Re: Nova 50 year celebration...

[Bruce Ray via cctalk]

Of course he was invited!


-

Bruce Ray
Wild Hare Computer Systems, Inc.
Boulder, Colorado USA
b...@wildharecomputers.com

...preserving the Data General legacy: www.NovasAreForever.org

On 12/1/2017 6:48 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

On 11/30/2017 10:20 PM, Bruce Ray via cctalk wrote:

G'day fellow Nova'holics -


Next year the Nova computer will be 50 years old, and we am organizing a
celebration of this important part of minicomputer history.  Nova
hardware and software designers, users and admirers can get initial
information at:

   http://www.Nova-At-50.org

The celebration of a half-century will come around only once, so check
it out and sign up soon...


Hey Bruce,

Did you invite Ed de Castro?  He's still around.

Cheers,
Chuck

Re: Altair Peripheral Emulator

[Jason T via cctalk]

On Nov 29, 2017 17:15, "Toby Thain via cctalk" 
wrote:


> On 11/29/2017 1:47 PM, drlegendre . via cctalk
I didn't have as much luck with Windows Photo Viewer. While it does
support multipage TIF, it seemed to hang after a few pages.


Irfanview is a pretty solid viewer/manipulator under Windows. I've been
using it to burst those TIFs into individual pages before making PDFs out
of them.  I'll post a link to them when they're ready.

J

Re: Can anyone identify what this board is/does?

[Charles Anthony via cctalk]

On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 7:12 AM, Tony Aiuto via cctalk  wrote:

> https://www.ebay.com/itm/263005049078
>
> EBay listing for a "Soviet Magnetic Ferrite Core Memory Board". It looks
> like 20 something gigantic cores and a lot of diodes. I am guessing it is
> some kind of ROM, but it doesn't look like a rope memory. And maybe the
> cores are not cores at all, but some sort of inductor. I've not seen this
> before.
>

The last picture has "ДЗУ-5". Some googling takes us to
https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%97%D0%A3

"DZU is a factory in Stara Zagora , a major producer of magnetic disk
storage devices (hard drives and floppy disks) during the rise of computer
production in Bulgaria in the 1970s and 1980s, century. Today it is part of
VIDEOTON Holding ZRt., Hungary [1] ."

The article says it was a disk drive factory, but maybe...

-- Charles

Re: Can anyone identify what this board is/does?

[Brent Hilpert via cctalk]

On 2017-Dec-01, at 7:12 AM, Tony Aiuto via cctalk wrote:

> https://www.ebay.com/itm/263005049078
> 
> EBay listing for a "Soviet Magnetic Ferrite Core Memory Board". It looks
> like 20 something gigantic cores and a lot of diodes. I am guessing it is
> some kind of ROM, but it doesn't look like a rope memory. And maybe the
> cores are not cores at all, but some sort of inductor. I've not seen this
> before.


That's very funny.
It looks to be a core rope memory that hasn't been programmed.

Other organisations might be possible, but it looks like a pulse-transformer 
type of core-rope,
where the cores are just for ordinary induction, not switching/memory cores.

- the matrix of black what-look-to-be diodes would be data-wire 
isolation diodes 

- the little brown 'stools' are wire routing posts

- you can see the mulit-turn sense windings (bluish) already present on 
the cores

- above the cores are the sense amplifiers or 1st stage thereof

- there is one wire through all the cores, perhaps a test wire for core 
and sense amp response

Each data-wire would start at one of the solder pins in the pin matrix on the 
left, weave through the cores to encode the data,
turn back 180, then 90 degrees around one of the stools to drop down and 
terminate at the solder pin by an isolation diode.

There would be another board for decoding the address to 1-of-x and 1-of-y.

I didn't count precisely but it looks like it would be 256 words of 20 bits.

That might be a date code of 6847 on a cap (or is it 6B47?), so perhaps earlier 
than the listing-stated 1981.

Actually, it kind of hints at it in the description: "With out Firmware ROM 
wire (empty slots)"

Re: Nova 50 year celebration...

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 11/30/2017 10:20 PM, Bruce Ray via cctalk wrote:
> G'day fellow Nova'holics -
> 
> 
> Next year the Nova computer will be 50 years old, and we am organizing a
> celebration of this important part of minicomputer history.  Nova
> hardware and software designers, users and admirers can get initial
> information at:
> 
>   http://www.Nova-At-50.org
> 
> The celebration of a half-century will come around only once, so check
> it out and sign up soon...

