- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

And the June 2017 workshop is ...
by Jeffrey Brace 10 May '17

10 May '17

June 10 & 11. Sign up here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13qn9xUYyZum3ZD8HV0HtYJ2NHfDsY8Tmdw8… I hope to see many of you there! :-D -- Jeff Brace - ark72axow(a)gmail.com Sent from my Commodore 64 ========================================================

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] WTF!!!!!!!!
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 10 May '17

10 May '17

William Dudley via vcf-midatlantic writes: >This email is free of malware because I run Linux. ROTFLMFAO! Give me a break! I've been getting ssh break-in attempts on ssh all day from a Linux box on Verizon's net. No malware my ass!

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Video: Writing C++ '17 for C64
by Douglas Crawford 10 May '17

10 May '17

At our VCFE C++ keynote lecture, Bjarne Stroustrup elaborated many of the goals of C++, one of which is "zero overhead abstraction". All doubts on the practicality of that goal has now been dispelled from my mind with this fascinating video on demonstrating zero overhead in writing a C64 game in C++, cross compiled to '386 then translated to 6502. You have to be careful, but a high degree of this zero overhead is proven to be possible. If you, like me, have been ignoring the evolving constructs of C++, this will give you an appreciation of what has been developed and in my case is pointing me into directions to what to catch up on. https://youtu.be/zBkNBP00wJE

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OT: electric motor question
by Evan Koblentz 10 May '17

10 May '17

I wanted to test one of the Lego motors without setting up the whole kit. The motor is designed for 4V DC. Dug through my bin of random wall warts. Closest I could find is 5V DC (and 0.5A but I'm not sure if that matters). Snipped off the wart's barrel connector, spliced a mini-banana lead to each wire, and the motor happily spun away. When I tested the Lego computer interface port voltage it showed around 3.7x on my multimeter whereas the wart produces 5 true. Will I cause any long-term damage to the 30-year-old Lego motor by running it at 25% higher voltage than intended?

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Workshop day 2
by Evan Koblentz 09 May '17

09 May '17

Today's workshop attendees were me, Jeff B., Bill Dromgoole, Bill I., Dean/Drew, Adam, and Tony. Bill and Bill continued working on Univac + EAI TR-20 projects respectively. Dean/Drew worked on a TRS-80. Adam tested one of his Amigas. Several of us (me, Dean, Drew, Adam) worked on museum-owned Amigas. We got a 500 working and then a 1000 working, both with workbench disks previously provided by Anthony/Bill of Guru Meditation renown. The 500 is in our museum temporarily. The 1000 will replace it when we get a suitably new-yellowed keyboard. Dean took home one of our keyboards and will try to retrobrite it. We along with Tony (and Google!) tested the museum's NeXT Station. It works pretty well. We'll display it soon as the next "artifact of the month".

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Lisa 1 for sale
by Adam Michlin 09 May '17

09 May '17

Hi Everyone, You know you want to donate this to the museum: http://www.ebay.com/itm/WORKING-APPLE-LISA-1-COMPUTER-WITH-TWIGGY-DRIVES-AN… Best wishes, -Adam

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Pics from Dave's LSSM museum
by Dan Roganti 08 May '17

08 May '17

uploaded some pics from Dave's LSSM museum Lots of new exhibits and the new expansion with Corey's exhibits on the 2nd floor I still have to add the captions on these Some the pics need to be redone, I didn't notice the lighting was changing too much. And because some of the shots were done while still in macro-focus http://www.rogtronics.net/blog/?page_id=1065 Dan -- _ ____ / \__/ Scotty, We Need More Power !! \_/ _\__ Aye, Cap'n, but we've only got 80 col's !!

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FS: HP 98630A Breadboard Interface Protoboard for HP 9000 Series 300/200
by Systems Glitch 08 May '17

08 May '17

link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/272663229522 Looks NOS, definitely never had anything soldered in the prototype area. Thanks, Jonathan

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ISO: Solid State Music IO-8 S-100 Serial Board Manual
by Systems Glitch 08 May '17

08 May '17

Just purchased a Solid State Music IO-8, apparently the manual is not available online, and isn't listed in Herb's documentation collection. Anyone have it? Looks like it's eight Intel 8251A serial ports. Thanks, Jonathan

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2513 Character ROM - ReActiveMicro
by Support 08 May '17

08 May '17

I met someone at VCF East a few weeks ago and they asked about a 2513 Character ROM for a system. I can't find my note so wanted to make the announcement here and in case anyone else needed one too. Also used in the Rev 4 and earlier Apple II/+. http://store.reactivemicro.com/product/apple-ii-2513-character-rom-apple-pn… Thanks! </shameless plug> Henry S. Courbis Office Toll Free: (800) REACTIVE (732-2848) Office/Mobile Direct: (856) 779-1900 www.ReActiveMicro.com <http://www.ReactiveMicro.com> - Sales, Support, and News, Our Headquarters on the Internet ReActiveMicro.com/wiki - Support, Software, Manuals, and History. Create your own page today! Facebook.com/reactivemicrousa - Our Social Media Outlet and Support

