Found some stuff at the scrapyard
Actually found a pretty nice hp machine with a bunch of peripherals. Thankfully it came with the keyboard. Also a external hard drive and floppy, as well as a tiny printer. HP 362 "controller" Hp thinkjet 2225A printer Hp 9153B - HD and floppy Also a IBM wheelwriter 3 with the parallel interface, as well as what im assuming is a s100 backplane. Pretty interesting. I have a couple of other Hp devices, a logic analizer, pattern generator, and volt meter, it will be interesting to see if i can get them talking with the computer. Computer works. boots into basic. Pretty complete setup for something at the scrapyard. https://www.slashflash.info/~devin/images/scrapyard_lot/ --Devin
Siemens PC-MX2 Set
Hello. I've recently acquired what came to be a Siemens PC-MX2 Set that is comprised of: * 4 Siemens Dossiers named: - Informix - BetriebeSystem SINIX Buch 1 - BetriebeSystem SINIX Buch 2 Menus - Siemens PC-MX2 Betriebsanleitung 12 Tapes: - 10 of them are of brand 3M, Model DC300XL/P and seem to be backups. - 2 of them are of brand Cadmus, Model 9000 and are named: "Munix Betriebsystem V.3/R.3-28IS Format Anlagennummer FO/90-9754" and the other "Optionale Pakete PCS F0/89-74343 IS0055P 20-Jul-89 all files CPIO format 0. Med v.4.0 1. Munix_TCP/IP_(BSD) 7-Sep-88 2. Fortran77-32 V.4.0c" 1 Siemens branded Terminal with Serial Keyboard 1 Siemens Computer branded PC-9870 1 Siemens Dot Matrix Printer model is either PT88S-22 or -32 Is there any interest in this? I'm entertaining offers. Location is Portugal. Cumprimentos - Best Regards Marcos Alves.
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
well come to think of it, i was at a HAM convention and i bought a bunch of wire wrap boards that were supposedly from CDC system. wire wrap boards with a card edge connector. I will have to see if they fit together. On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 12:39 AM, Brent Hilpert wrote: > On 2016-Jul-16, at 8:34 PM, devin davison wrote: > > as well as what im > > assuming is a s100 backplane. > > > https://www.slashflash.info/~devin/images/scrapyard_lot/IMG_0148.JPG > > > https://www.slashflash.info/~devin/images/scrapyard_lot/IMG_0149.JPG > > > Looks earlier than S100. I don't think I've ever seen a wirewrapped S100 > backplane, they were pretty much all PCB. > S100 is also a bus while this is varied wiring. > > I think it's more interesting. > The edge connectors have a part number CDCx > May well be from CDC. > > Assembly part numbers are of the form x--xxx, somebody might confirm > whether or not that's consistent with CDC numbering. > >
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
You got yourself the first consumer inkjet printer ever, from 1984: https://youtu.be/UiHNymmxKWs Original "A" version with HP-IB interface, useless for regular PCs of course. Complete with the "SomethingJet" marketing name that has been with us since then. The key innovation of that printer was the disposable cartridge with the micro-machined nozzles, which they had a horrendous time manufacturing at first. And for some incomprehensible reason, you can still order brand new cartridges from... Staples! Just put a new one in and you should be good to go. Marc Sent from my iPad > On Jul 17, 2016, at 12:34 PM, devin davison wrote: > > Actually found a pretty nice hp machine with a bunch of peripherals. > Thankfully it came with the keyboard. Also a external hard drive and > floppy, as well as a tiny printer. > > HP 362 "controller" > Hp thinkjet 2225A printer > Hp 9153B - HD and floppy > > Also a IBM wheelwriter 3 with the parallel interface, as well as what im > assuming is a s100 backplane. > > Pretty interesting. I have a couple of other Hp devices, a logic analizer, > pattern generator, and volt meter, it will be interesting to see if i can > get them talking with the computer. Computer works. boots into basic. > Pretty complete setup for something at the scrapyard. > > https://www.slashflash.info/~devin/images/scrapyard_lot/ > > --Devin
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
On 2016-Jul-16, at 8:34 PM, devin davison wrote: > as well as what im > assuming is a s100 backplane. > https://www.slashflash.info/~devin/images/scrapyard_lot/IMG_0148.JPG > https://www.slashflash.info/~devin/images/scrapyard_lot/IMG_0149.JPG Looks earlier than S100. I don't think I've ever seen a wirewrapped S100 backplane, they were pretty much all PCB. S100 is also a bus while this is varied wiring. I think it's more interesting. The edge connectors have a part number CDCx May well be from CDC. Assembly part numbers are of the form x--xxx, somebody might confirm whether or not that's consistent with CDC numbering.
Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
> On 16 Jul 2016, at 3:33 pm, TeoZ wrote: > > > Most 840av's these days have bad motherboards from leaking capacitors and the > plastics break if you sneeze too hard close to them. > Yes, I just gave away my 840av. It was working (and looking) fine a couple of years ago, but when I checked a few months ago the capacitors had died and the plastic bits were just falling apart. If it was just the caps I would have fixed it. Was my favourite 68K Mac, I did video editing on one back in the day. Can’t remember what video card(s) and software I used on it, but I know that the big (maybe 2GB?) SCSI drives and the max amount of RAM cost me a lot of $ back then.. Great machine but the case is horrible to work with.
RE: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
> Original "A" version with HP-IB interface, useless for regular > PCs of course. Complete with the "SomethingJet" marketing It's mildly easier to use with a normal PC than the -B model (HPIL, battery powered). Interestingly the -A version has an HPIB-HPIL interface feeding HPIL to the main board (the interface is a modified (different firmware) version of the HP82169 IIRC. Interesting #2, the custom HP controller chip in these printers has a built-in ROM with the control firmware, but external font ROM and RAM. These communicate over what is essentially the Saturn bus, as found in the HP71, etc. > name that has been with us since then. The key innovation of I read somewhere that the official reason for 'THINKJET' was 'THermal INKJET'. I suspect that is very much a backronym. It is a thermal inkjet printer, the cartridge has little heating elements that boil the ink and cause a drop to be squirted out. > that printer was the disposable cartridge with the micro- > machined nozzles, which they had a horrendous time > manufacturing at first. And for some incomprehensible reason, > you can still order brand new cartridges from... Staples! Just put > a new one in and you should be good to go. A couple of words of warning about those cartridges. Firstly the ink, at least in older ones, is ethylene glycol based. It's toxic and attractive in taste to some animals. Keep those catridges away from cats, dogs, etc. The ink is also corrosive. It can corrode the metal faceplate on the cartridge, then drip onto the flexible PCB that connects the cartridge to the rest of the printer and corrode that too. If you ever have a Thinkjet with missing dots, that's what has happend (at least 99% of the time). The only source for replacement PCBs now is other Thinkjets. So don't leave the cartridge in the printer if you are not using it. Incidentally, if the 9153 is the drive unit I think it is, it has a very odd HP-interface hard disk in it. There is one ribbon cable (40 wires I think) carrying power, control signals and raw data. I seem to remember the head positioner is a stepper motor, but it does micro-stepping as part of the design. -tony
Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)
> On Jul 16, 2016, at 6:56 PM, Antonio Carlini wrote: > > ... > The specs were (and are) freely available. (I'm not 100% sure that they were > free-as-in-beer back then, but they are now). I assume you had to pay for the cost of printing. They could be freely reproduced, though, it says so explicitly. > There was at least one implementation for Linux and (I think ...) another for > Solaris. cisco also supported DECnet in some of > their switches. Yes, and for that matter, there was a commercial non-DEC DECnet, by Stuart Wecker I think -- he was involved with DDCMP way back when. > ... > (I'm assuming that Phase II existed at some point before Phase III, which > definitely did exist. I also > assume that Phase I only acquired that designation once Phase II appeared!) I suppose so. Rumor had it that Phase I only existed on RSX, but it appears that there was a PDP-8 implementation as well. Phase II was implemented on lots of DEC systems, from TOPS-10 to RT-11 to RSTS/E. My initial involvement with DECnet was as the DECnet/E kernel guy, upgrading DECnet/E from Phase II to Phase III. paul
Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)
