Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[N0body H0me]

>> 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.

I'll agree, the 840's physicality was a total mess.  But you know, I'm
willing to forgive indiscretions of a mechanical nature; it doesn't affect
how well the thing runs (barring cooling issues, of course).

The capacitor issues are another matter; I've seen MANY products (not
just computers) that suffer from this malady.  It's a bit like cancer;
caught early, the patient can make a complete recovery.  If the affliction
is too far advanced, it's likely terminal.  It would seem there are two 
causes for this: Bad manufacturing techniques (causing the parts to overheat
during assembly), and low quality parts, or parts with latent defects not
detectable when the parts are new.  I'd like to hear other opinions on this
topic.

Why the 840?  To me, it represents the highest refinement of the 68k
Mac, and this is very desirable to me (defective cabinetry and all).
The SE/30 is my second choice; I feel it's the best 'all in one'
design.

Further, I'll probably start a flamewar by stating that I really don't
recognise PPC Macs as 'classic', despite their age.  The 88k should have 
been in RISC-based Mac's.  But of course, the 88k's absence was not really
Apple's fault, either.  Just another example of 'what could have been'.

Just N0bodys $0.02


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Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Al Kossow]

On 7/17/16 7:57 PM, Jerry Kemp wrote:
> If a critical piece of Mac OS code crossed their path, SheepShaver would be 
> their only option.
> 

Or MAME

I've been working with them a lot to correctly implement the I/O ASICs

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Al Kossow]

On 7/18/16 12:38 AM, N0body H0me wrote:
>The 88k should have 
> been in RISC-based Mac's.  But of course, the 88k's absence was not really
> Apple's fault, either.  Just another example of 'what could have been'.
>

I worked on Apple's 88K Macs. You wouldn't have liked them.

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Cameron Kaiser]

> > The 88k should have 
> > been in RISC-based Mac's.  But of course, the 88k's absence was not really
> > Apple's fault, either.  Just another example of 'what could have been'.
> 
> I worked on Apple's 88K Macs. You wouldn't have liked them.

What were some of their issues?

-- 
 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: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Al Kossow]

On 7/18/16 7:39 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:

> What were some of their issues?
> 

The two big ones were a new, incompatible expansion bus interface (BLT)
and that it was going to run Pink.

"Shiner" started out as an 88110 machine, and some of the architectural
quirks are remnants of that.

Going on in parallel with Hurricane (88110 desktop) was a 88100 si sized
machine where the 68k emulator and nanokernel were developed. That evolved
into the first generation PPC macs and (V0) software (OS 7 with enhancements)
V1 was the redo of MacOS, which never happened.

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Cameron Kaiser]

> > What were some of their issues?
> 
> The two big ones were a new, incompatible expansion bus interface (BLT)
> and that it was going to run Pink.
> 
> "Shiner" started out as an 88110 machine, and some of the architectural
> quirks are remnants of that.

That is extremely interesting -- was that intended as the ANS, or was that
what would become the 9150?

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- MARXISTS SCHEME CLASSLESS SMALLTALK! -- Arch Robison ---

KT11-B ?

[Al Kossow]

nice system
www.ebay.com/itm/201624309371

I've never heard of a KT11-B

hopefully whoever gets it will scan the unique parts of the documentation

Re: KT11-B ?

[Paul Koning]

> On Jul 18, 2016, at 11:42 AM, Al Kossow  wrote:
> 
> nice system
> www.ebay.com/itm/201624309371
> 
> I've never heard of a KT11-B

I hadn't either.  But I see it mentioned in the December 1975 option-module 
list (on Bitsavers), page 87.  It's shown as "CSS" (Computer Special Systems), 
product status 3 ("Custom built").

paul

Re: OSX, OS/2, ECS, and Blue Lion (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[Liam Proven]

On 17 July 2016 at 19:33, Jerry Kemp  wrote:
> windows 95 - yea, even bill gates stated that windows 95 was the pinnacle.

Er, what? When?

> 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.

Then I suspect that you have perhaps not experienced the variety of
systems that the rest of us have.

>  Specifically when you are giving the
> installer the entire disk for the OS as a new system install.

What? Since when? I haven't done that since I first got a work PC!
There's always something new to learn, and there are always more OSes
to explore than space to set up multiple PCs. All my machines
multi-boot. All of them. Even the Macs.

> Just grab the
> disk then go.

There's a problem, for instance.

Windows -- any version, 3, 9x, NT, whatever:

[a] copy the files to an installation source folder
[b] run the setup program.

So, for NT4, for instance, I set up a whole client's network of
CD-less machines from a Novell server. Install DOS, install the
Netware client. Connect to the server, copy the files to
D:\SETUP\WINNT4. Reboot with no client, but with HIMEM and SMARTDRV.
CD to the folder, run WINNT.EXE. Proceed with installation.

OS/2 couldn't do that. The installer only runs on OS/2. OS/2 has major
problems with device drivers, which must be copied to media that the
bootable installation disk can see and be corrrectly configured in the
1000+ line, unstructured, CONFIG.SYS file.

You have to correctly configure drivers before you can even start the
installation!

BSD: it doesn't properly understand classic PC partitioning. You can't
install into a logical drive in an extended partition. It can only
take a primary partition and install its own weird alien partitioning
system inside that, so you need 2 levels of partitioning -- one at DOS
level, then inside that, one at BSD level.

And so on.

>  Other settings, like network, even if it is dhcp, have to be
> added somewhere, be it during the install or after the fact.

You fail to spot the much more significant issue of finding a driver
for your network card.

> 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.

I could give you an illustrated hour-long presentation on the subject,
but there is no point in wasting either of our times on this.

> 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.

No, it didn't.

Windows INI files are still text-based.

However, INI files are deprecated and most config is now in the
Registry, which is binary. A decent editor is provided but alas it
lacks rich global search-and-replace functionality, for which I use
John Rennie's excellent GREPREGISTRY tool:

http://www.ratsauce.co.uk/winsrc/files.htm

Note that it is a simple command-line based text S&R with no relation
to GREP and its famously opaque syntax. I consider this a major
advantage. Others' MMV.

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Re: Reproduction micros

[Liam Proven]

On 17 July 2016 at 20:54, Peter Corlett  wrote:
> I think it should be quite obvious from the prices why the Amiga 2000 didn't 
> ship with a 68020 as standard.

