- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

ATTENTION - VCF Mid-Atlantic Steering Committee News - ATTENTION
by Chris Fala 26 May '22

26 May '22

Dear VCF Members, I would like to take this opportunity to let everyone know about recent changes within the Steering Committee membership. First, the sad news. Due to family commitments, Tony Bogan has stepped down. Anyone who knows Tony will understand just how much impact this will have on our team. Tony has provided immeasurable help to all aspects of VCF, as a Docent, helping organize the warehouse, with artifact rescues, setting up for festivals, workshops, swap-meets, etc., coordinating with InfoAge, other museums, and Wall Township, and in too many other ways to mention. He has been a force of nature for VCF, and on a personal note has become a valued friend to me. He has let us know that he will still be around to help with various projects as his time permits, but his duties as a voting member of the Steering Committee have ended (at least for now). The good news is that we have identified someone to fill Tony’s position (not replace him, no one could do that!). Per the Bylaws of the Committee, when a seat has been vacated in the middle of a term, the voting members of the Steering Committee will conduct a simple majority vote to select a replacement. Since I take the duties of the Steering Committee, and our commitment to the membership, very seriously, I wanted to ensure that all five members had an opportunity to contribute to the conversation, not just a simple (3-of-5) majority. After a very productive discussion and vote, Doug Crawford has been chosen to fill the vacant seat. Doug has been a member of VCF for at least 8 years. He has been a Docent at the museum, has exhibited at Festivals and other events, and has contributed in many other ways for the good of the organization. We all agree that he will be a valued member of the team. After speaking with Doug, he is very excited for the opportunity to serve. I welcome Doug and look forward to working with him! Also pursuant to the Bylaws, since this is an “emergency” replacement, Doug’s seat on the Steering Committee will be up for a vote by the general membership this November-December. All seats on the Steering Committee periodically come up for a vote based on the established cycle. Please consider this and be prepared to vote when the time comes. Eligibility to vote is determined by membership on this mailing list. New list members eligible to vote will be accepted up to a predetermined deadline (date to be announced) before the election. If you know someone who might want to participate, let them know not to wait until the last minute to join the list! Thank you for your kind attention to this matter. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to any member of the Steering Committee with any relevant questions or concerns. Thanks, Chris Fala Chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Steering Committee of the Vintage Computer Federation

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] ZX81/TS1000 with a modern TV
by Bob Shuster 25 May '22

25 May '22

Thanks for all the input! I should note that I have no issues with any of my other TV tuner based systems, including many older than the Timex/Sinclair systems! There’s definitely something different about these. I do get the K cursor, but the audio is all noise and I get no feedback that I can see from the keyboards. They can’t all be bad, and they are in virtually unused condition. I’m not going to purchase an old CRT TV just to resell it (maybe I’ll try a local request for a free one), but I’ll try running them through a VCR or old camcorder and see where that gets me. I also have a bunch of inline coax filters that I can try (not really expecting different results.). I don’t want to spend too much time on these as everyone seems to want me to get to the TRS-80 systems! Bob Shuster

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Test
by Chris Fala 24 May '22

24 May '22

New subscription test.

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ZX81/TS1000 with a modern TV
by Bob Shuster 24 May '22

24 May '22

So I have two (2) Sinclair ZX81s (US version - one is still an unbuilt kit), and three (3) Timex-Sinclair 1000s. I’ve connected them to a TV using an RCA-coax adapter and tuned to the correct channel, but I get a grey screen with the “K” cursor visible. I’m unable to get past this. This is for all four units. They seem to tune in white momentarily then switch to fuzzy grey - with the “K” still visible. This was both on a large 4K OLED set and a small HD LED TV, and I suspect they are just too new to deal with the monochrome signal. I don’t have a CRT TV to test with, just old monitors (which of course don’t have antenna connections.) Any advice? I’m selling these, so I’m not getting into modding them, just want to confirm they’re working properly. Bob Shuster

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] ZX81/TS1000 with a modern TV
by Dave McGuire 23 May '22