> On Jul 17, 2016, at 10:41 AM, Paul Koning wrote: > > ... > I suppose so. Rumor had it that Phase I only existed on RSX, but it appears > that there was a PDP-8 implementation as well. Phase II was implemented on > lots of DEC systems, from TOPS-10 to RT-11 to RSTS/E. By the way: starting with Phase III, DEC adopted "one phase back" compatibility. A Phase III node could talk to Phase II; a Phase IV node could talk to Phase III, all documented clearly in the specifications. (Two phases back wasn't described or aimed for, though it is not that hard; my DECnet/Python does Phase IV but talks to Phase II.) On the other hand, Phase II is not compatible with Phase I; the packet formats are significantly and it's clear that no attempt was made to deliver compatibility. I don't know why not, or why that changed later. (Before my time...) paul
Re: OSX, OS/2, ECS, and Blue Lion (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)
On 15 July 2016 at 20:48, Jerry Kemp wrote: > I guess I am glad that someone getting something positive from windows. > > I have never viewed it as any more than a virus distribution system with a > poorly written GUI front end. I am ambivalent. I don't particularly like it any more, but the reasons are secondary: the poor security, the copy protection, the poor performance because of the requirement for anti-malware, etc. The core product was pretty good once. Windows 3.0 was a technical triumph, Windows for Workgroups impressive, and Win95 a tour de force. For me, Win 2K was about the peak; XP started the trend of adding bloat, although it did have worthwhile features too. Win95 was vastly easier to get installed & working than OS/2 2, it had a better shell -- sorry, but it really was -- better compatibility and better performance. No, the stability wasn't as good, but while OS/2 2 was better, NT 3.x was better than OS/2 2.x et seq. It would be technically possible to produce a streamlined, stripped-down Windows that was a bloody good OS, but MS lacks the will. Shame. -- 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: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)
> On Jul 17, 2016, at 10:41 AM, Paul Koning wrote: > > >> On Jul 16, 2016, at 6:56 PM, Antonio Carlini wrote: >> >> ... >> The specs were (and are) freely available. (I'm not 100% sure that they were >> free-as-in-beer back then, but they are now). > > I assume you had to pay for the cost of printing. They could be freely > reproduced, though, it says so explicitly. > >> There was at least one implementation for Linux and (I think ...) another >> for Solaris. cisco also supported DECnet in some of >> their switches. > > Yes, and for that matter, there was a commercial non-DEC DECnet, by Stuart > Wecker I think -- he was involved with DDCMP way back when. > That was Technology Concepts Inc, Sudbury MA. Sometime around 1984 I almost left DEC to join TCI but then had a change of heart. Sun’s DECnet implementation was either done by TCI or based on their code. >> ... >> (I'm assuming that Phase II existed at some point before Phase III, which >> definitely did exist. I also >> assume that Phase I only acquired that designation once Phase II appeared!) > > I suppose so. Rumor had it that Phase I only existed on RSX, but it appears > that there was a PDP-8 implementation as well. Phase II was implemented on > lots of DEC systems, from TOPS-10 to RT-11 to RSTS/E. My initial involvement > with DECnet was as the DECnet/E kernel guy, upgrading DECnet/E from Phase II > to Phase III. > I worked at a customer site in Sweden which consisted of a pair of 11/40’s running RSX-11D and DECnet Phase I. I’m pretty sure that Phase I only ran on 11D in the RSX family. John. > paul >
Re: DOS code in CP/M? Revisited...
On 16 July 2016 at 13:12, Peter Corlett wrote: > > Isn't that mostly down to the difference between polled- and DMA-driven I/O? > Not that IBM should be given any slack, given what a complete dog's breakfast > ISA DMA is. > > Back in 1987, the Amiga had crap hard disk performance because while the > controllers generally supported DMA, the disks still had to be formatted with > that awful filesystem it inherited from Tripos. (This wasn't fixed until > 1988.) > > I wonder how the Atari ST fared back then. Probably reasonably well given its > filesystem is a FAT derivative. If it's a real question, I still know some RISC OS gurus, so I can probably find out. But RISC OS was, technically, very primitive. I am not 100% sure it even did DMA. I recall around '96 or so, when busmastering DMA hard disk drivers for Windows NT 4 on the Intel 82430FX "Triton" PCI chipset and its PIIX EIDE controller appeared. They existed for Win9x too but didn't make as much difference, because the 9x kernel didn't have the internal multithreading to take advantage of it. NT did. The thing is, in a fast PC, they weren't massively quicker in terms of raw transfer speed. What they did was massively reduce the CPU load of intensive disk activity. Obviously you could only see this in Performance Monitor once the machine was booted, but it was interesting. With the ordinary default MS EIDE drivers, NT used Polled I/O. Under heavy disk load, such as loading a large modular app, the kernel CPU usage in PerfMon went very spiky. If the CPU was reasonably quick -- which around then meant a P1 at 166MHz, or maybe a Pentium 1 MMX at 200MHz, then it didn't max out the CPU, but it was working hard. With the DMA drivers, intensive disk activity barely caused a trickle of CPU activity. You could hardly see it. The difference was so dramatic, you could hear it from the changing noise of the movement of the disk heads. With PIO, it was staccato, clicky; with DMA, it became bursts of buzzing and occasional silences as the OS digested the new data it received and then requested more. Of course, if you had some expensive SCSI disk system, this wasn't anything new -- but then, with a decent SCSI host adaptor, such as an expensive Adaptec AHA2940, you never heard it in PIO mode, so the contrast wasn't there. It was harder to compare some cheap terrible SCSI adaptor with a good one -- nobody sane would put a fast hard disk on a cheapo ISA-bus AHA1510 meant for driving a scanner. Whereas with Triton drivers and a good fast EIDE HD -- the de-facto choice then was a Quantum Fireball 1.2GB -- you could install the OS, get it working, then take the floppy with the Triton drivers, install it and reboot. Presto, the machine booted faster and became significantly more responsive. Big difference. This is the most dramatic demo of DMA-driven hard disk access that I've ever personally encountered. In 1987 or so, the early Archimedes like the A305 and A310 came with ST-506 controllers and 20-40MB Conner drives. The expensive workstation-class models -- Dick mentions having an A500, but that was a series, not a model. There was, later (1990), the A540: http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/Computers/A540.html This was the Unix R260, but shipping with RISC OS instead of RISC iX. The A540 came with a snazzy SCSI HD: http://www.apdl.org.uk/riscworld/volumes/volume9/issue2/blast20/index.htm ... but then it was the thick end of three thousand quid. Back in '87, I suspect Dick had an A310 or something, with an ST-506 drive & Arthur (i.e. RISC OS 1 -- an ARM port of the BBC Micro's MOS with a desktop written in BBC BASIC). So I suspect no DMA... but I don't know. -- 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: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)
> On Jul 17, 2016, at 11:06 AM, John Forecast wrote: > >> ... >> I suppose so. Rumor had it that Phase I only existed on RSX, but it appears >> that there was a PDP-8 implementation as well. Phase II was implemented on >> lots of DEC systems, from TOPS-10 to RT-11 to RSTS/E. My initial >> involvement with DECnet was as the DECnet/E kernel guy, upgrading DECnet/E >> from Phase II to Phase III. >> > I worked at a customer site in Sweden which consisted of a pair of > 11/40’s running > RSX-11D and DECnet Phase I. I’m pretty sure that Phase I only ran on > 11D in the RSX > family. I'd always heard that. But recently I found Phase I documents, which include protocol specifications of a sort, sufficient to tell that it wouldn't be compatible with Phase II and couldn't readily be made to be. (In particular, NSP works rather differently.) And that document was for a PDP-8 OS. Possibly it was built but not shipped, or designed but not built. The document has the look of r a finished product manual, though. paul
Re: Reproduction micros
On 16 July 2016 at 19:16, Christian Corti wrote: > The A2000 did *not* have a built-in hard disk, that was the A3000. The A2000 > was just an "updated" A1000 in a large desktop case with Zorro slots... > completely braindead. Again with the "braindead" jibes. You have not clarified or explained what your objection to the machine was. It seems that there were about 5 models... A1500 -- A2000, no hard disk but dual floppies. A sensible affordable model for 1987 or so. A2000 -- an expandable A1000 with slots and provision for an on-board hard disk. A2000HD -- an A2000 with a hard disk preinstalled. A2500 -- an A2000 with a CBM processor upgrade preinstalled, either a 68020 or a 68030. If you are arguing that the A2000 should have been launched with a 68020 on the motherboard, rather than a 68000, well, yes, that would have been great -- but also very expensive, and the Amiga was a low-cost machine in a very price-sensitive market. A 68020 in 1987 might have been just too much, too expensive. -- 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: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)
