• Retrocomputing Thread V. MIPS has a PDP-11
    210 replies, posted
anyone think they'd be able to recognize this computer I find while on an urban exploration? [img]http://i.imgur.com/QGe6ufMl.jpg[/img] [editline]3rd August 2013[/editline] I want to give a hint but I think it would give it away.
looks like some kind of terminal
AT&T/Teletype 4425/5425 terminal.
It is indeed an AT&T Teletype terminal, but the model number was too worn. The keyboard had "IBM 256K" stamped underneath it. I found it in an AT&T Labs production facility, it was one of the only remaining pieces of technology in the place :(
i'm going back today and i'm going to try and power that thing on
What's the thing on the wooden pallet on the floor?
It arrived. It's finally here even though I'm missing the pedestal and chad bucket. The Teletype Model 33. [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/teletype/CGS_0130.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/teletype/CGS_0129.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/teletype/CGS_0132.jpg[/IMG] Amazingly know Marsland quite well. I grew up one town over from their offices and even 30 years after they closed you could still find their shit all over the place. This whole damn machine was assembled exclusively from components made around my home town. The whole machine is fantastic. It's easy to service unlike a Selectric and it needed very little work to get running. The clutch arm had slipped, a spring had popped off the tape punch and I had to fabricate a new clip to hold another spring in place.
Dayum. Okay, so I did some research into the Communications Control Unit (CCU) I also received with the system. [img]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/teletype/CGS_0127.jpg[/img] It has a phone connection, it has a rotary dial and it has line controls. It screams that it's a modem. It isn't. :I It's a phone and a control panel for a device that was not an acoustic coupler but also not exactly a modem but for simplicity's sake I'll call it one. You pressed one button to put the phone off the hook and allow the modem to listen in, then pressed another button and dialed your number and when the other end stated chattering the modem took over. Another button hung up the line and the last button put the machine into local mode so you could do shit without the line being off the hook. The machine talked over the phone line using a device called the Bell-101 [img]http://www.epocalc.net/pages/mes_worldfirst/big/bell-101b.jpg[/img][t]http://blog.modernmechanix.com/mags/Time/4-1965/bell_modem_late_data.jpg[/t] That my friends is the first computer modem known to be built. running at 110 baud I have do NOT have one, I have no idea where to find one and I have not a single clue how I could adapt a newer modem to replace it.
I remember my great-aunt telling me about such a system, when she worked as a systems administrator at Boeing way back when. She said the print-outs were super helpful because she had an easily accessible list of all the shit she just did. :v: Also, had a friend over who started suffering from massive nostalgia attacks when I told him I had that old Apple IIe, so he HAD to take it out and have a gander at it. Apparantley whoever owned this thing originally went balls-out on it, with a dual floppy drive, the ACTUAL Apple printer (he had an Apple IIe as a kid, but never the original printer), and expansion cards out the wa-zoo including one for a mouse (still one button, gg Apple), a Microsoft Softcard, memory expansion card, and a MicroModem. This thing is packed so it only has TWO expansion slots left. :v: But most peculiar is there's a rainbow cable coming out of the back of this thing, with a 16-pin ZIF socket at the other end. I wonder what on earth that could possibly be for...
[QUOTE=PelPix123;41816971]Dunno if this is retro enough, but I've been thinking of recording and archiving every Yamaha synth demo song from the cheesy 1990-2002 era of Yamaha synths. Any interest? There's just something about 90's digital synths. The synths before them were too unrealistic, but the synths after them were too inexpressive. They hit this sort of perfect balance of fake and real.[/QUOTE] Are you talking user-made demos or factory demos?
[QUOTE=pentium;41714475]What's the thing on the wooden pallet on the floor?[/QUOTE] a gigantic CRT projector fuck calibrating those things though
[QUOTE=FFStudios;41829872]a gigantic CRT projector fuck calibrating those things though[/QUOTE] Our local convention center has two of those in one of the ballrooms. They were still used when I went there a couple years ago, but goddamn, those are enormous.
[QUOTE=CrumbleShake;39738588]My girlfriends grampa has an old BBC Micro that he's offered to give me at some point! Exciting! My dad had one years ago which he sold so we're gonna have a play around with it. We might even have some old games in a box in the attic. Trouble is, they found loads of old data for the beeb (he designed boats) that they have no other way of accessing so it might be a while before I get it...[/QUOTE] Fuck, I'd forgotten about this. We broke up before it was sorted. Damn it.
I've seen three Cray-1's, a 305 RAMAC, a Sphere Computer and a CM-2 in the last two days. :v:
[t]http://imageshack.us/a/img15/1337/cbsm.jpg[/t] I found this G3 laptop a family friend's house.
Apparently my mother thinks taking away old machines from my relatives is "bumming". Is that right?
