Classic computers. Vintage electronics. It's all good, fun stuff.
I'm delighted to find that I'm not the only electrical/computer engineer
who's still enthusiastic about "trailing edge technology",
thus my pleasure in participating with
VCF: The NJ Computer Museum
at
Camp Evans,
home of the Infoage Science Center
-- Jeff Jonas
Analog computers
Computer Cards and tapes
a few notes about keypunches
Apple 1 replica operating instructions
The MARCH collection of microprocessor evaluation kits
PDF manuals for various things
MARCH, IXR and InfoAge exhibited at
HOPE #9: July 14-15, 2012
17-June-2012: more photos of displays & inventory
MARCH hosted VCF East 8.0: the Vintage Computer Festival
May 2012
Epson QX-10 info
Please help me revive my Databook ThinCard Drive.
updates for 11-April-2012
some more Unix history
such as
The Unix Wars
Honeywell Tapes
Full Altair nudity!
sneak peeks at works in progress
A mystery panel
computer jokes & humor
index to related pages
vintage IBM publications
At Infoage: May 1, 2011
more unsorted vintage computer & electronic stuff
New things I scanned: 24-March-2011
click here for my swap list
the AT&T GNAT terminal
Computer Buttons!
new stuff: April 2010
HELP! I want to get these running
IBM 1627 drum plotter & accessories
Smart Phones
vintage & retro computer advertising
other tech stuff
Computer songs
John Forster
is a great folk songwriter (often compared to Tom Lehrer).
He has 2 hacker songs so far
Bob Franke
is a folk singer. Here's his song
I'm a mainframe, baby!
Here's Mike Agranoff's "The Ballad of Captain Crunch" in 2600 magazine
Before viruses and malware, Commodore computers were protected by guards!
CP/M archives
Don Maslin's archive
courtesy of
Bill Gunshannon
click here for a bzip2 compressed tar of the Walnut Creek CD
filesize: 368600561
click here for a list of the files
to list it: tar tjvf cpm_cd
to extract it: tar xjf cpm_cd
Jonathan notes that "lbrate" (probably pronounced "liberate") is
a LBR unpacking utility for UNIX systems.
On freshmeat.
lbrate extracts and decompresses files from CP/M LBR archives.
It can also list and test such archives.
It transparently deals with all the compressed/renamed file types usually found in LBRs,
making them much less awkward to deal with.
old tiny chips
Old surface mount flat paks and pinouts
Long long ago, back when Radio Shack sold kits and parts, they also sold grab-bags of "hobby" chips.
(why let Poly Paks have all the fun?)
Anyone else would've called them "defective" or "rejects" but it was a way to play with DTL/RTL when
they were still new and expensive.
Just test 'em and find the good gates.
If you can identify them at all, that is!
These early ceramic surface mount parts have no markings!
I probably bought these in the late 70s and forgot about them,
until I heard about MARCH's
Apollo Guidance Computer exhibit
by Frank O'Brien.
I then realized that NASA was using surface mount chips DECADES before anyone else.
Even in the 60s, IBM's computers were full of little metal boxes with ceramic surface mount transistors & resistors,
but the modules were still thru-the-hole PC boards (albeit multilayer).
NASA was really ahead of the pack!
Those of us who breadboarded things usually handled 8, 14, 16 pin plastic DIP (dual inline package).
These early surface mount chips are not just TEENY in comparison but had more package variations:
9 or 10 pins!
The General Precision LGP-21
I used the transistorized LGP-21 for a while,
and finally grocked why my dad
liked using
SOAP (Self Optimizing Assembler Program)
on drum memory based systems
such as
the IBM 650.
[not to be confused with
Simple Object Access Protocol]
It sure beats optimizing the operands by hand
using this wheel.
The earlier tube-version LGP-30 is legendary for
the Story Of Mel
(even in Wikipedia).
The console is a
Friden Flexowriter
(which is still used in carnivals for the fake handwriting analysis computer).
Other LGP-21 web sites:
Ed Thelen
(which also covers GE Computers 1961-5).
Tom Jennings' World Power Systems, particularly
the LGP-21 and
photos.
Computermuseum der Fakultat Informatik
Klemens Krause posted to comp.os.cpm:
Subject: Re: Very old computer technology (was: What? Me idiot?)
> >I used a "General Precision" LGP-21 just for fun.
> >I still have one of the manuals and coding pads,
> >but never found the circular slide-rule for address optimization.
In our computermuseum we have a running LGP-30.
http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de
(We have also the ACT-V-compiler and the Black-Jack-game
which is told about in the 'story of mel')
LGP means: Librascope General Precision
The LGP-30 is the forerunner (with vacuum tubes and magnet drum) of
the LGP-21 with transistors and a fixed disk as main memory)
The LGP-21 ist code compatible to the LGP-30.
The circular slide-rule for code optimization is interesting.
We have form sheets, were we can enter the machine-code and look up,
which address is optimal for the respective operation.
AT&T nearly merged with Olivetti for personal computers such as the 6300.
Updated 13-Feb-2024
PL/I
is ¬ dead yet
(but it's pining for the fjords).
Before viruses and malware, Commodore computers were protected by guards!
Old surface mount flat paks and pinouts
AT&T nearly merged with Olivetti for personal computers such as the 6300.