- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

Rare Variant CBM 1541 II on Ebay
by Bill Degnan 31 Mar '20

31 Mar '20

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-1541-II-Floppy-Disk-Drive/143557971394 Even I don't have this one! As some of you may know the Khizzopistni variant of the CBM-II was packaged in a Polaroid case briefly, before reverting back to the more familiar drive profile. I'd totally get this one, but it will probably shoot up to $4000 or more. Bill

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OK seriously, how rare is the real 1541-II drive?
by Bill Degnan 30 Mar '20

30 Mar '20

Now I wonder, compared with other CBM drives, is there a rarity ranking? I am thinking some of the rarest 8-bit CBM drives manufactured by CBM are (in no particular order and without looking on the internet for the answer) 8080 (dual 8" IEEE drive) 1540 1551 9060 9090 1570 (where these actually sold) The drive that came with the C-65 am I missing anything rarer than these? Next would be 2040 (IEEE) 4040 (IEEE) 8250 (IEEE) SFD-1001 Bill

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] How's everyone doing?
by Michael Thompson 30 Mar '20

30 Mar '20

> > Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2020 23:42:21 -0400 > Subject: [vcf-midatlantic] How's everyone doing? > > Things are rough these days. How's everyone handling it? > > -- > ========================================= > Jeff Brace > I work from home periodically and used to travel more than 50% of the time. With the VPN I can connect to anything that I need on the company network, so it really doesn't matter if I am in the office or not. I spend about 40% of my time on conference calls, and they work fine from home. So for me work is normal. Home life is a little different. We just went shopping during elder hours. There were very few people in the supermarket, so social distancing was easy. The shelves were about 80% full and were being restocked. There were no wipes or hand sanitizer. Canned vegetables were a little thin on the shelves. They did have TP today so maybe people who are hoarding it already have all they can store. Last week there were no Cheerios. This week it was buy two get one free. I think that it will be hit or miss for a while until shoppers get used to this new normal and the demand settles out. We haven't tried one of the delivery grocery services yet, and are using shopping as an excuse to get out of the house. I see lots more delivery trucks in the neighborhood, so others are ordering everything they need online. We walk in our neighborhood during the day. There are probably a lot more walkers than normal, which is a good thing. I connected a battery maintainer to my car because I haven't driven it in two weeks. I can't take advantage of lower fuel prices because the tank is still full. My trip to Germany and Sweden is probably going to get canceled. I was really looking forward to visiting another PDP-9. Maybe we can reschedule for late in the summer or next year. -- Michael Thompson

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OT: Theranos Blood Analyzer
by Dag Spicer 29 Mar '20

29 Mar '20

Hey everyone, The Computer History Museum is always looking for unique computer technology for its permanent collection, as well collecting “the classics!” Right now we’re seeking a Theranos Blood Analyzer. If you have any information, would you mind reaching out to me? dspicer(a)computerhistory.org <mailto:dspicer@computerhistory.org> Thanks everyone! Dag

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How's everyone doing? Correction
by svcatitc＠aol.com 29 Mar '20

29 Mar '20

In checking my own submission, it seems my paste of the link: https://museum.syssrc.com/artifact/251/ does not work right form the Email list, however if you manually copy and paste the link to your crawler, it gets to Roswell's page just fine. Freaky! Bill

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How's everyone doing?
by svcatitc＠aol.com 29 Mar '20

29 Mar '20

Bill I. here; This sounds like a group therapy session in a psych ward! (LOL) But as the comedian Steve Allen said "all seriousness aside folks". . . I'll chime in. We're doing OK here in Brick, NJ. Wifey and I are doing well health wise. (other than my wife's prolonged physical handicaps) The north end of town just got our 1'st Covid-19 test site at the Rent-a-Docs walk in clinic, in the parking lot. Being part care giver to my wife makes it hard to have time to work on fun stuff, however, this down time will give me the much needed time to clear out my warehouses of projects that are just not viable anymore. Before you guys start drooling, I do not havea lot of surplus CPU stuff. Most if it is industrial and lab stuff I was going to overhaul and resell. The stuff is longpast its prime and is ready to be scrapped. I spent way too much money on rent housing this stuff for the opportune time to work on it, which has come and gone. Its time to shed the overhead. Field service work has been put on hold for right now by my clients (I'm in the same boat as Dave McGuire), and my consulting contract with my affiliate in St. Louis will be terminated as of June 1. So the shedding aforementioned warehouse overhead is a must. I still have past invoices to submit, so that will also take up my time. (and get some much needed cabbage in the till) Enough of my tales of woe, (giggling). When I do have the spare time, I am working on the EAI TR 20 ground buss system for the display rack here at home. With all the peripheral displays planned (plotter, scope, etc.), a good quality analog ground summing point is required. I plan on incorporating the Comdyna GP-6 analog mini-computer into the TR-20 display as signal processing. Our unit in the warehouse is in need of some TLC (busted jacks etc.) If you want to see what a GP-6 looks like, see Bob Roswell's website,and look at the glamour shot pictured. https://museum.syssrc.com/artifact/251/ F.Y.I. Ray Spiess, founder of Comdyna, is an ex-EAI alum, so the artifact fits in the story line in our analog display. The other VCF project I got "volunteered" into (smiling) is the Wang 4000 restoration. I got two of the rack drawers,photographed, documenting each card in the file. I am working with Rick Bensene of the Old Calculator Museum, who has an immense knowledge of the Wang Calculators and informs me that some of the calculator components are incorporated in the ' 4000. That project, obviously, has been put on hold until crisis conditions improve. Best get back to the insanity! Stay Well Folks; Bill

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] How's everyone doing?
by Jeffrey Brace 28 Mar '20

28 Mar '20

On Fri, Mar 27, 2020 at 5:58 AM ajpierson1 via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > 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 Oh, you know how to fix them? VCF has one in the museum that you could look at. I'm not sure of its condition as I haven't powered on, but I assume that it needs some repair or at least TLC. > 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 It's nice to hear that you have time to work on projects and to keep in touch with other vintage computer friends. I plan on getting back on IRC now that I have more free time than I used to! -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member, VCF East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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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 28 Mar '20

28 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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