March 2020 - vcf-midatlantic

How's everyone doing?
by Jeffrey Brace 28 Mar '20

28 Mar '20

Things are rough these days. How's everyone handling it? -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member, VCF East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] How's everyone doing?
by Jameel Akari 27 Mar '20

27 Mar '20

Howdy everyone. Glad to see things are generally ok. Work has been busy - more or less the same, just WFH instead. A lot of time hand-wringing over VPN issues of course, but we’re handling them. At least for us, business has been good. I am planning to go by myself to the datacenter next week to work on some deferred maintenance; chances are I won’t even see another person the whole day. I do not mind that. I’ve been in several videoconference meetings per day - this has finally made me clean up my office / lab, which is still cluttered with VCF East 2019 / UNIX50 parts. My coworkers are alternately confused and amazed. ;) So I put away some things that were just collecting dust, promoted the VAXstation I got from Bill D. all that while ago to somewhere I can use it, and decided my Mac Plus deserved a space on my office shelf. I am concerned about what its insides might look like after years in storage. Maybe I’ll crack it open tomorrow. I’ve continued to work on, albeit more slowly now, my SYM-1 6502 project that was slated for VCF East. I might consider doing some videos and/or blog posts about it… that’d be a new thing for me. A new EPROM programmer and UV eraser came in the mail, woohoo! While cleaning out the shed I re-discovered boxes of electronic components that will finally be of use. I was really hoping for VCF-East consignment to be an outlet for some of my surplus. I’m debating whether eBay is worth trying. Are people buying used stuff from randos on eBay now? No idea. So… pretty ok. Until today. My wife found out she is being furloughed for an indeterminate time, as are most of her coworkers. Healthcare paid through May at least. The reality has set in. We’ll be fine, and we’ll figure it out, but I worry about people who may not. — Jameel Akari > On Mar 27, 2020, at 2:08 PM, Peter Cetinski via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > From: Peter Cetinski <pete(a)pski.net> > Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] How's everyone doing? > Date: March 27, 2020 at 2:08:38 PM EDT > To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> > > > I’m in the same boat as many here. Working from home full-time on a new gig I just started this week. Of course, many TRS-80 projects continue to be on the queue. > > If anyone here is interested we’re having another live TRS-80 Trash Talk on Zoom tomorrow at 4pm EDT. > > I know you’re all on Zoom now so there’s no execuse! :) Everyone is welcome even if you don’t own a TRS-80. Maybe you’ll learn something you didn’t know about one of the original trinity microcomputers. > > https://zoom.us/j/567066261 <https://zoom.us/j/567066261> > > Take care, > Pete > > >

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TO-3 Regulator Replacements
by Alexander Pierson 27 Mar '20

27 Mar '20

Ethan, Thus far, I've been using a few different regulator types from https://www.ezsbc.com/ in various amperage and voltage combinations. A few people have warned about needing additional capacitors to mitigate jitter, but I haven't seen all that much during tests. When I did the first one, I added an extra tantalum per recommendations, however it actually added more ripple to have the extra caps so I removed them. Your mileage may vary. Here's the VIC-20 I installed one in: https://commodorez.com/img/silvervicguts.jpgAnd a photo of the outside, if you're curious: https://commodorez.com/img/silvervic1.jpg That VIC-20 is assembled from the discarded parts of at least 5 machines, including most of a C16 keyboard, and 6502 + 6522's from a dead 1541 drive. The case was pretty scuffed up, so I figured there was no harm in giving it a paint job while I was at it. It runs super cool now, even after a few hours of operation. I've contemplated adding heat sinks for some of the IC's but haven't crossed that bridge yet. This VIC came with me to VCFMW last fall, flown in as my carry-on item, where I used it to wardial the show's PABX with a modem 300. Here's the 1541 that received the same treatment: https://commodorez.com/img/1541regs.jpg The downside is that you can no longer us it to keep your coffee/tea warm. Let's see if the list serve processing will preserve my line spacing this time.-Alexander 'Z' Pierson

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Making lite of our situation
by Neil Cherry 27 Mar '20

27 Mar '20

On 3/27/20 12:48 PM, Sentrytv via vcf-midatlantic wrote: I have no problem with it. I'm asthmatic but I also ride my bicycle in traffic so I laugh at stuff like this (while I still can). Once crashed, cracked several ribs, rode home 15 miles, my friend was torturing me with bad jokes (it was justified). We laugh, I cried, life goes on. ;-) -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry(a)linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] How's everyone doing?
by Ethan Dicks 27 Mar '20

27 Mar '20

On Fri, Mar 27, 2020 at 5:58 AM ajpierson1 via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > In the mean time, I've played through Doom Eternal which was amazing. I see my friends playing that but I'm pretty sure it will crush my gaming box. > I've also repaired my Heathkit H89's power problems which knocked it out of commission on Friday night of VCF East last year. I recently acquired an H89. I haven't even powered it on yet and it's in the basement of our makerspace so I won't be getting to it anytime soon. > ...while I was making the repairs the other day, I swapped the old linear regulator for a drop-in switch mode supply (also in a TO-3 package). So far, I've had good luck with those in a VIC-20 and a 1541 drive, thus it seemed like a natural choice to reduce heat output in my H89. Which one of these are you using? I have a similar assortment of machines (and there are some of these in PETs as well) so it's a part I could use in multiple locations. > If any of you are familiar with the Votrax SC-01-A speech synthesizer chip, I scored a Type'N Talk on ebay recently, and spent some time figuring out how to interface with it properly. I saw your posts. The arcade-sized Gorf and the RB5X robot have either an SC-01 or SC-02 (I'd have to check). Nice chip. Sounds like you have plenty of fun projects going. Cheers, -ethan

