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Received H11-a shipping mess!
by Richard Cini 12 Feb '16

12 Feb '16

All — I got a hold of a Heathkit H11, which arrived today and the person I got it from did everything wrong when shipping it. First, the good…it actually has more boards than I thought it did. It has the M7270 CPU, an H11-5 serial board, and two WHA-11-16 16kw x 16bit memory boards. Now, the bad…there was inadequate packaging so it got bounced around by UPS. The CPU board was dislodged and the other three were shoved down one notch in the cage so that a board was plugged into row 1 but it sat in row 2’s card edge guide. It must have been dropped or thrown because the side panel threaded inserts cracked the case. Looks like I need some epoxy to as to re-anchor the threaded screw inserts. The chassis has serial #00744 but no other serial number stickers. No console cable was provided but I have the manual for the serial board, so I’ll make one up (looks like 3-wire plus two for a paper tape). There is a massive Sprague capacitor on the PS, so I removed all boards and disconnected the PS from the backplane. I’m going to put it on a variac with lightbulb current limiter and bring it up over a few hours — maybe 15v/hour or something like that. It’s a two-switch front panel with a 3rd toggle switch connected to two posts on the power supply board — function unknown since I don’t have the manual. The front panel was painted with flat black paint, but it’s chipping in spots so I might be able to get it off (would need recommendations for non-damaging paint remover). The CPU has 5 40-pin chips (two purple ceramic and three PDIP). Supposedly the H11 has a monitor PROM or something like it, but I don’t see anything like a PROM on the board. Guess I have to wait until I get it running! Is there anything else I should know about the H11 while bringing it up? Thanks! Rich -- Rich Cini Collector of Classic Computers Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32

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Interest in Lawrence Livermore Labs MST-80 Intel 8080 Trainers?
by Systems Glitch 12 Feb '16

12 Feb '16

All, One of my parts/test equipment suppliers has contacted me with an offer on 6 or 7 Lawrence Livermore Labs MST-80(B?) trainers. These are 8080 trainers in a briefcase -- I brought mine to VCF East a few years ago. They have a keypad and three hex displays and can be controlled via a ROM monitor. Expansion is really simple, and the MST-80 provides DIP headers for address/data/control signals, as well as onboard I/O ports and 10 LEDs. The manuals are available online (IIRC Doug Crawford scanned his manual and that's the copy most people have), I don't yet know if any of these come with a hardcopy of it. What I'd like to know from list members is: - What would you pay for a repaired/tested/working unit? - What would you pay for an "as is" but not trashed unit? (cosmetically OK, all bits present, just untested) - What would you pay for just the board, in the event the briefcases are torn up? (haven't seen them yet) I'm trying to figure out what a fair offer is. They will of course be made available to VCFers if I purchase them! Thanks, Jonathan

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Help needed this Saturday
by Evan Koblentz 11 Feb '16

11 Feb '16

We need one or two hard-working helpers at the museum this Saturday, starting around 9-10am and ending by the early evening. Lunch is on us. Goal is to move everything out of the homebrew-era room and move everything except computers out of the minis/mainframe room. Tony will be there with his empty cargo van from about noon-4pm but we definitely need another reliable helper or two. Lots of things to pack up and schlep.

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Computer training on 3/4" tape
by Kelly Leavitt 11 Feb '16

11 Feb '16

I have 3 training tapes on ¾" uMatic tape. Anyone want these? Two are about Symphony, one is about the PC. Come get them or cover postage. Kelly

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Ohio Scientific 495 Prototype Boards
by Systems Glitch 11 Feb '16

