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AT&T UNIX PC enthusiasts out there?

I have one Starlan board which isn't too useful. I have been pondering some on what to do. Have been looking for PC board it might talk to. Haven't seen any so far. Was also thinking that making something modern that could talk the protocol might be more useful so it could gateway to more modern machines. Too many projects so nothing other than thoughts so far.
 
Was also thinking that making something modern that could talk the protocol might be more useful so it could gateway to more modern machines.
Love the idea of something more modern being able to talk the protocol as the StarLAN cards appear to be more common for the UNIX PC than the Ethernet cards.
 
I was able to populate an EIA/RAM board that was manufactured without the memory. A tedious job that involved clearing solder from 500+ holes and mounting 60+ sockets and chips. But, it can be done and works great.
Nice work proving this was indeed possible. Good to know! Certainly don't envy that task, hah.
 
Hi! I love the UNIX PC as a concept, but oh my word I hate servicing them in any way! What a pain to open them up. I used to have three of them, including the coveted Ethernet adapters, but I gave them away to a friend a couple of years ago. He's put them to much better use than I ever did.
 
What a pain to open them up. I used to have three of them, including the coveted Ethernet adapters, but I gave them away to a friend a couple of years ago. He's put them to much better use than I ever did.
@firebirdta84 made a disassembly tutorial for these as it is indeed a pain:

Impressive that you once had multiple machines and Ethernet cards. Some day I hope to track down one of those Ethernet cards. Until then I suppose I'll just have to "cu" my way out of the machine via the serial port to a linux machine. Or try my luck at KA9Q.
 
They really aren't all that bad to take apart, once you get the flow down. Of course, when you come back to it 3 years later you won't remember that flow. "Why it's so simple, Jim, a child could do it"...
 
@shirsch I absolutely love this...excellently done!

Thanks! It was a lot of fun to build. I still have more work ahead of me on the keyboard plug end. That's an 8-pin IDC with the sides ground down to gain clearance. Still doesn't seat all that well, so I'm about to pull the keyboard apart for a better look.
 
Do you happen to have the unicorn Ethernet card? Do you know of who makes the 3rd party memory card? I wasn't aware of any 3rd party cards so that would be interesting to know about.
I do not have one of the Ethernet cards, sadly. That's why I searched for the StarLAN 1 ISA cards, hoping I could gronk up a bridge of some kind.

The memory card has this printed on the, uh, slot cover?
PIICEON MODEL SR-2048/UPC
2 Megabyte Memory Expansion Board​

I have to mention that Emanuel Stiebler sent me that and two of the other expansion boards in a spare baseplate/motherboard some years ago. I had mentioned that I might have an issue with my system, and Emanuel just sent the entire package - I don't think he even let me pay him the S&H... Suffice it to say, I remain very grateful to him.
 
Would love to try doing this, my second mouse doesn't seem to work.

Keyboard adapter would also be useful!

I need to put a gun to my head and start a GitHub project. I need to dive back into this anyway, since it appears there is bi-directional communication between the keyboard and mouse during startup. At present it does not expect to see anything coming from the mouse during system boot. Once the mouse is moved prior to graphics screen appearing the system behaves as if no mouse is attached.
 
I was absolutely obsessed with these when I was in high school about twenty years ago, they were up there with Lisas and Sun 3s as unobtainium. I found this a while back but haven't gotten around to playing with it much: https://www.philpem.me.uk/code/3b1emu

The MGR source code is around somewhere, I'll look and see if I can find what I have. No idea if it was complete, or what toolchain it was intended for.
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I was absolutely obsessed with these when I was in high school about twenty years ago, they were up there with Lisas and Sun 3s as unobtainium. I found this a while back but haven't gotten around to playing with it much: https://www.philpem.me.uk/code/3b1emu
Phil's FreeBee emulator is great! I've spent a lot of time with the code and helped fix some bugs and make some enhancements. Definitely worth checking out if you want to play around with an emulated UNIX PC. There are two drive images linked from the github which help get up to speed without having to do a full system install.

The MGR source code is around somewhere
MGR is very interesting and something I want to explore further. Is this something you used to use on UNIX PC? It requires the VIDPAL hardware mod that allows user writes to VRAM. However, there is a VIDPAL software emulator kernel driver which intercepts the MMU bus errors, and does the user read/writes to VRAM. That way MGR can be run once the vidpal kernel driver is running. It's slower of course but at least can be run. MGR "fix 4" for UNIX PC is pretty easy to find. But there was also a fix 5 which I have yet been able to track down:

The quickest way to try MGR is to use the mgr-demo.tar.gz:
 
We had a couple go through the used computer store I was working at about 35 years back and they really made an impression on me. Some years ago I managed to score a few, one ran well, one had a few issues, and the third I recall had video problems. I recall having boxes of software installation disks and some peripheral cards. One started as a wedge and got a lump screwed on and I'm pretty sure I have a CP/M card. I've been meaning to get them all together, make one really nice one, and release the others into the wild, but somehow there just never is the time.
 
That’s great you have a few kicking around! Hmm, never heard of a CP/M card, are you possibly thinking of the DOS-73 co-processor card with the 8086?
I'm sure you must be right. I haven't looked at these in more than passing in a while.
 
I recently tried the DOS-73 card, it’s pretty neat and can run windowed in the UNIX PC user agent GUI. It supports Hercules graphics. It has 512KB but I believe some of that memory is unusable as it’s used for video RAM. Another disappointment is you can’t do full screen Hercules graphics, even though the UNIX PC monitor is the same resolution as Hercules. It’s this awkward scrolling system where you can see maybe 75-80% of the framebufffer and then need to scroll up or down within that FB. I was hoping to run Hercules full screen. It is interesting to be able to run things concurrent on the DOS-73 board. I also read you can run things from a remote login which I have yet to experiment with.
 
That’s great you have a few kicking around! Hmm, never heard of a CP/M card, are you possibly thinking of the DOS-73 co-processor card with the 8086?
I went upstairs and discovered 7300/3b1 machines apparently breed if left alone long enough, as there are now four of them on the shelves. I think on might be missing mouse/kbd.
Yes, it was an 8086 card I was thinking of. I also have a pair of serial cards, a tape controller, a 1.5MB card, two of the phone cards, and an expansion box with who-knows-what inside.
So, now I feel even more guilty for neglecting them...
 
Haha four of them wow! I’ve heard of the expansion box but never seen one, that’s cool you have one. Can’t believe they even made such a device. You’d think 3 slots would suffice. Do you happen to have one of the rare Ethernet cards kicking around? The 1.5MB RAM card, that’s a nice one to have.
 
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