- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

Sperry Univac Core - Which computer and Capacity?
by Douglas Crawford 06 Jul '21

06 Jul '21

Board is identified as 90536-7128081-00 G Web hits on this are thin. Anyone know what Univac machine this is from and its capacity? I suppose count of the wires H x L = # of bits of storage, and one side is the word size of the computer? Confirmation? https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/kw4AAOSwwlBgujxR/s-l1600.jpg Thanks, DC

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Mo' stickas (2" inch circle stickers of vintage computers)
by Jeffrey Brace 04 Jul '21

04 Jul '21

There was a sticker sale, I got 3 more: Atari 800, TRS-80, Altar 8800: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-Cl8ZPsxcT3d05krNtuam684_o6QdYAk?us… They are available for sale now at the museum and at VCF East and VCF West. ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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why all my email is plain text
by Jeffrey Jonas 03 Jul '21

03 Jul '21

I have been a rather effective email user since the 80s. It's the MESSAGE that counts. The CONTENT. Not the glitz, cute fonts, colors, icons, logos, stickers, emojis or other decorations. panix is my main ISP (Internet Service Provider). I usually ssh into their NetBSD server and use the PINE email program. It's fast, responsive, and allows me to manage my email effectively. It also means that it's nearly impossible for malware, spyware, tracking cookies and other HTML atrocities to run. [admittedly, PINE has a LYNX ability to text-display HTML]. I archive emails by person or topic. Those are plain text files, so I can GREP them and easily use any editor to manipulate the content. HTML emails are usually 3x the file size of plain text. That counts against my disk quota. I don't appreciate folks filling my files with fluff. I prefer the digest so I get complete conversations albeit delayed up to a day. -- jeff jonas

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] why all my email is plain text
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 02 Jul '21

02 Jul '21

Jeffrey Jonas via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> writes: > >I have been a rather effective email user since the 80s. It's the >MESSAGE that counts. The CONTENT. Not the glitz, cute fonts, colors, >icons, logos, stickers, emojis or other decorations. > >panix is my main ISP (Internet Service Provider). I usually ssh into >their NetBSD server and use the PINE email program. It's fast, >responsive, and allows me to manage my email effectively. It also means >that it's nearly impossible for malware, spyware, tracking cookies and >other HTML atrocities to run. [admittedly, PINE has a LYNX ability to >text-display HTML]. > >I archive emails by person or topic. Those are plain text files, so I >can GREP them and easily use any editor to manipulate the content. > >HTML emails are usually 3x the file size of plain text. That counts >against my disk quota. I don't appreciate folks filling my files with >fluff. > >I prefer the digest so I get complete conversations albeit delayed up to >a day. Kudos!

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Topics for Bil Herd at VCF East 2021
by Jeffrey Brace 02 Jul '21

02 Jul '21

Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker. He is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas to suggest for him to talk about? Reply here or send me a message privately. ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Off Topic: Confirmed fix for your messages being in an attachment
by Herb Johnson 01 Jul '21

01 Jul '21

Two points: one about "lost in history", one in opposition to embedded content. On "lost in history", from Douglas Crawford: > Worse I just learned today (and this was the LAST STRAW) > that every message that everyone has sent in HTML *mode*, where the > text body became an attachment, has been lost in history because the > mailman digest strip these attachments off. Its all gone. > Years and years of messages. > All due to misunderstanding of this facility. Doug, the operation of the VCFed midatlantic email list is outside my skills set. But I don't understand your "lost in history" statement as a factual matter, within my incomplete knowledge which I'll spell out. I read the list *exclusively* with a Web browser, accessing the list at the link below and then for the month as the messages are accumulated monthly. https://lists.vcfed.org/mailman/listinfo/vcf-midatlantic I am one of very few posting-members who do this, apparently. Never mind why few do or why I do. That being the case, I'll describe what I know if others don't know it. So as I look with my Web browser, on the mailist Web site, at the June 2021 list; and then look at your June emails - which have the "scrubbed attachment" feature - I was obliged to do as you noted, to click another link, to read your message text. To my point now. Your attached text is not "lost to history". The attached file is also archived, just as the messages are archived. For instance one such attached/detached email content is linked as: > https://lists.vcfed.org/pipermail/vcf-midatlantic/attachments/20210615/eae4… To read it, you follow the link. The link and content is "preserved". So I don't understand your "lost" statement. Now your statement focuses on "digest" mode, which I don't use, and if I recall sends a daily? email packaging several emails of the day. I do not know, if these links are part of the digested messages. If the links are, apparently you can recover the attachments as I've described. If not, recover them from the maillist Web page interface. Also: the maillist on the online Web interface, provides an accumulative monthly gzip package of emails. That also excludes the attached texts BUT it includes Web links per message (like the link above for a June message, I just checked). Doug, it's possible you mean other attachments such as photos or documents, which may not be processed as I just described. Simply put: it's outside my skills and time available to make a determination about that. I leave that to the email list administrators and/or yourself. All that, addresses the "lost in history" comment. ------------------------- About embedded content: Dave McGuire makes quite a case for not supporting HTML and not providing various attachments. Others have also. To me they appears to be a "traditional" view of email, one I happen to agree with. But others may not be interested in traditional views of email, and so not persuaded. I observe that in other email list schemes (such as groups.io) which support embedded content and various schemes, I don't care for the result. Which is, to embed important information among a bunch of other emails that can only be found by tedious keyword search. By "important", I mean content an email list member would like to find later; or content that someone doing Web search, might like to find for its value. In my vintage computing work, I've done such searching many many times. It's tedious enough, just to treat emails as a text file. It's more tedious, to be obliged to read the emails with whatever email-reading tools are available. I don't care for email systems to be used for hobby collaborative environments, for many reasons not the least being the inability to *edit and supersede old content*. While not "lost", that content is obscured. But as I noted earlier in this email: others may not be persuaded by what amount to "traditionalist" views in modern use of the Internet. To old people it should not be a surprise that young people may not be interested in prior practices. ----------------------- These are all matters for the email list administrators to consider. Who they are, what they know, and how they take actions, are all mysterious to me. (shrug) They did not address Doug's comment (so far) so I chose to address it. Others provided their opinions on the matter, so did I. regards, Herb Johnson -- 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 comcast DOT net

