end. Please.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene, The Old Calculator Museum
https://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Beavercreek, Oregon USA
AI-generated content. "Facts" will become irrelevant.
To which Cameron K. replied:
> We call this "politics."
I am compelled to say "Here, here!!!"
It could not have been defined any better or more succinctly, although I think
you are discrediting AI (tongue in cheek
> Been waiting 45 years for the new IBM OS. Not holding my breath. :)
Ahhh...but are you sure we're all not already running as tasks under OS/VR?
:-)
-Rick
On Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 1:35 PM Rick Bensene via cctalk
wrote:
...
> If anyone out there had experience with
> GE timeshared systems, or may know of existence of any distribution
> media or source listings of the systems, or perhaps has memories of using
> them, I'd
> l
f using them, I'd love
to read about it.If you think it might be of general interest to the list,
post it to the list, but you are certainly welcome to send it to me directly at
moc-dot-enesneb+at+bkcir (backwards with special characters spelled out to
hopefully prevent it being snarfed up by 5p@mm3rZ).
Thanks for reading, and best to all!
Rick Bensene
https://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Beavercreek, Oregon USA
Fred Cisin wrote:
> We have our own non-theological religious wars, such as vi vs emacs.
sed. Enough sed.
-Rick
Glen S. wrote:
> Jane, get me off this crazy list.
How many here catch this reference?
Very nice, Glenvery nice.
-Rick
of them were made,
and fortunately, some have survived to this day. I don't know if any of the
machines that still exist are actually in running condition today, but there
were a few of them that were known to be running in the decade of 2000.
Rick Bensene
The Old C
Guy wrote:
> I'd be interested in the unibus SMD controllers ...
I'd be interested in one also, for my 11/34A, and a couple of Fujitsu pure SMD
drives I have. Would
Be a lot faster than the RL02s.
-Rick Bensene
firstnamelastinit...@lastname.com
Dwight wrote:
> As a kid, I used a handful of radioshack relays to make a sequenced
> electrical lock. One had to
> enter four each four bit numbers to turn on the lock. Any wrong number and
> you had to start over. I > think that was first the first time I did a
> logical design. You'd set the
g
enough for him to assure that after he was gone it would have some means by
which it could continue on in his memory.
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
https://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Beavercreek, Oregon USA
he amazing people that made the LCM what it was.
Rest in Pieces, DCM (Dead Computer Museum).
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old (and still living) Calculator Museum
https://oldcalculatormuseum.com
embedded as part of its operation. I believe one of Elon Musk's
companies is working on that and has been for some time.Perhaps that device
may well redefine the meaning of a "personal" computer.
Perhaps more appropriately the "computer personal" (the computer
display, and could be programmed to generate
alphanumeric prompts on the display, but I don't believe (off the top of my
head, I could be wrong) it had the capability to accept and process
alpha-numerics out of the box.
The HP 9820 and 9830 were introduced in June of 1972. Seven years before
a bureaucracy to go through before they
could get one.
Perhaps the distinction noted isn't quite as clear cut as indicated.
-Rick
PS: Carey, I am working on a response to your message from yesterday, it's just
taking a while, hopefully it'll arrive to you later today or tomorrow sometime.
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
https://oldcalculatormuseum.com
'm not arguing that any of these, including the Programma 101, are the first
"personal computers" by any means. I'm just adding some thoughts to the
discussion.
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
https://oldcalculatormuseum.com
extension, the
personal computer.
Notice I didn't specify any machine, or say "first". Slippery slope there.
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
https://oldcalculatormuseum.com
On 5/20/24 10:25, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
>>> American Computer Museum
>>> Computer History Museum
>>> Computer Museum of America
>>> Large Scale Systems Museum
>>> Rhode Island Computer Museum
>>> System Source Computer Museum
Of course, there's the Living Computer Museum--oh, wait
.
item.
You can learn more about the Wang 300-Series calculators by going to
https://oldcalculatormuseum.com/calcman.html#MFG-WANG . There is also
information on HP's 9100B, as well as most of the 9800-series that can be found
by scrolling up on that same page, as well as many other electronic c
Bill wrote:
> I'll bet the source was talking about large contemporary storage >
> units that looked like drums or may have been called "drums" but
> were not actual 50's drum memory with tubes and such. There was no >
> rotating drum storage, the media rotates in the PDP era.
