Re: PDP-12 Restoration at the RICM
The LINK indicator light on the front panel of the PDP-12 failed two weeks ago. The indicator light bulb failed, briefly shorted, and destroyed the transistor that turns the indicator on. An new transistor and bulb, and all is well. We have been chasing a transient problem in the PDP-12 core memory for a few weeks. We checked the timing last week, and it was OK. This time we checked the core voltage and it was a little low. We increased the core memory power supply voltage until the checkerboard starting working without errors. Next time we will explore the high and low limits of the core voltage to find a reasonable center voltage for both core stacks. The next step is to run all of the processor diagnostics and make sure that everything is works. If the diags run OK, it is time to fix the TU56 tape drive and see if the drive and controller work. We visited the RCS/RI crew today to look at their LINC-8 and both PDP-12s. Both PDP-12s are earlier than ours. One has floating-point and an RK05. The other has a really interesting RAM buffered AD converter. -- Michael Thompson
Re: Nopecraft - was Re: OT: learner kits
On 21 June 2015 at 01:17, Toby Thain wrote: > Except with pointless obfuscation and click'n'drool topping. > Did you ignore the whole "Nine Videos on How To Lua" and the "Giant Video of FORTH-ness"? Of course, real "stuff" is much better than pissing around in Minecraft. But hey if you can get a kid to find interest in programming via Minecraft of all things, I say that's still a success. And if you want to complain about something; complain about the fact that the way the Ontario high school's teach programming is ass backwards. Instead of learning actually luseful things about programming, it's "Focus on making pretty forms with Visual Studio". I say that's much worse than turning the same kid loose with ComputerCraft and watching them make something that actually "does something". Cheers, Christian -- Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove STCKON08DS0 Contact information available upon request.
Re: Components Data Books
2015-06-16 22:52 GMT+02:00 Dale H. Cook : > At 12:30 PM 6/16/2015, Mattis Lind wrote: > > >I have compiled a list of them, mostly for my self, so that I somewhat > easier would find what I look for. > > That is a nice list, and includes many that are not among my ~80 (which > does not include my ~60 vacuum tube manuals). Could you post the original > spreadsheet somewhere? It would be a reference that would be much easier to > use than the online version. > The online file is the original. There is no excel file. But it should be possible to download in many different formats. BTW. This is just the beginning. I except to find some hundreds of more books when I go through all the shelves. I will keep updating this sheet. Here is a link where there are pictures of the front page of the books: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-rp4vyPPYu1fjFUZlR4N1FYa1VUOE9KaHZqRUtjeFBTOVNDUEZIVzRIZEtPVG4yc3M1Yms&usp=sharing It could be easier to find the correct book with a picture. (I hope I enabled sharing correctly) > Dale H. Cook, Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA > Osborne 1 / Kaypro 4-84 / Kaypro 1 / Amstrad PPC-640 > http://plymouthcolony.net/starcity/radios/index.html > >
Re: Nopecraft - was Re: OT: learner kits
> Of course, real "stuff" is much better than pissing around in > Minecraft. But hey if you can get a kid to find interest in > programming via Minecraft of all things, I say that's still a success. Yes, it would be great if we could hook 14 year old kids on programming computers - but really, that happens a *lot* less than we would like it to. Even in the good old days with Apples in the schools, how many young teenagers actually stuck with it after the classes ended? Few, damn few. At least with Minecraft, kids tend to stick with it in (probably due to the community and Youtube). The original poster's son seems to be sticking with it quite well, it seems - so let him run with it. Anyway, I think this has strayed to far from old computers, so I will probably tune out. And also, Mr. Thain, a question: Why so anti-Minecraft? Did Notch run over your dog or something? -- Will
Re: Altos ACS 8000-15A
Thanks to Josh Dersch I now have a good copy of the ROM for the Altos 8500 boards. I’ve put it up online here: http://retrobattlestations.com/Altos/Altos-8000-8500.rom I burned it and popped it in but my Altos still doesn’t come up. Nothing is output on console 1. I’ll have to start walking through everything and check if the Z80 is getting clock, see if it’s running, and so on. I’m sure I can get it fixed, it’s just going to be more work. :-) -- Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com
Re: Place for a build log?