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Making lite of our situation
by Sentrytv 27 Mar '20

27 Mar '20

Is it too early to make light of the situation? Sent from: My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device. > On Mar 26, 2020, at 11:42 PM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > Things are rough these days. How's everyone handling it? > > -- > ========================================= > Jeff Brace > Vice President & Board Member, VCF East Showrunner > Vintage Computer Federation > http://www.vcfed.org/ > jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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InfoAge in The Star Ledger donates N-95 masks
by Jeffrey Brace 27 Mar '20

27 Mar '20

*1,400 old face masks were sitting in a basement. They’re now fighting coronavirus.* Photo Caption: The masks were stored for several years at the InfoAge Science and History Center in Wall Township, Monmouth County.InfoAge Science and History Center *By Anthony G. Attrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com <http://connect.nj.com/staff/AAttrino/posts.html>* Volunteers at one of New Jersey’s most historic museums on Thursday donated more than 1,400 N-95 face masks to a local hospital and other emergency workers to help them fight the spread of coronavirus <https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/>. “They were in the back of one of our warehouses, literally gathering dust,” said Mike Ruane, chief executive officer of InfoAge Science and History Center in Monmouth County. <https://infoage.org/> The masks, which had originally been ordered eight years ago for people responding to Hurricane Sandy, were uncovered days ago inside at the museum on Marconi Road in Wall Township. The museum is the site of the former U.S. Army base Camp Evans and the Evans Signal Laboratory, where scientists in 1946 bounced the first radio signals off the moon. When Hurricane Sandy swept across the state in 2012, devastating Monmouth County, a slew of volunteer recovery workers built a headquarters for themselves on InfoAge’s sprawling grounds, which contains 11 museums and five exhibits spread out across 34 acres. The masks were ordered for volunteers, who spent months knocking down damaged homes and repairing what they could. “The masks were needed for the workers, who went all over Monmouth County, tearing down sheetrock and helping to rebuild,” Ruane said. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, a museum worker remembered the masks were stored in a warehouse on the property. “Some of the boxes were banged up and some had mildew,” Ruane said. “But on the inside, the masks were wrapped up and not compromised at all.” The museum donated 1,000 masks to Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank and another 400 to Wall Township, which was planning to distribute them to emergency workers and senior citizens. “We think it’s great that we were able to help,” Ruane said. “We are members of the Wall Township community. We enjoy being here and this is our way of giving back.” As of Thursday, at least 742 people in New Jersey had tested positive for coronavirus. Nine people have died, including members of a family from Monmouth County. <https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/03/nj-family-ravaged-by-coronavirus-los…> -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member, VCF East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] How's everyone doing?
by ajpierson1 27 Mar '20

27 Mar '20

Been working from home to keep us on the air. Fortunately, it's much easier to keep a TV station operational when you don't have to keep the studio spaces running, and more than half of the employees aren't generating new trouble tickets. In the mean time, I've played through Doom Eternal which was amazing. I've also repaired my Heathkit H89's power problems which knocked it out of commission on Friday night of VCF East last year. A TO-3 socket for one of the 5V regulators was damaged, and while I was making the repairs the other day, I swapped the old linear regulator for a drop-in switch mode supply (also in a TO-3 package). So far, I've had good luck with those in a VIC-20 and a 1541 drive, thus it seemed like a natural choice to reduce heat output in my H89. I've also had way more group voice chats with friends around the world these past few weeks, mostly talking about vintage computer topics. In this way, a few of us helped one friend through some H89 diagnostics and repair which has brought the machine back to life (mostly). I believe he will be using it for his VCF exhibit soon enough. Last week, I was also taking a crack at implementing Glitchbus on the Cactus, but that's been sidelined for the moment. I also took a brief (and isolated) drive out to my storage unit last week to drop off projects I don't have space for at the moment. If any of you are familiar with the Votrax SC-01-A speech synthesizer chip, I scored a Type'N Talk on ebay recently, and spent some time figuring out how to interface with it properly. It sounds great, and I was not expecting to find an entire 6802 based machine inside the tiny chassis.I've always got a stack of projects to tackle, so this really isn't all that different for me. We'll get thru this with a little vigilance, patience, and isolation. -Alexander 'Z' Pierson

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Looking for a Handle for the Kraft Premium II Joystick
by Alexander Jacocks 26 Mar '20

26 Mar '20

All, I got a pair of Coco joysticks, and they're the deluxe version, in really great shape. However, both are missing the tip of the handle. Does anyone have a set of spares? Or a drawing, so that I can design a replacement? Thanks! - Alex

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OT: Webcams for remote students
by Evan Koblentz 26 Mar '20

26 Mar '20

Everyone, My employer (New Jersey Institute of Technoloy), like most other schools/universities, is teaching all courses virtually for at least the rest of this semester. Employees were informed that there are not enough webcams to go around for students. NJIT now is turning over every stone to make sure its students are equipped to participate in a productive and collaborative learning environment. There are outstanding orders with different vendors, but stock is low and deliveries are slow. If you have an unused webcam that you would like to donate to NJIT, it would go a long way in benefiting a student in need. The specifics about brands, models, and specs aren't important. It just has to work and be modern, not vintage. :) Of course, please hold back anything broken, obsolete, missing key parts, dirty, etc. The address to send them is: Dean of Students Office, Campus Center 255 323 Martin Luther King Blvd Newark, NJ 07102

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