Exactly so.

This is part of the brilliance of the Archimedes, AIUI. In detailed
technical ways I confess I do not fully understand, the ARM2 and its
chipset's design was optimised to work with cheap DRAM with relatively
slow cycle times. The OS also ran directly from ROM.

Even PCs at the time copied their BIOS ROM to RAM for faster
execution. Acorn designed around this.

Similarly, one of the pleasant features of the Psion 3 & 5 series PDAs
was that their OS ran from ROM. Thus, although the OSes were very
stable & seldom needed reboots, when they did, it was reasonably quick
and the machines were highly functional with, even in the late models,
as little as 8-16MB of RAM, running a rich pre-emptive multitasking
GUI OS.

Compare with, e.g., Android or iOS, where the OS is stored in ROM but
can't execute from it. Thus, slow boot times as the entire thing must
be *copied* to RAM at IPL. And of course as these run
not-very-cut-down 1960s/1970s minicomputer multiuser OSes, the OSes
themselves occupy many hundreds of meg, these days edging to gigabyte
range.


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Re: DOS code in CP/M? Revisited...

[Liam Proven]

On 17 July 2016 at 21:07, David Brownlee  wrote:
> 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.


Fascinating -- thanks for that!

OK, so the HD controller chipset was DMA capable, but did Arthur take
advantage of that fact?

I note that the first PDF datasheet I find for that chip is on Peter
Howkin's Martuan site. Pete is a friend of mine and maints RPCemu as
well as the open-source version of CDE, and is a major Acorn expert.

Said datasheet indicates that the HD63463 needs an accompanying
HD63450 DMA controller for DMA operation.

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Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Liam Proven]

On 16 July 2016 at 09:05, Austin Pass  wrote:
> What is it about the Quadra 840 that makes it such a hot shot?  I've seen a 
> few over the last few years, but all fetch £150+


AIUI it was the fastest ever 68K Mac (in stock form; others can be
overclocked, as has been noted in this thread).

However, the onboard AV circuitry mean it's incompatible with A/UX, I
believe. Could be wrong.


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Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Liam Proven]

On 16 July 2016 at 07:05, N0body H0me  wrote:
> If I wanted the "all in one" experience, I would get the
> SE/30.  Once again, these are kinda pricey.


Indeed.

I've seen an argument that the "ultimate" classic Mac experience --
before the colour machines and so on -- would be a maxed-out SE/30
(128MB RAM!) with internal Ethernet and greyscale monitor controllers
(both is possible but tricky), with a 21" CRT attached, running A/UX.
:-)


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Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Liam Proven]

On 18 July 2016 at 17:03, Al Kossow  wrote:
> "Shiner" started out as an 88110 machine, and some of the architectural
> quirks are remnants of that.


This is not enough for me to Google. Could you clarify, please?

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Re: Wanted: VT5x roll-around stand

[Glen Slick]

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 7:28 PM, Jason T  wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:02 PM, Glen Slick  wrote:
>> You could go with the modern times and get at VT220 cart / table
>>
>> www.ebay.com/itm/262486498646
>
> This is just the sort of ridiculous DECitem I probably don't have room
> for but will attempt to crowbar into my basement anyway.  The price
> isn't terrible but the shipping may be, and I'm not sure I want to
> trust the average ebayer to pack an item like that.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/262528352526?orig_cvip=true

Someone bought that. Anyone here want to fess up as the buyer? If it
was local and cheaper I might have grabbed it myself, even without
having space to put it to use at the moment.

Re: NuTek Mac comes

[Liam Proven]

On 15 July 2016 at 22:29, Swift Griggs  wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Jul 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
>> Reminds me of horrible compatibility glitches with OS X in the early
>> days. E.g. one of my clients had Blue & White G3s on a Windows NT 4
>> network. (Later they pensioned them off, bought G5s, and gave the B&Ws
>> to me! :-) )
>
> Woot! The benefits of working with small clients over time.

Well yes. Really, the clients of a friend of mine -- a Windows expert.
He didn't do Mac stuff; I stepped in to help with that.

> Well, if you ever put hands on another M68k, you might give it a shot. The
> key is to have an extra partition to setup with a BSD disklabel et al. If
> you have enough space (or a spare disk) it's pretty darn straightforward.
> It loads using a MacOS based loader program, so you don't have to ditch
> MacOS, either. However, the install is pretty raw (I like it, but I have a
> feeling you wouldn't).

Honestly, if I ever feel the urge to try NetBSD, it'll be on as
generic a PC as I can find.

> However, it's nowhere near as raw as, say,
> OpenBSD's installer. If you ever happen to install OpenBSD, Liam, please
> have a video camera rolling. I will be able to get all the choice British
> curse-phrases in one go that way.

I have done it in a VM. I was not at all impressed, but I did
eventually get it working.
> Also, just as an aside, your ex-roomy who told you that you weren't liking
> parts of UNIX because you weren't a dyed-in-the-wool coder (not to say you
> aren't smart or technical or can't do what you need to do with coding) was
> right. It's a programmers OS and it panders to coders and admins, others
> will be grousing about weird things they don't need and don't see a reason
> for, items being over-minimized, too spartan, or downright bizzare and not
> enough in the way of well-integrated features for users with other goals
> besides coding. Fully 100% agree with that dude, and I totally acknowledge
> that there is a rusty tetanus side of that double edged sword. That's why
> I still dabble with the darkside and play with GUI-focused OSes, too. It's
> a whole different feel. When I want to code, I plant myself in front of
> NetBSD or FreeBSD.

Indeed yes. But more than that, it's a very specific sub-family of
programming -- the all-manual, all-traditional, C-family type.

Contrast with Windows with rich IDEs and fancy autocompletion etc.,
even for C-family code.

And contrast the C culture which now rules the world with the old-time
non-C-family machines: Lisp Machines, Smalltalk boxes, the niche
Oberon family. Step outside the C mould and you find environments
which their old fans say stomped all over the C family for real
productivity.

>  When I want to record/compose a song, I break out an
> SGI, Amiga, or maybe someday a Mac (I got a fancy audio rig for my 68k
> Quadra recently).

Read /In The Beginning Was The Command Line/? It's out there for free.
You remind me of that.

