-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: rob.kolstad(a)gmail.com
To: van.snyder(a)sbcglobal.net
Subject: Bendix G-15 Documentation
Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2022 19:09:34 -0600
Bendix G-15 DocumentationDear Fellow G-15 Enthusiast,
I'm Rob Kolstad, and I am sending you this little informational blurb
because I think you are interested in Bendix G-15 projects (sometimes
because I have seen someone messaged you about such things in the last
two decades). Feel free to send me an 'unsub' note to never hear again
about such things.
This note announces the beta test of the first set of the documentation
collection:
https://rbk.delosent.com/g15doc.html
The collection includes 161 source documents (some duplicates)
comprising some 10,566 pages (including blanks). I have broken some of
the source documents into their constituent sub-documents (e.g., the
Technical Application Memos) for easy access, yielding 1,414 documents
in total.
The collection is by no means complete (coming soon: good large-format
schematics and perhaps a search bar), but it's a good start. I'll try
to scan the rest before the year is out.
The fine folks at the System Source Computer Museum in Baltimore have
gained, at least for now, several Bendix G-15's (and peripherals) along
with more than two dozen boxes of Bendix documentation mingled with
documentation of a large highway engineering firm's projects. The
collection also has hundreds of paper tapes in fabulous condition.
I scanned a fraction of these documents back in June and combined them
with my personal collection (thanks to Bob Sander-Cederlof in Texas)
and the documents from bitsavers.org and the Computer History Museum
(among others).
This documentation section forms one of the main parts of the soon-to-
be-released (2022) bendixg15.com website for all things G-15, including
software, hardware/restorations, emulators, news, photos, and notes.
Please feel free to check out the documents. I'll let you know in a few
months when the general web-site is available. Comments, questions, and
suggestions are always welcome.
RK
====================================================================
/\ Rob Kolstad Delos
/\ / \ rob.kolstad(a)gmail.com 15235 Roller Coaster Road
/ \/\/ \ Colorado Springs, CO 80921
/ \ \ \ Phone: +1 719 481 6542
====================================================================
Hi all,
you're invited to the Update computer club[0] public lecture series
"Updateringar"[1]!
Please note that this talk is given as a part of the Vintage Computing
Festival Berlin 2022[2] this coming weekend, the time and place for
watching the lecture stream are different than usual.
When: 2022-10-09, 14:00 CEST
Where: Stream: https://streaming.media.ccc.de/vcfb2022/Signallabor
Q&A: https://bbb.cryptoparty.se/b/upd-0mo-m2u-aq8
Who am I? CPUID on the PDP-8
Portable software must adapt to peculiarities of the target platforms.
Even variations within a "compatible" family of computers may require
specific code. But how does a program identify which machine is
executing it? In this presentation we will dissect, line by line, a
subroutine written by the late Charles Lasner (CJL) as part of the
Kermit implementation for the PDP-8 family of computers. The subroutine,
"MACHINE", is capable of identifying all DEC PDP-8 models. Some
familiarity with programming will benefit the listener, but the
presentation includes the basics of PDP-8 assembly and the level should
be approachable to most.
Pontus Pihlgren (Update)
The lecture is free and open to everyone.
Don't want to miss upcoming events? Subscribe to our low-traffic
announcement list here[3]!
Hope to see you there,
Anke/zeltophil
[0] https://www.dfupdate.se/en/
[1] https://wiki.dfupdate.se/projekt:updateringar
[2] https://vcfb.de/2022/index.html.en
[3] https://lists.dfupdate.se/postorius/lists/announce.lists.dfupdate.se
I have many 8mm tapes. A few are new. First comers get new ones.
I have a few 8mm cleaning cassettes
I have about a dozen DLT-II tapes.
I have some Ultrium LTO fibre-channel SCSI drives that were removed
from a tape-mounting robot several years ago. I never used them in my
computers because I don't have a fibre-channel SCSI card. The mounting
bracket for one was modified to have an internal power supply -- which
might be inadequate.
I have two Fujifilm 200/400 GB Ultrium 2 LTO tapes.
I have a 5.25" floppy drive.
Any of these are yours for the price of shipping; local pickup is OK
too.
Van Snyder
van.snyder(a)sbcglobal.net
La Crescenta, CA
From the "Mainframe Enthusiasts" Discord; I don't have any other contact
for him but I can send you a link to the Discord if you can't get there
yourself. This is one of the first (maybe the first) of the 64-bit zSeries
(descendant of S/360, S/370, S/390) machines. You would have to pay IBM a
lot of money to legally run a modern z/OS or MVS or VM or z/VM or VSE or
z/VSE on it (and current versions won't work, but, like, z/VM 4.4 would).
You could run MUSIC/SP for free, and of course VM/370 and MVS 3.8 are in
the public domain (although I do not know offhand if the z9 can run those
late-70s OSes). It will also run S/390 and z/Linux of the right vintage,
which are free but maybe difficult to acquire these days.
