Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System
I spent some time today and made a video of my MP 3000 system booting up to z/OS. The video is here: http://youtu.be/WnJmeQR0GQU. Even though the video is about 9-1/2 minutes long, it takes longer than that to boot. I edited out some of the more boring bits. ;-) TTFN - Guy
Was there 3rd party DEC PRO CTI boards?
Hi Out of curiousity, since I now have a DEC PRO380. Was there any third party manufacturer of CTI expansion boards? Regards, Pontus.
RE: Saved DEC kit
[25kg] > Hmm…. 55 pints? Not over here -tony
Re: Looking for AMI S4008 or MOSTEK MK4008
On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 11:32 AM, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Subject pretty much says it all, except that I need the > ceramic package with the metal lid. Like this? http://www.ebay.com/itm/MK4008P-2-MOSTEK-16-Pin-GOLD-PURPLE-DIP-Vintage-MK4008-/390115835505
Re: Looking for AMI S4008 or MOSTEK MK4008
On 2015-Aug-04, at 6:32 PM, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Subject pretty much says it all, except that I need the > ceramic package with the metal lid. Not that it's a help, but I have a Wang calculator that uses an array of MK4008's. Ceramic & lidded but the gold-plated pins rotted on one or two of them - recovered by soldering new pins onto the side. Could do with spares but they're not common. Would your interest in the specific form be for image sensor experiments?
Re: Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings
AIT was 8mm using SONY drives and tapes (industrial use for 8mm camcorder media). -Original Message- From: Chuck Guzis Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2015 10:20 PM To: jwsm...@jwsss.com ; gene...@classiccmp.org ; discuss...@classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings Wasn't Exabyte the only vendor of 8mm tape backup? --Chuck
Re: Saved DEC kit
On 2015-08-04 6:32 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: On 08/01/2015 05:10 AM, Adrian Graham wrote: I'm struggling to find anything that weighs exactly 25kg :) 6.6[043] gallons of water a 25Kg bag of dogfood 1470 3.5" floppies About a kajillion emails
Re: Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings
On 08/04/2015 06:17 PM, jwsmobile wrote: I was on the SCSI committee when the tape commands were proposed. The original that was proposed was to only have a commands which would be on disk controllers (who were the main players) to perform backups of disk units and restores. Luckily that effort was headed off by having several parties who made tape devices other than Archive join the committee. I know the feeling from my short time with X3J3 (Fortran (was supposed to be 88, but became 90)). The reps from DEC and IBM both threw a hissy fit and threatened to withdraw if the committee didn't ratify their particular extensions. It was not a nice experience. It's really odd that the raw Pertec-style interface, even with its various vendor extensions, is still more robust and versatile than the SCSI version. On the other hand, the SCSI standard (X3T10?) does a pretty good job of generalizing tape robots. Amazingly I've never had a 4mm or 8mm tape fail to read for media reasons. I'm going on having media from both that are as old as the technology. My 8mm backups have only one bad tape in the pile, and it was marked as written "incomplete" and bad at the time of creation. Half inch I've had the same problems documented with the quality of the media, but it is much older. Wasn't Exabyte the only vendor of 8mm tape backup? I've seen other brands but they all seemed to have Exabyte internals. 4mm DLT is/was remarkably robust, particularly when you consider the mechanical intricacies. I was really surprised to see the medium extended to DAT-320. Apparently, there's yet another generation in the works. On the other hand, the consumer-level tape backups are really terrible; Travan, DC-2100, etc. The worst of the bunch was the Datasonix Pereos that used a (wait for it!) 2mm tiny tape cartridge that one had to order from Datasonix via Fedex. Thankfully, that one was brief. --Chuck
Looking for AMI S4008 or MOSTEK MK4008
Subject pretty much says it all, except that I need the ceramic package with the metal lid. Thanks, Bill S.
