August 2018 - vcf-midatlantic

Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 19 Aug '18

19 Aug '18

A typical rainy summer Sunday: steady flow of families all day long. Not crazy like last weekend, but still good. ________________________________ 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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Re: Museum Report
by Tony Bogan 19 Aug '18

19 Aug '18

I've been guilty of that many times in my life as my friends and I often referred to them as Trash 80s. We had them in high school in our computer lab and were not happy (tape drives) It's a habit I've tried to break since I became involved with VCF, so when I hear people say that at the museum I smile and say "I've heard that name before...." and then Segway into my "1977 triad of personal computing" and talk about the Apple II, PET and TRS 80 and how important those three machines were etc etc. Tony (Recovering TRS 80 basher) Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 18, 2018, at 7:28 PM, Peter Cetinski <pete(a)pski.net> wrote: > > My son Alex and I were at the museum today. The first couple of hours were quiet but then things picked up. We had 4 or 5 families come through all with mild interest. One guy was a dead ringer for Denzel Washington but I didn’t ask. Another laughingly referred to the TRS-80 as a Trash-80 and I held my tounge and did not respond. > > Pete > > Pete

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AT&T Technical Workstation / Counterpoint C-19
by Evan Koblentz 18 Aug '18

18 Aug '18

I got an email from someone who met us at Maker Faire last year. He told me he's got some never-released AT&T computers, so I took a ride to his storage locker today (here in central NJ) to see for myself. There are about a half-dozen Counterpoint C-19 computers with drive units, monitors, and various parts. I never heard of these. The guy said he worked for Bell Labs in early 1980s. He said Counterpoint made these as Unix workstations and delivered thousands of them to an AT&T warehouse. Then AT&T canceled the project and (supposedly) bulldozed the warehouse contents. He said the ones in his storage locker may be the only ones remaining. He also said some famous AT&T folks (K.; Ritchie, Korn) all used such systems. They run Unix System V. A few of them looked to be in very clean condition. Lastly, he said they were also planning to use the name "AT&T Technical Workstation" rather than the C-19 name. Google shows no results for either search term. We're definitely accepting these for the museum collection. Hopefully we can make a few running units from the various components. Anyone ever heard of it?

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Museum Report
by Jeffrey Brace 18 Aug '18

18 Aug '18

Pete, Thanks for being docent today! It's nice to rotate docents and give others a break. Sorry that it wasn't so busy. You never know from day to day how it will be. I think this weekend had better weather expected whereas last weekend not so much. I hope that you enjoyed being docent and were able to occupy with fa un vintage experience. ==Jeff Brace On Sat, Aug 18, 2018 at 7:28 PM, Peter Cetinski via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Peter Cetinski <pete(a)pski.net> > To: vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org > Cc: > Bcc: > Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2018 19:28:50 -0400 > Subject: Museum Report > My son Alex and I were at the museum today. The first couple of hours > were quiet but then things picked up. We had 4 or 5 families come through > all with mild interest. One guy was a dead ringer for Denzel Washington > but I didn’t ask. Another laughingly referred to the TRS-80 as a Trash-80 > and I held my tounge and did not respond. > > Pete > > Pete > -- ======================================================= Jeff Brace =======================================================

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Museum Report
by Peter Cetinski 18 Aug '18

18 Aug '18

My son Alex and I were at the museum today. The first couple of hours were quiet but then things picked up. We had 4 or 5 families come through all with mild interest. One guy was a dead ringer for Denzel Washington but I didn’t ask. Another laughingly referred to the TRS-80 as a Trash-80 and I held my tounge and did not respond. Pete Pete

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Demo Video New MITS RF-Effect Music from VCF East
by Bill Degnan 17 Aug '18

17 Aug '18

I made an imperfect video that demos the new music I compiled for the Altair using the RF Interference effect. The video is from VCF East this past spring youtu.be/tSO2ofz4gD4 <https://t.co/jbF2d4bij9> Details http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=720 Bill

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an unexpected mainframe experience
by Dave McGuire 17 Aug '18

