Re: DECmate, Rainbow, and Pro 350/380 parts
On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 11:03:45PM -0500, Paul Anderson wrote: > I just dug out what might be my last extra DECmate II CPU for a list > member, and now have access to several Pro and Rainbow CPUs and other parts. > > If you have any interest, please contact me off list. Shipping from > Illinois. Hi Paul I might be a little late to the party. But do you have a color graphics board for a 380? It is distinct from the 350 graphics. Also, a Telephone Management System (TMS) would be interresting. Kind Regards, Pontus.
Re: the value of old test and repair equipment
Yes, quite interested, HP test equipment is a significant part of my collection. Most of what I get is untested. Would need model number and photos of course. Marc Sent from my iPad > On Jul 28, 2016, at 12:52 PM, Electronics Plus wrote: > > I had to pass up a large qty of old test equip at the recycler last time > because they wanted too much for it. For instance, an old HP signal > generator would have cost me $25, with no way to test it, and no guarantees > that it was complete or working. So my question is, does as-is old test and > repair equip that won't be particularly cheap have interest to you guys? > > > > Cindy Croxton > > Electronics Plus > > 500 Pershing Ave. > > Kerrville, TX 78028 > > 830-370-3239 cell > > sa...@elecplus.com > > AOL IM elcpls > > >
Re: DECmate, Rainbow, and Pro 350/380 parts
Only too late if it's gone. I have a complete spare 380 board with ( I think) 3 daughter boards on it, or maybe that was a Rainbow. I haven't found the boards that plug in on the side yet. Any part numbers? On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 2:25 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 11:03:45PM -0500, Paul Anderson wrote: > > I just dug out what might be my last extra DECmate II CPU for a list > > member, and now have access to several Pro and Rainbow CPUs and other > parts. > > > > If you have any interest, please contact me off list. Shipping from > > Illinois. > > Hi Paul > > I might be a little late to the party. But do you have a color graphics > board for a 380? It is distinct from the 350 graphics. > > Also, a Telephone Management System (TMS) would be interresting. > > Kind Regards, > Pontus. >
Re: more vintage computer stuff
>> I also participate in at least one of the "dreaded" keyboard forums. >> Why are they so dreaded to you guys? Well, personally, the biggest reason is that they require that I subject myself to the Web. I recognize that few people share this attitude. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
Re: Nova 3 front panel
Today I received copies of the schematic and parts layout for the Nova 3 panel from Peter Simpson. I believe Perer also sent a copy to bitsavers. Thanks Peter!! The correct part number for the bulbs is 014-02, which makes it a CM2176 equivalent. The CM2176 has only a 1000 hour expected lifetime. Reviewing the specs for the CM2185 and CM2187 which were proposed as replacements, the CM2187 is the better fit. Both bulbs would be noticeably dimmer than the originals, with the CM2187 about 34% as bright. The CM2187 bulbs powered by 24V can be expected to last 44+ thousand hours. If a bright bulb is desired, the CM8361 is closer, but it would draw 60 mA instead of the 50 mA of the original bulb. (Even so, it would still be only 76% as bright as the original.) Mouser also has the JKL version of the CM7001, which has the correct electrical and brightness specs, but is a bi-pin bulb, rather than wire terminal. (Also only lasts 2000 hours.) Hope this is helping. Vince
Re: more vintage computer stuff
> From: Mouse > they require that I subject myself to the Web. > I recognize that few people share this attitude. Well, I sorta understand; the modern 'active content' mania causes me to grind my teeth, too. But the non-active Web has major benefits. E.g. I read this list via the (entirely non-active :-) archive page, so my mailbox doesn't get cluttered up with the dross. Noel
Re: DECmate, Rainbow, and Pro 350/380 parts
Hello Paul, hope you are fine now. I'm interested too to Pro380 boards, because I have a machine with almost no expansion. I'm trying to contact you since weeks, sent some emails but never received an acknowledgement. Maybe there are problems with spam-killers? Please check your email and let me know if you didn't receive anything. Thanks Andrea