> Take a look at
On Fri, Apr 5, 2024 at 1:45 PM Van Snyder via cctalk
wrote:
> I have a Dell Vostro.
Sellam responded:
>Um...
...Yeah.
I wrote:
>> The digits are among the nicest looking digits that I've ever seen
>> on a CRT display, including those on the CDC scopes as well as IBM >>
>> console displays.
To which Paul responded:
> I have, somewhere, a copy of a paper that describes analog circuits > for
> generating wavef
Paul wrote:
> The DD60 and its associated controller in the mainframe (6612 or 6602) was an
> > interesting beast. The interface between controller and display is a
> hybrid, > with the positioning information delivered as 9 bits each of X and
> Y, but the > character vectors are generated in
>> And still works! Built to withstand an atomic bombardment.
Except for the EMP. It'll theoretically render such devices nice looking,
well-built scrap.
The old completely vacuum-tube-based, discrete component oscilloscope from back
in the day may actually survive such an event if it's outs
Unsticking stiction is different than dislodging a stuck actuator.
Stiction is where the heads resting on the disk surface resist the torque of
the spindle drive, causing the drive not to spin up. Generally it is caused by
weak driver transistors in the spindle drive such that the spindle mot
Just make sure when you torque the drive as mentioned that you rotate it in as
close to the same axis of rotation as the platter(s) spin as possible, as any
other direction of torque could cause the head(s) to impact the platter(s) with
more energy than desirable, especially if the head(s) are p
Steve Lewis wrote:
> then like the 4004, we're struggling to find evidence of actual products that
> made use of them. Wasn't the 4004 used in some cash registers, street
> lights, or > some weighing machines? (I don't have any specific references,
> just recollections > from past reading)
r device to
use a microprocessor to create its functionality.The rest is history.
There's a piece of the story left hanging, though.
That's a very, very interesting story that will have to wait until I get all of
my ducks in a row to tell, which I will do on the Old Calculator Mus
Mike wrote:
...
Gawd, I still remember those numbers, some 60 years later; so why can't I
remember my thirty-year old cell phone number...
Because you rarely, if ever, call it. ;-)
Mattis Lind wrote:
>There have been a number of Ebay listings for various ns32k software, QIC
>tapes and 1/2 inch tapes. >I thought I would buy them if there were no other
>bids to try to recover the contents.
...
>But there was a buyer and I didn't want to fight over something where I
Chuck wrote:
> The terminal consisted of a leadscrew-fed printing head with a vertical
> typewheel rotating
> perpendicular to the (tractor-feed) paper. Said typewheel was in contact
> with an ink-soaked felt
> wheel. Carriage return was accomplished via a large spring. Utter
> steampunk
Just to add, interestingly, Singer also purchased General Precision from
Librascope.
Librascope/General Precision were the folks that had earlier acquired
Royal-McBee. Royal-McBee developed the wonderful (some consider the first
"personal" computer) LGP-30 vacuum-tube, magnetic drum computer t
Tony wrote:
> Didn't Singer own Friden (or at least the name) at one point? I am sure I've
> seen calculators
> batched(sic) 'Singer Friden').
Yup. In July of 1963, Singer announced its intent to purchase Friden. The
deal closed in October.
It was all a part of a larger diversification mov
h the various distribution networks around the region
for about 10 years before it was replaced by, I believe, a process-control
computer system developed by General Electric.
Thanks for your nice video on this great old system that had a similar role
back in the day!
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
https://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Beavercreek, Oregon USA
or DVST shrunk quite dramatically. Desktop workstations
(like Sun, Apollo, Perq, etc.) with graphics capabilities that met or exceeded
those of the 4050-series quickly took the place of these watershed machines.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene, Curator
The Old Calculator (and some computers, too) Museum
Beavercreek, Oregon USA
Earlier today, I wrote:
>> Doubtful that VW Bug was on the Autobahn at the time, and, while the
>> advertisement was very
>> novel with a full-on minicomputer in the back seat of a VW Bug, the amount
>> of data
>> potentially being transported was likely only 4K 12-bit words, or 48K bits.
>> Si
>
>> yes. a Kombi full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
>
> ...down the Autobahn.
Ben F. wrote regarding transport of data in a moving vehicle:
> the Autobahn...
