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New Additions to my collection

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pastados

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Sep 29, 2006
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I am an avid lover of the color computer 3, so I got a second one with a memory upgrade and protector for the CPU as well a multi pak and controller for IDE and 50 pin SCSI.
I also have found some awsome stuff from a university surplus. I bought Brookhaven Instruments BI-2030AT Digital Corellator. I might buy the second one they have. Next time I go there I am defffinitly getting the external 8 inch floppy drive they had. Haven't seen one of those in years. If any of you have any technical data on the Digital correllator I would really appreciate it.
While there at the surplus, I found many other things which have probably not been seen in quite some time including a jaz drive for 1 gig.

My 5.25 inch disk drive collection grew from 2 to 4.
 
Yeah and somehow I eneded up with two accounts to this forum. I am also mainframeOfPasta. BTW does anyone have the pinouts to the blue trapizoidal connector on the back of an external 8 inch floppy drive?
 
One of my college friends and I opened up that digital correlator last night. MMM-mmm a nice juicy S-100. It is a true God send since our project for the peak challenge will be bringing back hardware customizability at least externally to a modern computer. We are desiging an intereface between our own pin config and a PC which is connected to a coco3. I hope this will bring back a love for some of the old designs that had it going on. lol

There is another machine similar to that one so I could get a second s-100.
 
Brookhaven 2030AT

Brookhaven 2030AT

pastados said:
I am an avid lover of the color computer 3, so I got a second one with a memory upgrade and protector for the CPU as well a multi pak and controller for IDE and 50 pin SCSI.
I also have found some awsome stuff from a university surplus. I bought Brookhaven Instruments BI-2030AT Digital Corellator. I might buy the second one they have. Next time I go there I am defffinitly getting the external 8 inch floppy drive they had. Haven't seen one of those in years. If any of you have any technical data on the Digital correllator I would really appreciate it.
While there at the surplus, I found many other things which have probably not been seen in quite some time including a jaz drive for 1 gig.

My 5.25 inch disk drive collection grew from 2 to 4.
Click to expand...
Reply form Pearl Glo:
Very interested in your Brookhaven 2030AT correlator. How many cards are in yours? That will tell you the number of channels it has. I also have one and am attempting to use it for its intended purpose. I bought mine a little over 20 years ago form the original purchaser. In order to use it, you need the controlling software (on 5.25" floppies), the computer interface card and cable. and an ISA slot computer. The original software was issued with DOS 3.3, but it seems to run OK with DOS 6.22 which I'm using. My correlator was last used 18 years ago. Worked OK then. Recently I had need to set it up again, but found it no longer works properly.It failed the "TEST" routine. One or more of the cards that plug into the S-100 board are dead. I'm in desperate need of more 2030ATs to swap cards and get one functioning unit. If anyone is interested primarily in the S-100 board, I don't need that. Would love to swap-for or buy the cards from Brookhaven 2030AT. I really need to get my correlator going again. Anyone, please help me locate more 2030ATs.
 
Well it does have a 22 s-100, and I am going to take as many chips out of the cards I can if they are in an IC socket, but if you are interested in the ones I am not cannibalizing, then I guess I could exchange those for an s-100 if you don't need it, or if you are interested, the reason my college buddies and I are cannabaliing parts from old machines is to make a type of easy to use and hardware hack lab equipment interface. If you are interested in circuit design and or program collaboration, please let me know. We are redifining the bus so we can make our own controller and parallel processing boards. The GUI is being developed in C# 2005/2008 and we may end up using some fortran 95 and coco3 basic for the math and sci logic. It will be open source and be our way of bringing back hombrew days for us nerds.
 
I really liked the idea that digi barn hosted for their multiprocessing by connecting several s-100 busses together to from a large computer back in 85, so we are adapting that idea by connecting several s-100 busses and any other busses together which will be connected to a PC interface. The computer controlling it will have a nice GUI made for controlling custom made lab interfaces. Oh yeah and I just purchased an 8 inch disk drive from brookhaven instruments and I will probably get the other brookhaven crap that that store has for more spare parts.
 
Brookhaven 2030AT

Brookhaven 2030AT

Just the S-100 cards. As many as you want to part with. 16 of them are the same. I would want the others that are different and also at least 8 of the channel cards. One of the cards probably has soldered wire connections to two BNC connectors on the back. Don't cut the wires until we exchange more info. Am I right in assuming you are after the ICs on the cards? If so, I can still use the empties. I live in Silicon Valley and the old chips are still around in the various electronic junk shops in this area. I'll put them back in. What's the date of your machine? It's on the back. Mine is from 1986 and the S-100 cards are mostly wire-wrap construction. What are yours?
Get the second correlator and let me know about that one too. What ICs are you looking for?
 