you could also set up a internet forum for ur posts allowing people to chime in on progress? On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 10:11 PM, Mark J. Blair wrote: > > > On Jun 20, 2015, at 19:43, Marc Verdiell > wrote: > > Do you have an equivalent for classic computer restorations? I see some > > people have their own blog on regular blog sites. But I dislike the > format - > > it's posted reverse latest first, you can only see the latest posts at > once. > > Not anywhere as good as a thread. > > I think it should be possible to configure Wordpress to display posts from > oldest to newest. It's just not conventional for blogs to be that way. You > might also dedicate one post to each build, and edit that build to tack on > updates. That's not so helpful for people who want to get updates via RSS > for new activity, though. I took a quick look at my site's settings and > didn't find a simple click option to reverse the sort order, but I'm sure > it's still do-able. > > > And I have not found the equivalent of our "Builder Logs Thread" on the > > Vintage Computer Forums which I just "discovered". > > Maybe Erik would consider adding a category on VCF for build logs? If not, > there's nothing stopping you from posting a new thread in an appropriate > category there. Though if the build happens to be off-topic for VCF, it > might get more attention on a more closely-related forum than in the > off-topic area on VCF. > > For R2-D2 robot replica building, maybe there's some robotics or maker > forum where it will get the most attention and participation? Or maybe you > would consider giving the robot an LSI-11 for a brain so it can sneak into > VCF? :) > > Twitter also has its place for our activities, but it's best suited for > immediate interaction around a very short "Hey, look at my cool thing!" > posting which will quickly drop into obscurity. Twitter, mailing lists, > Facebook (GACK! EVIL!), forums, blogs, etc. all have their own styles, > plusses and minuses. > > > -- > Mark J. Blair, NF6X > http://www.nf6x.net/ > >
Re: Looking for info on National Semiconductor RAM board (VAX 11/730)
On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 10:58 AM, tony duell wrote: >> I am looking for any information on a National Semiconductor RAM board that >> I think goes in >> a VAX 11/730. > Pressing the > button turns off the yellow LED and completely disables the board. Quite why > you'd want to do this I do > not know... The reason you'd want a button to disable the board is when running diagnostics, you can "remove all the non-DEC memory" without physically removing it. Of course it still could be the source of a problem, but at least operational memory boards can be "deleted" so they don't grossly affect the diagnostic code. It's a "feature" to allow customers to buy less-expensive RAM and still have a way to pass diagnostics without fingerpointing from DEC about that "other" board in there. -ethan
RE: Looking for info on National Semiconductor RAM board (VAX 11/730)
> > Pressing the > > button turns off the yellow LED and completely disables the board. Quite > > why you'd want to do this I do > > not know... > > The reason you'd want a button to disable the board is when running > diagnostics, you can "remove all the non-DEC memory" without > physically removing it. Of course it still could be the source of a > problem, but at least operational memory boards can be "deleted" so > they don't grossly affect the diagnostic code. > > It's a "feature" to allow customers to buy less-expensive RAM and > still have a way to pass diagnostics without fingerpointing from DEC > about that "other" board in there. How would DEC know? These boards do not, AFAIK, have any form of machine-readable ID. All DEC could tell remotely was how much RAM was in the machine. And I would hope any Field Servoid could spot a non-DEC memory board if he was looking in the cardcage! Disablng the board would prevent it acting as a data storage area, but if there's a shorted buffer or something it could still mess things up. There is a common bus to all the memory boards, at least in the 11/730. And I know the machine will not behave normally if there are gaps in the physical memory space, quite whether it would run diagnostics in that case I do not know. So I guess you had better have all the DEC boards at the start of the memory space and if you want to make the 3rd party RAM disappear, disable all the boards. -tony
Re: Nopecraft - was Re: OT: learner kits