> https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/artifact/331/1893
Doubtful that VW Bug was on the Autobahn at the time, and, wh
eacher for realizing that my
unique way of typing worked very well for me, didn't affect the results of what
was required, and thus left me alone and didn't try to force the "correct" way
on me.
It is unfortunate that the insight that this teacher had is not more common in
t had to be a
monumental task to make all of the arrangements, not to mention simply
maintaining it all for the years after Jon's passing.
Most sincerely,
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com
Beavercreek, Oregon USA
ing all of the documentation for
end-users as well as service techs. A number of follow-on calculators
were marketed by Diehl using the architecture Frankel created, including
some advanced machines with scientific and statistical functions.
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com
ould see what
you've got, I could determine if you've got any of the ones I'm seeking.
I looked through the pix, but didn't see any photos of anything but the Perq
stuff, which is way cool...congrats on having some cool machines.
Thanks,
-Rick
--
Rick Bense
I took the upside down image, flipped it, and did some image enhancement on it
to make out the legends on the indicators and switches. Based on what I see,
my suspicion seems plausible.
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Johan Helsingius wrote:
>Anyone else getting duplicate messages from this list? I get 2 copies of
>most (but not all) messages, with the second copy often arriving
>significantly later.
I experience the same thing.
-Rick
Bill D. wrote:
>
> So I thought I'd try my hand at the FANUC TAPE READER A860. I may need to
> make a serial cable (?) to connect from
> the internal connector don't know yet. Or maybe the internal 50-pin port
> from the photos is for the punch. Don't know yet, thus the need for the
> manual.
>
ing but air behind it.
Is this the way the system was really put together?
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Sorrythis was meant to go to just Josh, but accidentally copied to the list.
My apologies.
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rick Bensene
via cctalk
Sent: Tuesday
Hi, Josh,
I can't possibly think about getting this wonderful old beast from you, but
something about the photos captured my curiosity.
In the background of one of the photos (#1, IIRC) is the front panel of what
appears to be a 12-bit computer (ala PDP 8), but the panel is most decidedly
not
ree/ resource. I just made a $25 donation myself. Every
little bit helps.
Best wishes for a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday to all,
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Beavercreek, Oregon USA
AIM-65 display board, and try to write a message out to the display
to test it, but that seems like a lot of work. I'd rather just fix what's up
with the AIM-65, and get it running.
Any thoughts from those out there as to what to do next would certainly be
appreciated. I always value the collective knowledge of the members of this
list.
Thanks,
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
nd of the five, three knew what
it was, and two were just curious about it because it caught their eye,
but they didn't know what it was. The two that were curious were
completely blown away when I demonstrated it to them.I would have
expected that more folks would have noticed t
In an earlier posting, I stated that the 4014 (with its 19" DVST tube)
was the largest DVST display that Tektronix made, to which
Paul K. responded:
> An article about those terminals also turns up the 4016 (25 inch tube
-- 4014 is 19 inches). I'm not sure any more which of the two it
> was.
I
was the largest production
DVST tube that Tektronix made.
It was also used in the 4054 computer.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Bill D. wrote:
>Random question
>would you prefer having, if you had to pick only one, the original PDP
>11/70 or the newer "blue cabinets" PDP 11/70, assuming both were complete
>configurations with racks of storage etc as they would have been sold, more
>or less.
>Assume space and power are not
dcomp, then when the Cyber was to be brought back up,
two switch presses on the Modcomp (can't remember the first key, perhaps
something like INIT), then START, and it was ready to go for when the Cyber
came up.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Earlier, I wrote:
>> The whole desktop metaphor UI existed long before Windows 95 in non-Unix
>> implementations by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research >>Center) with the
>> pioneering Xerox Alto, introduced in 1973, which implemented Alan Kay's
>> concepts for the desktop metaphor that >>were post
Curious Marc wrote:
>Curiously, the Xerox Alto has quite advanced GUI and object oriented
>programming (including the smalltalk windowing environment), >but no desktop
>metaphor or icons that I have seen. I believe desktop metaphors appear later
>in the Alto commercial successor, the >Xerox S
already existed in the world of UI design, and made their own implementation
based on those concepts.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
an job.
My contact wants it out of there. You just have to come get it and
haul it away.
If you have any serious interest in rescuing this system, drop me an
Email, and I'll put you in touch with my contact.
