November 2019 - vcf-midatlantic

Festivus Docent Signup Sheet
by Jeffrey Brace 14 Nov '19

14 Nov '19

Please sign up to be docent for an hour or two during Festivus. Signup sheet is here: < https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RsBm7PmAj1BnJtLfB-WfeYSQeA12LfFuP1n… > It's important that someone is there because of the holiday model train show brings in a lot of people. -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation

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Festivus Tickets Buy Now!
by Jeffrey Brace 14 Nov '19

14 Nov '19

Three weeks left for Festivus Tickets. Pay for your Festivus tickets online via Eventbrite: < https://www.eventbrite.com/e/festivus-2019-tickets-77436696243?aff=VCFMaili… > If anyone wants to pay via PayPal, then you can use the Friends and Family option. Send to paypal(a)vcfed.org and put in the note your Name, "Festivus 2019 dinner", "Festivus Dinner and Overnight". Cost is $10 for Festivus, $15 at the door. Overnight stay is $25 via Eventbrite and $30 at the door. Tickets are available until Dec. 6 (day before Festivus). Dec. 7 you have to pay at the door. After you pay online, you don't have to bring any EventBrite barcode or anything because I will have a list of those who paid. Here is the signup sheet which is separate from the tickets to tell us what food, drink, etc. that you will bring: < https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x0oSxqZXh8tmqqbUsP3KS3OywiNsEAOOmtq… > -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation

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what were the Workshop videos?
by Jeffrey Jonas 14 Nov '19

14 Nov '19

Vintage computer restoration videos were playing in the background. Playlist, please.

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More stuff available at Festivus
by Jeff Galinat 13 Nov '19

13 Nov '19

Hi All, In digging through my stash, I have uncovered a few more items to let go. IBM Selectric II - mechanism is jammed since the the grease in it has turned to gunk - needs serious TLC- FREE! IBM 5155 Portable PC - Given to me about 20 years ago & I have never powered it up. will not have time to test it - $80 HP DesignJet 430 Wide carriage inkjet printer - prints up to 24" wide. Given to me by a retired architect friend about a year ago - $50 I will post more items as I uncover them. Regards, Jeff Galinat

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Festivus PayPal Tickets
by Jeffrey Brace 13 Nov '19

13 Nov '19

Some people have asked me about the Festivus tickets through Eventbrite. Eventbrite takes $2.50 for each ticket which is paid for by VCF. We decided to do it this way to put the burden on VCF and not the membership. The reason we are doing Eventbrite is because it is very easy to manage. I'm trying to get away from walking around all night collecting money from 50+ people. The other option for those not wanting to do Eventbrite is PayPal. If anyone wants to pay via PayPal, then you can use the Friends and Family option. This way VCF doesn't have to pay the extra fee. This is still good for me because I don't have to walk around collecting money from 50 people. If you want to do PayPal, then send to paypal(a)vcfed.org and put in the note your Name, "Festivus 2019 dinner", "Festivus Dinner and Overnight". Any questions? -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation

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Atari 810 Case / Drive
by John Heritage 13 Nov '19

13 Nov '19

Good Morning everyone - i'm still looking for an Atari 810 drive with the center 1/3rd flap style (rather than the 'full size door / barn door' style front lip) to go with my (recently restored) Atari 800 setup. I bought one off of Ebay a few years ago but the seller packed it terribly, and the case was damaged in two places (front side, and a whole on the 'left' side towards the back). if you have a bad drive but a good case i'd be very interested in that too.. If anyone has one they'd be willing to sell, please let me know. I know someone on the list had one but i failed to follow up (a year or two ago..) Thanks! John

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11/9 & 11/10 Workshop Review - and Photos !
by dillera＠gmail.com 11 Nov '19

11 Nov '19

I had a great time, it sounds like I missed a fun Sunday also. Here are photos of the group on Sat: https://imgur.com/a/aOcgqOK It was a blast sitting back and screwing around with Tony and our 68k Macs and troubleshooting SCSI gremlins for five hours. Just like the old days. I did finally install system 6 on a working external SCSI drive, then upgrade it to System 7.0 with Tony's disks. The one big drive that was causing errors on my Macintosh Classic came up fine on Tony's SE/30 - so I'm pretty sure the caps are going on my Classic and messing with the SCSI on it. I did get some cool 68k B&W games from Tony while my harddrive was hooked up to his SE/30. I hope I didn't get any viruses.... And thanks again for the Perkins Perks - you usually bring something amazing for the group, I do appreciate that. I took some video w/ my goPro and the little stedi-cam I got, I'll throw that together in iMovie and see what I can come up with. I'll def grab some video at the upcoming festivus. -andy

