September 2016 - vcf-midatlantic

SGI's available
by william degnan 14 Sep '16

14 Sep '16

I have four SGI Indy's, one SGI O2, and one Indigo2 parts units available for free. The museum gets first dibs. None are fully functional. They're missing hard drives, display cards, or both. It's easy to find compatible SCSI drives of this class. I have only one display so I can't give you a display. I have no keyboards or mice either but SGI uses PS/2 nothing fancy. No rodent damage, always stored inside. If you have spare parts you can get at least one of these back into action or these can be used for parts to complete what you already have. I can deliver to the workshop this weekend or you can come here to Landenberg, to claim one/all. contact me privately if interested, but please don't ask me to ship and I don't plan to hold them long, they gotta go! Bill

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things for saturday afternoon I could bring
by william degnan 14 Sep '16

14 Sep '16

I will be at the workshop saturday from about 11-6. I could bring a lot of stuff, but I have time only for one or two projects. I have been working on SGI lately, anyone interested in Workstations who might like to collaborate on something like that? If so advise. Does anyone have an SGI Octane hard drive sled? I plan to bring a free DEC printer to whomever wants it, from early 80's. I might instead bring a Sun or DEC 5000. Bill

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Vintage Computer Federation at Lehigh Valley FAST 2016
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 14 Sep '16

14 Sep '16

Todd George via vcf-midatlantic writes: >(Full disclosure, some of the following is plagiarized and/or >paraphrased from e-mails that Chris and Doug sent to me. Figured I'd >throw it all together and touch it up a bit for the list's enjoyment.) > >As previously mentioned on the list, Doug Crawford, Chris Fala and I set >up a booth/exhibit on Sunday, September 11 (last weekend) at the Lehigh >Valley Festival of Art, Science and Technology at PPL Center in >Allentown, PA. The event was presented by the Da Vinci Science Center >and Make Lehigh Valley. > >The facility is awesome, it's a hockey arena that is normally the home >of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. They had a ton of space for everyone to >get their science, art and technology on! The event was very high >quality, well organized and really cool, lots of freebies/handouts, kids >were painting things, dying coffee filters, launching bottle rockets, ---------------------------------------------^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Indoors?

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Vintage Computer Federation at Lehigh Valley FAST 2016
by Todd George 14 Sep '16

