-----Original Message-----
From: allisonp(a)world.std.com <allisonp(a)world.std.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, June 24, 1999 6:28 AM
Subject: Re: More on the Compupro
>
>On Thu, 24 Jun 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>
>> I've been watching this thread with some interest, as I'm curious how
large
>> a board with 512Kbytes in 4116's would be. I've got some boards
downstairs
>> which have sites for 288 4116's on each. That's 576KB, though it's
>> organized as 64-bit words with off-board SECDED which makes it 512 KBytes
>
>The board in question obviously has 4164s on it or it's only 1/4 the size
>indicated.
>
That's what I concluded as well, though the originator of this thread has
said at least once they were 4116's. I'e got an 8MB "ramdisk" board I built
back in about '85 when the 256k's were new. This board is populated with a
few LSI samples I got, together with a 4MBx18 section literally hacked (with
a bandsaw) from a client's application circuit and tacked to the S-100
board. The packages were the "zip" package, which allowed for pretty dense
layout. If I ever find this circuit again, I intend to rework the logic,
since the memory is actually organized 1MBx72 bits, and I have a
now-obsolete LSI from TI, the 74AS6364A, which is a gigantic LSI used to
perform SECDED. Since it corrects and propagates in only 10 ns, I want to
build in a hardware error scrubbing circuit and maybe a battery backup
scheme. The board's still more than half empty, since the memory is on two
mezzanine boards. - Dick
>
>Compupro made a M-drive, a 512k ram disk using 4164 devices. I have one
>of these and it works quite well.
>
>Allison
>
>
I can grab a big Compro (model:?) computer that the junk guys says is a
S100 computer. it includes two 8" drives.
Anyone know anything about this box?
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>>http://www.woz.org/woz/commets.html
>Presumably this was a hoax as the site has been disabled, and the NIC
>record for WOZ.ORG indicates that it was simply a host record (rather than
>a domain) and not related to Wozniak at all.
It's a real site, and really is Woz's, but it appears to be "down"
(possibly from overloading):
$ whois woz.org
[No name] (WOZ-HST) WOZ.ORG 209.76.144.2
UNUSON (WOZ-DOM) WOZ.ORG
$ whois woz-hst
[No name] (WOZ-HST)
Hostname: WOZ.ORG
Address: 209.76.144.2
System: ? running ?
Coordinator:
Wozniak, Steve (SW70) steve(a)WOZ.ORG
(408) 354-5000 (FAX) (408) 354-8999
$ whois woz-dom
Registrant:
UNUSON (WOZ-DOM)
16400 Blackberry Hill Road
Los Gatos, CA 95030
US
Domain Name: WOZ.ORG
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Wozniak, Steve (SW70) steve(a)WOZ.ORG
(408) 354-5000 (FAX) (408) 354-8999
Billing Contact:
Harvey, Carlos (CH1750) carlos(a)WOZ.ORG
(408) 354-5000 (FAX) (408) 354-5000
Record last updated on 07-Apr-99.
Record created on 27-May-94.
Database last updated on 23-Jun-99 08:35:41 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
WOZ.ORG 209.76.144.2
NS1.PBI.NET 206.13.28.11
Tim.
>Thanks, how about a generic answer more like this:
> "It is probably an S-100."
> "Open it and look for:"
> "XXXX Processor.. this is a CP/M machine."
> "XXXX Processor.. This is a Super-whammodyne-OS machine."
> "A Blah blah card."
Life with S-100 boxes is a bit more complicated. Machines rarely kept
their original factory configuration... and it was not uncommon to
find every board in the machine made by a different company.
With Compupro stuff, there are 5 main lines:
1. "Disk n" disk controllers, n=1, 1A, 1B, 2, 3, or 4.
2. "CPU nn" CPU cards, nn=85/88, Z, etc.
3. "Interfacer n" I/O boards, n=1 to 4
4. "System Support" boards, with real time clock, console port, etc.
5. "RAM nn" boards, nn usually greater than 16.
There are many other less common Compupro boards, like their video
controllers, etc.
Of course, there were literally *thousands* of S-100 manufacturers,
and the above list only helps if you know you're dealing with Compupro
stuff.
>On a more serious note, I looked inside and there was:
> A Z-80 cpu card.
> 2 cards with 512K on them and were labled Disk something.
Well, then, these are your disk controller(s). The "something" that
comes after Disk is very important in identifying them!
The "512K" sounds like a Compupro board etch identifier, but I just
looked over my Compupro Disk 1's, 1A's, Disk 2's, and Disk 3's, and
none of them say 512K. Maybe it's a Disk 1B? Disk 4?
> A wire wrapped (home-brew looking) card that looks like the 8" drive
>interface.
What makes you think that it's the 8" drive interface? Look for the 50-pin
cable coming from the drive box and figure out where it's going.
> Another card covered with 6116 Ram chips.