Question re Teac MT-2ST encoder roller tire
Recently acquired a Teac MT-2ST SCSI cassette tape drive and am attempting to recondition it. Although it does have direct drive motors on both reels (no rubber bands), the design is still plagued by having a rubber roller "tire" on its encoder roller which has turned to a very sticky goo for half its length on my unit. Thankfully, Bitsavers not only has the service manual for this unit, but also photos! This photo shows the encoder roller and tire: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/teac/MT-2ST/photos/2.JPG The tire appears to be 1 cm wide, 1.5mm thick, and ~1/4" tall (for the 1/4" tape). The tire is inset into the metal roller wheel. Has anyone successfully attempted replacing this tire, and if so, how did you do it? I've removed the tire -- half of which was pure goo -- and am thinking maybe to fill the tire inset void with an elastomeric caulk, smoothing it out to meet the outer edge of the rest of the roller. A really short rubber band about the size of a pinky finger would work nicely also. Thank you- -John
Re: Question re Teac MT-2ST encoder roller tire
On 07/29/2016 12:07 PM, j...@cimmeri.com wrote: > > Recently acquired a Teac MT-2ST SCSI cassette tape drive and am > attempting to recondition it. > > Although it does have direct drive motors on both reels (no rubber > bands), the design is still plagued by having a rubber roller "tire" > on its encoder roller which has turned to a very sticky goo for half > its length on my unit. Instead of fooling around with a baling-wire-and-bubblegum solution, you're probably best off sending the roller for rebuilding by Terry: http://www.terrysrubberrollers.com/ He does a bang-up job and he's not frighteningly expensive. You'll get something back that will last for many years. --Chuck
Re: DECmate, Rainbow, and Pro 350/380 parts
Hi Andrea, I replied but maybe you didn't get it. I'll check me sent file later. You have a unit with power supply , CPU, and no boards? Which boards do you need? Thanks, Paul On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 1:58 PM, shad wrote: > Hello Paul, > hope you are fine now. > I'm interested too to Pro380 boards, because I have a machine with almost > no expansion. > I'm trying to contact you since weeks, sent some emails but never received > an acknowledgement. > Maybe there are problems with spam-killers? > > Please check your email and let me know if you didn't receive anything. > > Thanks > Andrea >
Re: DECmate, Rainbow, and Pro 350/380 parts
On 7/29/2016 12:51 PM, Paul Anderson wrote: Hi Andrea, I replied but maybe you didn't get it. I'll check me sent file later. You have a unit with power supply , CPU, and no boards? Which boards do you need? Thanks, Paul Paul, I also sent along a reply, and am interested if Andrea can't swing it, or noone else does. (in the main board, etc). I have a 350 and 380 with no hard drive, and would like to replace the drives and restore the systems to operation of some sort. thanks Jim On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 1:58 PM, shad wrote: Hello Paul, hope you are fine now. I'm interested too to Pro380 boards, because I have a machine with almost no expansion. I'm trying to contact you since weeks, sent some emails but never received an acknowledgement. Maybe there are problems with spam-killers? Please check your email and let me know if you didn't receive anything. Thanks Andrea
MicroVax II
I just got a MicroVax II in the BA123 world box chassis. I has a TK50, RX50, RXDQ2, but no DEQNA. I'd like to get it running an OS. The DU disks don't work, but I have a couple of Qbus SCSI controllers that might come in handy. Can you use those SD to SCSI convertors in this type of configuration? Anyone have experience with this? What OS's can I use with this hardware? NetBSD? Are versions of VMS available? How do you get an OS onto this system?
Re: MicroVax II
Hi Doug, I've used an SCSI2SD v5 in a Symbolics XL1201 as both CD-ROM and 1280-byte sector Hard Drive mode successfully. I don't know anything about a MicroVax II, but I would be happy to tell you what I know of the SCSI2SD. (I've actually put several in one computer simultaneously.) Cheers, Doug > On Jul 29, 2016, at 9:08 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote: > > Can you use those SD to SCSI convertors in this type of configuration? > Anyone have experience with this?
