I'm glad for this thread. It kept me from tossing the Commodore 16 box
away. Too late though for the beautiful NeXT boxes that went to recycling.
I didn't have room. I should have known better.
That sound you hear is Larry Walker and Brian Mahoney loading their
rifles.
colan
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-----Original Message-----
From: John R. Keys Jr. <jrkeys(a)concentric.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Sunday, August 08, 1999 11:40 AM
Subject: RE: Are tatty boxes worth keeping?
>I keep all boxes that I get until a better one comes along. John
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: CLASSICCMP-owner(a)u.washington.edu
>> [mailto:CLASSICCMP-owner@u.washington.edu]On Behalf Of Tony Duell
>> Sent: Saturday, August 07, 1999 5:48 PM
>> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
>> Subject: Are tatty boxes worth keeping?
>>
>>
>> A couple of months back I bought a second-hand Commodore 1570 disk drive.
>> It came in the original box, which is, alas, in very poor condition. The
>> polystyrene is cracked and has chunks missing. The cardboard sleeve is
>> torn/ragged.
>>
>> Is there any point in keeping it? I don't normally care about the packing
>> boxes for computers, but I know some people do. Also, I believe the 1570
>> is not the most common CBM drive, so presumably the boxes for them aren't
>> that common either.
>>
>> -tony
>>
>>
>
>
<problems (since I've yet to find an RTC chip that does the Wrong Thing
<when the year counter gets to 99).
I have five 486 boards that hae older RTC that roll over from 1999 to 1980!
they do however set manually to 2000!
A board I made using an RTC off a 386 bord has both 1999 to 1980 miss roll
(it's stuck. have to fid a different one) and bad leap year.
Allison
<> I have five 486 boards that hae older RTC that roll over from 1999 to 198
<> they do however set manually to 2000!
<
<Is this the clock chip (I would be _very_ supprised if it were the
<case), or how the BIOS/OS reads the chip.
In these cases (early 486s) the bios is reading a chip with a known bug.
<Now, some PC BIOSes/OSes will take an invalid (too early) year as being
<1980. So the clock rolls over from 1999 to 1900, and the _software_
<changes that to 1980 (as otherwise it's too early a date). That's why you
<can manually set them to 2000.
A few chips were designed that way, as their date of origin was later than
1980.
<The chip itself is working correctly (as designed). The software is
<misusing it ;-).
The one on my s100 board is definatly broke... I wrote the bios!
Allison
Sellam Ismail <dastar(a)ncal.verio.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Aug 1999, Jay West wrote:
> > This manual is called 2000E IMS (Internals Maintenance Specification). It
> > was written by HP, and I'm pretty certain it was used to train new
> > programmers who were to work on the TSB code itself. It's just way too
>
> You said it was "handwritten", so I concluded it was someone's
> scribblings. Why would HP release a document in someone's handwriting?
OK, Jay said he thought this was a training manual. That could mean
"lab workbook" which didn't get the same amount of polishing as a
user manual. Such things tended to get passed around after one guy
got sent to the course, too.
For example, somewhere around here I have a photocopy of an IMAGE
internals lab workbook. The original was obviously produced with the
assistance of a typewriter and a flowcharting template, and it looks
like someone pencilled some notes on it (maybe while attending the
source). Given that I got that copy around 1982 or so, I'd guess that
it was originally produced in the late 1970s and before the wide
deployment within HP of computerized tools for doing this sort of work
(TDP, HPDRAW, graphics terminals, plotters, laser printers, most of
which didn't really play together on HP3000s 'til about 1980-1983
or so). 2000E manuals and lab workbooks probably would be from the
same or an earlier date.
-Frank McConnell
A former co-worker now works for a institution of higher learning.
We trade hardware from time to time, and he knows of my affinity for
DEC hardware. He told me of two stashes of old DEC stuff at work, and
that he had made arrangements for me to haul it off. For various
reasons, we had decided to wait until this summer.
The DAMNIT
----------
I get a call from him recently. It seems that unbeknownst to him,
his boss (another former co-worker), and his boss's boss; some other
idiot had decided to clean out the one stash. Since these three are
key players in the institution's computer center, it seemed unlikely
that this could have happened. But as I said this is an institution
of higher learning, and having work for another such institution in
this town, I can say with some certainty that it does not indicate
'higher smarts' or one damned bit of common sense.
This stash included at least 10 VAXstation 2000's & more than one
DECstation 3100. What intrigued me more was the boxes and boxes of
unopened DEC spares. We will never know what went into that dumpster.