32 6116's gives you 64Kbytes, a comfortable amount for running CP/M-80.
Your description matches that of the Compupro RAM17, though lots of
of other manufacturers made similar boards that might be in your system.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
I was just channel surfing and ran across Ghostbusters on STARZ... in their
lab, they have a clearly visible Cromemco System One with a C-10 acting as a
terminal! Totally cool.
I wonder if anybody's ever put together an "old micros spotted in movies"
list.
Kai
Bravo manual, page 33, "Bravo is controlled partly from the keyboard and
partly from the mouse, the small white object with three black buttons which
sits to the right of the keyboard".
Also: "The three buttons on the mouse are called RED (the top or left-most
one, depending on what kind of mouse you have), YELLOW (the middle one) and
BLUE (the bottom or right-most one)."
This implies that there were at least two mouse designs, one with three
buttons from left to right, and one with three buttons from top to bottom.
They both used a ball (not wheels).
Kai
-----Original Message-----
From: Innfogra(a)aol.com [mailto:Innfogra@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 1999 2:50 AM
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: Alto Mouse in "Pirates"
In "Pirates" a mouse was handed about, supposedly from the Alto. Was it an
Alto mouse? Was the Alto mouse a three button? Who made it?
I know the star 8010 Dandelion and 6085 Daybreak mice were two button mice
as
I have had several.
Anyway I have a mouse that looks like the one in the movie and it is
possible
it came from an Alto. I would like to identify it for sure.
Paxton
Did anyone else follow the link in the WIRED Apple 1 article?
It goes here:
http://www.grin.net/~cturley/gsezine/GS.WorldView/*APPLE.HISTORY/
Does anyone know the origin of this case? The color and
general style of the sheet metal look about right for some
OSI boxes. It also has a SOL-ish quality.
Were there one or two sheet metal shops doing the cases for
most computers in the mid-to-late 70's?
I've sent this question off to the ex-OSI engineer I know, but
he will probably take a couple of weeks to respond.
Bill Sudbrink
With all of the avid Slashdot readers here, how did this not get posted?
Or is my mail server dropping messages?
Anyway, if there's anyone who hasn't seen it yet, this page has a bunch of
Woz's replies to email questions about the show:
http://www.woz.org/woz/commets.html
I just tried it again and the site seems to be Slashdotted at the
moment (funny, it worked fine around 3am!). Along with reasserting that he
was the only real engineer of the bunch, he says that though the show may
have taken liberties with hard facts, that the personalities were captured
perfectly.
Aaron
Hi, Larry,
at 17:44 23/06/99 +0000, Larry wrote:
> You might try the International Amateur Radio Union listings at
>
>http://www.iaru.org/iaru-soc.html
>
>ciao larry
>lwalker(a)interlog.com
>
>Let us know of your upcoming computer events for our Events Page.
At the moment I'm going to attend the HAMFEST'99 (HAMRADIO+HAMTRONICS+BEER?)
that will be held fm 25 to 27/06 in Friedrichshafen (a place very close to
Switzerland and Austria borders).
Seems that this is nerly the bigger HAM-FLEAMARKET convention in EU..
Maybe Hans can tell something more about that and the VINTAGE COMPUTERS
density inside...
Ciao!
Rick
Riccardo Romagnoli
<chemif(a)mbox.queen.it>
I-47100 Forl?
>I've been watching this thread with some interest, as I'm curious how large
>a board with 512Kbytes in 4116's would be. I've got some boards downstairs
>which have sites for 288 4116's on each. That's 576KB, though it's
>organized as 64-bit words with off-board SECDED which makes it 512 KBytes
>with correction. These boards are about 15"x22" which is quite a bit large
>for any of my S-100 boxes. The compupro boys often were fairly ambitious
>with their "features" and may have planned a different
>jumpering/multiplexing scheme for the power, addresses, etc, which were
>different once the 64K parts became available. However, considering what it
>took to make a memory board, even 64K parts would have left it a difficult
>task to fit all those DRAMs on the board, considering 1982 or so technology.
The M-Drive/H 512K's that I have are populated with 64 4164's (1982/1983
date codes) and the M-Drive/H 2MEG's that I have are populated with
64 41256's (1984 date codes). The DRAM's take up about 70% of the board,
with the remainder going to the Intel DRAM controller (8203), bus drivers,
PAL's, and regulators.
These boards were available partially populated, too.
These boards were not cheap when introduced; from old price lists,
they sold in the $5000-$8000 range fully populated.
> The Godbout boys were really
>not inclined to use the most costly technology available. Hence, I doubt
>the CompuPro board in question held 512K of 4116's.
I agree, it wouldn't be physically possible to put 512K of 4116's on a
single S100 board. But the Compupro folks had customers who were more
than willing to buy a S-100 board the price of a new car, and bought
the technology to do it with the denser DRAM's just becoming widely
available at the time.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
