RE: Mystery HP 1000 board

[CuriousMarc]

Well what the heck, found it, we have one right here in the CHM collection!!! 
It's part of an HP 5451C Fourier Analysis system, and there are quite a few 
other bits needed besides the HP-1000 and its many weird cards! I think I saw 
them from the guy that I bought the HP 1000 from. I might go back.
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102692715
A later revision of the 5451A system I had found below with the nice lady 
picture.
Marc

-Original Message-
From: CuriousMarc [mailto:curiousma...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 11:54 PM
To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
Cc: 'Marc Verdiell'
Subject: RE: Mystery HP 1000 board

Suspicion confirmed, inspecting other cards of the machine, the cage is full of 
many mystery interface cards 05451-20025. I'm not sure yet of what the many 
cards do, but The HP 5451 was a 1972 Fourrier Analysis system that was 
implemented with an even earlier, core memory version HP 2100 processor. I 
recommend the picture of the system below, that's one of the best pictures of 
an 2100 system I have ever seen ;-)
http://spherik.tumblr.com/post/98803997123/hewlett-packard-hp-5451a-fourier-analyzer-1972
Wait. They even made an earlier 1970 model based on a HP 2116 (HP's first 
computer!) documented here, www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/1970-06.pdf
Also used for low frequency spectrum analysis, here for sound and vibration. 
I suspect my machine is a descendent of these early systems, haven't quite put 
my finger exactly on it, but getting really close.

Marc

-Original Message-
From: CuriousMarc [mailto:curiousma...@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 11:07 PM
To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
Cc: 'Marc Verdiell'
Subject: RE: Mystery HP 1000 board

Ah, thanks, this is getting awfully close, and jives well with Jay's 
recollection. Low frequency spectrum analysis using FFT seems to be the 
application indeed. Mentions an "arithmetic booster board" bolted to the bottom 
of an HP 21MX K (whatever a K-model is, never heard of it, but seems to be made 
of an HP 2105 model, I'll look that up) to improve FFT performance. They call 
the combo a "5443A" processor. That's dangerously similar to my 54427 board 
numbering and "booster" naming and fits right in with the 74S181 bit slice 
20-bit ALU. I haven't found the particular system that would use an E-series 
computer, but I'll keep looking in this direction. 
Marc

-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Paul Birkel
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 10:44 PM
To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
Subject: RE: Mystery HP 1000 board

See: http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/1977-10.pdf  Figure 4  

Shows some of those other parts as well in the block diagram.  Uses a "HP 21MX 
K-Series Computer".

Model 5420A Digital Signal Analyzer.

-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of CuriousMarc
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2016 1:16 AM
To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
Subject: RE: Mystery HP 1000 board

You beat me! You got one hit. How did you search for that? I come up dry...
Marc

-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Pete Lancashire
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 8:50 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Mystery HP 1000 board

Well there are 20 bits of ALU 

And this guy has one and some other boards

http://nevadabarry.com/electron.html#HP%20Test%20Equipment

  HP 5443
  05443-60047
  05443-60042
  05443-60031  MIOB Interface
  05443-60050 Booster Microcode
  05443-60057 C (13803F?)
  05443-60071 A (22803F)

NO Connection with the site/person/etc .. just passing it on

On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 8:00 PM, Jay West  wrote:

> I have one of those boards. You sent me an email about it and I 
> replied a week ago :)
>
> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of 
> CuriousMarc
> Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 9:49 PM
> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> Subject: Mystery HP 1000 board
>
> Can anyone identify this HP board (see link to pictures)?
>
> https://goo.gl/photos/BBuAV1oozWNSqeUTA
>
> It was at under the main board of a newly acquired HP 1000-E, next to 
> the firmware board. It says HP 54427-60050 Booster Microcode. It has 5 
> bitslice SN 74S181 chips at the back. So I surmise maybe it's a late 
> ALU booster upgrade?
>
>
>
> Marc
>
>
>
>
>
>

RE: Mystery HP 1000 board

[Rik Bos]

> Well what the heck, found it, we have one right here in the CHM collection!!! 
> It's
> part of an HP 5451C Fourier Analysis system, and there are quite a few other 
> bits
> needed besides the HP-1000 and its many weird cards! I think I saw them from
> the guy that I bought the HP 1000 from. I might go back.
> http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102692715
> A later revision of the 5451A system I had found below with the nice lady
> picture.
> Marc
> 
> 
> http://nevadabarry.com/electron.html#HP%20Test%20Equipment
> 
>   HP 5443
>   05443-60047
>   05443-60042
>   05443-60031  MIOB Interface
>   05443-60050 Booster Microcode
>   05443-60057 C (13803F?)
>   05443-60071 A (22803F)
> 
> NO Connection with the site/person/etc .. just passing it on
> 
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 8:00 PM, Jay West  wrote:
> 
> > I have one of those boards. You sent me an email about it and I
> > replied a week ago :)
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of
> > CuriousMarc
> > Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 9:49 PM
> > To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> > Subject: Mystery HP 1000 board
> >
> > Can anyone identify this HP board (see link to pictures)?
> >
> > https://goo.gl/photos/BBuAV1oozWNSqeUTA
> >
> > It was at under the main board of a newly acquired HP 1000-E, next to
> > the firmware board. It says HP 54427-60050 Booster Microcode. It has 5
> > bitslice SN 74S181 chips at the back. So I surmise maybe it's a late
> > ALU booster upgrade?

The boards are also used in the HP 5420A/B Dynamic Signal Analysers and the HP 
5423A Structural Dynamics Analyser.
The boards belong to the 5443 control unit which is actually a M-series 
processor with some add-ons like the booster board and a custom front 
panel/keyboard.
The analysers consists of three 19"boxes containing the 5441 Display unit, 5443 
Control unit ant the 5441 AD-coverter and Digtal filter.
The boxes are connected through the MIOB  (Multiple Input Output Bus) a 16 bits 
bus used to communicate and control the various parts.
FYI the HP 5420 and 5423 were used to test parts of the space shuttle program.
Some other info of the units are on:
http://www.oneillassociates.com.au/~5420/HP5420.shtml
Some picture and a short video loading the operation software on:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hp-fix/albums/72157651930423960

-Rik

RE: Mystery HP 1000 board

[Rik Bos]

> 
> The boards are also used in the HP 5420A/B Dynamic Signal Analysers and the HP
> 5423A Structural Dynamics Analyser.
> The boards belong to the 5443 control unit which is actually a M-series
> processor with some add-ons like the booster board and a custom front
> panel/keyboard.
> The analysers consists of three 19"boxes containing the 5441 Display unit, 
> 5443
> Control unit ant the 5441 AD-coverter and Digtal filter.
> The boxes are connected through the MIOB  (Multiple Input Output Bus) a 16
> bits bus used to communicate and control the various parts.
> FYI the HP 5420 and 5423 were used to test parts of the space shuttle program.
> Some other info of the units are on:
> http://www.oneillassociates.com.au/~5420/HP5420.shtml
> Some picture and a short video loading the operation software on:
> https://www.flickr.com/photos/hp-fix/albums/72157651930423960
> 
> -Rik

What I forgot, if anyone has tapes or info of these systems I would be very 
interested.
Tapes are dc100 type of tape cartridges, typically starting with HP 05423-# 
or HP 05420-##
And have titles like HP 5420A/B, HP 5423, Control- Test- or HPIB-tape etc..
I've one working set of software and love to find more.

-Rik

Re: Keyboards and the Model M (was Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[Peter Corlett]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 09:17:01AM -0700, Christopher Satterfield wrote:
> Unicomp keys are still done using dyesub PBT, same as IBMs. Still takes a lot
> of effort to wear it down, I don't recall ever seeing a board with any wear
> on the legends.

