Fixed retro chip tester and archived more card decks

 RETRO CHIP TESTER DEBUGGING AND RESOLUTION

I flashed the test firmware that would allow me to cycle the voltage rails to the pin.s on the testing socket where they could be routed, as well as cycling signals to all the pins. I quickly discovered that pin 1 of the tester had a constant application of -5V applied to it. 

Tracing the pin back I found the circuitry that could deliver voltages to it - one was a transistor routing +5V but the other was a relay that switches in the -5. That in turn was ARbeing activated improperly because, shame on me, I had inserted the UL2003 backwards! The UL2003 is seven darlington transistor pairs but with pin 8 installed where pin 1 belongs, it fed power to the relay.

Putting the chip into the socket in the proper orientation resolved everything. Fortunately the mistake didn't damage any other components. After I flashed the production firmware I used the tester to validate chips like 7423 that weren't covered by my other chip testers. I validated several dozen ICs, fulfilling my hopes when I took on this project build.

ARCHIVING CARDS CONTINUES

I worked my way through a box (2000 cards) of programs contributed by members of COMMON. These read pretty well - some of them flew through with almost zero errors, other sections were a bit funkier, but I was pleased with the progress. I then turned to a reload deck for DMS V2 M11 which had been in a card tray in a cabinet back in Kansas, where the humidity the basement caused the cards to swell so much they were locked in place. 

The team helping me extract the 1130 could not release the latch to remove the cards in those trays; they were forced to pry sections out to relieve enough pressure to remove the rest. Sadly, this DMS deck had considerable damage on the two sides of the cards, near columns 1 and 80. 

Leading edge of card deck quite damaged

Amazingly the Documation could still get the cards through, albeit with time sucking manipulation that sometimes meant fighting individual cards to read. This will take many many hours to finish reading.