On 6/20/2015 8:06 PM, William Donzelli wrote: Right. Get 'em hooked on Minecraft, and then it'll be easier to push them into harder drugs like VHDL later! :) There is a good grain of truth to that. In complex Minecraft command block systems, a programmer has to think about many, many tasks, running in parallel, each triggered by real time events connected with the redstone logic network. That starts to sound like Verilog. In thinking further - I might think that learning to do complex Minecraft command block systems is probably *better* for training future engineers that giving them a bunch of TTL and a protoboard. -- Will I purchased a Raspberry Pi recently and was surprised to find a version of Minecraft installed, I don't know anything about it but my son did. It sort of 'hooked' him into the Pi. Oh, and it also had Mathematica on it, a stripped down version. I think that was to get me 'hooked', I've never been able to afford Mathematica and am interested in it. Doug
Re: Nopecraft - was Re: OT: learner kits
On Jun 21, 2015, at 9:49 AM, Douglas Taylor wrote: > I purchased a Raspberry Pi recently and was surprised to find a version of > Minecraft installed, I don't know anything about it but my son did. It sort > of 'hooked' him into the Pi. > > Oh, and it also had Mathematica on it, a stripped down version. I think that > was to get me 'hooked', I've never been able to afford Mathematica and am > interested in it. It’s actually full V10 Mathematica, which was the thing that pushed me into getting it. It does depend on the web-link for lots of the help features, but I think is otherwise complete. It is also SLOW compared to most Mathematica platforms. I didn’t find out about the availability of the obsolete Minecraft version until later; my son spent some time with it but didn’t get hooked into other Pi features (and now owns his own x86 laptop). Many thanks to all for the Minecraft mod suggestions; I’ll pass those on to Will the 14-year-old and see whether he feels like downloading some to make his redstone creations more programmable; like Toby I’m not a huge MineCrack fan but Will is spending time on it anyway; if he learns FORTH or 6502 assembly as a side-effect of fooling around in MineCraft, that seems like a step forward. He did help me write some code on the CARDIAC simulator (which rocks) but may have run out of interest in that, but at least he has this much intro to machine language. https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~bls96/museum/cardiac.html https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~bls96/museum/cardsim.html - Mark
Re: Nopecraft - was Re: OT: learner kits
On 21 June 2015 at 18:21, Tapley, Mark wrote: > It’s actually full V10 Mathematica, which was the thing that pushed me into > getting it. It does depend on the web-link for lots of the help features, but > I think is otherwise complete. It is also SLOW compared to most Mathematica > platforms. I didn’t find out about the availability of the obsolete Minecraft > version until later; my son spent some time with it but didn’t get hooked > into other Pi features (and now owns his own x86 laptop). > The RPi comes with a free full version of Mathematica? That intrigues me; I've never used it before but I hear it's similar to MAPLE? (Then again in terms of CAS's I'm quite happy with the one on my TI-89 Titanium.) > Many thanks to all for the Minecraft mod suggestions; I’ll pass those on to > Will the 14-year-old and see whether he feels like downloading some to make > his redstone creations more programmable; like Toby I’m not a huge MineCrack > fan but Will is spending time on it anyway; if he learns FORTH or 6502 > assembly as a side-effect of fooling around in MineCraft, that seems like a > step forward. > The mod that does FORTH on a 6502 is a bit dead. Right now the "best" you can get is Lua. Yo uneed an obsolte version of MineCraft to use old RedPower 2 (which has the 6502 and FORTH interpreter). I think V1.4.6? > He did help me write some code on the CARDIAC simulator (which rocks) but may > have run out of interest in that, but at least he has this much intro to > machine language. > > https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~bls96/museum/cardiac.html > https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~bls96/museum/cardsim.html > Have you tried setting him at a PDP-8 or PDP-11 simulator yet? Much more productive than Minecraft, and if you can find a simulator that also simulates a front panel... Cheers, Christian -- Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove STCKON08DS0 Contact information available upon request.