My teetering pile of junk^W Fine Legacy Equipment that requires some TLC
includes a dead Unicomp Model M where some of the legends have clearly worn
away. The user admits to putting it through the dishwasher at least twice,
having apparently decided it was dishwashable because the first time worked.

Apart from the obvious reason that I just can't be arsed, the main stumbling
block on the repair is the recessed bolts holding it together and me not having
a suitable thin-walled driver to turn them. It's probably a simple job once I'm
actually in.

Re: DL11 M7800

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: William Degnan

>>> Is there a table with the jumpers and values somewhere?

>> No, but I'll whip one up and stick it on the Computer History wiki.

> Many would appreciate this I bet.

I'm sure I would have - I, like a lot of others, struggled with the
address/vector jumpers (which are poorly covered in the DEC documentation).

Anyway, try this on for size:

  http://gunkies.org/wiki/DL11_asynchronous_serial_line

If there's anything else I could usefully add there, please let me know.
I have provided jumper configs for the console, and the first serial line
after that - are there any more that would be useful to list?

Noel

RE: Mystery HP 1000 board

[Jay West]

Marc wrote...
-
 21MX K (whatever a K-model is, never heard of it, but seems to be made of an 
HP 2105 model, I'll look that up
-
I have not been HP-focused for a year or so, I've had my head in DG stuff 
instead and I am finding that I'm forgetting (and remembering wrong) many HP 
things lol But

Foggy Memory - The main difference between the 2105 and 2112 (and separately 
the 2109 and 2113) was mechanical. I seem to recall that the elusive "K" series 
(which I have a sales brochure for somewhere, but I have never seen in the 
wild, nor do I know of anyone who has one) was a "pick and choose" at order 
time - "Roll Your Own 21MX". It was apparently some form of "modular" so you 
could get bits and pieces of the different models in one model (right down to 
the number of slots you wanted).

J

RE: Mystery HP 1000 board

[Jay West]

Marc wrote...
-
 It's part of an HP 5451C Fourier Analysis system
-
So my foggy memory of it being a card to make the system a fourier analysis 
instrument was "not too far off" *grin*. Now if I could just remember when wife 
asks me to bring home bread from the store

Marc gave me new knowledge the other day, I'll share in case no one knew 
thisI sure didn't.

>From my manuals and travels, I was under the impression that while the M 
>series was 3 machines (2105, 2108, and 2112) and the E series was 2 machines 
>(2109 and 2113) that there was only one machine in the F series - the 
>2117F, and it had the FP box underneath.

Marc showed me a machine that was badged "1000F", but had no FP box under it. I 
of course (incorrectly) told him - it ain't an F unless you go back and get the 
FP box that goes with. He found that in the rear above the I/O cage, there was 
a wide (width of the chassis) card cage of about 3 slots, that was apparently 
for an FP. My reply (wrong) was that it must be a custom job.

Turns out - there was a model of F designated 2111F which has the FP boards 
inside the main chassis above the I/O cage, and the 2117F which has the boards 
in a separate box under the cpu. Either I never knew about this 2111F, or my 
brain blocked it out or forgot it. I'm going with the former ;)

J

RE: Keyboards and the Model M (was Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[Electronics Plus]

A 7/32" or 5.5mm socket or nutdriver will do the job nicely.

-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Peter
Corlett
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2016 6:25 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Keyboards and the Model M (was Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 09:17:01AM -0700, Christopher Satterfield wrote:
> Unicomp keys are still done using dyesub PBT, same as IBMs. Still 
> takes a lot of effort to wear it down, I don't recall ever seeing a 
> board with any wear on the legends.

My teetering pile of junk^W Fine Legacy Equipment that requires some TLC
includes a dead Unicomp Model M where some of the legends have clearly worn
away. The user admits to putting it through the dishwasher at least twice,
having apparently decided it was dishwashable because the first time worked.

Apart from the obvious reason that I just can't be arsed, the main stumbling
block on the repair is the recessed bolts holding it together and me not
having a suitable thin-walled driver to turn them. It's probably a simple
job once I'm actually in.

Re: DL11 M7800

[william degnan]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 7:45 AM, Noel Chiappa 
wrote:

> > From: William Degnan
>
> >>> Is there a table with the jumpers and values somewhere?
>
> >> No, but I'll whip one up and stick it on the Computer History wiki.
>
> > Many would appreciate this I bet.
>
> I'm sure I would have - I, like a lot of others, struggled with the
> address/vector jumpers (which are poorly covered in the DEC documentation).
>
> Anyway, try this on for size:
>
>   http://gunkies.org/wiki/DL11_asynchronous_serial_line
>
> If there's anything else I could usefully add there, please let me know.
> I have provided jumper configs for the console, and the first serial line
> after that - are there any more that would be useful to list?
>
> Noel
>


Thanks Noel.  If I understand correctly, the first DL might be for example
a TU58 or other serial device.  The console = 0, the "first" is actually
"1" (second) serial card.  right?
-- 
@ BillDeg:
Web: vintagecomputer.net
Twitter: @billdeg 
Youtube: @billdeg 
Unauthorized Bio 

Re: Quadra 660AV what's with the "PowerPC" label?

[Liam Proven]

On 15 June 2016 at 17:23, Peter Corlett  wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 04:51:43PM +0200, Liam Proven wrote:
> [...]
>> * Simplicity -- the Finder integration with the OS, the desktop database,
>> etc. Move items around, aliases still point to them. Even to other drives,
>> even to other machines on the same network!
>
> Not that I'm any fan of Windows, but don't NTFS junctions do this? They're a
> kind of cross-volume hard link.


Honestly, I'm not sure. But if they do, Explorer doesn't know about
it, and Windows shortcuts don't do any of it. Even plain old symlinks
are more capable than shortcuts; only Explorer really understands them
and not always then.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: DL11 M7800

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: William Degnan

> If I understand correctly, the first DL might be for example a TU58 or
> other serial device.

Well, DL11's long predate TU58's, and the 'first' DL11 would almost certainly
have been connected to a terminal, but yes, basically.

> The console = 0, the "first" is actually "1" (second) serial card.
> right?

Right. I'll add a sentence or two the the article about how DL11's #1-#16 are
to be found at 776500-676.

Noel

Re: DL11 M7800

[william degnan]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 10:13 AM, Noel Chiappa 
wrote:

> > From: William Degnan
>
> > If I understand correctly, the first DL might be for example a TU58
> or
> > other serial device.
>
> Well, DL11's long predate TU58's, and the 'first' DL11 would almost
> certainly
> have been connected to a terminal, but yes, basically.
>
> > The console = 0, the "first" is actually "1" (second) serial card.
> > right?
>
> Right. I'll add a sentence or two the the article about how DL11's #1-#16
> are
> to be found at 776500-676.
>
> Noel
>

I added a link to this page from my site.  From all those in the future who
will now configure their systems a little more quickly, thanks!

-- 
@ BillDeg:
Web: vintagecomputer.net
Twitter: @billdeg 
Youtube: @billdeg 
Unauthorized Bio 

RE: DL11 M7800

[tony duell]

> This further helps my understanding.  Problem is, the card is bad.  Knowing
> it's probably jumpered correctly (assuming I have everything right, which
> is a big assumption) I will check the 1488/89 drivers, etc. to see what's
> wrong with the card.

What I would do is : 

Check that there are transmit and receive clocks at the UART pins
(pin 40 and pin 17 IIRC). If missing, check the clock circuitry, crystal,
etc.