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OT: On the merits of plain text email
by Douglas Crawford 01 Jul '21

01 Jul '21

Here you go, have at it. > I guess that's the problem with HTML for ya'll? It encourages too > much formatting? Or is it bulky? I don't need it, certainly we > don't need it functionally, but I don't understand what the huge > prob is with it, educate me. There are philosophical issues with sending frequently tens or hundreds of kilobytes when a few hundred bytes will do. That doesn't matter as much as it used to, but it still matters to some people for real (i.e. financial) reasons. There ARE still metered network connections. I myself am not on one, but I know a great many people who are, and smartphones nearly always are. Next, HTML is for web pages. Email is not web pages, it is a textual communications medium. The fact that uneducated developers who don't know any better added HTML capability in some email clients does not automatically mean it's a good idea. At least in Thunderbird (which I use) that drivel can be turned off. All of this crap started when the floodgates of nontechnical people opened up onto the Internet, and they seemed to think that anything is really just fine as long as they found it in a drop-down menu. Otherwise, why would it be there, right? That fallacious logic assumes that the developers of the email program knew what they were doing. But most importantly for me, *I* choose the text size, text color, background color, etc that works best FOR ME to read email on all of the devices on which I do that. People are not welcome to attempt to override that. What they send is really their business...and whether or not I bit-bucket their flowery purple fonts is mine. That crap is distracting and it's a waste of time, and I'm not a person with a lot of time to waste. Next, honestly, who has so much free time as to think playing around with "stylizing" their textual communications is a reasonable use of their time? On 7/1/21 11:33 AM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > Dave McGuire makes quite a case for not supporting HTML and not > providing various attachments. Others have also. To me they appears to > be a "traditional" view of email, one I happen to agree with. But others > may not be interested in traditional views of email, and so not persuaded. Speaking of "a traditional view of email" suggests that there are other views, and it further suggests that this is a matter of "views" in the first place. The RFCs have not changed. The protocols have not changed. The reasoning behind the design decisions made during the creation of both have not changed. The drawbacks to abusing the protocols and the problems that this causes have not changed. And (for me) above all, my desire to not allow J. Random Mouthbreather who wants to use complex tools without learning anything about them first to override how MY computer systems display textual content intended for me to read has most definitely not changed. > But as I noted earlier in this email: others may not be persuaded by > what amount to "traditionalist" views in modern use of the Internet. To > old people it should not be a surprise that young people may not be > interested in prior practices. It's not a perfect analogy, but it's close: If I'm standing before a judge in a courtroom, I probably would not have a very good day if I were to explain to the judge that I, as a person with my own "view", was not interested in prior practices regarding speed limits and was not "persuaded" by others who were trying to keep me out of jail. A person can use a crescent wrench to pound in a nail. It will probably eventually get the nail in, but the person is still an idiot. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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Off Topic: Confirmed fix for your messages being in an attachment
by Douglas Crawford 01 Jul '21

01 Jul '21

In your address book for entry VCF-Midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org, set the drop down: "Prefers to receive messages formatted as: Plain Text" If Mailman ever allows HTML, we can switch back.

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Off Topic: Confirmed fix for your messages being in an attachment
by Herb Johnson 01 Jul '21

01 Jul '21

>> Uh, no, please don't. HTML mail sucks. Leave HTML in web pages where >> it belongs. > > I second the motion. Email doesn't need HTML. I concur. One other off-topic matter. Didja happen to notice, that the monthly accumulation of emails on the pipermail server, opened the "July" folder, with the first message that was dated "Thu Jul 1 01.41.00 UTC"? That is, sometime after 6PM Eastern Time. It's mildly annoying to be on Greenwich Mean Time from here from New Jersey. But it's a small matter. Regards, Herb -- 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 comcast DOT net

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Off Topic - Possible fix of email body inside an attachment - Test
by Douglas Crawford 30 Jun '21

30 Jun '21

I use thunderbird email client, and apparently all my message bodies are attached instead of in-line. I have just switched for this recipient to be text only. Would one person please respond if this message is in the body rather than included as an attachment?

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Oregon Trail
by Duane Craps 28 Jun '21

28 Jun '21

Back during the Oregon Trail anniversary. People were talking about running DOS to run it. I assembled a source I found with QB64 (a hobbyist Quick Basic clone). Seems to run OK. I'm not into text games so I have not thoroughly checked it out. Here is a link to the file in my dropbox : https://www.dropbox.com/s/y3qi21j5j266sx3/oregon.exe?dl=0 -- DuaneCraps sdɐɹɔ ǝuɐnp

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estate sale in RI
by W2HX 28 Jun '21

28 Jun '21

Mostly ham stuff but some vintage micros here and there: https://www.estatesales.net/RI/Providence/02904/2942061 73 Eugene W2HX

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First Request for Consignment Submissions for VCF East 2021
by Alexander Jacocks 27 Jun '21

27 Jun '21

All, If you're considering doing consignment at VCF East, please start filling out the consignment forms, located here: https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/vcf-east-cons… Please fill out the form and email it to vcfeast(a)vcfed.org, or if that's not possible, bring it with you to the event. Please do not do all your form filling at the event, as that will cause a lot of confusion for the consignment staff. It would help us greatly if you get those back to us as early as possible. Thanks! - Alex

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DisplayWriters from Kemners?
by Douglas Crawford 27 Jun '21

27 Jun '21

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Laserdisk transfer to digital?
by Jeffrey Brace 26 Jun '21