11 Feb '16

I finally found an Ohio Scientific 495 prototype board recently, on eBay! I've been searching for one for years -- I only know for sure of one other 495 board in existence. Apparently they're desirable, as I had to pay > $100 for it. Here's what I got: http://imgur.com/43MjWTd The previous owner didn't get much done with it -- looks like they had laid out some buffering and that was about it. I stripped it off, which was super simple as the board is single-sided with no plated-through holes. I was going to start using it when I thought, wouldn't it be cool to reproduce the boards so other people could get them? I removed the Molex KK-156 connectors in preparation for scanning the board and making UV photoresist negatives. Instead of making a photocopy board, though, I sent it off for a high-resolution scan and conversion to DXF/Gerber+Excellon Drill files. I got the results back yesterday: http://imgur.com/in0xfbX It's a 1:1 scan with no clean-up, so the scan definitely reflects the "tape and film" original. Not all of the pads are perfectly lined up and the drills aren't always on center. I decided to leave it like that as it doesn't really harm such a simple board. I did add a bit of text at the bottom left corner, so that the reproduction boards don't end up misrepresented as brand-new originals or something. I sent the Gerbers off to get a small test run done, but I'll probably do a much larger run (25 or more) once they're proved out. If anyone wants one, let me know. I'm going to put together some tutorials/plans on how to use them to build useful OSI-compatible boards -- like a RAM board that uses 32K x 8 "modern" 28-pin static RAM! Thanks, Jonathan

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Stools
by Evan Koblentz 11 Feb '16

11 Feb '16

I'm sure everyone remembers the discussion about stools. It was... non-crappy. Corey/Jeff B./and I decided it's better to get nice stools which cost more than cheaper ones which won't make us happy. We ordered five stools with pneumatic adjustment, wheels, and padded seats. They're about $40 each. The $20 ones aren't adjustable, don't have wheels, and you sit on hard particle board. As with the warehouse shelving, we will order more stools as budget allows. Goal is to get 20 of them. (In other news, we now have an Amazon Business account. Better than using our personal accounts and it applies our sales tax exemption.)

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Measuring wheel
by Jeffrey Brace 10 Feb '16

10 Feb '16

Does anyone have a measuring wheel that I could borrow? I'm trying to get an accurate measure of distances in and around InfoAge campus buildings.

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FS: S-100 System Services (Altair, IMSAI, SOL-20, Cromemco, et c.)
by Systems Glitch 09 Feb '16

09 Feb '16

Full writeup and contact information: http://www.glitchwrks.com/2016/02/09/s100-repair I've been doing S-100 board and system level repair for several years now, and decided to actually put out a public offering of services. I can handle board repair/rework, full system refurbishing, board exchange, custom board/system buildout and design, et c. Past work includes S-100 repair done for the Vintage Computer Museum east coast museum and many private customers. If you'd like a custom one-off interface for another piece of equipment you have, I'm happy to design and assemble a S-100 board for it. For example, I've interfaced several different paper tape readers to the S-100 bus for people, including a high-speed HP minicomputer reader. Several users here have either bought S-100 boards from me, or had me repair boards for them in the past. Thanks, Jonathan

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Micro exhibit: What goes where?
by Evan Koblentz 09 Feb '16

09 Feb '16

Over at http://www.vcf.org/evan/whatgoeswhere.jpg you'll find my latest list of which microcomputers should be displayed in our new space. Left column is the bottom (primary) shelf, which is where we'll have systems that are operable (not all of them, but many). Right column is the top shelf, where most systems will lack screens and stuff. Blank spots are where I could use suggestions about what to put (and why). Chart is sorted by year of the left column item. Some of the top-shelf items are obvious, for example other Apples above the Apple II, other Commodores above the 64, etc. Others are, shall we say, "creative", for Horizon about the Xitan (because they're both Z-80 but the Xitan is an NJ product), Z-100 above the H-89 (to show that electronics kit maker Heathkit was involved in the computer field too; Z-100 was an H-100 inside), Epson QX-10 above the Lisa (office suite apps), and so on ..... one or two items are a little more random because they didn't fit anywhere else, such as the OSI above the 99/4A. Constructive criticism is welcome and especially good suggestions for what to put in the four blank boxes.

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Next workshop - Feb. 27-28
by Evan Koblentz 08 Feb '16

08 Feb '16

Fix things and be merry.

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