Hey Bruce,

Did you invite Ed de Castro?  He's still around.

Cheers,
Chuck

Re: Preventing VAX running VMS / Multinet from being used as SMTP relay

[william degnan via cctalk]

> >
> > The Multinet SMTP server is pretty basic and people who are serious
about
> > doing SMTP on VMS typically disable it and install a proper mailserver
like
> > PMDF.  That's my excuse for not knowing how to disable SMTP relaying in
> > Multinet.  That and because it probably varies for different versions of
> > Multinet and you haven't said what version of Multinet you have.  I
used to
> > be one of the people supporting Multinet in this part of the world and I
> > seem to have inherited a stack of Multinet documentation for different
old
> > versions so if I knew what version, I could probably look it up.  I
think
> > the
> > documentation for the most recent couple of Multinet versions is on the
> > Multinet website:
> >
> > http://www.process.com/psc/service-support/multinet-support/
> >
> > Try the Adminstrator's guide or Adminstrator's reference.
> >
> > I do however know how to disable the SMTP server in Multinet completely:
> >
> > $ MULTINET CONFIGURE /SERVERS
> > SERVER-CONFIG> DISABLE SMTP
> > SERVER-CONFIG> RESTART
> > Configuration modified, do you want to save it first ? [YES]
> >
> > Regards,
> > Peter Coghlan
> >

Peter,
Thanks I think this is what I need, just disable smtp within MULTINET.  As
I said in my OP I prefer a VMS or MULTINET solution free of modern hardware
if possible, now that I know what is possible.I was curious to learn
what others did back in the day.

I have a script I run to clear the queue, but that's a pain and it lets
some relaying through.

Bill

Re: TRS80 Model 1 video RAM (2102A)

[Alexandre Souza via cctalk]

Same happened to mine
http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com.br/2017/03/restauro-do-trs-80-model-1.html
(portuguese, but google translator is your friend :) )

2017-12-01 17:18 GMT-02:00 Adrian Graham via cctalk :

> Hi folks,
>
> After sorting out the Model 4P (thanks to all who provided hints!) and
> scrubbing it up so it almost looks new again I turned attention to my Model
> 1 Level II which had been dead for at least the same amount of time as the
> Model 4. There’s some excellent troubleshooting tips for these machines out
> there and I quickly discovered a bad RAM chip, swap that for a NOS one and
> we’d be back in business if the video RAM wasn’t failing.
>
> One of the 4 2102A chips is failing (MEM SIZE becomes OEO SIZE) and I’d
> like to double check this before I stump up the ukp4 required for a pair of
> NOS ones, can anyone think of a machine from back then that also used 2102A
> or 2102LPFC or NTE2102 video RAM?
>
> Cheers!
>
> —
> Adrian/Witchy
> Binary Dinosaurs - Celebrating Computing History from 1972 onwards
>
>

Re: PTAP2DXF - make paper tapes without a punch

[Eric Schlaepfer via cctalk]

This is awesome! I've had an idea on the back burner that would require
some fairly custom plastic punched tape. I was thinking of using a laser
engraver but this would be a lot better -- no scorched edges.