Hopefully someone out there can give this machine a new home.
Email: rickb .at. bensene .dot. com
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
have a .tap image, please put it somewhere where
Time Shared BASIC fans can download it and take a look at what's there. If
it's a HIBernate tape, could potentially be fired up under SimH and run just as
it was the day the tape was made.
If it's a 9-Track tape, I do have ability to
ghts and prayers.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Paul wrote, concerning my "fireworks" show on the DD60 console of
Tektronix' Cyber 73 system:
>That's really weird. Here's why. The DD60 only has a single set of
X/Y drive chains. It's all differential, so there are four of
everything, ?>ending up at the pair of X and pair of Y plates of the
go it.
The little "fireworks" display I was front and center to witness will be
something that I'll never forget.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
ld be cool if it could be found and archived.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
letely wrong, though, as I am not at a place where I can look at
the old Sun 4/280 system I have to compare the covers with the photo - and
there were lots of machines in the '90's that were physically large and heavy
that used similar chassis materials.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
down) are forthcoming from Microsoft and various
Linux trees.
The best defense, however, is simply call your ISP and tell them you want your
connection turned off. ;-)
It's getting really dangerous out there.
-Rick
---
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
r
pad.
The threading operation would be tedious. Generally there would be a special
needle-like tool that would be used to thread the wire for each word.
Definitely an interesting piece.
-Rick
---
Rick Bensene, The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
-Original Messa
adhesive people) 2018, Control
Data 160/160-A, Digital Equipment PDP-1, HP 2100-series, Data
Acquisition Corp. DAC-512.it could go on and on.
I was writing my message as I was getting ready to head off to work, and
had to stop before I ended up being late.
-Rick
---
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
On 11/15/2017 11:59 AM, Rick Bensene via cctalk wrote:
> While the definition of the term "personal computer" varies depending
> on who is using the term, these machines, and others like them, were
> designed to be used at a much more personal level than the large-scale
&
ile the definition of the term "personal computer" varies depending
on who is using the term, these machines, and others like them, were
designed to be used at a much more personal level than the large-scale
mainframe machines housed in the glass-walled rooms where only "spe
Al K. wrote:
>there are two versions. the 1981 8560 uses microp 1200, later ones have xebec
>1410 and are sasi
>070-3899-00_8560_MSDU_Installation_Guide_Nov81.pdf
>070-4759-00_8560_8561_8562_Service_Mar84.pdf
If the 8560 in question uses the 8" hard disk drive from Micropolis, then
Bitsavers a
d I was able write a driver for it for the FLEX operating system.
I wouldn't try plugging anything into that external connector, unless it's an
original Tektronix disk expansion unit for the 8560.
Of course, as mentioned, this is all IIRC (If I Recall Correctly).
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
HP 9100A
came out in '68. I don't want to diminish its place in history in any way.
But...
...Maybe I should put it up on eBay, as-is, for let's say, oh, $30K?
Sheesh.
-Rick
---
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
f choice, but do they do MSCP?
I'd love to head any comments from those "in the know" out there. Are there
other alternatives other than Emulex that may work well also?
Thanks for reading!
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Beavercreek, Oregon
icate with
frequently. I am sure he will love this remembrance of his father.
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
From: Christian Corti via cctalk
Sent: Jul 19, 2017 4:20 AM
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Subject: Diehl Combitron
across this
earlier today on eBay.
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
both drives good, amazingly) but the
bezel was missing when I got it.
It'd be nice to have, as it looks rather dumpy in the rack with the rest of the
system.
Best wishes to all,
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Beavercreek, Oregon USA
Sorry all, this was meant to be a personal Email. Still haven't gotten used
to the new way that the list works.
My apologies.
-Rick
-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rick Bensene
via cctalk
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2017 1:11
> I was helping out someone here locally to dig thru a pile of electronics that
> he had obtained in helping out a woman clean out her house.
> Her husband passed away and she wanted the space back. Apparently the
> husband "somehow" dealt in HW repair.
> A good number of the items were known b
akfast/dinner) while I'm there.
Unless this is a topic of general interest to the group, it'd probably be best
to reply to me directly rather than post responses to the list.
Many thanks,
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
made
machines for SCM and Victor), and Olympia.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
not entirely sure which one of these it is, but it's likely one or the
other.
