Re: anyone have a working RV-20 or RV-64?

[Pontus Pihlgren]

On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 10:01:40AM -0700, Al Kossow wrote:
> On 3/18/16 9:15 PM, Paul Anderson wrote:
> >I have a RV20 somewhere. Are you in a big hurry?
> >
> >On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 6:48 PM, Al Kossow  wrote:
> >
> >>we have a bunch of optical packs at CHM that we'd like to archive
> >>does anyone have a working setup?
> >>
> >>
> 
> no, but I have nothing with a LESI interface, so finding a whole running
> system would be better
> 
> 

I think I know where to find both an RV-20 and both qbus and unibus lesi 
interfaces.

Not a working setup, but if you need spares. They are not mine but I think you 
could have them for free for the good cause.

/P

Re: NetBSD TK70 question

[azd30]

Hi Christian,

Have you asked this question on the port-vax netbsd mailing list? Also you're 
on on  Rel3, which is pretty old - I assume you have a good reason to be at 
that release level, Have you tried booting a newer release and see if the 
behavior is the same? I know, not exactly a convenient/easy thing to do on uVax 
II...

cheers
--
alex

Re: PDP-11/05-NC with M9301?

[william degnan]

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 7:45 AM, Mattis Lind  wrote:

> I was thinking of using a M9301 board to get a console emulator and some
> different bootstraps with the 11/05. But can I just put the M9301 in the
> slot where the M930 normally goes? Slot 4 AB.
>
> From looking in the schematics I get that:
>
> 1. The bus grant pull ups on the M9301 is through jumpers. According to the
> note they should only be installed on 11/70 systems. But the M930 do pull
> these up (no jumpers here) so my guess is that these jumpers should be
> installed.
>
> 2. The M930 connects much more signals to a common ground. Except for the
> normal ones the M9301 uses for ground (AC2, BC2, AT1 and BT1) it also has
> connected AB2, BB2, AN1, AP1, AR1, AS1, AV2, BD1, BE1, BV2 to ground.
>
> Reading the pin assignments on a MUD slot I think that putting a M930 into
> it could potentially create a lot of smoke. BV2 is -5V and AV2 is +20V if
> the appropriate regulator is in the system.
>
> M9301 goes into MUD slots. But can it go into the slot where a M930
> normally sits?
>
> My thinking is that it should work. What is your experience?
>
> /Mattis
>


I am not 1/2 as knowledgeable as others here, but what comes to mind is
"backplane change", I think you'd leave the M930 where it is and on the 2nd
backplane segment install the M9301.  If you don't have a 2nd plane I'd say
you may not be able to use this.  Just my GUESS, but I am interested to
learn the correct answer.
b
-- 
@ BillDeg:
Web: vintagecomputer.net
Twitter: @billdeg 
Youtube: @billdeg 
Unauthorized Bio 

Re: anyone have a working RV-20 or RV-64?

[Al Kossow]

On 3/20/16 4:27 AM, Al Kossow wrote:

On 3/20/16 12:05 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote:


Not a working setup, but if you need spares. They are not mine but I
think you
could have them for free for the good cause.

/P



thanks!



btw, this would be to recover the CAD design data for the VAX 9000

Re: anyone have a working RV-20 or RV-64?

[Al Kossow]

On 3/20/16 12:05 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote:


Not a working setup, but if you need spares. They are not mine but I think you
could have them for free for the good cause.

/P



thanks!

Re: NetBSD TK70 question (solved)

[Christian Corti]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2016, Christian Corti wrote:

simple read(). All I get is
 mt0: unknown opcode 0x80 status 0xc01 ignored

[...]

Ok, I was fishing deep in the TMSCP protocol manual, and after fiddling 
with the MSCP driver I found out that Opcode 0x80 (OP.END) alone (page 
A-2) means MSCP protocol violation (originating from the TQK70), and 
status 1 with subcode 0 (page B-3) means invalid message length... aha!
I was issuing a read() with a requested length of 65536 bytes, too much, 
maximum is 65535. After I had reduced the length I could read the tape!

