I now have a manual for my 733, so I’ll hopefully be able to get it fully operational!
UNIX historian and archivist.
Occasional Rust standard library contributor.
| Site | https://thalia.dev |
| GitHub | https://github.com/thaliaarchi |
Thalia Archibald
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Computer science PhD student at the University of Utah, researching compiler verification with @regehr.
UNIX historian and archivist.
Occasional Rust standard library contributor.
UNIX historian and archivist.
Occasional Rust standard library contributor.
RE: https://types.pl/@hanwen/116302982608141787
The best way to read papers is on paper!
Apparently the solution to demo unpredictability is redundancy /s. I brought 13 or so machines, so there was still plenty working.
Anything that can go wrong in a demo will go wrong.
I couldn’t connect to the projector and used a TV. My serial pin jumper hack for my Teletype Model 43 didn’t work. My VT220 wouldn’t connect. My PiDP-11 fell, so all four standoffs are snapped with plastic stuck in the case. My Portavision TV wouldn’t tune to channel 3, so my three earliest CoCos were unusable. All my Commodore 64 games on floppies were unusable, because I couldn’t find its serial cable.
I’ve troubleshoot all of these things before and have detailed notes, but am utterly incapable when frazzled.
I will be speaking on retrocomputing this Thursday at the University of Utah with interactive demos of my vintage hardware. Come learn about our recovery of UNIX V4 and its history, and play with some '70s and '80s computers!
It's serial debugging day!
I need to get at least one of these teletypes working over RS-232 with UNIX V4 and V7 in SIMH. The SIMH docs are notoriously bad. Help would be appreciated.
I visited JJ's shop (https://obsoletetech.us) yesterday to fill some gaps before my demo this week.
He graciously let me borrow his Magnavox CM8562 monitor from his personal collection, so I can still demo my CoCo3, as my new Tandy CM-8 is having signal issues I haven't fully diagnosed. I also got a working Commodore 1541-II floppy drive to replace my broken 1541 and a cassette recorder to use instead of my CCR-82.
I intended to just get some floppy disk holders for my floppies, but walked out with a lot of floppies too! Lots of colorful ones, some with dinosaurs, 10x of LDS Personal Ancestry File 2.3 for MS-DOS, two Commodore diagnostics disks, and several with interesting-sounding software. I also got two magneto-optical discs with data, which will be nice tests for my recovery setup, and four Zip disks.
The mouse will be a nice fit with my Macintosh SE. I don't know what games use the Commodore paddles, but now I have them.
I just re-inked a ribbon for my Marxwriter, but it doesn't print evenly 😭.
I repurposed a miscellaneous ribbon, removed it from the original spools, and re-inked it with a sponge soaked in stamp ink, while re-winding it in the Marxwriter's spools. Perhaps I'll try again later, but for now this is good enough.
It was shipped with the most inventive packaging I've seen, wrapped in brand new, sliced pool noodles:
My period-accurate Tandy Color Computer 3 setup now has a Tandy CM-8 RGB Color Monitor!
This model was designed specifically for the CoCo3, utilizing its higher quality RGB signal and is the perfect pair for a complete Tandy setup. However, even back in the day, other monitors were preferred over it, such as the Magnavox 8CM515 and Commodore 1084, for their sharper picture and additional input signals. But, what's a retro setup without the quirks of the day?
