Latest Projects:
1968 Hitachi HIDIC 100 Mini Computer |
Godbout Static (RAM) But Not Lostby billdeg Total messages in this thread: 1  Bill Godbout died November 11, 2018 in the "Camp Fire" in Northern California, the worst fire recorded in the history of California. Bill Godbout was an early microcomputer industry pioneer whose company Godbout / Compupro based in the Silicon Valley was known for it's quality products. Godbout started as a surplus electronics parts company that expanded into S-100 bus peripheral card manufacture for MITS Altair and other S-100 systems. Godbout began selling complete S-100 systems in the later 1970's and changed it's name to CompuPro. The CompuPro line of S-100 bus systems were sold well into the mid 1980's. Click image for larger view.
... [ read more ]
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Rolm Corp 1601 RuggedNova 1970by billdeg Total messages in this thread: 1  Back cover of the Rolm Corporation Model 1601 RuggedNova model minicomputer. Click image for larger view.
Product Brochures and Price List
Received this from Classic CMP
"...One of the more interesting problems we faced at ROLM MSC (as opposed to
the telecom side) was the fact that all hardware was designed to be
tri-service. Salt spray and fungal resistance required that the cases
be sealed with thermal frames to conduct heat to external heat
exchangers, but that created interesting issues when sticking the box on
an aircraft (but was a lifesaver with disk drives, as otherwise flying
heads had a tendency to crash with altitude). The chassis ended up
being quite heavy due to the hammer and drop tests (as others have
noted,">... [ read more ]
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1967, Developments in Computer Firmwareby billdeg Total messages in this thread: 1  Cover Electronics April 17, 1967. Click image to download selected pages in PDF format
Interesting short article that describes the state of computer firmware in 1967, and recent developments. This is the copy of Electronics that would have been sold on the day of my birth.
What other computers are shown in the PDF linked above? PDP 8 and IBM 1710.">... [ read more ]
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BASIS 108by billdeg Total messages in this thread: 3 Updated: [ Experimenting with Video ] 10/16/2018  The West German-made BASIS 108 was an Apple II clone with a Z80 processor and built-in video features. This unit has 128K RAM. Click image for larger view.
System power checked out, clean inside, boots Apple Pascal OS. No obvious restoration needed. After a more thorough check-out, I will explore the monitor program (6502) and attempt to boot CP/M, and Apple II programs in color.
Photos">... [ read more ]
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RIP Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allenby billdeg Total messages in this thread: 1  Paul Allen Microsoft Co-Founder 1953 - 2018 Click image for larger view.
I am sure he never saw it, but I once sold Vulcan Electrics, his computer museum project, my Xerox Star computer many years ago, for his computer museum. It's probably in a shed somewhere or stripped for parts.
http://www.vul...r-paul-allen-dies-at-65">... [ read more ]
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VCF Mid West ECCC 2018by billdeg Total messages in this thread: 1  The opening minutes of the 2018 Vintage Computer Festival slash Emergency Commodore Computer Convention, September 15, 2018. Click image for larger view.
 Z demonstrating his Cactus 6502 computer with front panel. Click image for larger view.
 Can you guess what computer is under the hood of this add-on keyboard? Click image for larger view.
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Radio Shack TRS 80 Model 1 26-1008by billdeg Total messages in this thread: 1  The Radio Shack TRS 80 Model 1 26-1008 to my knowledge never appeared in the Radio Shack catalog and was never officially sold in stores. Obviously a few were made, but how many I do not know. Click image for larger view.
 Given the serial number, at least 38 and probably a hundred or so 26-1008 model number Model 1's were produced. Click image for larger view.
 ... [ read more ]
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Loading PDP 11 BASIC Papertapeby billdeg Total messages in this thread: 1  After replacing the reader (again) I was able to load PDP 11 BASIC using my Teletype ASR 33. The computer system is my recently repaired PDP 11/05 S. Pictured is the pile of tape the makes up the BASIC program. It takes about 20-30 minutes or so to load the program. Click image for larger view.
