Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 88, Issue 2
On Sun, 2022-01-02 at 12:00 -0600, Grant wrote: > Where are you getting two /different/ phases? -- Remember, the > different legs on residential 120/240 wiring are really the same > single > phase. > > How do you get *two* /different/ phases without access to a *third* > phase? There are only a few places in the U.S.A. (and I'm not aware > of > anywhere else in the world) that actually have 2? power (where the ? > are > 90? out of phase with each other). I have seen some roads where the utility has 2 of the phases plus neutral going down them, not true 2-phase power, but 2 phases 120/240 degrees apart with the third phase just not present. Every time I've seen that it seems like fools economy, but I guess they figure twice the loads for only one more wire. Can't remember what it was called but I do remember seeing in some book somewhere about a "phantom 3rd leg" or something where they used 2 wires with 120/240 degree phase separation into the transformer and then the third phase "corner" was just floating and current would "return" across the other two. As it was brought up in the context of "make sure some yahoo didn't try this on your install and if they did be very careful" and was delta-only I imagine it was not that common.
Re: VAX/VMS 4.0 source listings scans
On Wed, 2021-12-15 at 12:00 -0600, cctalk-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote: > Not sure who needs to know. > Perhaps they are useful for emulation crash analysis, or for > educational > purposes. > You also see the highly optimizing BLISS32 compiler at work. First thing that popped into my mind was "fix the huge DCL security hole finally for VAX." I don't think it has been done yet. Be a lot of reading after OCR though, too bad it wasn't text files. Also I have no clue how to program BLISS32 or even MACRO-32, so mostly a pipe dream.
Re: Women of computing
On Sun, 2021-12-05 at 12:00 -0600, Brie wrote: > > He may as well have just come out and said, ?It triggers me and I > don?t like having to acknowledge that women exist in the field of > computer history.? > > ? Brie Sorry to go off topic, but I have friends and family who are veterans or otherwise have had horrible experiences. They get triggered. What this sentence is describing is someone getting mildly annoyed.
Re: Setting up a VMS system
On Fri, 2021-09-24 at 12:00 -0500, cctalk-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote: > > supported by any release licensed by VSI, and they changed the > > PRODUCER > > key so you can't use those PAKs on DEC/CPQ/HP variants of VMS. > > Part of their licensing agreement with HPE which prohibits them from > selling/licensing any previous version of OpenVMS that they haven't > worked on. > > > HP stopped issuing new hobbyist PAKs back very early in 2020. I put > > in > > for a renew March or so and never got it. They were so > > disinterested in > > the program that they didn't mention stopping it, so I guess it > > isn't > > surprising that the page is still up. > > If it's a VAX PAK you need, contact me and I can send you a copy of > the last VAX OpenVMS Hobbyist PAK sent out.? Note that it expires on > 1-JAN-2022 so it's good only for a few more months. Yeah, would have been nice if they would have handed it off to Montegar again for VAX/early Alpha with the understanding that (a) it would be the same restrictions that DEC/CPQ/HP had and (b) they weren't bugged about it ever again. Sigh. Fits into the HP model of "buy and bury" I guess. At least VAX has other options. Anyone succeeded in patching the DCL security hole for VAX? I know it wasn't officially fixed.
Re: Setting up a VMS system
On Wed, 2021-09-22 at 12:00 -0500, cctalk-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote: > Currently the Hobbyist Program covers Alpha and Itanium. We?ve been > told it will cover x86 at some point. I for one can?t wait for x86, > as I don?t really want to add an Itanium to run some of the newer > software. > > Zane Not even that... looked at the VSI stuff and it is only the newest Alphas that are supported. 21064/21164 and, I believe, 21264 are not supported by any release licensed by VSI, and they changed the PRODUCER key so you can't use those PAKs on DEC/CPQ/HP variants of VMS. HP stopped issuing new hobbyist PAKs back very early in 2020. I put in for a renew March or so and never got it. They were so disinterested in the program that they didn't mention stopping it, so I guess it isn't surprising that the page is still up. Isn't VMS DCL pretty close to RSX? Never used RSX, but that is what I was always told. Anyway, good system, pretty solid, expect to do a LOT of typing for commands if you're used to UNIX, and don't put any VAX with a public DCL account on the Internet because there is a huge security hole in DCL that was never fixed for VAX.
Re: Classic sale/give-away Jefferson, WI USA
Other places to post this: Sun Help Rescue list - mostly Sun but there is interest in other stuff too. http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue http://www.irixnet.org/ , forum not mailing list but seems to have taken over from Nekochan for SGI stuff. Sadly don't know of much in the OVMS sphere, the openvmshobbyist forum is basically dead now.
Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 80, Issue 24
On Wed, 2021-05-26 at 12:00 -0500, cctalk-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote: > If you were to find an M7626 KA660 CPU you could do away with all of > the DSSI cabling between the CPU and the M9715 (in addition to having > a CPU that is around twice as fast). KA660/BA430 makes for a nice MicroVAX, had one for a while. You can even route the SCSI on the backplane as well, and the sleds pick up whichever you need. Too bad DSSI stuff either isn't more common or DEC found a way to route full cluster over SCSI, that was neat too (and faster than LAVAC for KA660). I seem to recall a highly opinionated VAX/BSD partisan also bestowed on it the rare (in his system) title of "real VAX" In the completely unrelated category my state has signs out asking us to "VAX up" which has me itching to get my VAXes out again. Sadly HP shut down the hobbyist license issuing before they got to my request :(.
Re: COMPAQ ISA PC to ethernent
On Sun, 2021-05-23 at 12:00 -0500, cctalk-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote: > To: Grant Taylor , > gene...@ezwind.net, discuss...@ezwind.net:On-Topic and Off- > Topic Posts > > Subject: Re: COMPAQ ISA PC to ethernent > Message-ID: <60a9dfde.9080...@charter.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed > > Grant and et al, > I have several hundred MB and expansion cards from 30 years ago > up > to about 5 years ago. I would like to sell all of my computer > equipment. > Boards, cards, cables, covers, printers, monitors, computers. The > whole > works. > I probably have cancer and if I do I am dead. i have been > selling > off everything that I own and I have been using the funds to drive > all > around the country full filling my bucket list. Please help me by > taking > everything off my hands? I still have two Simpson 260 VOMs that I > want > to see go to a good home instead of hitting the trash. > Grant, Randy has not responded to me. Yes, I have Arcnet and > Ethernet ISA cards. What info do you need? > GOD Bless and Thanks, > rich! Man, that bites. Seen too many people I know die of cancer. Simpson meters are nice, and having an analog around is good, hope someone snags them. Too rich for my blood. Reminds me have a old NRI VTVM I need to get working, think I'm gonna try to wire in a 50B5 instead of the dead 50C5. FETVOMs interest me but don't see many of those around.
Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 80, Issue 22
On Mon, 2021-05-24 at 12:00 -0500, cctalk-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote: > Message: 25 > Date: Mon, 24 May 2021 09:24:22 -0700 > From: Jason Howe > To: Chris Zach , "General Discussion: On- > Topic > and Off-Topic Posts" > Subject: Re: Writings on AI from 17 years ago > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > On Sun, 2021-05-23 at 21:34 -0400, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > > Anyone know if the LCM will be open > > > Considering there is no staff as they were all laid off and have now > all found other jobs, I'd guess that's a hard no. They'd basically > need to spin up from 0 again -- considering Vulcan shut down LCM, > Cinerama and the Flying Heritage Museum as soon as they could after > Paul's death -- I put my money on asset dispersal, rather than > reopening. > > I say with a pit in my stomach as a former member and regular > visitor. > > EMP (or whatever the hell they're called now) survived because they > had > been spun off as a separate legal entity from Paul's Vulcan empire. > > > --Jason I fear so as well, but one of the other MS teachers in my district has done some remote training recently through them, so there might still be hope.
Re: Pipelining and Dec Jupiter thoughts....
On Sat, 2021-05-08 at 12:00 -0500, cctalk-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote: > I seem to recall that the Tadpole AlphaBook performance is roughly on > par with the DEC Multia, which is to say, not very good. Though I > don?t think I ever got OpenVMS running on my Multia. > > Zane I did get it running on mine for a while. I remember it wasn't fast and was kind of annoying - the VMS-capable SRM had a peculiar bug where if the NVRAM battery died you had to failsafe-load the official Multia firmware then load the VMS-capable one otherwise the framebuffer would never initialize, not even after the battery was replaced. Finally got a DEC 3000 and passed the Multia off. Wish that some of the DEC gear that was showing up was nearby... ah well.
Re: IBM cpu tear down
On Wed, 2021-03-31 at 21:56 -0700, D. Resor via cctalk wrote: > I thought I had seen this before... > > EEVblog teardown of a ES9000 processor. > > https://youtu.be/xQ3oJlt4GrI > Is that a similar package to what the CMOS POWER-2 used? I think I have one somewhere but never tore into the MCM package.