> On Jul 17, 2016, at 11:13 AM, Paul Koning wrote: > > >> On Jul 17, 2016, at 11:06 AM, John Forecast wrote: >> >>> ... >>> I suppose so. Rumor had it that Phase I only existed on RSX, but it >>> appears that there was a PDP-8 implementation as well. Phase II was >>> implemented on lots of DEC systems, from TOPS-10 to RT-11 to RSTS/E. My >>> initial involvement with DECnet was as the DECnet/E kernel guy, upgrading >>> DECnet/E from Phase II to Phase III. >>> >> I worked at a customer site in Sweden which consisted of a pair of >> 11/40’s running >> RSX-11D and DECnet Phase I. I’m pretty sure that Phase I only ran on >> 11D in the RSX >> family. > > I'd always heard that. But recently I found Phase I documents, which include > protocol specifications of a sort, sufficient to tell that it wouldn't be > compatible with Phase II and couldn't readily be made to be. (In particular, > NSP works rather differently.) And that document was for a PDP-8 OS. > I meant that RSX-11D was the only supported PDP-11 OS. The RTS/8 DECNET/8 SPD is up on bitsavers with a date of May 1977 so it was already a late addition to the Phase I development - I had joined the networking group in the Mill in Feb 1977 to work on Phase II. The SPDs for those Phase II products were dated Jun 1978 which seems about right. > Possibly it was built but not shipped, or designed but not built. The > document has the look of r a finished product manual, though. > > paul > >
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
Very good information to know about the printer, thanks. I am assuming that the new cartridges I get from staples should not have the toxic ink? Will it still be corrosive? There was a second printer over there, missing the plastic cover and scratched up. I think i will pick it up too for parts. As far as the disk drive goes, if it is a proprietary hard drive in there, that is a bummer. it spins up but does not sound too good. The drive in the compuer itself does not sound too good either, but it is still working and is scsi, which i have a stockpile of over here, so that is not an issue. On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 10:03 AM, tony duell wrote: > > Original "A" version with HP-IB interface, useless for regular > > PCs of course. Complete with the "SomethingJet" marketing > > It's mildly easier to use with a normal PC than the -B model (HPIL, > battery powered). Interestingly the -A version has an HPIB-HPIL > interface feeding HPIL to the main board (the interface is a > modified (different firmware) version of the HP82169 IIRC. > > Interesting #2, the custom HP controller chip in these printers > has a built-in ROM with the control firmware, but external > font ROM and RAM. These communicate over what is essentially > the Saturn bus, as found in the HP71, etc. > > > name that has been with us since then. The key innovation of > > I read somewhere that the official reason for 'THINKJET' was > 'THermal INKJET'. I suspect that is very much a backronym. It > is a thermal inkjet printer, the cartridge has little heating elements > that boil the ink and cause a drop to be squirted out. > > > that printer was the disposable cartridge with the micro- > > machined nozzles, which they had a horrendous time > > manufacturing at first. And for some incomprehensible reason, > > you can still order brand new cartridges from... Staples! Just put > > a new one in and you should be good to go. > > A couple of words of warning about those cartridges. Firstly > the ink, at least in older ones, is ethylene glycol based. It's toxic > and attractive in taste to some animals. Keep those catridges > away from cats, dogs, etc. > > The ink is also corrosive. It can corrode the metal faceplate > on the cartridge, then drip onto the flexible PCB that connects > the cartridge to the rest of the printer and corrode that too. > If you ever have a Thinkjet with missing dots, that's what has > happend (at least 99% of the time). The only source for > replacement PCBs now is other Thinkjets. So don't leave the > cartridge in the printer if you are not using it. > > Incidentally, if the 9153 is the drive unit I think it is, it has a > very odd HP-interface hard disk in it. There is one ribbon > cable (40 wires I think) carrying power, control signals and > raw data. I seem to remember the head positioner is a > stepper motor, but it does micro-stepping as part of the > design. > > -tony >
Who Loves IBM Tape?
A very nice IBM 3480 brochure ended up in my hands yesterday and I had to bump it to the top of the scan queue: https://archive.org/details/IBM3480MagneticTapeSubsystemBrochure Lots of nice shots of IBM data center tape equipment as well as a cool "history of tape at IBM" set of pages. I've never heard of 7340 Hypertape. -j
Re: Who Loves IBM Tape?
3480 is interesting technically because it was one of the first drives to use magneto-restrictive read heads, which are much more sensitive than inductive. The 18 track head stack will work on a conventional 1/2" tape transport, as will the 36 track heads from a 3490. This is what is in the modified STC 9914V drives shown in this paper use: http://storageconference.us/2008/presentations/3.Wednesday/5.Bordynuik.pdf About ten years ago, I bought a dozen 3480's in Chicago, and took them up to my parents farm in Wisconsin and stripped them down for the head stacks. 7340 Hypertape was developed for the Stretch project, and were mainly used by NSA. On 7/17/16 9:23 AM, Jason T wrote: > A very nice IBM 3480 brochure ended up in my hands yesterday and I had > to bump it to the top of the scan queue: > > https://archive.org/details/IBM3480MagneticTapeSubsystemBrochure > > Lots of nice shots of IBM data center tape equipment as well as a cool > "history of tape at IBM" set of pages. I've never heard of 7340 > Hypertape. > > -j >
Re: Who Loves IBM Tape?
On 2016-Jul-17, at 9:23 AM, Jason T wrote: > A very nice IBM 3480 brochure ended up in my hands yesterday and I had > to bump it to the top of the scan queue: > > https://archive.org/details/IBM3480MagneticTapeSubsystemBrochure > > Lots of nice shots of IBM data center tape equipment as well as a cool > "history of tape at IBM" set of pages. I've never heard of 7340 > Hypertape. Great looking brochure. I'd have difficulty getting to it right now as most everything is packed away, but I have a mid-60s IBM brochure that presents an overview of IBM computer equipment, in the section on tape they present the hypertape cartridges as the latest development.
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
On 7/17/16 9:21 AM, devin davison wrote: > As far as the disk drive goes, if it is a proprietary hard drive in there, > that is a bummer. They are conventional drives. The 360 or 380 are nice machines that will also run HP/UX and come in handy for recovery of HPIB disk drives. I used a 380 to read all of the HPIB disks that came from HP when they donated what was left of the Apollo and 9000 support lab to CHM.
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
Memory sticks don't appear to be normal, though. I never bothered to dig into what's different about them, since they were available cheaply on eBay when i was working on the data recovery project. On 7/17/16 9:43 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > > > On 7/17/16 9:21 AM, devin davison wrote: > >> As far as the disk drive goes, if it is a proprietary hard drive in there, >> that is a bummer. > > They are conventional drives. The 360 or 380 are nice machines that will also > run HP/UX > and come in handy for recovery of HPIB disk drives. I used a 380 to read all > of the HPIB > disks that came from HP when they donated what was left of the Apollo and > 9000 support > lab to CHM. > >
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
Yeah i saw that it was capable or running HP/UX and wanted to take a look at that. Sadly it did not come with a NIC, that would have been pretty useful for getting data into and out of the machine over the network, instead ill be limited to floppys. The basic os that came installed on it looks pretty interesting too, although i need to read up on it some. I'm going to image the drive so in the event it goes bad or i need to set things back to how i got the machine i can do so. On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 12:45 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > Memory sticks don't appear to be normal, though. > I never bothered to dig into what's different about them, since > they were available cheaply on eBay when i was working on the data > recovery project. > > > On 7/17/16 9:43 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > > > > > > On 7/17/16 9:21 AM, devin davison wrote: > > > >> As far as the disk drive goes, if it is a proprietary hard drive in > there, > >> that is a bummer. > > > > They are conventional drives. The 360 or 380 are nice machines that will > also run HP/UX > > and come in handy for recovery of HPIB disk drives. I used a 380 to read > all of the HPIB > > disks that came from HP when they donated what was left of the Apollo > and 9000 support > > lab to CHM. > > > > > >
Re: Who Loves IBM Tape?
