All:
I saw a news clip this morning about IDT (a semiconductor
company) buying Integrated Circuit Systems. ICS makes analog and mixed
signal chips and owns Turtle Beach Sound. The thing that made me curious was
that ICS was located in Norristown, PA. I thought to myself what are the
chances of there being two semiconductor plants in Norristown PA. The first
successor to Commodore CSG, GMT Microelectronics was also into mixed signal
ASICs.
ICS is located at 2435 Boulevard of the Generals, Norristown, PA
19403. The Commodore CSG was located at 950 Rittenhouse Road. So, I ran a
Mapquest on both addresses and it appears they point to the same physical
location in the Valley Forge Corporate Center at the corner of Rittenhouse
Road and Van Buren. Hmmm...
According to the public filings, ICS bought the property in
1992, which was before Commodore failed in 1994. And, it's known that GMT
Microelectronics (now defunct; owned by former CSG engineers and managers)
bought the old CSG plant in 1996. So, it can't be the same location...maybe
there are two semicon plants next door to each other??
Interestingly the president and CEO, Hock Tan, joined ICS in
1994. ICS was incorporated in Pennsylvania in 1976. Prior to joining ICS,
Hock Tan was Vice President of Finance of Commodore International, Ltd.
So, I emailed a contact at the Company, but I haven't heard back
yet. Does anyone on the list live near Norristown, PA? It's about a 3 hour
hike from me, so it's not that easy for me to visit.
Rich
> I have several sets of original floppy disks.
I would like to borrow these and some HPL/Basic et. al.
prom sets from you once I get all of the other stuff that
I owe you back to you.
There was once a student project to write a multi-tasking operating
system for the PDP11. Written at Groeningen University in the
Netherlands under the supervision of professor Harry Whitfield,
this O/S had more than a passing resemblance to the classic
mainframe O/S, EMAS, from Edinburgh.
The O/S was thought to be lost apart from small excerpts that were
documented in the project report (online at:
http://history.dcs.ed.ac.uk/archive/scans/guts/ )
but a disk pack has turned up which has a fair chance of containing
a working binary and sources.
We think this is an RK05 pack for a PDP11:
http://www.gtoal.com/images/rk05.JPG
Can anyone confirm that?
And is there anyone in the UK who could read the drive? It may be
in a format that is backwards compatible with one of the DEC O/Ses,
or it may be unreadable at the FS level, just readable at the
block level. (Which shouldn't be an insurmountable problem, given
the scan of the documentation; also a disk image should pop right
in to one of Bob Supnik's emulators.)
If someone trustworthy in the UK would like to have a go at
reading this drive, the keeper of the disk pack (in Edinburgh,
Scotland) will mail it to you. It would have to be someone who
I recognise from the list or who would be vouched for by a
list regular. As you can imagine we're a little squirrely
about sending the only copy to a stranger, especially in view
of an unfortunate experience we had last year.
This drive probably has not been spun up since 1978 or 79.
If anyone would like to help, please email me at gtoal at gtoal.com
Thanks
Graham
I put this up just before I left for a few weeks, and didn't mention it
on the list.
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/98xx/09826-90074_Pascal2.0_SysDes_Mar83.pdf
Which describes version 2.0 of the PASCAL system for the 98x6 series and
has a bunch of detail on the series 200 and 300 hardware.
If anyone has copies of the floppies for these systems, I'm interested
in
archiving them. It appears I have a partial set of basic and pascal
discs.
See above :) Found the darn things on the web about a year ago, didn't
save them (d'oh!) and now can't find them...
(the audio interference on this one in front of me doesn't go away with
the audio lead disconnected, so it's not the usual problem of the audio
cable picking up noise)
cheers
Jules
Winimage has beem doing a pretty good job until now,
but it chokes on some really early stuff. It also
doesnt like some diagnostic programs, that are not
recognized as FAT. And you also cant, to my knowledge
dump an image to a disk differing from the original.
Any suggestions?
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After a lot of thought, and realizing that my interests have changed over the
years - I am retiring from the Computer Collecting Hobby and transferring my
Stuff to someone who actually wants it... ;}
My interest was generally with PDP-11 hardware - and to just 'have the
machine'. I have done that. In over a year, I have not had power on to any of
the machines here - nor any real desire to - and I'd like the room back, from
my storage spaces, my garage, and most of two walls in my office. I will now
devote more time and space to my other passtimes - my electronic music studio,
my vintage Ham Radio AM station, etc.
I have greatly enjoyed my time with this hobby - and have amassed literally
tons of equipment and doc and media - once before I sold my entire collection,
when I left for overseas work - the present 11/44 system was aquired (by remote
control) while I was yet living in southern India.
But now it's time to move on. I'd like to thank the many friends a friendly
folk on this maillist, and I wish you all well in the future. I'll be
un-subbing very shortly, but those of you who have my e-mail are invited to
write any time.
Thanks again to everyone here who has given so generously of their time and
expertise, and I am proud to have played a very small part in preserving Legacy
Computing for future generations.
Not 'goodbye', but "So Long!"
Cheers
John
Hello all,
I recently acquired an IBM PC-AT 5170, and it is running Pick. When
it boots up, there are some startup messages, then a banner:
THE PICK SYSTEM
PC-AT VER 2.1 of 26 Mar 87
Then, there is a "Logon" prompt. I have no idea what the correct
login is, and I am not the original owner (nor is the person I got the
system from).
Is there some default login? Google didn't seem to be of much
help.... I tried obvious things like "pick", "login", "user", etc
.... Even tried mixed-case, and all uppercase.... no joy :-(
Thanks for any help in advance....
Rich B.
I've got a couple IBM PC Convertibles that exhibit the same problem with
their power supply. When I press the power button (which is a momentary
switch) it turns on briefly: the disk drive light goes on and the drive
starts to spin or the display shows brief activity, but in either case for
only about a tenth of a second. Sometimes if I hold the switch just right
I can get it to make it through the entire memory test and up to the point
where it wants a disk in the drive, but it's very hit & miss. It
certainly is not behaving as it should.
I've tried cleaning both the switch and the AC adaptor socket but so far
this has not improved anything. The switch seems to be doing its job, and
the power seems to be making it to the unit. It just seems like the power
supply becomes unhappy at some point, unless I hold the switch in a
certain position, but then I invariably lose my touch and the power goes
out again.
I'm using appropriate adaptors, including a car cigarette lighter adaptor
plugged into mains using an AC-to-cigarette lighter socket adapter (kind
of handy in this case).
I've tried swapping the internal power supplies around between units but
get the same problem on each. One has a battery pack and one doesn't, but
having it in or not in does not make a difference.
Seems like the power supplies are dodgy or something? Any ideas?
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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