• Retrocomputing Thread V. MIPS has a PDP-11
    210 replies, posted
how i found all those problems was actually all at once; i pushed the power button, immediately heard the hard drive click, then all of a sudden a few little pops and it was over.
An O2 and a NeXTCube lie in the path of a incoming meteor. Only one can be saved - the other will be irretrievably crushed and melted. Which one do you save?
[url=http://koo.corpus.cam.ac.uk/chaos/]CHAOS[/url]
[IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/DPP_0037-1.jpg[/IMG] Awesome.
Would you consider one of these retro? [t]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/67129569/Lumix/IMG_20130404_180601.jpg[/t]
The company my dad works at still uses a computer with an intel 80486. Only for controlling a single bigger machine. Besides a couples NES's not having much Retro stuff unfortunately.
[QUOTE=MIPS;40166042][IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/DPP_0037-1.jpg[/IMG] Awesome.[/QUOTE] I used to have a dual socket 8 server, unfortunately it died and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. I still have both 200 MHz Pentium Pro CPUs in case I ever find a cheap dual or quad socket 8 motherboard.
Picked up an IBM 5155 a few days ago! [url=http://i.imgur.com/h7baRSU.jpg][img]http://i.imgur.com/h7baRSUl.jpg[/img][/url] [del]Seems to boot up fine but I'm having some trouble making a boot disk for it, it keeps saying it isn't a system disk (it does the same thing with an empty floppy).[/del] Nevermind, found a working image of the original disk and it boots into dos just fine now.
I've had similar issues with my 5170, it will only boot off the original IBM or Microsoft DOS disks I have.
I was gonna try to be cool by posting from Windows 98 VirtualBox, but I can't get it to use my network.
[QUOTE=ddrl46;40254449]Picked up an IBM 5155 a few days ago! [url=http://i.imgur.com/h7baRSU.jpg][img]http://i.imgur.com/h7baRSUl.jpg[/img][/url] [del]Seems to boot up fine but I'm having some trouble making a boot disk for it, it keeps saying it isn't a system disk (it does the same thing with an empty floppy).[/del] Nevermind, found a working image of the original disk and it boots into dos just fine now.[/QUOTE] God damn that monitor is pretty. And the keyboard.
[url=http://i.imgur.com/EIZV9ws.jpg][img]http://i.imgur.com/EIZV9wsl.jpg[/img][/url] Monkey island!
[QUOTE=ddrl46;40256880][url=http://i.imgur.com/EIZV9ws.jpg][img]http://i.imgur.com/EIZV9wsl.jpg[/img][/url] Monkey island![/QUOTE] Can you open bitmaps with that? Make it display a sunset.
It's not retro computing, but it comes pretty close: Say hello to the Hawk Energy Products [b]Hawk 5000[/b], worth > £3000 [img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BHbpcP6CIAIJrmY.jpg[/img] and its corresponding 16-bit DOS application, [b]Controller[/b] [img]http://s.duck.me.uk/DOSBox_SVN-Daum,_CPU_speed_____3000_cycles,_Frameskip__0,_HAWK5000_2013-04-12_21-31-47.png[/img] The Hawk is an energy analyser that you can program using Controller over Serial, then deploy on site by clamping it to 1 / 3 phase power. It's designed to log power consumption over time, so you can identify problem areas, but past that I have no fucking idea how to make any sense of its logs. There's a manual [url=http://docs-europe.electrocomponents.com/webdocs/0150/0900766b80150c92.pdf]over here[/url]. Unfortunately Serial support in DOSBox is pretty fucked at the moment for me anyways and VBox refuses to talk to my USB Serial adapter, so I can't really do much with it until I can find the power adapter for my Panasonic CF-41, but it makes a nice beeping noise when you turn it on so that's why it's out
[QUOTE=latin_geek;40259299]Can you open bitmaps with that? Make it display a sunset.[/QUOTE] Here you go: [url=http://i.imgur.com/UwdFGlp.jpg][img]http://i.imgur.com/UwdFGlpl.jpg[/img][/url]
Is that the regular IBM CGA card in there?
[QUOTE=MIPS;40273005]Is that the regular IBM CGA card in there?[/QUOTE] Yes, p/n 1501981A.
