August 2020 - vcf-midatlantic

Re: Missing Extech Multimeter (orange and green) at Workshop
by svcatitc＠aol.com 21 Aug '20

21 Aug '20

Alex and All; After I closed up shop on Wed's docent chores, I went looking in 9032a and found nothing. I was the one who did the last look-a-round before locked up the building on Sun after the workshop concluded. I also went through CDL, just as Martin suggested. CDL owns a lot of the same model multimeter, however they were all tagged as IXR on the back. Nothing out on the benches either. I will ask on Saturday when I am in as to whether there is a "Lost & Found". When I am in on the 26th, I'll ask the radio boys if they saw anything, and also keep looking. Bill Inderrieden

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Heathkit Hero Jr robot
by Bob Applegate 21 Aug '20

21 Aug '20

Someone sent me an email about the Hero Jr and I can’t find that email for anything. Can you please contact me again? Thanks Bob

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September Repair Workshop 9/12 & 9/13
by Jeffrey Brace 21 Aug '20

21 Aug '20

Sign up here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QPWVJSRL94SdHKtmkUmH6WESwckeXbn8PgV… -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org cell: 732-759-1783

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Xerox Status
by David Gesswein 21 Aug '20

21 Aug '20

As previously reported I worked on the Xerox at this workshop. Short summary: One of the two machines hardware seems ok. Was able to boot it. Second machine has a hardware fault. Major issue before machine is usable is to make a replacement for the missing mouse. Poor picture of what was a nice looking display booting the Interlisp-D that was on the hard drive. http://www.pdp8online.com/misc/xerox-screen.jpg The TL;DR to document what we did. People continuing work should at least read the remaining issues at the bottom. VCF has two Xerox 1108 Dandelion AI machines made in 1985. This model was introduced in 1981 if you trust online sources. The hardware is identical to the 8010 Star Information System except possibly it should have a three button mouse instead of a two button mouse. The AI machines shipped with Interlisp-D and the Star with office software. I'm not an expert on the somewhat confusing models, operating systems, and names. The machine I started with last time still had the problem of the diagnostic screen cycling through the boot options. This is supposed to happen when you push a button on the control panel. Swapping the control panel did not fix it. I then pulled the cards to disconnect them on the second machine and verified the power supply was ok. Plugged the cards in and diagnostic display seemed to behave. I had tried to make a diagnostic boot floppy from image online but I didn't think it was good. The machine also didn't like it. >From the previous workshop the hard drive didn't want to spin up. I pulled it from the machine to work on. The motor seemed fine but the spindle was very stiff. I put some oil on the outer spindle bearing under the pulley and let it sit for a while hoping some got in. It started to spin but the belt popped off as it started to get up in speed. By holding down the belt was able to get the drive to spin up and it quieted down after a little running. Made intermittent noise but nothing horrible. Heads wouldn't move. I opened the warranty void stickers to get access to a hole in the cover that lets you poke the heads to free them. There is a rubber stop for the head that had become gummy in these drives (Quantum 2040). With the heads free it did its calibrate sequence and I was able to read the drive with my MFM reader emulator tool. Drive was serial number c133708 and only had one bad sector. I also repeated this with the second drive. Its pretty quiet but also has the bad stop. It required some fiddling with the reader to read which I haven't investigated why. Drive was serial number 102842 and only had two bad sectors. This drive from the working machine had the nice background picture when I booted the image. When we first booted the machine it looked like it worked but nothing was displayed on the monitor and no evidence that the monitor was alive. Ian opened it up and we found the board was off the CRT pins. Nothing looked damaged. When we tried again we got a dim picture. With time it got somewhat brighter and some adjusting of pots we got a good looking display. After we put it back together one of the diagnostics showed it was a little offset to the right but don't think it matters. Due to the bad head stop which is likely to restick the heads Jeff and I decided to use an emulator for the drive. This will also allow switching which operating environment is running if we wish to show the various options. Unclear if the bearings will be ok with running or will get worse. The rubber bumper is on the down side so shouldn't ooze onto the platters. Unknown if it is outgassing anything bad. The stop should be able to be replaced but would either require arthroscopic surgery or removing the platter cover. Some info on my previous successful and not so sucessful working on these drives. http://www.pdp8online.com/q2040/q2040.shtml Ian Primus was leading the mouse effort. He tried to make an adapter for a Xerox mouse from a later machine. Either it doesn't operate how we think or the chip is bad. He made an adapter for a Amiga mouse which the Xerox responded to the buttons and