There's a chart at the bottom of the page at:
http://www.geocities.com/~compcloset/MITSAltair8800.htm
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Wood [SMTP:altair8800@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 1998 6:13 PM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: Altair 8800, 8800A, 8800B??
>
> Can someone educate me as to how the 8800, the 8800A
> and the 8800B differ?
> I would really like to know about all the differences
> in the three.
>
> Thanks very much,
>
> BOB
>
> ______________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
I have a three board set of Q-bus cards plus the boot ROM for a uVAX II, all
dated from 1987, which supposedly turns a VAX server into a workstation for
DECWindows. I think it was called the GPX II kit? Anyway, the boards work,
and I have the keyboard, dove bar mouse and cable, but no monitor. I
believe this board set could drive several types of workstation monitors,
and was programmed for monitor type thru some of the wires in the kbd/mouse
cable. Does anyone know if it can run some PC type monitor? VGA, MDA, CGA,
multisynch VGA? I don't have any info on the connector pinouts, or the
types of monitors it supports. Is it mono only or does it support color
too? Any specs on it? Will it work in a VAX 3600?
Also, what versions of VMS support the GPX board? Is it still current (V7)?
I have a VMS 5.5 set of tapes that came with the uVAX, from the old days
when the VMS license stayed with the CPU and DEC didn't hit you up for
license transfers.
Thanx for any info you might have, Jack Peacock
Hi Sam,
Is this the circa 1980 Dos-ish machine from Canada? I'd be interested....is
it yours? I live just north of Orange County (Glendora) and I could go pick
it up.
Thanks,
Aaron
BTW, no pressure on that ATR8000, but did you trade it away? I'm only
asking again because there was a rumour of one on ebay that I'll bid on if
so....
At 09:34 AM 3/4/98 -0800, you wrote:
>
>Does anyone in Orange County, California want a Victor 9000?
>
>
>Sam Alternate e-mail:
dastar(a)siconic.com
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
>Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer,
Jackass
>
> Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
> See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
>
>
<> That's a very good point. A TI-85 is a 6 MHz Z80,
I wonder what the odds of finding a ti-85 are and cost? They are hackable
>from what I gather.
Allison
From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca>
>> I just acquired (5 minutes ago) a DEC TU80 open reel tape drive, but no
>> docs. There is a 3rd party Q-bus card (Distributed Logic Corp) that came
>> with it, cables seem to line up. Does anyone know anything about this
tape
>> drive
>
>Sure - it's a rebadged CDC Keystone, Pertec formatted interface.
Is that the same interface as a TS05? I have a TSV05 Q-bus controller, same
dual 50 pin cables.
>>, can it work in a MicroVAX II or VAX 3600
>> Q-Bus
>
>Sure. Is the card a DQ132?
It's a DQ152, rev A, dual wide Q-bus card, with 2 50 pin ribbon connectors.
It uses an 8097 controller CPU (part of the MCS-96 family if I recall
correctly), 14.745Mhz xtal (an odd speed, something Pertec related?), a
couple gate arrays (Q-Bus and Pertec interfaces?), an EPROM, and a 2063 type
static RAM. Circuit board has a 1986 copyright date
>*Do not* plug the Dilog card into a Q-bus if the board number begins with
>DU. That would be a Bad Thing.
Customer doesn't have any Unibus machines, I thought of that
The board has one jumper block, I assume for the CSR address. It's a single
in-line 10 pin header, with pins 2 and 3 jumpered together. Might someone
have the settings for this? If not I'll try the VMS newsgroup.
Does anyone have an extra ISA or MCA SCSI card? I have a pair of
80MB macintosh hard drives that I want to use...
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They are marked 2102A
Indeed... 8212
Eproms or PROMS? They're marked C1702A
Now is a good time to ask the list for advice on what to do BEFORE applying
any power to this machine. I consider this one quite historical, and don't
want to any damage. What are the things I should check?
Cheers
A
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, March 05, 1998 4:08 AM
Subject: Re: Datanumerics DL8A is here! Have a peek @ ...
>> Datanumerics DL8A web page...
>> http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/weird/datanumerics.html
>
>Nice pictures. Are those white ceramic 2101's or 2102's in the back of
>the board? Are the 24-pin chips by the ribbon cable connectors Intel
>8212's, by any chance? And it's hard to tell from the pictures, but
>are the big chips near the RAM banks EPROM's or PROM's?
>
>A few people have remarked at the similarity of the front panel to the
>Altair, but that's hardly surprising: they're both just straightforward
>displays of the status signals available on the 8080A...
>
>Tim.
>
<garbage confined to the last two lines of the screen? (I'll have to go
<dig up my close-up screen shots photos). If so, this could mean a dead
<video ROM.
That would also be least likely as the device used is a mask programmed
component.
Sounds more like the cpu is starting up and then crashing either due to
soft bits in rom or more likely some dead ram(or the bus logic that)
connects the cpu to the ram and rom.
FYI: if the VDM1 (display board) is not accessed by the cpu or the cpu
runs amuck it's contents will be trash. If the cpu is getting nothing
or starts executing from a location where there is no memory the cpu
stacks itself to death and fills the screen (VDM1 is memory mapped).
The reason is an open bus (no memory addressed at all) = RST7 instruction
0ffh and it does a jump to 38h and starts executing from there and if
nothing answeres at that address the same thing repeats itself, each cycle
the return address is put on the stack and it fills memory with 00h, 38h.
Allison
On 1998-03-03 classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu said to lisard(a)zetnet.co.uk
:The PMOS one needs somewhat strange supplies (+5V and -7V from
:memory). I can probably find more data if you need it. I certainly
:have the SC/MP instruction set, etc.
we'd like that, please...
--
Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling
you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...
From: Andrew Davie <adavie(a)mad.scientist.com>
>They are marked 2102A
>Indeed... 8212
>Eproms or PROMS? They're marked C1702A
>
>Now is a good time to ask the list for advice on what to do BEFORE applying
>any power to this machine. I consider this one quite historical, and don't
>want to any damage. What are the things I should check?
>
>Cheers
>A
>
2102s are 1Kbit x 1 static RAMS, the memory of choice in the 70's, power
hungry but easy to design with. An Intel 8212 is an 8 bit latch (should be
a 24 pin DIP), commonly used on 8080 boards to latch some control signals.
1702s are 256 x 8 (2Kbit) EPROMs, a real pain to program, that's probably
where your boot code is.
Jack Peacock
