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by ben

State of the ART 50 years ago. May this help with 1970's weird and forgotton tech. https://www.cpushack.com/2018/06/10/the-collectors-guide-to-vintage-intel-m… Ben.

3 years, 1 month

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Looking for info on BAI Data Products model 1230 paper tape punch/reader

by Ian McLaughlin

Hello All, I have a PDP 11/05 that I’ve been restoring slowly over the last few years. I’m to the point now where I’d like to get a paper tape reader attached to it. The only reader I can find in my junk is a Bower Associates BAI Data Products model 1230 punch. I’ve put a picture of it here for the curious: https://imgur.com/a/xJ2hyTS Imgur imgur.com I can’t find any documentation online about this machine. I’m wondering if anyone else has any ideas, or might know anything about this. It’s going to need some TLC to bring it to life, and some documentation would certainly be nice. This particular unit was used by the Atmospheric Environment Service, Department of the Environment of Canada (according to a label on the back). It looks to be complete, except the punch bin is missing (not a big deal). Anyway, I thought I’d throw it out there in case anyone happens to know anything about this, before I tear in to it. Thanks!! Ian

3 years, 1 month

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Chatgpt : I had a retro dream

by Cedric Amand

I had a dream ; that someone makes a small telnet to chatgpt gateway (using azure chatgpt API possibly ?) So that we could telnet our retro devices to the hype of the year, and get chtgpt answers in our TRS80, PDP and such.

3 years, 1 month

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Trs80 model 200 for sale

by Kevin Lee

Radio Shack trs80 Model 200 With an option rom. Works ok. Decent shape. Offers welcome. Shipping from central EU. Cheers K.

3 years, 1 month

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Punched Card Reader

by Eric Moore

Hello, I recently got my IBM 029 keypunch working, and am expanding the search for a punched card reader. Ideally RS-232, but unknown protocol or parallel is fine also. Repair required is also fine :). Thanks for any help! -Eric

3 years, 1 month

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Making sense of VAXstation 100 ROMs

by Lars Brinkhoff

Hello, I could use some help making sense of the VAXstation ROM images. A set is provided here: https://www.9track.net/roms/ The two .bin files are each one halfword of a 16-bit wide ROM for the 68000 display processor. I checked it, and it's fine. My problem is with the Bit Blit Accelator. The board has four Am2901 bitslice processors to make up a 16-bit custom blitter. The information I have is that the microcode is 57 bits wide and there should be 1024 words. However, this is not a great match for the rest of the ROM images. Some of the BBA ROMs seem to be bit masks, presumably useful for rendering graphics. But none of them seem to match what I'd expect to see for a 57x1024 microcode. Here are the sizes, in bits, of the ROMs: Bit Blit Accelerator (BBA) 23-066K3.jed 2048 23-067K3.jed 2048 23-068K3.jed 2048 23-069K3.jed 2048 23-076F4.e32 16384 23-077F4.e65 16384 23-077J5.jed 2048 23-078J5.jed 2048 23-354A1.e33 256 23-355A1.e66 256 23-356A1.e77 256 23-357A1.e85 256 Display Processor Module (DPM) 23-020L1.jed 3553 23-021L1.jed 3553 23-022L1.jed 3553 23-023L1.jed 3553 23-024L1.jed 3553 23-025L1.jed 3553 23-288E4.bin 65536 68000 code in these two. 23-289E4.bin 65536

3 years, 1 month

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3/16ths inch ink ribbon

by Eric Moore

Hello, I am looking for 3/16ths inch ink ribbon as used on the IBM 029 keypunch. I have one lightly damaged ribbon that is entirely dry. I was told by a typewriter restorationist that ribbon re-inking with nylon never works. Has anyone had much success cleaning and rewetting ink ribbons? The WD40 trick on the internet seems like it would gunk up the punch mechanism. Thanks for any information yall can provide, -Eric

3 years, 1 month

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RQDX3's: Lessons learned.

by Chris Zach

Some thoughts on this day of working on MFM drives: 1) MFM drives are just going bad. They were always kind of meh in terms of reliability, but I think even since 2019 (the last time I checked these drives) things have gotten worse. Drives which were readable and good then are now either shot or throwing errors and they have had an easy 3+ years in my upstairs room. 2) There are at least two RQDX3 ROM sets. The earlier one does not support the RX33 floppy and doesn't give any info during formatting. The later version (Version 4) does support the RX33 and is a lot nicer. 3) Seagate drives seem to be pretty good, especially the 20mb ones. They have no problems, work well, and are pretty right-sized for an RT11 system. 4) RD53 drives are weird. Their main failure is the drive head positioner just gets stuck and needs to be worked loose. Unfortunately that requires removing the lid. Fortunately there is a good filter in the drive along with an air handler that runs air from inside the drive body through the filter, then into the spindle where it is blown over the heads. Result is a pretty clean drive on the inside and so far opening the lid doesn't seem to be a recipe for instant destruction. Go figure. I may try an RD53 in one of my Pro/380's. It's about time I loaded up the final version of P/OS, as I can use the Gotek floppy to load everything instead of screwing with the RX50's. Or can I do that and switch disks on the fly with a single Gotek... Hm. 5) For anything bigger, it's time to retire the MFM drives. Unlike RL02's these things just were not that reliable when new and at this point are kind of falling apart. I have not had any trouble with the ESDI disks, but it might just be a matter of time. Perhaps I should look into duplexing my 330mb CDC drive in the 11/84.... CZ

3 years, 2 months

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After more than three years, U of Iowa's PDP-8 project active again

by William Sudbrink

After more than three years, U of Iowa's PDP-8 project active again -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com

3 years, 2 months

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Q-BUS Boards available

by David Coolbear

I have the following Q-BUS boards available. M7168 VCB02, QDSS Q 4-plane colour bitmap module M7169 VCB02, QDSS Q 4-plane video controller module M7608 MS630 RAM for KA630 M7608 MS630 RAM for KA630 M7606 KA630 Microvax II CPU M7620 KA650 Q MicroVAX III CPU M7165 Qbus SDI disk adapter I also have a Smoke Signal Broadcasting, dual 8" floppy set and a SS50 bus controller for the same. All are available for pick-up in Queen Creek, AZ, USA. If there's no interest, all will go to recycling.

3 years, 2 months

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