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FS: IBM 5160 PC/XT 64-256K Motherboard, Upgraded to 640K
by Systems Glitch 07 May '17

07 May '17

link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/272662031085 This board had a dead 8088 CPU, which was replaced with a similar ceramic AMD D8088 CPU. It has, at some point in the past, been modified to support 640K RAM (a common mod for 256K boards) -- this can be reversed by removing an IC and a jumper. Fully tested as stated in the listing Fully assembled and tested XT-IDE rev 3 boards are available for bundled purchase with this board -- your XT-IDE will be tested in this exact board. Thanks, Jonathan

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VCF-SE 5.0 Videos Uploaded
by Alan Hightower 07 May '17

07 May '17

[cross posted] I was able to find time to edit and post speaker videos from this year's Vintage Computer Festival Southeast held last weekend in Atlanta. Amazingly I did it within one week and not a year or more! Here is the speaker summary and bios from the VCFed website: http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southea… [1] And you can find the videos on the AHCS Vimeo channel: https://vimeo.com/user50868990 [2] Don French discusses the genesis of the TRS-80 Model I at Tandy/Radio Shack: https://vimeo.com/216109117 [3] Andy Hertzfeld from Apple talks Apple II and his journey to Cupertino: https://vimeo.com/216104204 [4] Zach Weddington hosts a special screening of his Viva Amiga documentary film followed by a panel discussion moderated by Adam Spring: https://vimeo.com/216081365 [5] Chuck Peddle via Skype discusses the history of the personal computer and his current projects: https://vimeo.com/216072422 [6] I've also continued to work on the 4.0 backlog. I've added David Larsen's discussion on the Bug Book series and his computer museum here: https://vimeo.com/216398748 [7] And as-posted from last year, Bil Herd discusses his early Commodore days: https://vimeo.com/161861581 [8] I still have Ray Holt, Jerry Mannock, Mary Hopper, and podcast videos from 4.0 in my work queue. 3.0, 2.0 and 1.0 to come (Jason Scott, Robert Uiterwyk, Jonathan Zufi, Carl Helmers, Robert Tinney, Dick Huston, Dan Kottke, and others). But no ETA on finishing as of yet, sorry. There are some flaws in video (Andy's lectern mic - doh!) and audio (damn kids!), but they turned out ok. They are all open to free download. But please give proper attribution when sharing. On behalf of the entire Atlanta Historical Computing Society who work hard every year to make this happen, thanks and enjoy! We do this stuff for you guys! Alan Hightower - President Links: ------ [1] http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southea… [2] https://vimeo.com/user50868990 [3] https://vimeo.com/216109117 [4] https://vimeo.com/216104204 [5] https://vimeo.com/216081365 [6] https://vimeo.com/216072422 [7] https://vimeo.com/216398748 [8] https://vimeo.com/161861581

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DRAM memory testing - AboveBoard AT
by Richard Cini 07 May '17

07 May '17

All – I have an Intel AboveBoard/AT that looks like it works (it backfills RAM to 640k), so I bought a bunch of extra 256kbit (41256-120) chips from Jameco and boost the memory a bit. My plan is to use this AT for diskette imaging – I bought an Adaptec Floppy-SCSI controller (AHA-1522) which is the most flexible for use with ImageDisk. I know that these boards are somewhat finicky with the address settings, but when I try to set the board memory limits and run the diagnostics it complains about at least one bad chip but doesn’t identify the row or column. Arrrgh. Too many chips to swap one at a time, then reboot and retest. Does anyone have a DRAM tester that they can loan me so I can test all of the chips at once? Also, if anyone has experience configuring this board, I’d appreciate hearing from you. The instructions I found seem simple, but I’m trying to knock off possible problems one-by-one. Thanks! Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32

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NJ pickup
by Mike Loewen 07 May '17

07 May '17

Is there anyone near Dunellen, NJ would be willing to pick up and hold a machine for me, if I should win? Ebay 292108393231 I've wanted to add an Eagle to my collection, but this one is listed as "pickup only". Thanks. Mike Loewen mloewen(a)cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

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Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 07 May '17

07 May '17

Infoage is part of the "Weekend in Old Monmouth" event, so they asked all the groups to be open extra hours today. We opened the VCF museum from 10am-5pm. It was busy all day long. Tons of visitors of all types. Workshop-wise, today's group was me, Jeff B., Bill Dromgoole, Todd, Bob F., and Bill I. ... me/Brace/Drom/Bill I. will be here tomorrow too, and we're expecting several others such as Dean/Drew, Anthony B., etc. (I don't have the full list handy). Cool project of the day: Drom is working on an RS-232 interface to connect a laptop to the Univac.