the cursor jittered around but couldn't move properly. He found further information on the interface and it was using a special encoding, not quadrature that the Amiga generates. Ian and other were discussing how to make a functional mouse. I'll let them fill in the plan if they desire. I tried the viewpoint image for the Darkstar emulator that I converted to the MFM emulator format. It generated error codes 0002 and 0322 which is Ethernet faults. I put on a AUI to 10-base-T transceiver and plugged in a crossover cable to my laptop but it still generates the fault. Holding down the button until 1 is displayed to bypass the diagnostic allowed it to boot. It got to the login prompt. Without a functional mouse we couldn't get further. Discussing with Jeff we decided that Viewpoint would be the best operating system to use for the museum display. I left the emulator configured to boot Viewpoint. This page give information on running Viewpoint. You can also use the emulator to practice with it. https://livingcomputers.org/Blog/Introducing-Darkstar-A-Xerox-Star-Emulator… I cleaned up the monitor, keyboard, and plastic skins on the computer. Some of the skins were damaged so I cleaned the best looking. On putting them back on in the warehouse I couldn't get them to fit properly. Either it was just too dark or they aren't interchangeable. If so you may need to clean the other skins. We didn't mark with machine they came from. I also put on casters. We didn't try to match the missing originals, they are what Home Depot had. Jeff Brace picked them up for me. During this I also checked the power supply under load. All were ok except 5.2 was low at the test connector on the front of the machine. It was around 4.8 volts. It was around 5.1 at the supply. Poking around to try to determine where the voltage drop was it improved to about 5V at the test connector so likely high resistance connection that improved with moving wires. 5.02 is the lower limit according to the manual. I didn't see a ripple specification and didn't check ripple. I though about looking for a tweak pot to raise it .1V but decided not to spend the time. Both machines were similar for 5.2 volt output including improving with poking at wires. This is where time was up. Another workshop should get it ready to use. Ian will be leading that effort. I will not be able to make the next couple. I was not able to run full diagnostics. Also have not verified if the floppy drive is functional. *** Remaining issues I know of. *** 1) Make suitable mouse. 2) Emulator needs to be mounted in the machine. Currently its in an antistatic bag above the power supply. Two options: a) Remove the hard drive and mount it in its place. Their is a #8 coarse thread hole which could be used to attach the emulator if a suitable bracket is made. I can make one if people like this route. The disadvantage is the hard drive will need to be removed from the computer. b) Make longer cables and mount it above the power supply. Longer 50, 20 pin, and power cables cables would need to be made and suitable mounting method made. Possibly just some plastic shields so it can short to anything is sufficient. Longer cables should work but can't be sure until tried. 3) Check power supply 5.2V on front connector to see if it is still around 5V. Page 6-10, 95 in PDF of this manual has the test connector information. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/8010_dandelion/service/600P84227_8000_Pr… 4) The foam in the computer is deteriorating. Its currently at the does not spring back stage. Does not seem to be crumbling or generating corrosive gasses. One of these will likely happen with more time so should be addressed at some point. Most of it is just for sound deadening so can be removed with the machine being somewhat louder. I like to replace it on my restorations. There was a bigger piece on the front skin that looks like they put it in for some purpose that we may not want to just remove. 5) Check if skins I cleaned fit properly. 6) There are various scuff marks I didn't bring strong enough cleaner to remove on the skins. Does not need to be addressed but will make it look nicer. I've had good results on plastic with scuffs using soft scrub. 7) May want to try to understand the Ethernet error though its easy to work around.

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PDP-8 Status
by David Gesswein 20 Aug '20

20 Aug '20

I did a quick check out of the PDP-8. Everything in memory seemed to be corrupted but when I reloaded everything seemed to work ok except the deposit and examine switches are a little flaky. They are usable but you need to watch out for it incrementing by more than one and go back and fix the address. I should be able to clean them at a future workshop. I left it with the accumulator light pattern program at 100 octal and the punch block letters on paper tape at 200 octal. The punch demo may be another thing visitors can do and take home if we have more paper tape. There is a notebook with the machine with operating instructions and I can walk people through operating it if anyone is interested. I would recommend turning off the power strip I left tucked under the right rear if the backplanes are open to make sure nobody can reach in and find exposed AC. Don't turn it on without closing the backplanes for the same reason. There is lots of exposed AC when the machine is on. Closing also helps the cooling of the power supply.

