Garage finds

[Kevin Thacker]

Hi,

My late father horded a lot of stuff especially old electronics (1960s to 1980s), datasheet books and components all of which was stored in the 'attic room' in his garage.

He especially loved RMX and told me how it was one of the first multi tasking operating systems and he had it booting on a 486.

I've found 100s of Intel 5.25" and 8" discs with ISIS, RMX etc on which I've offered to the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge UK.

He also had backed up some files onto a laptop and I've been in contact with Mark Ogden and shared those.

Next step for me is to understand what all the pcbs and circuit boards are that he has, then work out what to do.

These are the ones I can identify from info on the boards:

- Single Board computer 80/10A - PWA 10000949

- Floppy Disc Controller channel - PWA 1000467

- Floppy Disc Interface double density - PWA 100

- Communications Expansion Board - PWA 1001197

- ? - PWA 143799

- 'Intelligent Controller'

- iSBC 941

- Combination Mem & I/O - 1000921

- MCM 8080 

- SBC 30/2

- 'IntelPR' 'RPB-86' in a rackmount box

- iSBC 86/12A

- 8/16 DMA CONTROLLER 

- Flexible Disk Controller

- SDK85

- SDK86

There are some more PCBs which might be non-Intel which I can't yet identify. Some pcbs I have with me and some I have left to sort out in the new year. I'll sort out getting some pictures online for these.

I hope that I can help contribute towards the information on-line :) 

Thank you

Kevin

[Al Kossow]

On 12/27/25 4:07 AM, Kevin Thacker wrote:

> I've found 100s of Intel 5.25" and 8" discs with ISIS, RMX etc on which I've offered to the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge UK.
>

They may never read them, or make them available.
Please find someone committed to recovering the data
I know there are people in the UK that are on this
list that will do the work to make the information
available to everyone.

I am really excited to hear what your father may
have saved for RMX386

[Jon Hales]

Hi Kevin

Thank you very much for your offer of these Intel parts and disks to the Centre for Computing History.The museum is closed at present, so you may not receive a response from one of the staff for a week or more. I'm a volunteer at the Centre for Computing History and have preserved the very numerous Intel MDS/RMX disks already in the collection. Mark Ogden has supported this effort with programming to enable the contents of disks to be exported as files.

I'll contact you by email to discuss how your father's Intel items can be collected.

Note to Al: I assure you that the Intel software at the Centre for Computing History is online and available, although this is not currently managed by the museum.

Best regards

Jon Hales

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[Al Kossow]

On 12/27/25 4:58 AM, Jon Hales wrote:

> Note to Al: I assure you that the Intel software at the Centre for Computing History is online and available, although this is not currently
> managed by the museum.

I have had an extremely bad experience with that organization in the past where their web site required
a payment for something they had already scanned, I sent the money and I never received a reply.

I had also tried to get a scan of a very rare Integrated Solutions 68030 VME manual and never
heard anything back.

[Mark Gent]

Hi,

@Kevin, first of all my sincere condolences with the loss of your father.

On the subject of the disks and other items, I myself am a great fan of any and all versions of RMX as I used to be an avid RMX developer and user back in the day.

I myself have been looking for, amongst others, floppy disks containing RMX86 Release 8 and any RMX-II disks for years, so if I can help in any way with retrieving disk contents and/or ROM images and making them available then I'd be very eager to help.

(I recently imported an RPB86 card as noone seemed to have any, so it's surprising to suddenly see another turn up shortly after :-) )

Have Multibus-I kit, 5.25" FDDs and Greaseweasel, can get Kryoflux if required.

I'm based in London.

Very happy to collaborate with whoever or whichever organisation will process these items, main thing is that they are made  generally available. 

On which subject, @Mark Ogden, do you accept Intel disk images, firmware images and document scans for adding to your published archive, and what is the best way to do this?

I have by now quite a few items in my private collection that I think would merit from being added to your public archive.

Kind regards,

Mark Gent

 

---

From: intel-...@googlegroups.com <intel-...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jon Hales <jonh...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2025 12:58:45 PM
To: intel-...@googlegroups.com <intel-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: intel-devsys Garage finds

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/intel-devsys/CANPXPJmti4_LmmY2b_Yf_mLMr0bsC%3Di0EsRWRN86%3DCF4pDJMWw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Jon Hales]

Hi Mark

Thank you for your interesting message.