On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 5:51 AM, Steve Malikoff via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> If you have a paper tape reader and no punch, you can now make real
> working paper tapes using a normal home stencil-cutting machine.
> I've written a small command line utility that can take a .PTAP (or any
> other binary or textfile) and generate output that these
> machines will cut. that your reader will read.
>
> It can easily make repair pieces for existing old broken tapes from any
> byte offset. In addition it can make banner tapes, 5-level
> Baudot RTTY tape, your own custom n-level paper tape or cut tapes from
> other materials such as plastic.
> Even if you don't need it to make or repair tapes, it can be used to
> visualise a paper tape through the console output it produces.
>
> I'd never claim it's any sort of replacement for a real punch, and it's a
> whole lot slower. But, it does work :)
>
> A simple example to make a tape of the characters ABCDEF with 1/2 inch of
> sprocket leader and 1/2 inch of trailer:
>
> C:\> ptap2dxf --text="ABCDEF" --leader=5 --trailer=5 --output=ABCDEF.dxf
> +-+
> | .   |
> | .   |
> | .   |
> | .   |
> | .   |
> | O   .  O|
> | O   . O |
> | O   . OO|
> | O   .O  |
> | O   .O O|
> | O   .OO |
> | .   |
> | .   |
> | .   |
> | .   |
> | .   |
> +-+
> Joiner : data byte   absolute position 0011
>
> The resulting ABCDEF.dxf file can be viewed in a DXF viewer such as
> Inkscape and directly loaded into the paper/vinyl cutter for producing
> the actual working tape.
>
>
> Another example: say you need a repair piece for an absolute loader,
> starting at byte 57 for 12 bytes. (A repair piece has removeable side
> tabs for handling as a self-adhesive vinyl joiner):
>
> C:\> ptap2dxf DEC-11-L2PC-PO.ptap --range=57,12 --joiner --ascii --control
> +-+
> |  O  .O O| JOINER %
> | . O | JOINER 
> | .   | JOINER 
> |  O  .  O| JOINER !
> | . OO| JOINER 
> | .OOO| JOINER
> |O.  O| JOINER 
> |  O O.O  | JOINER ,
> | .   | JOINER 
> |O.O  | JOINER
> | OO  . OO| JOINER c
> | .  O| JOINER 
> +-+
>
> The output for machine cutting will be in DEC-11-L2PC-PO.dxf
> For larger tapes, the output can be chunked into sections which can be cut
> individually. There are other options to invert, mirror, reposition
> the sprocket feed and so on.
>
> If you think you may find it useful, it's fully open source and available
> at  https://github.com/1944GPW/ptap2dxf
> It will run on Windows (pre-built exe provided) and Linux and Mac (follow
> building instructions).
> The 26-page illustrated User Manual PDF is at  https://github.com/1944GPW/
> ptap2dxf/blob/master/Documentation/PTAP2DXF_User_Manual_v1.0.pdf
>
> Steve.
>
>
>

PTAP2DXF - make paper tapes without a punch

[Steve Malikoff via cctalk]

(posted this just as the list went down earlier, apologies if it appears twice)

If you have a paper tape reader and no punch, you can now make real working 
paper tapes using a normal home stencil-cutting machine.
I've written a small command line utility that can take a .PTAP (or any other 
binary or textfile) and generate output that these
machines will cut. that your reader will read.

It can easily make repair pieces for existing old broken tapes from any byte 
offset. In addition it can make banner tapes, 5-level
Baudot RTTY tape, your own custom n-level paper tape or cut tapes from other 
materials such as plastic.
Even if you don't need it to make or repair tapes, it can be used to visualise 
a paper tape through the console output it produces.

I'd never claim it's any sort of replacement for a real punch, and it's a whole 
lot slower. But, it does work :)

A simple example to make a tape of the characters ABCDEF with 1/2 inch of 
sprocket leader and 1/2 inch of trailer:

C:\> ptap2dxf --text="ABCDEF" --leader=5 --trailer=5 --output=ABCDEF.dxf
+-+
| .   |
| .   |
| .   |
| .   |
| .   |
| O   .  O|
| O   . O |
| O   . OO|
| O   .O  |
| O   .O O|
| O   .OO |
| .   |
| .   |
| .   |
| .   |
| .   |
+-+
Joiner : data byte   absolute position 0011

The resulting ABCDEF.dxf file can be viewed in a DXF viewer such as Inkscape 
and directly loaded into the paper/vinyl cutter for producing
the actual working tape.


Another example: say you need a repair piece for an absolute loader, starting 
at byte 57 for 12 bytes. (A repair piece has removeable side
tabs for handling as a self-adhesive vinyl joiner):

C:\> ptap2dxf DEC-11-L2PC-PO.ptap --range=57,12 --joiner --ascii --control
+-+
|  O  .O O| JOINER %
| . O | JOINER 
| .   | JOINER 
|  O  .  O| JOINER !
| . OO| JOINER 
| .OOO| JOINER
|O.  O| JOINER 
|  O O.O  | JOINER ,
| .   | JOINER 
|O.O  | JOINER
| OO  . OO| JOINER c
| .  O| JOINER 
+-+

The output for machine cutting will be in DEC-11-L2PC-PO.dxf
For larger tapes, the output can be chunked into sections which can be cut 
individually. There are other options to invert, mirror, reposition
the sprocket feed and so on.

If you think you may find it useful, it's fully open source and available at  
https://github.com/1944GPW/ptap2dxf
It will run on Windows (pre-built exe provided) and Linux and Mac (follow 
building instructions).
The 26-page illustrated User Manual PDF is at  
https://github.com/1944GPW/ptap2dxf/blob/master/Documentation/PTAP2DXF_User_Manual_v1.0.pdf

Steve.