I don't know what kinds of cards they are, but I am only keeping one of them for scrap parts and if you really want the rest I would be willing to sell them to you. I am only desoldering the one that has sockets on them which makes getting the chips out easy and I can have a direct pin connection. The rest I am willing to part with and I have them in antistatic bags. Most of them are wire wrap though one is not and several of them had direct connections to eachother as well as one that connected to a rather large thriple row blue port that looks a lot like the external 8 inch floppy port on the drive I just got. Can't sell that thing. Need it to see if I can get xp to recognize it.
 
I will defintiyly get the second correlator and probably include most cards that I can't reuse from that. Basically I am just looking ICs that I can use to make an interface b/w the S-100 and USB or RS-232. It is the science project that my team and I are submiting next quarter in the peak challenge at Neumont University of computer science. BTW I think the other correlator is a similar but slightly diff model, but probably s-100 bus. I will update you on what we find in it and how many cards I would be willing to part with from those machines.
 
1) All I have for information about the 2030AT is the one I have, 1986. ALL chips on the S-100 cards are socketed on my machine and easily removed with no desolding. Brookhaven may have changed the way they manufactured it later. What's the year of yours? I don't understand what you are desoldering. Any card of yours that you must desolder the chip to get what you want is of no use to me.
2) The other possibility for the second correlator is a 2030 (no AT). It was an earlier version of the 2030AT. It too is a S-100 machine. I have one, but can't run or test it because I don't have the controlling software or computer-correlator interface card.
3) The large blue, many-pins, socket on the rear is the output port connecting the correlator to a host DOS computer running the Brookhaven supplied control program. Brookhaven never had anything to do with 8" drives. They were obsolete by the time these were manufactured. The software from Brookhaven Instruments came on 5.25" floppies and they sold an AT (286) computer (with 5.25" drives) to go with this correlator. The computer came with a correlator interface card pre-installed and a large connecting ribbon cable that plugged into the port you described. The correlator will not function without a host computer controlling it.
 
Reread your last post. Very interesting about the Brookhaven 8" drive. I didn't know that. 8" drives were gone and replaced by 5.25" by the time of 2030AT. However it may go with the earlier version, 2030(noAT), of the correlator you have. I just received a 2030 (July 1984), got it on eBay, and it has the computer built in the S-100 enclosure, unlike the 2030AT which does not. My 2030 has a similar, large blue plug on the end of a long ribbon cable, except it is male pins. The 2030AT has a female socket, right? The other end of the large ribbon cable connects to a S-100 card in the 2030. If I'm guessing right, would that card be an 8" drive interface to S-100 bus? Would you be interested in more detail about the card?
 
The othe one without the AT is the one with the disk drive port on it and is probably the one that is older since it said disk on. The 8inch disk drive is defintily from brookhaven instruments. Where would I find the year? The newer one has no disk port but is similar and has computer over as you said and upon colser inspection, it seems I was mistaken, and it looks like the cards have some sort of internal socket schemgoing on as if the socket were made on the board rather than soldered to it so you could plug chips to the board. Those may be of use to you then. My friend and I are heading to that store tomorrow and will get the other older machine if cost effective. I wish I knew what each card did. Anyway, we are only cannibalizing one of them and are probably willing to part with them and most of the others on the other machine if you are still interested.

So why was this computer dependant upon a host?
 
The BI 2030AT is not a computer. It has no CPU nor any RAM (as you are used to thinking of it) nor any BIOS. Digital pulses (a few nanoseconds) come into it from a detector and the correlator processes them very fast as a modern computer might do. The 256 "channels" or "memory bins" that your 22 card S-100 has are counters and shift registers. That's why so many of the cards are the same. The exact nature of the processing, I do not understand. It is mostly a lot of counting, adding, and shifting content from one register to the next higher, clearing itself, and receiving input from the one lower. All much faster than a computer of that vintage could do by software. You might think of the 2030AT and 2030 as hard wired software programing. All the input/output BIOS, and operating system was handled by an ordinary computer The 2030 had that computer built into the S-100 enclosure by Brookhaven and the 2030AT used an external computer that it communicated with through the big, blue port on the back. As I've mentioned, the computer has an interface card for this purpose, supplied by Brookhaven. The 2030AT needs instructions on how to configure itself to receive the data from the computer. The "channels" have a variable time width, so many microseconds, which the user sets through the computer. Other control items like how long to collect data and so on the same way. When the experiment is done, the results are the large numbers stored in the "channels". This raw data, meaningless until it is analyzed by various mathematical theories to give the user information about his experiment, is sent from the correlator to the computer upon command from the computer. Even START and STOP is controlled by the computer.