Check that there is a character strobe (I think the UART pin is 
called 'TRL' -- Transmit Register Load) at the UART when you
try to write to the appropriate address. Make sure you don't
get a bus timeout error when you do that too. If that's 
not right, check the address decoder, bus slave logic, etc

Check if there is any data coming out the UART on the Transmit
register output pin. If not (and if everything else is OK), suspect
the UART chip. But check it's not being held reset, it's getting 
power, etc.

Check the transmit driver (1488)

Check the cable, if it's not the one you used with the other 
serial port card.

-tony

RE: Who recognizes this (UK) architecture (from 1970-1985)?

[Erik Baigar]

Hi Dave,

thanks for your answer and for the hint. I had been in touch with the
Museum in Manchester at the very beginning of the investigation on
this unit and they had been able to supply some marketing brochures
on Ferranti in general and the navigation business in special,
but there have not been many technical details.


I have forwarded this to some ex-Ferranti folks who may be able to help.


That is really great. I have a quite detailed understanding on how the
unit works now, but there are many questions still open - especially
regarding assembly and alignment in the factory. It would be really
great to get in touch with some of the old hands of the log gone
era of these systems...

The system was alost surely designed and built in Scotland (Edinburgh)
as many of the type plates indicate so.

In the meantime I fixed 4 of them and together with some avionics
enthusiasts over here we try to keep them up and running. We even
had one of these installed in a car for a 1h trip around Munich  ;-)

   Many thanks again,

  Erik.


-Original Message-
From: cctech [mailto:cctech-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Erik

Baigar

Sent: 16 June 2016 09:23
To: cct...@classiccmp.org
Subject: Who recognizes this (UK) architecture (from 1970-1985)?


Hi There,

I am working on restoration, documentation of a some vintage navigation
systems from the late 1970ties, which have been designed in the UK. They
contain an archaic bit-serial computer and I'd be interested if someone on

this

list recognizes the architecture and/or can confirm my assumptions:

The bitserial computer consists of around 300 TTL chips (54xx); it has 8

bits

instructions and operates on 16 bit memory. The 3 LOWER bits of the opcode
define the instruction and the HIGHER bits the location (0-31, i.e.

address) -

most other architectures I know have the instruction coded in the MSBs!

Here is

a list of the basic instructions:

   1 : Load Ac from memory
   2 : Store Ac to memory
   3 : Add to Ac
   4 : Sub from Ac
   5 : IO-Instructions (32 Channels, there are some special
   channels as 0 loads AC with "0" whereas channel 31 loads
   -1 into Ac).
   6 : Shift instructions - depending on the address field,
   Ac is shifted arithmetically (preserving MSB, the sign) or
   cyclic.
   7 : Bit test instructions - 0-15 test bits of the Ac register,
   16-31 test external digital inputs and are used for
   communication with the hardware.

And finally, put last for didactic reasons:

   0 : Here we have a bunch of special instructions depending
   on the address field, like selection of memory page,
   conditional jump, loading of data from ROM into the
   Accumulator (Ac), multiply, divide, conditional JUMP,...

What makes the architecture very unique to me is, that it has
32 bit capability, i.e. there is a "double length" flag and if this is

set, most

commands operate on 32 bit (1-6, MUL, DIV).

Additionally there is a "logic flag" which causes e.g. the instuctions ADD

and

SUB to switch to change their operation from ADD/SUB to logic AND/NXOR.

Apart from this, ROM and RAM are separated (the CPU cann not exe- cute
code in RAM) and the RAM is segmented in 4 pages of 31 words.

The machine does not have got a stack, there is no subroutine call and

only just

one flag used for conditional JUMPs. Via the test in- structions (e.g.

test Accu

bit 3, test Ac<0) this flag is modified and a following "Jump if Flag Set"

acutally

causes the conditional JUMP.

As the navigation system is made by Ferranti I, already had a look at the
varouos computers made by them (Mark1, Pegasus, Atlas, and Argus). I think
given the timeline, and the word widths the Argus 600 or 700 architectures
may be closely related, but the 600's command set is quite different...

http://www.wylie.org.uk/technology/computer/Argus/PeteFarr.htm

Can anyone out there confirm this? Is a instruction set listing of the

Argus 700

available somewhere?

A video on the system can be found fon YouTube although this is not

focused on

the digital computer it may be of interest as it gives a overview on the
application, the projected map cockpit display (one of the devices

controlled by

the system) and it shows my homebrew logger developed durig analysis of

the

box:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EQqfxiGgd8

Interesting in this system is also the delicate mechanics and the mix of

digital

computing, analog computing (platform stabilization, compensation of cross
talk errors and anisoelasticity, platform erection, first integration from
acceleration to speed) and mechanical computing (the ingetration of turn

rate

happens me- chanically within the gyrsocopes).For this reasons, these

systems

are the most extraordinary masterpiece of engineering I know...

Best regards,

Erik, Germany, Munich...

RE: Searching an IBM Model B typewriter for IBM 1620

[Johannes Thelen]

I sent mail to Erik and guess what? The typewriter is still available! Thanks 
for the tip! :D

- Johannes ThelenFinland
Before microcomputers blog (Finnish) http://ennenmikrotietokoneita.blogspot.fi/



> From: dave.g4...@gmail.com
> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> Subject: RE: Searching an IBM Model B typewriter for IBM 1620
> Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2016 12:33:53 +0100
> 
> Some one had one in the Netherlands about 4 years ago...
> 
> >Erik W. vier...@hotmail.com via classiccmp.org  
> >26/06/2012
> >to cctalk 
> >
> >
> >Hi Folks,
> >  I have an original IBM model B computer controlled typewriter witha lot
> of spares and maintenance manuals available for sale ortrade.  This stuff is
> > impossible to find.  As used on the IBM 1620,DEC PDP-1 and many other
> computers of the era.  Useful if you'remaintaining one of those or want to
> build a 
> > replica/simulator.
> > Respond to me directly as I'm not a member of this list.
> > Thanks, Erik  
> 
> > -Original Message-
> > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Johannes
> > Thelen
> > Sent: 15 June 2016 12:20
> > To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> > Subject: Searching an IBM Model B typewriter for IBM 1620
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > I got just another jewel to my collection, IBM 1620 Model I (G level).
> Machine
> > has all internals intact, but table top and the typewriter are missing
> (probably
> > doorway was too narrow back then, parts removed and forgotten somewhere
> > on the journey... ) That table top can be made again, but I would need
> that right
> > model typewriter. Anyone have a spare..?
> > Also I have another problem with it, memory is suffering wire corrosion
> (like
> > these all does). So this can be a long shot, but if someone have a
> functional
> > memory or just core array, I'm interested to buy or swap it to something.
> > Photos can be found my blog, link below.
> > Thanks!
> > 
> > - Johannes ThelenFinland
> > Before microcomputers blog (Finnish)
> > http://ennenmikrotietokoneita.blogspot.fi/
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
  

RE: Who recognizes this (UK) architecture (from 1970-1985)?

[Dave Wade]

Eric,

 I have forwarded this to some ex-Ferranti folks who may be able to help.
The Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester has many of the old
Ferranti papers and there may be some information in their archives, but
much of the technical info went to other buyers.

Dave.