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OT: Nasa runs competition to help make old Fortran code faster
by Herb Johnson 06 May '17

06 May '17

Responding: Thanks for the responses. In general, if someone sees some way THEY could do such an exhibit, based on their interests in hardware, software, and to represent some use or users - that's great! More than one person can do such things, as far as I'm concerned. I'll respond with what I'd do, what I had in mind, for my interests. - Herb ---------------- [Jim Scheef:] For this to interest more than just a few people the physical system that is modeled must be something familiar to most people...like Lunar Lander... Is that the type of thing you had in mind? That's not a bad question. No, Jim, I do NOT have in mind something that's "familiar to most people". It's helpful but not a goal. That's because, of 40+ years of personal computing history, "most people" by sheer numbers are familiar with personal computers used as ordinary devices on the ordinary Internet, social media, gaming, Twitter; or previously, to replace paper-tasks of job or business or hobby. Computers used to be extraordinary, and unfamiliar. Those people outnumber the scientists and engineers and other technical-trained people (and their fans) that I'm talking about. I described a very specific set of circumstances. But I'd not do such an exhibit, if there was zero interest. I'm seeing some interest today. Now - for say a continuing exhibit at the VCF Museum, you may well want something that's at least known-of - say, the half-century event of landing humans on the moon. And "lunar lander" programs are about as old as BASIC, if not FORTRAN. And, the landing problem IS a problem in physics; it's not hard to visualize. Of course it's been a game available on many platforms, so it's true history. And the physics and programming may be approachable to the unfamiliar (more on that shortly). also: Lunar Lander may be reasonable for an *analog* computer - I mentioned that hardware. A challenge would be the inputs and outputs, how to make them more than dials and graphs. For instance, the analog outputs could drive a modern visualization on a modern computer. I think this was discussed when analog computer restoration was discussed. -------------------- [John Heritage:] there's actually two pieces to the NASA competition. modify source code to improve performance....and an overall software / hardware solution...[discussion of modern hardware follows] A strong coder and a math guru are part of what's needed.. experienced computer architects, and people good at logic... Of course, I know little about the NASA competition, and little about modern parallel-computing hardware. But, as a digital BSEE engineer with some master's work in computer science, and as someone who hangs out at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab; I do have a clue about issues of numeric calculation of complex physical phenomena. I know there's some personal-computing hardware around that supports parallel computation. I humbly suggest you add "physicist" and "numeric computational experience" to your list of needed skills. The changes NASA wants, have to produce better results, not just faster ones. But further discussion here, would be outside "vintage computing". I'll end by saying, that limits of hardware and software were also challenges in the era of vintage computing. Something can be learned today, by reviewing solutions of the era. In fact, that's a principle thesis of my vintage computing activities. -------------------- [Tony Bogan:] Herb, I would love to see something like what you describe at VCF next year! I have zero background in fortran...the first thing I thought of was accelerators [for Apple II? Mac? computers]. someone else would need to do the coding.. If using my hardware is feasible, I would be very interested in helping any way I can. Tony, thanks for your encouragement. I have no shortage of vintage computing hardware, thank you. And Apple II's are not my area of primary interest in vintage computing. So I'd not use them in my own exhibit. And, I'd not likely use modern accelerators, those too are not a part of my interests. But there are people today, who ARE interested in those very things. So, you might consider such an exhibit yourself, and find an Apple II programmer who'd support that effort. Or of course, learn some coding and some physics - there were books on Apple II programming for physics and engineering! - and see where that goes. "Lunar lander" isn't the worst place to start. -------------- [Kelly Leavitt:] I have my senior project from [Rutgers?] (1993) . It was a simulation of random particulate transport in groundwater written in FORTRAN. I moved this chunk of FORTRAN IV from the mainframe/mini era to the PC....It ran on my Tandy 1000A with an 8087. The vector mathematics that FORTRAN could do was amazing. ...I had offered to port the FORTRAN code to C++ at the time. The professor just laughed... He had me port this to MS FORTRAN 77 and put a C++ front end on for graphing the results. Aha! Proof! Such things WERE done, even after the 1970's and 80's. And with personal computers. Thanks, Kelly! I'd say a Tandy 1000 with 8087 8088 is "vintage" enough. And the code was even older. Kelly, see if you can resurrect your work and show how it was done to these young'uns! A decent all-in-one machine from the era I'd consider using, is a Heath/Zenith Z-120 series system - 8088 plus an 8085, same MS-DOS (or CP/M), probably similar performance. I have FORTRAN for that, a Zenith/ Microsoft product. I use a Z-120 about once a week, and on many vintage projects. The Z-120's were also bought by the US military for their classrooms, and by many universities; some sold one to EVERY student. Many people over 50 remember them; that's helpful. I could probably add an 8087...768K of memory ought to be enough....vroom vroom!..he he Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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FS: VIP TXM/10-IV 10 MHz Super XT Motherboard Repaired/Tested/Working
by Systems Glitch 06 May '17

