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A few workshop notes
by Herb Johnson 01 May '18

01 May '18

I was able to come out to the workshop on Sunday, and work on an unusual computer I obtained. It's a Motorola EXORset 30. It's a 6809 development system running an XDOS OS on floppy, and supported by Motorola's EXORbus bussed backplane. It came up without a lot of fuss. It needed some careful AC power conditioning to the power electrolytics. http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/exorset.html I gave some support to Adam, who was able to operate his SGI Indigo computer for the first time, thanks to a keyboard and mouse I provided. I chatted with several people attending, providing sage wisdom about problems with RAM, switching speeds of diodes, pressure rollers on tape drives. I removed some rust from a couple of dot-matrix printers, and was surprised to find they could still print! Thanks to Jeff Galinat, who leant me AC cables and a 360K diskette; and to Jeff Brace for his support of and at the Workshop. Of course, I learned a lot about how my friends were diagnosing these issues. The depth of talent on site Sunday was amazing. It's rare and informative, to discuss 3-volt negative logic and the switching speeds of diodes at one point, then the problems of aged hard-rubber rollers at the next moment. I learned more about the early history of Apple II products. I got under the hood of some early Commodore PET's to see the less-than-industrial designs they produced early on. Any of these repair and preparation activities could be discussed at length. And it's a pleasure to see what the Museum's UNIVAC is able to do, even as more work is in progress. To think that other shipboard computers like that, were operating at sea in the late 1970's is astounding. Then to have one operational today, that's a great gift. That's also true of the PDP-8 "straight-eight", which was under repair at the diode level this weekend. And it's good to see my friends again, see and hear about them and their work and history with vintage computing. Even the weather was cooperative. Herb Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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NASA - FORTRAN
by Tony Bogan 01 May '18

01 May '18

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/01/fortran_data_galileo_ganymede_moon/ Tony

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OT: Funny
by Evan Koblentz 01 May '18

01 May '18

Damn printer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQGtucrJ8hM ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, executive director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit evan(a)vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation instagram.com/vcfederation

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Future VCF Workshops - Summer 2018
by Jeffrey Brace 01 May '18

01 May '18

I'm looking ahead and will be picking dates for the June, July and August workshops. June 9&10 seems like a good date which conflicts only with Pacific Commodore Expo NW in Seattle. July 14&15 is the only weekend available at InfoAge and conflicts with Sussex Hamfest. Is this a big Hamfest? If so, we could do June 30&July1 instead. August Weekends: 11&12, 25&26 I did my best to avoid conflicts with known Hamfests and Vintage or related shows. Any thoughts or feelings about these dates?

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A few workshop notes
by Evan Koblentz 30 Apr '18

30 Apr '18

Good workshop this time around! Thanks to Jeff for organizing and everyone who attended. A few notes: - Special thanks to Ian, Jason P., Rich, Eric, Jeff J., Jeff B., Matt K., Laura, Martin (remotely), and Adam for all working on VCFed things. - Special thanks to just about everybody who was there Saturday and helped with unloading the IBM System/34. Darn good thing that IA owns a forklift and the military vehicle group guys were there to operate it! That's the right tool for the job, and it sure made easy/short work of unloading the minicomputer. - Last thing I did before leaving today was install the front trim panels on the UNIVAC pallets. Now they look like display platforms instead of forklift pallets: https://tinyurl.com/yctdlkfl. ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, executive director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit evan(a)vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation instagram.com/vcfederation

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stumbled upon this TRS-80 thingy
by W2HX 30 Apr '18

30 Apr '18

https://bindable.com/api? looks like a model 4, but with some kind of blanking panel where the drives would live. I wonder if this was an actual version, maybe used in training or a dumb terminal? Or maybe someone just made up a panel. Looks nice :)

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Workshop tomorrow breakfast
by Jeffrey Brace 28 Apr '18

28 Apr '18

9am Princess Maria Diner, then back to workshop by 10:30.

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road signs, construction on I-95/I-295 near Trenton NJ
by Herb Johnson 28 Apr '18

28 Apr '18

For those traveling by car or truck on I-95 - I-295 around Trenton NJ. About the "loop" around Trenton, from the PA border, across US-1, to I-195 east/west (a major route to VCFed facilities at Infoage / Wall NJ). There's a signage and exit-number change on that loop. The entire loop is now signed "I-295", from the PA-NJ border to I-195. Formerly the NJ segment from the Scudders Falls bridge between PA and NJ, to US-1, was called "I-95". So your GPS maps may/may not show, and your eyeballs will see, signs which look a little different. I live in that area. There's also changes now and in years to come, at the PA Turnpike (I-276) and how it connects to the NJ Turnpike and to I-95 in PA. I don't follow that in detail and don't use those routes. But in several years, that Scudders Falls bridge will be replaced and become a toll bridge. Construction is happening there NOW and it may slow down traffic and line the road with blinky-light barriers. Old folks like me, who use paper maps and navigate by signs and eyeballs, not some digital GPS voice, pay attention to this stuff. Please, no snarky remarks, I'm trying to do my driving friends a favor here, not expose myself to ridicule. Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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Two incoming artifacts tomorrow
by Evan Koblentz 28 Apr '18

28 Apr '18

Tomorrow's workshop attendees will get to see two new artifacts if things go according to plan: the NeXT Cube (morning) and a minicomputer (afternoon or evening, depends on the person driving it down to us from Boston).

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Looking to sell my Lisa 2/10
by Blake Patterson 28 Apr '18

28 Apr '18

Greetings, I have a Lisa 2/10 (not Mac XL) in excellent condition with orig mouse and Lisa OS manuals/disks and the printer cable that I want to sell, but I worry about shipping it due to age and weight and size (eBay). I just don't use it and I feel bad having it just sitting there. I live in Alexandria, VA. Is anyone reading this aware of someone who might be interested, within driving distance / local pickup? https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1686/26133044993_f9625694c3_b.jpg Thanks. bp -- Heisenberg may have slept here.

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