So the following is for the records:
1. NetBSD doesn't know how to deal with such an MSCP error
2. SimH (GIT version) improperly ignores invalid buffer lengths

Christian

Re: Connecting a Cambridge Z88 to the Internet

[Austin Pass]

Sent from my iPhone

> On 18 Mar 2016, at 14:20, Liam Proven  wrote:
> 
> I'd be fascinated to hear of any gotchas if you were curious enough to
> give it a go. My skills at things like making serial cables are very
> minimal indeed.

I have the original Z88 serial cable for mine (it's a fully boxed original).

I even have a vintage 3Com terminal server that can bridge COM ports to IP's 
via telnet.

I'll hook it all up and let you know how I get on.

Re: Honneywell multics? from panels. the inline phots in this message folks -smecc

[David Bridgham]

On 03/16/2016 10:29 AM, Mouse wrote:

> That doesn't help [...]

You're right.  I was thinking of stack overruns, not general buffer
overruns.  Just need to stop programming in C for that last one.

Re: Honneywell multics? from panels. the inline phots in this message folks -smecc

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Mouse

>> simulating a segmented machine on a non-segmented machine, i.e. one
>> with large unidirectional addresses (segmented being a
>> bi-directionally addressed machine) - [...]

> Hm, "unidirectional" and "bidirectional" are terms I'm having trouble
> figuring out the meaning of here. You seem to be using them as,
> effectively, synonyms for "non-segmented" and "segmented"

Yes.

> but I don't see any way in which directionality makes any sense for
> either, so I can only infer I'm missing something.

Imagine a graphic model of the memory in non-segmented, and segmented,
machines.

The former can be modeled as a linear array of memory cells - hence
'uni-directional'. The latter can be modelled by a two-dimensional array -
segment number along one axis, word/byte within segment on the other - hence
'bi-directional'.

Maybe 'uni-axis' or 'bi-axis' would have been a bit more techically correct,
but 'uni-directional' and 'bi-directional' were the first terms that came to
mind - and I didn't think of how they could be confusing (in terms of their
common meanings, when used for flows). Sorry!

Noel

PS: I'm trying to remember all my thoughts about simulating a segmented
memory with a large flat address space. One was that one can prevent pointer
incrementing from 'walking' from one segment into another by leaving a 'guard
band' of a few empty pages between each 'segment'. However, this points out
an issue with such simulation: one cannot easily grow a 'segment' once
another 'segment' has been assigned space above it.

Re: DEC RK05 Emergency Retract Batteries

[Paul Koning]

> On Mar 16, 2016, at 1:24 PM, Jos Dreesen  wrote:
> ...
> Additionally the NiCd never keep charge, if , like me, the drives  are only 
> fired up once a year...
> 
> I am thinking of just adding some wiring to an external battery.

I wonder if it might make sense to replace it by a capacitor.  For this kind of 
application, the total capacity is not an issue at all, but only the available 
current for a fraction of a second.  By that measure, it doesn't take all that 
large a capacitor to do as well as a battery; the difference is that the 
battery can sustain that current far longer -- which doesn't matter here.

paul

RE: A gold mine for anybody in Austin...

[Ali]

James,

Just wondering if you had any luck with the CL guy? Thanks.

-Ali

Re: Connecting a Cambridge Z88 to the Internet

[Jules Richardson]

On 03/18/2016 09:04 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

I've been asked about doing this for an exhibition.


From some cursory Googling, it seems that the Z88 has a terminal

emulator, and equipped with a suitable serial cable, you could just
run a cable to a host device with an Internet connection and have a
text-only terminal session fairly readily.

Not much more than that, though.

Has anyone on CC done this?


Not with a Z88, but I have done this with my Tandy 102, just for the heck 
of it. I believe the displays of the two machines are similar in size, and 
at least with the Tandy it was quite painful - it works, but not being able 
to see more than 8 lines of text at a time gets irritating quite fast.


cheers

Jules

Re: A gold mine for anybody in Austin...

[James Vess]

Hey Ali, No response yet and I followed up again with him.
There was an initial response about getting photos then nada.

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 10:24 AM, Ali  wrote:

> James,
>
> Just wondering if you had any luck with the CL guy? Thanks.
>
> -Ali
>
>