14 Sep '16

(Full disclosure, some of the following is plagiarized and/or paraphrased from e-mails that Chris and Doug sent to me. Figured I'd throw it all together and touch it up a bit for the list's enjoyment.) As previously mentioned on the list, Doug Crawford, Chris Fala and I set up a booth/exhibit on Sunday, September 11 (last weekend) at the Lehigh Valley Festival of Art, Science and Technology at PPL Center in Allentown, PA. The event was presented by the Da Vinci Science Center and Make Lehigh Valley. The facility is awesome, it's a hockey arena that is normally the home of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. They had a ton of space for everyone to get their science, art and technology on! The event was very high quality, well organized and really cool, lots of freebies/handouts, kids were painting things, dying coffee filters, launching bottle rockets, flying drones, etc. I actually didn't get as much of a chance to walk around and take it all in as I had wanted. Our booth was too busy! The vendors and exhibits were very well designed and gave the kids a lot of attention, a good experience and taught them something. The were not just pushing merchandise like seems to be a trend at some of the science events. Very refreshing. Make Lehigh Valley had tremendous participation in their solder classes. The event appeared to be a smashing success. It was free for attendees, and the final count was 4,236 visitors. There were over 50 exhibition booths staffed by over 100 people and there were an additional 100+ volunteers mostly from local high schools helping with the event. They also had roving Storm Troopers and other Star Wars characters, the Penn State Nittany Lion was there, and apparently there were a number of other mascots wandering around throughout the day. We set up our booth with a similar approach to what we used for our Commodore exhibit at last year's VCF. For those of you not familiar, we used metal shelving to convert our table tops into three-tiers where we could present retro computers. We had two 8-foot tables available for use at this FAST event. Our booth was busy from start to stop. Kudos to the team! We only had one stoppage when we blew a breaker. Too much retro fun condensed into a small area. Apparently our 30+ year old computers aren't power efficient enough. :-/ Hahah. We had two processor trainers/SBC's set up (An HP 5036A and a Lawrence Livermore Labs MST-80B), a Commodore VIC20 (running Space Invaders), SX64 (Running Chris' very cool power control program/hardware that switches AC outlets on and off via Joystick control), a Commodore 64 (Running Ms. Pac Man), a TRS-80 Model III (?) running Galaxy Invasion, a Commodore PET running an awesome Space Invaders clone and an Atari 800XL running Ms. Pac Man or Donkey Kong (depending on the time of day and what I booted on it). We also had a few things I threw together to let kids print out a souvenir on vintage dot matrix equipment. First was a Commodore 64 running a new program I wrote that prints banners on an old Epson dot matrix receipt printer (kids were writing messages, etc. and printing them out, letters print about 1" or slightly wider, about 2.5" tall, effectively unlimited message length (well, 255 bytes in a string), and it tagged each banner with "Vintage Computer Federation" and the web address. Fun, cheap and really fast. I had also configured The Print Shop on a Macintosh Classic and plugged it into an ImageWriter II. I also converted the VCFed logo to MacPaint format and The Print Shop format so we could have some fun printing the VCFed logo on a dot matrix printer in crazy low resolution. We printed quite a few signs as souvenirs as well. It takes time to create and print a sign with The Print Shop, if I were to do this type of presentation at another event, I'd definitely bring two (or more?) complete setups to decrease the wait time. Maybe run it on other vintage gear aside from a Macintosh? I think the biggest challenge here is ribbon availability, as some of the dot matrix printers are much easier to find ribbons for than others. The Epson receipt and ImageWriter printers that I had for this event are easy and cheap to find fresh ribbons for. I also had another Epson receipt printer set up with an Arduino and a big red button that printed a VCF "business card" when you hit the button. Had our group name, web address, Twitter and Facebook links. I gave these out when people asked for a way to contact us, or how to participate with the group. Virtually unlimited almost-free business cards. :-D In a future version of this Arduino program I want to have it print our logo and a QR code, but I ran out of time for this event. I already have a working QR code print routine (it doesn't calculate the QR code, just prints it from previously calculated hard-coded data). Sadly, the ImageWriter was a bit too quiet to hear over the noise in the facility, but the Epson printers were doing a good job of being absurdly loud and attracting people to our booth. :-D The printers got a lot of action. It might have been the noise and the uniqueness of dot matrix printing, but one adult observer theorized that kids simply really don't get to produce printouts at home. We definitely considered this a crowd pleaser. We had the trainer computers there to show people what prototyping and electronics/code experimentation was like 30 years ago, we compared and contrasted it with Arduino/Raspberry Pi for anyone who was interested. The kids at the event were probably largely in the 1st and 2nd grades, definitely elementary school ages. Some may have been a bit too young to grasp exactly what we were tyring to show off with certain portions of our booth, but they definitely had fun with the games. It was mentioned that this event attracted a lot of low income families and was an attempt to generate an interest in the sciences giving these kids access to people and things they might not normally have in their daily lives. Next time, we'll lower the shelf the monitors were on during setup and maybe get some step stools to have at the booth to assist with the shorties. A few of them couldn't properly see the keyboards the way we had things set up due to being vertically challenged. We heard a few things loud and clear, we need to bring an Apple II (tons of requests for this), Timex Sinclair (no lie, at least 3 people asked me alone), had two requests for a Commodore 128 and a few people even wanted Pong! One of our goals at these events is not so much to convey the computer history as it is to give a bit of fun mental break from the serious learning experiences, show off some technical curiosities, and to some extent walk down memory lane for the parents. Additionally, we hope to get the kids interested in programming and technology, and show off how far technology has come. The hope is that something they see will spark an interest in Code, Technology, Math, Science, etc. We also met quite a few adults who had interest in the "hobby". They took pics of our signage, grabbed a "business card" or chatted with us about how to find out more about the group. This is a tertiary reason we attend these events, but definitely one that is not to be ignored. Doug heard a story from a lady there who's husbands grandfather worked for the army and had commissioned decommissioned an ENIAC, apparently she has the Remington Rand Eniac name plate and a family member has some portion of the control panel. We made sure she has VCF's contact info. We invited them to get involved and perhaps exhibit the pieces and the grandfather's story. All-in-all it was a fun day! I had talked with one of the Da Vinci Science Center folks (I didn't catch her name/title) who was very impressed with what we had put together for the event. Unfortunately, we neglected to get a good picture of the table once it was all set up (and before we broke it all down at the end of the day), but I did throw some pictures we did take into an Imgur album for your enjoyment. http://imgur.com/a/MM46y Also, the event website has a video... http://www.davincisciencecenter.org/public-service/festival/ . There was another gentleman filming at the event, but I don't see his video online yet. Thanks! -Todd

