- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

Happy Start Trek Day!
by Sentrytv 08 Sep '23

08 Sep '23

Too All! Sent from: My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device.

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Hawley wheel mouse on Ebay
by Christian Liendo 07 Sep '23

07 Sep '23

This is a rather rare mouse, I don't think I ever saw one. https://www.ebay.com/bfl/viewbids/374917612212

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I Adore my 64 documentary fundraiser
by Jeffrey Brace 07 Sep '23

07 Sep '23

Someone is raising funds to produce a documentary on the Commodore 64. Goal is $25,000 and the deadline is October 4. Look here for more information: https://seedandspark.com/fund/iadoremy64film Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President Vintage Computer Festival East Showrunner VCF Mid-Atlantic Event Manager Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/> jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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who was talking of QIC tape/drive restoration?
by Herbert Johnson 07 Sep '23

07 Sep '23

>> Several folks at a recent VCF workshop were discussing ways to restore QIC >> drives with new rollers. >> Who was that, and has anyone made recent progress? Summary for the impatient: old tape drives have "rubber" rollers that turn to goo. Tape drives need rollers to pull the tape at constant speed. Find companies that either sell replacements, or custom-repair your old roller. Tapes are still a thing, moreso for audio. This is an old problem, with any cartridge tape-driver "pressure roller". The rubber (silicone) either turns to goo or becomes hard and brittle. The rubber roller presses against the tape capstan. The capstan is the metal roller that rotates at constant speed. Rubber wheel and capstan, pull the magnetic tape past the heads at constant tape speed for recording/playback. I show some of this technology. Web search "tape drives site:retrotechnology.com". Digital tapes are out of favor, but there's always someone producing some kind of digital tape drive. There's always a need to read old tapes. The repair solutions are: 1) buy a capstan of correct size and bearing from a company that sells them for your brand/model of tape drive. or 2) send your roller to a company, that molds new silicone around your old roller's bearing; milled to the correct diameter. Web-search for "cartridge tape drive rollers". Pinch rollers, drive wheels. In principle, one could mold 2-part silicon to reproduce a roller. Possibly, find some other roller and transfer the rubber part. Few know how to do such work, err, successfully. It's a discussion topic (witness this thread). These companies are mostly supported by audio tape enthusiasts, but also by customers operating old digital cartridge-tape drives. There's other applications. Regards Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey USA https://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT comcast DOT net

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who was talking of QIC tape/drive restoration?
by Jeffrey Jonas 06 Sep '23

06 Sep '23

Several folks at a recent VCF workshop were discussing ways to restore QIC drives with new rollers. Who was that, and has anyone made recent progress? I have many full size QIC cartridges I didn't copy-up in time. ALL my drives (Wanktek, Archive Viper) have failed with gummy rubber rollers :-( And some cartridges have "relaxed" tension bands. Are there any SIG/BOF or "discussion groups" for folks to continue such projects? Has anyone seen such discussion elsewhere: VCF-nationwide, Computer History Museum, etc? -- jeff jonas

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EEPROM burners in the early 1980s?
by John Heritage 05 Sep '23

05 Sep '23

How common and costly were EEPROM burners in the early 1980s? I’m watching Adrain’s Digital Basement where he covers the Apple II clones. Was it pretty cheap to buy large enough blank EEPROMs and then copy them yourself or were the burners expensive back then?

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Potentially lost media/art
by Dmitry _ 05 Sep '23

05 Sep '23

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] EEPROM burners in the early 1980s?
by Jeffrey Jonas 05 Sep '23

05 Sep '23

If you're talking about ultraviolet-erasable programmable read only memory, that's EPROM. EEPROM is electronically-erasable programmable read only memory, which I believe was pioneered by General Instrument in the early 80s. As to programmers, my college had none at the time. Clever classmates made their own: a box of toggle switches for address & data, all the required power supplies and a one-shot timer for the programming pulse. Very tedious, no read-back or verify. Circuit Cellar, Popular Electronics, BYTE, Nuts and Volts were the hobbyist periodicals of the day. They had advertisements for the low-end programmers (parallel port, ISA bus) and medium price "economy" programmers. ProLog made the high end gang programmers that handled several at once. Steve Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar published build-your-own EPROM programmer kits. UV EPROM erasers are easy to get as germicidal lamps, still sold for Covid precautions. -- jeff jonas