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] 11/9 & 11/10 Workshop
by Jason Perkins 11 Nov '19

11 Nov '19

Tony helped me remove a virus I'd spread around my external mac HDDs. Thanks!! I spent some time working on a Tektronix 4696 printer. It's an early color inkjet, a casual search suggests it was introduced in 1987. Mine was bought in 1988, and never used. After figuring out what the magic "maintenance fluid" is (water), and many hours of cleaning cycles & manual cleanings (Thanks Connor!) it started producing great output! https://twitter.com/compu_85/status/1193681132442787841 On Sun, Nov 10, 2019 at 10:10 PM Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > I’d also like to give a shout out to David Gesswein, Bill Dromgoole, Ian > Primus for helping work on other VCF/museum machines, Connor and Jason for > helping anyone with anything and everyone else who chipped in as always. > Workshops are so great because everyone pretty much jumps in and helps > everyone with everything. It’s why we get so much done in so short a time! > > I’d also like to thank Adam Michlin for all his help today along with Jeff > for organizing and running everything. A special super big thanks to Dean > and Drew Notarnicola for coming all the way down here just to man the > museum all day so everyone else could work on their own projects. I’m sure > I forgot someone, my apologies. > Dean, Drew, Adam and I took a quick lunch break and Drom and Jeff covered > the museum. > > Total team effort. Thanks everyone! > Tony > -- Jason Perkins 313 355 0085

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November Workshop Update
by jsalzman＠gmail.com 11 Nov '19