re-reading the paper, "mechanical bit validation" was a little confusing for a while until I remembered that he also digitizes the tach signal, so he knows the absolute position of the tape. On 7/17/16 9:41 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > This is what is in the modified STC 9914V drives shown in this paper use: > > http://storageconference.us/2008/presentations/3.Wednesday/5.Bordynuik.pdf >
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
It's "Rocky Mountain BASIC" V6.2, which you used to be able to get as floppy images from the Australian HP Museum. I think the standalone Pascal system still ran on these as well. On 7/17/16 9:47 AM, devin davison wrote: > The basic os that came installed on it looks pretty interesting too, > although i need to read up on it some. I'm going to image the drive so in > the event it goes bad or i need to set things back to how i got the machine > i can do so. >
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
which also ran on PCs on the 82324B Measurement Coprocessor http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=909 On 7/17/16 9:53 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > It's "Rocky Mountain BASIC" V6.2,
RE: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
Original "A" version with HP-IB interface, useless for regular PCs of course. Complete with the "SomethingJet" marketing On Sun, 17 Jul 2016, tony duell wrote: It's mildly easier to use with a normal PC than the -B model (HPIL, There were also variant models with "Centronics" interface. Those were much easier to use with a "normal PC" narrow and wide carriage. College dumpstered at least a hundred of them. At one point, they fired a tenured faculty member for dumpster diving. I didn't get caught. Same ink cartridge was also used by Kodak Diconix. It was a portable printer, that had a hollow platen holding C cells. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
RE: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
> Very good information to know about the printer, thanks. I am assuming > that the new cartridges I get from staples should not have the toxic ink? > Will it still be corrosive? My guess is that the ink formulation has not changed. I think other things (maybe element power, timing, etc) would have to be changed too. Ethylene glycol is, of course, commonly found in car anti-freeze. The printer ink is not rediculously toxic, but some animals find it tastes sweet, they drink all they can find and it leads to kindney failure. My view (as the owner of a good few Thinkjets, and the servant of a cat) is that you don't leave the cartridges around when an animal could find them, and you wipe up any leakages. Other than that there is no real worry. And since the damage caused by the corrosive ink is a right pain to repair, I would assume all ink is corrosive and remove the cartridge from a printer that you are not using. -tony
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
On 07/17/2016 10:17 AM, tony duell wrote: > Ethylene glycol is, of course, commonly found in car anti-freeze. > The printer ink is not rediculously toxic, but some animals find it > tastes sweet, they drink all they can find and it leads to kindney > failure. A couple of decades ago, there was a bit of a scandal with some imported Italian wines, whose producers used EG as a sweetener. --Chuck
RE: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
> > As far as the disk drive goes, if it is a proprietary hard drive in there, > > that is a bummer. > > They are conventional drives. The 360 or 380 are nice machines that will also > run HP/UX As far as I am aware the HP9153B is the same as an HP9154B with a floppy drive fitted. The 9154B uses an HP drive known as a 'Nighthawk' which does not have a normal interface. I've just looked at the schematics... -tony
Re: OSX, OS/2, ECS, and Blue Lion (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)
windows 95 - yea, even bill gates stated that windows 95 was the pinnacle. ease of installation - maybe due to the fact that the bulk, if not all of us here are experienced users, I've never understood the belly-aching concerning installation. Not for DOS/windows, not for OS/2, not for BSD, not for Linux, not for Solaris. Specifically when you are giving the installer the entire disk for the OS as a new system install. Just grab the disk then go. Other settings, like network, even if it is dhcp, have to be added somewhere, be it during the install or after the fact. OS/2 vs the windows GUI - sorry, but the best that anyone is going to be able to convince me on here is personal preference. Its a GUI on top of the OS where end users double click icons. Aside from the single thread input queue on early WPS, the sole advantage I ever saw that windows had over OS/2 was that early on, the *.ini files were text based on windows vs binary on OS/2. At some point, ms followed IBM and moved to binary *.ini files. I don't remember at what version. There were nice GUI based applications (3rd party) for editing OS/2 *.ini files, but it was never as nice as having actual ASCII text based files. Jerry On 07/17/16 09:48 AM, Liam Proven wrote: I am ambivalent. I don't particularly like it any more, but the reasons are secondary: the poor security, the copy protection, the poor performance because of the requirement for anti-malware, etc. The core product was pretty good once. Windows 3.0 was a technical triumph, Windows for Workgroups impressive, and Win95 a tour de force. For me, Win 2K was about the peak; XP started the trend of adding bloat, although it did have worthwhile features too. Win95 was vastly easier to get installed & working than OS/2 2, it had a better shell -- sorry, but it really was -- better compatibility and better performance. No, the stability wasn't as good, but while OS/2 2 was better, NT 3.x was better than OS/2 2.x et seq. It would be technically possible to produce a streamlined, stripped-down Windows that was a bloody good OS, but MS lacks the will. Shame.
Epson QX-10, battery removal
There's a battery in my QX-10; anyone know if it's safe to remove it before it leaks (i.e. it's not responsible for storing any parameters which might be vital to system operation)? I think most of my machines which have batteries just use them for things such as TOD clock and so it's no big deal to remove them (and they'll run happily without), but I do also have various "unknowns" - of which the QX-10 is one. (I don't suppose anyone is working on a big list of machines with batteries in, which ones need consideration before removal, and which ones refuse to function without a battery present, are they?) cheers Jules
Re: Reproduction micros
On 17 Jul 2016, at 17:28, Liam Proven wrote: [...] > Again with the "braindead" jibes. You have not clarified or explained > what your objection to the machine was. We perhaps forget just how eyewateringly expensive these things were. They were "braindead" because to build them "properly" would price them out of the market. I can't quickly find 1987 pricing, but I found a plausible price list from Calco Software on page 83 of the September 1989 issue of Amiga Format. I also give an approximate RPI-adjusted price in 2016 pounds: Amiga A500: £349 (£800). Amiga A590 20MB hard disk: £395 (£900). Amiga B2000: £895 (£2,000). Plus an A1084S monitor: £1,125 (£2,500). Plus an XT bridgeboard and 5.25" drive: £1,395 (£3,100). Plus a 30MB hard disk: £1,595 (£3,600). A suitable floppy drive to fit the A2000: £79 (£180). A2620 68020 accelerator card: £1,395 (£3,100). Based on this price list, we can estimate the price of the models: > It seems that there were about 5 models... > A1500 -- A2000, no hard disk but dual floppies. A sensible affordable > model for 1987 or so. £895 + £79 = £975. (ISTR them selling for a grand at launch in 1990, so at least this estimate is good.) > A2000 -- an expandable A1000 with slots and provision for an on-board hard > disk. The A2000 was a ground-up redesign. It even got a new Agnus chip! £895. > A2000HD -- an A2000 with a hard disk preinstalled. £895 + (£1,595 - £1,395) = £1,095. > A2500 -- an A2000 with a CBM processor upgrade preinstalled, either a > 68020 or a 68030. £895 + £1,395 = £2,290. > If you are arguing that the A2000 should have been launched with a > 68020 on the motherboard, rather than a 68000, well, yes, that would > have been great -- but also very expensive, and the Amiga was a > low-cost machine in a very price-sensitive market. A 68020 in 1987 > might have been just too much, too expensive. I think it should be quite obvious from the prices why the Amiga 2000 didn't ship with a 68020 as standard.
Re: DOS code in CP/M? Revisited...