> -Original Message-
> From: cctech [mailto:cctech-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Erik
Baigar
> Sent: 16 June 2016 09:23
> To: cct...@classiccmp.org
> Subject: Who recognizes this (UK) architecture (from 1970-1985)?
> 
> 
> Hi There,
> 
> I am working on restoration, documentation of a some vintage navigation
> systems from the late 1970ties, which have been designed in the UK. They
> contain an archaic bit-serial computer and I'd be interested if someone on
this
> list recognizes the architecture and/or can confirm my assumptions:
> 
> The bitserial computer consists of around 300 TTL chips (54xx); it has 8
bits
> instructions and operates on 16 bit memory. The 3 LOWER bits of the opcode
> define the instruction and the HIGHER bits the location (0-31, i.e.
address) -
> most other architectures I know have the instruction coded in the MSBs!
Here is
> a list of the basic instructions:
> 
>1 : Load Ac from memory
>2 : Store Ac to memory
>3 : Add to Ac
>4 : Sub from Ac
>5 : IO-Instructions (32 Channels, there are some special
>channels as 0 loads AC with "0" whereas channel 31 loads
>-1 into Ac).
>6 : Shift instructions - depending on the address field,
>Ac is shifted arithmetically (preserving MSB, the sign) or
>cyclic.
>7 : Bit test instructions - 0-15 test bits of the Ac register,
>16-31 test external digital inputs and are used for
>communication with the hardware.
> 
> And finally, put last for didactic reasons:
> 
>0 : Here we have a bunch of special instructions depending
>on the address field, like selection of memory page,
>conditional jump, loading of data from ROM into the
>Accumulator (Ac), multiply, divide, conditional JUMP,...
> 
> What makes the architecture very unique to me is, that it has
> 32 bit capability, i.e. there is a "double length" flag and if this is
set, most
> commands operate on 32 bit (1-6, MUL, DIV).
> 
> Additionally there is a "logic flag" which causes e.g. the instuctions ADD
and
> SUB to switch to change their operation from ADD/SUB to logic AND/NXOR.
> 
> Apart from this, ROM and RAM are separated (the CPU cann not exe- cute
> code in RAM) and the RAM is segmented in 4 pages of 31 words.
> 
> The machine does not have got a stack, there is no subroutine call and
only just
> one flag used for conditional JUMPs. Via the test in- structions (e.g.
test Accu
> bit 3, test Ac<0) this flag is modified and a following "Jump if Flag Set"
acutally
> causes the conditional JUMP.
> 
> As the navigation system is made by Ferranti I, already had a look at the
> varouos computers made by them (Mark1, Pegasus, Atlas, and Argus). I think
> given the timeline, and the word widths the Argus 600 or 700 architectures
> may be closely related, but the 600's command set is quite different...
> 
> http://www.wylie.org.uk/technology/computer/Argus/PeteFarr.htm
> 
> Can anyone out there confirm this? Is a instruction set listing of the
Argus 700
> available somewhere?
> 
> A video on the system can be found fon YouTube although this is not
focused on
> the digital computer it may be of interest as it gives a overview on the
> application, the projected map cockpit display (one of the devices
controlled by
> the system) and it shows my homebrew logger developed durig analysis of
the
> box:
> 
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EQqfxiGgd8
> 
> Interesting in this system is also the delicate mechanics and the mix of
digital
> computing, analog computing (platform stabilization, compensation of cross
> talk errors and anisoelasticity, platform erection, first integration from
> acceleration to speed) and mechanical computing (the ingetration of turn
rate
> happens me- chanically within the gyrsocopes).For this reasons, these
systems
> are the most extraordinary masterpiece of engineering I know...
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Erik, Germany, Munich...
> 
> 

Re: Quadra 660AV what's with the "PowerPC" label?

[Liam Proven]

On 15 June 2016 at 20:39, Swift Griggs  wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Jun 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
>> In Ireland, "gear" means hard drugs, so maybe it's safer!
>
> Whoa. I didn't know that. You are right. I'll have to convert to using
> "kit" exclusively next time I'm in the UK. I'm usually just in Heathrow or
> Gatwick waiting to fly out to Oslo. I still have some friends in Norway I
> visit every 5-10 years. They speak British English, too. So, for all I
> know they might think the same in Oslo. However, I don't remember hearing
> that particular term there when I lived in Norway about 15 years ago.
> However, I lived in a little town called Moss, and there wasn't much in
> the way of hard drugs to talk about, hehe. :-)

There wasn't a lot in Oslo either, as of about 15y ago, either.

> Rock on. That sounds fun. Those are some cute little micros.

TBH I never use 'em. :-(


> I cite the similarities between 'svchost' and 'systemd'. [...]

No, I don't buy it.

I think fairer comparisons are Apple's launchd and Oracle's SMF.

It's a modern init. Most of panic is just headless running around. No,
it's not an old-fashioned simplistic Unix utility. Hey, newsflash,
neither is GNOME, neither is KDE. Neither is much of modern Unix.

If people wanted to keep to the simplicity of Unix and bring it into a
more modern world, they had Plan 9. Plan 9 brought networking & the
GUI into the Unix everything-is-a-file model.

But everyone ignored it, pretty much. Some wrinkles got copied later.

And Plan 9 went one better, and (mostly) eliminated that nasty old
unsafe mess, C, and it eliminated native binaries and brought
platform-neutral binaries to the game.

Everyone ignored it, too.

Unix-heads, you *had* your chance. Your own godlike leader, Dennis
Richie, gave you something better. You didn't want it.

So he gave you something better still, something more focused than his
acolyte James Gosling's effort, Java.

You all ignored that, too.

Everything isn't a file. It isn't all ASCII. It hasn't been since
System III or something, about 35y ago.

Life goes on. Unix had grown into a bloated mess long before I came to
it. Even FreeBSD, which is why NetBSD exists, and I suspect that by
the standards of Unix v 7, NetBSD is pretty bloaty too.

No, I don't accept the wailing about non-text logging and monolithic services.

Andy Tanenbaum was right. Linux was obsolete in 1991. A new monolithic
Unix back then? You're kidding. No. It's a rewrite of the same old
1960s design, with the same 3 decades' worth of crap on top.

Today, it's mainly an x86 OS for servers and an ARM OS for
smartphones, with a few weirdos using it for workstations. So stop it
with the crocodile tears about "it's all text" and so on. Move on.
It's over. It was over before I left Uni and I'm an olde pharte now.

> That's a good and healthy perspective. I think the core problem with the
> systemd drama is that it's created a schism in an area that some naive
> folks like me thought there could/would never be one.

It's fostered a divide between those who want to modernise the OS and
those who favour the old-fashioned ways.

 :-)

>  My last NetBSD -current install a
> week or two ago was @280M (full install, uncompressed). So, there are
> still very lightweight choices available.

Eben Upton of the Raspberry Pi project got a private showing of an
early alpha of RISC OS Open on the Pi 1. (I saw the same test code. It
was driven by a netbook's keyboard and mouse as they hadn't got the
USB stack working yet.)

It had the Desktop, the WIMP, the Icon Bar, it had an apps folder with
the core apps -- !Edit, !Paint, !Maestro etc. in it. It had a file
manager, a clock, etc.

He was blown away.

"How big is it?" he asked
"Six meg," they told him.
"No, I don't mean the kernel. I mean the whole thing."
"Yes, so do we. Six meg. 6MB. We, er, we haven't got the SD card
support working yet. This is running out of an image of the boot ROMs,
copied into RAM by the GPU."

He was stunned.

"If I had known this still existed and was maintained, I'd have
bundled it with every Pi as the firmware!" he said.

This is from memory, but I know a couple of the ROOL team.

280MB isn't bad, but it is _not_ a small OS.

Ever seen the QNX demo floppy? _That_ is a small OS.

>> From what I've seen, systemd makes things like enabling/disabling
>> services _simpler_ for your average Joe.
>
> Well, I work with both consulting gigs and direct client support for other
> Linux admins. So, I directly work with systemd and with users who struggle
> with it. I've written some in depth documentation for systemd. It's about
> the same from the user point of view. I mean, "service mysqld start" isn't
> much different from "systemctl start mysqld". If you mean that it'd be
> easier for a user to setup a unit file than a script; probably so.
> However, most packages/software come with a script or unit file anyway (or
> both in some cases). I don't think systemd is significantly easier or
> harder for users, honestly.

