February 2017 - vcf-midatlantic

Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 27 Feb '17

27 Feb '17

Mixed day at the museum! Totally dead from 1:00-3:00, and then very busy from 3:00-5:00. Several families came through. They all spent a good amount of time here and our teenage guests seemed genuinely interested. We had a surprise VIP: the daughter of Lloyd Christianson. Lloyd worked here in his Army days when it was Camp Evans and then co-founded Electronic Associates. I'm very happy that she discovered us, and she was very happy to see our EAI TR-20 on display and to hear that we're restoring it. I have her contact information and will definitely follow up. She didn't know much about his work, but she said her relatives might. I hope to find out what he did here, etc.

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DEC 5380 chip
by Herb Johnson 27 Feb '17

27 Feb '17

> Friends, google has not been kind to me. Looking for the datasheet > on the 5380 chip used in my PDP-8/e in the M8650 TTY board.. Run my reply past David Gesswein. But the 5380 on the M8650 schematic, looks a lot like Signetics SP380, down to the pinouts. (don't be confused by OR vs AND, use Boolean logic). you can get SP380's on eBay for several dollars. Or ask some PDP-8 owners. There's also some notes on this page: http://tronola.com/html/ram_for_pdp-8e.html which suggest the DEC S380 is your "5380". Also look at some DEC handbooks about the Omnibus. And of course, stare at your board, see the brand and number on the chips versus names in the schematic. DEC is your friend here, Google merely introduced you to them. ;) Herb Johnson stumbler with 8's -- 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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560Z Build Writeup
by Systems Glitch 27 Feb '17

27 Feb '17

Had time to do a full writeup on building the 560Z: http://www.glitchwrks.com/2017/02/26/osi-560z-build Thanks, Jonathan

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] more stuff to donate
by William Dudley 26 Feb '17

26 Feb '17

We have a winner! If you live near Jackson, NJ, you can pick it up. If you go to the museum for work sessions, we can meet there. Failing that, there's VCF East. Or I can mail it. Bill This email is free of malware because I run Linux. On Sun, Feb 26, 2017 at 2:09 PM, Peter Cetinski <pete(a)pski.net> wrote: > I'll take the H19 docs if still available. Thx. > > Pete > > > On Feb 26, 2017, at 12:48 PM, William Dudley via vcf-midatlantic < > vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > > > > 1. Notebook with ALL the documentation for the Heath/Zenith H19 Terminal. > > (I'm sorry I didn't find this when I gave away the terminal last year.) > > This is a three ring notebook, two inches thick, with everything about > the > > H19. > > > > 2. Heathkit manuals ONLY for IO-4550 Dual Trace 10MHz scope. Two > manuals, > > "Operation" and "Assembly". > > > > If no takers, I'm afraid they'll be recycled for the paper value. > > > > I will mail these if requested. > > > > Bill Dudley > > Jackson, NJ > > > > This email is free of malware because I run Linux. >

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DEC 5380 chip
by W2HX 26 Feb '17

26 Feb '17

Friends, google has not been kind to me. Looking for the datasheet on the 5380 chip used in my PDP-8/e in the M8650 TTY board (and elsewhere, surely). It appears to be a quad, dual input AND chip with inverted inputs (ie a NOR gate). Can anyone help me find this? much appreciated. Eugene W2HX

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FS: Damaged DEC H-217D 16KW Core Memory Board
by Systems Glitch 26 Feb '17

26 Feb '17

link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/272570404475 Acquired with a large lot of other boards. I know these are used in PDP-11/05s and PDP-11/10s with 16KW core as a factory configuration (my PDP-11/10 is configured as such). This one has some damage in the core plane area -- see the pictures in the listing. No idea if it's fixable or useful for anything other than the driver circuits. Figured I'd list it rather than shearing off the edge fingers and harvesting the driver ICs. Thanks, Jonathan

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more stuff to donate
by William Dudley 26 Feb '17

26 Feb '17

1. Notebook with ALL the documentation for the Heath/Zenith H19 Terminal. (I'm sorry I didn't find this when I gave away the terminal last year.) This is a three ring notebook, two inches thick, with everything about the H19. 2. Heathkit manuals ONLY for IO-4550 Dual Trace 10MHz scope. Two manuals, "Operation" and "Assembly". If no takers, I'm afraid they'll be recycled for the paper value. I will mail these if requested. Bill Dudley Jackson, NJ This email is free of malware because I run Linux.

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Ohio Scientific 560Z Board: IT LIVES!
by Systems Glitch 26 Feb '17

26 Feb '17

IT LIVES! I spent most of today hacking on the 560Z board. I got the 12-bit porthole going first, took a bit as the manual doesn't tell you that you need IC CC installed if you want to be able to write to the 4K exposed in the porthole. After that, I plugged in a Z80 and tried to get it running the test code in the manual. Turns out I had a dud Z80 :) With a good one installed the test code ran no-problem, as did a little hand written code to push data to the lamp register on the new memory board. I plugged in an IM-6100 and pretty much determined that at least the first one I tried is dead. I'll recheck the soldering on it later -- it's stuffed into a machine pin socket and soldered in, since half of the legs were rotted off by that corrosive black foam everyone loves so much. Anyway, the second IM-6100 works! And the 560Z board works! And the 12-bit RAM board works! I made a (low-res, poorly focused) video with our old digital point-n-shoot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYbGXHJST8U The IM-6100 is running a little loop that increments the accumulator and stores it to the lamp register. Storing of course clears the accumulator, but I have the lamp register mapped over RAM, so I just read the value back out of it. My first foray into PDP-8 code, it's certainly different, but it's still just machine code. Very happy that this seems to be coming fully together! Now if only I could find more IM-6100s...I'll test the remaining 3 tomorrow. Thanks, Jonathan

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Another history story
by Evan Koblentz 26 Feb '17

26 Feb '17

I wrote another history angle for TechRepublic. http://www.techrepublic.com/article/storage-class-memory-supporters-may-hee… ________________________________ 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

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mpi 91/92 disk drive manual
by William Dudley 25 Feb '17

25 Feb '17

I found a photocopy of a "product manual" for the MPI model 91/92 disk drive (5 1/4 floppy). It was part of a larger manual for a Direct 800 video terminal that I no longer have, that nobody's ever heard of, and probably even fewer had the "computer" version with the disk drives. ANYWAY, does anybody want this photocopy of the service manual? If it's rare and there aren't already scans of it on the Internet it might be useful. Any interest, lemme know, or I'll recycle the paper. Bill Dudley Jackson, NJ This email is free of malware because I run Linux.

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