11 Nov '19

It's been a while since I was at a VCF Workshop. This was the first time I attended one in the Hackerspace. I don't know which working area I prefer the most. The 9032-A building lets you S-P-R-A-W-L for sure. I found myself uncomfortably encroaching in the Hackerspace building into space I didn't feel I needed to take up. However, nobody seemed to mind, and I made sure not to block paths and get in people's way. I did like the high top workbenches and the fixed power strips with outlets every three inches. It was very kind of the Hackerspace group to lend us the use of their facilities (and the few tools I needed and did not have on hand). I hope they soon develop a payment system for parts that they stock. I know they're working on something to manage that process, but they do have quite a selection of parts in stock. It would be a nice symbiotic relationship between VCF and CDL when we are otherwise unable to source repair parts for the items we fix by buying directly form CDL. And speaking of fixing... I brought the following items to the workshop: - Kaypro 10 - garbage screen on the lower half of the display - Compaq Portable - former keyboard refoaming project which had issues after refoaming - (3) Coleco Adam systems - mainly for triage to determine what I have that works and doesn't - My MOBIDIC project stuff - In case I had free time to work on it - SupercardPro flux reader - To identify and archive unknown disks in my collection - Raspberry Pi 4 - because... Raspberry Pi 4! - All my 74XX and 74XXX chips - to count and sort if I got bored. The first thing I did was start on the Kaypro. This was one of those systems that worked fine when I put it away a year ago, but suddenly had problems when I turned it on a few weeks ago. Thanks to the advice of Ian and others, the display issue was the result of a bad 2128 RAM chip. Nevell happened to have a replacement with him and it WORKED! Thanks again Nevell! A Kaypro isn't a big thing for many, but it's my only dedicated CP/M machine and I like to keep it running as long as I can. BTW, the Kaypro 10 was kind enough to nominate me for the honorary "First to Smoke" award, having unceremoniously given up it's RIFA cap before lunch. Sorry about the air freshener, folks! The next things I worked on were my Coleco Adam computers. These took most of my time over the weekend (and most of my vehicle's cargo space). I have one working system. A second system is completely DEAD, which I did not attempt to fix due to issues and discoveries made while working on the third one. The third one partially booted to the built-in Smartwriter software, but locked up before it completed drawing the typewriter screen. Subsequent resets of the system produced a consistently cascading set of problems. First reset would only show a cyan screen. The next reset would produce a blank screen. Each additional reset created a blank screen, but at random, would introduce low volume sound tones. After Internet research, and posts to the Coleco Adam Facebook group, I discovered that operational issues like this could be the result of a bad 6801 in the system, or the surrounding operational logic for each one. Each one meaning that the Adam actually has several support microprocessors in them. I was unaware of this. Each support microprocessor is a 6801, which is very similar in concept to the Texas Instruments TMS9000 series, where the microprocessor has built-in mask ROM on board. So while several 6801 chips are in the system, they can't be swapped within the system to test for a bad one, as they each have their own dedicated code. I'd have to swap from a known good system, but even then, they are soldered to the board. It would be a risk to try and remove a good one, just to test on another system. They are not easily replaceable and there are not any known modern alternatives for them (i.e. like the PLAnkton for the C64). In all my research and struggle, I completely failed to test the other two Adam printers I brought with me. If you weren't aware, the Coloco Adam system's power supply is in the printer. Therefore, you need the printer hooked up to the system to make it work. I just kept using the same working printer to test the remaining systems in my collection and didn't bother pulling out the other two printers I had to see if they worked Since it was Sunday by now on this two-day Workshop, I decided to look at my Compaq Portable. The keyboard on them are capacitive, not mechanical switches. There are foam and mylar pads inside each key, and the foam deteriorates over the years, rendering the keys inoperable. About a year ago, at another Workshop event, I began to replace bad foam pads in the keyboard. I had a pad kit that was long awaiting use, and I finished the swap. However, the keyboard failed to work afterwards. I didn't dwell on it too much back then due to other items I wanted to work on, so I saved it for a future date and got back to it at this past weekend's event. It was suggested by others that I carefully check each and every pad to make sure it "snapped" under the all four clips on each key top. I found a few that were not clipped in completely. The symptoms of the keyboard were a 301 error upon boot and a "+" symbol on the input field where it asks for system time. I'm thinking I have a stuck key. This assumption is based on the fact that the mylar cap on the bottom of the key foam on all keys is near flush with the body of the key as it mounts against the circuit board. I'm guessing the aftermarket foam replacements I got are too thick, and the mylar part is resting on, or too close to, the circuit board contacts. Maybe this Compaq Portable will show up at January's workshop... Next, I brought out my SupercardPro. I have this conveniently mounted in an old IBM external drive case, since it contains a working drive power supply, room for my dual 3.5" and 5.25" half height drive, and the SupercardPro board. The SupercardPro is a disk flux reader whose software handles many disk formats. I had a bunch of unmarked disks from one of the many disk lots I've acquired over the years and could not identify on other systems. With a flux reader, I should be able to find patterns to help identify a disk format. Unfortunately, these disks were stored in less than stellar conditions and have accumulated surface dirt and other unnaturally formed coatings. The iron oxide layer was getting brittle and in some cases, had gotten scraped away under the head of the floppy drive. So, I abandoned further attempts to read any more disks and may consider them a loss. I think they may have had CP/M or Minix data on them, if I remember correctly where I got them from. Finally, over the entire weekend, I spent about 10 minutes, tops, on my MOBIDIC project, and that time was spend just showing its progress to others and not any additional coding. I also did not get to any of the remaining items I planned to work with as I ran out of time. Thanks for the great weekend! Jeff Salzman

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] 11/9 & 11/10 Workshop
by Tony Bogan 10 Nov '19

10 Nov '19

I’d also like to give a shout out to David Gesswein, Bill Dromgoole, Ian Primus for helping work on other VCF/museum machines, Connor and Jason for helping anyone with anything and everyone else who chipped in as always. Workshops are so great because everyone pretty much jumps in and helps everyone with everything. It’s why we get so much done in so short a time! I’d also like to thank Adam Michlin for all his help today along with Jeff for organizing and running everything. A special super big thanks to Dean and Drew Notarnicola for coming all the way down here just to man the museum all day so everyone else could work on their own projects. I’m sure I forgot someone, my apologies. Dean, Drew, Adam and I took a quick lunch break and Drom and Jeff covered the museum. Total team effort. Thanks everyone! Tony

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