May 2018 - vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

Finalized VCF Workshop Dates for June, August
by Jeffrey Brace 02 May '18

02 May '18

OK. I checked with all the appropriate people and here are the finalized dates: June 9 & June 10 June 30 & July 1 August 11 & 12 In case anyone asks, we cannot do any in July because of conflicts with other events (Hamfests, K-Fest, etc.) and availability of the room at InfoAge.

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Ascii keyboard and Televideo Personal Terminal
by Jeff G 01 May '18

01 May '18

First question - does anyone have a 7-bit ascii keyboard I could borrow or potentially buy? Second question - Does anyone have extra parts and/or a manual to a Televideo Personal Terminal? Not even sure of the model of this as I can't find much documentation, but do see a few Youtube vids on it. Its a pretty small terminal. This one is badly yellowed, missing the spacebar, and I think it has some corrupt nvram (from just sitting) but I have no idea how to clear or fix it. On the "personal terminal" front, I also have an old At&t "Personal Terminal" that has a mushy touch screen on it (literally). I used to have a keyboard for this and got rid of it years ago like an idiot. Would anyone have such a keyboard for one laying around? The connector on it would be similar to the one that goes into the IBM model M, sort of a flat wide connector. The keyboard is fairly short/small and came with a "garage", sort of a shallow stand that the entire thing would sit on and provide a space to slide in the keyboard. Wish I could find one again. Thanks! Jeff aka Bags

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A few workshop notes
by Herb Johnson 01 May '18

01 May '18

I was able to come out to the workshop on Sunday, and work on an unusual computer I obtained. It's a Motorola EXORset 30. It's a 6809 development system running an XDOS OS on floppy, and supported by Motorola's EXORbus bussed backplane. It came up without a lot of fuss. It needed some careful AC power conditioning to the power electrolytics. http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/exorset.html I gave some support to Adam, who was able to operate his SGI Indigo computer for the first time, thanks to a keyboard and mouse I provided. I chatted with several people attending, providing sage wisdom about problems with RAM, switching speeds of diodes, pressure rollers on tape drives. I removed some rust from a couple of dot-matrix printers, and was surprised to find they could still print! Thanks to Jeff Galinat, who leant me AC cables and a 360K diskette; and to Jeff Brace for his support of and at the Workshop. Of course, I learned a lot about how my friends were diagnosing these issues. The depth of talent on site Sunday was amazing. It's rare and informative, to discuss 3-volt negative logic and the switching speeds of diodes at one point, then the problems of aged hard-rubber rollers at the next moment. I learned more about the early history of Apple II products. I got under the hood of some early Commodore PET's to see the less-than-industrial designs they produced early on. Any of these repair and preparation activities could be discussed at length. And it's a pleasure to see what the Museum's UNIVAC is able to do, even as more work is in progress. To think that other shipboard computers like that, were operating at sea in the late 1970's is astounding. Then to have one operational today, that's a great gift. That's also true of the PDP-8 "straight-eight", which was under repair at the diode level this weekend. And it's good to see my friends again, see and hear about them and their work and history with vintage computing. Even the weather was cooperative. Herb Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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NASA - FORTRAN
by Tony Bogan 01 May '18

01 May '18

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/01/fortran_data_galileo_ganymede_moon/ Tony

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OT: Funny
by Evan Koblentz 01 May '18

01 May '18

Damn printer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQGtucrJ8hM ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, executive director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit evan(a)vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation instagram.com/vcfederation

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Future VCF Workshops - Summer 2018
by Jeffrey Brace 01 May '18

01 May '18

I'm looking ahead and will be picking dates for the June, July and August workshops. June 9&10 seems like a good date which conflicts only with Pacific Commodore Expo NW in Seattle. July 14&15 is the only weekend available at InfoAge and conflicts with Sussex Hamfest. Is this a big Hamfest? If so, we could do June 30&July1 instead. August Weekends: 11&12, 25&26 I did my best to avoid conflicts with known Hamfests and Vintage or related shows. Any thoughts or feelings about these dates?

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