I'm a volunteer at the Centre for Computing History with a special interest in preservation of software and documentation. I'm also interested in Intel's development systems with the Multibus 1 interface (in particular the systems where hard drives with iRMX or Xenix were standard).

Many of the Intel materials in Mark Ogden's collection originated as my reading disks in the museum's collection - which would perhaps not have been placed online without Mark's expertise and resources. 

I acquired a hard drive that was originally in a System 310 - and which appears to have iRMX-86 Version 7, although only a limited range of the files that are apparent in a hex editor are visible in a directory listing. Do you know of a means to un-delete iRMX files? Would you be interested to have an image file of that hard drive?

Best regards

Jon Hales

Cambridge

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[Jon Hales]

Al

I'm not able to offer an official response from the Centre for Computing History. For what it's worth, I'm apologising to you on the museum's behalf.

The Cambridge museum operates on a shoestring. If it produced an annual report (which it doesn't) the list of (financial) donors would fall a long way short of the number I've seen in your museum's reports. That doesn't excuse the negative experiences you had, but it explains the fact that staff are sometimes distracted from tasks.

I'll scan the VME-68K30 Hardware Reference Manual if it's physically possible to do so - the storage location has newer racks directly in front of the shelf on which that box is located.

If you tell me which scanned document you purchased, I'll sort that out.

Best regards

Jon

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[Mark Gent]

Hi Jon,

Thank you for your prompt response.

I'm very happy to help out in any way I can.

"Back in the day" I manually undeleted files from iRMX volumes, so yes, although somewhat rusty I'm keen and should be able to help out with that.
It's not that hard as the disk format is similar to early Unix/Linux disk formats as well as the Intel iNDX disk format.
("back in the day" I apparently ended up knowing more about iRMX-86/286 and its internals than the folks in Swindon, not certain if that is a good thing).

I'd be very interested in having a look at an image file of the drive, I'll send an email direct so we can discuss further.

Many thanks,

Mark

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/intel-devsys/CANPXPJkynKVvmd8sa41u6TDeQ%3D5pYrCtzpSEg5tkkHQ9Y-0TLw%40mail.gmail.com.

[mark.p...@btinternet.com]

Mark

Happy to accept material to add to my repository. I live near Ipswich to not too far away from you. 

If you send me an email via ma...@mark-ogden.uk  I will reply using my preferred personal email

Mark

Regards

Mark Ogden

---

From: intel-...@googlegroups.com <intel-...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Mark Gent <mg11...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2025 1:40 pm

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[scott baker]

Mark, that RPB86 you recently imported, was that the one from tenn-engineer? I saw that one on ebay, and I have to admit I was tempted. :)

Kevin, condolences on your father and thanks for notifying the group. One of the more frustrating things of vintage computing is dealing with the loss of materials (software, documentation) that has occurred over the years.

I'm also very fond of the ISIS and iRMX and had a lot of fun recently experimenting with iRMX on my 310. It's fun to play with operating systems that are not DOS/Window/Linux/MacOS. There were so many interesting things that came and went.

Scott

[Mark Gent]

Indeed it is, it arrived here just over a week ago.  Tenn-engineer was extremely helpful in making this happen, very nice chap.

I couldn't resist, if only because I really want MAME to support an Intellec-III emulation and the only likely way that is going to happen is by someone learning the secrets of the RPB86 and adding it to the Intellec-II emulation.

-Mark

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/intel-devsys/201d0164-0bff-4ed3-bcf9-19f6c04f7bd6n%40googlegroups.com.

[Herbert Johnson]

This thread is becoming another case-study in private-hands preservation
of vintage computing. I wrote a couple-hundred word critique of
institutional ("museum") preservation of technology versus
private-hands. Guess who won? But I put it aside.

Let's say, individuals take responsibility and get results, and
technologists know the technology and can separate "artifact" from
"content". (I mean, preserving a physical disk used by company X
as-a-thing; versus recovering its content for modern redistribution and
interpretation, as we do.)

Institutions are academic-beholding, don't have interests in technology,
and limit access to both form and content. Also institutions claim lack
of time and money yet abhor capitalistic means of obtaining either. It's
rare that technologists can overcome institutional issues and produce
active, preserving/operating museums of technology. Rare that historians
can appreciate providing (non-academic) access and cooperation with
tech-able persons for mutual benefit.

Whereas: people are functional individuals who are responsible to their
recipients, for their results or lack thereof.

Jon Hales seems to achieve results with his institution; he's not
obliged to explain how that's so or apologize when others can't. He and
I have culture-clashes whenever I speak up about such things; I try not
to poke at this very often, but the subject comes up.