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EEPROM burners in the early 1980s?
by Herbert Johnson 05 Sep '23

05 Sep '23

> ow common and costly were EEPROM burners in the early 1980s? > > I’m watching Adrain’s Digital Basement where he covers the Apple II > clones. Was it pretty cheap to buy large enough blank EEPROMs and then > copy them yourself or were the burners expensive back then? I suggest you look back further, to the mid-1970's. There were computers and EPROMs back then too, equipment used in the 80's also. Situations with EPROMs changed as personal (or impersonal) computing changed. Read the hobby computing and electronic magazines of the era for details, prices. The story follows the history of microprocessors and US electronics manufacturing. Check the electronics and early personal-computing magazines of the period. There were construction articles on building your own EPROM burners, all the way back to the mid-1970's for the first personal computers. The kit companies and electronic parts companies, had ads for their products in the same magazines. YOu can find prices for EPROMs and burners in the same magazines. Byte and Popular Electronics would be first-choices. Look up prices for new/used autos, to get an idea of economics. Or, there's simple multipliers for inflation, found by Web search. A number of small companies, offered their own EPROM burners, that ran as serial devices usually connected to the computers (or terminals) of the era. There were also Apple II cards, and S-100 cards, and SS-50 cards - as EPROM burners. Prices were comparable to other cards for a given bus or computer-type. The engineering companies, manufacturers, bought the commercial EPROM burners at more expense, to get support for all the kinds of EPROMs and PALS produced. Early EPROMS varied greatly in programming requirements. For commercial production of microcontrollers (controls for industrial equipment, consumer items) these professional burners could burn several ROMS at a time. Cheaper and hobby EPROM burners, used slower programming schemes, didn't cover all kinds of EPROMs. Newer EPROMS became simpler to burn. Why would hobby computer owners, burn EPROMs in the early 80's? To put software into early computers, especially before floppy-disk systems became affordable and available (cassette based software was popular but it was slower). I'm not big on apple II history, but copying Apple BASIC ROMS saved a lot of money. I don't know when Apple II computers were "cloned", but maybe later in the 1980's? BASIC in ROM on many computers, was a fast way to boot up BASIC. Later on, personal computers came with BASIC in ROM already. Meanwhile, a lot of hobbyists wrote software to run in ROM. ROM monitors were popular to create, modify. And kit-builders, and roll-your-own-computers builders, needed ROMS to boot. People adding floppy controllers and floppy OS's, needed boot ROMs and PROM boards. Later in the 1980's, floppy disk systems (while expensive) were fast enough that people just loaded software from disk files. Later 1980's computers ran with plug-in carts. Companies made EPROM-based carts, to copy games. But as IBM PC's became "cloned" later in the 80's decade, people needed to copy PC ROMS. Lots of people resold clone PC's. ISA boards to burn EPROMs were popular, as were PROM burners connected to the "PC parallel port" and running under MS-DOS. In the 90's it was very popular to copy PC ROMs to put into clone PC motherboards, and probably Apple II ROM-copying was still active (now for the IIe enhancement). So, the story of EPROM burning by individuals and small companies, mirrors the history of personal computers and the copying/cloning of the more popular computer brands (IBM, Apple). It's also a story of the rise (and fall in the USA) of microprocessor-based products and companies who designed and manufactured them. Once computers became commodity items in the 90's, sold with all the EPROMs needed, EPROM burning by computer hobbyists and dealers was less of a thing, mostly associated with IBM PC compatible EPROM burners. HObbyists still made kits and put software in ROM, for controllers as well as S-100 and SS-50 and other microcomputers. Again, the electronic hobby magazines of the era had ads for those. Regards Herb Johnson -- Herb Johnson, New Jersey USA http://www.retrotechnology.com or .net preserve and restore 1970's personal computing email: hjohnson @ retrotechnology dot com or try later at herbjohnson @ comcast dot net -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey USA https://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT comcast DOT net

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OT: Any interest in old Motorola HTs
by Kelly Leavitt 05 Sep '23

05 Sep '23

These are about 30 years old. A lot. I would guess at least 20. Located in Sandyston, NJ. Must pick up. Let me know, Kelly

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