 If everything goes right, immediately after loading the tape the system initiates the BASIC program and displays the initialization prompt, *O. Click image for larger view.
Appendix D - The Bootstrap and Absolute Loaders (step by step how t">... [ read more ]
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Dan Roganti RIPby billdeg Total messages in this thread: 1  Dan Roganti.
Dan lost his battle with cancer and we all lost a titan in the vintage computing community. Dan was one of the earliest members of MARCH. He taught me a great deal about S-100 and related hardware engineering. Dan attended all of the early hardware workshops I hosted at my house and we had many hours working into the night on a wide variety of systems including but not limited to the MITS Altair, IMSAI 8080, PET 2001, Heathkit EC-1, ASR 33 Teletypes, Apple II, and so on.
 Dan Roganti doing what he di">... [ read more ]
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RK11-D Installationby billdeg Total messages in this thread: 4 Updated: [ RE: PDP 11/05 and RK05 power connectors ] 08/31/2018  Digital RK05 disk packs. Click image for larger view.
I have the RK05 card set and backplane RK11-D.
Picture:
htt...11D-MM-002.pdf
Cards and Backplane (minus UNIBUS cables):
http://www.tec...ontroller.jpg
RK11-D is a 4-card backplane
RK11-D RK05 Disk Controller
EK-RK11D-MM-002
M7254 Status Control
M7255 Disk Control
M7256 Registers
M7257 Bus Control">... [ read more ]
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Digital (DEC) PDP 11/05 NC Assemblyby billdeg Total messages in this thread: 22 Updated: [ 11/05 NC Power Connectors ] 08/31/2018 Ted Nelson speaks quite highly of the Digital PDP 11 series in his book Computer Lib / Dream Machines.  Picture of the PDP 11/05 NC card cage and M9970(in the wrong slot). Click image for hi res version.
The only thing that prevented DEC from launching the PC revolution three years earlier was price, in my opinion. All of the other ingredients were there for a fine PC. The PDP 11/05 was the OEM version of the PDP 11/10, so you find all kinds of variations of this system sometimes paired with the DEC GT40 Graphic Display Terminal.
Complete set of Pictures
Some notes...
1) Cleaned (enough for now).. got all of the styrofoam peanuts, dust.
2) Started with an ... [ read more ]
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MITS Altair AM Radio Music Jukeboxby billdeg Total messages in this thread: 3 Updated: [ Altair Jukebox Video ] 08/27/2018  MITS Altair "Jukebox" system with GE Radio on top. Click image for larger view.
 MITS Altair "Jukebox" system exhibit at the 2018 Vintage Computer Festival. Click image for larger view.
Steve Dompier's May 1975 People's Computer Company newsletter article Music of a Sort (republished in Dr. Dobbs Feb 1976) describes how one would generate music with a MITS Altair by using the fro">... [ read more ]
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Seiko Data-2000 1983/4 Early Smart Watchby billdeg Total messages in this thread: 1  The Seiko DATA-2000 was an early smart watch sold in late 1983 through 1984 that came with a special PDA calculator interface keyboard. I have read that this was the first watch with a keyboard. The retail price was $195. Click for larger view.
 In the docked position the Data-2000 watch face serves as a dot matrix display for the QWERTY keyboard. Together the watch and keyboard provide PDA functionality to do thinkgs like enter and store memos (up to 100 lines), calculator functions, set the alarm, etc. Transm">... [ read more ]
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DEC VAX 4000-705Aby billdeg Total messages in this thread: 1  A well stocked VAX 4000 was the last and I believe most capable 4000 model. Click image for larger view.
 Here is the first part of the "show config" command output. Click image for larger view.
 Show Dev output displays both SCSI and DSSI controllers. Click image for larger view.
Wikipedia:
"...The VAX 4000 Model 705A, code-named "Legacy+", was introduced in la">... [ read more ]
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RK11-D){kind=link}
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Total messages in this thread: 2
Updated: [ HIDIC 100 Brochure Scan ] 11/23/2018