26 Jun '21

Does anyone know if it is possible to transfer laserdisks to a modern digital format? There are 16 laserdisks recently donated that have C programming training from 1984, which was part of a UNIX and C training program. The reason for the transfer is that we don't know how rare these disks are nor how long laserdisk will last. There are 16 laserdisks as well as supplemental floppy disks and some paper manuals. ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Original Macintosh Architecture Questions
by John Heritage 26 Jun '21

26 Jun '21

Hey folks -- Two items I'm curious about on the classic (and very original) Apple Macs.. 1. Mac (128kb ,512kb, etc) audio -- was there a custom or off the shelf sound chip for the audio on the original Mac? and was it 1 channel / and was it a custom chip by Apple? (how did it achieve speech synthesis in 1984) 2. The Macintosh Classic released in 1990 "was about 25% faster than the original Macs". This is in line with the Atari ST often being quoted as faster than a Mac when emulating a Mac via Magic Sac or similar. What changed in the architecture to make the Mac Classic (or an ST in emulation) faster than the original Mac? Was it faster memory that gave more availability for CPU usage? were only certain instructions sped up or was everything faster? Thanks!

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free stuff update
by Bill Degnan 25 Jun '21

25 Jun '21

https://www.kennettclassic.com/freestuff/ A few changes to the free stuff pile. Bill

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IEEE Spectrum: A PDP-8 makes a stylish addition to any home.
by Jeffrey Jonas 25 Jun '21

25 Jun '21

old news to us: https://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/put-the-classic-pdp8-minicompu… Put the Classic PDP-8 Minicomputer on Your Shelf This Raspberry Pi–powered replica runs all the original PDP-8 software with enough cycles left to double as a media server. A PDP-8 makes a stylish addition to any home.

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Homebrew Computer Systems from Bob the donor
by Herb Johnson 25 Jun '21

25 Jun '21

Thanks for the back story about "Bernie S paid a visit" and the computer brought to the repair workshop "for Dmitry". So now that Dmitry has the back story, what's his/her plan for the remains? It would be nice from my view, if the computer remains could at least be physically reassembled to preserve some kind of history of that kind of construction. I don't think they can be made to work again, nor need they be in my opinion. (The Apple II clone is in another, later category but of the same kind.) But if Dmitry plans to just use the parts - which is of course up to them - then it's good to have preserved the narrative and technical history at least. I have a Web site for the stories and tech I preserve. For those who think this looks awful, well, this is how we built microprocessor computers at home. In the earliest days, there just weren't' any "computers" to build, just micro processors or at best $1000 development systems or $300 development boards. In the mid-1970's, you could buy a *new car* for a few thousand dollars; $300 was an apartment's monthly rent. And, there weren't many single-chip functions - like "a floppy controller chip". So one board equaled one function. And floppy drives were expensive too. Most early computers used either paper-tape, or cassettes. And that worked fine for the small programs in use. These weren't built for looks, they were built for function. Many of the builders were learning as they went. Some were designing as they went, and as new chips became available. Getting them to work was an achievement. So, in my experience from the era: the 6502 computer when built, was an example of the time, early and certainly not common. The Apple II add-ons, was a thing that some people did, building on an available computer board. Using an 8-track drive for data is kinda scary, but it's a plausible extension of cassette data drives. But, once microcomputers got relatively affordable or were "cloned" cheaply, these hand-wired computers got shelved. When the technology advanced, these became less and less "functionally useful". So most were parted out or dumped. Since they were all unique, and didn't have that mass-produced designer look; they became cryptic, unfamiliar. That's why you don't see them much today, 40 years later. And time passed, is why work like this needs an explanation. Regards, Herb -- 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 comcast DOT net

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Old Heathkits Never Die, They Just Get Restored
by Herb Johnson 24 Jun '21

24 Jun '21

This isn't just "a Heathkit". This is a Heatkit analog computer, one of a number of analog computer models produced by Heath. And it is a nicely done article, describing a restoration and now-unfamiliar components; vacuum tubes not the least of them. The subject functionality itself is unfamiliar. Now 21st century persons have been introduced to this 1960's tech and mid-century analog computers. There's a companion brief article on earlier large scale analog computers and their role in engineering and science. So persons interested in these subjects should review this article. Regards, Herb -- 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 comcast DOT net

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Old Heathkits Never Die, They Just Get Restored
by Christian Liendo 24 Jun '21

24 Jun '21

I enjoyed the article, i figured others might enjoy as well. https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/May2016_Heathkit_Restoration

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Original Macintosh Architecture Questions
by Herb Johnson 24 Jun '21

24 Jun '21

> Mike Willegal > I agree that the original Macintosh (128K) is very painful to use, especially if you try to use it with only the single floppy drive that came with it. Saying it has a poor system design without understanding the design constraints that the developers were faced with, is doing them a disservice. > Once more memory and a SCSI hard drive were added with the release of the Macintosh Plus, the user experience with the same basic hardware and software system was transformed into a very positive one proving the basic system design was good. I'm not sure if I disagree with Mike or not. He makes a point about early technology being a performance dog, which got fixed with later tech. He makes a point about "quality of system design" that's some mix of hardware performance and usability of software. And points about a company's development situation among a mix of products available and technology behind and ahead. I think he's overly critical of the 128K at its point in time. In my view, the 128K Mac and its operating environment, gave a class of potential (not actual yet) computer users an entirely different way to run programs, and to run all programs in a consistent *graphical* fashion. The physical package itself was attractive and portable (by standards of the time). And it came from a computer company with a good reputation and history. I think the audience that 1984 computer found, weren't worried about "performance" and did not find the 128K Mac "painful to use". They could not look ahead to change their expectations; they were not users of command-line computers with multiple drives (floppy or hard). Myself, I was working near a doctor's office at a time. They were using 128K and 512K Macs, and getting office work DONE. I'm pretty sure they weren't reading technical manuals, or had run CP/M systems beforehand. Those Macs enabled their productivity. Sounds like a home run to me. But I'm not sure what Mike was responding to, because the discussion thread shifted to SGI equipment for a long stretch. So pardon me if I'm a bit confused. Regards, Herb Johnson -- 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 comcast DOT net

