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Workshop Jan. 30/31 Report
by Herb Johnson 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

I assembled a PDP 8/A from boards and chassis, and except for my core memory boards it operated successfully. I tested on David Gesswein's working 8/A the following: my 8/A board set, my core memory boards, and my programmer's panel. Then I assembled the best of these on my 8/A chassis, and ran tests with some success. However I had to use David's 8K core and not mine. My thanks and great appreciation to David Gesswein, who provided total use of his 8/A, and patiently gave me instruction and answered questions, as he worked on another slightly more challenging PDP-8. I'm working up my notes onto my Web site. Here's the Web pages in progress. http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/8a_fix_jan16.html is my work on my 8/A and brief notes and photos of David's straight-8 work. There's links on that page, to previous work I did on various parts of the 8/A which I assembled last weekend. http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/vcf_fixit_jan16.html is a very rough Web page on the VCFed repair event itself. No photos up yet, I'll work on it. Photos are available from me for use, for any of the attendees. I enjoyed the weekend. It was good to see my VC friends again, and see some of their work. It was interesting to see all the Commodore 64 attention, and the Pumapunku pile of 1641 drives in various states of repair during the course of the weekend. Bill Degnan had some interesting discussion at Saturday dinner. Thanks to Jeff Galinat for use of his soldering iron, and I admired his S-100 setup. Thanks to Jeff Brace for his management of the event, Evan for various food runs and for accommodations. And my regards to all my colleagues who attended. Herb Johnson, retrotechnology.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumapunku -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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FS: Tanner/Digital Research 64K Static RAM for S-100 Bus Tested/Working
by Systems Glitch 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/272123001750 These are, in my opinion, exactly the kind of boards you want for old 8-bit S-100 boxes. Fully static, you can swap 2716 EPROMs in if you need to, and very low power draw. Pretty much the only kind of RAM board you can use if you want a full 64K (or close to it) in an original Altair with the original low-wattage power supply. This one has sockets for the last four RAM chips. The last two are not populated, as it came from a heavily modified Altair 8800 with a Turnkey card -- RAM from 0xF000 - 0xFFFF was disabled to allow the Turnkey card to co-exist. I can provide two 6116 static RAMs if desired. One tantalum capacitor was shorted, so I went ahead and replaced all four. I also populated the board activity LED. Fully tested on my IMSAI 8080, including phantom. You'll find the manual listed under Digital Research (not sure if they bought Tanner, or what). The manual states the board is IEEE-696 compatible; however, that just means it follows IEEE-696 signal designations -- it is not 16-bit compatible. Thanks, Jonathan

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Seven exhibits already for VCF East XI
by Evan Koblentz 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

Here are the registered exhibits so far: http://www.vintagecomputerfederation.org/festivals/vintage-computer-festiva… .... as I said last year, register early or risk not getting space....

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FS: MITS 88-2 SIO Tested/Working
by Systems Glitch 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/272122857393 Here's the MITS serial interface everyone wants, and this one is fully tested and working! I had to replace the baud rate generator (DOA, replaced with a milspec Harris DI-4702-9) and a 1488. Previous owner had lifted two pads in the baud rate jumper area. I installed wire wrap pins so that a) pads won't get lifted when you need to change baud rates and b) you can jumper both ports to the same baud rate. Includes two nice ceramic Motorola 6850 ACIAs, original to the board. Currently jumpered for standard MITS port addressing (0x10 or 020 octal), RS-232 serial, and 9600/2400 bps. Thanks, Jonathan

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OT: Free Sun Workstations available at JHU in Baltimore
by Connor Krukosky 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

Have someone who has some Sun workstations available at John Hopkins University in Baltimore. I am too busy to get it myself so I figured someone in MARCH would want them. Free for pickup. The guy's name is Mike and you can email him at: mbrotzman.jhu(a)gmail.com "Have some sun equipment in Bal at JHU. Know anyone who might want it? Pickup required. I think an ultra 10 and a newer purple box." -Connor K

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OT: Come watch me install Linux on the IBM z890 Mainframe!
by Connor Krukosky 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

Come one come all! Its the day of reckoning. I finally have some storage on loan from a company called Funsoft! Hopefully by the end of the night I will have Linux installed and a portal to the internet to which people can connect and play on it! http://www.twitch.tv/conmega -Connor Krukosky

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Diagnostics Cartridge for Commodore 1541 Used at the Workshop
by Chris Fala 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

This cartridge proved to be very handy. If anyone is interested, I purchased it here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/321971488537

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OT: RE: Wives and retro-computers ( was Re: DC Area Head Count )
by Michael Thompson 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

> > Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2016 11:03:31 -0500 > From: Dave McGuire <mcguire(a)neurotica.com> > Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Wives and retro-computers ( was Re: DC > Area Head Count ) > > On 01/31/2016 09:28 AM, Derrik Walker v2.0 via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > > Mine has her limits too, but they're HER limits, not mine. Likewise, > mine are not hers. Thus, I offer these additional cases in addition to > your list above: > > 5) A compatible spouse > 6) A spouse who doesn't seek to control her spouse's activities > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire, AK4HZ > New Kensington, PA > I propose a slight modification... 7) A spouse who seeks to keep my activities within reasonable limits I can collect any computer I want as long as it fits in my side of the garage or the cellar. I need preapproval for spending anything over $250. If I sell computer things those funds do not need preapproval to be spent. -- Michael Thompson

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Poster printing for VCF
by Mike Loewen 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

In light of the recent thread about large scale printers, is there anyone here able and willing to print 24"x36" full-color posters? Our campus engineering copy center will print on 35# coated paper stock for $3.50/square foot, but I'm open to a better deal. Anyone? Mike Loewen mloewen(a)cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

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Workshop Jan. 30/31 Report
by Jeffrey Brace 01 Feb '16

01 Feb '16

So the workshop was great for all of us! Lots done, lots of fun! :) 16 showed up Saturday, 8 Sunday. 5 of us worked on Commodore 1541 drives Saturday. Others worked on S100, PDP-8, Terminals, etc. The five working on the 1541s mostly sorted through The Federation's 1541 drives and tested which were good, medium or bad. Some were fixable with just using a q-tip and alcohol to the drive head. Some attempts at re-seating chips and voltage testing was done, but only for a small percentage of the drives. Further repair and diagnostic wasn't possible due to running out of time. I worked on my own personal 1541 drives myself was only able to tell which were working or not without opening up, repairing or running diagnostics. I spent a lot of time helping with The Federation drives and other Federation business (running the workshop etc.) and had little time for my own stuff. I did learn from Bill Degnan basic troubleshooting for 1541 drives. I hope to work on them and apply what I learned next month and be able to actually guarantee most of them 100% working. We had a special visit on Sunday from Rob Clarke. He is a Commodore guru who lives in Switzerland. He was in the Philadelphia area for some other event and hung out with us on Sunday. Since I lost all my Commodore help with the 1541 drives (they went home Saturday night), I decided to get Computer Eyes up and running. After about 3 hours I was able to get it to work! I captured a black and white image of myself and later a group photo. I even printed them out. Can others tell what they worked on and their progress? Our next Workshop is Feb. 27/28. I hope to see many of you there!

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