My friend said one dumpster had been hauled off before he knew it.
He 'dove' the second dumspter and found that most of the CRT's had
been rendered useless, and was unable to recover anything useful.
I relate this to you so that all the DEC fans can observe a moment
of silence for what has happened with regards to this equipment.
PAUSE
The Latest Haul
---------------
My friend, not wanting this to happen to the second stash, loaded it
into the back of his truck at once. He then called me and we made
arrangements to meet in a couple of hours. As luck would have it,
there came up a storm before we could meet and the VR260 monitors
in the back of his truck got a little wet. That does not bother me
too much. I had given him an IBM RT with 19" color monitor months
ago. It had been in my garage when the tree fell on it during a
storm and the monitor got soaked. Six months later, he fired it up
and it worked fine.
This latest haul is 5 VAXstation 2000's, 5 VR260 monitors and all
the cables, mice, etc. Of the 5 VAXstation 2000's, three were
apparently running diskless, and the other two have been relieved
of their disk drives.
Previous Haul
-------------
Some time back I hauled home a couple of other VAXstation 2000's &
two TK50Z-FA's. One VS2000 is gone and the other has been disassembled
to pull the RD54 for a fellow list member. I still have the TK50Z-FA's.
To summarize, I have:
3 - VAXstation 2000's - are diskless
2 - VAXstation 2000's - relieved of disks
1 - VAXstation 2000's - basket case, (disassembled and in a basket)
5 - VR260 monochrome monitors
1 - MS400CA (unused) - 2 mb memory option for VS2000
With all the other DEC hardware, I doubt I will ever get to messin'
with these. If you have any interest in any of this, let me know.
Mike Thompson
In reply to some gripe about VMS, Allison replied:
] Dumb huh, it's at least secure!
] Ok go to the netbsd site and nose around, the proceedure for breaking into
] VMS is there...
Is it just me, or do those two sentences not belong so close together? :-)
Bill.
Man, it is turning out to be a real FINE week, if I just don't bankrupt
myself in the process!
Today I found up an AVA Model 409 Floppy Disk Drive Tester unit
(computerized, with auto-test options for 8 inch and 5.25 inch drives, and
integral printer). Most cool! These were multi-K$ back when we had one in
one of the service centers I worked in.
It comes up ok, passes its self-tests and reports its firmware version
(2.1) on the printer, but as is common there were no docs with it. I
recall using one of these way back when, so I've got most of it down pretty
well for now but...
(see this coming?) Anyone got a spare (or copyable) manual for this critter?
-jim
---
jimw(a)computergarage.org
The Computer Garage - http://www.computergarage.org
Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
It is both hand written and printed. A large chunk of it is printed, but
obviously not for public publication (ie. internal use only). Many of the
printed sections are supplemented with hand written and diagrammed stuff.
However, most (but not all) of the hand written stuff is incredibly neat (a
ruler was used to draw the figures, etc.). Most of the hand written stuff
looked like it was being prepped for overheads.
So - than answer is both!
Jay West
-----Original Message-----
From: Derek Peschel <dpeschel(a)u.washington.edu>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, August 07, 1999 2:29 PM
Subject: Re: HP TSB internals
>> No Sellam, no one took the time to reverse engineer TSB....
>>
>> This manual is called 2000E IMS (Internals Maintenance Specification). It
>> was written by HP, and I'm pretty certain it was used to train new
>> programmers who were to work on the TSB code itself. It's just way too
>> detailed (and most of it printed too nicely) to be someone just doing
some
>> reverse engineering.
>>
>> I'll probably get to scanning a few parts of it in next week.
>
>But you said it was _hand written_? That sounds rather counter-productive.
>
>...not that I'm complaining about the fact that you have it, of course.
I'd
>be fascinated to see it. Someone else said correctly that this kind of
docu-
>mentation was rare. It seems to me that's especially true about HP, which
>is a shame since their stuff's so well-designed. I could be wrong about
>that impression though.
>
>Are you coming to the VCF? Or if not, I wonder if there will be any 2100
>hardware there?
>
>-- Derek
>
I posted recently copies of the DEC Unibus specs complete with timing and
other goodies on Zane's site. Thanks Zane for the space.:) They are mostly
GIF images and the ones that had fine printing on the charts there are 2
copies. Same file # just a suffix letter difference.
The url is ftp://zane.brouhaha.com/pub/dan/DEC/Unibus_spec
Dan