On 17 July 2016 at 16:09, Liam Proven wrote: > In 1987 or so, the early Archimedes like the A305 and A310 came with > ST-506 controllers and 20-40MB Conner drives. The expensive > workstation-class models -- Dick mentions having an A500, but that was > a series, not a model. The A500 was the development prototype which pre-dated the A310 (originally with pre-multiply ARM1 CPUs). Only a 100 or so made. I think they used pretty much the same Hitachi HD63463 as the (optional podule for the) A300 series which I think was DMA capable. > There was, later (1990), the A540: > > http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/Computers/A540.html > > This was the Unix R260, but shipping with RISC OS instead of RISC iX. > > The A540 came with a snazzy SCSI HD: > > http://www.apdl.org.uk/riscworld/volumes/volume9/issue2/blast20/index.htm The A540/R260 was a completely different class of machine, with an ARM3 and the ability to take multiple memory (each with memory controller) cards. > ... but then it was the thick end of three thousand quid. > > Back in '87, I suspect Dick had an A310 or something, with an ST-506 > drive & Arthur (i.e. RISC OS 1 -- an ARM port of the BBC Micro's MOS > with a desktop written in BBC BASIC). > > So I suspect no DMA... but I don't know. Think of it as an A310 with integrated disk controller, in a big metal box with a lot more soldered wires internally :-p Acorn kept them in internal service for white a while, including for development versions of RISC OS 3 with the multitasking filer.
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
>> for some incomprehensible reason, you can still order brand new cartridges >> from... Staples! Another thanks for the tip; I've got an HP2225B (HP-IL, with RS-232 converter) which presumably uses the same cartridge. Will have to check it out. m - Original Message - From: "Curious Marc" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2016 3:19 AM Subject: Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard You got yourself the first consumer inkjet printer ever, from 1984: https://youtu.be/UiHNymmxKWs Original "A" version with HP-IB interface, useless for regular PCs of course. Complete with the "SomethingJet" marketing name that has been with us since then. The key innovation of that printer was the disposable cartridge with the micro-machined nozzles, which they had a horrendous time manufacturing at first. And for some incomprehensible reason, you can still order brand new cartridges from... Staples! Just put a new one in and you should be good to go. Marc Sent from my iPad > On Jul 17, 2016, at 12:34 PM, devin davison wrote: > > Actually found a pretty nice hp machine with a bunch of peripherals. > Thankfully it came with the keyboard. Also a external hard drive and > floppy, as well as a tiny printer. > > HP 362 "controller" > Hp thinkjet 2225A printer > Hp 9153B - HD and floppy > > Also a IBM wheelwriter 3 with the parallel interface, as well as what im > assuming is a s100 backplane. > > Pretty interesting. I have a couple of other Hp devices, a logic analizer, > pattern generator, and volt meter, it will be interesting to see if i can > get them talking with the computer. Computer works. boots into basic. > Pretty complete setup for something at the scrapyard. > > https://www.slashflash.info/~devin/images/scrapyard_lot/ > > --Devin
Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)
> On Jul 17, 2016, at 12:12 PM, John Forecast wrote: > > >> On Jul 17, 2016, at 11:13 AM, Paul Koning wrote: >> >> >>> On Jul 17, 2016, at 11:06 AM, John Forecast wrote: >>> ... I suppose so. Rumor had it that Phase I only existed on RSX, but it appears that there was a PDP-8 implementation as well. Phase II was implemented on lots of DEC systems, from TOPS-10 to RT-11 to RSTS/E. My initial involvement with DECnet was as the DECnet/E kernel guy, upgrading DECnet/E from Phase II to Phase III. >>> I worked at a customer site in Sweden which consisted of a pair of >>> 11/40’s running >>> RSX-11D and DECnet Phase I. I’m pretty sure that Phase I only ran on >>> 11D in the RSX >>> family. >> >> I'd always heard that. But recently I found Phase I documents, which >> include protocol specifications of a sort, sufficient to tell that it >> wouldn't be compatible with Phase II and couldn't readily be made to be. >> (In particular, NSP works rather differently.) And that document was for a >> PDP-8 OS. >> > I meant that RSX-11D was the only supported PDP-11 OS. The RTS/8 > DECNET/8 > SPD is up on bitsavers with a date of May 1977 so it was already a late > addition to > the Phase I development - I had joined the networking group in the Mill > in Feb 1977 > to work on Phase II. The SPDs for those Phase II products were dated > Jun 1978 > which seems about right. So does that mean that RTS/8 DECnet Phase I was built but not shipped? Or shipped but not supported? The document I referred to is a full manual "RTS/8 DECNET/8 User's Guide, Order No. AA-5184A-TA". A note at the start says "converted from scanned text 1-Jun-1996" and just below that "First printing, February 1977". Chapter 6 is a fairly detained description of protocol message formats, which look vaguely like NSP as we know it but only vaguely. paul
Re: Epson QX-10, battery removal
Hi Jules I found removing my QX-10's battery stopped the machines working. I tried replacing it with a lithium battery after disabling the recharging circuit but that didn't work either. The old battery doesn't show any signs of leaking so I just left it in there. I check all my machines with batteries once a year for any battery leakage so I'm comfortable with leaving it there. Terry ( Tez) On 18/07/2016 6:38 am, "Jules Richardson" wrote: > > > There's a battery in my QX-10; anyone know if it's safe to remove it before it leaks (i.e. it's not responsible for storing any parameters which might be vital to system operation)? > > I think most of my machines which have batteries just use them for things such as TOD clock and so it's no big deal to remove them (and they'll run happily without), but I do also have various "unknowns" - of which the QX-10 is one. > > (I don't suppose anyone is working on a big list of machines with batteries in, which ones need consideration before removal, and which ones refuse to function without a battery present, are they?) > > cheers > > Jules
Re: Epson QX-10, battery removal
> On Jul 17, 2016, at 3:29 PM, Terry Stewart wrote: > > Hi Jules > > I found removing my QX-10's battery stopped the machines working. I tried > replacing it with a lithium battery after disabling the recharging circuit > but that didn't work either. In the early days of amateur radio transmitters with embedded microprocessors, some idiot manufacturers put the firmware (all of it) in battery backed RAM. So if the battery went dead, you had a boat anchor, not a radio. I hope that sort of thing isn't what you're dealing with here... paul
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
What a flash back... (SMECC is always looking for anything related to these products) The HPIL thinkjet version was also used with the hp portable and hp portable pluslaptops. we have some of them in the SMECC here... butback when I was CEO Computer Exchange inc we sold lost of these.. it was a small laptop with applications in ROM but also had a HPIL 3 1/2 disc and an HPIL Hey! Remember to the hp 45 calc.. had HPIL interface also... There was also a gaggle of cards to the PC and the HP 150 TOUCHSCREEN that would talk to HPIL and also on IBM side HPIL plus I seem to remember HPIB cards too. THANK YOU FOR THE INK WARNINGS! I did not know about the corrosive qualities of the ink and did not realize the glycerol content... I may be wrong but I remember a HPIL a HPIB a Paralleland maybe a Serial interface version of the HP Thinkjet Now there was another interface not to be confused with the HPIL it was called HP HIL HP HUMAN INTERFACE LOOP I remember? it was what the mouse used on the hp 150 etc... I may still still have my orig HP Thinkjet service training course ... we were also a service center for a bunch of the HP PC products and some manuals from classes I attended or my staff attended I saved and they are in the glassed in HP lock up area where the 2000 access and the hp micro and mini stuff lives. I have a bunch of odd VECTRA internals manuals too... Just wish I had saved more of this stuff... We also have an HP INTEGRAL (sp?) Unix all in one computer printer combo... cool concept it has THINKJET printer built in the top of it too. we never sold this product but SMECC was given a prototype many years later... REMEMBER TOO THINKJET printers always printed best on "special hp thinkjet paper" Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 7/17/2016 12:15:58 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, mhs.st...@gmail.com writes: >> for some incomprehensible reason, you can still order brand new cartridges from... Staples! Another thanks for the tip; I've got an HP2225B (HP-IL, with RS-232 converter) which presumably uses the same cartridge. Will have to check it out. m - Original Message - From: "Curious Marc" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2016 3:19 AM Subject: Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard You got yourself the first consumer inkjet printer ever, from 1984: https://youtu.be/UiHNymmxKWs Original "A" version with HP-IB interface, useless for regular PCs of course. Complete with the "SomethingJet" marketing name that has been with us since then. The key innovation of that printer was the disposable cartridge with the micro-machined nozzles, which they had a horrendous time manufacturing at first. And for some incomprehensible reason, you can still order brand new cartridges from... Staples! Just put a new one in and you should be good to go. Marc Sent from my iPad > On Jul 17, 2016, at 12:34 PM, devin davison wrote: > > Actually found a pretty nice hp machine with a bunch of peripherals. > Thankfully it came with the keyboard. Also a external hard drive and > floppy, as well as a tiny printer. > > HP 362 "controller" > Hp thinkjet 2225A printer > Hp 9153B - HD and floppy > > Also a IBM wheelwriter 3 with the parallel interface, as well as what im > assuming is a s100 backplane. > > Pretty interesting. I have a couple of other Hp devices, a logic analizer, > pattern generator, and volt meter, it will be interesting to see if i can > get them talking with the computer. Computer works. boots into basic. > Pretty complete setup for something at the scrapyard. > > https://www.slashflash.info/~devin/images/scrapyard_lot/ > > --Devin
Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
On Jul 15, 2016, at 1:49 PM, Austin Pass wrote: > I have several G5's, but am at a loss as to what to do with them. If they > supported classic Mac OS I'd have one up and running in a heartbeat. You can't boot MacOS 9 on them, but you can run Classic under 10.4 on a G5 and it screams. -- Chris
Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)
On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 7:19 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I recall that BSD was a great match for our 11/750. Never did succeed > at getting HASP+bisync going on it though. Oh? Which method/product were you trying? I used to do that every day with our own boards. I had heard that some of our sales were due to people getting frustrated with trying other solutions and buying ours. We definitely supported Ultrix + BSD (and Sys V) from the mid-80s. I did the work to add 3780 on Unibus for Ultrix to our product line in 1989 because an existing customer needed something for that platform (we only ever sold that one, but the sale paid for the development with a little left over). Our largest Unibus machine was an 11/750 (though we had an VAX 8300 w/DWBUA, and an NMI-based VAX 8350 as our largest machine, both purchased for supporting our VAXBI product line). I kept the 8300 and the 11/750 when the company closed down. Had to leave the 8350 behind. By 1994, I was probably one of a handful of people on the planet still doing HASP or 3780 from a VAX. By early 1995, out last customer contract expired and nobody was left on support and we were 100% done. There may have been a tiny number of sites still using it, but if things broke, they never called. -ethan
Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)
On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 3:47 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > with a little left over). Our largest Unibus machine was an 11/750 > (though we had an VAX 8300 w/DWBUA, and an NMI-based VAX 8350 as our > largest machine, both purchased for supporting our VAXBI product > line). I kept the 8300 and the 11/750 when the company closed down. > Had to leave the 8350 behind. Transposition typos... should be... Our largest Unibus machine was an 11/750 (though we had an VAX 8300 w/DWBUA, and an NMI-based VAX 8530 as our largest machine, both purchased for supporting our VAXBI product line). I kept the 8300 and the 11/750 when the company closed down. Had to leave the 8530 behind. The 8300 is a single 42" rack with a BA32 (the size of an 11/730) and a 42" rack for disks and the Unibux BA-11. The VAX 8530 was much larger and 3-phase. -ethan
Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
that is interesting to know the old os can be run under the newer. I am confused on some of the G5 stuff. there is a real early one that has non intel processor then there is a 1.1 ( i have one too) but you can not upgrade to the latest os (bummer) then there is the G% 3 or 3.3 dated one that will run currect os too. is there a way to force the 1.1 one to run currest os somehow!? Ed# In a message dated 7/17/2016 12:47:17 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cmhan...@eschatologist.net writes: On Jul 15, 2016, at 1:49 PM, Austin Pass wrote: > I have several G5's, but am at a loss as to what to do with them. If they supported classic Mac OS I'd have one up and running in a heartbeat. You can't boot MacOS 9 on them, but you can run Classic under 10.4 on a G5 and it screams. -- Chris
Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)
> On Jul 17, 2016, at 3:26 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > >> >> On Jul 17, 2016, at 12:12 PM, John Forecast wrote: >> >> >>> On Jul 17, 2016, at 11:13 AM, Paul Koning wrote: >>> >>> On Jul 17, 2016, at 11:06 AM, John Forecast wrote: > ... > I suppose so. Rumor had it that Phase I only existed on RSX, but it > appears that there was a PDP-8 implementation as well. Phase II was > implemented on lots of DEC systems, from TOPS-10 to RT-11 to RSTS/E. My > initial involvement with DECnet was as the DECnet/E kernel guy, upgrading > DECnet/E from Phase II to Phase III. > I worked at a customer site in Sweden which consisted of a pair of 11/40’s running RSX-11D and DECnet Phase I. I’m pretty sure that Phase I only ran on 11D in the RSX family. >>> >>> I'd always heard that. But recently I found Phase I documents, which >>> include protocol specifications of a sort, sufficient to tell that it >>> wouldn't be compatible with Phase II and couldn't readily be made to be. >>> (In particular, NSP works rather differently.) And that document was for a >>> PDP-8 OS. >>> >> I meant that RSX-11D was the only supported PDP-11 OS. The RTS/8 >> DECNET/8 >> SPD is up on bitsavers with a date of May 1977 so it was already a late >> addition to >> the Phase I development - I had joined the networking group in the Mill >> in Feb 1977 >> to work on Phase II. The SPDs for those Phase II products were dated >> Jun 1978 >> which seems about right. > > So does that mean that RTS/8 DECnet Phase I was built but not shipped? Or > shipped but not supported? The document I referred to is a full manual > "RTS/8 DECNET/8 User's Guide, Order No. AA-5184A-TA". A note at the start > says "converted from scanned text 1-Jun-1996" and just below that "First > printing, February 1977". Chapter 6 is a fairly detained description of > protocol message formats, which look vaguely like NSP as we know it but only > vaguely. > I don’t know if it ever shipped. An SPD would imply that it got pretty far along in the release process. > paul
Re: Epson QX-10, battery removal
> On Jul 17, 2016, at 3:37 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > > >> On Jul 17, 2016, at 3:29 PM, Terry Stewart wrote: >> >> Hi Jules >> >> I found removing my QX-10's battery stopped the machines working. I tried >> replacing it with a lithium battery after disabling the recharging circuit >> but that didn't work either. > > In the early days of amateur radio transmitters with embedded > microprocessors, some idiot manufacturers put the firmware (all of it) in > battery backed RAM. So if the battery went dead, you had a boat anchor, not > a radio. > > I hope that sort of thing isn't what you're dealing with here... > > paul > I'd also very much like to know this too. I have three of these things and would like not to lose them to a battery leak. I have done zero investigation so far apart from taking a look and not seeing a visible battery problem. But I was hoping to do a battery sweep later this summer, and these were among the ones I wanted to seriously look at de-batterying. Anyone here successfully replaced the battery? I honestly haven't checked the manuals to see if there are any notes on this, there might be. I think I have the SAMS pamphlet on the QX-10 as well, which might say. I'll look around and report back if I see anything relevant. -Paul
Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
And SheepShaver is an option to run Classic/Mac OS apps on Intel based Mac OS X boxes. Jerry On 07/17/16 02:56 PM, couryho...@aol.com wrote: that is interesting to know the old os can be run under the newer. I am confused on some of the G5 stuff. there is a real early one that has non intel processor then there is a 1.1 ( i have one too) but you can not upgrade to the latest os (bummer) then there is the G% 3 or 3.3 dated one that will run currect os too. is there a way to force the 1.1 one to run currest os somehow!? Ed# In a message dated 7/17/2016 12:47:17 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cmhan...@eschatologist.net writes: On Jul 15, 2016, at 1:49 PM, Austin Pass wrote: I have several G5's, but am at a loss as to what to do with them. If they supported classic Mac OS I'd have one up and running in a heartbeat. You can't boot MacOS 9 on them, but you can run Classic under 10.4 on a G5 and it screams. -- Chris
Re: Epson QX-10, battery removal
>Anyone here successfully replaced the battery? Hi Paul, As I mentioned, I did try a standard Lithium battery after disabling the recharging circuit. The machine just would not fire up boot. I haven't tried a NiMH or Lithium ion rechargeable though. I'd be interested to know if these work. Terry (Tez)
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
> Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 23:34:22 -0400 > From: devin davison > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts" > Subject: Found some stuff at the scrapyard > Message-ID: >7+jltp76khecfdu31ywpowxvmsdqsv...@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > Actually found a pretty nice hp machine with a bunch of peripherals. > Thankfully it came with the keyboard. Also a external hard drive and floppy, > as well as a tiny printer. > > HP 362 "controller" > Hp thinkjet 2225A printer > Hp 9153B - HD and floppy > > Also a IBM wheelwriter 3 with the parallel interface, as well as what im > assuming is a s100 backplane. I don't know what it is, but S100 it isn't. A key feature of the S100 bus is 100 pins, not 122. James
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
Well, i will have to see if i can find any matching wire wrap cards to plug into the backpane and i can perhaps make something of it. I did not pay much for it, its no big liss if it is useless.