Tandy / Corvus Network
I've been given a small board that I believe is a Corvus Omninet adapter for TRS-80 Mod 3 or 4. I _think_ it's intended to support a product called "Network 4" that appears on a few old Tandy price lists and ad brochures. I'd love to find out more about the environment it's intended for and, if possible, get my hands on the technical documentation and system software. Is this familiar to anyone on the list? Steve --
Re: Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings
On 8/3/2015 9:54 PM, Eric Smith wrote: On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 9:40 AM, Dennis Boone wrote: The main limitation seems to be that it's hard to get the (broken) data from a block that had a read error when using SCSI hardware. There's probably a way around this if one digs into lower layers of SCSI magic; I haven't gone looking. Nothing using standard SCSI commands, unfortunately. Might be some vendor-unique stuff. I was on the SCSI committee when the tape commands were proposed. The original that was proposed was to only have a commands which would be on disk controllers (who were the main players) to perform backups of disk units and restores. Luckily that effort was headed off by having several parties who made tape devices other than Archive join the committee. Eventually a proposal was made for the capability to recover data when blocks on tape exceeded the size of the read request. I had to explain such things as read reverse, and how EOT processing was done on half inch as they all had defined things which made using such devices impossible. The defined command set was still not useful as pointed out by Eric in the area of errors. That tape marks were not records was also a huge debate, and as Chuck points out elsewhere it was not handled consistently either. I still am not happy that the quarter inch products turned out to be garbage and noone called them on it. Even 3m at the time eventually admitted that the physical design was flawed for the speeds that most drives ran the tape at, but never made clear to people how bad the design was. Only when you tried to restore data and it was crap did you become a member of the club that didn't use the QIC devices. Amazingly I've never had a 4mm or 8mm tape fail to read for media reasons. I'm going on having media from both that are as old as the technology. My 8mm backups have only one bad tape in the pile, and it was marked as written "incomplete" and bad at the time of creation. Half inch I've had the same problems documented with the quality of the media, but it is much older. thanks Jim
Amstrad CPC 464 acquisition
I got this model a few months ago and have written a few words about the process. For those interested... http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2015-08-03-acquiring-amstrads.htm Terry (Tez)
Re: AM Varityper (phototypesetter)
While we are talking about typesetters, I have one that I am willing to part with if someone can pick it up from Long Island, NY. It is a Tegra Genesis Laser Phototypesetter, circa 1990. Original cost at the time was north of $40K. It did 1000DPI pagess at 20 ppm. The print engine is a Varityper 2100 (serial FB00227). It is about 4'w x 2'd x 18"h (if fit exactly over two raised floor panels). The RIP was a large tower machine - Tegra Genesis (serial 141). It contains an NS 32016 running Coherent. The RIP emulates a Compugraphic 8600 typesetter. It has serial and Compugrapices parallel interfaces. I have all the manuals, cables and a bunch of software on diskettes. The RIP and all manuals an interface stuff has been in my (dry) basement since the late 90's. The setter has been in the garage. I know I will never get around to restoring it, so it is free to a good home. If you are seriously interested, respond off list. On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 6:06 PM, Mark Linimon wrote: > On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 08:25:04PM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Basically, this thing, or a variation thereof: > > > > http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/varityper > > This looks to be a later model than the one I used, which was definitely > an 8008 (I looked). > > The keyboard is different. When we scrapped that misbegotten thing, > I was awarded the keyboard. It's here ... somewhere. > > mcl >
Re: Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings
On 08/03/2015 10:48 PM, Jon Elson wrote: OK, I verified it was indeed made by Pertec. The title block of the drawings doesn't have anything real obvious, but there is a bunch of legal boilerplate advising the restrictions on use of the drawings, and the last words are "prior written permission of Pertec". Oh, one other tidbit from the schematics was the original pages were drawn in 1970, and some updates went out to 1972 or so. No idea how many of these horrors they made. Tape format was 800 BPI NRZI with 80-byte records with no format other than tape marks at the end. Jon