23 May '22

On 5/23/22 21:34, Sentrytv via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > I am 99% sure that the ZX 81 or the TS 1000 has a standard > RF modulator. It does; one of the little Astec canned modulators. At issue here, though, presumably, is the NTSC-format baseband video being fed into that modulator. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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WTT: J&M Systems TRS-80 5.25" Alignment Package
by Jonathan Chapman 23 May '22

23 May '22

All, I recently did some drive alignment work for a customer and ended up doing a trade for some alignment diskettes. One set is a J&M Systems, LTD. package with a Dysan 508-200 "Diagnostic" diskette, and a "DISK DRIVE ANALYZER DDA V3.3" program diskette. I stuck the Dysan diskette in a drive that had just been aligned and "explored" it a little with the oscilloscope. It's not a usual Dysan alignment diskette and does not appear to have the radial alignment patterns on it. Since I don't have any TRS-80 gear, it's not a ton of use to me. If anyone is interested, I'd like to trade for another alignment diskette in some other format I can use. Let me know what you've got! Thanks, Jonathan

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Looking for an SCA adapter
by Jason Perkins 23 May '22

23 May '22

All, I'm looking for an 80 pin SCA to 50 pin SCSI adapter.... with 16 bit termination. All the ones I can find now either don't have termination, or only have 8 bit termination. Vendors that have them listed on their sites respond that they're NLA when emailed. I have some late SCA drives, and want to use one on in a Mac SE/30. They don't seem to have any built in termination, and get upset if only half of the lines are terminated! If you have one or two of these you'd like to part with shoot me a note! Thanks, -- Jason Perkins 313 355 0085 Sent from my iPhone

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] OT: time to downsize
by Bob Shuster 22 May '22

22 May '22

Another update - TI stuff posted! Tomorrow I’ll figure out which system to pull out next. New pages posted at: theshusters.com/bobvintage.html <http://theshusters.com/bobvintage.html> - check it out. Please read through the first page and that will answer many questions. If you're reading this list you have my email - it's intentionally not listed on the pages. And again, I'm only making this stuff available to those on this listserv for now. Once I finish going through everything (and there's still a lot more) and I've given list members time to peruse, I'll start listing elsewhere, but mainly I'd like to see the stuff go somewhere where it will be appreciated! Thanks for looking! - Bob Shuster

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FS: Early National Instruments DM8200D Comparator
by Jonathan Chapman 21 May '22

21 May '22

All, Finally listed the National Semiconductor DM8200D that Evil Mad Scientist Labs did some super macro photography of: https://www.ebay.com/itm/275320526785 An unremarkable part for its function (it's a 4-bit magnitude comparator, it does work!), but the packaging is interesting. It's in a "ceramic sandwich" DIP, which is a piece of ceramic with a hole for the die and the leadframe in it, sandwiched between two pieces of gold-plated metal. That's uncommon enough as it is, but additionally, the pins are actually rolled instead of being stamped! Pictures explain better than words, here's an imgur album with higher resolution pictures: https://imgur.com/a/TCrIxEH Anyway, I figured I'd post here more because people might not have seen the original EMSL picture thread elsewhere. It's listed for $1 starting bid, no idea what it's worth :P Thanks, Jonathan

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List of Vintage Computer Streamers and Podcasters
by Jeffrey Brace 20 May '22

20 May '22

I'm making a list of Streamers and Podcasters. I don't know all of them, so please let me know any that I'm missing: The 8-bit Guy LGR (Lazy Game Reviews) The Retro Hour The Guru Meditation Mac 84 Chicken Lips Radio Kay Savetz TRS-80 Trash Talk Bil Herd The Road Geek The Retro Shack This Does Not Compute Victor Bart - Retro Machines Tech Tangents smbakeryt RMC - The Cave Retro Spector 78 Retro Recipes Retro Hardware Psivewri Phil's Computer Lab Nostalgia Nerd Thanks! ========================================= Jeff Brace

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