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
On 7/17/16 10:21 AM, tony duell wrote: > > The 9154B uses an HP drive known as > a 'Nighthawk' which does not have a normal interface. sorry, I misread the post as asking about drives inside a 360
Re: Epson QX-10, battery removal
> On Jul 17, 2016, at 4:57 PM, Terry Stewart wrote: > >> Anyone here successfully replaced the battery? > > Hi Paul, > > As I mentioned, I did try a standard Lithium battery after disabling the > recharging circuit. The machine just would not fire up boot. I haven't > tried a NiMH or Lithium ion rechargeable though. I'd be interested to know > if these work. > > Terry (Tez) Yes, I wasn't including that within my intended definition of "successfully." :) I didn't see much in the SAMS book or in the operations manual, except indications that the battery preserves 2K of CMOS RAM, and that you should take it to the dealer to have the battery replaced when it is getting low and losing track of the time (so they can back up the CMOS RAM for you). There did not seem to be any dire warnings about crucial parameters or firmware being lost, and there was another section that indicated that the battery should be disconnected when taking part of it apart, so it seems like it shouldn't have unrecoverable consequences. But it is distressing that you're not able to get yours to start again! I'm hoping that someone here will know a secret that we don't yet know. -Paul
Re: NuTek Mac comes
> > What is it that "sucked" about the VMS command line? > > I'm sure there were many, mostly small ones. Here are the ones big > enough for me to remember after this many years (this was in the > early-to-mid '80s): > > - No command-line editing. (Well, minimal: editing at end-of-line, but >only there.) > > - Verbosity. > I've seen a lot of complaints about this over they years but I've never really understood the problem. I think wordier commands in a command procedure (VMS speak for what others might call a shell script, batch file or an exec) are easier to understand. When they are being typed at a command prompt, they can be abbreviated somewhat to avoid redundant typing although they will never be as short as in certain other operating systems. I guess it must irritate a lot of people though because it keeps coming up. > > - Some degree of syntax straitjacket. > > Of these, verbosity is the only one not shared with - or, rather, > significantly less present in - Unix shells of the time. > > Of course, it also had plenty of up sides too. The principal one I > remember was the uniformity of syntax across disparate commands - this > is the flip side of what I called a "syntax straitjacket" above. > I particularly like that items like dates/times have a standard form and they they work exactly the same with every command (unless the programmer just doesn't get the "VMS way" and works really hard to prevent it). I think that dates/times were done pretty well on VMS with the exception of a couple of blunders - not going further back than 1858 for the base date and not having the system manage time in UTC while allowing individual users to deal with time in whatever timezone they want to be in. > > For the most part, like Unix shells, DCL was fine: it worked well > enough for us to get useful stuff done. (The above > discussion applies to DCL. I never used MCR enough to have anything > useful to say, positive or negative, about it.) > While I like the way DCL processes individual commands, I think it is a bit weak when it comes to scripting command procedures and I would prefer to have something that processes commands like DCL but has facilities more like IBM's REXX for building command procedures (if that doesn't cause too much annoyance in to those on both sides of the DEC/IBM fence...) I never used MCR at all. Regards, Peter Coghlan.
Re: NuTek Mac comes
> On Jul 17, 2016, at 6:03 PM, Peter Coghlan wrote: > > ... > I think that dates/times were done pretty well on VMS with the exception > of a couple of blunders - not going further back than 1858 for the base > date and not having the system manage time in UTC while allowing > individual users to deal with time in whatever timezone they want to be > in. Not using UTC is indeed unfortunate in a way. Then again, using UTC internally comes with problems too, because the local time as displayed comes out wrong whenever the politicians change the rules with insufficient lead time. Some countries know to avoid this; a lot do not, as those living in Turkey or Egypt have recently discovered. As for 1858, that's not 0 but it's a lot earlier than 1969. And if you go back much further, you run into some interesting issues: Julian or Georgian calendar? Actually, that's an issue even after 1858, but only for a few countries. paul
Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
> And SheepShaver is an option to run Classic/Mac OS apps on Intel based > Mac OS X boxes. It's an option, but it's not a very good one. It has various compatibility issues with certain programs (usually the most interesting/useful ones) and it does not run anything past 9.0.4. For the programs it works with, it's a godsend, but Classic (not to mention OS 9 itself) is the best reason to keep a Power Mac around. It's a bit pokier than OS 9 due to the virtualization overhead, but it's highly compatible and infinitely better integrated with the host operating system. This is a big reason I'm "Tiger Forever" on my PowerPC gear. For that matter, you might as well run Jaguar on a G3, G4 or early G5, because Jag didn't have double-buffered Classic windows and did have better classic AppleTalk networking support. -- personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com -- FORTUNE: Ten weeks from Friday you won't remember this fortune at all. -
Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
> On Jul 17, 2016, at 11:03 PM, tony duell wrote: > > The ink is also corrosive. It can corrode the metal faceplate > on the cartridge, then drip onto the flexible PCB that connects > the cartridge to the rest of the printer and corrode that too. > If you ever have a Thinkjet with missing dots, that's what has > happend (at least 99% of the time). I do! One of them with a missing row of dots, and there was ink caked all over the contacts, and when I cleaned it, it seemed the contacts had been eaten away. That explains it! Fortunately I have a spare one for spare parts. Thanks Tony.
Re: Epson QX-10, battery removal
>But it is distressing that you're not able to get yours to start again! No, that's not the case fortunately. It would only not start with the new battery and the recharging circuit disabled. I soldered the old battery back in and reconfiguring the charging circuit back to what it was. It works fine now. It's just (1) the battery is old and I'm worried about it leaking at some stage and (2) I'd rather have something in there that is not rechargeable. I don't use the machine often enough for the battery to remain charged (especially a battery as old as this one) and I have to re-enter the CMOS parameters each time I drag it out. (: Cheers Terry (Tez) On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 9:52 AM, Hagstrom, Paul wrote: > > > On Jul 17, 2016, at 4:57 PM, Terry Stewart > wrote: > > > >> Anyone here successfully replaced the battery? > > > > Hi Paul, > > > > As I mentioned, I did try a standard Lithium battery after disabling the > > recharging circuit. The machine just would not fire up boot. I haven't > > tried a NiMH or Lithium ion rechargeable though. I'd be interested to > know > > if these work. > > > > Terry (Tez) > > Yes, I wasn't including that within my intended definition of > "successfully." :) I didn't see much in the SAMS book or in the > operations manual, except indications that the battery preserves 2K of CMOS > RAM, and that you should take it to the dealer to have the battery replaced > when it is getting low and losing track of the time (so they can back up > the CMOS RAM for you). There did not seem to be any dire warnings about > crucial parameters or firmware being lost, and there was another section > that indicated that the battery should be disconnected when taking part of > it apart, so it seems like it shouldn't have unrecoverable consequences. > But it is distressing that you're not able to get yours to start again! > I'm hoping that someone here will know a secret that we don't yet know. > > -Paul > >
Epson QX games (with graphics) (was Epson QX-10, battery removal)
BTW, while we discussing the QX-10 I'd love to hear from anyone that has any games which show off its nice green-screen graphics. Terry (Tez)
Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 25, Issue 18
From: Brent Hilpert > I don't think I've ever seen a wirewrapped S100 backplane, they were > pretty much all PCB. For what it's worth, I've seen many WW S-100 backplanes, especially from the days when it was common to assemble your own systems from parts/kits, and before S-100 was a "standard". KJ
Re: Epson QX games (with graphics) (was Epson QX-10, battery removal)
On 07/17/2016 08:12 PM, Terry Stewart wrote: BTW, while we discussing the QX-10 I'd love to hear from anyone that has any games which show off its nice green-screen graphics. "Underground City" (I think that's what it's called, without digging it out) is the only one that I have, but there's some form of sector voodoo on the disk which prevents it from being copied/archived. :-( I suppose there's Valpaint, too :) (I *assume* it's graphical; I got a mouse with my system and I'm not aware of anything else which sounds like it might make use of it) cheers Jules
Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
> that is interesting to know the old os can be run under the newer. > I am confused on some of the G5 stuff. > there is a real early one that has non intel processor > then there is a 1.1 ( i have one too) but you can not upgrade to the > latest os (bummer) > > then there is the G% 3 or 3.3 dated one that will run currect os too. > > is there a way to force the 1.1 one to run currest os somehow!? I'm not sure what you're referring to. If the 1.1 is clock speed, the slowest G5 is 1.6GHz. No Power Mac can run anything past 10.5.8; there is no PowerPC code left in the kernel to run. -- personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com -- Don't be humble ... you're not that great. -- Golda Meir ---
Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
I'm not disagreeing with you. I have multiple PPC Mac's and a couple of PowerBooks. I'm set. Apple systems from the past typically had 2 big advantages over windows based systems. * significantly easier to administer, and at least some level of stability over MS code * Apple systems last forever where a box was typically good for 2 to 3 years on the x86 side. I had an 8600, purchased brand new, and although it wasn't our sole system (lots of Sparc boxes at home also), we used that 8600 daily, or almost daily for 8 years. Whether the current boxes being produced today are still usable for 8 years really isn't up for debate, whether they are or not. The vast majority of Mac users don't view the technology as usable for an extended period of time. At least that is my observation. Back on topic, many Mac users today would/have stuck their nose up at PPC and 68K powered boxes, and don't even acknowledge them. If a critical piece of Mac OS code crossed their path, SheepShaver would be their only option. As for me, restating again, as I already have hardware that can run Mac OS code, SheepShaver is a novelty for me, and I have never attempted to use it for anything serious or for any significant length of time for a big project. I also agree with your comment on "Tiger forever" comment. Most people only see that we lost the Classic environment. For me, 10.5 + has been like a country music song, i.e. you know what you get if you play a country music record backwards? Answer, house, wife, job, horse, money, best friend, etc. Thanks for the reply, Jerry On 07/17/16 07:28 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: And SheepShaver is an option to run Classic/Mac OS apps on Intel based Mac OS X boxes. It's an option, but it's not a very good one. It has various compatibility issues with certain programs (usually the most interesting/useful ones) and it does not run anything past 9.0.4. For the programs it works with, it's a godsend, but Classic (not to mention OS 9 itself) is the best reason to keep a Power Mac around. It's a bit pokier than OS 9 due to the virtualization overhead, but it's highly compatible and infinitely better integrated with the host operating system. This is a big reason I'm "Tiger Forever" on my PowerPC gear. For that matter, you might as well run Jaguar on a G3, G4 or early G5, because Jag didn't have double-buffered Classic windows and did have better classic AppleTalk networking support.
Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
On Jul 17, 2016, at 12:56 PM, couryho...@aol.com wrote: > that is interesting to know the old os can be run under the newer. This was a standard feature of Mac OS X on PowerPC hardware from the 10.0 developer builds through 10.4. > I am confused on some of the G5 stuff. > there is a real early one that has non intel processor That would be a PowerMac G5. No Power Macintosh has an Intel processor. > then there is a 1.1 ( i have one too) but you can not upgrade to the > latest os (bummer) By "1.1" do you mean the Mac Pro? The Mac Pro has always had an Intel processor, and the model code for the first Mac Pro was MacPro1,1. > then there is the G% 3 or 3.3 dated one that will run currect os too. This is confusing. Can you restate it or at least correct your typos before posting? There's no G3 that can run the latest macOS, since a G3 is a kind of PowerPC CPU. > is there a way to force the 1.1 one to run currest os somehow!? Not any supported way, which is the only way I'd be allowed to discuss. -- Chris
Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
On 7/17/16 9:23 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: that is interesting to know the old os can be run under the newer. I am confused on some of the G5 stuff. there is a real early one that has non intel processor then there is a 1.1 ( i have one too) but you can not upgrade to the latest os (bummer) then there is the G% 3 or 3.3 dated one that will run currect os too. is there a way to force the 1.1 one to run currest os somehow!? I'm not sure what you're referring to. If the 1.1 is clock speed, the slowest G5 is 1.6GHz. No Power Mac can run anything past 10.5.8; there is no PowerPC code left in the kernel to run. I believe he's referring to MacPro1,1
Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
oppssorry many typos... see clarification interlaced.. In a message dated 7/17/2016 8:04:07 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cmhan...@eschatologist.net writes: That would be a PowerMac G5. No Power Macintosh has an Intel processor yes that is first g5 has a more elegant interior design! I need a disk for this have no disc have no software but have nice system. then there is a 1.1 ( i have one too) but you can not upgrade to the > latest os (bummer) By "1.1" do you mean the Mac Pro? The Mac Pro has always had an Intel processor, and the model code for the first Mac Pro was MacPro1,1. 1.1" do you mean the Mac Pro yea this runs nice and has 2 drive and 7 gig mem > then there is the G% 3 or 3.3 dated one that will run current os too. This is confusing. Can you restate it or at least correct your typos before posting? There's no G3 that can run the latest macOS, since a G3 is a kind of PowerPC CPU. G5 version 3 vrs the earlier 1.1 i > is there a way to force the 1.1 one to run currest os somehow!? Not any supported way, which is the only way I'd be allowed to discuss.
Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
> Back on topic, many Mac users today would/have stuck their nose up at PPC > and 68K powered boxes, and don't even acknowledge them. If a critical piece > of Mac OS code crossed their path, SheepShaver would be their only option. True, and that's a shame, since Classic happily runs most 68K apps too. It's a nice one-stop shop. On the other hand, Basilisk II isn't bad. -- personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com -- Eight out of ten voices in my head say, "don't shoot!" -
RE: Found some stuff at the scrapyard
> The HPIL thinkjet version was also used with the hp portable and hp > portable pluslaptops. > we have some of them in the SMECC here... butback when I was CEO > Computer Exchange inc we sold lost of these.. it was a small laptop > with applications in ROM but also had a HPIL 3 1/2 disc and an HPIL Yes. 80C86 (not 8088) based, there is a 16 bit data bus in there. The Portable (HP110) has built-in RAM that can't be expanded. One of the boards contains the processor and a lot of DIP-packaged 8K*8 SRAMs. The Portable Plus used surface-mount 8K*8 SRAMs and could take more on a plug-in 'RAM Drawer'. > Hey! > Remember to the hp 45 calc.. had HPIL interface also... I think you mean the HP41 (LCD alphanumeric calculator) or maybe the HP75 (handheld machine running BASIC, very similar to the HP85 in architecture). The HP45 was a simple-ish non-programmable scientific calculator with an LED display. And an undocumented stopwatch > There was also a gaggle of cards to the PC and the HP 150 TOUCHSCREEN > that would talk to HPIL and also on IBM side HPIL plus I seem to > remember HPIB cards too. The HP150 had HPIB as standard. There was an optional card that added HPIL and a Centronics port. That Centronics port was a mess. HP decided to use female DB25s for the serial ports. So to avoid confusion they used a male DB25 for the Centronics port. Only problem was the PCB was laid out for a female DB25 using IBM PC pinouts. With the result that the male version ended up effectively mirror-reversed, strobe on pin 13, etc. There were, indeed, HP ISA HPIB and HPIL cards. From memory the latter (at least) will not run in any reasonbly fast machine (8MHz CPU clock tops?) There was also an HPIL card for the Integral (portable unix machine) but I have never seen it. Was there a DIO HPIL card? [...] > I may be wrong but I remember a HPIL a HPIB a Paralleland maybe a > Serial interface version of the HP Thinkjet I have come across 6 versions : HPIB, HPIL, RS232, Centronics, Portable (battery powered Centronics) and IIRC an enhanced version of the RS232 one. > Now there was another interface not to be confused with the HPIL it was > called HP HIL HP HUMAN INTERFACE LOOP I remember? it was what the mouse > used on the hp 150 etc... Yes. They are often confused... But very different to the user and electrically. > I may still still have my orig HP Thinkjet service training course I think you can get the service manual for the Thinkjet (probably only covers the original 4 versions) from the Australian Museum. -tony