>> Dear gods that was a hell of a job, and while it was fun, it wasn't
>> really worth the effort.
>
> Hehe, I ran MorphOS, too. It was fun for a while, but I can't really
> handle a proprietary OS on a such a small scale.

It has some potential but the niche is closing.

E.g. on the 1st/2nd gen Raspberry Pi, MorphOS or AROS would have been
great. Single CPU core, no wireless anything, small and fast. Ideal.
Linux was too big for them.

The RPi 2 was quad-core. Less of a good fit.

The RPi 3 is quad-core with onboard Wifi and Bluetooth. A poor fit for
the Amiga OSes which don't handle such things at all yet, AFAIK.

>> I don't have "Amiga nostalgia" because I never owned one at the time. I
>> respect them -- I wanted one! -- but I went with RISC OS and that's what
>> I miss.
>
> I got one way later, too. Well past when they were new/prime. I have the
> exact same feeling. For me SGIs were the biggest lust-target because I
> actually had played with them long enough to know what I was really
> missing (and I was younger and all that happy stuff).

I understood the lust back in the day, for the awesome graphics power.
But everything has that now, and anyway, I never understood 3D and
OpenGL -- the maths is too much for me.

>> To my great surprise, the Mac could boot off the PC-formatted SSD and
>> Ubuntu loaded with no mess or fuss, detected both my screens, and went
>> straight online, no problems at all.
>
> In my experience using tools like "ReEFIt" make multi-booting OSX and *ix
> or BSD on a Macs way easy, but yeah, they don't need much to "justwork"
> nowadays.

I've put rEFInd on it now and it starts to boot again, but fails. I
will investigate.


> My experience with it is less than 6 months old. Without Macosgarden I'd
> have never got the chance because finding legit disk for it is *hard* if
> you want 3.1. I had all manner of weird install problems because I was
> doing it on a SCSI2SD that isn't an Apple disk so of course Disk tools was
> pissed. The disk tools under A/UX would play nice, actually, but I e

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Al Kossow]

On 7/18/16 9:11 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
> On 18 July 2016 at 17:03, Al Kossow  wrote:
>> "Shiner" started out as an 88110 machine, and some of the architectural
>> quirks are remnants of that.
> 
> 
> This is not enough for me to Google. Could you clarify, please?
> 

you won't find anything on the web about any of this

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Al Kossow]

"Shiner" shipped as the ANS with AIX

http://www.erik.co.uk/ans/

though that isn't what the original "Shiner" was at all.


On 7/18/16 10:10 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
> 
> 
> On 7/18/16 9:11 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
>> On 18 July 2016 at 17:03, Al Kossow  wrote:
>>> "Shiner" started out as an 88110 machine, and some of the architectural
>>> quirks are remnants of that.
>>
>>
>> This is not enough for me to Google. Could you clarify, please?
>>
> 
> you won't find anything on the web about any of this
> 
> 

Re: KT11-B ?

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Al Kossow

> nice system
> www.ebay.com/itm/201624309371

Anyone want to guess how much it will go for?

Noel

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Austin Pass]

> On 18 Jul 2016, at 18:10, Al Kossow  wrote:
> 
> you won't find anything on the web about any of this

...which is why this ClassicCMP'er just drew his chair closer and cracked out 
the popcorn!

Finding this fascinating, Al. Any time you take to relay your Apple experiences 
here is very much appreciated, let me assure you.

-Austin.

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Fred Cisin]

you won't find anything on the web about any of this


now you have our attention!

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Alexandre Souza]

Grabbing the popcorn... :)

Enviado do meu Tele-Movel

Em 18/07/2016 14:27, "Fred Cisin"  escreveu:

> you won't find anything on the web about any of this
>>
>
> now you have our attention!
>
>
>
>

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Al Kossow]

Give me a while to collect what I have together. I haven't looked at what paper 
documents i still have since the
early 90s. I need to do this since someone I worked with then saved some 
prototype 88k CPU boards that I need to give to
CHM. I only know of one 88100 si that survived into this century, and I don't 
know if the guy still has it.

Very little from the server group that did the ANS survived after the division 
imploded.

On 7/18/16 10:21 AM, Austin Pass wrote:

> Finding this fascinating, Al. Any time you take to relay your Apple 
> experiences here is very much appreciated, let me assure you.
>

Re: KT11-B ?

[Kirk Davis]

Like. Want.

My guess since its pick up only is the teens. But you never know on eBay.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 18, 2016, at 10:11 AM, Noel Chiappa  wrote:

>> From: Al Kossow
> 
>> nice system
>> www.ebay.com/itm/201624309371
> 
> Anyone want to guess how much it will go for?
> 
>Noel

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[COURYHOUSE]

 
apples   support  seems  hosed...
Load  of URL http://support.apple.com/index.html failed with error code 
-310.
 
but  from this  page
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202888
there  is a good  guide.
--

this is my 1.1

Mac Pro ---MacPro1,1  ---  MA356LL/A
it works... it is a good representative artifact  too  .
 
will not  load  curvet  os because? 
"This  is caused by the lack of the 64 bit EFI bios. The hardware of the 
Mac Pro 1.1 is  already complete 64bit capable but they do ship the efi bios 
only in 32bit  version."
 
Ed  says. OK whatever an EFI Bios is (( remember this is my  first  
real  exposure to USING a MAC -  yes  we have a 9 inch   screen one in the 
museum but have  never even used  that))
---
Ha   wish it  was a
 Mac Pro (Early 2008) --   MacPro3,1  ---  MA970LL/A
then I could current  OS  upgrade it.
 
-
ok we also have a - 
 
"The  Power Macintosh G5 shipped from 2003 until 2006. All models pack 
64-bit PowerPC  970 (G5) processors in an easy-to-upgrade aluminum tower case 
design with a  single external optical drive bay"
 
This  one is missing disc  drives...  this  has the neatest  form  fitting 
insides  of any of the macs  I have  seen.  
 

 
then  we have Blue iMAC still in box
 

 
Then  we have the   old  9 inch one in museum  collection.
(  I do not see many of these  around as I used to)
 
-
 
thanks   for any  help and tips   Ed#  _www.smecc.org_ 
(http://www.smecc.org)  
 


 
In a message dated 7/17/2016 7:23:10 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,  
spec...@floodgap.com writes:

> 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.