06 May '17

link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/272660815175 This board had a few broken traces on the bottom -- looks like it was stacked up with some other boards and got scraped at some point. After fixing the traces, the board still wouldn't come up, and the POST card showed a bad DMA controller. Replaced the DMA controller with a 40-pin machine pin socket and NOS Siemens 8237A. Fully tested as described in the listing. This board has 1 MB (640K usable) of 256K x 4 DRAM installed, plus parity chips. Interestingly, it supports 16 and 20 pin DIP RAM, as well as ZIP RAM. Fully assembled and tested XT-IDE rev 3 boards are available for bundled purchase with this board -- your XT-IDE will be tested in this exact board. Thanks, Jonathan

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Workshop Breakfast Tomorrow 5/6
by Jeffrey Brace 06 May '17

06 May '17

A few of us from the workshop are going to Blue Swan diner in Ocean Township tomorrow morning at 9am. Anyone is free to join us, just let me know. -- Jeff Brace - ark72axow(a)gmail.com Sent from my Commodore 64 ========================================================

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Re: vcf-midatlantic Digest, Vol 19, Issue 5
by SVCatITC＠aol.com 06 May '17

06 May '17

BRAVO Herb; You are another scholar who again brought back memories for me. When EAI got too big for their britches, they got involved in full scope power plant simulators using SEL 32 mainframes and CDC Winchester drives. FORTRAN was the OS of the day on these mainframes modeling nuclear reactor vessels, and processes. I have a very good PHD friend living out in Hightstown, NJ who still uses FORTRAN from time to time in his modeling work. We worked together on the ANPP project out in AZ for AZ Public Service (back in the late 80's). I can drop him a line if he might be interested in helping in such a project. I helped him in showing him real life SCADA instrumentation dynamics so as he could get the software objects to respond and drive the instrumentation as fast as the real life analog processes did. ..... Not such an easy task. Count me as one who would want to see something similar run on big iron. I might be able to help with the peripheral instrumentation as well. If you are coming this weekend, we might talk further. Many Thanks for your continued "long view" insight for the mission statement. Bill Inderrieden In a message dated 5/5/2017 12:00:07 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, Herb Johnson writes: The question is: is there any interest in this kind of exhibit at a VCF? The exhibit would be, a vintage computer running a FORTRAN program, which modeled some physical system - a chemical plant, an automobile engine, a nuclear power plant, whatever - and used some other computer or means (a reduced size model, etc.) to visually demonstrate what was being "computed"? An example of sorts, is David Gesswein's display at VCF-East 2017. He displayed graphical results (not the actual computations or the thing modeled) on graphical terminals and on paper with a plotter. It was a physically interesting exhibit, of these graphical instruments - that was the point, I understood that, I liked the exhibit. In short - is anyone interested in actual, useful *computations* from a vintage computer? And in seeing those results displayed in some simulation of a physical system? Or would such an exhibit, be lost among graphical games and videos? Or irrelevant among displaying the computers as various brands and models with this feature or that? Those are important considerations among vintage computer owners and visitors; so is what I'm talking about. Herb Johnson retro*technology*.com

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FS: Varisystems/Teledyne P16 Core Memory System Lot
by Systems Glitch 05 May '17

05 May '17

link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/272659428903 Picked this up in a lot of industrial control surplus. No idea what it's intended to interface with. I would guess it is a generic core memory system provided to OEMs. The lot includes one good condition control board, one subpar condition control board, and a core plane of unknown size. It looks like it's probably a 4K or 8K core plane, similar in density to a DEC H217 but of course much smaller. Thanks, Jonathan

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OT: Nasa runs competition to help make old Fortran code faster
by Herb Johnson 05 May '17

