I saw the talk about PDP 8/L and found a 8A locally. It comes with a paper
tape punch. What is the value of it? Does it worth it to bring to ebay, and
offer the list member 10%-20% off?
Local pickup only, these things are huge.
I have a 4D/35 in non-working condition. It doesn't power on but is
complete (well, ok, it's lacking drives and sleds) with 64mb memory and
if I recall, a full complement of video hardware (GR 1.2, bitplane,
z-buffer, turbo.) I can take it apart again if you want to know for
100% sure. It's in decent cosmetic condition, but it could use some
TLC. A fun machine when working, especially if you want to play around
with older versions of IRIX.
Comes with an Iris File (external SCSI enclosure the same size as the
Iris itself). Again, no drives or sleds.
I'm in the Seattle area. If you want it, come and get it in the next
week or it's off to RE-PC in Tukwila...
Thanks,
Josh
Hi all,
as we had the thread before about good LCD panels which would work on
our old machines, I thought of a different approach :
Why not use the semi-standard good quality lcd panels with 1600x1200
(4:3) format, and use some flicker/fixer scan doubler as converter ?
Is there actually one, which would really work ?
I mean, from the old 512x256 resolutions up to the 1024x768 would scale
up nicely, accepts BNC, SOG, and whatever we else use on our lovely boxes ?
Cheers
William Donzelli wrote:
Recall about a week or so ago I had an informal survey concerning
wills, and taking care of collections after the collectors have
passed. Results were better than last time - barely. Two.
I guess this means there are going to be a lot of Straight-8s and
Apple Is scrapped in the next 20-30 years.
Will
-------------------------------------------
One problem I see is that the general population views old computers as just a bunch of old office equipment. When my friends come over, they tease me about all the effort I put into this stuff, saying, "Why bother with all this old crap? You realize that when you die, it's just all going into a dumpster?"
And that's precisely what's going to happen if those not knowledgeable are left with your collection in their hands and not knowing what to do with it. It's just too hard to sell for most people.
So, seems like "old office equipment collectors" could use a safe, central place to register... a place that they or their heirs can contact when it's time for the collection to go.. an organization that either handles dispensing of the collection, or that merely alerts others in the collecting world that the collection is available.
Another question is whether old computers will have the same popularity as they have now (whatever that level of popularity is now). Will interest go up over time, or will it go down as the people that grew up with those models are replaced by people who did not? I would hazard the guess that most people are most fond of the machines they grew up with.. and then second, those that at least existed during their lifetimes, and then lastly, a sharp drop off for those that existed prior to their lifetimes. That pattern could change some due to machines having gotten so much smaller starting in the 70's.
The prior question has much bearing on how much goes to dumpsters. If you others are contacted about a collection, will they even come?
What is the best thing, today, that I can tell my family about what to do with this collection if I were to check out? I really don't know the answer to that question.
John Singleton
> From:Rob Jarratt
> Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 10:26 AM
> My dictionary says a museum is "A building used for storing and exhibition
> of objects...". Not much exhibiting going on in this "museum". I think a
> museum is only a museum if the public can go there and see the physical
> objects. I don't think a web site can be a museum, unless the "objects" are
> software or other purely digital artefacts.
Here's what the American Association of Museums, the accrediting organization
for museums in the U. S., has to say about that:
http://www.aam-us.org/pubs/mn/snapshot.cfm
Anyone who studies museums in a serious way will quickly encounter
a few hurdles. First, you can't really define museums; at least,
there is no definition that can be used consistently to include or
exclude organizations from the ranks. A number of such groups as
the International Council of Museums have written definitions that
they use to determine membership. Others, such as the federal
Institute of Museum and Library Services, use a definition to
determine funding eligibility. The definitions agree on a few key
points: museums are educational in nature and are open to the
public at least part of the year. But consensus quickly breaks
down. Most definitions prominently feature preservation and
exhibition of collections, but our survey reveals that a fifth of
museums report that they do not own, care for or use
collections. Most definitions cite museums as being nonprofit
entities working in service to the public, although there is a
small but growing number of for-profit museums in the
U.S. Increasingly, there are museums that exist only in such
virtual locations as Second Life. What does it mean for these
museums to be "open to the public"?
It continues, but that's pretty definitive right there.
Speaking as the holder of a certificate in museology from the University of
Washington, I would consider Robert Krten's pdp12.org to be an on-line museum,
and not at all unique even within this community.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.orghttp://www.PDPplanet.org/http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
Hi Group,
After years and years of interest in this, way back to the sci am 'Ameteur Scientist' articles, I am beginning this project.
I
have a unique and amazing resource, I work for a semiconductor company
in test engineering, and we use tons of those little TO-5 Teledyne
relays in our IC test boards. I have scavenged >1000 or so for the
project, so its not going to be a giant machine like Harry Porters:
http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/
I
envision a small stack of cards, ALU, instruction decode, sequencer
like Harrys machine. There are a few other relay CPUs on the web, and
it looks like I will follow suit and use semiconductor RAM for program
storage. To be a purist, I suppose I should go core, and I have bought
an array or two off ebay, but the chances of me getting them up and
running right away are nil, but would be the next thing.
Code?
Well
I was thinking the whole thing will be small enough for a tabletop
game, like 3d tic tac toe or such, with a nice stacked up plexiglass of
the game board with red and green neon for the moves. Im anticipating
a nice click click click for the search as it examines the board,
shifts rotates, compares etc for the move checks. my CPU clock will
probably be 25 Hz or more, these little relays are fast. I found some
simple asm here:
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AsmTools/MASM/TicTacToe/ttt1_1.html
I welcome a conversation and dialog with any of similar interests in computing the hard way...
Randy
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390708/direct/01/
The exact term is slipping my mind, but I have a PC-board I want to scan the
traces on and see about making a transparency of to make some single sided
pc-boards of, but am kind of stuck at how to strip the green coating off of
it.
>
> > Is there something special about this fan? Or will any fan of the right
> > dimensions and operating voltage work? DEC rarely used strange fans
> > (the
> > 11/44 being the obvious exception!), so you might get a generic
> > replacement that will drop straight in.
>
> I had thought of this, it has a connector that I have not seen before, I
> don't know what sort of fan I would need (voltage etc), I probably ought to
> take
> a look and see if I can replace it as you suggest.
Is this connector fixed on he fan chassis, or on the end of a piece of
cable? If the latter, you can probalby find a way to move the connector
and/or cable to the new fan.
Most built-in connectors on fans are just the solder tags that you could
solder the power leads too. There ware sockets made for some fans that
would push onto these (ot you could use small faston terminals -- DEC
were fond of this trick).
Are there any marking at all on the old Fan?
-tony
Hello at all,
i have the programmer from many years in a box. Its firmware make work it in
automatic way so it is not possible (or almost this is aall i know) to drive
it from its buttons.
When i power on it, it trys to send somenting via its serial RS232 to the
host computer. I checked the serial port for a null modem way to work and if
i load hyperterminal i see some unknow characters on the screen, and if i
push a key on the keyboard i see that something goes via serial to the
programmer. If i try to change the serial speed or character lenghts or its
parity the characters on the screen not become intellegible. At the end if i
try to load its original DOS program (not in a window of windows XP, but
making a DOS 3.3 boot!) after done the check i said, neither the DOS
software can drive the eprom programmer.
Here all information i found across internet:
<http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Promac%20Model%202A.htm>
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Promac%20Model%202A.htm
Here you can find the software i had for this programmer:
<http://elazzerini.interfree.it/PROMAC2A.zip>
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/PROMAC2A.zip
Thanks for any suggestions.
Enrico
