September 2016 - vcf-midatlantic

VCFed polo shirts -- choose the color
by Evan Koblentz 08 Sep '16

08 Sep '16

It's time to order VCFed polo shirts. They could be black, "ectoplasm" (greenish-blueish to match our logo), or white. Our logo will be on the breast pocket. We'll have sizes from S-3XL. Price TBD but it will be cheap/reasonable. Vote here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2G5Q7XY. DO NOT VOTE THROUGH THIS EMAIL THREAD: IT WON'T COUNT. Voting ends Friday, Sept. 9 at 8pm ET.

8 19

ENIAC Simulator
by Brian L. Stuart 07 Sep '16

07 Sep '16

Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to VCFMW this year. (Those of you who don't know me are probably thinking "So what?" Those who do are probably split between "Aww, that's too bad" and "Good; he's a pain in the...") In lieu of my "sparkling personality" I'm making available the ENIAC simulator I would have exhibited had I committed to coming early enough to reserve a table. If you attended VCFSE or VCFE this year, you may have seen an early version of the simulator. It's now at a beta testable level of operation. The files you'll want to download and some minimal instructions for use are at: http://cs.drexel.edu/~bls96/eniac/eniac.html It's written in Go, so you should be able to compile it on a variety of platforms. For those not wanting to compile it themselves, I've included binaries for several options including Linux/amd64, Linux/arm, FreeBSD/amd64, FreeBSD/i386, MacOS/amd64, and Win/amd64. The Windows version has not been tested at all, and only minimal testing has been done on the Mac version. You'll also need TCL/Tk installed to get the wish program available as used by the GUI. Suggestions, comments, criticisms, and questions are welcome, but it will probably be a few weeks before I'll be able to make time to do anything about them. Enjoy. BLS

1 0

Museum report + new shelves installed
by Evan Koblentz 07 Sep '16

07 Sep '16

I went to the museum today. Only a few visitors, but they were very interested in our displays so it was good. One person who's in NJARC said he worked for DEC. The other group was a family; the father was 49 and seemed ecstatic showing his teenage daughter the computer culture of his own childhood. Steve A. came by at 5pm. We made a plan to install wooden shelves in the modern history exhibit, which was left unfinished when we all ran out of time before VCF East XI followed by my leg surgery, etc. We went to Home Depot. They cut the wood to our specs -- 48x16 for the bottom shelf, then 48x14, 48x12, and 48x10 going up the wall. We also reduced the height between shelves -- 15 inches above the lowest shelf, then 13, then 11. The staggered depths/heights create a nice effect for the display overall. I'll be back at the museum on Friday. Dean and I are going to continue working on the exhibit. We paint the sides and bottoms of the shelves (and the brackets) green, same as the wall. We will paint the shelf tops white to highlight the artifacts. Many of the artifacts are small. When the shelves are complete, we will install plexi in front of the display so visitors cannot touch it.

2 1

Remember to vote! Re: shirt color
by Evan Koblentz 07 Sep '16

07 Sep '16

Voting is going well for the color of our new polo shirts: white, ectoplasm (greenish-blueish), or black. There are 32 votes and so far there is a clear first - second - third. I am not revealing further details so as not to influence anyone. Voting closes Friday at 8pm ET.

3 3

FS: Central Data Corp 64K Dynamic RAM S-100 Board TESTED/WORKING
by Systems Glitch 06 Sep '16

06 Sep '16

link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/272366924496 Just finished repairing and testing this one. There was a bad 74LS156 in the address decode section, which was replaced with a ceramic mil-spec device. The board is fully populated with nice gold capped purple ceramic 4116 DRAMs. The board provides for disabling 16K segments or 2K blocks within a segment to fit around ROM monitors and such -- it's currently set to leave a 4K hole from 0xD000 - 0xDFFF for my Dajen SCI's monitor. It'll work with a front panel, but I don't recommend it for front panel operation. Like many DRAM boards, you can deposit data just fine, but the data lights will show incorrect information until you EXAMINE the location again. It's frustrating to work with. Probably fine if you just use the front panel for debugging or to start the machine. Thanks, Jonathan

1 0

RCA HC/HCT Logic Cross Reference Project
by Systems Glitch 05 Sep '16

05 Sep '16

Many years ago, I bought a lot of miscellaneous logic ICs at a flea market or hamfest. These ICs were RCA HC/HCT devices, many marked as engineering samples, and some marked with either an RCA internal number or a house number. Some of them had little sticky labels on top. I've never been able to find a cross-reference for them, so today I typed up the numbers I've got: https://github.com/chapmajs/rca_cross_reference This is a typical sheet of the ICs: http://i.imgur.com/Fk59VNL.jpg Funny to see regular 74HC/HCT series logic in white ceramic packages! If anyone has more information, or a full cross-reference, please let me know. You can send a pull request on GitHub, or just email me off-list and I'll add them if you're not a GitHub user. There is probably some pattern to the numbering system. In typing this up, I noticed that the starting prefix (TA or P) doesn't seem to have any meaning w.r.t. the device function. The first two numbers of the code are 11 for HC or 13 for HCT. Thanks, Jonathan

1 0

Pinging Jeff Jonas
by Jack Rubin 04 Sep '16

04 Sep '16

Hi Jeff - I'm interested in some Calcomp plotter paper if you still have any left. Please reply off-list. Thanks, Jack j(a)ckrubin.us

1 0

Big eBay lot
by Evan Koblentz 04 Sep '16

04 Sep '16

http://m.ebay.com/itm/191960867958 The seller contacted me several months ago and wanted to work through us. We declined.

7 9

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] vintage email: the "at hack"
by Jeffrey Jonas 04 Sep '16

04 Sep '16

While looking up a chip, I found a USENET posting with a typical .signature UUCP bang path from "well known backbone site" ARPA has "at-hack" to forward to CSNET via the relay/gateway UUCP: ...!cbosgd!osu-cis!bgsuvax!kemp CSNET: kemp(a)andy.bgsu.edu ARPA : kemp%andy.bgsu.edu(a)relay.cs.net

2 1

FS: MITS 88-2 SIO Tested/Working
by Systems Glitch 03 Sep '16

03 Sep '16

link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/272363812201 Here's the MITS serial interface everyone wants, and this one is fully tested and working! I had to replace a 1488 and 1489. I installed wire wrap pins in the baud rate selection area so that a) pads won't get lifted when you need to change baud rates and b) you can jumper both ports to the same baud rate. Includes two nice ceramic Motorola 6850 ACIAs, original to the board. Currently jumpered for standard MITS port addressing (0x10 or 020 octal), RS-232 serial, and 9600 bps on both ports. Includes the original cable for Port 0. I've got the cable that came with it for Port 1, but it's in poor condition and not currently working. I can include it for free, if you want it. Thanks, Jonathan

1 0