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Missing Extech Multimeter (orange and green) at Workshop
by Alexander Jacocks 20 Aug '20

20 Aug '20

All, I seem to have mislaid my multimeter, at some point during the weekend. Did anyone see an orange-clad green multimeter? Thanks! - Alex

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Atari XE game system
by David K 20 Aug '20

20 Aug '20

Ethan, Thanks for the feedback regarding cleaning cartridges - that is often an issue but I do not think the games are the problem in this instance since they work on my Atari 800XL. My understanding is the XE is supposed to boot to Galaxian as a built-in game and if the keyboard is attached it should automatically boot and let you choose between BASIC and Galaxian. Can anyone confirm if this is true? I have no previous experience with the XE so this is all based on what I read online so far. Can anyone provide insight into what is special about the Star Raiders cartridge since from what I have seen online there is something about it that lets it boot when other games won't. David

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SYM-1 for sale
by Bob Applegate 20 Aug '20

20 Aug '20

I’m slowly working on liquidating my collection of stuff from multiple hobbies that completely fill my basement, and will be posting things as they are tested and ready to go. While looking on eBay to get a rough price for a SYM-1 I discovered this link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Museum-Item-SYM-1-With-Briefcase-Power-Supply… Well, I’ve got exactly the same thing, so some school or company must have made a few of these for portable trainers. A decent job packing it all into a briefcase. Anyway, mine is much more economically priced. http://k2ut.org/yard-sale/ I’ve got some Heathkit stuff to test, including a Hero Jr robot, and then I’ll post them. Email me privately if interested. Bob

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Museum Report: 19 August 2020
by svcatitc＠aol.com 20 Aug '20

20 Aug '20

Opened at 1p. Slow day. Only one family, of the mom and 3 small kids, the youngest tyke was constantly tugging on mom's arm. I commented jokingly "who's taking who for a walk?" We both laughed. Only casual interest. Finished the insulating mod on the EAI TR20 XY recorder rack ears so there will not be ground loops. Al Klase from NJARC came in and toured the museum a couple of Wednesday's ago and we both commented how ground and guard systems so important in analog circuits (him coming from a HiFi background, among other heavy duty electronics studies). Closed up shop at 5:30p Bill Inderrieden

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Wow! What a repair workshop! Aug 15 & 16, 2020
by Jeffrey Brace 19 Aug '20

19 Aug '20

Wonderfully messy too! Between the two repair workshop areas, museum and warehouse we had about 20+ people attending and working on "stuff". First of all I want to thank Bill Inderrieden for helping me with the logistics of the workshop. It helps me to have a "right hand man" to manage everything that I do during these weekends. I am often pulled in many directions at these workshops to manage activities, answer questions and keep the museum running as well. Somehow I was able to find a place for 16 people to eat for dinner Saturday night going with my Plan "D" when A, B, C didn't have the room or had too long a wait. Outdoor only dining limits my options, but it seemed like everyone enjoyed it. Ian won the first (and second) to smoke award while working on a Swedish computer owned by Andrew. Maybe they can give more details as to the model and what was wrong with this machine. Ian also worked on an older model TV that he had looked for a long time to find. David Gesswein got our Xerox 8010 computer mostly working with a part that needs to be ordered and modern SD drive to replace the original (failed) hard drive. He was also able to get our PDP-8 working with the "chasing lights" demo and the teletype punch demo programs. Bill Inderrieden and Jeff Jonas did lots of good work on organizing the warehouse. Jason Perkins worked on scanning and uploading documents to the internet archive as well as his own hardware. The steering committee has lots of great stuff planned for improving the condition of the warehouse and will be giving details on that soon. Maybe others can fill in what they worked on and were able to repair. Next repair workshop is September 12 & 13: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QPWVJSRL94SdHKtmkUmH6WESwckeXbn8PgV… -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org cell: 732-759-1783

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