Re: HP 2113e Battery resistor
Thanks a lot for the detailed answer Glen. I have looked in more detail into my machine and its rear connectors. It's a 21MX (2112A), and it has two battery holders at the back. The old batteries even came with it (!). On this machine the battery connectors are just two pronged, + and -, so no thermistor connection apparently. At first glance I thought two other 9 pin connectors were similar to the ones you described and needed to be wired up with the thermistors. But they apparently are totally different things, labeled POWER CONT IN and POWER CONT OUT. After a bit of bitsaver hunting, I gather these are for power control interconnection with optional I/O racks extensions. So I think I am thermistor free. I just need to find new small 12V lead batteries that fit. They are an odd "construction brick" form factor, standard modern gel batteries are too tall. Marc -- Glen Slick said: Subject: Re: HP 2113e Battery resistor I have only looked at the "B" version of the power supply as that is what I have in my 2117F. (Now that I think of it I'm not sure what version of the power supply I have in my 2113B). The details for that are covered in the 5061-1356 section of the 92851-90001_Jun79_9.pdf manual referenced below starting on page 84 of the PDF. As described in section 3-9 on page 105 of the PDF the Power Fail Recovery System (PFRS) option consists of the Battery Charger Board (A3A3) and the Battery Backup Board (A3A4) which are mounted internally in the power supply, and the external mounted Battery/Status Assembly. If the PFRS option is not present the Jumper Board (A3A4) is installed internally in the power supply instead of the Battery Charger Board (A3A3) and the Battery Backup Board (A3A4). If you open up your system far enough to remove the lid on the power supply you can visually inspect the installed boards to determine whether or not the PFRS option is installed in the power supply. The battery pack over-temperature thermistor is integrated into the battery pack. It ends up being connected to the TEMP1 and TEMP2 signals shown on the Battery Charger Board (A3A3) schematic Sheet 6 on page 136 of the PDF. If the PFRS option is not installed the Battery Charger Board (A3A3) is not present and there is nothing that would connect to the battery pack thermistor so it is not necessary for the operation of the power supply. If the PFRS option is installed but the thermistor or resistor equivalent is not connected the CPU will power on but will not be functional. I think all of the front panel lights turn on and none of the switches have any effect. It's been a long time since I looked at that in detail to figure out what was going on. I think some of the voltages are at the correct level, but maybe the memory voltages are not, and some of the power supply status signals (PSU?, PON?) indicate the power supply is not ready and that holds the system in the inactive state. -Glen --
Re: Nopecraft - was Re: OT: learner kits
Christian et al, sorry for the somewhat off-topicness: On Jun 21, 2015, at 5:56 PM, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote: > The RPi comes with a free full version of Mathematica? That intrigues > me; I've never used it before but I hear it's similar to MAPLE? (Then > again in terms of CAS's I'm quite happy with the one on my TI-89 > Titanium.) I believe the version of Mathematica is a full version. It did not come bundled, but here’s the Wolfram page describing it and pointing to the Raspberry Pi foundation (but not to the correct link for downloading mathematica): http://www.wolfram.com/raspberry-pi/ Our Raspberry Pi came with a flash card containing NOOBS, which allowed us to download and install our choice of several operating systems. We chose Raspbian, then downloaded and installed Mathematica. We solved a pretty small amount of trouble getting the icons to show up on the desktop, then I downloaded my largest and most complex Mathematica notebook which ran (well, crawled) without modification. Hm, on investigating, I think it actually is included in Raspbian now. If not, https://www.raspberrypi.org/mathematica-10/ may help. FWIW, Beaglebone Black is rumored to have a Mathematica port in the works: http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/386736 Mathematica is similar to Maple from what I hear. I have not used Maple, though. In addition to the TI CAS’s you are familiar with, here is another option: http://maxima.sourceforge.net Free, runs on Windows/Linux/Mac/Android and source is available. I have tested briefly on my Mac OS X.9.5 and on my Moto X cellphone on Androiod 4.2, no problems so far. Likely not as powerful as Mathematica, but certainly has many of the same building blocks, so if you want to test computer-based CAS with little cost/hardware investment, this might be useful. > The mod that does FORTH on a 6502 is a bit dead. Right now the "best" > you can get is Lua. Yo uneed an obsolte version of MineCraft to use > old RedPower 2 (which has the 6502 and FORTH interpreter). I think > V1.4.6? Hm. Lua is still interesting. Will also has a TI-Nspire calculator which will run Lua as well as its own CAS system. That might be a really neat tie-in. (Back on topic) > Have you tried setting him at a PDP-8 or PDP-11 simulator yet? Much > more productive than Minecraft, and if you can find a simulator that > also simulates a front panel… Sounds fun, but I’m a bit nervous about putting in that effort if it attracts him no more than Cardiac in Java did. But I’ll keep the suggestion in mind! I do have a pair of TRS-80 Color Computers and an assembly language cartridge; he showed not much interest there, so I’m not confident the PDP simulations would do much better. - Mark
Re: Place for a build log?