Re: Can anyone identify what this board is/does?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 12/01/2017 07:12 AM, Tony Aiuto via cctalk wrote:
> https://www.ebay.com/itm/263005049078
> 
> EBay listing for a "Soviet Magnetic Ferrite Core Memory Board". It looks
> like 20 something gigantic cores and a lot of diodes. I am guessing it is
> some kind of ROM, but it doesn't look like a rope memory. And maybe the
> cores are not cores at all, but some sort of inductor. I've not seen this
> before.
> 

Probably a driver board for core memory.

--Chuck

looking for a book Advance Graphics BASIC programing (type-in listings)

[tom sparks via cctalk]

I am looking for a book I remember borrowing from the local library 
about late 1980, early 1990


this what remember:

* BASIC programing (type-in listings)
* Advance Graphics
* Polygon graphics
* IBM
* "that's all folks" image on front/back cover
* BSAVE/BLOAD (I think)
* two or three flight sims ( wireframe, filled polygons, AI ), they 
looked like Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0 looking back

* wait press?

Old DEC PROM Images

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

I am trying to bring some of my old PDP-11's back to life.  Does
anyone have or know of a source for PROM Images?  I need the
images for the M8189 (11/23+) and would also love to get the
images for my DECTalk.

bill

TRS80 Model 1 video RAM (2102A)

[Adrian Graham via cctalk]

Hi folks,

After sorting out the Model 4P (thanks to all who provided hints!) and 
scrubbing it up so it almost looks new again I turned attention to my Model 1 
Level II which had been dead for at least the same amount of time as the Model 
4. There’s some excellent troubleshooting tips for these machines out there and 
I quickly discovered a bad RAM chip, swap that for a NOS one and we’d be back 
in business if the video RAM wasn’t failing.

One of the 4 2102A chips is failing (MEM SIZE becomes OEO SIZE) and I’d like to 
double check this before I stump up the ukp4 required for a pair of NOS ones, 
can anyone think of a machine from back then that also used 2102A or 2102LPFC 
or NTE2102 video RAM?

Cheers!

—
Adrian/Witchy
Binary Dinosaurs - Celebrating Computing History from 1972 onwards

test

[Jay West via cctalk]

Test - no reply needed.

Can anyone identify what this board is/does?

[Tony Aiuto via cctalk]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/263005049078

EBay listing for a "Soviet Magnetic Ferrite Core Memory Board". It looks
like 20 something gigantic cores and a lot of diodes. I am guessing it is
some kind of ROM, but it doesn't look like a rope memory. And maybe the
cores are not cores at all, but some sort of inductor. I've not seen this
before.

PTAP2DXF - make paper tapes without a punch

[Steve Malikoff via cctalk]

If you have a paper tape reader and no punch, you can now make real working 
paper tapes using a normal home stencil-cutting machine.
I've written a small command line utility that can take a .PTAP (or any other 
binary or textfile) and generate output that these
machines will cut. that your reader will read.

It can easily make repair pieces for existing old broken tapes from any byte 
offset. In addition it can make banner tapes, 5-level
Baudot RTTY tape, your own custom n-level paper tape or cut tapes from other 
materials such as plastic.
Even if you don't need it to make or repair tapes, it can be used to visualise 
a paper tape through the console output it produces.

I'd never claim it's any sort of replacement for a real punch, and it's a whole 
lot slower. But, it does work :)

A simple example to make a tape of the characters ABCDEF with 1/2 inch of 
sprocket leader and 1/2 inch of trailer:

C:\> ptap2dxf --text="ABCDEF" --leader=5 --trailer=5 --output=ABCDEF.dxf
+-+
| .   |
| .   |
| .   |
| .   |
| .   |
| O   .  O|
| O   . O |
| O   . OO|
| O   .O  |
| O   .O O|
| O   .OO |
| .   |
| .   |
| .   |
| .   |
| .   |
+-+
Joiner : data byte   absolute position 0011

The resulting ABCDEF.dxf file can be viewed in a DXF viewer such as Inkscape 
and directly loaded into the paper/vinyl cutter for producing
the actual working tape.