Re: Classic browsing and duckduckgo
> > > The question arises: "Is this something that seriously interests > > you > > and you're willing dedicate some real effort to? Or is this just > > a > > slow Saturday question?" > > > > I'm sure that Fred could tell you about doing serious research. > > I suspect that means spending money, or travelling around. > > > --Chuck > > Well I live in the middle of CANADA, no where for computing. If I > could > hit the the > stacks I would. I just want the basic information, word length , > memory > etc. A simple on line FAQ would work nicely, like the PDP 8 FAQ. Ben. > There may or may not be one. As for research, check around at a couple of your libraries. ILL is often possible, and a number of librarians consider this sort of unusual question fun. Sure beats "where's the bathroom?" "Why are you charging me for this book, my dog only ate half?" and "why can't I watch porn on the computers in the children's section?" With many libraries closed to the public you'll be more likely to have a librarian wanting a good challenge too. Depending on policy and what they find they may be able to scan and send it (sometimes for a small fee), other times it is in-person access only, depends on the institution.
Re: digital group's Richard Bemis
> > I merely wanted to point out the ambiguity in the original message, > though... > Every time I ran across "DG" in there I had to stop because I mentally filled in "Data General" at first. I have one of their dual 8" floppy drives for a Z80 machine. Be interesting to see the final video.
Re: PIC programmers? More generic programmer? Port?
On Sat, 2021-03-06 at 10:13 -0800, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > It should be possible to do the same using a Blue Pill cheapie and > MAX232 level shifter. Still if this is a one-off, I doubt that it > would matter to the user. That's what I had started thinking. Use the STM32 board with the built in 3 UARTS (yes, I know you can bit-bang, but why not use em if you got em?) and one of those cheapie DC-DC switching converter boards plus a MAX232. Don't need to get any expensive programming stuff then (yeah, $65 is a great deal compared to what they were in the '90s, but still it is COVIDtime), and less outlay for supplies. Easy for others to make too. Have a question - for PS/2 the power-on handshake the byte sent is 0xAA per my reference. The keyboard(7) manpage gets a little coy here for the IRIS keyboard, with a unnamed first byte and a second byte that sends keyboard configuration information. Anyone know what that first byte on the IRIS side is? I want to have the adapter do the handshaking if possible to enable KVM use. > > FWIW, I did the PC AT/PS2 to PC XT keyboard converter years ago > using > the cheapest PIC I could find--a 12F629--and I still had program > memory > left over. A cap, a diode and a resistor were the only external > components. > > --Chuck >
Re: PIC programmers? More generic programmer? Port?
Realized I didn't post the project I was looking at just in case others were interested: https://tudl1910.home.xs4all.nl/rshockley.dyndns.org/indigo.htm Converter to use PS/2 keyboards with SGI Indigo, Onyx, Crimson and 4D series machines. Not my page, not my project, not my work (yet).
Re: PIC programmers? More generic programmer? Port?
On Wed, 2021-03-03 at 17:15 -0500, Anders Nelson via cctalk wrote: > I was a field application engineer for Microchip from 2008-2011, > making > POCs for big name customers in the bay area using 8, 16 and 32-bit > PICs. > > You will likely find that Microchip support is awful, even if their > products are pretty neat. There was an Arduino port for PICs called > "ChipKit" but I don't know if that's still being developed. > > The PicKit 3 is decent, if pretty slow. The ICD3 and later versions > are > good. MPLAB X is excellent IMO. I should still hold a design partner > discount so if you want to get some tools, contact me offline and > I'll see > if I can save you some money. > > That all said, I'm a huge fan of the STM32 ARM devices and the > community is > nearly as good as Nordic, and what Atmel used to be before it was > acquired > by Microchip. > > -- > Anders Nelson Hmm. Well sounds like it might be better to disassemble the existing provided PIC blobs and re-code for something else. Looks like the board is basically MAX232 level shifters and then the PICs to change the keyboard encoding, so theoretically any MCU should work.
PIC programmers? More generic programmer? Port?
Looking for suggestions on hobbyist PIC setup. So far I have just used Arduino type direct-connect microcontrollers (back in the day programmers for general devices were expensive), but the currently existing SGI proprietary system to PS/2 keyboard adapter is PIC (and I have a couple different systems that all use my single SGI proprietary keyboard). Any gotchas with the PICKit-3 clones out there? I have the feeling that sticking with PIC would be better than trying to port to Arduino, and imagine that as things continue to age there will be more applications for interfaces. Any better but still cheapish alternatives for programming?
IndiZone collections
Curious if anyone on here knows if the contents of any of the earlier IndiZone CDs from SGI are posted? A copy of IndiZone3 came with my copy of IRIX 6.2 a number of years ago, and while the games aren't the sort that would impress a modern XBox user I thought they were kind of neat and showed off the equipment and thoughts of the 1995-era, but I also have some earlier SGIs that would be IndiZone 1/2 era. I found a couple lists of the contest winners (but the CDs have more), and an occasional download link, but nothing complete for either. Anyone have links or lists of what was on them?
