August 2020 - vcf-midatlantic

das blinkenlights
by Jeffrey Jonas 06 Aug '20

06 Aug '20

I have some front panels that I'd like to blink like in the movies. Since the human brain likes to find patterns, I suspect that pure random numbers are nowhere as satisfying as some patterns. Has anyone done research on that? Of course, I'll have multiple modes such as Conway's Life, counting in various ways, ring counters, etc. -- jeff jonas

7 7

Museum Report: 5 Aug 2020
by svcatitc＠aol.com 06 Aug '20

06 Aug '20

Opened museum at 1pm. Quiet day. No visitors until Al Klase from NJARC stopped by to take a look-see. Gave him the 2 bit tour. He had not seen the museum for awhile, and was impressed at what we had accomplished.We talked about doing other future collaborations between museums. Photographer for Mike Ruane came in to photo the museum artifacts. She was impressed withthe layout and the "walk down memory lane". She is doing an overall video shoot for Mike of the campus. She has done many video productions for Mike for Info Age. Other maintenance notes: 1. Replaced the bib door on the EAI TR-20 using the one off the Texas collage donation from the warehouse. 2. Added the VCF logo to the Windows 3.1 desktop "wallpaper" on the IBM PS2 machine. Bill Inderrieden

1 0

Museum Report 2020-08-02
by Jeffrey Brace 05 Aug '20

05 Aug '20

A little late, but better late than never. About 6 visitors this past Sunday to the museum. Our procedures and precautions for Covid-19 worked very well. Continuing to add small improvements to the museum when I am there. Kids really love The Printshop printout of a picture from the dot matrix printer that I give them to take home. This is part of the Star Gemini NX-1000 on the Commodore 64 in the 80's bedroom exhibit. One visitor originally from Britain loved the ZX-81, BBC Micro and C128. -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member, VCF East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org cell: 732-759-1783

1 0

VCF West 2020 Videos on YouTube
by Jeffrey Brace 04 Aug '20

04 Aug '20

Some people were asking about the individual videos from VCF West 2020 Virtual show. You can go to https://www.youtube.com/user/MidAtlanticRetroComp Which is The Vintage Computer Federation's channel on YouTube. You will see the one large stream from August 1 as well the individual videos that were shown that day. -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member, VCF East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org cell: 732-759-1783

1 0

Re: Inquiry
by Sentrytv 04 Aug '20

04 Aug '20

I was looking to see if there was a Corey Crawford in our group because I know Corey Crawford, I used to work with. I thought it sounded familiar within the group I’m getting it mixed up no problem thanks Since the governor changed the rules for indoor totals of people, is this going to change anything with the next workshop? Mike R. Sent from: My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device. > On Aug 4, 2020, at 5:15 PM, Jeffrey Brace <jeffrey(a)vcfed.org> wrote: > > > I don't know of any Cory Crawford in the group. > There is a Doug Crawford, and there is a Cory Sickles. > Are you looking for this person? > >> On Tue, Aug 4, 2020 at 2:29 PM Sentrytv <sentrytv(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> Jeff >> Is there a Cory Crawford in the VCF group? >> >> Sent from: >> My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device. > > > -- > ========================================= > Jeff Brace > Vice President & Board Member, VCF East Showrunner > Vintage Computer Federation > http://www.vcfed.org/ > jeffrey(a)vcfed.org > cell: 732-759-1783 >

2 1

VAX/RD54 recovery
by David Gesswein 02 Aug '20

02 Aug '20

I had gotten a RD54 and worked out how to pull the head servo for data recovery. http://www.pdp8online.com/mfm/head_servo/pics/rd54_wires.shtml?small At a previous workday a VAX was being worked on for the Museum. The drive in it had head position errors so I wasn't able to get a good read at the time. With the above method I probably can read it now. If the drive is still around and not reformatted I can try at the next work day. I think their was another drive that wasn't read from a PDP-11 also. Did the VAX get a new OS install on it?

3 3

Museum Report 2020-08-01
by Jeffrey Brace 02 Aug '20

02 Aug '20

VCF West Watch Party was a small group, but we had fun and enjoyed the show on the big screen all day. I supported the VCF West guys, as well as monitored our museum reopening. InfoAge had 11 visitors on this first day of re-opening. 7 of the 11 made their way to VCF. I gave the tour to the group of 1 And Bill Inderrieden gave the tour to the group of 6. Dennis and Dylan the new docents were there as well, so it was a good showing of the re-opening of InfoAge and the VCF museum as well. Corey, Ian and Bill worked on repairing various stuff. Next repair workshop is August 15 & 16. -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member, VCF East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org cell: 732-759-1783

2 1

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] VAX/RD54 recovery
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 02 Aug '20

02 Aug '20

Connor Krukosky via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> writes: > >David, Those drives are safe at my house, the museum seemed to have no >interest in them since if they planned to get any machines going they >planned to run some of your boards and not original drives even if they >did work. Glad to see you were able to get the head amp board hooked up >to one of these. We should be-able to recover what was on the original >drives. > >I have not attempted anything with them myself but I have one of your >boards I plan to build up with a future digikey order. I have been >working on some new boards I designed I need to get up and going not >related to vintage computing. The next time I am at the museum I can >drop them off somewhere so you can look at them if you'd like. > >I believe I was not able to get MOP booting working on the Vax... I >believe it was an issue with it being a Microvax II. I really ought to >drag my Microvax II up and see if I can attempt to get it net booting. I >have only gotten later Vaxen going with my MOP boot setup. Specifically >a 3900 and some 3100s. Satellite booting work(s/ed) just fine with MicroVAX-II and onward. In the DoD labs I once worked as well as GE Astrospace/NASA Mars Observer, nearly all VMS workstations were diskless. They booted from the network and the storage for them was server from the central cluster.

1 0

Stupid CP/M question
by Richard Cini 02 Aug '20

02 Aug '20

All — I just built myself a CompuPro Z80 system out some of my spare boards. It boots CP/M from one of the Maslin 8” disk images. To facilitate getting other programs onto the disk, I want to use XMODEM from Marty Eberhard. It compiles with CP/M ASM which is good, but what’s the best way of getting the source file onto the disk? It’s not clear if the CBIOS has code for a separate PUN/RDR port. I was thinking of using ED and then, using HyperTerminal, paste the source into the ED screen and save it. I looked at the manual for ED and it’s not clear to me if I can actually do that, so I wanted to ask the group if that’s a good way or if there’s something better. Thanks! Rich Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef>

2 3

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] keyboard cable for Kaypro
by RETRO Innovations 01 Aug '20

01 Aug '20

On 8/1/2020 7:06 PM, Sentrytv via vcf-midatlantic wrote: A number of years back, I sourced the specific jack for the KB port. If you can't find it, I can see if I can dig up the link/name/sku/etc. JIm -- RETRO Innovations, Contemporary Gear for Classic Systems www.go4retro.com store.go4retro.com

2 2