[Al Kossow]

On 7/18/16 10:49 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
> 
> Give me a while to collect what I have together.

My memory was fuzzy, BLT was a part of "Tesseract", PPC follow-on to 
"Hurricane" 88110.
Tesseract became "TNT" ("The New Tesseract" aka the 9500) when Steve Manzer 
ordered the
group to use PCI instead of BLT because PCI already had an installed base of 
3rd party
cards.

I ul'ed a picture of the Tesseract protype to bitsavers under 
apple/powerpc/Prototypes.
Mirrors should have it in about an hour.

I should have the Hurricane proto board somewhere along with Nubus 88100 and 
IBM RSC
CPU development boards (like 
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102674143)

Re: Wanted: VT5x roll-around stand

[Jason T]

> http://www.ebay.com/itm/262528352526?orig_cvip=true
>
> Someone bought that. Anyone here want to fess up as the buyer? If it
> was local and cheaper I might have grabbed it myself, even without
> having space to put it to use at the moment.

It were me what dunnit.  Mea culpa for crimes of hoarding and against
basement floor space.  Eh, I'll get rid of some generic table to make
room.

Thanks to the kindness of the ccmp mafia, I was able to work out
transport, although I won't see it until September.  But it's better
than getting a box of loose, broken parts in the mail.

j

Re: KT11-B ?

[Paul Anderson]

$4850

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 12:11 PM, Noel Chiappa 
wrote:

> > From: Al Kossow
>
> > nice system
> > www.ebay.com/itm/201624309371
>
> Anyone want to guess how much it will go for?
>
> Noel
>

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Liam Proven]

On 18 July 2016 at 20:18,   wrote:

Ed, *please* will you get a proper email client? They work fine with
AOL mail. I know, I am also liampro...@aol.com & have been for 20y!

>
> will not  load  curvet  os because?
> "This  is caused by the lack of the 64 bit EFI bios. The hardware of the
> Mac Pro 1.1 is  already complete 64bit capable but they do ship the efi bios
> only in 32bit  version."
>
> Ed  says. OK whatever an EFI Bios is

There are ways around it.

http://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/2015/3/2/how-to-resurrect-a-2006-mac-pro-11-so-it-can-run-osx-yosemit.html

Ask the Hackintosh community:

http://hq-a.weebly.com/

> -
> ok we also have a -
>
> "The  Power Macintosh G5 shipped from 2003 until 2006. All models pack
> 64-bit PowerPC  970 (G5) processors in an easy-to-upgrade aluminum tower case
> design with a  single external optical drive bay"
>
> This  one is missing disc  drives...  this  has the neatest  form  fitting
> insides  of any of the macs  I have  seen.

Takes any old SATA drive, as far as I recall. No special firmware needed.

Will run up to OS X 10.5, nothing later.



-- 
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: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[N0body H0me]

> -Original Message-
> From: a...@bitsavers.org
> Sent: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 07:41:10 -0700
> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
> 
> 
> 
> On 7/18/16 12:38 AM, N0body H0me wrote:
> >The 88k should have
>> been in RISC-based Mac's.  But of course, the 88k's absence was not
>> really
>> Apple's fault, either.  Just another example of 'what could have been'.
>> 
> 
> I worked on Apple's 88K Macs. You wouldn't have liked them.

I'm astounded.  I didn't think any ever made it to prototype or hard-model
stage!  I've seen bare boards for these (up to this point) mythical
beasts, but never a living, breathing machine.  Must have been a piece
of work.  Do any functional machines still exist?  How did you encounter 
them?


FREE ONLINE PHOTOSHARING - Share your photos online with your friends and 
family!
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Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Al Kossow]

On 7/18/16 12:44 PM, N0body H0me wrote:

> I'm astounded.  I didn't think any ever made it to prototype or hard-model
> stage!  I've seen bare boards for these (up to this point) mythical
> beasts, but never a living, breathing machine.  Must have been a piece
> of work.  Do any functional machines still exist?  How did you encounter 
> them?
> 

The 88100 si worked. Hurricane never got a functional 88110 before the IBM/Apple
deal. Tessaract never booted MacOS.

Which bare board did you see?

I was in the RISC products group doing driver and cpu board bringup starting 
with
the 88100 nubus boards to IBM RSC (never had a functional 88110) then 601 over 
to
high end desktop product development with TNT.

More PDP-11 front console scans

[Noel Chiappa]

I recently got access to an orginal PDP-11/70 front console (the one in
magenta and rose), and also an 'Industrial' -11/70 (blue and red). Scans of
both of these front panels have been added to my PDP-11 stuff page:

  http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/PDP-11_Stuff.html

My A3 scanner won't _quite_ eat the whole thing in one gulp, but it did manage
to 'see' all the printed stuff. The actual panel is very slightly larger, so
there are some thin sections on either side missing from the scan, _but_ on
that page there is a mechanical drawing that gives the dimensions of the whole
thing. So the two together should enable a complete reproduction.

   Noel

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[COURYHOUSE]

Liam, thank you so much for this  information!
I did not know about  all the HACKINTOSH  action out there!

Good to hear that one system will use SATA drive > I will just have  to  
find  some old installable  OS   for it.
The  family of the deceased engineer that passed these on to us  at  the 
SMECC  Museum project   tossed most any  paperwork or media , so  we have  
what is   installed  on the system  and of  course  for the diskless one we are 
 empty handed.
 
We we were out  scrounging now I wish  I had  picked up  more  vintage  MAC 
  paperwork and  discs   now.
We  saved stuff related to the   early MAC and of course  ANYTHING we could 
 find  for the APPLE II.
 
We do also have  something that looks  like an APPLE LISA but not  the 
twiggi (sp?) drive model  I have heard reference to. it turned on  last  time I 
 
tried but just a bunch of  diddle  crap all  over the screen. (bogus 
contents of memory mapped  video or!??  http://www.smecc.org)  
 
 
In a message dated 7/18/2016 12:03:32 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,  
lpro...@gmail.com writes:

On 18  July 2016 at 20:18,   wrote:

Ed,  *please* will you get a proper email client? They work fine with
AOL mail.  I know, I am also liampro...@aol.com & have been for  20y!

