test-drb March 2004

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

273 participants
673 discussions

by keith＠saracom.com

Hello all, I have a question or 2 to ask on the HP9826. I am now the proud owner of the labs old system. Now I have several issues to resolve. The first is the reason I have and the lab does not. The display is out of focus and not too bright. I have tried to adjust using the pots inside labeled focus brightness. It helped alittle but not much. Any ideas? Also its no fun without an OS. Now we have BASIC Ver 5.12 at the lab. Unfortunately its on 3 1/2 inch diskettes and the HP9826 has a 5 1/4 diskette drive. Hence short of using a mallet that won't help. So is there a method of using a PC to make 5 1/4s for it since I do have the 3 1/2s? Thanks Max

21 years, 1 month

Mattel intellivision

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Hi folks, Anyone have any troubleshooting expertise on these things? Got one of my spares out for sale and typically the bloody thing is pretty dead. I say *pretty* dead 'cos I get the cart intro screen on power up, but with the computer module attached I get nothing. I've left it powered up for 15 minutes in case it's a warm up problem but that makes matters worse :) According to the service manual I have to replace either the RAM or CPU in that order, but since spares for those will come from working intellivisions I don't want to do that! Also, off the top of my head I can't think of any other videogames that use the General Instruments GI1610 CPU, assuming it's that that's croaked. The RAM is a GI-specific chip too. Spares, anyone? TIA :) -- Adrian/Witchy Owner & Webmaster, Binary Dinosaurs www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - possibly the UK's biggest online computer museum www.snakebiteandblack.co.uk - ex-monthly gothic shenanigans :o(

21 years, 1 month

working magnetic drum stores?

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Just out of curiousity, does anyone still have a working drum storage device? wondering if any working examples have survived... I have a half-assed plan to try and find one from somewhere at some point. We have a Sperry unit that's way beyond repair, and don't have anything other than the drum assembly itself anyway (the bearings still seem good though so I might see if it can be coaxed into spinning) - but a working demonstration would be great hooked up to one of the 1960's machines. I gather that telphone exchanges used to use them here in the UK so maybe there are still a few lurking in private hands as they must have been reasonably common at one point. The flipside of course being that they're pretty bulky devices in themselves, and with the low reliability they've maybe all gone to scrap years ago (unlike other peripherals of the area which survived). cheers Jules

21 years, 1 month

KA620

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

der Mouse <mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca> wrote: > Possibly - or perhaps a KA620 is one example of an rtVAX, much as a > KA630 is an example of a VAX. You are right of course conceptually. But I'm pretty sure now that KA620 was the only implementation of the rtVAX architecture. > My VARM is "Revision 6.1" and is not obviously marked with an edition > number. 1982-05-20, right? I have that one too, it's my first VARM, one of Tim Shoppa's early gifts to Quasijarus Project. The early VARMs, the EK-VAXAR-RM ones, are lovely: 100% pure ASCII, except for boldface section headers the book is line printer output. From the appearance seems to be very close to the DEC internal VAX spec, DEC STD 032 (though not having a copy of the latter it's an educated guess). But then they stopped issuing VARMs in that format, and published it as a book (with ISBN and all, rather than an EK part #). The book version of VARM had two editions: 1st ed. in 1987 by Tim Leonard (listed as the keeper of the DEC internal VAX spec in an appendix to another highly secretive DEC internal spec I have) and 2nd ed. in 1991 by Richard Brunner (wonder what happened to Tim...). I have acquired both of these books recently. Not having a copy of the genuine article (the DEC internal STD 032 spec) I have to live with the published versions instead, so I was trying to acquire as many of them as possible to complete my mental picture of the complete architecture spec and its variations. (I'm designing a new VAX CPU chip, so I have to have a very solid picture of the spec requirements and options and their evolution.) Would anyone perchance have a copy of the real VAX spec, DEC STD 032 aka EL-00032-00 aka A-DS-EL00032-00-0? > I don't recall seeing an rtVAX mentioned in it, and the index > does not list anything beginning with rt-. Yeah, of course the 1982-05-20 VARM predates it by a few years. Brian Chase <vaxzilla(a)jarai.org> wrote: > The 2nd Ed VARM has a section on rtVAX memory management, 11.2.3 on pgs > 422-424. I don't yet see any other mentions of it the book to indicate > whether it actually is designated as the KA620. Table 8-2 on pp. 331-332 lists the SID code assignments, and 16 decimal is listed as "rt/uVAX (chip 78R32)". Knowing that 78032 is the MicroVAX II chip, used in KA630, KA410 (MV/VS2000), and a bunch of other less-known systems (see the SYS_TYPE codes the same table lists for SID 08), it's pretty obvious that the rtVAX 1000 listed by the table as being based on this 78R32 is the KA620. Since the MMU is internal to the CPU chip, the difference between KA630 and KA620 is in the silicon (78032 vs. 78R32) rather than board-level. MS

21 years, 1 month

any Honeywell H316 experts out there?