05 May '17

Thanks for the post about the NASA challenge to improve a FORTRAN program. This interests me, as an engineer of the FORTRAN era. It's actually a pretty complicated body of code. But it brings to my mind, a question about displaying vintage computers. See if what I have to say is of interest to you - I'll literally ask that question in this post. https://www.nasa.gov/aero/nasa-issues-a-challenge-to-speed-up-its-supercomp… is a link to NASA's site with more details of the challenge. While classic FORTRAN of the 70's and 80's is not overly complex, it is different from BASIC and PASCAL of the era. But NASA's FORTRAN is much more complex. Scientists have continued to use FORTRAN for decades, and subsequent versions of FORTRAN support parallel execution, structured coding, etc. . Specific applications require libraries of complex mathematical operations; in this case, support for "CFD" or computational fluid dynamics - extremely complex physics of motions of air or liquids. The challenge points out that results must retain accurate calculations; modern FORTRANs have long representations for values. So this is no 24-hour hacker's challenge. You'd need a background in complicated physics and in numeric computation, to have a shot at this. And I'm not sure any of this code even runs on a desktop computer, or if so it would run very slowly. ------ It's relevant to vintage computing, because FORTRAN did run on vintage personal computers; and because it ran on vintage mainframes and minicomputers. It was pretty common in the 1970's; I learned FORTRAN in my technical public high school back then. I've thought about some kind of VCF exhibit, where old FORTRAN code would be run on a 70's or 80's microcomputer, to demonstrate calculations and show some graphical results. It would simulate some physical system. I've come across this sort of code from time to time, in old textbooks and reports. Likewise: there's been posted discussions here, about how to display *analog* computers. After all, those computers represented physical systems, that was their purpose. They were used to model the differential equations of, say, a bouncing ball or ballistics or chemical reactions; and display some graph of results given some variables. The analog computers themselves, WERE literal models (if you understood differential equations). But in discussion, it was suggested that a modern computer, or Web access, could display a visual model of the thing being modeled, and use the analog computer's outputs to "drive the model". OK - If these descriptions have already put you to sleep, or suggested some kind of one-liner punch line in your head, then that answers my question before I ask. The question is: is there any interest in this kind of exhibit at a VCF? The exhibit would be, a vintage computer running a FORTRAN program, which modeled some physical system - a chemical plant, an automobile engine, a nuclear power plant, whatever - and used some other computer or means (a reduced size model, etc.) to visually demonstrate what was being "computed"? An example of sorts, is David Gesswein's display at VCF-East 2017. He displayed graphical results (not the actual computations or the thing modeled) on graphical terminals and on paper with a plotter. It was a physically interesting exhibit, of these graphical instruments - that was the point, I understood that, I liked the exhibit. In short - is anyone interested in actual, useful *computations* from a vintage computer? And in seeing those results displayed in some simulation of a physical system? Or would such an exhibit, be lost among graphical games and videos? Or irrelevant among displaying the computers as various brands and models with this feature or that? Those are important considerations among vintage computer owners and visitors; so is what I'm talking about. Herb Johnson retro*technology*.com -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT info

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June Workshop Dates - June 24 & 25
by Jeffrey Brace 05 May '17

05 May '17

If there are no objections, I will put in a request for the next workshop to be June 24 & 25. Do you guys prefer: 9032-A (The big room where we often have the workshop) or 9010-C (The cafeteria where we had Festivus) ? -- Jeff Brace - ark72axow(a)gmail.com Sent from my Commodore 64 ========================================================

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Workshop dates for July, August, September
by Jeffrey Brace 04 May '17

04 May '17

Any conflicts with these dates? July 22/23 August 12/13 September 16/17 -- Jeff Brace - ark72axow(a)gmail.com Sent from my Commodore 64 ========================================================

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IMPORTANT ChAnGes to Workshop 5/6 & 5/7, 2017 & Volunteer Day
by Jeffrey Brace 04 May '17

04 May '17

DATE: May 6 & 7, 2017 LOCATION: InfoAge Building 9010A - the common room down the hall from the VCF museum, address: 2201 Marconi Road, Wall Township, NJ) TIME: Volunteer work start at 10AM near the warehouse. Bring appropriate clothing and gloves. If it rains, then we will work inside the warehouse. Workshop Starts about 1:00 P.M. on Saturday and ends whenever we go to sleep. On Sunday it will end about 5 P.M. (Starts around 10 A.M. Sunday morning) SIGNUP here ==> : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1waEqeNHZeYM9t7OprYWH bwBrIVS9EzGNGl7yJm_7yr0/edit?usp=sharing COST: - $10 for all members attending the workshop, which VCF donates to InfoAge as thanks for providing the space for us. - $25 for those wanting to stay overnight. Please pay me when you get there so that I don't forget. OVERNIGHT: Bring your own pillow, blankets, soap etc. We provide a bed frame and an uncovered mattress. There are showers and a kitchen for your use. - We will have PayPal credit card swipes available. EQUIPMENT: - VCF will provide a table and you can use any available electrical outlet. - Bring your own tools, power strips, power cords, and supplies etc. - Please bring an extra one or two power cords as these are often forgotten by people. DRINKS: You should bring your own. I would recommend bringing a cooler of some type. FOOD: You provide your own. We usually order pizza, subs or go out to a dinner and everyone pays their own way. Usually, we make a decision when everyone gets hungry. GATE: During the hours from 1 pm to 5 pm close the front gate behind you. We want museum visitors to go to the front lobby and not wander through the middle of the campus. Outside of those times, you can feel free to leave the gate open. PARKING: Park on the blacktop and not the grass. QUESTIONS? Please ask me (Jeff Brace) or Evan. My cell is 732-759-1783 and Evan’s is 646-546-9999 in case you need to contact us. See everyone there! And have fun! -- Jeff Brace - ark72axow(a)gmail.com Sent from my Commodore 64 ========================================================