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New member, Intro
by W2HX 14 Sep '16

14 Sep '16

Hi folks, new to the list here. Evan suggested I send an intro email so here it is. Got involved with computing around 1979, 1980 at about 12 or 13 years old. I had access to a TRS-80 Model I (level 2) through a friend of my fathers. I read every issue of byte and popular electronics that I could get my hands on those days. I never could afford an S100 machine. Eventually I bought a TRS-80 Model III (or IV I can't remember) with some money I had saved. That was the machine I learned on for several years. I am just starting to get back into this stuff and wanting to get the machines I could never afford as a kid, I have acquired an IMSAI 8080 and a PDP-8e. One of these days I hope to find some time to get them running. Here are some pix. http://w2hx.com/x/VintageComp/IMSAI-8080/ http://w2hx.com/x/VintageComp/PDP-8e/ You might be able to tell by my domain name, my main hobby is amateur radio. Specifically, I enjoy collecting, repairing and operating older (tube) ham and military (army and navy) radios. I also have a "thing" for test equipment and precision frequency stuff. In addition to some GPSDO's I have a working cesium beam atomic clock. Just neat to tell people. I had been interested in getting some 8" drives to pair with my IMSAI just for the nostalgia of it all. While at the Dayton Hamvention this past year I saw a big blue enclosure containing three 8" disk drives and I had to go look. The guy said I could have them for $50 as long as I also took this other matching blue box. Well it ends up this was a Vector Graphics enclosure/backplane with the matching triple 8" drives. I really didn't want the backplane/enclosure since there were no boards and I really didn't have the room for all of this. But the price was right so I grabbed it all. Card cage looks unused. Here are some (poor) pictures. http://w2hx.com/x/VintageComp/Vector/ I am not really sure what to do with this stuff. I really don't want the card cage/enclosure. I would hate to separate them, but I might be convinced. I like the blue color that kinda matches my IMSAI. But I don't even know if my IMSAI could be made to work with the triple 8" drives. And quite frankly, the triple drives are very large because they are oriented vertically instead of what is often seen, two horizontally. Anyway, I was really hoping I could come down to InfoAge this weekend and seek out some help with my projects, but there is a military vehicle/radio show that happens every year at the fairgrounds in Gilbert, PA so I won't be able to meet and greet quite yet. In all, I have absolutely everything to learn about these machines to try to get them running. Electrically I am pretty handy. But when it comes to roms, bios's and getting things to boot and configured will be a challenge. I even have an 8 bit tape punch/reader from a CNC machine that I would love to use to bootstrap these machines. Well that about wraps it up. Glad to join the group. Now if I could only find some time to enjoy this hobby! Eugene PS. In case the radio stuff interests you, some photos of the shack and lab. http://w2hx.com/x/New%20Shack/

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New member, Intro
by Herb Johnson 14 Sep '16