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

I've come across something very interesting and have some questions. Joe

21 years, 1 month

Shipping a Teletype - Anyone near Topeka??

by ghldbrd＠ccp.com

I'm 75 miles away in St. Joseph, MO, but no wheels until next Wednesday, and will have through Sunday. Nothing worse than to have to rent a car to find another car to buy. Gary Hildebrand > The Teletype in question is actually on the outskirts of Topeka, Ks. > > If there are any list members there who could possibly assist in packaging > it would be greatly appreciated (and a reasonable fee paid) > > The shipper is NOT a collector, rather if a person who "inherited" the TTY > and is basicly clueless [although very nice]. > > David. > >

21 years, 1 month

FS: KSR-33 "basket case"

by charlesmorris＠direcway.com

I have a nearly complete KSR-33 that I'd like to find a good home for. It is literally a basket case - it's in quite a few separate pieces but all there as far as I can tell except for the cover/housing, and possibly a few small springs. Motor is good. I also have a papertape reader assembly but no punch (you'd need an ASR baseplate to make it into an ASR-33). Make me an offer. I'm in West Plains, MO 65775 so you can figure shipping. -Charles

21 years, 1 month

Shipping a Teletype

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

Hi Although, one may have some success by shipping in a cardboard box only ( mine was trashed ), it should be bolted to at least a piece of plywood. If this is put into a box, proper strain relief should be done where plywood edge meets the box. This is so that the plywood doesn't just poke through the box. These units are too heavy to be in a cardboard box alone. Dwight

21 years, 1 month

debugging a tu58? blank tapes or bad read channel?

by brad＠heeltoe.com

Does anyone have any suggestions about debugging a TU58? This is a dual TU58 from a vax 730. The symptom is that when I try to boot from it the tape rewinds a bunch of times and then reads off the end of the tape. I removed it and poked all around with a scope and the schematics. The motor control is fine as well as the tachometer. The read channel shows no activity, even when I put a tape in and move the tape. The micro seems happy. I connected it to "tu58ctl" and I can talk to it and send/receive commands. But when I try to position the tape I get a "motor stopped" error. I'm begining to wonder if the 3 TU58 carts I have have been bulk erased. I have no "known goods" and I've never read these tapes. I made the assumption they were good but that might be a mistake. (wish I had those mythical proms which can write carts :-) I put a scope on the signal from the read heads and I see nothing when the tape spins by. I find that very odd. I would think I'd see pulses even if the blocks where all zeros... So nothing makes me think the tapes have been bulk erased. Is there any way I can test the read channel without having a good tape? (I assume not, but I know very little about tape drives, perhaps there is some 'technique'). I know the tapes are useless if they have be bulk erased - but will the symptom be no read channel activity? (I assume so). blah. if I've wasted all this time on bulk erased tapes %$#%@#@!#$ -brad

21 years, 1 month

Looking for spec sheet for MK6207N/MK5017BB clock chip

by dickset＠amanda.spole.gov

I've found an old RadioShack package with an MK5017BB Clock/Calendar chip. Unfortunately, the datasheet which was once stapled to the back of the card is missing. Google doesn't have much on it. One interesting reference is at www.datamath.org/Mostek_IC.htm where the part number is listed in a series of calculator chips (it lists the MK5017 as having been in the Corvus 305 calculator, with square root, 1/x and a clock/calendar). I also found this picture on the die itself... http://www.mindspring.com/~mary.hall/mosteklives/photos/mostek_mickey.jpg But no specs. Does anyone have info on this thing? Thanks, -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 31-Mar-2004 07:31 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -78.4 F (-61.3 C) Windchill -117.4 F (-83 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 8.5 kts Grid 018 Barometer 675.5 mb (10796. ft) Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

21 years, 1 month

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test-drb March 2004