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalcualtormuseum.com
I initially wrote in response to this thread:
- A Tektronix 4132 Unix workstation using a National 32016 CPU and
a 4.2bsd port called UTek
>> Jon responded:
>>
>>> Gee, how does it perform? I built a clone of a Logical Microcomputer Co.
>>> 32016 Multibus system and got it working.
>
On 12.01.2017 20:49, Rick Bensene wrote:
>>
>> - A Tektronix 4052 desktop computer (bit-slice implementation of Motorola
>> 6800 CPU) with very rare RAM Disk module installed under keyboard
To which Jos D. asked:
>Is this RAM disk module documented ?
>Sounds like a possi
> From: "Rick Bensene"
>> - A Tektronix 4132 Unix workstation using a National 32016 CPU and a
>> 4.2bsd port called UTek
>>
Jon wrote:
>Gee, how does it perform? I built a clone of a Logical Microcomputer Co.
>32016 Multibus system and got it working.
of their early computers)
---
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Ben Wrote:
>
> Where are the Female Computers?
> Hal
>To which Dave W. replied:
>Here they were ...
>http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3311/3214242023_ca5f2425a2_o.jpg
And, to this I say - BRILLIANT! These ladies were indeed called
computers back in those days!
-Rick
rtunately, through pure luck, I
did manage to find that old IMSAI that we builtand it is in my collection
today, and works great. A story for another time.
So, even though I was born a bit late to have been "in the prime time" of the
earlier computers, I did get the rare experience fo
t; drive, spin it up, and hope for no bad
noises.
Based on Klemens' method, this is probably being overly cautious, but
it's worked well for me.
Rick Bensene
to put at the top of the rack.
If anyone (Rod S. (aka Panelman) seems a great possibility) ends up making
something that is reasonably accurate and looks good, I'd sign up to buy one
straight away.
-Rick
---
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
ong some other stuff from Wang
Laboratories).
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
old 1/4" QIC media...I've
got a bunch of new tension bands and have become quite adept at replacing them
and assuring the proper tension on the tape.
Wishing all a peaceful day,
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Mike Hass wrote regarding his treasure trove of 4051 stuff:
>4051, 2x 4907 Dual 8" floppys, and the "System Test Fixture" front panel, a
>box of DC300 tapes
>"GAS 6800" - a Homebrew 4051 (maybe a prototype 4051 ???
Very cool stuff. Let's see some pictures posted of the Test Fixture front
sow wrote:
> I have been given an lot of SEL software and documentation, along with
> a simulator Now, I need to get off my butt and put it all on line.
>
> Thank you for saving the system, Bob.
>
> On 10/13/16 8:34 PM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote:
> > On 10/13/2016 9:01 AM, Rick Ben
t they end up in the hands of
someone that can care for them rather than ending up scrap.
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Al K. wrote:
> At this point it may be worth digging into the drives to see if they can be
> fixed.
> I have had bits of a 4132 for a while, and haven't had any luck locating
> software.
The original drives are long gone. At the time, I looked into sending them to
a data recovery firm to see
ck when
I worked there. I ran it for a long time, until I could get a PC that was a
lot faster, and run (sigh) Windows, for very little money. I even still have
8mm backup tapes from the things...but only user data, not full backups of the
OS and all.
Thanks in advance,
-Rick
--
times.
The Living Computer Museum (http://www.livingcomputermuseum.org) in
Seattle, WA, has rescued a smaller version of a system like this based
on the 6500 processor that is undergoing restoration.
Sorry for changing the subject (but at least I updated it in the
Subject: line).
-Rick
--
Rick
Bill Degnan wrote:
>
> I replaced my filters a little while ago, I was concerned about original
> filters'
> deterioration, perhaps these will have decomposed over time even if not in
> use. So I found a newly-produced filter, documented here:
> http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread_record.cfm
7859 on my 11/34A, and though it is working
fine right now, it's great to have just in case somewhere down the road
something goes astray.
-Rick
---
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
Michael Thompson wrote:
>
> The NiCad batteries for emergency head retract are toast. These look like
> standard 1.2V 2/3AA 400mAh cells. It looks like some cordless phones use the
> same batteries so I can buy an assembled 4.8V battery pack.
>
> Any other suggestions for replacement batteries fo
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