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Original Macintosh Architecture Questions
by Herb Johnson 24 Jun '21

24 Jun '21

Will the next person to post about SGI equipment, *please* consider changing the subject line to something appropriate? It's a simple courtesy to not "hijack a thread" with a new subject. Thank you. Regards, Herb

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Re: Original Macintosh Architecture Questions
by MikeWillegal 24 Jun '21

24 Jun '21

I agree that the original Macintosh (128K) is very painful to use, especially if you try to use it with only the single floppy drive that came with it. Saying it has a poor system design without understanding the design constraints that the developers were faced with, is doing them a disservice. 1) Hardware cost was critical. Apple already had the Lisa. The Macintosh was intended to get the Lisa GUI to an affordable price point that would encourage mass market adoption. The cost goal... a) Limited the system to 128K of DRAM and 64K of ROM. b) Floppy drive only for mass storage. 2) The designers were challenged with implementing a fairly complex GUI a) To make the feature set fit within the available memory, the designers had to implement a paging system to pull system features off of floppy as needed. This degraded performance a great deal, but the only other design choice they had was to reduce the feature set. Once more memory and a SCSI hard drive were added with the release of the Macintosh Plus, the user experience with the same basic hardware and software system was transformed into a very positive one proving the basic system design was good. My opinion is that marketing pressures required that the system to be released before the technology for a high performance system of this type was really affordable. Though significantly enhanced over the years, the same basic architecture lived on until the release of OS/X in 2001, which is not a bad run for a system which was originally designed to work on hardware with such significant limitations. regards, Mike Willegal

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Museum Report 2021-06-23
by Jeffrey Brace 24 Jun '21

24 Jun '21

About a dozen visitors today, which means that summer visitors have begun. Normally there are very few visitors on Wednesdays, but in the summer we get a decent number. The first two visitors were an older couple and their grandson from Florida. He specified to his grandfather that at the top of his list of things to do was to come visit our museum. He was a finance major, but had learned to program in the "R programming language". I had never heard of this, but in any case I explained to him how computers worked, and the history of computers. He was fascinated. He stayed about 2 hours and I had him try some BASIC programming. He loved it! There was another visitor who was Bulgarian and recognized the Apple 2 clone that we had in the museum. She actually knew what it was and where it was manufactured and some history. Her son tried out some BASIC programming on it and stayed for over an hour. There were some other visitors who spent about 40 minutes there, but it became hard to help everyone with three groups of highly interested people. There were 3 last minute visitors, but the girl really liked that most of our computers were hands on because many museums don't allow that. She really enjoyed using them. Overall a good day at the museum. ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Ampex Computer
by Douglas Crawford 24 Jun '21

24 Jun '21

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Homebrew Computer Systems from Bob the donor
by Jeffrey Brace 24 Jun '21

24 Jun '21

>From "Bob the donor": "{FirstComputerAssembled.jpg} is what it looked like in working order, not just the box of parts I sent with bernie. The rocker switches were for entering the boot-loader for the cassette interface, which used a 565 PLL to convert the FSK audio to bits for the UART. IIRC, it used the same tones as were used on the ham bands for TeleType chats (because I also did that). {FirstComputerCircuitBoardsTop.jpg} This was my first computer because I was introduced to the MOS Tech 6502 in 1975 and thot it was Really Neat. That IC cost me $25 back then; it's the 40 pin white ceramic item on the 'middle' board. The half board, far left, is the cassette interface. To its right is the memory board (note the 2102s, partially installed at this point). There was only 2 KB of RAM, both because of the price and also my rather small programs. Various 'glue bugs' are below the RAM and on the next-right board with the processor. Below the uP are parallel interface ICs and the UART. The rightmost board is the video generator, which used a character-generator IC (the largest bug). It required another 2 KB of 2102s, used in two banks that alternated access, because they were so slow. IIRC, the display was 32 lines of 64 characters. I later removed this part, added a UART and powersupply so it worked as a standalone video display. That was in the box of parts, and should still produce serial-to-text. {FirstComputerCircuitBoardWiring.jpg} Is pretty self-explanatory. A mouse would be right at home! I added a few more wires every evening after it was too dark to continue finishing the house construction. Entering the boot-loader every time quickly became a bother so I soon added some NiCads and a small secondary powersupply to keep the main 2KB alive. It was quite a project for how little I did with it; a word processor that could output thru a Model 19 TTY, and also display ham RTTY when I didnt want the noise of the 19. It turned out that I was far more interested in building than in coding, which is why this computer didnt last and you got only a box of some parts of it. The computer in the metal case is an Apple 2 clone board. As you've discovered, I had to 'bend' the board to make it fit the neat enclosure. The price of Apple (or any) 5.25" drives was high, which is why I 'went hardware' again and installed an 8-Track drive and circuitry to make use of it. A larger pulley on the motor provided a faster tape speed (probably around 8 or 9 ips, but I dont remember exactly), dual UARTS read/write to the stereo head (writing square waves at this speed required something like 45 volts IIRC). This required special code, which was in the battery-backed CMOS RAMs that replaced the original Apple ROMs. I copied the useful parts of those ROMS into the RAM so the computer still behaved like an A-2, but my code and the 8-track 'imaged' the RAM and system state, then restore it all on demand. No doubt the battery is long dead from decades in storage, so it's all junk now. As bernie and I were loading it into his car, I noticed the back-panel connector for a paper-tape drive. I no longer have that or I would have included it. So far, I have not found any code listings or diagrams, but will forward anything that turns up." Here are the pictures folder for anyone interested with the new pictures added: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DhjdsPnDN9s5vkCTalxUilHZGvctiVtt?us… ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Bernie S paid a visit!
by Jeffrey Brace 24 Jun '21

24 Jun '21

Bernie S paid a visit on May 16 at the very end of our repair workshop. He had brought some items for Dmitry. One thing was a custom built 6502 system with all sorts of wires. Another one was a custom built Apple // clone. Very interesting to see all these items. Sorry this is so late, but I've been busy planning for VCF East. Here are some pictures of the items: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DhjdsPnDN9s5vkCTalxUilHZGvctiVtt?us… ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> Virus-free. www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