Re: Quadra 660AV what's with the "PowerPC" label?

[Liam Proven]

On 16 June 2016 at 01:47, Mouse  wrote:
> So are Linux and BSD, right up until you start caring about the _legal_
> definition of UNIX, which is why they call themselves as "based on
> UNIX" or "UNIX-like" or the like.  But (IMO, of course) the legal sense
> is the only one in which they aren't UNIX.


I think RHEL has passed certification now, FWIW.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: Keyboards and the Model M (was Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[Liam Proven]

On 16 June 2016 at 13:25, Peter Corlett  wrote:
> My teetering pile of junk^W Fine Legacy Equipment that requires some TLC
> includes a dead Unicomp Model M where some of the legends have clearly worn
> away. The user admits to putting it through the dishwasher at least twice,
> having apparently decided it was dishwashable because the first time worked.

That'd be Mr Techpractical, then? :-D

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Who recognizes this (UK) architecture (from 1970-1985)?

[Erik Baigar]

Hi There,

I am working on restoration, documentation of a some vintage navigation
systems from the late 1970ties, which have been designed in the UK. They
contain an archaic bit-serial computer and I'd be interested if
someone on this list recognizes the architecture and/or can confirm
my assumptions:

The bitserial computer consists of around 300 TTL chips (54xx);
it has 8 bits instructions and operates on 16 bit memory. The 3
LOWER bits of the opcode define the instruction and the HIGHER
bits the location (0-31, i.e. address) - most other architectures
I know have the instruction coded in the MSBs! Here is a list
of the basic instructions:

  1 : Load Ac from memory
  2 : Store Ac to memory
  3 : Add to Ac
  4 : Sub from Ac
  5 : IO-Instructions (32 Channels, there are some special
  channels as 0 loads AC with "0" whereas channel 31 loads
  -1 into Ac).
  6 : Shift instructions - depending on the address field,
  Ac is shifted arithmetically (preserving MSB, the sign) or
  cyclic.
  7 : Bit test instructions - 0-15 test bits of the Ac register,
  16-31 test external digital inputs and are used for
  communication with the hardware.

And finally, put last for didactic reasons:

  0 : Here we have a bunch of special instructions depending
  on the address field, like selection of memory page,
  conditional jump, loading of data from ROM into the
  Accumulator (Ac), multiply, divide, conditional JUMP,...

What makes the architecture very unique to me is, that it has
32 bit capability, i.e. there is a "double length" flag and if this
is set, most commands operate on 32 bit (1-6, MUL, DIV).

Additionally there is a "logic flag" which causes e.g. the
instuctions ADD and SUB to switch to change their operation from
ADD/SUB to logic AND/NXOR.

Apart from this, ROM and RAM are separated (the CPU cann not exe-
cute code in RAM) and the RAM is segmented in 4 pages of 31 words.

The machine does not have got a stack, there is no subroutine call
and only just one flag used for conditional JUMPs. Via the test in-
structions (e.g. test Accu bit 3, test Ac<0) this flag is modified
and a following "Jump if Flag Set" acutally causes the conditional
JUMP.

As the navigation system is made by Ferranti I, already had a look
at the varouos computers made by them (Mark1, Pegasus, Atlas, and
Argus). I think given the timeline, and the word widths the Argus 600
or 700 architectures may be closely related, but the 600's command
set is quite different...

   http://www.wylie.org.uk/technology/computer/Argus/PeteFarr.htm

Can anyone out there confirm this? Is a instruction set listing of
the Argus 700 available somewhere?

A video on the system can be found fon YouTube although this is
not focused on the digital computer it may be of interest as
it gives a overview on the application, the projected map cockpit
display (one of the devices controlled by the system) and it shows 
my homebrew logger developed durig analysis of the box:


  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EQqfxiGgd8

Interesting in this system is also the delicate mechanics and the
mix of digital computing, analog computing (platform stabilization,
compensation of cross talk errors and anisoelasticity, platform
erection, first integration from acceleration to speed) and
mechanical computing (the ingetration of turn rate happens me-
chanically within the gyrsocopes).For this reasons, these systems
are the most extraordinary masterpiece of engineering I know...

Best regards,

   Erik, Germany, Munich...

Re: Mystery HP 1000 board

[Glen Slick]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 6:06 AM, Jay West  wrote:
>
> Marc showed me a machine that was badged "1000F", but had no FP box under it. 
> I of course (incorrectly) told him - it ain't an F unless you go back and get 
> the FP box that goes with. He found that in the rear above the I/O cage, 
> there was a wide (width of the chassis) card cage of about 3 slots, that was 
> apparently for an FP. My reply (wrong) was that it must be a custom job.
>
> Turns out - there was a model of F designated 2111F which has the FP boards 
> inside the main chassis above the I/O cage, and the 2117F which has the 
> boards in a separate box under the cpu. Either I never knew about this 2111F, 
> or my brain blocked it out or forgot it. I'm going with the former ;)
>
> J

I don't know if the "HP 1000 F-Series Computer Installation and
Service Manual", part number 02111-90002 is available on Bitsavers.
You can find it here:
http://www.hpmuseum.net/document.php?hwfile=2388

Figures 1-2 and 1-3 show the difference between the 2111F and 2117F
and how the two FPP Arithmetic and Control PCAs fit into the top of
the 2111F instead of into a separate box below the 2117F.

RE: Mystery HP 1000 board

[Jay West]

Glen wrote

Figures 1-2 and 1-3 show the difference between the 2111F and 2117F and how the 
two FPP Arithmetic and Control PCAs fit into the top of the 2111F instead of 
into a separate box below the 2117F.

Yeah, I checked my M/E/F red handbook that I keep next to the system console 
and have read thoroughly for years, and sure enough it mentions the 2111F as 
well. Which means it's not that I never knew it... unfortunately - it means I 
forgot it. What's going to go next oh no. lol

J

Re: Mystery HP 1000 board

[Al Kossow]

On 6/16/16 6:06 AM, Jay West wrote:
> Marc wrote...
> -
>  It's part of an HP 5451C Fourier Analysis system
>

I've got a 5451C service manual, it's in the queue to scan.

Re: Quadra 660AV what's with the "PowerPC" label?

[Mike Stein]

- Original Message - 
From: "Liam Proven" 
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2016 10:05 AM
Subject: Re: Quadra 660AV what's with the "PowerPC" label?


On 15 June 2016 at 17:23, Peter Corlett  wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 04:51:43PM +0200, Liam Proven wrote:
> [...]
>> * Simplicity -- the Finder integration with the OS, the desktop database,
>> etc. Move items around, aliases still point to them. Even to other drives,
>> even to other machines on the same network!
>
> Not that I'm any fan of Windows, but don't NTFS junctions do this? They're a
> kind of cross-volume hard link.


Honestly, I'm not sure. But if they do, Explorer doesn't know about
it, and Windows shortcuts don't do any of it. Even plain old symlinks
are more capable than shortcuts; only Explorer really understands them
and not always then.

==
Shortcuts, Junctions, Hard links and Symbolic links, all different.