>
> will not  load  curvet  os  because?
> "This  is caused by the lack of the 64 bit EFI bios. The  hardware of the
> Mac Pro 1.1 is  already complete 64bit capable  but they do ship the efi 
bios
> only in 32bit   version."
>
> Ed  says. OK whatever an EFI Bios  is

There are ways around  it.

http://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/2015/3/2/how-to-resurrect-a-2006-m
ac-pro-11-so-it-can-run-osx-yosemit.html

Ask  the Hackintosh community:

http://hq-a.weebly.com/

>  -
> ok we also have a -
>
> "The   Power Macintosh G5 shipped from 2003 until 2006. All models pack
>  64-bit PowerPC  970 (G5) processors in an easy-to-upgrade aluminum tower 
 case
> design with a  single external optical drive  bay"
>
> This  one is missing disc  drives...   this  has the neatest  form  
fitting
> insides  of  any of the macs  I have  seen.

Takes any old SATA drive, as  far as I recall. No special firmware needed.

Will run up to OS X 10.5,  nothing later.



-- 
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: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[geneb]

On Mon, 18 Jul 2016, couryho...@aol.com wrote:


Liam, thank you so much for this  information!
I did not know about  all the HACKINTOSH  action out there!


If you've got an Intel cpu, you can run it with VMWare too. :)

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_!

Straight 8 up on Ebay just now

[jim stephens]

25,000, Alexandria, Va.

Josh Dersch can have one for his home and for work.

BTW, about the other nice system noted here, I was hoping the 11/20 
would stay off the radar and not go for a zillion bucks, so much for 
that idea.  At least I have the means to go to Tucson and get it if I'm 
nuts and go for it.


Thanks
Jim

Re: Straight 8 up on Ebay just now

[ethan]

25,000, Alexandria, Va.
Josh Dersch can have one for his home and for work.


Is that a dream price for such a system or realistic? I notice the 
corrosion on the front key.

Re: Straight 8 up on Ebay just now

[Josh Dersch]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 1:58 PM, jim stephens  wrote:

> 25,000, Alexandria, Va.
>
> Josh Dersch can have one for his home and for work.
>

Yeah, that's a pleasant dream :).  I'd have to sell my car and a couple of
vital organs first...


>
> BTW, about the other nice system noted here, I was hoping the 11/20 would
> stay off the radar and not go for a zillion bucks, so much for that idea.
> At least I have the means to go to Tucson and get it if I'm nuts and go for
> it.
>

It was on the radar before it was posted here; it had 11 bids when I got up
this morning and it had barely been listed for 12 hours.  If it doesn't
break $10K I'll be surprised.

- Josh




>
> Thanks
> Jim
>

Re: Straight 8 up on Ebay just now

[Ethan Dicks]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 5:02 PM,   wrote:
>> 25,000, Alexandria, Va.
>> Josh Dersch can have one for his home and for work.
>
> Is that a dream price for such a system or realistic?

Curious myself.  They don't come up every day.  The description says:
"Last turned on the lights worked but the memory appeared not to
work."  I think from posts on similar systems, it could easily be
dirty marginal switch contacts or PSU issues, etc, vs damaged core.

> I notice the corrosion on the front key.

I'll happily sell him a clean key for a mere 1%...

-ethan

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[ben]

On 7/18/2016 11:10 AM, Al Kossow wrote:



On 7/18/16 9:11 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 17:03, Al Kossow  wrote:

"Shiner" started out as an 88110 machine, and some of the architectural
quirks are remnants of that.



This is not enough for me to Google. Could you clarify, please?



you won't find anything on the web about any of this



Can you enlighten the masses, or have you sold your soul to Lucifer
for this knowlage?

Re: Found some stuff at the scrapyard

[COURYHOUSE]

In a message dated 7/17/2016 9:45:20 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,  
a...@p850ug1.demon.co.uk writes:



> 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
 
Yes that is the  41  !  I know better!sorry!
sold oddles of  41s  to surveyors etc... in the   day...



> 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
=
 
thanks  for all this  info!
great  brain refresh!
Ed# _www.smecc.oprg_ (http://www.smecc.oprg)  

Re: Wanted: VT5x roll-around stand

[Glen Slick]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 11:49 AM, Jason T  wrote:
>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/262528352526?orig_cvip=true
>>
>> Someone bought that. Anyone here want to fess up as the buyer? If it
>> was local and cheaper I might have grabbed it myself, even without
>> having space to put it to use at the moment.
>
> It were me what dunnit.  Mea culpa for crimes of hoarding and against
> basement floor space.  Eh, I'll get rid of some generic table to make
> room.

Cool it found a good home. When you finally receive you'll have to
post a photo of it with a VT220 and LK201 installed for use on it.

DEC and Emulex boards (was: DEC boards at recycler)

[Jules Richardson]

I hauled the DEC + friends boards home earlier which I mentioned finding on 
the list last week.


The "unknown" board I'd noted down as M7961 is actually M7951, which Google 
suggests is a DUV11 interface board (whatever one of those may be ;-)


The board with the 128 mmc3764 ICs on it has what I think is a National 
Semiconductor logo on it. Google's no help in IDing the 3764, but I'm 
guessing it's a 64kx1 DRAM or related.


Next up we have the Emulex boards - all "FH" ("full height", 4 bus 
connectors) or "HH" ("half height", 2 bus connectors):


TU0310401, FH, 2x50-pin headers on outer edge.
SU0210401, FH, 1x60-pin and 2x26-pin headers on outer edge.
CU0210402, FH, 2x50 pin and 1x16-pin headers on outer edge.
QD3310401, HH, 1x60-pin on outer edge and 2x26-pin headers just inboard.
QD2110402, HH, 2x20-pin headers on outer edge, then a 34-pin and 10-pin 
header just inboard.


I think all of these boards have at least one 40-pin IC on them with a 
label which generally bears a number close to the ones on the PCBs quoted 
above; I can reel those off if needs be.


But anyway... anyone know from that what any of these boards are? I suspect 
there's some SMD in there, possibly ST506/412 in the case of the one with 
the 34-pin connector. Not sure if I'm lucky* enough for any of the others 
to be SCSI though, or if they're some form of tape (or something else 
entirely).