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Saw this and thought this list is exactly the target audience.
by Mark Whittington 23 Jun '21

23 Jun '21

[image: image.png] Not sure how the list handles embeds, so here's a link: https://imgur.com/a/gsSGV1a

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Laserdisk transfer to digital?
by Dave McGuire 22 Jun '21

22 Jun '21

Frequently this is not the case, though, and it's not the case here. Matt is a professional video archivist; he wrote the book on this. -Dave On June 21, 2021 3:45:45 PM Sentrytv via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > ---------- > Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Laserdisk transfer to digital? > From: Sentrytv sentrytv(a)yahoo.com > Date: Jun 21, 3:45 PM > To: vcf-midatlantic vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org > > As usual, there is a complicated answer and way to do things > and > there is a simple answer and way to do things. > > Somewhere in between is the correct way to do this. > > JM2C > > Sent from: > My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device. > >> On Jun 21, 2021, at 1:03 PM, Alexander Jacocks via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: >> >> Since Matt has offered, and he has the expertise, I think that we should >> have him do it. >> >> If you want, at the Baltimore workshop, bring the LDs and, and I will bring >> them to Matt, in Pittsburgh. >> >> - Alex >> >>> On Sun, Jun 20, 2021 at 4:30 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < >>> vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: >>> >>> On Sun, Jun 20, 2021 at 4:23 PM Jeff Salzman via vcf-midatlantic < >>> vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: >>> >>>> I have a laserdisc player, time base corrector, and video capture card. >>> How >>>> soon does this need done? >>> >>> There is no rush for this, but I would like someone to work on it steadily >>> so that it doesn't get forgotten. >>> A player was donated, but don't know if it works or if it is better or >>> worse than your player. I will leave that up to you. >>> Alex Jaccocks has offered to do this, but maybe both of you can figure out >>> between you two who wants to do it or collaborate. >>> >>> >>>> >>>> Jeff Salzman >>>> >>>> On Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 3:23 PM Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < >>>> vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> So called “Video Game Enhancers” are simple time-base correctors and >>> will >>>>> remove Macrovision. >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Jun 20, 2021 at 3:07 PM Wil Birkmaier via vcf-midatlantic < >>>>> vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Laserdisc has a few different formats: all analogue, analogue video >>>> with >>>>>> mono analogue audio and digital audio, or analogue video with all >>>> digital >>>>>> audio. >>>>>> >>>>>> They key to a good capture these days is to get the best composite >>>> video >>>>>> converter you can find as the video is stored like a vinyl record, as >>>> an >>>>>> analogue composite video stream. So yes using the svideo on some of >>> the >>>>>> newer players, the conversion of composite to svideo is still not the >>>>> best. >>>>>> I need to find a link to a decent converter to 720p I have been using >>>>> with >>>>>> vhs and am happy with. >>>>>> >>>>>> On Jun 20, 2021 14:45, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < >>>>>> vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Does anyone know if it is possible to transfer laserdisks to a modern >>>>>> digital format? There are 16 laserdisks recently donated that have C >>>>>> programming training from 1984, which was part of a UNIX and C >>>>>> training program. The reason for the transfer is that we don't know >>> how >>>>>> rare these disks are nor how long laserdisk will last. >>>>>> >>>>>> There are 16 laserdisks as well as supplemental floppy disks and some >>>>>> paper >>>>>> manuals. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ========================================= >>>>>> Jeff Brace >>>>>> Vice President & Board Member >>>>>> Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner >>>>>> Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity >>>>>> http://www.vcfed.org/ >>>>>> jeffrey(a)vcfed.org -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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IBM and RCA computing video
by W2HX 22 Jun '21

22 Jun '21

After some telephone switchboard stuff, lots of shots of IBM and RCA computers in this pentagon data center video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8hLqpigv1g 73 Eugene W2HX

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Your selected charity received a $32.71 donation from AmazonSmile
by Dean Notarnicola 21 Jun '21

21 Jun '21

Thanks! I was only able to locate it on Amazon using the full string ‘Vintage Computer Federation’. This is the way it is listed on the IRS website. On Mon, Jun 21, 2021 at 10:40 AM Jonathan Sturges via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > A quick note to anyone changing their Smile charity to VCF. I couldn't > get smile.amazon.com to locate VCF by any name-based searching I tried, > but using the tax ID # (47-4133714) works. > > -Jonathan > > >

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Your selected charity received a $32.71 donation from AmazonSmile
by Jonathan Sturges 21 Jun '21

21 Jun '21

A quick note to anyone changing their Smile charity to VCF. I couldn't get smile.amazon.com to locate VCF by any name-based searching I tried, but using the tax ID # (47-4133714) works. -Jonathan

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Your selected charity received a $32.71 donation from AmazonSmile
by Jeffrey Brace 21 Jun '21

21 Jun '21

The $32.71 is from everyone for the quarter of the year. Jan. 1 to Mar 31, 2021. On Sat, Jun 19, 2021 at 9:45 AM David Hayden via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > "This is my Amazon Smile donation to VCF for this quarter ?" > > That's what they want you to think. But the fine print shows something > different: > > "... the amount of $32.71 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you > AND OTHER CUSTOMERS who have selected this charity" > > While your purchases certainly help, they don't help as much as you might > think. > > Dave > > -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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VCF East 2022 Dates: April 29, 30, May 1
by Jeffrey Brace 20 Jun '21

