test-drb August 2008

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

202 participants
323 discussions

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

7) Right said Fred: "There exist non-infringing copies of the Apple ][ firmware - Basis, Franklin, and Laser128?" - I had the same idea...use the Franklin 1000 ROMs because they are legal and I doubt there is anyone left from Franklin to go after you. 8) Chuck Guzis made the most sensible suggestion I've heard in this entire thread: "I'd humbly suggest that they simply market a keyboard and mouse that interfaces with a mobile phone. There should be more than enough compute power there--and you get connectivity as a side benefit." It's genius in its simplicity. Chuck, I'll write up the business plan, you go find some funding :) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

17 years, 1 month

MicroVAX 4000-105 Fast Wide Differential option?

by binarydinosaurs＠gmail.com

Folks, Today I came across an oddity, a standard ds-47dbm-b9 VAX 4000-105A but seemingly featuring a third-party FWD/DSSI/SCSI option. Instead of the usual angled rear connector box containing 2 DSSI busses and a SCSI-1 connector the machine had a rectangular breakout box that featured from top to bottom FWD SCSI (68pin), blank, DSSI (single port), SCSI-1. The FWD port was connected to a Baydel RAIDER5 raid system and also had a differential terminator. I'm pretty sure that wasn't a DEC option in the UK, 2 DEC resellers I know agree so has anyone else heard of this? I wasn't allowed to shut the machine down so I couldn't check for manufacturers or part numbers..... VMS designator for the drive was DKW100 which further points at it being wide SCSI.... cheers! -- -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

17 years, 1 month

LocalTalk

by ploopster＠gmail.com

Hi. I'm looking for a LocalTalk->Ethernet bridge and some LocalTalk cables. Anyone have any available? Peace... Sridhar

17 years, 1 month

Is anyone in Houston?

by eric＠brouhaha.com

I could use a small favor if anyone on the list is in Houston. It's classic computer related, but will not involve picking up or shipping anything. If you might be able to help out, please email me directly at <eric at brouhaha.com>, don't reply to the list. Thanks! Eric

17 years, 1 month

Vintage sun stuff free for collection in south bay area.

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

Hi Sorry for the short notice on this... I have various vintage Sun items available for collection following a storage clear out. No charge for the items, but collector must take everything as I wont have time to split or arrange for multiple pickups. *Various parts for a Sun 3/80 including case, motherboard, possibly floppy drive, and more parts (can confirm). *Sun 3/60 fitted with colour framebuffer. *Sun 2/120 deskside unit. This is the deskside Sun 2 case with internal PSU and multibus card frame. The original multibus cards have been removed and I am unable to find them. There is no keyboard. *Sun monitor (mono) *Various other computer related parts including an old acoustic coupler modem and phone and a motherboard from an old Sun server (VME bus I think). All these items are untested and for parts only - that is you should assume nothing works. Now for the bad news .. unfortunately these items need to be collected by Friday 8th August ie. this week so would suit someone in the bay area (CA). Contact me off list if interested. Cheers Ian.

17 years, 1 month

WTB: SGI drive sleds/brackets

by oldcpu2＠rogerwilco.org

Wanted to buy for a reasonable price + shipping: 3-1/2" drive sled for SGI Indigo2 5-1/4" drive sled for SGI Indigo2 (x3) 3-1/2" drive bracket for SGI Indy Anyone with some extras? Please contact me off-list. Last weekend I came across a(n) SGI Indigo2 and several Indys at the local university surplus store. Having no experience with SGI gear I couldn't resist and picked up the Indigo2 and (x2) Indys. The prices were quite reasonable, and now I know why! There are no drives inside. As a rule, all systems from this outlet are stripped of their drives before being put on sale. If only I'd known. This particular surplus store always binds the machines closed with nylon shipping straps to prevent people from delving inside and lifting little parts without paying for the machine. So I couldn't 'pop the lid' and check them out. And, you can't cut them open until you buy. What is the saying?..."What you don't know can't hurt you," or something like that? ;) My ignorance of SGI gear and the store's policy cost me on this one. Live and learn! Anyway, I now have an Indigo2 (pre-IMPACT! green case) with what I think is 256MB RAM, and 2 identical Indys with R4600/133 CPUs and mabye 128MB RAM, all without disks. I'll know more when I get a 13W3-to-VGA cable rigged up. Anyway, hoping to resurrect them with some flavor of BSD, or even IRIX 5.3 if I can find it. Thanks, Jared