* I only say that because I have a vague notion to see if I can rustle up a 
backplane somehow and get a minimal system running; it would be kind of fun.


cheers

Jules

Re: DEC and Emulex boards (was: DEC boards at recycler)

[Josh Dersch]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 3:34 PM, Jules Richardson <
jules.richardso...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I hauled the DEC + friends boards home earlier which I mentioned finding
> on the list last week.
>
> The "unknown" board I'd noted down as M7961 is actually M7951, which
> Google suggests is a DUV11 interface board (whatever one of those may be ;-)
>
> The board with the 128 mmc3764 ICs on it has what I think is a National
> Semiconductor logo on it. Google's no help in IDing the 3764, but I'm
> guessing it's a 64kx1 DRAM or related.
>
> Next up we have the Emulex boards - all "FH" ("full height", 4 bus
> connectors) or "HH" ("half height", 2 bus connectors):
>
> TU0310401, FH, 2x50-pin headers on outer edge.
> SU0210401, FH, 1x60-pin and 2x26-pin headers on outer edge.
> CU0210402, FH, 2x50 pin and 1x16-pin headers on outer edge.
> QD3310401, HH, 1x60-pin on outer edge and 2x26-pin headers just inboard.
> QD2110402, HH, 2x20-pin headers on outer edge, then a 34-pin and 10-pin
> header just inboard.
>
> I think all of these boards have at least one 40-pin IC on them with a
> label which generally bears a number close to the ones on the PCBs quoted
> above; I can reel those off if needs be.
>
> But anyway... anyone know from that what any of these boards are? I
> suspect there's some SMD in there, possibly ST506/412 in the case of the
> one with the 34-pin connector. Not sure if I'm lucky* enough for any of the
> others to be SCSI though, or if they're some form of tape (or something
> else entirely).
>

The QD33 is an SMD controller, the QD21 is an ESDI controller.  I'd wager
the TU03 is a Pertec-compatible tape controller.  Nothing looks to be SCSI
to me, unfortunately...

- Josh



>
> * I only say that because I have a vague notion to see if I can rustle up
> a backplane somehow and get a minimal system running; it would be kind of
> fun.
>
> cheers
>
> Jules
>
>

Re: DEC and Emulex boards (was: DEC boards at recycler)

[Glen Slick]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 3:34 PM, Jules Richardson
 wrote:
> I hauled the DEC + friends boards home earlier which I mentioned finding on
> the list last week.
>
> The "unknown" board I'd noted down as M7961 is actually M7951, which Google
> suggests is a DUV11 interface board (whatever one of those may be ;-)
>
> The board with the 128 mmc3764 ICs on it has what I think is a National
> Semiconductor logo on it. Google's no help in IDing the 3764, but I'm
> guessing it's a 64kx1 DRAM or related.
>
> Next up we have the Emulex boards - all "FH" ("full height", 4 bus
> connectors) or "HH" ("half height", 2 bus connectors):
>
> TU0310401, FH, 2x50-pin headers on outer edge.
> SU0210401, FH, 1x60-pin and 2x26-pin headers on outer edge.
> CU0210402, FH, 2x50 pin and 1x16-pin headers on outer edge.

> QD3310401, HH, 1x60-pin on outer edge and 2x26-pin headers just inboard.
QD33 = QBus MSCP compatible SMD-E disk controller
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/emulex/QD3351002-M_QD33_Dec90.pdf

> QD2110402, HH, 2x20-pin headers on outer edge, then a 34-pin and 10-pin
> header just inboard.
QD21 = QBus MSCP compatible ESDI disk controller
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/emulex/QD2151002-J_QD21_Jun90.pdf

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Eric Smith]

On 7/18/2016 11:10 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
> you won't find anything on the web about any of this

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 3:22 PM, ben  wrote:
> Can you enlighten the masses, or have you sold your soul to Lucifer
> for this knowlage?

Even worse! It was sold to Apple!
:-)

Re: DEC and Emulex boards

[Jules Richardson]

On 07/18/2016 05:48 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:

The QD33 is an SMD controller, the QD21 is an ESDI controller.  I'd wager
the TU03 is a Pertec-compatible tape controller.  Nothing looks to be SCSI
to me, unfortunately...


Rats, I was leaning toward there not being any SCSI ones - the ones with 50 
pin connectors didn't seem to match anything I could find online.


I hear that the PSUs that went with the systems these boards came from 
might still survive (they did as of last week, anyway), but the word is 
that everything else - drives, racks, cables etc. - went to landfill long ago.

Re: DEC and Emulex boards

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 7/18/2016 7:07 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:


I hear that the PSUs that went with the systems these boards came from 
might still survive (they did as of last week, anyway), but the word 
is that everything else - drives, racks, cables etc. - went to 
landfill long ago.



Landfill?   Or metals recycling?

- J.

Re: Straight 8 up on Ebay just now

[Ian S. King]

Absent physical trauma, core seems pretty durable.  The electronics around
it may fail but the core planes themselves seem robust.  At least that's
been my experience.  -- Ian

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:17 PM, Ethan Dicks  wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 5:02 PM,   wrote:
> >> 25,000, Alexandria, Va.
> >> Josh Dersch can have one for his home and for work.
> >
> > Is that a dream price for such a system or realistic?
>
> Curious myself.  They don't come up every day.  The description says:
> "Last turned on the lights worked but the memory appeared not to
> work."  I think from posts on similar systems, it could easily be
> dirty marginal switch contacts or PSU issues, etc, vs damaged core.
>
> > I notice the corrosion on the front key.
>
> I'll happily sell him a clean key for a mere 1%...
>
> -ethan
>



-- 
Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate
The Information School 
Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical
Narrative Through a Design Lens

Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal 
Value Sensitive Design Research Lab 

University of Washington

There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."

Re: DEC and Emulex boards

[jim stephens]

On 7/18/2016 5:07 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:
Rats, I was leaning toward there not being any SCSI ones - the ones 
with 50 pin connectors didn't seem to match anything I could find online. 

Here is a Qbus Emulex UC07 image.

http://web.frainresearch.org:8080/projects/pdp-11/troy/images/uc07.jpg

I don't know if there were any wide controllers (68 pin) or what they 
ran from the controller at this time.