Regards Herb Johnson

>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* intel-...@googlegroups.com <intel-...@googlegroups.com> on

>> behalf of Mark Gent <mg11...@gmail.com>

>> *Sent:* Saturday, December 27, 2025 1:40 pm
>>
>> *To:* intel-...@googlegroups.com <intel-...@googlegroups.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: intel-devsys Garage finds

>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* intel-...@googlegroups.com <intel-...@googlegroups.com> on

>> behalf of Jon Hales <jonh...@gmail.com>

>> *Sent:* Saturday, December 27, 2025 12:58:45 PM
>> *To:* intel-...@googlegroups.com <intel-...@googlegroups.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: intel-devsys Garage finds

>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/intel-devsys/48d83d5b-2e57-41e8-b66a-31618c281449n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/intel-devsys/48d83d5b-2e57-41e8-b66a-31618c281449n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

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--
Herb Johnson, New Jersey USA
http://www.retrotechnology.com or .net
preserve and restore 1970's personal computing
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[Kevin Thacker]

Thank you all for the kind words.

Here is a link to my google drive with the photos and files:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rs3VEzUnaLLOH2pIwxtwJ1p-B4NPxKFb?usp=sharing

I have restricted it so I think I'll need to authorise it for each person.

The items I have here are the floppy discs, sdk boards, some interface boards, and the backups of various intel files. The ones I don't have here are all the intel intellec etc boards. They are safe but I'll not be seeing them again until late jan, early feb. 

In the folder there are photos of the pcbs I mentioned plus some interface boards and quite a lot which have DSPs, photos of the floppy discs (3.5", 5.25" and 8", plus a zip disk), some zip files too. There are a few I can't identify including one for an amber display controller? There is also one which has a GPIB controller IC on it but no GPIB socket and it's not a ISA/PCI card either.

Best Wishes,
Kevin

[Mark Gent]

Hi Kevin,

Thank you very much for making all this information available and above all diligently cataloguing the floppy disks.

I must say your father had a magnificent collection.

I will be out for the afternoon but I'll try to identify the Multibus boards in the photos when back.

The contents of all those floppy disks not already in Mark Ogden's archive definitely need to be digitised and added.
I'm afraid I myself have no 8" floppy disk drive (tried to, but the only ones currently on sale are in the US and importing one of them metal beasts is horrendously expensive, no matter how satisfying) so I'm afraid I can't help with those, but I'm sure others on this list will be able to.

If I may ask, where did the zip files come from?

Many thanks,

Mark Gent

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/intel-devsys/bbd4ebcc-41f3-4ef2-8a56-c0eb36bd39a9n%40googlegroups.com.

[Kevin Thacker]

Hi Mark,

>Thank you very much for making all this information available and above all diligently cataloguing the floppy disks.

You're all welcome.

>I must say your father had a magnificent collection.

>I will be out for the afternoon but I'll try to identify the Multibus boards in the photos when back.

Thank you. I want to understand if there is one or more systems here and which boards likely go with each.

>The contents of all those floppy disks not already in Mark Ogden's archive definitely need to be digitised and added.

Definitely. I don't have the time and all the equipment to do it the proper way. The complication is that the discs should be expected to be dirty and need cleaning prior to dumping. I have no idea if they have degraded too much or are readable after cleaning. I have dumped some discs from an Acorn system that were stored in the same place and most were ok after cleaning.

>I'm afraid I myself have no 8" floppy disk drive (tried to, but the only ones currently on sale are in the US and importing one of them metal beasts is >horrendously expensive, no matter how satisfying) so I'm afraid I can't help with those, but I'm sure others on this list will be able to.

I have found an 8" drive but I can't say if it'll work. It would definitely need a clean (both the unit itself and the heads) and a service (maybe need bearings re-greasing) because I think it's not been used for decades. The drive is huge and heavy. I am sure it would cost a lot to post. I would also leave it to somebody else more experienced to do this and dump the discs. 

>If I may ask, where did the zip files come from?

One of my father's DOS/Windows hard discs I found and dumped. I zipped up the folders as-is. I don't know the source.

Best Wishes

Kevin

[Scott Baker]

Thanks for the quick access to the folder, Kevin :)

I'm curious about this one: 

ICE 86A
ISIS FORMAT DS/DD DISKETTE
P/N 165684-001 VERSION 2.2

Anyone know, did Intel make an 8086 emulation pod? I've been trying to repair an 8086-based computer this week and the thought did go through my mind on whether there was an 8086 ICE out there somewhere...