20 Jun '21

So the dates for VCF East 2022 will be April 29, 30, May 1. We are returning to our usual time of the year for the show. I'm planning on always doing the show the last weekend of April, unless there is a major reason that we can't (NJ Marathon that same weekend which causes all the hotels in the area to be booked up). My reasoning is that May is a busy month with holidays and events. April has Easter, Passover, Palm Sunday always changing their dates, so the last weekend of April will never conflict with these holidays. Also we want to give us the best shot at "better" weather. Also May starts the summer shore season and the hotel rates go up and availability goes down. Since VCF East 2021 will be 6 months before VCF East 2022, I am reserving the date and doing some pre-planning for that date. After East 2021 is done, then I will have to right away start planning for East 2022. So I will be doing what I can ahead of time. I'm brainstorming the theme for the 2022 show, and will announce it later. I know that there are some important anniversaries like the 40th of the C64 and others. I will try to get speakers around that, but the overall theme will be as generalized as possible. If anyone has any suggestions, then I'm open to them. ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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past, present and future
by Herb Johnson 20 Jun '21

20 Jun '21

> [ a future VCFed exhibit on] PC Transporter for the Apple > //e. I will also be able to show demos of Ted Nelson's JOT and Jef > Raskin's SWYFT systems for anyone interested. Sounds good to me. I'm familiar with some of Ted Nelson's work. I never saw JOT in action. Raskin, I"ve heard of. Not sure what the Apple product has to do with either person's interests. I'm over 60 by the way, so these are contemporary to me. > The potential uses for them I see in the > decentralized internet space (which is already being crowded out by > corporate interests). I am not aware of "decentralized internet". I did a Web search, and it seems to be something that MIT people are looking at for grants and funding (and businesses and IPO's). As in: https://dci.mit.edu/decentralizedweb That does not strike me, as a vintage computing subject. I'm not in charge of those judgements, but I think it's a fair call to make. If MIT is talking up half a dozen start-ups to supersede the modern Internet, it's not "vintage". I have no clue about such stuff, myself. And I'd suggest, a lot of my vintage computing colleagues won't know either. I don't think this should lead to a thread of explanation. As you said, "contact you privately". I myself think that would be off-topic. I used a search engine to learn more; so can others. But you know: vintage computing things, don't *have to be* potentially usable today. They have their own time and place where they were (or weren't) in use. They should be considered in their context. Vintage things, often are simpler and more approachable. More familiar to those of that time; and static so they can be examined by people of after that time. This is something I know about. Still, my opinions. But to see old stuff in use today, is kinda fun, if that's reasonable. To that extent, I have a "different opinion", which you asked about. regards, Herb Johnson -- 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 comcast DOT net

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Prop rentals, another way VCF raises money
by Jeffrey Brace 20 Jun '21

20 Jun '21

So VCF just rented out a NeXT computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse to a TV show fo Apple TV+. The show will be called Ripple Effects. It is still in production, but you can see some info about the show here: https://screenmag.com/elisabeth-moss-series-chooses-chicago-leonardo-dicapr… Our computer will appear in a scene with another NeXT computer. ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Your selected charity received a $32.71 donation from AmazonSmile
by Gregg Levine 19 Jun '21

19 Jun '21

Hello! It's a big rabbit hole. That's the same amount that shows on mine. (Not at this address) So far I've gone and left the setting, and so far everything that gets bought by me from Amazon goes that way. So... It could be anyone else who has gone ahead and done so. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8(a)gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." On Sat, Jun 19, 2021 at 9:45 AM David Hayden via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > "This is my Amazon Smile donation to VCF for this quarter ?" > > That's what they want you to think. But the fine print shows something different: > > "... the amount of $32.71 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you AND OTHER CUSTOMERS who have selected this charity" > > While your purchases certainly help, they don't help as much as you might think. > > Dave >

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RE: Your selected charity received a $32.71 donation from AmazonSmile
by David Hayden 19 Jun '21

19 Jun '21

"This is my Amazon Smile donation to VCF for this quarter ?" That's what they want you to think. But the fine print shows something different: "... the amount of $32.71 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you AND OTHER CUSTOMERS who have selected this charity" While your purchases certainly help, they don't help as much as you might think. Dave

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past, present and future
by Jeffrey Jonas 19 Jun '21

19 Jun '21

I hope the URLs weren't munged by the cut-and-paste 1) https://spectrum.ieee.org/video/geek-life/profiles/extended-directors-cut-t… Extended Director's Cut: Ted Nelson on What Modern Programmers Can Learn From the Past The inventor of hypertext talks about the birth of personal computing, the web, and how to think beyond the currently possible Editors Note: Due to popular demand, we're releasing this extended version of our interview with Ted Nelson, in which he talks about the work of Douglas Englebart, and in more detail about the origins of Xanadu, and how he views programs as art. … Back in the summer of 2016, Nelson was a keynote speaker at Vintage Computing Festival East in New Jersey and IEEE Spectrum had the chance to interview him off-stage. 2) computer history as of 1978 https://ia802603.us.archive.org/28/items/byte-magazine-1978-07-rescan/1978_… July 1978 Byte: pg 48: ANTIQUE MECHANICAL COMPUTERS, Part 1: Early Automata History-Williams pg 64: The First Ten Years of Amateur Computing, by Sol Libes pg 84: A SHORT HISTORY OF COMPUTING History-Reid-Green pg 124: HOW TO CHOOSE A MICROPROCESSOR Architecture-Frenzel 3) compatibility is good, incompatibility is okay too The "how to choose a microprocessor" article noted that the Z80 succeeded by being 8008/8080 code compatible, thus capitalizing on the pre-existing code base. Being "PC compatible" was essential for years, thus the intel/AMD duopoly and the reason the intel Itanium failed. But ARM started to erode that, and now Apple Silicon: https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/gadgets/the-mac-is-selling-l… The Mac Is Selling Like Never Before Thanks to the M1 Chip Apple's homegrown chip fulfills Steve Jobs' whole widget design philosophy

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] FW: Your selected charity received a $32.71 donation from AmazonSmile
by Tony Bogan 18 Jun '21

18 Jun '21

That’s great! I’ve been doing all my work purchases from Amazon on Amazon smile now, and this time of year we buy stuff frequently so it should hopefully be making a difference. I had a bad habit in the past of forgetting about it so now I’ve set all the shortcuts on work and home computers to go to smile.amazon.com. Tony Sent from my iPhone > On Jun 18, 2021, at 1:22 PM, Jim Scheef via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > <mime-attachment>