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Semi-OT: PureData Token Ring EISA adapters
by Jim Scheef 04 May '17

04 May '17

Hello all, I have seven PDE9025-4/16 token ring adapters that are free to a good home. A long-time (nameless) MARCHian gave me these about 7-8 years ago. These cards have never been used, the bus connectors are totally pristine. There is only one set of original documentation (3/8" thick book) with driver and diagnostic disks, so one person gets them all. They are free for local pickup or the cost of shipping. With these, plus that MAU in the back of your closet, you can build the Token RingT network of your dreams! Jim

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OT: Nasa runs competition to help make old Fortran code faster
by Tony Bogan 04 May '17

04 May '17

FYI. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39803425 Tony Sent from my iPhone

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LSSM press coverage
by Dave McGuire 04 May '17

04 May '17

Nice article about LSSM earlier this week: http://triblive.com/local/valleynewsdispatch/12104848-74/new-kensington-mus… There are a few errors in it (the PDP-11/70 most certainly did NOT sell for $10,000..) but overall it's a nice article. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] pillow talk
by Jeffrey Jonas 04 May '17

04 May '17

replying to Joseph Oprysko > I'm guessing no blinkenlights on the pillow. Wearables are getting better and better. Some are machine washable. I have a music CD with a LED lightshow in the cover, and a flag with fiber optic lights so a pillow ought to be easier!

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Ohio Scientific Universal RAM Board GW-OSI-RAM1
by Systems Glitch 03 May '17

03 May '17

Finished building a prototype mezzanine board and testing with the IM6100 (PDP-8 on a chip) in the 560Z board today. Full writeup: http://www.glitchwrks.com/2017/05/03/gw-osi-ram1-universal-ram There are a couple of tweaks required, but I should be doing a first production run of boards before long. This board is: * 128 KW, 12-bits * Optional memory management/bank switching * No hard-to-find/expensive ICs (8T26, et c.) * All through hole * Includes lamp register mezzanine header * Largeish prototype area The lamp register is on a mezzanine for a few reasons. First off, octal vs. hex grouping! It really throws me off to try and interpret one on the other. Second, it allows remote mounting on a ribbon cable, i.e. board can be mounted to a front panel. Third, I'll likely design a 7-segment version. Thanks, Jonathan

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photos VCF SE Apr 30, May 1 2017
by william degnan 03 May '17

03 May '17

http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=677 Photos of the event and Photos of the Computer HIstory Museum of America, both located in a former CompUSA owned by Lonnie Mims. I was quite impressed with both the exhibits and the museum. Will post video asap. Bill

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VCF-SE
by Evan Koblentz 02 May '17

02 May '17

I'm finally rested up from VCF Southeast. Had a great time! Arrived on Friday morning, immediately found Bill Degnan and tons of other friends -- all the SE crew who attend VCF East; along with Mike Lee, Jack Rubin, David Larsen, Jim Brain, Malcolm M., and lots of others who've been to East and/or are friends from other parts of the hobby (online, West, etc.) Sat next to Tandy's Don French at dinner Friday night. That was a special treat. Bill and I had our tables next to each other as the combined VCFed booth. We hung the Fed banner behind us in the center. Bill showed a DEC Rainbow alternately playing chess and connected to the VCForum IRC. I showed the Lego robot. It behaved pretty well all weekend. The Laser 128 worked flawlessly. Chris Eckert, son of ENIAC co-creator J. Presper Eckert, joined some of us for dinner Saturday night. Turns out he lives four miles from the venue. Didn't know that until I arrived. His wife read about the event in some local paper and he told her, "That sounds familiar, let me check with Evan" ... small world. As always, these weekends are over too fast. I was glad to be at a VCF and not have all the responsibility of being in charge. :) David Greelish donated an IMSAI pillow for our museum. It's a blue rectangular pillow with one long end that looks like a front panel. Pretty cool. I'm grateful for the person who gave me the opportunity to attend and for all of the SE crew's hospitality the whole weekend long. ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit evan(a)vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation instagram.com/vcfederation