Re: DEC and Emulex boards

[Jules Richardson]

On 07/18/2016 07:16 PM, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:

On 7/18/2016 7:07 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:


I hear that the PSUs that went with the systems these boards came from
might still survive (they did as of last week, anyway), but the word is
that everything else - drives, racks, cables etc. - went to landfill long
ago.



Landfill?   Or metals recycling?


Pass :-) I was told the town dump - and although they do have a big 
dumpster for metals, I know they prefer them to be as uncontaminated as 
possible, so I could see them rejecting something that was still full of PCBs.


There is a separate metal recyclers north of town and I expect they might 
take complete systems, but I think they've only been around a few years and 
perhaps weren't there "back then". I also know they outright refuse to sell 
anything that hits the yard, so it's not as though their existence would 
have saved the original hardware.


cheers

Jules

Re: Straight 8 up on Ebay just now

[couryhouse]

Our core in any of our classic 8 has never worked it didn't 30 years ago 
either. ..  just the thought of how many failed components yikes! . 
 something to procrastinate  about..  but I hate to hack out  buckets of 
components. ...
Ed#  www.smecc.org


Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

 Original message 
From: "Ian S. King"  
Date: 7/18/16  17:29  (GMT-07:00) 
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"  
Subject: Re: Straight 8 up on Ebay just now 

Absent physical trauma, core seems pretty durable.  The electronics around
it may fail but the core planes themselves seem robust.  At least that's
been my experience.  -- Ian

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:17 PM, Ethan Dicks  wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 5:02 PM,   wrote:
> >> 25,000, Alexandria, Va.
> >> Josh Dersch can have one for his home and for work.
> >
> > Is that a dream price for such a system or realistic?
>
> Curious myself.  They don't come up every day.  The description says:
> "Last turned on the lights worked but the memory appeared not to
> work."  I think from posts on similar systems, it could easily be
> dirty marginal switch contacts or PSU issues, etc, vs damaged core.
>
> > I notice the corrosion on the front key.
>
> I'll happily sell him a clean key for a mere 1%...
>
> -ethan
>



-- 
Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate
The Information School 
Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical
Narrative Through a Design Lens

Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal 
Value Sensitive Design Research Lab 

University of Washington

There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."

Re: Straight 8 up on Ebay just now

[Mike Ross]

On Jul 18, 2016 2:30 PM, "Ian S. King"  wrote:
>
> Absent physical trauma, core seems pretty durable.  The electronics around
> it may fail but the core planes themselves seem robust.  At least that's
> been my experience.  -- Ian

There are known cases of IBM System/3 core that had failed beyond practical
repair due to products of decayed air-sealing foam contacting and
dissolving core plane wires.

Mike

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[N0body H0me]

> -Original Message-
> From: a...@bitsavers.org
> Sent: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 12:59:44 -0700
> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.
> 
> 
> 
> On 7/18/16 12:44 PM, N0body H0me wrote:
> 
>> I'm astounded.  I didn't think any ever made it to prototype or
>> hard-model
>> stage!  I've seen bare boards for these (up to this point) mythical
>> beasts, but never a living, breathing machine.  Must have been a piece
>> of work.  Do any functional machines still exist?  How did you encounter
>> them?
>> 
> 
> The 88100 si worked. Hurricane never got a functional 88110 before the
> IBM/Apple
> deal. Tessaract never booted MacOS.
> 
> Which bare board did you see?

Long ago, on "The auction site that must not be named", some guy 
was selling an apple-branded case, with a bare motherboard inside
(or, perhaps only sparsely populated).  The seller stated it was
the prototype motherboard for an 88k Mac that was never built.  It
sold for a stupid amount of money

> I was in the RISC products group doing driver and cpu board bringup
> starting with
> the 88100 nubus boards to IBM RSC (never had a functional 88110) then 601
> over to high end desktop product development with TNT.

Wow, so as Walter Cronkite would have said: "...and you were there."
The question I'm dying to ask is: Given the choice between the PPC
and the 88k (and ignoring Motorola's propensity to shoot itself in
the foot), which archetecture would you tend to favor (and why)?


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Flex Disc options for the HP 9825

[Curious Marc]

Probably a question for Tony's encyclopedic knowledge. I just scored two HP 
9825, one a later "T" option and one "B" version with all the fixings (i.e ROM 
packs). They both seem to work save the usual tape drive which I have not 
gotten to yet. Both have the flexible disc ROM. What kind of discs can I hook 
up? I think the HP 9895 8" floppy would work. What about the HP 82901 5.25" 
floppy drive? How do I read/write program files from the disc interface?
Marc

Sent from my iPad

Re: Reproduction micros

[Eric Smith]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 9:59 AM, Liam Proven  wrote:
> In detailed
> technical ways I confess I do not fully understand, the ARM2 and its
> chipset's design was optimised to work with cheap DRAM with relatively
> slow cycle times.

I've seen this claim in the past. I've looked over the chipset design,
and I don't think it did any more wonderful a job of supporting cheap
commodity DRAM than the other common chipsets of the era. Perhaps
someone with greater familiarity with the MEMC chip can tell us if
there is some tricky DRAM support feature I've overlooked.

The only uncommon and particularly clever thing I saw a system do to
optimize for DRAM (as opposed to any other read/write memory type) was
to use the low-order address lines for the DRAM row address, and to
start the DRAM cycle (assert RAS strobe) before the MMU had done the
address translation. This avoids a portion of the DRAM cycle latency
by taking advantage of the DRAM only needing half of the address bits
at the start of the cycle.

If a translation fault occurs, or the upper part of the translated
address turns out not to be intended for the DRAM array (e.g., ROM or
I/O access), the DRAM cycle has to be either:
* completed normally (OK for read cycles, discard the data)
* completed but forced to be a read (OK for read or write cycles, but
for write, don't assert WE signal, and somehow prevent bus contention)
* aborted (never assert CAS strobe, OK for read or write cycles).

I saw this done on at least one MC68000-based systems with a discrete
logic MMU, but I don't recall which one. The technique became
generally inapplicable when MMUs were integrated into tthe CPU chips,
because such CPUs generally don't give you the untranslated low
address bits any sooner than the translated upper address bits.

The technique wasn't generally useful with the MC68451 segmented MMU
or MC68851 paged MMU, because those supported translation granularity
down to 256-byte boundaries, so only six or seven low-order address
lines were unmapped (for 16-bit or 32-bit memory systems,
respectively). DRAMs at 64K and larger capacities require at least
eight row address bits.  Paged MMUs with a minimum page size of 4K
bytes would be somewhat better suited to this technique.