Another example: say you need a repair piece for an absolute loader, starting 
at byte 57 for 12 bytes. (A repair piece has removeable side
tabs for handling as a self-adhesive vinyl joiner):

C:\> ptap2dxf DEC-11-L2PC-PO.ptap --range=57,12 --joiner --ascii --control
+-+
|  O  .O O| JOINER %
| . O | JOINER 
| .   | JOINER 
|  O  .  O| JOINER !
| . OO| JOINER 
| .OOO| JOINER
|O.  O| JOINER 
|  O O.O  | JOINER ,
| .   | JOINER 
|O.O  | JOINER
| OO  . OO| JOINER c
| .  O| JOINER 
+-+

The output for machine cutting will be in DEC-11-L2PC-PO.dxf
For larger tapes, the output can be chunked into sections which can be cut 
individually. There are other options to invert, mirror, reposition
the sprocket feed and so on.

If you think you may find it useful, it's fully open source and available at  
https://github.com/1944GPW/ptap2dxf
It will run on Windows (pre-built exe provided) and Linux and Mac (follow 
building instructions).
The 26-page illustrated User Manual PDF is at  
https://github.com/1944GPW/ptap2dxf/blob/master/Documentation/PTAP2DXF_User_Manual_v1.0.pdf

Steve.

Re: Preventing VAX running VMS / Multinet from being used as SMTP relay

[systems_glitch via cctalk]

Off the cuff, I'd probably stand something else up and have it relay mail
to the VAX (I suspect you've already got machines available for this
purpose, ping me off-list if not). Have the VAX only accept connections
from whatever's doing the relaying. If you can't get VMS or the smtpd to
restrict incoming connections, add a transparent hardware firewall in
between. This is what I typically do when something old and probably
insecure has to be connected to the Internet -- proxy, relay, or otherwise
hide the actual server behind something modern.

Thanks,
Jonathan

On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 6:28 PM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> >
> > I have a microvax set up with VMS 5, running MULTINET (and decnet
> > locally).   The server has a FQDN and after a while being exposed to the
> > WWW someone out there started using the server as an SMTP relay.  I can
> > disable and clear the queue, but I'd like to block entirely this from
> > happening in the first place.  I'd like to learn more about how this
> > happens in VMS.
> >
> > Anyone have had this same problem before?  I realize back when VMS 5 was
> > current it was not so much of an issue, but today it is.  I am working
> on a
> > solution.  I can envision a few ways including blocking the smtp relay
> port
> > from the firewall, but if possible I'd like to set up a VMS Multinet
> > solution as a learning exercise.
> >
>
> I had this problem about 25 years ago.  I suspect lots of people did.
>
> In the VMS world, networking stacks are separately packaged from the base
> operating system and it is possible to install one or more of DECnet,
> TCP/IP,
> X25 and various other networking products and have them all running
> simultaneously.
>
> VMS doesn't know or care about SMTP, the issue here is with Multinet which
> seems to be what was installed to provide TCP/IP networking on your
> machine.
> Multinet includes a basic SMTP server which can be used to move mail
> between
> VMS MAIL and the internet.  Very old versions of Multinet came with SMTP
> relaying enabled because this is what the standards required at the time.
> Later versions came with easy ways to disable SMTP relaying.  Later still
> versions shipped with SMTP relaying disabled out of the box when spammers
> targetting open relays became a serious problem.  More recently still,
> Multinet comes with pretty much all of the TCP/IP servers it provides
> disabled
> and requires the installer to enable the services they want, leaving less
> opportunity for surprises when servers are running that nobody knew
> existed,
> except the bad guys targetting them.
>
> The Multinet SMTP server is pretty basic and people who are serious about
> doing SMTP on VMS typically disable it and install a proper mailserver like
> PMDF.  That's my excuse for not knowing how to disable SMTP relaying in
> Multinet.  That and because it probably varies for different versions of
> Multinet and you haven't said what version of Multinet you have.  I used to
> be one of the people supporting Multinet in this part of the world and I
> seem to have inherited a stack of Multinet documentation for different old
> versions so if I knew what version, I could probably look it up.  I think
> the
> documentation for the most recent couple of Multinet versions is on the
> Multinet website:
>
> http://www.process.com/psc/service-support/multinet-support/
>
> Try the Adminstrator's guide or Adminstrator's reference.
>
> I do however know how to disable the SMTP server in Multinet completely:
>
> $ MULTINET CONFIGURE /SERVERS
> SERVER-CONFIG> DISABLE SMTP
> SERVER-CONFIG> RESTART
> Configuration modified, do you want to save it first ? [YES]
>
> Regards,
> Peter Coghlan
>