17 Aug '18

Earlier this week, I traveled to a large factory in a small, sleepy town in western NY. One of my clients is having some equipment built there, and he asked me to help resolve a production problem with a control board. What he's having built there is not computer related. The factory is a contract manufacturer; they make things for many different customers, primarily doing metal fabrication and coatings. When I walked out onto the production floor, I very nearly tripped over my own feet when I saw this: http://www.neurotica.com/misc/20180816_100638-sm.jpg Now, it was first thing in the morning (I'm not built for mornings, I'm up at the crack of noon most of the time) and I hadn't slept all that well in the hotel, but I knew damn well that those were, unmistakably, front doors for IBM z14 mainframes. In the course of my work addressing my client's control board problem, I had a bit of time during which I was waiting for one thing or another, so I chatted with the staff a bit. It turns out that this company has been making racks and doors for IBM for decades. Somewhat embarrassingly, several people gathered around me excitedly when the word spread that there was a visitor in the building who actually works on the machines for which they build the enclosures. They all knew they were making stuff for IBM, and that they were for some big computer thing, but most of them were very confused about what they really were. ("How is THAT a computer? Where's the mouse?") These folks were fascinated to hear about where the big metal racks and doors they build and paint eventually end up. I told them a bit about what the machines are, how they work, and what they're used for. They all listened with great interest, and some were very excited about it. They told me their stories too...they remembered every model number ("Hey Mary, do you remember the z890 with that beautiful copper trim on the front?" "Oh yes Jim, I loved that one!") and they told great stories about the fun they'd had building them all. Interestingly, the front and back doors of the machines are shipped straight from that factory to the customer when a mainframe is ordered. IBM never sees them. So there's great trust there, because those doors have to be flawless. The frames and racks get sent to IBM in Poughkeepsie to be built out, but the doors go straight from this factory out to the customer every time IBM sells a mainframe. I was asked to be very careful about what I say about what I saw there, but I will say this: There were A LOT of z14 doors being made there. Many people believe that the production volume of these machines is small. Nothing could be further from the truth. Seriously, I was shocked. I'm told there was a "secret area" in another part of the building where they're making chassis for prototypes and machines that haven't been released yet; I wasn't allowed to see that. Overall the access control there was pretty tight. I wasn't allowed to take many pictures, those that I did take were carefully audited by my escort, and some were deleted. They take their customers' security very seriously there, but they were still human beings, people who love their jobs (pretty unusual in this day and age), many of whom had worked there for decades. They take great pride in the things that they build there, and there was a universal feeling that they wondered where it all eventually went, and a hope that they'd gotten the machines off to a good start. It was a wonderful experience that I will not soon forget. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 16 Aug '18

16 Aug '18

Lots of people came to the museum today. There was a large group from some camp or school. They divided into four groups of 5-6 kids and one adult. Each group visited us for about 30 minutes and then rotated to other museums on campus. There were also a bunch of regular visitors.

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Anyone know of a bulk way to test MK4027 dram chips
by mike willegal 15 Aug '18

15 Aug '18

Depends upon if you are interested in testing for speed, as well as for simple good/bad bits and good/bad addressing. Here are some stray thoughts, if you are just interested in good/bad bits. 1) I think you might be able to take an Apple II language card and possibly run 4027s in them, perhaps without mods. Change out the sockets to ZIF sockets and modify the 6502 memory tester to test 8 chips at a time in the language card. The Apple version of the language card has space for a ROM, so you could possibly burn the test program into an PROM and have it run automatically. Probably turn out to be an involved project. 2) Might be easier to just replace one bank of DRAM sockets on an early II plus motherboard (one with the memory jumper blocks) with ZIF sockets and use the aforementioned memory test. 3) Another idea would be to enhance the SCELBI based 1101/2102 tester, to support refresh and CAS/RAS addressing. Probably turn out to be an involved project. regards, Mike Willegal

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Anyone know of a bulk way to test MK4027 dram chips
by corey cohen 14 Aug '18

14 Aug '18

I’m looking for some sort of hardware tester. The closest I have come to is an s100 ram card stuffing it with chips and running a memory test program. Not the most portable solution and I’d like to double check the 40+ suspect chips out of my 64 chips I was testing today. Ideas??? Product I should be looking at? Thanks, Cheers, Corey corey cohen uǝɥoɔ ʎǝɹoɔ Mobile: +1 917 747 1408 Sent from my iPhone

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