue. Cores can crack, being essentially ceramics. I'm > reminded of the CE fishing around in the oil bath of a 7090 with what > amounted to a

[cctalk] Re: Chatgpt : I had a retro dream

Fortunately the hype cycle already seems to be on the down trend, as people realise it's not an efficient way to handle natural-language questions but is an extremely effective bullshit generator. It may get as far as replacing politicians and estate agents as the archetypal liar, which will hurt

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

On Thu, Feb 9, 2023 at 7:14 PM Eric Moore via cctalk wrote: > I am very sorry to anyone I insulted. My tone was condescending. My only > intention was sincere concern for any fellow travellers who may be reading. > > Without your comment, I wouldn't have got the chuckle from Fred's :).

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

I normally use DuckDuckGo as it's the default in Brave, the degoogled version of Chrome that I use. It generally does what I want, but whereas google will usually give me local (UK) results first for suppliers, Duckduckgo will give worldwide results (which mostly means USA). You could see Google's

[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

On Sun, May 28, 2023 at 7:18 AM Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > > > > Tony, I don't recall what became of the AT with 486 replacement > > processor that used to be your main home machine. ISTR it had loads of > > different floppy drives hung off it. Is it still functional / > repairable? > >

[cctalk] Re: Rainbow H7842 PSU Fault

On Tue, May 30, 2023 at 11:30 AM Christian Corti via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > SMPUs don't like that, and don't even try a variable transformers. > > In the 80s, i worked for a company making just-pre-PC 8086 machines. We manufactured the SMPSU in-house, designed by a specialist

[cctalk] Re: Source for NEW (unused) punch tape

On Thu, Jun 8, 2023 at 6:01 PM Paul Koning wrote: > I wonder if mylar tape for punching could be found, or made. That was > seen occasionally, for applications where a tape needed to be read many > times. An OS binary tape might want that. I also remember seeing it on a > machine in my

[cctalk] Re: Source for NEW (unused) punch tape

makes both feed holes and data holes. I could be wrong. On Thu, Jun 8, 2023 at 5:10 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 6/8/23 08:52, Adrian Godwin via cctalk wrote: > > I think paper-slitters are pretty common. That is to say, if you go to > > anyone manufacturing addin

[cctalk] Re: Source for NEW (unused) punch tape

This wasn't a large IBM lineprinter and I'm pretty sure it was 1" tape, but it may well have been inspired by those machines. It would likely have been used with custom fanfold paper for invoices, cheques etc. - certainly the same sort of customer-specific those machines dealt with, but for the

[cctalk] Re: Source for NEW (unused) punch tape

I think paper-slitters are pretty common. That is to say, if you go to anyone manufacturing adding machine rolls they will have the capability to make custom widths in rather small job lots. It's an industry comparable with printing (and often combined, for when till rolls with custom printing is

[cctalk] Re: Source for NEW (unused) punch tape

The perforations might be a problem but could this work ? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/324481731229 On Mon, Jun 5, 2023 at 8:58 PM Wayne S via cctalk wrote: > There is this for ideas… > > https://www.instructables.com/DIY-Paper-TapePunch-Card-Maker-and-Reader/ > > > Sent from my iPhone > > On

[cctalk] Re: Greaseweazle part 2

On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 9:29 AM Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > However I am not sure if I'll be able to use it. There is one very > important thing missing : DOCUMENTATION. The 'wikii' on github is > ridiculously incomplete. There is no user manual or man pages. The > software source in python

[cctalk] Re: Greaseweazle part 2

Further on the greaseweazle docs - there is a forum at https://github.com/keirf/greaseweazle/discussions which seems quite lively and may be the right place to start. On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 9:56 AM Adrian Godwin wrote: > On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 9:29 AM Tony Duell via cctalk < >

[cctalk] Re: Greaseweazle part 2

Sorry to drip-feed this, but https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/Rescuing_Floppy_Disks is a useful source on comparing various methods. It's clear that this type of interface has particularly strong support on Apple due to their previous use of non-IBM formats, and Amiga is also quite common (I

[cctalk] Re: Greaseweazle part 2

I would have liked to find that comparison site earlier. However I think I'd still have gone for greaseweazle. On Sun, 11 Jun 2023, 09:29 Tony Duell via cctalk, wrote: > Well, I've got the Greaseweazle software to run, but I don't know why, > which is hardly encouraging. > > Installing various

[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

Tony, An instrument slightly more to your taste than a PC might a 16500b logic analyser. Perhaps you've already got one. I believe these can work with both LIF and MSDOS floppies and uses an IDE HDD (which can painlessly be replaced with CF card) in DOS format internally. I don't know if it will

[cctalk] Re: 50 pins in three rows

On Sat, Aug 12, 2023 at 7:12 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > I wonder if these are from a group buy not long ago, where someone got a > manufacturer to gin up a lot of them (minimum order was something like > 1,000). > > They were quite common at one point. I hacked

[cctalk] Re: Did Bill Gates Really Say That?