[URL="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B14Ka5eHvuBSNExzTWZXZm41NVE/edit?usp=sharing"]I forgot I had these, images of Clint Basinger(Lazy Game Reviews)'s Keypunch Software discs.[/URL]
It's technically a computer. [img]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/CGS_0154.jpg[/img] [img]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/CGS_0155.jpg[/img] It's just a bitch to oil.
Did my first mod to one of my own computers today (I normally only do Museum computers, and I don't wanna break my own stuff). Was just a BBC Micro issue 7 board, so I could do colour Composite out. You just link s39, super easy, but I added a button (Which I ripped off a to do it because programming when it's all blurry with the colour output on sucks. [thumb]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2692549/ge_runway/IMAG0125.jpg[/thumb] I also did a vine because I'm hip and cool (And I wanted to show it in action) [url]https://vine.co/v/hewdtmOZ0H3[/url] But anyway I do stuff like this all the time at the museum, if people want I'll start documenting in here what we're up to. Normally nothing interesting but sometimes it's good like opening and checking out an un-made and never opened Sinclair zx81
Currently performing cataract surgery.
Surgery was successful. I got fed up with the cataracts on my VR201 monitor for the Rainbow. The method to remove them is to preheat the tube face to soften the glue holding the shatter lens on, then use a heat gun to loosen it the rest of the way, the PVA adhesive peels off and you clean the lens and tube face with carb cleaner, then you use double sided foam pads to reattach the lens and tape to seal the two surfaces. [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CGS_0221.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CGS_0222.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CGS_0223.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CGS_0225.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CGS_0228.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CGS_0230.jpg[/IMG]
I hope that works.
Downside to not owning an IBM tape drive: Currently on disk 43 of the AIX 1.3 installation set with another 20 to go. [editline]6th September 2013[/editline] I'm going to run out of space. Fuck.
[IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CGS_0272.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CGS_0268.jpg[/IMG] Woo~ AIX 1.3 running on an IBM PS/2 model 80 after swapping some 50 floppy disks. [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CGS_0270.jpg[/IMG] Wait, why is my window manager so fucked? :v:
Need to network computer. Can't be assed to pull out network cable. Have random parts. Challenge accepted. [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/IMG_0066.jpg[/IMG] 802.11b to Cat5 to 10base2.
Dat shaggy carpet.
Anyone know of good places to look for an old 486 similar in specs to what LGR has in this video. [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt-0lqkJUKE[/url] I have every game in that he has mentioned and I think it would be awesome to play them some of the hardware they were originally played on.
[QUOTE=Genericenemy;42223448]Anyone know of good places to look for an old 486 similar in specs to what LGR has in this video. [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt-0lqkJUKE[/url] I have every game in that he has mentioned and I think it would be awesome to play them some of the hardware they were originally played on.[/QUOTE] 486s in general are getting hard to find due to metal scrappers and entire machines being scrapped in general due to age and the fact that hardly anyone wants them anymore. I do have one 486 SX/33 with 32M of RAM that I keep around just in case. I found an 83 MHz Intel Overdrive for it some years ago on Ebay for a steal. If you can find a 486 motherboard and some old SIMM RAM, I do have a pile of old 486 CPUs if you want to pay shipping for one. I'm pretty sure they all still work (they worked when I checked them last about 2 years ago. The ones I have: i486 DX2/50 i486 DX2/66 (2) Am486 DX/2 80 Am486 DX/4 120 Am5x86 DX/5 133 (3) Come to think of it, I also have a box of 72 pin SIMM RAM somewhere, I could part with some 4M sticks if you absolutely need some.
[QUOTE=Genericenemy;42223448]Anyone know of good places to look for an old 486 similar in specs to what LGR has in this video. [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt-0lqkJUKE[/url] I have every game in that he has mentioned and I think it would be awesome to play them some of the hardware they were originally played on.[/QUOTE] If you were on this side of the pond I can offer almost complete systems.
[QUOTE=GiGaBiTe;42227940]486s in general are getting hard to find due to metal scrappers and entire machines being scrapped in general due to age and the fact that hardly anyone wants them anymore. I do have one 486 SX/33 with 32M of RAM that I keep around just in case. I found an 83 MHz Intel Overdrive for it some years ago on Ebay for a steal. If you can find a 486 motherboard and some old SIMM RAM, I do have a pile of old 486 CPUs if you want to pay shipping for one. I'm pretty sure they all still work (they worked when I checked them last about 2 years ago. The ones I have: i486 DX2/50 i486 DX2/66 (2) Am486 DX/2 80 Am486 DX/4 120 Am5x86 DX/5 133 (3) Come to think of it, I also have a box of 72 pin SIMM RAM somewhere, I could part with some 4M sticks if you absolutely need some.[/QUOTE] My college as a matter of fact has a 486 motherboard and the actual chip to go with it in the room I get taught hardware in. Unfortunately the chip is bent beyond repair and the motherboard is probably good as gone as it's probably safe to say it hasn't been stored correctly. It seems to be a thing that while everyone can probably see the value in keeping a Spectrum or a BBC Micro the IBM Compatibles don't even get half that.
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