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The TI-99/4A turns 40!
by Jeffrey Brace 18 Jun '21

18 Jun '21

Didn't realize that it came out in 1981. Fun article: https://www.howtogeek.com/731558/a-successful-failure-the-ti-994a-turns-40/ ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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FW: Your selected charity received a $32.71 donation from AmazonSmile
by Jim Scheef 18 Jun '21

18 Jun '21

This is my Amazon Smile donation to VCF for this quarter – but look down the email at the total for VCF! I’m not sure what time period this reports covers, because I have not spend any significant money on Amazon since January. Most of my purchases are small stuff, but, as you can see, this donation adds up to benefit our favorite 501(c)3. I hate contributing to Jeff Bezos’s latest toys, but knowing some tiny percentage goes to VCF makes it slightly less onerous. So, if you’re going to spend money on Amazon. Make sure you to do it thru Smile. Jim From: Amazon.com <store-news(a)amazon.com> Sent: Friday, June 18, 2021 12:03 PM To: jscheef(a)outlook.com Subject: Your selected charity received a $32.71 donation from AmazonSmile There’s no extra cost to support your charity by shopping with <https://smile.amazon.com/gp/f.html?C=3Q03K2FXR862G&K=2YGCAIIZA4SK3&M=urn:rt…> AmazonSmile. <https://smile.amazon.com/gp/f.html?C=3Q03K2FXR862G&K=2YGCAIIZA4SK3&M=urn:rt…> Dear Jim, This is the quarterly notification to inform you that AmazonSmile has made a charitable donation to the charity you’ve selected, Vintage Computer Federation Inc, in the amount of $32.71 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you and other customers who have selected this charity. Thanks to customers shopping at smile.amazon.com <https://smile.amazon.com/gp/f.html?C=3Q03K2FXR862G&K=2YGCAIIZA4SK3&M=urn:rt…> , or with AmazonSmile ON in the Amazon Shopping app, everyday purchases have generated over $293 million in donations to charities worldwide so far. AmazonSmile's impact: * $712.30 to Vintage Computer Federation Inc* * $262,635,668.36 to all charities in the US * $293,003,584.01 to all charities worldwide To track donations or change your charity, simply visit Your AmazonSmile Impact <https://smile.amazon.com/gp/f.html?C=3Q03K2FXR862G&K=2YGCAIIZA4SK3&M=urn:rt…> page. <https://smile.amazon.com/gp/f.html?C=3Q03K2FXR862G&K=2YGCAIIZA4SK3&M=urn:rt…> Go to smile.amazon.com Want to use AmazonSmile in the Amazon Shopping app on your phone? Learn how to activate here <https://smile.amazon.com/gp/f.html?C=3Q03K2FXR862G&K=2YGCAIIZA4SK3&M=urn:rt…> *Message reflects the charity you were supporting as of June 8. Please see smile.amazon.com/about <https://smile.amazon.com/gp/f.html?C=3Q03K2FXR862G&K=2YGCAIIZA4SK3&M=urn:rt…> for AmazonSmile program details. © 2021 Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Amazon, Amazon.com, the Amazon.com logo, and 1-Click are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue N., Seattle, WA 98109-5210. Reference 588247430 Please note that this message was sent to the following e-mail address: jscheef(a)outlook.com

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Tales from the Repair Workshop 6/12 & 6/13, 2021
by Daniel Fitzgerald 17 Jun '21

17 Jun '21

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High Scores on Netflix
by Jeffrey Brace 17 Jun '21

17 Jun '21

Just started watching a new show on Netflix called "High Scores". It highlights different videogame history (of the 80's) phenomena each episode. It reminds me of the 2000's show "Icons" which did something similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icons_(TV_series) So far I like it a lot! Great fun and learning some history that I didn't know. ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Museum Report 2021-06-12 & 2021-06-14
by Jeffrey Brace 16 Jun '21

16 Jun '21

Saturday and Sunday a super high interest guy came. I think he was about late high school age and visiting from Georgia. He stayed Saturday for hours and was programming BASIC on the Zorba by himself. He asked to borrow a Microsoft BASIC manual so I gave him one from the IBM 5150 and off he went. I don't know what his end product was as I was busy with the repair workshop that day and couldn't stick around. Dennis can fill us in as he was docent that day. On Sunday he came back again and was programming on the TRS-80. He used the TRS-80 Graphics Programming book as a reference and created an etch-a-sketch program. It's quite rare for a visitor to stay for hours like that and sit down and program on these machines. From time to time I will get visitors that are patient enough to sit down, type in a short program and teach them the basics of BASIC programming. ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Tales from the Repair Workshop 6/12 & 6/13, 2021
by Jeffrey Brace 16 Jun '21

16 Jun '21

I have two tales to tell about the repair workshop that are funny, but I won't tell them here. You will have to ask me in person, but I intend to repeat them over and over again until people get sick of me telling them. Then I will tell new stories. The repair workshop was well attended this time with the usual suspects and some new ones as well. Jeff Salzman and Herb got the H89 working! So now it is available for operation and display in the museum. I thank them very much for all their hard work in working on the repair of the machine and getting it into operation. It has been sitting in the museum for years as a static display and it is lovely to see it actually display something on the screen and operate. We have Vcalc and 1 or 2 other pieces of software (I forget what they are at the moment). Jeff Salzman intends to make other software disks available to the museum the next time he comes or he can give me the disks at the July repair workshop @ System Source. David Gesswein worked on the PDP 8. The original intention was to train me on papertape and software loading, but he discovered that there were some faults. He had suspected it to be one problem on two cards, but that wasn't the case. He found out one of the diodes needed replacement and it worked better. However there was another problem on another card, but he ran out of time and will take the card home to troubleshoot and narrow down the problem. I know that others were working on various things, but I didn't have time to get details. Always a fun time at the workshop and lots of stuff getting fixed. Going to Brick House Tap & Tavern was a welcome change. Main Street Bar and Grill is nice, but we have overdone it and needed to change up things. I'm considering doing an outdoor grill at the August repair workshop cooking burgers and hotdogs. Next repair workshops are: July 10 & 11 @ System Source : SIGNUP <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KROoCNqTiTWgsXvijGBqvNblZa8weS6a8hE…> August 14 & 15 @ InfoAge: SIGNUP <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J028DlSdvSUlh3BsrGfmalHQ9qbFfPSUQa9…> ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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MICRO (6502) magazine article index by system
by Bill Degnan 15 Jun '21