I think what he meant was ' no application needs more than 640k - the rest is for the operating system' On Fri, 16 Jun 2023, 08:43 Steve Lewis via cctalk, wrote: > I don't think Gates ever actually said this - but that's just based on my > own examination into this from a few years back. > >

[cctalk] Re: DEC Processor Books

HP at least sometimes used staff. I'm recalling 'Mr Fancypants' identified and contacted by Curious Marc in his series on the 9825 repairs. On Sun, Mar 17, 2024 at 3:11 PM Dennis Boone via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > I have often wondered about the people we find in the various

[cctalk] Re: typical IC kits on Amazon and elsewhere

Has anyone had problems with LCSC ? They can be a lot cheaper than mouser or digikey but I tend to trust them more than Aliexpress and ebay. On Sun, Mar 31, 2024 at 7:18 AM Don R via cctalk wrote: > My problem with DigiKey is tacking on the additional “tariff” charge on > invoices. Granted

[cctalk] Re: DEC Processor Books

It's well known that a necktie restricts the supply of blood to the brain.

[cctalk] Re: oscilloscopes

On Thu, Apr 4, 2024 at 8:36 PM Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > > >> https://scopeclock.com/ > > Technically, the scopeClock is generating neither curves nor vectors, > it's generating pixels in an XY display - it's just that they’re of fine > enough resolution and

[cctalk] Re: oscilloscopes

This 'scope clock also uses circle generators rather than vectors to produce well-formed characters. It mentions a Teensy controller so I don't think it's the original made in this way - the first I heard of was too long ago for that. But I don't know if it's an update or a separate design.

[cctalk] Re: IBM 360

And the 'tarpit' book is 50, dated by the preface. On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 6:22 AM Chuck Guzis via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 4/9/24 22:03, ben via cctalk wrote: > > On 2024-04-09 8:53 p.m., Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote: > >> I had not realized the IBM 360 was 60 yrs. old

[cctalk] Re: Bomar 901b My wife found in my stuff. Is this as scarce at it seems?s,?

On Tue, Apr 16, 2024 at 10:21 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > Although the HP-35 was the first "pocket calculator" from HP, it was not > the first handheld calculator. > > I think it was the first *scientific* pocket calculator though.

[cctalk] Re: Versatec Electrostatic Printers (was :Re: Re: Odd IBM mass storage systems)

It wasn't just Versatec plotters that used this mixture - standard office photocopiers also had clay-coated paper and liquid toner. I don't know what allowed the change to plain-paper copiers (which use an intermediate photosensitive drum, like a laser printer) but it was probably the expiry of a

[cctalk] Re: Bomar 901b My wife found in my stuff. Is this as scarce at it seems?s,?

901B is the first pocket calculator I remember - I don't know if there were earlier ones. I don't think they're exactly rare but later ones such as MX10 are certainly easier to find. They're often in the same case as a 901B but with slightly enhanced functionality such as 10 digits. % key etc.

[cctalk] Re: FWIW CD & DVD demagnetization [was: Double Density 3.5" Floppy Disks]

Best to have an atmosphere of dry nitrogen, too. Breathing that may take some practice. On Thu, May 9, 2024 at 11:19 AM Antonio Carlini via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 09/05/2024 03:41, D. Resor via cctalk wrote: > > Next they'll want silver oxygen free plated plumbing and sewage

[cctalk] Re: 5,34 Petaflop System Cheyenne

Fairly sure you could find something to run Doom that uses less than 1.7MW (from https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/04/us-government-auctions-5-34-petaflop-cheyenne-supercomputer/ ) On Fri, May 3, 2024 at 3:23 PM Ali via cctalk wrote: > > >Just 7 year old and no longer in

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

I learnt to program at uni on prompt-48, an 8048 development system. Hand-coded assembly, entered in hex and saved to EPROM. Later I moved to z80 with an assembler hosted on a pdp 11/34. Later still I had to do a customer project specified to be written in BASIC on an apple II (no square brackets

[cctalk] Re: CP/M

There was also Concurrent CP/M (possibly only a /86 variant). On Sat, May 4, 2024 at 2:02 AM Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote: > Herb Johnson has some good info on the history of cp/m here > https://www.retrotechnology.com/#dri > Bill > > On Fri, May 3, 2024, 8:23 PM Murray McCullough via cctalk <