17 years, 1 month

HP 5036A microprocessor lab - searching for copy of "Practical Microprocessors"

by simon_coleby＠agilent.com

Hi Stuart, This is a long shot, but here goes... I have an HP5036A lab, but lack the book. Searching, I found this on a forum from way back in 2003: "Yes, I managed to get a manual, by watching auctions on eBay. In fact, I bought another HP 5036A plus manual and let the seller keep the hardware to save shipping costs from England to the US. The manual is softcover and would not be easy to copy without cutting the spine off, which would ruin its value. Don't give up, though. I know someone that has a manual that has been cut up and copied and I'm trying to get it so that I can make an Acrobat PDF file of it. Stuart Johnson" I don't suppose you ever got a .pdf copy scanned? Just interested. Cheers, Simon Coleby Customer Service Centre. Agilent Technologies UK Limited, Registered Office: 710 Wharfedale Road, Winnersh Triangle, Wokingham, Berkshire, RG41 5TP - Registered No. 03809903

17 years, 1 month

segmented memory models

by bqt＠softjar.se

Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> wrote: > On Monday 04 August 2008, Sean Conner wrote: > > > It was thus said that the Great Jim Brain once stated: > >> > > Tony Duell wrote: > >>> > > >No it doesn't, given that a PDP11 address to a program is always > >>> > > > 16 bits. The 18 or 22 bit phuysicall addresses were created by > >>> > > > the MMU. > >> > > > >> > > Did an MMU exist for the 8086? > > > > > > If such a think existed, it would have been an external circuit, > > > and would have been very hard to support since the 8086 did not > > > include support for restartable instructions (same situation on the > > > 68000). > > The PDP-11 doesn't support restartable instructions either. You don't > need restartable instructions to support an MMU, only to support > virtual memory type operations. For example, my Z80-based Altos 8000 > has a bank-switching MMU that could operate the same way as an MMU on a > 808[68] would. Actually, some PDP-11 models do support restartable instructions. Just not all of them. It requires the MMR3 register, which tells what modifications have been done to different registers before the instruction was aborted, so that you can back out of that, and then restart the instruction. Some PDP-11 models' MMU would also allow you to implement a virtual memory system, if you wanted to. It's just that noone did, and perhaps for good reasons. With only 8 pages, and way more physical memory than virtual, there isn't really much point in implementing a virtual memory system. But on an 11/70, it is definitely doable. Another example of the hardware designers implementing something that they didn't know was needed, but which could be done without much extra effort, so they did it, just in case someone would want to play around with it. But I think we've already established that the PDP-11 isn't brain damaged. :-) (Oh, and I agree with Tony Duells sentiment about the Intel brain damage. It's plain and simple just a question of not doing something one way when it was common knowledge at the time that that was the way to do it. NIH or just sheer lack of clues don't matter. It's brain dead all the same.) Johnny

17 years, 1 month

Free PDP-11 Stuff in Bedford, NH

by dbetz＠xlisper.com

I have a "PDP-11" that is actually a box (BA-23) that used to contain a MicroVAX I. I replaced the MVI boards with the following modules: M8190 KDJ11-B M7551-CF 4MB memory M7504 ethernet adapter M7555 RQDX3 hard/floppy controller M8043 DLV11-J 4 line serial It also contains the following drives: RX50 two 5.25" floppy drives RD54 159MB hard drive It seems to work. I was able to get RT-11 installed on the hard drive and the system boots to a prompt. I haven't played with it much since then though. I also have a bunch of other Q-Bus modules including a KDF11 CPU and some other memory and I/O boards as well as a few spare drives. Is anyone interested in coming to pick this stuff up? David

17 years, 1 month

Programming books looking for a good home

by ikvsabre＠comcast.net

Hi all, Programming Windows 95 - The Definitive Developer's Guide to the Windows '95 API (Petzold & Yao, 1996 Microsoft Press) Introduction to Graphics Programming for Windows '95 - Vector Graphics using C++ (Michael J. Young, 1996 Acedemic Press, Inc.) I figure $2 each plus shipping isn't too much to ask. Joe

17 years, 1 month

Jump to page:

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

test-drb August 2008