- cctalk - classiccmp.org

by Rob Jarratt

Hello everyone, I am working on a Rainbow 100A which is showing a diagnostic code on the lights at the back of 0110101. This is supposed to be Message 1 "Main Board Video". I have disassembled the 8088 firmware and checked address traces with a logic analyser and my suspicion is that actually this is something to do with the interaction with the Z80 because it is reading a status from the shared memory and then using that to set the status lights. I have been unable so far to work out where in the ROMs the Z80 code lives or where in the 8088 code it transfers it to the shared memory to allow the Z80 to run. Can anyone tell me where the Z80 firmware is in the ROMs? And does anyone have any insight into the above error or have details of the interaction between the Z80 and the 8088? The Technical Manual only goes so far unfortunately. Thanks Rob

9 months, 1 week

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Print chain for 1403

by Van Snyder

The IBM 1403 printer had interchangeable print chains. I know of only four 1403 printers still working — two at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, one at the IBM Technology Center in Böblingen, Germany, and one near Endicott, NY. All four have the 48-character "A" or "Business" chain, and CHM has a 16-character numeric chain that allows the printer to run twice as fast for numeric-only output. CHM doesn't have an "H" or "Fortran" chain, and as far as I know, none of the others do. The difference is that parentheses are % and "lozenge" — a square with indented edges — apostrophe is @, and = is # on the "A" chain. IBM also had a 64- character chain that included box and line drawing graphics. BTW, nobody seems to know what "lozenge" was meant to represent. Does anybody know of an existing "H" chain or graphics chain for a 1403? Van Snyder

9 months, 1 week

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I need some RSX11M+ TKB help

by Peter Ekstrom

I have RSX11M+ 4.6 BL87 installed and running on my real PDP 11/23+ and have gotten DECnet to work as well. But recently a need to access a TU58 tape has come up, and turns out the DD driver on disk isn't built against the correct RSX11M.STB file. So I need to, I guess, recreate the DDDRV.TSK file. I have tried some very simplistic TKB commands but keep getting an error saying a required file is missing. I don't have the sysgen stuff on this disk... What I have comes from the pregenned RL02 image. Does anyone know how the TKB command line should look for this? I know, I am looking for the easy way out. I have skimmed through some manuals but nothing has stood out to me (I'm sure I missed it). Any help would be greatly appreciated. - Peter

9 months, 1 week

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FTGH IBM 4245 Printer Bands

by Joe George

Anyone have an IBM 4245 printer? I came into a box of NOS print bands and have zero use for them. Don't want to hard them, don't want to throw them out. FTGH, pitch in a couple of bucks for shipping and they're yours. I can get part numbers and quantities if there's interest. There's about a dozen of them and I think they're all the same belt, but do not know for sure.

9 months, 2 weeks

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VCF East 2025 - April 4-6, Wall, NJ - Exhibitor Registration

by Jeffrey Brace

VCF East 2025 Exhibitor Registration is open: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSedyn-m5gSCc0Sifce0O_HnVYtWu7s9u7D… The show will be April 4-6 in Wall, NJ @ InfoAge Science and History Museums Check the web page for updates over the next few weeks https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/

9 months, 2 weeks

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very old UNIXes software, contact at typewritten?

by jfsebastian＠null.net

Hello I have been doing a several years effort to save (very) old software for posterity, researchers, students. Mostly early 90s UNIXes, SunOS, Solaris, DG-UX, HP-UX, AIX, DEC-UNIX, some VMS software even. I uploaded some things to the Archive, and elsewhere, but I would rather get this off my shoulders, for mortality affects us all. This vanishing would be a loss, with many of these things are nowhere to be found anymore. I tried contacting the admin(?) bear at typewritten dot org, offering a few things for archiving, without results. Do any of the users here have any means to contact the admin there? I would very much like to access some of the UNIXes software there, and would gladly offer a quid pro quo. Similarly, if you have any software for Solaris (2.6, earlier) and other UNIXes, regardless of licensing status, I would be very much interested. Some things probably are lost forever though, such as Proliant PL/I, VisualWorks 2.5, Tibco S-PLUS, Harlequin WebWorks and such. Thanks in advance, and all the best Seb.

9 months, 2 weeks

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Digital lemac (de203) datasheet?

by Kevin Bowling

Was a datasheet ever offered for the DEC 'lemac' series (de203/de204/de205)? Like the thing with all the registers and programming information not the installation guide. Regards, Kevin

9 months, 2 weeks

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Trouble with DEQNA adapter

by Peter Ekstrom

Hi all, This may be a dumb question but I am a bit stumped. I can't seem to find any helpful info in the manuals. I have a DEQNA installed in my 11/23+ and I have run a NETGEN using the QNA driver. When NETINS runs I start seeing messages like these on the console: Event type 5.14, Send failed Occurred 19-DEC-24 09:30:11 on node 10.1 (TYCHO) Line QNA-0 Failure reason = Collision detect check failed So obviously the link isn't working, but I find nothing helpful about where to start looking regarding the failed collision detect check. The line is on: NCP>show line qna-0 status Line status as of 19-DEC-24 09:36:31 Line State QNA-0 On I have an Ethernet transceiver (I have 2 and have tried both, they worked last time I used them) connected to the DEQNA harness, and a cable connecting it to an old 10Base-T hub. I know that hub works because I have a couple of other systems (OS/2 laptop and an AS/400) connected to it. So does anyone have any ideas of where I can start? Thanks in advance! Peter

9 months, 2 weeks

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Any Burroughs B5000/A Series NEWP programmers out there?

by Alan Perry

Hey, Did any of you do NEWP programming on Burroughs/Unisys A Series systems? I will be attempting to put together some presentation material (for VCF or similar talks) on MCP internals programming. However I haven’t done it since 1989, so am looking for others who have experience in this area to help me remember details. I took the MCP internals class and still have the class exercises and my notes. Recently a A12/A15 Hardware Operations manual popped up on eBay. I scanned it and submitted the scan to bitsavers. I am hoping to get my hands back on some system architecture documents that I once had. So, if anyone here worked on this stuff and wants to help out on this, let me know. alan

9 months, 2 weeks

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From Punch Cards to Python Grace Hopper’s A-0 compiler paved the way for modern programming languages

by Christian Liendo

From Punch Cards to Python Grace Hopper’s A-0 compiler paved the way for modern programming languages https://spectrum.ieee.org/from-punch-cards-to-python

9 months, 3 weeks

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