UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum - View Single Post - Mostek/ST 'Timekeeper' IC (Sun NVRAM) repair

neon indicator · 29th Jun 2011, 1:23 pm

I have boxes of 486 stuff twocvbloke. I was going to have a scrappage to recycling centre. 8", 5.25" and 3.25" floppies + drives available.

Real Engineers used Sun Sparc workstations also many backend servers used Sun. Most telcom backoffice (servers to make Mobile work, inc call handover between cells) is still exclusively Sun Server HW, Solaris and may have Oracle too.

Back when only a few Arts students used Mac, Engineers had DEC Alpha Workstations too, running NT 3.51, and later the 1st 64 bit version of windows on NT4.0 as well as various UNIX. DEC Alpha Servers and Workstations also had VMS, originally on VAX.

The telecom place I worked in 1980s used DOS based Apricot Workstations with terminal sessions to DEC PDP11 and also our own R&D server, a Cromemco dual Z80/68000 system running CROMIX, a Cromemco version of UNIX.

There were also MIPS and PowerPC workstations. In 1996 Windows NT ran on Alpha, Power PC, MIPS, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro (which didn't run 16bit x86 code well, so was FAR slower on win95 than NT).

There were various 680x0 based computers/servers/Workstations. In late 1980s there was ARM based Archimedes which could take an x86 card and have ARM RiscOS and DOS/Windows on one desktop. It also had a UNIX.
In 1980s there was AT&T 3B2 box to run UNIX
Commodore had a professional Workstation version of Amiga (680x0 something) with x86 card option.

There were LOADS of "PCs" before IBM brought one to market in 1980. Some even ran x86.

The "BSD" was first "free" UNIX, years before Linux.

In 1981 we had Apple II with HDD and 1 Mbyte dual 8" drives, UCSD p-system, Z80 card and CP/M
A custom built S-100 system with CP/M
Research Machines with CP/M
ACT Sirius-1 with 800x400 graphics, GPIB, Parallel, serial, Clock, Audio, 1Mbyte floppies and CP/86 AND MSDOS. An IBM PC of same date was text only, 180k floppy standard and only a cassette port as standard. Serial, parallel & clock extra. No audio or GPIB options.
We bought a Sinclar Spectrum when they 1st launched to use as a cheap test card for Monitors we built for BBC Micro and Apple II computers.

PC and Mac are Fiesta and Polo of the Computing World

Lots of other cars before and since.

29th Jun 2011, 1:23 pm	#14
neon indicator Retired Dormant Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Co. Limerick, Ireland. Posts: 1,183	Re: Mostek/ST 'Timekeeper' IC (Sun NVRAM) repair I have boxes of 486 stuff twocvbloke. I was going to have a scrappage to recycling centre. 8", 5.25" and 3.25" floppies + drives available. Real Engineers used Sun Sparc workstations also many backend servers used Sun. Most telcom backoffice (servers to make Mobile work, inc call handover between cells) is still exclusively Sun Server HW, Solaris and may have Oracle too. Back when only a few Arts students used Mac, Engineers had DEC Alpha Workstations too, running NT 3.51, and later the 1st 64 bit version of windows on NT4.0 as well as various UNIX. DEC Alpha Servers and Workstations also had VMS, originally on VAX. The telecom place I worked in 1980s used DOS based Apricot Workstations with terminal sessions to DEC PDP11 and also our own R&D server, a Cromemco dual Z80/68000 system running CROMIX, a Cromemco version of UNIX. There were also MIPS and PowerPC workstations. In 1996 Windows NT ran on Alpha, Power PC, MIPS, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro (which didn't run 16bit x86 code well, so was FAR slower on win95 than NT). There were various 680x0 based computers/servers/Workstations. In late 1980s there was ARM based Archimedes which could take an x86 card and have ARM RiscOS and DOS/Windows on one desktop. It also had a UNIX. In 1980s there was AT&T 3B2 box to run UNIX Commodore had a professional Workstation version of Amiga (680x0 something) with x86 card option. There were LOADS of "PCs" before IBM brought one to market in 1980. Some even ran x86. The "BSD" was first "free" UNIX, years before Linux. In 1981 we had Apple II with HDD and 1 Mbyte dual 8" drives, UCSD p-system, Z80 card and CP/M A custom built S-100 system with CP/M Research Machines with CP/M ACT Sirius-1 with 800x400 graphics, GPIB, Parallel, serial, Clock, Audio, 1Mbyte floppies and CP/86 AND MSDOS. An IBM PC of same date was text only, 180k floppy standard and only a cassette port as standard. Serial, parallel & clock extra. No audio or GPIB options. We bought a Sinclar Spectrum when they 1st launched to use as a cheap test card for Monitors we built for BBC Micro and Apple II computers. PC and Mac are Fiesta and Polo of the Computing World Lots of other cars before and since. Last edited by neon indicator; 29th Jun 2011 at 1:43 pm.