Re: MicroVax II
> On Jul 29, 2016, at 6:08 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote: > > I just got a MicroVax II in the BA123 world box chassis. I has a TK50, RX50, > RXDQ2, but no DEQNA. I'd like to get it running an OS. > > The DU disks don't work, but I have a couple of Qbus SCSI controllers that > might come in handy. > > Can you use those SD to SCSI convertors in this type of configuration? > Anyone have experience with this? > > What OS's can I use with this hardware? NetBSD? Are versions of VMS > available? How do you get an OS onto this system? The all around best choice would be VAX/VMS v5.5-2. You can get Hobbyist licenses. The OS was available as part of the Hobbyist program. If you add a SCSI adapter, you can hopefully attach a CD. IIRC, it will run up to either v7.2 or 7.3, at least I know I had v7.2 on a MicroVAX III (well, technically I still do, if it will boot). Ultrix would also be available. What I did though was I gave it a brain transplant, and converted mine to a PDP-11 once I got a better VAX. I need to invest in a couple of those SD adapters myself. I’d really like to put one on one of my AlphaStation 200 4/233’s. Hopefully they’ll still work. It’s been years since I’ve done anything with my DEC HW. :-( Zane
Re: MicroVax II
On 2016-07-29 9:08 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote: I just got a MicroVax II in the BA123 world box chassis. I has a TK50, RX50, RXDQ2, but no DEQNA. I'd like to get it running an OS. The DU disks don't work, but I have a couple of Qbus SCSI controllers that might come in handy. Can you use those SD to SCSI convertors in this type of configuration? Anyone have experience with this? What OS's can I use with this hardware? NetBSD? Are versions of VMS available? How do you get an OS onto this system? NetBSD is an option. The most recent version I've run on a MicroVAX II (9MB) is 1.4.1, netbooted (couldn't find a netbootable distribution of anything more recent; also a 9MB machine might not run much more recent). You probably want to chase down a DELQA. --Toby
Re: MicroVax II
> I just got a MicroVax II in the BA123 world box chassis. I has a > TK50, RX50, RXDQ2, but no DEQNA. I'd like to get it running an OS. > The DU disks don't work, but I have a couple of Qbus SCSI controllers > that might come in handy. Ooh, those are (my impression!) substantially rarer than DEQNAs. (I know _I_'d cheerfully swap a DEQNA for Qbus SCSI.) > What OS's can I use with this hardware? NetBSD? Yes. Recent (and some not-so-recent) versions are broken, in that they can't self-host; as far as I know nobody knows exactly what's wrong. My impression (as someone who hasn't tried it, but who has seen it discussed on port-vax) is that something breaks somewhere in the compiler when running native. You may also find recent(ish) versions are too resource-hungry; the MicroVAX-II can't have more than 16M RAM, which is pretty tiny by modern NetBSD's standards (pretty much ever since they relegated most ports to second-class, er, sorry, "organic" status). Fortunately, older NetBSD is still available; I think it's even available from netbsd.org. I don't have any VAXen up at the moment (I'm more constrained than historically usual about how many computers I have live or almost-live), or I'd offer to build you a tarball; I can do that anyway, but I won't be in a position to test whether it actually works, that it may be suboptimal. > Are versions of VMS available? I imagine so, but I don't actually know, since I haven't gone looking for any. (I have fond memories of my VMS days, but as long as it remains closed-source, I'm not running it.) > How do you get an OS onto this system? Same way you would any other system. In your case, I see four options: tapes, floppies (I think the RX50 is a floppy drive?), netboot (if you can find a network for the thing), and putting the disk on another machine and plopping the install on it there. Personally, I'd be installing NetBSD, and I'd probably dig out a spare DEQNA, netboot, then install onto local disk from the netbooted system. In extremis, I might download a grappling-hook program via memory binary deposit commands, then ship stuff over the console serial line. This would work, but would be slow; I think the fastest the console serial can run is 19200, or maybe 38400. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
Re: MicroVax II