14 Sep '16

Thanks for your intro, and links to your Web site and vintage computers. I'll briefly make some comments (in my opinion) about the computers you have. But in general, if you do homework and identify the various cards and items in your computers, that info will tell you a lot about what you have and what you might do with it. "Homework" is my preference to "chat", speaking for myself. The IMSAI is filled with Cromemco cards, so essentially you have a Cromemco Z-80 S-100 system, with a 4FDC floppy controller. that 4FDC determines what you can do with that particular set of cards, and what you'll need to find to create a CP/M system around it. The PDP-8/e looks nice, and apparently you've powered it. Very old power supplies ought to have their caps "reconditioned", and you might check the DC ripple on both the 8 and the IMSAI to make sure the big caps are doing their job. http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/8f_fixitmay13.html http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/prob_solv.html A Web search will find more pages on my site, on S-100 or PDP-8s. There's lots of non-DEC cards in your 8; you might try to identify them by brand and model (ECRM?). You'll need (to identify) some kind of serial card, to talk to your 8. It would be convenient, to have an HTML document on your Web page which contains that information, linking to your photos. With that info on your Web page, others may find your 8 and cards, and contact you to your benefit. It would appear your 8 was an industrial controller, so those non-DEC cards ran something. The fun of 70's vintage computing, is to reverse-engineer items you don't have docs for - in my opinion. Chips and connectors, special function devices, connections back to the bus - those are clues as to function and operation. These days, the Web is informative. You'll find the PDP-8 world is very different from the S-100 world, a generational difference. Your post said you were not so interested in the industrial cabinets. The Vector Graphics motherboard, is in a commercial cabinet and is mounted in a commercial card cage; just as the 8-inch drives are mounted in a commercial cabinet. Neither cabinet was a product of Vector Graphics Inc; so the principle of vintage preservation would not be violated if you removed the drives or the chassis from those cabinets. But there is a decent card cage and it would be a challenge to replace that; maybe you'll find a smaller cabinet for it. Again, you have nice industrial cabinets; but such things are out of vogue these day - maybe some ham will need them for a base station or repeater. Modern folks are not fond of the old open-frame "brute force" S-100 power supplies, they use switchers, but my preference is to use traditional power supplies in S-100 systems. Beware that unregulated supplies like that 1) will run at higher-than-standard S-100 DC voltage if lightly loaded and 2) will retain most of their voltage for some time after power-down (I see bleeder resistors on your big caps). There's ways to deal with those issues, my S-100 Web pages talk about such things. All those statements are, of course, my opinions and views; you and others may think otherwise, or have other priorities, as can you. But the parts, caps and chips and such, function as designed and don't care about "opinions and priorities"; I hope my Web site represents the technology correctly. Good luck with the IMSAI/Cromemco and PDP-8/e. There's no shortage of Web pages where these are discussed and documented. And many people own either and will chat about them. What you do and how, is a matter of your time and interests and skills; you can learn a lot about the technology behind these systems, and/or meet others who have similar stuff. Herb Johnson retrotechnology.com -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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VCFMW
by Mike Loewen 13 Sep '16

13 Sep '16

This was my first time attending VCF Midwest, and I had a very enjoyable time. I exhibited a Tandy 6000HD running my Micro Magic BBS from 1986, with VT320 and H19 terminals for login, along with an Osborne Vixen running IMP. Lots of familiar faces in attendance, including Jeff Jonas, Ian Primus, Will Donzelli, Kyle Owen, Ethan Dicks, Jack Rubin, Connor Krukosky, Mike Lee and Josh Bensadon. I finally met Jason Timmons, Jay West, Paul Anderson, Earl Baugh and Lee Hart, along with several other exhibitors. I'll be back. Mike Loewen mloewen(a)cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

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OT: tech support please
by Evan Koblentz 13 Sep '16

13 Sep '16

Girlfriend's computer is 15 years old, so I installed a brand new mobo, processor, RAM, and SSD. Only old parts are the case, power supply, and DVD. I triple-checked that all the mobo connectors are in the right places and enabled all SATA ports in the BIOS. First I tried booting with a live DVD to install Mint on her new SSD. I used a cheap IDE-SATA adapter to connect the DVD to her mobo -- the same adapter works fine on my computer. Doesn't work on hers. I get a message saying to insert boot media, the drive seeks, but it keeps returning to that message. I know the DVD that I burned is a good one. Checked the BIOS: it doesn't see the DVD at all. Then I tried it with a bootable USB stick. Nothing happens. Here's the really weird part. I disconnected the new SSD and put in her old HDD, which is also SATA, and I hear it spin up like it's booting normally (has Mint 18 on it), but I get nothing but a blank screen after the boot options menu. It * should * start right up like before. I'm stumped.

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Workshop -- sleeping change
by Evan Koblentz 13 Sep '16

13 Sep '16

Per infoage management: the town has started to notice people sleeping over (not just us) and is clamping down on it since these buildings aren't zoned that way. We can no longer sleep in the museum. However, also starting now, we can stay in the part of the H-building that was professionally restored and re-zoned by the Hurricane Sandy relief teams. There are showers, a kitchen, bunk beds, and everything else -- much nicer than our concrete floor! Fred said IA decided to charge $25/person/night for this privilege. IA would also like a week or so of notice and an estimate on how many people will accept the offer each time we have overnight events. To cover ourselves, I told him it'll be about 10 people for next weekend. That is all the information I have now.

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Workshop next weekend
by william degnan 13 Sep '16

13 Sep '16

I plan to come up to the workshop Sat 11-6. Remind me to bring an ascii char test papertape for the UNIVAC 1532 Bill

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