Re: Saved DEC kit
On 08/01/2015 05:10 AM, Adrian Graham wrote: I'm struggling to find anything that weighs exactly 25kg :) 6.6[043] gallons of water a 25Kg bag of dogfood 1470 3.5" floppies
Re: Saved DEC kit
Hmm…. 55 pints? On Aug 4, 2015, at 4:58 PM, Jules Richardson wrote: > On 08/01/2015 05:10 AM, Adrian Graham wrote: >> I'm struggling to find anything that weighs exactly 25kg :) > > 25 things that weigh 1kg, obviously. :-) > > >
Re: Saved DEC kit
On 08/01/2015 05:10 AM, Adrian Graham wrote: I'm struggling to find anything that weighs exactly 25kg :) 25 things that weigh 1kg, obviously. :-)
Re: Unidentified chip
On 08/04/2015 1:48 PM, dwight wrote: This all assumes it is a TTL and not an ECL or even and analog chip, such as an opamp. Dwight It might be possible to identify it a bit. Using the Diode Test of your basic multi-meter you can probably figure out if there is a ground and Vcc pins by comparing the likely candidates (pin 8 for gnd, and 16 for Vcc) against other TTL based ICs. If they don't match then chack against pins 5 and 12 which are alternate G & Vcc pins on some TTL. If no joy matching to TTL, then make a log of the various pin voltages relative to other pins and see if there is a pattern that emerges. Compare to CMOS next, then drag out a 16 pin OP-Amp based IC and see if it shows anything similar. I find that inputs and outputs on TTL do show a difference in voltage drops relative to Vcc and G, and also which way you use the probes. I did a small write-up years ago as a starting point: http://www.flippers.com/service.html#diode John :-#)# -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out"
RE: Unidentified chip
This all assumes it is a TTL and not an ECL or even and analog chip, such as an opamp. Dwight
Re: Saved DEC kit
Hello Adrian, Any news on whether I might be able to get my hands on the 2000 and 4000 VLC? Regards Rob On 1 August 2015 at 11:59, Adrian Graham wrote: > No probs Rob, I'll give it a couple of days and dig through my old messages > from Dec/Jan this year. The original takers might also have dropped off the > list in the same way I did. > > A > > > On 01/08/2015 11:45, "Robert Jarratt" wrote: > > > Always interested in a 2000 and a 4000. I suspect these were destined for > > other people, but if the takers have not materialised then I will happily > > take them. > > > > Regards > > > > Rob > > > >> -Original Message- > >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Adrian > >> Graham > >> Sent: 01 August 2015 11:11 > >> To: Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > >> Subject: Saved DEC kit > >> > >> Folks, > >> > >> Before the great company meltdown of Jan this year and as I discovered > the > >> great mailing list breakdown of not long after I saved some DEC kit for > > list > >> members to collect, namely: > >> > >> Alpha 800 (rackmount) > >> uVAX 2000 > >> VAX 4000VLC > >> > >> These are still in my hallway in Cambs UK so if either the people who > > called for > >> them or failing that anyone else would like to collect that'd be great. > >> > >> I have proper scales for shipping weight but they need to be calibrated > > and I'm > >> struggling to find anything that weighs exactly 25kg :) (I know the > > Alpha800 is > >> '24-28kg', scales are pretty correct there, as they are with my DS25, > but > > they > >> get a DS10 horribly wrong so...) > >> > >> -- > >> Adrian/Witchy > >> Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator > >> Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer > >> collection? > > > > > > -- > Adrian/Witchy > Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator > Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer > collection? > > >
Re: Unidentified chip
On 08/04/2015 9:25 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: So, I took Tony's advice (about parts) to heart, and have been stocking up on all sorts of things. (Ironically, I now have a _far_ better supply of parts that I had access to, back in the day, at LCS at MIT! But that's a rant for another day.) As part of that, I've bought up a number of IC collections, to build up a stock of 74xxx parts in various families (S, LS, etc). Along with them, I have acquired a lot of stuff I don't need (e.g. CMOS parts), and at some point I'll offer them here, for trade, for people who do have a use for them. (The PDP-11 systems I'm interested in basically don't use them.) As I've finished sorting and filing all that stuff, I'm left with a few things I can't ID. The most prolific one (I think I have about 6 tubes full :-) is something I'd appreciate a hand with: it might be some super-rare chip that people would love to find, or something. It's a 16-pin DIP, with the following on it (in three separate lines): "1028126", "D39315-A", and "CS9336P". The first number looks like the numbers I've seen on a couple of other un-identified chips, made by TRW. (I hope they aren't something classified I'm not even supposed to have! :-) Anyone have any idea what these things are? Thanks! Noel You could always get one of those inexpensive TTL device identifiers to see if the house number crosses over: http://www.ebay.com/itm/281682288251 John :-#)# -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out"