The major drawback to this technique is that it isn't possible to use
DRAM page-mode access to read consecutive locations, because
consecutive locations are in different rows of the DRAM, rather than
in different columns. However, the technique was used in machines that
didn't have hardware support for the processor to request multiple
consecutive sequential accesses, so it didn't matter. The bus support
for bursts of consecutive addresses mostly appeared when caches became
integrated into CPU chips. Note that bursts could still be supported
by interleaving multiple DRAM banks, but that would cut down on the
number of unmapped low address lines available for use for the DRAM
row address, which was barely adequate without interleaving.

Re: DEC and Emulex boards (was: DEC boards at recycler)

[Ethan Dicks]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 6:48 PM, Josh Dersch  wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 3:34 PM, Jules Richardson <
> jules.richardso...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I hauled the DEC + friends boards home earlier which I mentioned finding
>> on the list last week.
>>
>> The "unknown" board I'd noted down as M7961 is actually M7951, which
>> Google suggests is a DUV11 interface board (whatever one of those may be ;-)

It's the Qbus version of a DU11 sync serial interface that can
implement character-based (not bit-stuffed) protocols.  ISTR that
includes HASP and 3780 but I'm not sure what else off the top of my
head.

>> The board with the 128 mmc3764 ICs on it has what I think is a National
>> Semiconductor logo on it. Google's no help in IDing the 3764, but I'm
>> guessing it's a 64kx1 DRAM or related.

Probably a good guess.

>> Next up we have the Emulex boards - all "FH" ("full height", 4 bus
>> connectors) or "HH" ("half height", 2 bus connectors):
>>
>> TU0310401, FH, 2x50-pin headers on outer edge.
>> SU0210401, FH, 1x60-pin and 2x26-pin headers on outer edge.
>> CU0210402, FH, 2x50 pin and 1x16-pin headers on outer edge.
>> QD3310401, HH, 1x60-pin on outer edge and 2x26-pin headers just inboard.
>> QD2110402, HH, 2x20-pin headers on outer edge, then a 34-pin and 10-pin
>> header just inboard.
>>
>> But anyway... anyone know from that what any of these boards are? I
>> suspect there's some SMD in there, possibly ST506/412 in the case of the
>> one with the 34-pin connector.
>
> The QD33 is an SMD controller, the QD21 is an ESDI controller.  I'd wager
> the TU03 is a Pertec-compatible tape controller.  Nothing looks to be SCSI
> to me, unfortunately...

Right.  The connectors also bear that out (SMD is 1x60 + 2(or 4)x26,
Pertec interface is 2x50 (not exclusively), ESDI is the same number of
pins as ST506/MFM, 1x34 and 2(typically)x20, but not interchangable).
ISTR it's not hard to find QD21 and QD33 controllers, but the SMD and
ESDI drives aren't as abundant as they once were.

The CU02 is a serial mux, and Emulex (and DEC) did make 50-pin mux
output connectors for Unibus boards (CS/21, DZ-11...).  You will
probably see on that CS02, 8xSCN2641 UARTs and a bunch of 26LS32
differential line receivers (RS-422 not RS-232, if so) or something
functionally similar.

Cheers,

-ethan

RE: Flex Disc options for the HP 9825

[tony duell]

> Probably a question for Tony's encyclopedic knowledge. I just
> scored two HP 9825, one a later "T" option and one "B" version 
> with all the fixings (i.e ROM packs). They both seem to work
> save the usual tape drive which I have not gotten to yet. Both
> have the flexible disc ROM. What kind of discs can I hook up?

Which flexible disk ROM? There are 2. The older one, AFAIK 
supports the HP9885 8" drive which has a 16 bit parallel interface
and needs the right version of the 98032 to hook it up. The later
disk ROM supports the HP9895 on HPIB.

The older ROM needs a disk with various programs on it to
work, it is essentially just a bootstrap. Have any such disks
survived?

-tony

Re: Straight 8 up on Ebay just now

[Sam O'nella]

There may be some archives here or vcf with enough prices.  Iirc i thought i 
remember one selling for something pretty high (8000/12000?) X years ago 
although i think like this it's a calculated price of doubling the last sale 
they saw. Although apple 1s seem to accomplish whatever that law is called :-)

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Cameron Kaiser]

> "Shiner" shipped as the ANS with AIX
> 
> http://www.erik.co.uk/ans/
> 
> though that isn't what the original "Shiner" was at all.

Chuck Goulsbee talked about a prototype 601 in a Q950 case, but that
sounds like the ancestor to the WGS 9150, not the ANS. Was the
original "Shiner" that system, or was it something else?

I keep hoping another ANS 300 turns up (the only extant one I know is
Chuck's). However, my 500 and 700 systems are still doing just fine.

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- MOVIE IDEA: E.T.E.S.: The Extra Terrestrial E-Mail Signature ---

Re: Flex Disc options for the HP 9825

[Chris Hanson]

On Jul 18, 2016, at 10:06 PM, tony duell  wrote:
> 
>> Probably a question for Tony's encyclopedic knowledge. I just
>> scored two HP 9825, one a later "T" option and one "B" version 
>> with all the fixings (i.e ROM packs). They both seem to work
>> save the usual tape drive which I have not gotten to yet. Both
>> have the flexible disc ROM. What kind of discs can I hook up?
> 
> Which flexible disk ROM? There are 2. The older one, AFAIK 
> supports the HP9885 8" drive which has a 16 bit parallel interface
> and needs the right version of the 98032 to hook it up. The later
> disk ROM supports the HP9895 on HPIB.

I didn't look at the back to see what interface it has, but there was an HP 
9885M that looked pretty decent at Weird Stuff on Sunday ($75).

It was atop an HP 9000/236 ($150).

There were a couple other HP PA-RISC systems there, as well as a couple IBM 
RS/6000 desktops and what looked like a PS/2 Model 80, an Epson of some sort, 
and a Panasonic Sr. Partner.

And a nice looking Macintosh LC III for which they were asking too much, though 
I still considered it seriously since it was an LC III with an included 
10Base-T card…

  -- Chris