Symbolic links are the only ones that can span different volumes AFAIK.

m

Re: Mystery HP 1000 board

[Curious Marc]

Al,
Yes please! I was looking all over for that so I can try to pick up the right 
pieces from the seller. Hurry (or maybe I can come around and take a peek?).
Marc

> On Jun 16, 2016, at 10:08 AM, Al Kossow  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On 6/16/16 6:06 AM, Jay West wrote:
>> Marc wrote...
>> -
>> It's part of an HP 5451C Fourier Analysis system
> 
> I've got a 5451C service manual, it's in the queue to scan.
> 
> 

Re: Mystery HP 1000 board

[Curious Marc]

Apparently the 21MX-K is an HP 2105 sold as board kit without a chassis and 
power supply. Motherboard, firmware board, short risers, and front panel. So 
you can stick your own embedded computer in your project, add your own 
specialized boards (and keyboard!).The Arduino controller of the time (but 16 
bits!).
Marc

Sent from my iPad

> On Jun 16, 2016, at 5:57 AM, Jay West  wrote:
> 
> Marc wrote...
> -
> 21MX K (whatever a K-model is, never heard of it, but seems to be made of an 
> HP 2105 model, I'll look that up
> -
> I have not been HP-focused for a year or so, I've had my head in DG stuff 
> instead and I am finding that I'm forgetting (and remembering wrong) many HP 
> things lol But
> 
> Foggy Memory - The main difference between the 2105 and 2112 (and separately 
> the 2109 and 2113) was mechanical. I seem to recall that the elusive "K" 
> series (which I have a sales brochure for somewhere, but I have never seen in 
> the wild, nor do I know of anyone who has one) was a "pick and choose" at 
> order time - "Roll Your Own 21MX". It was apparently some form of "modular" 
> so you could get bits and pieces of the different models in one model (right 
> down to the number of slots you wanted).
> 
> J
> 
> 
> 

Re: Mystery HP 1000 board

[Curious Marc]

Very nice! Did you do that? Where you able to revive it? Do you have a picture 
if the MIOB interface boards, I have some unidentified boards in my system, 
that might be it!
Marc

Sent from my iPad

> On Jun 16, 2016, at 1:53 AM, Rik Bos  wrote:
> 
> Some picture and a short video loading the operation software on:
> https://www.flickr.com/photos/hp-fix/albums/72157651930423960
> 
> -Rik

Re: Quadra 660AV what's with the "PowerPC" label?

[Sean Conner]

It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once stated:
> On 14 June 2016 at 01:56, Sean Conner  wrote:

> >   What do you feel is still missing from OS-X today?  About the only thing I
> > can think of is the unique file system, where each file had a data and a
> > resource fork.
> 
> * The clean, totally CLI-less nature of it. Atari ST GEM imitated this,
> but it had the DOS-like legacy baggage of drive letters etc.

  So did the Amiga and it didn't have the baggage of drive letters.

  Okay, so it had drive names.  Instead of

A:\path\to\file

it had:

DF0:path/to/file

But you also had logical drive names.  Give the drive the name "Fred" and
you could reference a file as:

Fred:path/to/file

A nice side effect is that if there was no disk with the name of "Fred"
installed, AmigaOS would pop up a dialog box asking for the user to insert
the disk named "Fred".  It wouldn't matter what physical drive you popped
the disk into, AmigaOS would find it.  And, if you copied the files off the
disk Fred to the harddrive, say:

DH1:applications/local/fred

you could do

assign Fred=DH1:applications/local/fred

and there you go.  I find that nicer than environment variables in that it's
invisible to applications---the OS handles it for you.  And while on Unix,
the shell will expand environment variables, individual applications (say,
an editor) vary on support for such expansions.

  Personally, I like CLIs, but I'm used to them from the start.  And for
some work flows, I find its faster and easier than a graphical system.  

> >> I wish the Star Trek project had come to some kind of fruition.
> >>
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_project
> >
> >   Reading that, it sounds like it would have been much like early
> > Windows---an application that would run on top of MS-DOS (or in this case,
> > DR-DOS).
> 
> My impression is that DR-DOS would have been a bootloader, little more.

  Then why even bother with DR-DOS then?  

  -spc 

Re: Mystery HP 1000 board

[Al Kossow]

On 6/16/16 11:27 AM, Curious Marc wrote:
> Hurry

ain't gonna happen, i'm in the middle of another fscking move

DLI/Dolch C-100D Manuals?

[Holm Tiffe]

Hi,

I've shoot an DLI / Dolch Logic Instrumnets Logic Analyzer Type C-100D
on ebay today. It seems that I get some pos too, unfortunately no Z80
personality ..but a lot standard Pods.

Since there are no Manuals for it included in the auction I'm asking
nicely here if someone has the paperwork for this LA preferable in
machine readable form ..?
Has someone a z80 Personality to sell?

TIA,

Holm

-- 
  Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, 
 Freiberger Straße 42, 09600 Oberschöna, USt-Id: DE253710583
  www.tsht.de, i...@tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741

Re: Quadra 660AV what's with the "PowerPC" label?

[Sean Conner]

It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once stated:
> It's a modern init. Most of panic is just headless running around. No,
> it's not an old-fashioned simplistic Unix utility. Hey, newsflash,
> neither is GNOME, neither is KDE. Neither is much of modern Unix.

  I'm not a fan of systemd, but it's not because SysV init is better, but
because of the increasing scope of systemd.  

  Okay, fine, it's a init that tracks daemons and will restart them
automatically if they stop (or crash, or whatever).  That's nice.  I don't
have a problem with that.  It can parallelize the startup daemons.  Okay ...
I never had an issue with how long a system takes to come up as I don't
really shut any of the computers off (even my desktop boxes).  But hey,
okay.  

  But no more syslog (okay, I know that's not technically true, but syslog
becomes a 2nd class citizen here).  No, Lennart decided to use a binary-only
logging system that's mostly undocumented (or rather, it's documented in
code that is subject to change from version to version) and there's no need
to forward the logs to another system---use that 2nd class syslog for that
crap if you need it.

  But that's it.  systemd only requires journald to run.  Oh, let's use dbus
for IPC because ... well ... I have no idea what, exactly, dbus brings to
the game that any of the other IPC mechanisms that currently exist in Unix
fail to have, other than being a usermode program and yet another dependency
from what I understand was mostly used as an IPC mechanism for the desktop,
but now required for servers as well.

  Linus is *still* fighting the systemd guys because they want to force dbus
into the kernel.

  Oh, and because of the say systemd works, it takes over cgroup management. 
The Linux kernel provides mechanism, not policy, but now, we have systemd
forcing a cgroup policy on everything.  Okay, perhaps systemd is the first
program to actually *use* cgroups but if at some point in the future you
want to play around with it, well ... sorry.  systemd is in control there.

  Login management is now the domain of systemd.

  Oh, and don't forget the little dustup over the "debug" kernel command
line:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=mty1mza

  Over time, syslogd is taking over more and more of the system.  And that
would be fine if it were just RedHat (and RedHat derived) distributions. 
But no, Lennart is, by sheer force of will, forcing *all* Linux
distributions to use systemd.  Hell, it's now trying to force systemd
specific behavior in applications:

https://github.com/tmux/tmux/issues/428

Never mind that said application can run on other Unix systems.

  Oh, and forget running GNome on any other system than Linux with systemd.

  THAT is my problem with systemd.  It's mandating a $#!?load of policy and
dependencies with largly undocumented APIs.

> If people wanted to keep to the simplicity of Unix and bring it into a
> more modern world, they had Plan 9. Plan 9 brought networking & the
> GUI into the Unix everything-is-a-file model.
> 
> But everyone ignored it, pretty much. Some wrinkles got copied later.
> 
> And Plan 9 went one better, and (mostly) eliminated that nasty old
> unsafe mess, C, and it eliminated native binaries and brought
> platform-neutral binaries to the game.

  Um ... what?  Plan 9 is written in C.  And they still use binaries, just
fat binaries (that is, the binary contains multiple code and data segments
for each supported architecture0).  This isn't just limited to Plan 9---Mac
did this as well.