Re: Unidentified chip
On 08/04/2015 11:40 AM, John Robertson wrote: You could always get one of those inexpensive TTL device identifiers to see if the house number crosses over: http://www.ebay.com/itm/281682288251 My Xeltek programmer has that function--and it works for some common TTL ICs, but gets a lot less reliable with the complex function ones. I suspect that the eBay model is not much better. --Chuck
RE: Unidentified chip
> From: j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu > snip > > It's a 16-pin DIP, with the following on it (in three separate lines): > "1028126", "D39315-A", and "CS9336P". The first number looks like the numbers > I've seen on a couple of other un-identified chips, made by TRW. (I hope they > aren't something classified I'm not even supposed to have! :-) > > Anyone have any idea what these things are? > > Thanks! > >Noel Have you tried an ohm meter on them? They might be R-Packs. Dwight
Re: Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings
On 08/04/2015 09:54 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: BTW, what do you use to read UNIX v7 tar files? Linux/BSD modern tar seem not to like the old archive format--they use the posix version. Scratch that--it helps if what you're working with is actually a .tar file. Nevermind. It's not even 10:30AM and it's already been a long day... --Chuck
Re: Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings
> From: Chuck Guzis > BTW, what do you use to read UNIX v7 tar files? Linux/BSD modern tar > seem not to like the old archive format I have a very slightly hacked version of the V7 tar, which runs under Windows (under Cygwin). It read all the older TAR files which the newer TARs barfed on. Is that of any use to you? Noel
Re: Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings
On 08/04/2015 09:28 AM, Al Kossow wrote: On 8/3/15 11:00 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: One of these days, I'll port the SCSI interface of the program to sg(), but not right away--too many other irons in the fire. But you're welcome to the source code. It would to be nice to look at. I was back at cartridge tape recovery this weekend so SCSI is the only method I have right now for reading carts. I'll get something off to you ASAP, Al. BTW, what do you use to read UNIX v7 tar files? Linux/BSD modern tar seem not to like the old archive format--they use the posix version. --Chuck
Re: Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings
On 8/3/15 11:00 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: One of these days, I'll port the SCSI interface of the program to sg(), but not right away--too many other irons in the fire. But you're welcome to the source code. It would to be nice to look at. I was back at cartridge tape recovery this weekend so SCSI is the only method I have right now for reading carts.
Unidentified chip
So, I took Tony's advice (about parts) to heart, and have been stocking up on all sorts of things. (Ironically, I now have a _far_ better supply of parts that I had access to, back in the day, at LCS at MIT! But that's a rant for another day.) As part of that, I've bought up a number of IC collections, to build up a stock of 74xxx parts in various families (S, LS, etc). Along with them, I have acquired a lot of stuff I don't need (e.g. CMOS parts), and at some point I'll offer them here, for trade, for people who do have a use for them. (The PDP-11 systems I'm interested in basically don't use them.) As I've finished sorting and filing all that stuff, I'm left with a few things I can't ID. The most prolific one (I think I have about 6 tubes full :-) is something I'd appreciate a hand with: it might be some super-rare chip that people would love to find, or something. It's a 16-pin DIP, with the following on it (in three separate lines): "1028126", "D39315-A", and "CS9336P". The first number looks like the numbers I've seen on a couple of other un-identified chips, made by TRW. (I hope they aren't something classified I'm not even supposed to have! :-) Anyone have any idea what these things are? Thanks! Noel