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What's this about a workshop?
by Jeffrey Brace 02 May '17

02 May '17

I recall someone posting about some workshop coming up. That sounds like a great idea. I have a bunch of Commodore 64 that I need to fix. I sure hope that there are people can help me fix them. Does anyone have the details about it? -- Jeff Brace - ark72axow(a)gmail.com Sent from my Commodore 64 ========================================================

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Museum Report - Sunday 30Apr2017
by Todd George 02 May '17

02 May '17

A day late... Anyway, I was docent yesterday. Chris Fala was there with me as we wanted to pick up the shelving that we used for the Commodore exhibit at VCF East. Glad Chris was with me, it was quite a busy day. We had two older couples that came through together, the one husband was extremely knowledgeable and very interested, said they had visited us before but not in the new museum space. We had a mother and son touring the InfoAge facility, and I gave her directions a few times to other exhibits around InfoAge, eventually they walked through our exhibit. The mom had more interest in computers than she had initially let on. A gentleman named Nick stopped in to test out a handful of 3.5" disks he had on our IBM PS/2. He hung out for a few hours. Bill Dudley stopped by to drop off a PC. We had a scout troop of probably 6 along with 3 or 4 leaders, very little attention span left as it was late in the day. I want to say I'm missing a few parties as well. The groups were nicely spread out throughout the day, kept it moving. I think that's it for the report. I hope I didn't miss too much. :) See ya! -Todd

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Hellooooo
by Evan Koblentz 02 May '17

02 May '17

Hey everyone. I'm back from Atlanta. Will answer emails later tonight and send a show report.

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Hellooooo
by Evan Koblentz 01 May '17

01 May '17

Hey everyone. I'm back from Atlanta. Will answer emails later tonight and send a show report.

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PC needed for VCFed BBS
by Evan Koblentz 01 May '17

01 May '17

Hey everyone, As announced a couple of weeks ago: we need a PC for the VCFed BBS. Some requirements: - It should be a PC that's already fully working, we don't want to get some junk and have to fix it up. - It should NOT be a tower: we prefer a mini- or micro-ATX - All it will ever run is one or two DOS programs. In fact, you'll save us time/effort if you pre-install MS-DOS 6.22 on it. - Mobo should be maxed-out with the most memory that 6.22 can handle. - The more quiet and energy-efficient, the better. - SSD > HDD - We'll attach a traditional dial-up modem or two, so it should have (serial?) ports for this. (Big ol' telephony card not wanted.) Who can donate something to meet these requirements?

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88-DSK RAM?
by David Hoelzer 01 May '17

01 May '17

Does anyone happen to have a Briel 88-DSK RAM kit that they aren’t using? I finally got around to repairing my 8800 clone and realized that I never bought the DSK, and I think Vince is out of business.

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Festivus 2017
by Jeffrey Brace 01 May '17

01 May '17

I know that this is really early, but I like to reserve the space and then forget about it until later. Since World of Commodore is December 2/3, I was thinking that either December 9/10 or 16/17 weekend would be best. What say youze? -- Jeff Brace - ark72axow(a)gmail.com Sent from my Commodore 64 ========================================================

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OT: Why do so many people buy game systems to re-sell over-valued?
by Joseph Oprysko 01 May '17

01 May '17

Just looking for peoples opinions. I was looking for a Nintendo Switch for my daughter's birthday last week, couldn't find it in ANY stores, and Craigslist/Flea-Bay are all at least $100 more, some $200 more. -- Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot. Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do. Normal Person: So you go surfing? Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a lot... Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level. Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What?

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SIGNUP! 4 VCF Workshop and VCF Volunteer Day!
by Jeffrey Brace 30 Apr '17

30 Apr '17

If you intend to go to the workshop and volunteer day, then please signup! I know that there are more people than signed up going. The number signed up right now is lower than usual. I know there are procrastinators out there not signing up. It is better if I can estimate how many are going. Workshop: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1waEqeNHZeYM9t7OprYWHbwBrIVS9EzGNGl7… Volunteer Day: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10H4aFaxjt6l2EQO9tjmlY-d3az0UZLGFEjU… Thanks! -- Jeff Brace - ark72axow(a)gmail.com Sent from my Commodore 64 ========================================================

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Two full-length ISA CGA cards available
by William Dudley 29 Apr '17

29 Apr '17

More stuff dredged up from my "collection". Two CGA full-length ISA cards as used in original 4.77Mhz PC's. One says "Made in Taiwan" on it. The other has no country of origin markings. Both have a DB-9 female AND an RCA jack output. I doubt Evan wants either of these for the museum, but one never knows, so Evan is invited to pipe up. I can bring these to the VCF workshop if that's useful to avoid shipping them. Bill Dudley This email is free of malware because I run Linux.

