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Fixing the Ethernet Board from a Vintage Xerox Alto

138 点作者 mkeeter超过 7 年前

6 条评论

linker3000超过 7 年前
Noted that Ken had an issue when a 74S TTL part was replaced with a 74LS because the characteristics are different.<p>Back in the day (mid 1980s), when I was going through an electronic engineering apprenticeship with a flight simulator company and many boards were end-to-end TTL, it was generally understood that power-hungry 74S series TTL were used for a reason (generally speed) and should not be substituted lest &#x27;funny things&#x27; happen.<p>Mind you, there was one time when debugging a glitch led to one chip being replaced with the same type from a different family - something like a 74LS replacing a 74F - and the propagation delay difference was enough to fix an edge-case timing issue. Due to project constraints, the root cause wasn&#x27;t tracked down and so the board bill of materials made it clear that the &#x27;odd one out&#x27; was correct and should not be changed.<p>PS: Ken - I think I still have a quantity of 74S TTL &#x27;pulls&#x27; from the day, so if all else fails sourcing a part, look me up!
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ChrisGammell超过 7 年前
Had a chance to chat with Ken, really enjoyed hearing about the history of the Alto and the process they take for troubleshooting what is effectively priceless hardware (given the fact that so few are remaining): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theamphour.com&#x2F;361-an-interview-with-ken-shirriff&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theamphour.com&#x2F;361-an-interview-with-ken-shirriff&#x2F;</a>
sillysaurus3超过 7 年前
<i>I started probing the Ethernet board&#x27;s input circuit with the oscilloscope. The board was receiving the input okay, but a few gates later the signals looked kind of sketchy, as you can see above.</i><p>Is it even possible to do this kind of debugging on modern hardware? Or is this a lost art?
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sgt超过 7 年前
That is a very interesting use of a BeagleBone. He made an interface to the Alto&#x27;s 3Mbit&#x2F;sec Ethernet using the BeagleBone&#x27;s PRU (a programmable real-time unit of which I believe it has two). Someone also used the PRU to build a video card for a Macintosh SE: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackaday.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;02&#x2F;05&#x2F;the-30th-anniversary-macintosh&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackaday.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;02&#x2F;05&#x2F;the-30th-anniversary-macinto...</a>
CodeWriter23超过 7 年前
A word from experience: an extender card can introduce noise, which can lead to observations of self-induced problems due to the introduced noise. I don&#x27;t think this is the case for your situation, but symptoms the runt edges you observed could be caused by the extender.<p>Also, I have on occasion observed the magic of an extender card causing a flaky card to function properly.<p>If you get stumped, you might want to depopulate some non-essential cards to open up a space to get your hands and probes on the card under investigation, while it is directly plugged into the slot. Excuse me, I mean get your hands and probes in there while the system is powered off.
purplezooey超过 7 年前
What job can I get where people pay me to restore vintage gear like this? :)<p>(answer: &quot;already be rich&quot;)
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