>> And I have not found the equivalent of our "Builder Logs Thread" on the >> Vintage Computer Forums which I just "discovered". >Maybe Erik would consider adding a category on VCF for build logs? That's a good suggestion. On the R2 group, the Builders Log section was actually added after I suggested it. It is now the most viewed section. But on VCF (that's how you call it?), I think I am way too new to make such a proposal and have it taken seriously... And I don't have yet a good sense of the VCF constituents and interests to understand if this proposal would have any traction either. Someone else would have to ask for me... Where do people that do "heavy duty" or longer lived restoration projects (mainframes, minis, pre-1970 machines) gather on the web? Here I guess :-)?
Tru64 LSM
Hi there! Anyone remember much about Tru64 + LSM? It's been a while since I've done much with Tru64, and I never used LSM before. I got some new 36GB disks and am doing a fresh install, and wanted to mirror them with LSM, as the SCSI controller is not a RAID card. Initially, the installer picked really stupid defaults, choosing to use only about 3GB of the 36GB available. I was hoping to do something like have the LSM be in total control of the disk, with all filesystems and swap being on LSM volumes. The LSM documentation says this would be called a "sliced" disk. I'm a little rusty on my disklabel specifics, but the Tru64 docs seem to suggest that the 'a' slice is usually used for the / filesystem, 'c' is the whole disk, and g or h is usually used for the LSM private data. So, my questions are: 1. Is it possible to install to and boot from an LSM sliced disk (as opposed to an LSM "simple" disk)? 2. Is it possible to have swap be on an LSM volume, or does it have to be on a slice (like dsk0b or something) 3. Is the 'a' slice strictly required for anything? 4. Would the best (or a good) way to go be to do something like a & b unused, c whole disk, g all the space except 2MB, and h 2MB for LSM data? Thanks and sorry for the stupid questions! -Ben
Re: HP 2113e Battery resistor
On Sunday, June 21, 2015 at 16:43, Marc Verdiell wrote: > On this machine the battery connectors are just two pronged, + and -, > so no thermistor connection apparently. That marks it as an "A-version" power supply. > I just need to find new small 12V lead batteries that fit. Note that the "A" supply used a 12 Volt nickel-cadmium battery pack (per page IXA-1 of the M/E/F-Series ERD), and the charger is a constant-current supply. The pack is not broken down in the parts list but presumably would have contained ten 1.2-Volt cells. The "B" supply used a 14 Volt lead-acid battery pack (ERD IXB-5), so seven 2.0-Volt cells, and the charger is a constant-voltage supply. If you use lead-acid batteries with the "A" power supply, you may wind up overcharging them and shortening their life. -- Dave
Re: XH558 - was Re: using new technology etc
- Original Message - From: "William Donzelli" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, June 19, 2015 8:43 PM Subject: Re: XH558 - was Re: using new technology etc Don't forget Cromemco: I think we can forget Cromemco. The original poster wanted examples of minis "setup and used on one". I doubt a Cromemco would survive long in flight service. This is why I also pointed out "combat service", as opposed to being part of a test set in an air and power conditioned hangar. Military aircraft (and marine) service is *really* hard on equipment. -- Will - Reply- Well, regarding marine service, from one of many histories of Cromemco, e.g.: http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display/3-5-CROMEMCO.html "The Z-2 line was the first commercially marketed microcomputer certified for use by the U.S. Navy for use aboard ships without major modification." Memory's not what it used to be and I could be misremembering, but I'm pretty certain that some Z-2s were installed in military aircraft for data collection (admittedly not in combat service); ISTR one of those appearing on eBay a few years ago, bristling with many-conductor cables and military-style Cannon connectors. I'll dig through the literature to see if I can find an official reference. m.