On Jul 29, 2016, at 8:30 PM, Zane Healy wrote: > > >> On Jul 29, 2016, at 6:08 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote: >> >> I just got a MicroVax II in the BA123 world box chassis. I has a TK50, >> RX50, RXDQ2, but no DEQNA. I'd like to get it running an OS. >> >> The DU disks don't work, but I have a couple of Qbus SCSI controllers that >> might come in handy. >> >> Can you use those SD to SCSI convertors in this type of configuration? >> Anyone have experience with this? >> >> What OS's can I use with this hardware? NetBSD? Are versions of VMS >> available? How do you get an OS onto this system? > > The all around best choice would be VAX/VMS v5.5-2. You can get Hobbyist > licenses. The OS was available as part of the Hobbyist program. If you add > a SCSI adapter, you can hopefully attach a CD. IIRC, it will run up to > either v7.2 or 7.3, at least I know I had v7.2 on a MicroVAX III (well, > technically I still do, if it will boot). > > Ultrix would also be available. > > What I did though was I gave it a brain transplant, and converted mine to a > PDP-11 once I got a better VAX. > > I need to invest in a couple of those SD adapters myself. I’d really like to > put one on one of my AlphaStation 200 4/233’s. Hopefully they’ll still work. > It’s been years since I’ve done anything with my DEC HW. :-( > I have booted both V7.3 and V5.5-2 off a 4GB SD with SCSI2SD V4.6 on a MicroVax II with 16 Mb. Note that DEQNA will not work (at all) on either version. You’ll need a DELQA. You should be able to build a system with an emulator and then copy the binary to an SD card. i’ve taken images both ways without problems. Alternately if you get a DELQA, you can netboot off of another Vaxen and build an bootable disk that way. Jerry
Re: MicroVax II
On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 6:08 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote: > I just got a MicroVax II in the BA123 world box chassis. I has a TK50, > RX50, RXDQ2, but no DEQNA. I'd like to get it running an OS. > > The DU disks don't work, but I have a couple of Qbus SCSI controllers that > might come in handy. > > What OS's can I use with this hardware? NetBSD? Are versions of VMS > available? How do you get an OS onto this system? What Qbus SCSI controllers do you have? The CMD CQD-200 CQD-220, Dilog SQ706A, Emulex UC07 I have tried were all able to boot from an appropriate SCSI CD-ROM drive. That how I usually go about installing OpenVMS 7.3 on a Qbus VAX. I never got around to picking up a SCSI-SD adapter yet. I just use old fashioned rotating drives, although they are 68-pin drives with 50-pin adapters. I have a BA123 that I maxed out as a something close to a VAXstation III/GPX. Replaced the M7606 KA630 with a M7625 KA655. There are only 4 Q22/CD slots so normally you can only have 48MB using 3 M7622 MS650 16MB boards plus the CPU. I found a couple of third-party 32MB boards to max out at 64MB. Added a (2x) M7168 + M7169 VCB02 set for the GPX graphics. The BA123 is an interesting item for DEC collectors and I'm glad I was able to pick one up, although it's been a while now since I last powered it up.
Re: MicroVax II
> On Jul 29, 2016, at 6:08 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote: > > What OS's can I use with this hardware? NetBSD? Are versions of VMS > available? How do you get an OS onto this system? By the way, from an educational standpoint, this is a very good system to run VMS on, if you’re looking to learn about performance tuning. Any changes you make will be very apparent. :-) Zane
Re: MicroVax II
> > On 30 July 2016 at 02:30 Zane Healy wrote: > > > > > On Jul 29, 2016, at 6:08 PM, Douglas Taylor > > wrote: > > > > I just got a MicroVax II in the BA123 world box chassis. I has a TK50, > > RX50, RXDQ2, but no DEQNA. I'd like to get it running an OS. > > > > The DU disks don't work, but I have a couple of Qbus SCSI controllers > > that might come in handy. > > > > Can you use those SD to SCSI convertors in this type of configuration? > > Anyone have experience with this? > > > > What OS's can I use with this hardware? NetBSD? Are versions of VMS > > available? How do you get an OS onto this system? > > The all around best choice would be VAX/VMS v5.5-2. You can get Hobbyist > licenses. The OS was available as part of the Hobbyist program. If you add a > SCSI adapter, you can hopefully attach a CD. IIRC, it will run up to either > v7.2 or 7.3, at least I know I had v7.2 on a MicroVAX III (well, technically I > still do, if it will boot). > > Ultrix would also be available. > > What I did though was I gave it a brain transplant, and converted mine to > a PDP-11 once I got a better VAX. > > I need to invest in a couple of those SD adapters myself. I’d really like > to put one on one of my AlphaStation 200 4/233’s. Hopefully they’ll still > work. It’s been years since I’ve done anything with my DEC HW. :-( > > Zane > > > > Zane, OT reply, but I have been looking for anyone with a working AlphaStation 200 4/233 who could run a test for me. If you get VMS (7.2-1 iirc) running on one of them would you be prepared to run a test program of mine on it that would dump the DROM and the NVRAM? Thanks Rob
