August 2018 - vcf-midatlantic

please unsubscribe me.
by Joe Herdler 06 Aug '18

06 Aug '18

Please subscribe me. Thank you. Joe

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Museum report
by Dean Notarnicola 06 Aug '18

06 Aug '18

Delayed museum report for Saturday: The promised rain and gloom stayed away, unfortunately keeping much of the public away as well. However, the were two very interested groups of visitors. One was an elderly French-Canadian couple who were very interested in the older machines. They slowly lost interest as we came to the micros, but appreciated the connection to the evolution of computing. That was it until 4:45, when a retired couple who both worked for RCA back in the 1802 days arrived. They were extremely interested in the micros and were very engaged in discussing how and why the early micro market evolved into the Intel/ARM virtual duopoly we see today, and how some decendents of early CPUs and microcontrollers survive in modern embedded systems. Big thank you to Tony for dropping by and helping me get the micros up and running for the day, and keeping me from being alone the first couple of hours.

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Australian vintage computer warehouse
by Herb Johnson 04 Aug '18

04 Aug '18

an Australian Computer Museum warehouse; their lease is up and they have to get rid of their "inventory". A video walkthrough tour, matey! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK4M8dv4NNU Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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DEC KDF-11 question
by Richard Cini 03 Aug '18

03 Aug '18

All — I’m looking for a working M8186/KDF-11 dual-height CPU card, mostly as an experiment to see if it would work in place of the LSI-11 (11/03) card in my Heath H-11 for the purposes of getting BSD 2.11 working. Not sure if that’s even possible, so maybe let’s start with that. Will BSD run on a KDF-11 (11/23) if I have sufficient RAM? Thanks! Rich Get Outlook for iOS Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef>

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Anyone in San Diego?
by J. Alexander Jacocks 02 Aug '18

02 Aug '18

All, I'm in San Diego on business, and I finished early. Does anyone live nearby and want to meet for dinner? Alternately, does anyone have suggestions of good geeky places to go? Many thanks! - Alex

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Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 01 Aug '18

01 Aug '18

Very busy! Lots of visitors all day long. We took in a couple of $$ donations plus a very thorough Heathkit H-8 system (terminal, computer, two drives, accessories, manuals, user group notes, etc.) ________________________________ 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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HP back in time
by Mike Loewen 01 Aug '18

01 Aug '18

I accomplished something this evening that I haven't done since 1988: I loaded a HP3000 system from tape! :-) I have a 9-track FOS tape (Fundamental Operating System) which I picked up on Epay 5 years ago, which contains MPE/V release G.A3.09 (circa 1990). I imaged the tape in SIMH format, and used HPDrive (pretending to be a 7974 tape drive) to load the FOS tape and configure the operating system on my Series 37. Back in the day, this was part of the delivery and setup of a new system for a customer. The final responsibility of a CE was to install MPE/V from the FOS tape, and get to the system signon. After that, it was the customer's system. Mike Loewen mloewen(a)cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

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New robot
by Evan Koblentz 01 Aug '18

01 Aug '18

I got all I could out of the Lego tank/forklift hybrid. There are no more events at which to demo it and no more ways to improve the software. It's time for something new! I'm going to disassemble it (insert Johnny #5 joke...) and build an R2-style droid. Lighter weight, spinning head, many lights, more sound effects. Jeff B. says I work best with a deadline :) so there is one already existing: I've got to have the droid ready for Maker Faire.

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TDL SMB Repair Writeup
by systems_glitch 01 Aug '18

01 Aug '18

Last October, I traded Herb Johnson for two TDL SMB boards that had been stripped of all socketed parts, and even some of the soldered-down ones! Here's my writeup on the repair process: http://www.glitchwrks.com/2018/07/31/tdl-smb Both boards had an etch error that shorted the +5V rail to ground! This is presumably why they ended up in the TDL boneyard. Herb had acquired them stripped of all parts from a former TDL employee, presumably someone plugged it in, noticed the power draw, and moved on to the next board. I found the short by stripping one board of its sockets and bisecting the +5V rail with trace cuts. The short was hidden under silkscreen, making it invisible. In the process, I did two things that will probably be useful to other people here: I designed a replacement board for the SEMI 4804 SRAMs, which are unobtainium, and I reproduced the Interface One and Interface 2 I/O breakout boards. All will be available through my Tindie store as I get time to photograph and list them, but if you're in need of them now, send me an email! The writeup also covers the cuts and jumps necessary to use 2716 EPROMs instead of the mask ROM that TDL originally supplied with the SMB. There are pictures of my modifications, with the cut areas circled for clarity. Thanks, Jonathan

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Folks at VCF West & DEFCON
by Alexander Pierson 31 Jul '18

31 Jul '18

VCF West is this weekend! I'm excited, since this is my first time flying out to experience it. I put together a protective case to fly the Cactus out there in one piece: http://commodorez.com/img/pelicancase.jpg I'm curious, will there be anyone else from the Mid-Atlantic crowd in attendance? I haven't seen much chatter about it here (which makes sense, based on our geographic concentration). I lucked out, and managed to swing a trip to DEFCON through work the following week, which means I will have the Cactus in tow. A friend convinced me to submit a presentation on it to the Hardware Hacking Village -- I mean, if I've got it with me in Las Vegas, might as well, right? To my surprise, they accepted it. If anyone from our crowd just so happens to be at DEFCON, and you have the time/inclination, I'll be presenting at 4PM on 8/11 in some subdivision of the Forum ballroom. Anyway, I'll hopefully see at least one familiar face out west. -Alexander 'Z' Pierson

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