It's been a while since i last wrote to the list. I have been reading up a
lot on early cnc systems.
While recently picking up some left over tech from a shutdown machine shop,
spotted a early cnc system with some kind of minicomputer attached. Looked
to have some kind of tape drive and paper tape punch. It looked like it was
stored under a leaky roof, ball of rust, it looked too far gone to salvage
anything useful.
Sadly phone was dead at the time and i did not get pictures.
Reading up on wikipedia, Data General Nova and Dec PDP 11 mini computers
are mentioned as used in early cnc.
Are there any surviving cnc systems, details, or software for the pdp 11?
I am interested to know a bit more how the hardware was interfaced. I have
pdp 11/34 systems for example, not sure if the external machine hardware is
directly wired into the unibus with a/d cards, or if some kind of external
hardware controller is driven by the pdp.
I have not found much info on any software used for this purpose.
Any accounts of how this worked or other interesting stories / info much
appriciated.
Thanks,
Devin D'Amico
Hi Everybody,
I am on the search for a Pulsar Electronics Little Big Board (STD Bus
Based) from the mid 80's.
My board has some very weird bus faults that I am trying to diagnose.
Having a working one would radically simplify my life.
I am located in Canberra, Australia, and am happy to pay for the board and
postage from Alaska if necessary :-)
Kindest regards,
Doug Jackson
em: doug(a)doughq.com
ph: 0414 986878
I am interested in reading these and archiving the contents.
I restore IBM 1130 systems and am archiving software to be shared with
enthusiasts and museums.
Located in Florida so shipping would be necessary. Might need to be
creative to keep the cost of shipping reasonable.
The cartridges are not sealed, thus you can open them without a clean room.
The plastic hardens over the decades and it is not uncommon to have the
springy metal plate detach. It would be important to get the detached ones
out of the cartridge otherwise they could scratch the recording surface and
ruin the disk.
These have eight sector marks per rotation although the IBM 1130 hardware
skips every other mark to use these as a four sector disk.
Carl
Hi all,
My apologies if this is not the kind of "classic" computer people are
interested in but I have a Fontex Technology Group Prolite 206/16-047.
It is in good physical condition with the original case, mouse and
manual. It powers on but I don't have suitable disks so I can't get it
to boot. I can send photos of it if that's of use.
I'm trying to find it a new home rather than scrapping it. Is anyone
interested? It's currently in London and I would suggest collection
because it is not light but if there is someone who wants it shipped
and is willing to pay then I will give it a go!
Cheers,
- Martin
Back in the day I did a lot of playing around with the Radio
Shack versions of Tiny Pascal. (Back in the days when you
loaded them from tape cause we didn't have disks yet!)
I still like to mess with Tiny Pascal on other machines, too.
Now the bad news (at least for me). While I have my Model I
version tape I cannot find the tape for the Model III. Does
anyone have a copy of the tape or an image of the tape usable
on an emulator (pretty sure I can put that back onto a tape.)
I would really like to get back to trying some things with it.
bill
Alright, so the 3100 arrived yesterday afternoon and looks to be in good
condition visually. The voltages from the PSU look ok as well. So I plugged
things back in and powered it on.
I don't have a console for it yet, but it seems to go through some
self-test, the tape drive does
some stuff as well as the hard drive. It came with the slightly larger RZ25
rather than the RZ23.
I am getting some 6-conductor cable soon and will make a console cable
for it. I'm very curious
to see what it does on the console.
I have a SCSI CDROM coming in a few days. I also have an old SUN external
enclosure that I'll put to use for it as an external CDROM.
Interestingly, it doesn't have a model number on the sticker, but based on
what I have seen, and
the pattern of the connectors in the back, I am pretty sure it is a model
10.
- Peter
On Mon, Dec 1, 2025 at 10:30 AM emanuel stiebler <emu(a)e-bbes.com> wrote:
> On 2025-11-30 14:53, Peter Ekstrom via cctalk wrote:
> > Very interesting thread. I was kinda thinking too that someone running
> VMS
> > on a machine for hobby use would be too small of a potato to go after.
> > Incidentally, what would y'all value a MicroVAX 3100 at? I am looking at
> > one on eBay for $550 but am considering making a lower offer.
>
> Which 3100?
> There are some very low performance 3100 at the lower end, and the
> best(?) 3100/105 or 3100/95 still fetch some serious money.
>
> My recommendation is usually the pizza box 4000/vlc ...
> Specially, if you don't know what you need it for :)
>
>
Hi Folks,
I've done the online searches, and know that bitsavers.org (Hi Al !) has
a reasonable amount of information, however I am looking for ap notes
and more information than is currently archived.
At the moment one chip I am researching is the MM76E (not the 40-pin EL
version) ROM as I can't find the pinout anywhere - so far. I can figure
it out, but it is always better to have the manual if possible...
Any documents found will be off to bitsavers of course, but I'm hoping
that someone here has an ancient (70s!) Rockwell manual on these 42-pin
spider chips!
Did anyone ever make an emulator for the MM78 CPU family?
Thanks,
John :-#)#
Also posted to s.e.design as one never knows with usenet what turns up...
--
John's Jukes Ltd.
7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
Call (604)872-5757 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out"
Resurrecting a very old (2011) thread about PPS-4/1 - I'm looking for
data sheet on the mm76E - the pinout in particular - as I am trying to
sketch out the schematic of a home pinball game that used the MM78 CPU
and the MM76E for memory.
Bitsavers and everyone else has the sheet for the MM76EL which is the
40-pin version of the original spider chip and those pages talk about
how the EL does not require as fussy a voltage for Vss.
Anyway, if anyone has this data I'd appreciate it!
Thanks,
John :-#)#
On 2011-10-31 1:29 a.m., Eric Smith wrote:
> Benjamin Sølberg wrote:
> > So if you multiplex 8 leds you need 8 times the peak current to keep
> the
> > same luminance ?
>
> 8:1 multiplex requires 8 times the peak current to get the same
> average power. Years ago I saw some claims that with multiplexing you
> can use lower average power for the same perceptual brightness, due to
> retinal persistence. However, I've seen other people claim that this
> is not true. It would be entertaining to set up a double-blind test
> and find out.
>
> Too late now, but those keyboards were actually standard Keytronics
> ones, and not at all hard to repair.
>
> -tony
>
I'm fairly certain that the MG-1 I have is one of the Stern Hall machines
mentioned earlier.
But in re "standard Key Tronic"... The one here is certainly a
foam-and-foil capacitive device like a Key Tronic keyboard is, and surely
the mechanism is basically identical (as are its repair methods). It still
works --- for now. But the pads aren't little round tablets like the usual
KT fare but instead squares with one of the corners notched out (think: the
shape of Utah, but squarer). I do not look forward to those pads degrading
further and expect it may be necessary to get some kind of custom die punch
fabricated in order to produce replacements.
I can't easily retrieve the name of the keyboard manufacturer at the
moment, but I wonder if anyone knows more about this odd shape of
capacitive pad.
--T
>