> Andy Tanenbaum was right. Linux was obsolete in 1991. A new monolithic
> Unix back then? You're kidding. No. It's a rewrite of the same old
> 1960s design, with the same 3 decades' worth of crap on top.
> 
> Today, it's mainly an x86 OS for servers and an ARM OS for
> smartphones, with a few weirdos using it for workstations. So stop it
  ^^^

  Wow!  Nice insult there.  Care to add more?

  And for the record, I still use Linux as (one) of my desktops machines.

> with the crocodile tears about "it's all text" and so on. Move on.
> It's over. It was over before I left Uni and I'm an olde pharte now.

  And you want an older Mac ... why?  System 9 is dead.  Gone on.  Pining
for the fjords!  Move on, man!  Move on!

> > Yes. IRIX is dead as a doornail. Also, with the way it died, I'd give
> > about 1000:1 odds of any legal form of IRIX ever re-surfacing. However, I
> > noticed that the source is floating around several places. Maybe some
> > illegal/hobbyist/illicit stuff might eventually see the light, but I doubt
> > it. It seems to me even the forums on Nekochan are slowing down. I still
> > use it and love it, and I have no problems securing it for "real world"
> > stuff. However, it's nothing but a hobby, nowadays.
> 
> Was it really different enough? What did it do other Unices don't?

  It was SysV with kickass graphics hardware.  Suns were BSD (at the time,
prior to Solar

Re: Quadra 660AV what's with the "PowerPC" label?

[Brian L. Stuart]

On Thu, 6/16/16, Sean Conner  wrote:
> It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once stated:
> > And Plan 9 went one better, and (mostly) eliminated that nasty old
> > unsafe mess, C, and it eliminated native binaries and brought
> > platform-neutral binaries to the game.
> 
>  Um ... what?  Plan 9 is written in C.  And they still use binaries, just
> fat binaries (that is, the binary contains multiple code and data segments
> for each supported architecture0).

I suspect he was referring to Inferno when talking about the
byte code executables.  But Plan 9 doesn't use fat binaries.
It keeps each architecture's binaries in a directory named for
the architecture.  Then one uses the union mounts to build
a /bin that has the appropriate mix of binaries and shell scripts
for the machine hosting that process.

BLS

Re: Quadra 660AV what's with the "PowerPC" label?

[Mouse]

>> No, it's not an old-fashioned simplistic Unix utility.  Hey,
>> newsflash, neither is GNOME, neither is KDE.

And if either of those were being made as central to the system as
systemd is, there would be a similar outcry against them.

The problem is not that systemd is bloated, or buggy, or badly
designed.  The problem is that it's bloated, buggy, badly designed -
_and_ is being made very, very central to even rudimentary operation of
the OS.

Well, that, and that a whole lot of users perceive it as being rammed
down their metaphorical throats, something that raises hackles at the
best of times.

/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email!   7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Hazeltine 2000 Manuals

[Dave]

Hi all,
These Hazeltine 2000 were just on Ebay and were quickly snatched up.=C2=A0 =
Did anybody here happen to snag them?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/272275536298
http://www.ebay.com/itm/282069468875

I've been looking for these manuals for some time.=C2=A0 If someone won the=
m (or has a set), I wonder if you'd be willing to create some nice high-qua=
lity scans.=C2=A0 I'd be willing to pitch in to cover the costs of scanning=
 large pages, etc. with high resolution.=C2=A0 Alternatively, if anyone has=
 similar manuals and would be willing to sell them, I'd be interested.

Thanks for any info!
Dave

Re: Hazeltine 2000 Manuals

[Jason T]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 5:32 PM, Dave  wrote:
> Hi all,
> These Hazeltine 2000 were just on Ebay and were quickly snatched up.=C2=A0 =
> Did anybody here happen to snag them?
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/272275536298
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/282069468875

Funny I was just following links from my saved searches and found
those same two auctions and wondered who got them.  Hope it's someone
with a scanner and copious free time!

-j

Re: DL11 M7800

[william degnan]

>
> Check the cable, if it's not the one you used with the other
> serial port card.
>
> -tony
>

Tony,
Thanks for the tips.  The card may have bad component(s) but at least it
had not yet been previously repaired when the unit was in production.  I
find "vintage" repairs from back in their day are often sloppy and caused
damage.  I'd rather have a bad card "as-was" so there is a better chance to
restore today.  It seems as if the 1488's go bad on these more often than
1489's.

The original cable, p/n is a 174-1 flat cable with Berg connectors on
either end so I had to find something compatible with a terminal instead.
I switched in the same BC03L-10 that I have been using to connect to a
25-pin terminal (with null modem adapter) using a newer DL11-W. (M7856).

b

Re: DL11 M7800

[Ethan Dicks]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 10:58 AM, william degnan  wrote:
> 
>>
>> Check the cable, if it's not the one you used with the other
>> serial port card.
>>
>
> The original cable, p/n is a 174-1 flat cable with Berg connectors on
> either end so I had to find something compatible with a terminal instead.
> I switched in the same BC03L-10 that I have been using to connect to a
> 25-pin terminal (with null modem adapter) using a newer DL11-W. (M7856).

Does your cable connect E to M?

http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2015-November/012531.html

-ethan

Re: Mystery HP 1000 board

[Pete Lancashire]

I the HP -> Agilent -> Keysight world when you see part numbers start
with a 0 (zero) in many cases the instrument they were for or in this
case part of, is the digits that follow.

Not in all cases, this falls apart for things that were common between
instruments or the item was already had been used.

Card extenders are a good example, there are common extenders that
fall under the tools area, and follow a p/n that is just sequential.

But it a good initial strings to go look for. If Google does not come up
with anything try Keysight.

If someone is serious about restoring the whole FFT rack, let me know
I ended up with about 75% of one. I acquired it for the CRT which is used
in other instruments, one of which I own.

-pete

On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 10:44 PM, Paul Birkel  wrote:

> See: http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/1977-10.pdf  Figure 4
>
> Shows some of those other parts as well in the block diagram.  Uses a "HP
> 21MX K-Series Computer".
>
> Model 5420A Digital Signal Analyzer.
>
> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of
> CuriousMarc
> Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2016 1:16 AM
> To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
> Subject: RE: Mystery HP 1000 board
>
> You beat me! You got one hit. How did you search for that? I come up dry...
> Marc
>
> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Pete
> Lancashire
> Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 8:50 PM
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> Subject: Re: Mystery HP 1000 board
>
> Well there are 20 bits of ALU 
>
> And this guy has one and some other boards
>
> http://nevadabarry.com/electron.html#HP%20Test%20Equipment
>
>   HP 5443
>   05443-60047
>   05443-60042
>   05443-60031  MIOB Interface
>   05443-60050 Booster Microcode
>   05443-60057 C (13803F?)
>   05443-60071 A (22803F)
>
> NO Connection with the site/person/etc .. just passing it on
>
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 8:00 PM, Jay West  wrote:
>
> > I have one of those boards. You sent me an email about it and I
> > replied a week ago :)
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of
> > CuriousMarc
> > Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 9:49 PM
> > To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> > Subject: Mystery HP 1000 board
> >
> > Can anyone identify this HP board (see link to pictures)?
> >
> > https://goo.gl/photos/BBuAV1oozWNSqeUTA
> >
> > It was at under the main board of a newly acquired HP 1000-E, next to
> > the firmware board. It says HP 54427-60050 Booster Microcode. It has 5
> > bitslice SN 74S181 chips at the back. So I surmise maybe it's a late
> > ALU booster upgrade?
> >
> >
> >
> > Marc
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>

Re: Keyboards and the Model M (was Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[Earl Baugh]

From: Swift Griggs 

On Wed, 15 Jun 2016, geneb wrote:
> I just wish the Unicomp keys were two-part keys like the Model M uses.
I wish ALL keyboards did that... it's a superior design, IMHO.