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Free IBM Display Writer
by Adam Michlin 29 Apr '17

29 Apr '17

Hi Everyone, I have someone that is looking for a good home (i.e. free) for an IBM DisplayWriter. Pictures here: http://ceos.io/ibm/ I don't currently have room for long term shortage, but can temporarily store it until it can be picked up in North Jersey. I visit the museum often enough that I could also arrange to meet up there in the near future. Whether it works or not, I have no idea. It is dumpster bound in the next few days if I don't find a home for it. Best wishes, -Adam

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Too good not to share! Commodore Video:
by Chris Fala 27 Apr '17

27 Apr '17

Our friend Amiga Bill shot and edited this. I nominate it for the VCF Emmy award. https://youtu.be/5AVPCEx6SRo

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PC needed for VCFed BBS
by Herb Johnson 27 Apr '17

27 Apr '17

There was a request for MS-DOS install disks for the BBS. I sent a private email to Evan, offering an unused IBM brand MS-DOS 6.2 upgrade, disks and manual, in box. I created a DOS 5.0 disk as the IBM disks are for upgrade and the install runs under MS-DOS. No response from Evan. Evan et al, if you need this for the BBS, privately send me a mailing address and I'll postal mail it to you. Of course this is for the BBS, not a giveaway otherwise. The museum might consider displaying the box and manual with a display of the BBS. After all, this is about the era, and in the era one obtained DISKETTES (not "CD's") and got manuals with their MS-DOS. This is up to the museum of course. Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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VCF SE hotel share
by william degnan 27 Apr '17

27 Apr '17

I have a room with a pull out bed if anyone is looking to share a room this weekend. Cost $40 / night next to the event. Contact me via vintagecomputer.net/contact.cfm

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OT: Laptop f/s
by Evan Koblentz 26 Apr '17

26 Apr '17

I've got an HP Pavilion DV7T for sale: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2347354,00.asp Win 7, all bloatware removed, LibreOffice installed, screen is fine, case has scratches, battery is DOA but I * may * have a replacement around here; if not they're $25 online. Computer typically sells for $200-$400 on eBay. Will take what I can get for it: need $$$ right away. ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit evan(a)vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation instagram.com/vcfederation

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] does anyone have the schematics for the Simon 1 relay computer
by Evan Koblentz 26 Apr '17

26 Apr '17

>> does anyone have the schematics for the Simon 1 relay computer No, but you could figure it out by reading the Simon chapter of "Giant brains or machines that think." Lots of tech info there. Got it on my bookshelf.

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] PC needed for VCFed BBS
by William Dudley 26 Apr '17

26 Apr '17

Machine is Compaq DeskPro. Can't as yet find model name/number. Pentium 3. On mono NIC is Intel 82557/8/9/0/1 Ethernet Pro 100 Rev 8, according to lspci. If there's a DOS driver for that, then great, that frees up a slot. There's also on board audio, (Intel 82801), but you probably don't need audio on this box. Bill On Apr 26, 2017 9:35 PM, "Joseph Oprysko via vcf-midatlantic" < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: It's just that there likely IS a packet driver for that machine, as Netware required packet drivers. And Compaq *IS* was business class machine back in those days. On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 9:33 PM, Joseph Oprysko <joprysko1(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Bill, what is the make/model of the machine? I'll look around for a DOS > packet driver just incase something like that beast exists. Using less > IRQ's is better.. :) > > On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 9:02 PM, William Dudley via vcf-midatlantic < > vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > >> No, the built in NIC is unlikely to be have a DOS driver, so you need >> the NE2000 NIC, which takes a slot. If you need another slot, you'll >> have to sacrifice the sound card. >> >> Bill >> >> >> This email is free of malware because I run Linux. >> >> On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 8:57 PM, Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic < >> vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: >> >> > >> If the NE2000 clone is sufficient, then we don't have to ask anyone >> else >> > for a NIC. >> > >> > ...And it would save a slot for another modem later. >> > >> > > > > -- > Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot. > Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do. > Normal Person: So you go surfing? > Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a > lot... > Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level. > Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What? > -- Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot. Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do. Normal Person: So you go surfing? Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a lot... Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level. Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What?

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All set re: PC for VCFed BBS
by Evan Koblentz 26 Apr '17

26 Apr '17

Bill Dudley has the Compaq computer running 6.22 so we're all set. A fanless mini-ATX would have been nifty but two real serial ports can't be beat.

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does anyone have the schematics for the Simon 1 relay computer
by David Keith 26 Apr '17

26 Apr '17

http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/1950/#169ebbe2ad45559efbc6eb35720b3…

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