Now please tell me what you can of your correlator. The year is on the back, on a little foil Brookhaven sticker. The 8" disk drive I do not know about. I've never seen one.
2) What does the input port on the 8" drive look like? Is it a big female socket same size as the computer port on the 2030AT? If so, I guess it was intended to plug into the end of the cable coming out of the 2030(noAT)
3) Is the remaining correlator that you have not bought yet a 2030(noAT)? You should get it if it is. It has an S-100 computer within it. Chips may be of more use to you. When you get it, turn it on and see if "sees" the 8" drive. You'll need an old style keyboard and a monochrome monitor. The ports are labeled on the back. If you can come up with a DOS operating system on 8" diskette, then you are really lucky. You may be able to turn on the 2030 and see if it works!! I'll help you do this if you get that far.

If you describe each card from the 2030AT, I can tell you what its function is based on my 1986 2030AT machine and manual. Yours sounds later and may be a little different. I have no documentation for the 2030.

Yes, I'm still interested. By the way, where are you? I'm near San Jose, CA.
 
The date: May 1987, and as far as the cards go, it came with 6, 5 of them I am willing to sell. we did not get the 2030 as funds are limited and were spent on some random lab equipment. The 8 incher has a female port similar to the computer port on the 2030AT. the cards that are present have large arrays of 24 pin chips and arrays of smaller chips. On the other side of the card edge for the s-100 are card edges usually for 8 or 10 line connections to eachother, but one of them is for connecting to the computer port. If you are interested I could also test the power supply. I plugged it in and the fan on it works. One of the cards isn't as full of chips and consists mostly of what look like 14 pin ICs. Most if not all of the cards are wirewrapped. I would also be willing to include the computer port with its nice and wide ribbon cable.
 
Not really enough time to try to refurbish an old 2030, but if you have the data I need to get a PC to read the 8 incher then that would be nice. In my project for Neumont University (South Jordan, Utah) I want to demonstrate extreme backwards compatability.
 
1) How much does the store want for the 2030?
2) I'm lost on your card count. I thought the 2030AT you have has 22 S-100 cards? What do you mean by "it came with 6, 5 willing to sell"?
3) May 1987 makes yours about the same vintage as mine, Feb. 1986.
4) You need to keep the enclosure, S-100 main-board, power supply, etc. for your project, don't you? If not, I'm interested because my S-100 main-board has some corrosion in a few of the rear sockets. Check yours carefully for that if you want to use it. Strong light, magnifying glass...
5)There are 5 different types of cards. The majority are all identical and what you described, 24-pin and with smaller ones in array on top. Brookhaven calls those "data channel cards". If your layout is the same as mine, starting from the rear-most (which is the only printed circuit card - has the BIC logo on it) they are: "bus correlator card", "multiple sample times card", "correlator control card" (has two wires soldered to it going to connectors on the rear), "delay card", then all of the "data channel cards". One of the "data channel cards" is slightly different. It is in front on my machine. BIC calls it ""delay/overlap channel card". The "delay card" doesn't have very many ICs on it.
6) On my machine one "data channel card" seems bad. The other 7 look OK. It talks to the computer OK, so the "bus correlator card" must be OK. The other 4 are questionable.
7) I can't help you with interfacing the 8" drive. Post your request on the Forum in the appropriate place. I've read some of the other posts and it seems there are some very knowledgeable people on this site.
 
There are 22 slots, not 22 cards, sorry for the confusion. There are 6 cards we pulled out, and if you are interested, we are willing to sell 5 of them. We can use the parts on the power supply, but are willing to sell that if you are interested. We really just bought the thing for the s-100 itself and not much else. We have plenty of juicy power supply and would probably just feed power into the board though the interface card we are designing. The 2030 costs $30. Not a bad price, but I don't think my friend feels like driving up to the U that much just to get parts. So yeah if you are interested, we can sell 5 cards, power supply, computer connector/ribbon cable, and fan.
 
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