I'm puzzled, what do you mean two part?  Cap and key?
That's all I've gotten from Unicomp...  That's how I got all of the "blank"
caps from...

EarltheSquirrel

Re: Keyboards and the Model M (was Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[geneb]

On Thu, 16 Jun 2016, Earl Baugh wrote:


From: Swift Griggs 

On Wed, 15 Jun 2016, geneb wrote:

I just wish the Unicomp keys were two-part keys like the Model M uses.

I wish ALL keyboards did that... it's a superior design, IMHO.


I'm puzzled, what do you mean two part?  Cap and key?
That's all I've gotten from Unicomp...  That's how I got all of the "blank"
caps from...


I stand corrected! I just pulled a key stem off my PC-102 (has 24 function 
keys) and it IS a two-part key.  I'd looked at the Model M I got from 
Unicomp years ago and I could've sworn it didn't have the two part key. 
Maybe I thought that because the cap is much more firmly attached on their 
keyboard than it is the original IBM Model M.


Does anyone other than Unicomp make different key caps?

g.



--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: Keyboards and the Model M (was Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[r.stricklin]

Hooleon does/did. For other keyboards as well.

ok
bear.

-- 
Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 16, 2016, at 11:41, geneb  wrote:
> 
> 
> Does anyone other than Unicomp make different key caps?

Re: Keyboards and the Model M (was Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Jun 16, 2016, at 10:32 , Earl Baugh  wrote:
> 
> I'm puzzled, what do you mean two part?  Cap and key?
> That's all I've gotten from Unicomp...  That's how I got all of the "blank"
> caps from...

Yes, I think that most of the keys on the Unicomp keyboard I bought a year or 
so ago were two-part. If I recall correctly, some keys like Caps Lock (which I 
swapped with Ctrl, naturally) were one-part keys, but all of the 1x1 keys were 
2-part.

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: Keyboards and the Model M (was Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[geneb]

On Thu, 16 Jun 2016, r.stricklin wrote:


Hooleon does/did. For other keyboards as well.


"For availability and pricing contact Hooleon Sales"

Translation: "We don't stock this stuff so don't bother us."

g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Want to trade: Complete MacIvory 2 system for standalone Symbolics XL machine

[Ian Finder]

If anyone has standalone Symbolics hardware, and wants to trade for
something more managable that can do an LCD display and uses more standard
parts, I have the following system for trade for any Merlin / XL machine.

I'm going all-in on wacky hardware, because I have multiple machines and
already require lots of unweildly consoles. In particular, with one running
XL, I want to double down for spare parts.

Going by the last few eBay auctions, the value is identical, or even
slightly skewed in favor of the MacIvory.

Here's what it's kitted out with:
> Mac IIfx host
> Original Symbolics Keyboard / Mouse adapter
> MacIvory II CPU with Floating Point Accellerator
> NS 8/16 NuBus Memory
> CF card for booting the Mac side
> 36gb internal SCA drive for the FEP filesystems
> NuVista color card (this can be used directly by S-PAINT, and S-GRAPHICS
as a color render head)
> Radius ThunderGX accellerated NuBus main graphics
> Asante 10 megabit ethernet
> Compatible CD-ROM drive
> Genera 8.3 & Animation systems loaded

Anyone interested in a smaller, friendlier Symbolics experience? Will also
consider funding any cross-shipping myself.

Cheers,

- Ian

-- 
   Ian Finder
   (206) 395-MIPS
   ian.fin...@gmail.com

Eckert - Faster, Faster; books in general

[Brian Walenz]

Is there an electronic copy of this floating around?  My (ex-library) copy
is missing all of chapter 11, "What is there to calculate?.  (And the last
page of the previous chapter).  The pages weren't ripped out, they were
missing when it was bound.  Very annoying, I enjoyed the book right up
until it crashed, so to speak.

Two, also ex-library, copies are listed on Amazon, and I hesitate to get
another copy with the same problem.  There are others, of course, at
outrageous prices.  Or maybe I don't realize the significance of '1st
edition, not ex-library'.

Just to make any discussion a bit more interesting, what would you suggest
along similar lines?  The two giant books on IBM (detailing "pre-360", and
"360") were quite fun too.

bri

Re: Eckert - Faster, Faster; books in general

[Toby Thain]

On 2016-06-16 9:28 PM, Brian Walenz wrote:

...

Just to make any discussion a bit more interesting, what would you suggest
along similar lines?  The two giant books on IBM (detailing "pre-360", and
"360") were quite fun too.


"A Few Good Men From Univac", Lundstrom, MIT Press, is enjoyable but 
less technical than the IBM books you mentioned. It's a different take 
on the same period, in a way.


--Toby



bri

media and software

[Electronics Plus]

I am going back to Dallas next week to sort 2 pallets of media and software.

The age runs from reels of tape (9 track? Dated 1989 and earlier) to LTO4.

Software, there are a LOT of MS Developer CDs from 2011 and much earlier,
Xilinx CDs, AIX CDs, Solaris CDs (the earliest I noticed off the bat was
version 6) and a lot of Dell server implementation disks. Also some things
on cassette tapes.

 

I need to know what is wanted. After next week it goes in the dumpster.

 

Cindy Croxton

Electronics Plus

500 Pershing Ave.

Kerrville, TX 78028

830-370-3239 cell

sa...@elecplus.com

AOL IM elcpls

 

RE: DL11 M7800

[tony duell]

>  >
> > The original cable, p/n is a 174-1 flat cable with Berg connectors on
> > either end so I had to find something compatible with a terminal instead.
> > I switched in the same BC03L-10 that I have been using to connect to a
> > 25-pin terminal (with null modem adapter) using a newer DL11-W. (M7856).
> 
> Does your cable connect E to M?
> 
> http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2015-November/012531.html

That jumper links the output of the RS232 receiver to the input of the UART,
effectively. It shouldn't matter for transmitting. If the card won't send 
characters
to the terminal you need to look for other problems.

-tony

RE: Mystery HP 1000 board

[tony duell]

> I the HP -> Agilent -> Keysight world when you see part numbers start
> with a 0 (zero) in many cases the instrument they were for or in this
> case part of, is the digits that follow.

As I understand the HP numbering scheme

Components have part numbers with 2 groups of 4 digits. The first
group is the type of component, for example 1820 is digital ICs,
1818 is memory, 1826 is linear ICs, 1853 is PNP (silicon?) transistors,
1854 NPN (silicon?) transistors, 9100 is transformers, etc. There was
a list given either in one of the service manuals I read or in Bench
Briefs, but I can't find it.

Subassemblies (like PCBs) have part numbers with 2 groups of 5
digits. The first group is the model number of the instrument that
first used that subassembly, padded with leading zeros. So for
example the CPU data path (ALU and registers) board in an
HP9830 is an 09810-66514, as it was first used in the HP9810.

-tony

Re: Eckert - Faster, Faster; books in general

[Pontus Pihlgren]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 09:53:57PM -0400, Toby Thain wrote:
> On 2016-06-16 9:28 PM, Brian Walenz wrote:
> >...
> >
> >Just to make any discussion a bit more interesting, what would you suggest
> >along similar lines?  The two giant books on IBM (detailing "pre-360", and
> >"360") were quite fun too.
> 
> "A Few Good Men From Univac", Lundstrom, MIT Press, is enjoyable but less
> technical than the IBM books you mentioned. It's a different take on the
> same period, in a way.
> 

What are the titles of the IBM books that of which you speak?

I suppose you have already read "Soul of a new machine" and perhaps 
"hackers: heroes of a computer revolution". Not very technical though.

/P