15 Jun '21

If anyone is interested and it's not already published WWW-wise, I scanned the "MICRO index by system" published by MICRO magazine, which ran from 1977 to 1980 or 1981. I found the index within a stack of MICRO magazines I have been moving around. This is useful to have because MICRO had a lot of useful technical info relating to the 6502-based micros of the time period. It's hard to search the web for "micro index" - one just gets a lot of nasdaq stock stuff. I did not check 6502 or other archive sites, this may already be listed there, but here it is again https://www.vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=783 Bill

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July Repair Workshop @ System Source
by Jeffrey Brace 15 Jun '21

15 Jun '21

The July Repair Workshop will be at System Source. Signup here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KROoCNqTiTWgsXvijGBqvNblZa8weS6a8hE… The Vintage Computer Federation and the System Source Computer Museum are hosting a vintage computer workshop on Saturday July 10th and Sunday July 11 th 2021 at: System Source Computer Museum 338 Clubhouse Road, Hunt Valley, MD 21031 Plenty of free parking, short walk from Baltimore’s light rail (Gilroy Road Stop) ON SATURDAY we will open at 9:00 AM and will lock up by 7:30 PM. We will go to dinner afterwards. If you are interested in dinner, then please indicate on the signup form here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KROoCNqTiTWgsXvijGBqvNblZa8weS6a8hE… ON SUNDAY: We will open at 9:00 AM and lock up at 5:00 PM Accommodations: Try https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g41196-Hunt_Valley_Maryland-Hotels.html <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.tripadvisor.com_Ho…> Feel free to talk with others about sharing a room. Food: There are plenty of restaurants within a short drive. We will have a catered Indian buffet on Saturday at cost ($12.00?) and catered Barbecue ($12.00?) on Sunday for those who sign up. We will feature tours of the museum throughout both days and several mini-workshops: - Retrobright workshop (bring your yellowed plastics) - Pre-industrial computing class - Learn to use a slide rule, and various types of Abaci - Hot Metal Typesetting (3500 lb word processor - Preview/contribute to new exhibit IBM PC@40 We will have most of the IBM PCs (and predecessors) load up with various operating systems and software If you need a machine to work on, please let me know. We have lots of computers awaiting restoration! Let others know what you are working on. If you have unusual needs, (220 Volts, fork lift, etc please email Bob Roswell at museum(a)syssrc.com Bob Roswell broswell(a)syssrc.com https://museum.syssrc.com 410-771-5544 x 4336

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Tales from the Repair Workshop 6/12 & 6/13, 2021
by Herb Johnson 15 Jun '21

15 Jun '21

Heath H89 (actually an H88 upgraded) At the May workshop on the museum H89, I replaced some 20V caps on a 20V DC line on the CPU board. This is a common H89 problem where the caps short out on a DC line that's over-voltage. Jeff Saltsman also at the May workshop, repaired his own H89 floppy drive which had gummy disk-hub bearings. I did the same repair on the museum H89 drive; we both succeeded. So the museum H89 would boot HDOS but the keyboard returned odd codes on several keys. Jeff later "repaired" the floppy controller board. There was also an H89 in pieces in a box (not Heath box) which looked ripe for parts. At the June workshop, I found on the H89 a damaged keyboard encoder chip on the terminal board. I replaced keyboard and chip from the box o' H89 items. A terminal board from the box failed with smoke and flame. Again a capacitor short which I fixed but to no good result; but it sourced the keyboard encoder chip. That fixed the funny-keys problem. A surprising amount of rust was found at the bottom of the museum H89 which I partly cleaned. Also I repaired by replacement, the recently-repaired floppy controller board, with a swap from the boxed H89. Thus it's useful to have multiple and even damaged duplicate computers in the Warehouse. Jeff Saltzman provided assistance and test disks, as he did in May. He'll provide some disks for the Museum's use. I suggested he pull the floppy drive from the boxed H89 and restore that drive. It likely needs the same repair as previous drives; these are all the same model. The H89 now boots and operates CP/M and HDOS from its internal floppy drive. It's useful for demonstration but may need more testing. I"ve brought home the museum's external H89 drive in cabinet, for restoration. Of course I'll return it when I can, say within a month. I'll have a Web page to show the various repairs, among my other H89 repair pages at retrotechnology.com DSD floppy drive/controller Work for myself was on a PDP-8 compatible floppy drive system by DSD. I had duplicate hardware and assistance from David Gesswein. His extra drive cabinet completed my drive controller and Shugart drives. I built flat-cables and assembled and cross-tested both DSD units. David and I got mine working! (The controller has a local-test mode, no PDP-8 needed.) I may have a floppy-drive system for my PDP-8/F! I'm grateful for David's help and equipment and his time. Others I only wish I could have helped David with the Straight 8's problem; it's tech on the trailing edge of my experiences. 1960's transistor logic is not 1970's TTL logic! One card is equivalent to a few TTL chips if that. We are so lucky that TTL has endured half a century or so. David provides an account. You won't find that detail anywhere else! And I was able to help Dan FitzGerald with some Apple Mac equipment, as Dan had requested on the Google registration form. I provided some moral support for others at the workshop. But I likely missed other workshop activities as they were in two other rooms. Busy weekend. regards, Herb -- 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 comcast DOT net

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