MIPS, I know how you like SGI. Yesterday I was at the computer museum I help at, and he mentioned that he had some SGI stuff which I hadn't seen. I was confused cause I thought I'd seen it all, but he took me to this other building and in the corner of this warehouse were 2 SGI Origin 2000's (Two of [URL="http://static.cray-cyber.org/Others/o2000_large.jpg"]there[/URL] where 3 of the modules were Origin 2000's and 1 was the second one day in your picture [URL="http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CRW_8117.jpg"]here[/URL]). There was another standup, which for now the name alludes me, it kinda looked like[URL="http://www.jarredcapellman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Rack_11_18_2012.jpg"] this[/URL] but without the screens. Back at the main building they also have the IRIS's etc and a bunch of workstations scattered around. If you want i can take a PIC of some of it, you could probably identify it better than me :v:
the IRIS came in three flavours: the IRIS x000 which was the first gen hardware, the Professional IRIS which was their first MIPS machines and the Personal IRIS which was their "low-end" graphics systems....at an affordable $15000 O2K's are fun. The sequencing that goes on multi-brick systems is pretty wild and it needs stupid amounts of energy but the install media is still your regular 6.5.x discs. If it had no LCD than I am reminded of a rackmount PIII server SGI sold as well near the end. Never used one but they seemed decent. Edited: [url=http://www.ebay.com/itm/230963528057]Does anyone want to put bets on the closing price this unassembled Altair 8800 will go for?[/url] I bet it will hit around $4500. [editline]16th April 2013[/editline] Anyways, I spent the last three months making a nice Apple hard drive enclosure out of a floppy disk drive. [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CGS_0058.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CGS_0061.jpg[/IMG] Runs a Seagate ST-225N and talks to an Apple IIe using the Sandwich II SCSI controller. Under ProDOS it's seen as a ProFile volume. No more hassling with floppy disks, or at least the non-copy protected ones! :D
Found a few potential gems today while helping a family friend move some crap to a storage unit. Buried underneath mountains of empty boxes we found: A Commodore 64, still in box. A Commodore 16, still in box. An Apple IIc, no original box, but it has the printer, display, and disk drive as well as keyboard, not sure about the mouse. Will post pics later. Pics: [t]http://imageshack.us/a/img13/1408/20130430115014.jpg[/t] [t]http://imageshack.us/a/img818/7791/20130430115356.jpg[/t] [t]http://imageshack.us/a/img46/2168/20130430115237.jpg[/t] [t]http://imageshack.us/a/img194/6794/20130430115226.jpg[/t] Yes, still has the price sticker on it. :v: [t]http://imageshack.us/a/img41/2441/20130430115218.jpg[/t] [t]http://imageshack.us/a/img96/1962/20130430115209.jpg[/t] [t]http://imageshack.us/a/img577/2289/20130430115115.jpg[/t] [t]http://imageshack.us/a/img849/6744/20130430115102.jpg[/t] [t]http://imageshack.us/a/img5/9384/20130430115021.jpg[/t] [t]http://imageshack.us/a/img13/1408/20130430115014.jpg[/t] Will get the Apple IIc pics later, after work today I'm gonna see if I can't get the Commodores to work with my TV. Shame there's no sign of any cassette storage though...
And in even better news, both Commodores are in working condition. [t]http://imageshack.us/a/img827/3792/20130430161119.jpg[/t] [t]http://imageshack.us/a/img560/776/20130430162141.jpg[/t]
[t]http://i.imgur.com/WqwKlAj.jpg[/t][t]http://i.imgur.com/LvDr3sW.jpg[/t] So I have an issue. I've recently acquired a Amstrad PPC640, however it won't boot. When switched on, it goes through the "please wait...." screen, and proceeds to beep at me constantly, with the Num Lock light flashing also. The screen at this stage displays the following: [code] AMSTRAD Portable PC 640k (V2.1) (c)1987 AMSTRAD plc Please set time and date Please fit new batteries Check Keyboard_ [/code] At first I thought, well, obviously, something wrong with the keyboard, but there's no indication of that being the case, as I can restart the system with Ctrl+Alt+Del, and pressing random buttons repeatedly seems to "mess up" the beeping, and the Pause Break button works, halting the beeping and flashing LED. Holding down any other key with a light causes that to flash also. I have looked everywhere on the internet for these symptoms and could not find a thing. I think I saw one person with the same problem, but as with all obscure issues on the internet there was no answer. I've opened the PPC up to have a look at the ribbon cable and such, no visible problems, and every capacitor seems to be fine at first glance. Everything looks quite like it should. The same happens whether or not I try to boot with or without the original floppies. All the DIP switches are in the right position, I've made sure. Nothing else is connected, just a replacement transformer. I can't think of what the issue might be, perhaps someone here had a similar problem / has any clue as to how to proceed diagnosing this thing? mips help
I.. Is it really that simple I'll check it out. [editline]1st May 2013[/editline] The issue isn't the CMOS battery, as it has none. Apparently it runs of the 10 C cells.. which.. yeah. Also I have read of other people running it without the C-Cells.
So why the keyboard error?
I see, thanks. Well I don't think the issue is with the C-Cells as the system switches between mains and battery, I don't think it draws from the batteries if it's on mains mode. Must be an internal issue, unfortunately I don't have a multimeter at the moment so I can't prod about.
We had one of those donated to the museum about 2-3 days ago, its neat as heck. For 1988 its surprisingly compact and usable, especially the keyboard and floppy drives. If you still haven't got it up and running, have you tried putting the boot disk in and launching it like that? Ours was doing something similar but it just needed a boot disk to get through to DOS. Also it doesn't need C's put in, if its hooked up to the mains that's all it needs.
[QUOTE=icemaz;40491577]We had one of those donated to the museum about 2-3 days ago, its neat as heck. For 1988 its surprisingly compact and usable, especially the keyboard and floppy drives. If you still haven't got it up and running, have you tried putting the boot disk in and launching it like that? Ours was doing something similar but it just needed a boot disk to get through to DOS. Also it doesn't need C's put in, if its hooked up to the mains that's all it needs.[/QUOTE] Yeah, I've tried with the two original amstrad disks I have here, but I don't know if they're still working as I have no way to verify (they're 720k floppies).
I have the 512K version and I cna't say I've seen the same issue while lugging it about while full of C cells. I've always found Amstrad systems to be on the off side of "iffy" at best.
I've had an Amiga A600 from new... it's a little more beige than white these days but it's still a beautiful old piece of hardware and lives hooked up to the telly at my house here in uni where it occasionally gets used to play lemmings.
I was thinking about getting a HP 200LX. It's like a portable IBM 5150, from what I can gather.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.