One of your boards (the ampex one)  I believe is a core memory board, and I just bought a very similar one from tenn-engineer this month, but haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

The CD marked "Intel Archive 10.5 MB", is that one of the ZIP files?

Kevin, are you looking to sell these items or restore/use them? You have a small box full of multimodules (small piggyback boards with blue connectors) and I've been collecting those for a while. I've cloned a couple of them, such as the arithmetic processing board that I can see pictured.

There's also at least one 16-bit ISA board with multimodule sockets on it that looks interesting; anytime you find a multimodule socket outside of a multibus system is worth a second look. A quick google shows this (sbx279) may be a graphics adapter.

Very cool collection.

Scott

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/intel-devsys/8c758827-f645-4800-aeda-6ddff4a14864n%40googlegroups.com.

[Vale, Martyn]

Hi Scott,

 

Yes, there is both an ICE-86 and an ICE-86A.

 

It’s a fairly heavy weight package consisting of three Multibus Boards and a Pod.

 

I have one working set currently and used this to fix an 86/30 recently one badly documented feature is that you can’t access external memory ( 8086 lives in the pod ) without switching the clock to external with CLOCK=EXTERNAL command.

 

You need to find the 86 Controller / 86 FM Controller / Trace / POD. There’s two of the boards on eBay now:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/157058401428?_skw=intel+ice86&itmmeta=01KDQJBSXENZEXS5ZB7JFSMHX9&hash=item2491690494:g:qyoAAOSw9DRnRO2z&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA0FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1flB6B1rT1F%2BqvQB5bLkTlchTNO0e%2FM88KavpNQeFUcSm7L5JXGxSfuioe%2FpOUxTqLKGoNo8gr0bJ2idAQzYLeck9alLxt6HKLJZKYHEPF1xs3GC0jjjZuTu4lHWWRQVUac56AgtfYwJfE1uDQCK8QMiKL1uA8c%2FXDWb3j7Q2oJv21CIC8hc%2BSzxZ3e5bi9%2F4JsTbkN87mtWqBJxhnP%2BAW5aM99Ux5tBDRCXI6rGY%2FTmmBEwIWLJ3QCnYdVj5uIiLk%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR_Cer_LtZg

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/167560365713?_skw=intel+ice86&itmmeta=01KDQJBSXFP79VWP0TP0GS5WZB&hash=item2703604691:g:c6UAAOSwmGxnROws&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1cJGcPQLvk5jLN4rPoI6KbPonp4P9nQo7QLVfBTUwQPyrsIAk1%2FRn1LDLTx0qdkZBVV%2Fh6ORjJLuyVwfj2MO62yo7N2h4Wx1NiCW7aAePTJWl7vJ7QhZFGzljwo43xghoEicfZWMiEWZOwmQlMuqFEuO4YHndn%2BsIKa%2F98TCjtzRI%2FwPY%2BaaVnrxkGYc4csf1hWhLyLbmtiGDTypYKpEMccuX9Wf2Ase2e2vb0YYlPFwDKDUhyculEI46iV01UzJmbXqmF%2BaTaRRfmu%2FBjk4qOUcoaE4WjpxTDqpccByncNFg%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR_Cer_LtZg

 

Bye

Martyn.

 

 

 

From: intel-...@googlegroups.com <intel-...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Scott Baker
Sent: 29 December 2025 17:05
To: intel-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: intel-devsys Garage finds

 

 

Thanks for the quick access to the folder, Kevin :)

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/intel-devsys/CA%2B8qVMNVNoQicixc9cyjcd_k0Jg9MqrT70ng3WOMqTR6LEEpyQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Mark Gent]

There is of course also the ultimate beast: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/267072673644

Sadly no pod.

Fantastic machines though, a joy to use, very powerful.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/intel-devsys/DU2PR01MB793649617D93AAD83AB6D911C1BCA%40DU2PR01MB7936.eurprd01.prod.exchangelabs.com.

[Al Kossow]

On 12/30/25 5:46 AM, Mark Gent wrote:
> There is of course also the ultimate beast: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/267072673644

If you just need an ICE for debugging, an Applied Microsystems 1600 with an 8086 board/pod
is probably more practical.

Did Intel ever release schematics for any of their later ICE products? I have some PC
diskettes but I have none of the hardware and only user-level documentation