From Member @Booper : Z9 mainframe, ds8000 storage array , tape drive and
misc components are scheduled to go to scrap at the end of the month. If
someone wants to chime in and throw some money my way, i can sign the whole
storage unit over to you. Located in melbourne fl.
Anyone familiar with this board (S-100 graphics adapter) knows that the
schematics and documentation for it and the matching palette board are
unavailable. I recently made a remarkable discovery on the web:
https://store.gepower.com/mpps/parts/en/USD/search?sortParam=relevance
<https://store.gepower.com/mpps/parts/en/USD/search?sortParam=relevance&solr
sortby=&inValidProductsList=&isSearchTypeAdv=false&recentSearch=&defaultStor
e=parts&shipToAddrCodeHdnSearchPg=&soldToCompanyIdHdnSearchPg=&soldToCompany
CurrencyHdnSearchPg=&text=60628&CSRFToken=3b6088cc-11d1-42c2-8a92-acab81491e
0a>
&solrsortby=&inValidProductsList=&isSearchTypeAdv=false&recentSearch=&defaul
tStore=parts&shipToAddrCodeHdnSearchPg=&soldToCompanyIdHdnSearchPg=&soldToCo
mpanyCurrencyHdnSearchPg=&text=60628&CSRFToken=3b6088cc-11d1-42c2-8a92-acab8
1491e0a
If you follow that link, you will see that GE Power seems to have them in
stock in their parts store. My guess is that, at one time, they used them
as part of a power plant control room. What I'm hoping is that they have
one with the original documentation. Unfortunately, despite several
enquiries, I have been unable to make any contact with anyone in GE Power
that might offer me one for sale or otherwise help. So, I'm throwing it out
to the general community of collectors. You need to be a certified GE Power
customer, contractor or a GE Power employee to access the web store any
further than that link. Anybody know someone who could sign and check?
Thanks,
Bill Sudbrink
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How "stable" is bubble memory, over decades?
There is a Sharp PC-5000 that may be available, I believe from 1983-1985
era, which is said to have bubble memory. But the owner can't find a power
cable, to verify if anything still works.
I have older systems with ICs that are still working OK, but I was
wondering thoughts on any risk associated with bubble memory? (likelihood
of not working at all, or being damaged in long distance shipping)
Actually another thought, can any "normal" ICs be used to
replace/substitute the bubble memory?
Regards,
Steve
Does anyone have a Philips P2000C CP/M luggable with the carrying strap?
I will be restoring such a machine in the near-ish future and mine is
lacking the strap. Clear photos of the end fittings that slot into the
machine, the dimensions of them, etc would be a great help in making
something up.
-tony
Hi,
I recently acquired a Solid State Music SB-1 from which all the chips had
been removed. I've reinstalled all of the chips (I located an SSM2000) and
I've been trying to figure out why this board crashes my computers. The
conclusion that I've come to is rather astounding. The board specifies two
74ls85 4 bit binary comparator chips to perform address decoding. The
designers of this board seem to have had incorrect pinouts for it. Every
source that I can find specifies:
B3 1 16 VCC
A<B (in) 2 15 A3
A=B (in) 3 14 B2
A>B (in) 4 13 A2
A>B (out) 5 12 A1
A=B (out) 6 11 B1
A<B (out) 7 10 A0
GND 8 9 B0
The 7485s that I was able to get have this pinout. BUT! The SB-1 is
designed as:
B2 1 16 VCC
A2 2 15 A3
A=B (out) 3 14 B3
A>B (in) 4 13 A>B (out)
A<B (in) 5 12 A<B (out)
A=B (in) 6 11 B0
A1 7 10 A0
GND 8 9 B1
I Ohm'd out the board to verify this and it matches the schematic here:
https://wiki.theretrowagon.com/wiki/Solid_State_Music_SB1
What the heck??? Did the pinout of the 7485 just arbitrarily change at some
point? Was this some competition between manufacturers? Is there any way
to get the "right" 7485?
Thanks,
Bill
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A bit off topic but I'm curious if anyone has any technical information on
Animatics motion controllers. Animatics was based in (Santa Clara) in
the 1990s. They were bought by Moog sometime around 2000 and all the old
info was thrown out.
A support engineer working for Moog (who had worked for Animatics before
the buyout) provided a bunch of DOS utilities and info on the RS232
programming that he found on a backup, but this is all the info that exists.
Schematics for the hardware (CPU is a Phillips SCC68070 with a MC68881 math
coprocessor), firmware code and any other technical info would be great.
Wayback machine link:
http://web.archive.org/web/19990218104405/http://www.animatics.com/5000list…
eBay link to an actual controller: https://www.ebay.com/itm/124030784795
I have just stumbled across this nice "Timeline of Computer History" from
the CHM:
https://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/computers/
I have not seen this before and thought it may be of interest to this list.
Tom
